9
THERE WAS NO need to rescue the arrogant elf lord.
She owed him nothing.
All right, yes, he had freed her from Marthlis’s house just a few hours before, but that didn’t really count for anything.
He had done that in the most cowardly way possible, forcing her to be tied up in a pantry in the servants portion of the house for hours in the dankness, her arms tied behind her back, before he came and untied her and showed her the best way out of the place.
It wasn’t as if he cared about her, no matter what he had said.
And she did not care about him, fantasies about what his elf cock might look like (or taste like) regardless.
Of course, she had to admit she didn’t really want him to die.
Muttering oaths to the goddess of the underworld under her breath, she let go of the reins of her horse to make her way over to the guards who were stabbing down on Iahir. They were intent on their task. They didn’t see her coming.
So, when she got there, it was easy enough to stab two of them in the back, and they both crumpled in horrified surprise, as if they’d never been stabbed before, and maybe they had not. That left two and they were stunned to see her, and Iahir was too.
“Warrioress!” he said, downright cheery as he got to his feet, swiping his sword up from the ground. He stabbed one of the guards, right in the gut.
The remaining guard looked at the now-open gate and simply took off running.
Iahir was bleeding. A cut on his face, and a bloom of red at his shoulder. He was out of breath, but he was smiling. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”
“Likewise,” said Gathren. “What are you doing here? Fleeing the city like a coward?”
“Like a coward or like a wise man who wishes to live to old age?” he said. “Besides, why haven’t you gone back to your army?”
“Well, I suppose I did desert them,” she muttered.
“I see. Who is the coward now?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I wish I had let you die,” she said, glaring at him. She flounced away from him and mounted her horse. She squeezed her knees around the horse and she seemed to know just what they were about. The horse started for the open gate.
“Warrioress!” called Iahir.
She turned to see he was mounting his horse and coming after her. She turned back and urged the horse to speed up.
She and her horse cleared the gate, and she could smell the salt air of the sea and see the docks to the left of the road, all laid out against the glittering water.
It was really too bad she didn’t have anywhere to go across the sea, but there was nothing out there except dwarven lands to the south and dragon lands to the east, and she was an orc and would not be welcome in either place.
So, she must take another road, one that she would turn onto in about a quarter mile ahead, and that would take her to the north and back to her home.
Iahir caught up to her. He and his horse galloped apace with her, and he smiled at her, looking entirely pleased with himself.
She had the urge to outrun him, but that would be foolish. There was no reason to run the horse ragged, after all. She urged the animal to slow to a more sustainable pace.
Iahir reined in, too, keeping pace.
She glared at him. She raised her voice. “You’re following me, then?”
“I don’t know,” he called back. “You never answered my question. Where are you going?”
“Home,” she said.
“Where’s home?” he said.
“Notharlien,” she said.
He nodded. “Well, as it happens, I’m going home, too.”
“To Cirlahir, then?” she said, remembering that was where he was from.
“Aye,” he said. “It’s on the way to Notharlien.”
“It is not,” she said.
“Well, we can travel at least part of the way together,” he said.
Cirlahir was on the eastern shore of the south, about a half-a-day’s ride from the capital to the south.
The Vale was much smaller than the Silvarenna, which took up the vast amount of the land in the country.
However, the Vale was much more populated than the Silvarenna, which was all land and forests, while the Vale was all cities.
Cirlahir was a popular spot for summer trips for the southern elves. Many of the nobility had summer homes there. Iahir’s father was the envivtain of the region, so he maintained a palace in the heart of the region.
Cairlon was further north, probably another days’ journey. It was not on the coast, but it was an eastern region. She supposed they could travel together for a few hours, anyway.
“Why do you want to travel together?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Why don’t you want to travel together? You like me enough to save my life, after all. What’s the point in pretending otherwise?”
“You and I, my lord, are enemies,” she said. “We are on opposite sides of a war—”
“It seems to me that we’ve both abandoned our sides,” he said. “You’re a deserter, and I killed the High King, so…”
She groaned. “Why aren’t you with Marthlis and the others?”
It was his turn to groan. “Oh, well, they knew I’d freed you and they weren’t particularly pleased with me.
Besides, it became clear they were not going to do anything except argue.
It was the Larhilists against the Democratists, and they were going to argue that out for hours while the city was ransacked.
They never did anything but argue, you know. ”
“So you left?”
“I saw the state of the city and I decided it was the last place any sane person should be.”
“So, then, home? Back to your father?”
His expression shuttered. “Well, you know what they say? Home is the place where, when you’ve nowhere else to go, they have to take you?”
“Is that a saying?”
“Say we can travel together, warrioress,” he sang, throwing his head back, his golden hair gleaming in the morning sun. “We were only apart for forty minutes, and it was horrible. I missed you wretchedly.”
In spite of herself, she found herself laughing. “Oh, fine. But just until the road forks past Jilinharil.”
“All right,” he said. “Just until then.”
IAHIR WAS A bit stunned at the state of everything.
They went past a number of smaller houses which were smoldering or fully on fire. Others were littered with bodies in the doorways and front steps.
Admittedly, all of the bodies were not elvish bodies. Some were orc bodies, too. It was carnage.
He supposed he hadn’t really thought the orcs quite had it in them. Not because he didn’t think that orcs were strong and vicious, he supposed, but…
It wasn’t that.
He had not thought orcs could prevail against the Valaedor elves, with their superior technology and their superior organized governments and all of that.
It was only thirty years ago that the Valaedor had crushed the Cirdan elves in the north.
Before then, there had been two kingdoms, the northern elvish kingdom and the southern one.
They had always been at odds, and they had been at war off and on for, well, always.
It was the way of things, wasn’t it? For two groups of people to hate each other and squabble over the same land?
Anyway, the Valaedor had decisively beaten the other elves, who had not the resources to make a stand.
So, how had the orcs done it?
They’d been supplied with guns and cannons and the like, and he supposed that was simply a matter of buying it up.
The orc commander had explained that they’d come through the north taking over keeps that had little in the way of resistance.
They’d had one big skirmish to take over Bilkwood, the old southern capital, but had otherwise taken the whole place slowly and rather silently.
Then, he supposed, they’d bided their time and made this concentrated attack on Renegahan.
It was probably his fault, in fact.
If the king had not been dead, he would have declared war.
Iahir remembered, just a few months ago, a rather intense debate that had gripped the court.
Parliament wanted to have the ability to declare war.
Currently, it could only be done by the sovereign.
He remembered that everyone had argued about it, up and down, at dinner and in the hallways and outside the operas, and he had found it all very boring, but…
The proposal had been struck down. It had not carried.
Findas had wanted to protect his power, Iahir knew. The Parliament had sought, constantly, to limit it.
When they crested to the top of the hill on the other side of the city, he looked at the city, the emptiness of it, the stillness, where usually the streets would be full of carriages and movement.
My fault, he thought. All those dead on my head.
He glanced over at Gathren. Perhaps she shared some of the blame, however, with her treachery and her lies and her scheming.
Maybe that was why he wanted to be close to her. Maybe that made things a bit easier for him, having her along to share his guilt.
They traveled easily until they came to an overturned carriage in the middle of the road, only ten miles or so outside of the city.
The horses had gotten free and run off, and it was just lying there, right on its side, one door open to the heavens.
Gathren reined in and dismounted. “You think we can right this and push it off the road? No carriages can get around otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for such an altruist, warrioress,” he said lightly, but he dismounted, too.
When they got up on the carriage, however, they discovered it was not empty. There was an elf woman inside. She had the dark crimson hair that marked her as a Cirdan elf, one of the northern nobility. Her leg was likely broken, given the way it was twisted up in the broken carriage seats.
When she saw them peering down on her, she screamed at them both, demanding they get her free of the carriage. “You must get me out of here this instant!” she cried. “I cannot be trapped here any longer, do you hear?”
He supposed he should have been more sympathetic to the woman who was likely in a lot of pain, but he really thought a bit of politeness might have gone a long way. As it was, he felt as if they should just leave her there, and he said so to Gathren.