Chapter 19

At least I need not worry that he will try to escape. Glaive watched impassively as Arinagh struggled on, step by step. He moved slowly, but his strides were long enough that they had not yet fallen behind.

She was tired as well, but she had not spent herself in magic as well as physical work.

"You will not be able to walk the entire day," Glaive said.

"I will walk as long as I have to," Arinagh said. A couple of nearby raiders looked at them, and then away. No doubt they wondered what the Elves were saying, but most of the Orcs no longer doubted Glaive's loyalty.

Of course, it's more because the Chieftain put me in charge of the prisoner than because they trust me.

"I'm responsible for you," Glaive said. "I'd rather you didn't collapse, since it would be difficult for me to load you onto a travois."

"Because your Chieftain would not wish you to leave me in the snow?" Arinagh inquired, between deep breaths.

"It would have a certain symmetry," Glaive said. "If I were the kind to hold a grudge."

"I wasn't at your trial," Arinagh said. "But I heard of what happened. Why did you do it?"

"I'm sure you have a theory," Glaive said absently, watching Rokhyel Shadebreaker talk to the Chieftain further up the column. A moment later, he turned and moved back toward them.

"Perhaps she annoyed you," the druid said.

Glaive smiled very slightly. "What, you don't think it was for revenge?"

"I don't believe you comprehend revenge any more than you do honor," Arinagh said.

"You might be right," Glaive said. "But the fact of the matter is that they planned to give me a beating. I didn't plan to take one."

"She was a veteran of a thousand years," the druid said. "You couldn't have killed her fairly." He watched the Shadebreaker warily as the skeleton turned to walk beside them.

"And how many years a veteran were you, before I laid you out in the snow?" She nodded to the dead man and smiled. He nodded back.

"Besides," Glaive said. "How exactly could I have cheated? D'you think I took all three of them by surprise? You think that would have worked, against a Leafdancer? And if I'd used a poisoned weapon, it would have been found."

"Yet you were found guilty," Arinagh said.

Glaive snorted. "I would have been found guilty even if she'd had an apoplexy, Arinagh the Druid."

"You mean that the precedent was judged too dangerous to allow," Rokhyel the Shadebreaker said, in passable Elvish. The druid stared.

"Yes," Glaive said. "I hadn't been there long enough to promote. I wasn't willing to leave. And the effect on morale would have been intolerable if I'd stayed."

"It is forbidden to teach our language to an outsider," Arinagh said, still staring at the Shadebreaker.

"I did not learn it from Glaive," Shadebreaker said.

"You must be a quick study," Glaive said. "You speak it better than I speak either Orcish or Common."

"Since my death, I can no longer forget what I see or hear."

"Then your fate is worse than I thought," Arinagh the Druid said.

"Perhaps," Shadebreaker said. The last sibilant stretched out into a hiss. "I would consider it infinitely worse to have allowed my enemy to keep this body for his own use."

"That I understand," Glaive said, thinking of the scars that crisscrossed her body in ridges, careful as embroidery. I am changed beyond the recognition of those few who knew me. But I would not willingly give up this form, nor trade it.

The Shadebreaker's skull moved under his hood. "Perhaps you do."

They walked in silence for a while. Arinagh's breathing became more audible as they went. Eventually he said,

"Seven… Hundred years."

"What?" Glaive said.

"I was a veteran… Seven hundred years."

---

"Chieftain?"

Redmorning looked up as a raider trotted her mount out of the woods beside him. His bodyguards inspected her for a second, then went back to walking.

"Yes, Raider? Vel Dirksnapper, isn't it?"

"Yes, Chieftain," the raider said. She bowed from her seat on the wolf. "Commander Bladeleaper sent me. She thinks she's found a place we can stop until nightfall, if you wish. Our longest patrols found it once before, while we were living in the settlement. It's a cave, near a river."

"How large a cave?" Redmorning glanced back down the length of the column. "Will it hold forty-odd plus baggage?"

"Kerd says it will," Dirksnapper said. "The cave mouth is small, but it opens up inside. There's something growing inside that glows, so we'll be able to see."

"Excellent," Redmorning said. "Pass that on down the column before you report back to Kerd. Tell her I depend on her experience, as always."