6. Little Fang

I glanced at the window as I entered, expecting Kasaksma to be sitting there like she used to do. It was covered by the heavy leather curtain, however, and the entire room seemed to be deserted. Had she escaped somehow? I had been sitting in the throne hall, negotiating with the emissaries of the king of the Goblins all day, and my head throbbed with fatigue. I wasn't in the mood for chasing a run-away Elf in the middle of the night.

Then, I saw a small motionless heap on the bed, and I stepped closer on noiseless feet. She was lying in a foetal position, almost completely wrapped up in the covers. I leaned in above her and moved her tangled hair from her face with one finger. She didn't stir. Her characteristic Elvish flowery-leafy smell had a hint of iron, and when I put the back of my hand to her forehead, I could feel a faint fever. I relaxed a bit, reassured that nothing serious had happened to her. If Eldar females were anything like Orc women, she would bleed around the time of the full moon.

I went to the window and took the curtain off its hooks. The snow had stopped falling, and there was neither a cloud nor a patch of mist to be seen anywhere. The night was dark, still and clear, not even a breeze stirring the air. The moon had just emerged above the jagged cliffs, her round pale face casting a ghostly light onto the mountainsides. Usually, the nights of Moria were loud with the yelps and howls of the Wargs, but tonight not even they dared to disturb the silence. I don't know how long I stood there, engulfed by the splendour of the night, but suddenly I became aware of a presence next to me, and I looked down. The Elf had woken and stepped up to my side without me noticing, and now we were both glaring at a sight we hadn't seen for more than two weeks.

As I stood watching her, her small body began to shake – almost unnoticeably at first, then more fiercely. She put a hand to her mouth and erupted in a stifled sob, and I realised that she was crying. An unexpected anxiety caught me; I had never seen a sad Elf, and I had no idea how to handle one.

"Hey!" I said sternly, grabbing her shoulder and turning her towards me.

I expected her to push me away, but she just stood there resignedly with closed eyes, her cheeks wet with tears.

"Hey!" I repeated, trying to make my voice a bit more soothing, "Look at the moon. Isn't she beautiful?"

She opened her eyes and followed my look as I nodded towards the night sky.

"I bet the stars are out, too," I continued hurriedly, afraid to lose her attention again, "Would you like to go and see them? I know the perfect place."

She ran a palm across her face, wiping away her tears, and nodded. I found one of my fur cloaks and wrapped her up tightly. Then, taking her by the wrist, I led her from the chamber.

It was more difficult to get to The Outlook than I had expected. After exiting through a back door that was almost entirely barricaded by snow, we had to wade through waist-high drifts for several yards. After a final obstacle of the compressed lumps from a small avalanche blocking the path, we reached the hillock with the unusual flat stones from where you could see above the top of all the other hills for miles around. Here, the snow was shallow as it had been blown away by the fierce wind prevailing at this place during the blizzard.

I brushed the snow off one of the angular slabs, sat down and patted the stone, inviting the female to sit next to me. After a moment's hesitation, she did. Just as I had thought, the moon was accompanied by a hoard of stars that night. The Star River stretched its luminous stream from the peaks of the north-eastern cliffs all the way above our heads to the lower rolling hills in the west. For a while, we both sat in silent admiration.

"Han. Viri," Kasaksma said, breaking the silence, "Han ug viri shakalakog.[1]"

I looked at her, amazed. Her Orcish was becoming better for each day that passed.

"The People of the Stars," I said, "Why do you call yourselves that?"

She turned and looked directly into my eyes. In the moonlight, her black pupils were so dilated that they filled out her whole eyeballs. The sight made me shiver.

"The stars were created by the gods of the heavens," she explained, "But they thought the earth was too barren and dark, so they created the Eldar to mirror the beauty of the stars above."

I snorted. Verily, Elves didn't put their light under a bushel!

"Raulug draut ob viri[2]," she continued in Orcish.

"Mabaj raul draut ob viri[3]," I corrected her kindly.

"Doh. Mabaj raul…[4]" she repeated, her voice trailing off into nothing.

She started to weep again soundlessly, big tears rolling down her cheeks. I reached out to wipe them away, but she pulled back, avoiding my touch.

"D'you know what my people call you?" I said quickly to forestall further awkwardness, "They call you Kasaksma. D'you know what that means?"

She nodded, wiping her eyes.

"Little Fang", she whispered.

"Dath![5]" I said encouragingly.

Suddenly, I remembered the ivory comb I had confiscated from the snaga. It was still tucked away in my belt. I found it and handed it to her.

"U lat.[6]"

Kasaksma turned the comb over and over in her hands, inspecting its shape and smoothness in silence for a long moment. In the end, I grew nervous that she would start crying again, but then she looked up and said:

"How do you say 'thank you'?"

After the harsh cold of the night air, it was a bliss to be burrowed under the thick covers. I leaned back into the soft pillows and watched Kasaksma undress. She stood at the bedside hesitating for a while, her hands clenching the comb protectively in front of her belly. I must have looked rather inquisitively at her, because suddenly she said shyly in a minuscule voice:

"It's that time of the moon. I'm unclean."

So, my notion had been right, I mused, but why did she think herself unclean? Was that really what the Eldar thought of their bleeding women? What sort of savages would teach their daughters to be ashamed of their own bodies? I reached out and took her by the wrist.

"In Moria, you're the daughter of the Great Mother," I said, pulling her gently to my side, "And none of the Great Mother's children are ever unclean."

"The Great Mother?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.

"I know your stories of how you think we were created," I said, "You say Orcs were once Elves who were corrupted by evil forces. Nonsense! In the beginning of time, there were the gods of the heavens. They created the sun and the moon and the stars. And they created the Great Warrior to roam the endless skies."

Kasaksma lay down, resting her head on my out-stretched arm. My tale seemed to have captured her attention completely. This – this was like trying to tame a wild beast, I thought. One bad word or movement, and she would be gone, perhaps forever. All of a sudden, it reminded me of the first time Bardha had accepted food from my hand, and I felt my heart quicken in my chest at the notion.

"But there was another being – Mother Earth," I went on, "Her beauty awoke the lust in the Great Warrior, and from their union, all living creatures were born: trees, birds, fishes, mammals – all the plants and animals. The gods of the heavens, however, grew jealous of all the splendid creatures of the Great Mother, and they decided to put an end to her fertility. One night when she was asleep, they went to her bed and cut large chunks off her flesh, disfiguring her forever. But the pieces turned into Uruk, warrior people, and they drove the gods from the earth. We Orcs are the last children of the Great Mother, and we still live in the crevices of her body from where we were carved."

"And what about the Great Warrior?" Kasaksma asked, her dark eyes wide with hunger to learn more.

"You can still see him in the sky at night," I smiled, "I think you know him as the Hunter."

She snuggled a bit closer and traced one of the scars on my chest contemplatively with a finger. Carefully, I put my hand on her soft belly and rubbed it cautiously. First, she flinched at my touch, but soon she relaxed again as the cramps of her womb were being eased. She went back to tracing my scars with her fingers.

"Are these from a battle?" she whispered.

"In a way," I said, memory of the event coming back to me, "The white Warg I'm riding, Bardha… She wasn't too keen on being ridden at first."

"And your hand?"

"That was taken by a Dwarf," I answered, my voice unintentionally hard with bitterness.

"Does it hurt to have that hook in its place?"

"No! Well, yes. But it's a low, throbbing kind of pain. I hardly feel it these days," I said.

I thought of Bolg's steel breastplates that were fastened directly onto his ribs and added:

"I guess we have a high pain threshold in my clan."

I moved my hand from her belly to her tousled black hair lying across her shoulder and ran my fingers through the tresses, combing out the worst of the knots. She was still clenching the comb in her hand, her small bony knuckles nearly as white as the ivory. The Elf closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Her long black eyelashes cast shadows down her cheeks, and her forehead became smooth with oncoming sleep. The bruises on her high cheekbones had changed colour from blackish to greenish, and her skin was no longer swollen. She had an interesting face which I hadn't really bothered to study before. Had it not been for her small protruding nose and full red lips, I might even have considered her pretty.

[1] Moon. Stars. The moon and the stars are shining.

[2] I'm missing the light of the stars.

[3] I have missed the light of the stars.

[4] Yes. I have missed…

[5] That's right!

[6] This is for you.