9 #3
“No, I am,” he said, peering down at one of the dead monks with a vague frown. “It’s quite unpleasant in here. Let us get out of this tower.” He moved quickly out of the room and hurried down the stairs, not waiting for her to follow.
She took one last look around the room before she did go after him.
Outside the tower, the elf woman had disappeared. She had a broken leg, so she couldn’t have gone on her own, but there was no sign of her, and Gathren was rather relieved not to be hearing the woman’s voice.
She half-heartedly suggested looking for her.
“Look for her where?” said Iahir, gesturing around.
The chapel was not right in the midst of Matlinrir, but rather on the city’s outskirts. There was nothing nearby, only trees and a rolling field and a cemetery tucked away beside the burning chapel. “Where could she have gone?”
Iahir gestured. “Well, my horse is gone.”
Gathren’s lips parted. “Oh.” She shook herself. “But the woman’s leg was broken. How did she get herself over and drag herself up onto your horse?”
“She was not really left that far from the horses,” said Iahir.
Gathren rubbed her forehead. “This is my fault. I’m the one who insisted we come here, and now we’ve lost time, and you could have conceivably been home by this evening, and instead, I have wasted us all this time and lost you your horse. I am ever so sorry, my lord.”
“No point in casting blame,” said Iahir. “I know of an inn north of Matlinrir where I can likely pay coin for use of another horse. If you do not mind letting me ride with you there?”
“Oh,” said Gathren, “both of us on the same horse. Again.” She remembered that before, how it had been rather uncomfortable, how they did not seem to fit, how he’d been holding the reins around her body.
“I’ll climb on behind you but let you have the reins this time,” he said. “That horse seems to respond to you.”
Gathren smiled at the horse, because she had grown rather fond of it already. “Yes, it’s a good horse.”
“It is but five miles,” he said. “We can be there in but an hour, I should think.”
“Oh, of course,” she said. “I could not abandon you here without a horse, could I?”
He regarded her. “It seems to be a day when your kind is slaughtering mine, so I’m not sure the niceties between our peoples are being followed right about now.”
“Yes, but I would never—”
“I know,” he said.
She bit down on her bottom lip. “I am sorry, you know. For my part in all of this?”
“I have played a part, too,” he said. “I am not sure how I feel about it.” He turned and began walking toward the horse. “When you say I am not distraught, it is likely because I am feeling guilty.”
She caught up to him. “Killing Findas didn’t cause this.”
“I think it did. If I had not done it, he could have issued a proclamation to send the armies out to meet the invaders.”
“Well, he was asleep,” said Gathren.
“True.” Iahir paused for a moment, then resumed walking.
“Yes, someone, one of his ministers or someone should have been there to wake him and interrupt me. But no one came.” He tilted his head to the side.
“On the other hand, Findas had grown distrustful of all of his ministers and advisers, thinking that they were working against him secretly or some such. Perhaps he’d forbidden anyone from rousing him? ”
“There, you see,” she said, nodding at him.
He glanced at her sidelong, his expression grave. “Thank you, warrioress.”
“Nothing to thank me for,” she said.
They had reached the horse. She surveyed the saddle and then looked at the both of them.
The saddle was already a bit uncomfortable for her use.
It had been made for an elf, and she had broader hips and heavier thighs than an elf.
They were not both going to fit on the saddle.
“You’ll have to sit directly on the horse, behind the saddle, I think. ”
“It isn’t your fault either,” he said.
She turned to him, her movements sharp.
“You did not even know when the attack was going to come,” he said. “You could not have caused it.”
She untied the horse, put a foot in the stirrup, and hoisted herself up. “Well, I do not know if that makes a difference. I have been part of this invasion. I don’t know if I quite realized what it would lead to.”
“It’s Findas’s fault,” said Iahir, reaching for the pummel and pulling himself up easily, gracefully. He settled on the horse behind her, not on the saddle. He wrapped his arms around her middle. “Have to do this or I’ll fall off.”
“Findas’s fault?” she said. “You mean, because of how he treated the orcs?”
“Oh, yes,” said Iahir. He tightened his grip on her.
She sucked in a breath.
“Too tight, warrioress?” His voice was low, right at her ear.
“No, of course not,” she said softly. “We can’t have you falling off.”
She patted the horse’s neck, hoping that it would be able to bear both of their weights for the journey to the inn. Then she felt as if she simply thought at the horse to move, and it did, and in the right direction too.
They left the smoking chapel behind them and they rode off together.