Chapter 17
"Glaive," Veren Redmorning said tiredly. "What are we supposed to do with a prisoner? We're getting ready to move."
He had come to think of Glaive as tall, but the druid was taller. Even without his cloak, which seemed to have fallen off, he was as wide across the shoulders as Darksun.
"He useful prisoner to have around," Glaive said. "Hey, Lev, what happen to your arm?"
"Nothing," Lev said.
"A cat bit it," Gedu said. Lev aimed a swat at her, which she ducked easily.
"Cut its head off with axe, didn't you," Glaive said smugly. "Can't make Nightsabre let go that way. Big dumb Orc."
"At least I didn't get knocked cold by a tree," Lev said.
"Should be nice to me, you want you arm fixed," Glaive said. She turned to the druid and said something in her own language. He growled back. Glaive clicked her tongue. She spun the short sword on the tip of one finger, the edge glittering in the dim light. The druid watched with more evidence of anger than fear. After a moment, he said something resigned. Glaive cut his bonds with one swift stroke.
The druid clapped his hands together over his head. Yellow rings spun up around Lev Darksun. The Orc stared down at his arm as the bite marks crept closed.
"Hey," he said. "It stopped hurting."
"Druid heal you wounded," Glaive said. "Ones going to die mostly already dead. You be ready to move a lot faster, this way."
"And then what do we do with him?" Redmorning said.
Glaive smiled ferally. "He think you gonna kill him, 'cause you red Orcs. Think maybe you sacrifice him to demons."
Kerd Bladeleaper made a derisive noise. "If that's all for now, Chieftain…"
"Yes, go on, you two," Redmorning waved them away. "Good to see you made it, Pouncefaster. How's the leg?"
"Fine, Chieftain," Gedu said cheerily, and trotted her wolf off with Lev in tow.
"You want me kill druid later?" Glaive asked, in a tone of mild disinterest. "Do it Orc-fashion, quick-quick. Unless Shadebreaker want him."
Rokhyel Shadebreaker raised his hooded head. Green light glittered in the shadow. "That is disgusting."
The druid looked behind him, startled at the sepulchral voice. Redmorning received the impression that he had not expected Shadebreaker to be able to speak.
"Sorry," Glaive said unrepentantly. "I forgot you old knight, think bad kill enemy when he not trying to kill you. All same," she said to Veren. "You let Elf go, he tell others you direction."
"Then we'll have to take him with us," Redmorning said. "I don't have time to think of something better at the moment, especially when my warriors need his help. Tell him I'll see he's not harmed if he cooperates."
"Won't believe you," Glaive said, but she relayed the message. The druid looked at Veren for a long moment. Then he shrugged.
"Ask him his name," Redmorning said.
"Arinagh," the druid said, before Glaive could speak.
"You speak Orcish?" Redmorning said.
The druid said something in an Elvish tongue.
"Understand a few words," Glaive translated. "He says not much. Maybe telling the truth."
"For now, it doesn't matter," Redmorning said. "Take him where he's needed. And Glaive, you go with him. Watch him."
"He give no trouble," Glaive said, with satisfaction. "Still got bad headache. Not so easy heal that."
Veren rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I mean that if anything happens to him, I'm holding you responsible," he said. "Do you understand?"
"Oh." Glaive cocked her head at him. "Yeah, Chieftain. I do what you say."
And, for the first time Redmorning had ever seen, she bowed.
---
Prisoner and guard walked among the Orcs. Rokhyel Shadebreaker came behind them, a patient shadow like the avatar of Death.
The druid worked in silence. There was actually not very much for him to do. As Glaive had said, most of the very seriously wounded had already died in the cold night. Only two or three others had wounds that would hinder their movement.
An hour or so later, Arinagh finished healing a peon's arrow wound and turned to Glaive.
"That's all, for now," she said in her own language. "Move about the camp, if you wish, but I'll be watching you. If you attempt to escape, or attack the Orcs or the death knight, I will kill you."
"I understand," Arinagh said quietly. Glaive could tell, with senses an Orc did not possess and probably would not understand, that his mana was completely exhausted. He would not be turning into a bear any time soon.
"You needn't worry," Glaive said. "Veren Redmorning's word is good."
"It doesn't matter what happens to me," the druid said.
"I couldn't agree more," Glaive said. "But I will carry out my Chieftain's orders."
"Why?" the druid lowered his heavy head and looked into her face. "What do you hope to gain? His people are few. They won't survive long."
Glaive settled her weight on one hip. "He saved my life. I saved his."
"You would not hold yourself bloodbound," Arinagh said, without rancor. "You do not recognize honor."
Glaive smiled. "That's so. Though you're a brave druid to say it. No, I don't serve the Orcs because they saved me, or because they are strong or many. I serve because they are mine. I have nothing in this world except my life, a broken blade, and the people of Veren Redmorning. I will not give up the last until I lose the first."
"And what about that?" Arinagh looked at Rokhyel Shadebreaker. Glaive watched lights kindle under the hood as the Shadebreaker looked back. "What's it doing here? Why has it not fallen to pieces?"
"He's a knight of old Alterac," Glaive said.
"I do not see how that could be," Arinagh said. "Perhaps you're too young to know the history of the first wars, but the old death knights were possessed by the spirits of Orcs."
"He's no Orc," Glaive said. "I'll wager he stole his body back from one. I think that's why he calls himself the Shadebreaker. For myself, I don't really care where he came from, nor why."
"No, I begin to see that you would not," Arinagh said slowly. "You know the past, the future are there, but you don't feel them. You do not sense the flow of time. It's why you kill so quickly, so easily. You cannot sense that the other will feel pain, or that you yourself might be killed. There is only now."
Glaive looked up at the druid, startled. No Elf had ever spoken to her that way. She was used to anger, or disdain, or the inevitable revulsion when they realized what she was.
"You see why experienced fighters fall before me," she said after a moment. "Even one your age, and I can tell you're centuries older than I am. I am not what I have learned. I'm what I was born."
"You could have been a great warrior for your people," Arinagh said.
Glaive shrugged. "There is no could have, Arinagh the Druid. Not even for one who sees as keenly as you. And I will be a great warrior for my people."
She turned and looked back at the death knight, who still waited patiently behind them. Glaive fingered the old scars on her cheek, neat lines from neat weapons.
"They not beautiful," she said in Orcish. "But they mine."