12
WELL.
IT WAS not quite unwelcome, not as she had said, because she had kissed him that morning.
Iahir knew this in a way that was inexplicable, that was just an undercurrent of knowing.
He didn’t always have this undercurrent with a woman.
Especially when he first took up with someone, there was a great deal of confusion, things that could be interpreted this way or that.
But eventually, he understood a woman well enough to be able to tell that she wanted him, that his advances were welcome.
The knowing was different than being told so.
It was a kind of confidence that made everything about the event possible.
Without it, there was a great deal of fumbling and confusion, but once it was there, it changed the tenor of the act.
And whores felt it, too.
He didn’t delude himself into thinking that he was so good at pleasing the women he paid that they would be with him if he didn’t pay them or something like that, but there was a difference between a woman who was consenting to a thing only because of money and a woman who was enjoying doing her job.
When a woman was open, he could sense it.
Gathren was open.
He thought, now, that the reason she’d said his advances were entirely unwelcome was because she was trying to make him stop going after her because she was frightened she would give in.
After all, he had awoken that morning to seeing her gaping at his crotch, simply staring at his erection, unable to look away, and then her shy little finger, tracing him, and then the way he’d leaped up and touched her and she turned back and kissed him, and—
By the golden-fingers of the dawn, why was she still resisting him?
Of course, then he had to ask himself the corollary question, which was, Why do you care so much about getting between her thighs, Iahir?
And the answer to that, of course, was that it was an excuse to follow her to wherever she was going instead of going home. Because he certainly did not wish to go home, perhaps ever again, but that was ludicrous, because he was going to have to go home. However, he could delay it.
So, this was why he caught up to her and began to talk about accompanying her to Notharlien.
She licked her lips. “You are doing this because you are still trying to coerce me into bed with you.”
“No,” he said. “No, not at all. As I said, you may have need of someone to look after you.”
“Look after me?” She only laughed. “Who has nearly died twice in the past two days? Oh, it’s you, my lord. And who has saved you? Oh, it’s me. But, yes, I need looking after.”
“Well, company, then. You’d like some company.”
“Would I? Would I, really?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I think that you are the most lecherous and disgusting creature that I have ever met,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But you like me.”
“Not that much,” she said. “You are elf nobility. You are rich and very entitled and very horrible. I am an orc warrioress from a small farm in the Silvarenna. So, there has never been any world in which we would have enough in common to spend so much time together. We have always been going to go our separate ways. We will do that when we come to the road that leads to Cirlahir.”
“Yes, but what if I wished to come with you—”
“No,” she said, and her eyes flashed.
Iahir wondered if he should tell her the truth, that he simply did not wish to go home and see his father, or any member of his family, for that matter.
But if he did that, she would ask why, and he had no desire to try to explain it. He was not even sure if he had a good reason for not wanting to go home, when it came down to it.
So, he decided to simply pretend to go down the road towards Cirlahir, to wait a bit, and then to follow after her, from a safe distance where she could not detect he was behind her, until it became prudent to show himself.
She’d likely be angry that he had followed her, but then she was always a little bit angry with him. In fact, most people were a little angry with him, much of the time. It would all work out in the end, he thought.
People didn’t stay angry with him. He was too charming for people to remain angry with him. And also, they saw that their anger had little effect on him, and they simply gave up being angry.
He felt a bit embarrassed at himself, chasing after her, stalking her, really, all because he simply didn’t want to go home. What sort of man can’t face his own family?
Of course, when his father found out that he had killed Findas?
That was going to be bad.
His stomach turned over, a feeling of panic knifing upwards through him.
He forced himself to breathe and he did not think overmuch on that again.
He followed.
She did not stop often.
She stopped once to eat, provisions they had taken from the inn—that he had purchased, he told himself, and shouldn’t she have brought him along willingly if only because he had money?
But then, it was not that much further for her, because if she rode straight through, she could be in Cairlon by the late evening, sometime after dark, and she would likely not need to spend money. So, perhaps it did not make any sense for her to rely on him, in the end.
Eventually, they crossed from the Vale into the Silvarenna, and everything was almost immediately different.
It was not so much the land, although the craggy mountains of the northern range were visible in the distance.
It was instead the fact that the road was uncared for, rutted through with a number of carved out gulleys from rainwater, the rivulets from storms running through the dirt.
The roads were narrower, as well, dustier.
On either side of them, things seemed to grow wilder—more thorny bushes and tangles of bushes and unruly leaves.
He knew that it was only that no one took the time to clip things back from the road here, so that everything seemed savage and wild.
It seemed as if they had crossed from one world to another, and he felt a feeling at the back of his neck, one of worry, as if he was leaving civilization and crossing into some other wild country, where anything might be possible.
She stopped again, but when he came upon her horse, she was not there, and he didn’t know where she had gone.
He concealed himself and waited. He certainly wasn’t going on without her.
But while he was waiting, two young trolls crept across the road, heading directly for Gathren’s saddle bags.
Trolls, as a general rule, did not live in Lothnehil.
The trolls had been chased out of the country long, long ago, and they had all been driven into an island to the northwest of Lothnehil.
If there had been any trade with the trolls, that had ended immediately when Findas took the throne.
Now, Findas wouldn’t even trade with the dwarves.
But there were rumors of scattered small groups of trolls, coming out at night to steal livestock or crops, to do petty vandalism, that sort of thing.
And though Iahir had often dismissed such stories as just as likely the work of wild animals, he could not deny that he was looking at two trolls, right in front of him, and that they were going through Gathren’s saddle bags and pulling out the food she had taken from the inn.
Iahir dismounted from his horse, drew his sword and crept up on them. The trolls were keeping their gazes on the saddle bags and on the treeline in front of them, which make Iahir think that was where Gathren must have gone, and the trolls must have witnessed it.
Perhaps she’d gone to relieve herself or something.
He had little trouble coming up behind them, pressing the tip of his sword against the back of the skull of one of them.
The trolls were short, about the height of dwarves, none of them taller than four feet. Their skin ranged in hues from brown to green to gray, much like the orcs’ skin.
“Put that back,” said Iahir to the troll who was holding the food from Gathren’s saddle.
The other troll, the one who was not being held at sword point, saw Iahir and squealed. “Pale elves!” he cried, backing away. “Pale elves with nasty bright blades!” He turned and scampered away, leaving his fellow troll behind.
The other troll, who had wisps of dark hair over his skull, was trembling.
“Put it back,” said Iahir.
“Please, please, don’t kill us,” said the troll. “We wants to live.”
Iahir was unsure if the troll meant to include his other companion in the statement or if he considered himself plural.
“I will not kill you, not if you put the food back.”
“Hungry,” said the troll with a sigh. “We are hungry.”
“Put. It. Back.”
The troll put the food back in the saddle bag.
Iahir removed his sword tip. “All right. Run along, then.”
The troll looked back at him, still trembling, and then scurried off like a frightened squirrel.
Barely a moment later, Gathren came out of the nearby wooded area, buckling her belt.
Likely had been off relieving herself, then.
He could tell her that he’d just rescued her food from trolls. But seeing as she hadn’t witnessed it, she probably would only be horrified that he’d followed her, not grateful.
He rushed back to his horse and out of her sight.
She mounted her horse and galloped off without knowing he was there.
He resumed following her.
GATHREN HAD NOT been home now in some time, and she realized she had not heard anything from her mother in nearly five months.
She had been stationed someplace in Arzakh for a time before the invasion, and there had been systems in place to get letters from Lothnehil.
Mostly, they were paying off soldiers who worked the Rathog Pass to hand off letters to others and this way, things had gone back and forth.