Chapter 28

Nez was terrified. She knew herself to be the smallest peon in a very small clan, the least of the least. She'd never been trained to fight, except for throwing darts through the narrow apertures of a burrow. Now she was faced with twenty screaming devils, and she had no weapon in her hand. Her belt knife was nothing to this.

But she had seen something, tied in a bundle on the edge of the travois. Something shiny that gleamed through its dull wrappings. Even as the peons threw down their harness and reached for their darts, Nez scrambled among the bundles. Behind her, grunts and snarls indicated that Lev Darksun and his contingent were fighting hard.

Her fingers closed on something thin and very sharp. She drew it carefully from the bag and held up the glaive.

"Elf weapons," muttered Nez the Small. She rummaged briefly, but the bag held only glaives. "Okay. No time." She scrambled up the pile of tied-down packages on the travois.

At the top she paused fearfully to look down on the others. As she watched, Lev Darksun swung his axe with unlikely speed, hacked through a satyr's ribcage, and continued the swing to parry a stroke from a scimitar. None of the attackers had broken through the grunts yet, and other Orcs were moving back from the front of the caravan. She saw the Shadebreaker coming a ways off, his sword in both hands.

Can't many of 'em leave their posts, she realized. Don't know if they're gonna hit the front, too.

She hefted the glaive, forcing herself to breathe deeply. Good thing I'm too dry to wet myself. She would never be able to hit the nearest satyrs, who were too close to the grunts. But others stood back out of range, vague through the haze of mana that surrounded them.

"Okaaaay…"

It was worth a try, Nez figured. She'd always been good with the darts. She threw the glaive.

The weapon whispered through the air like a breath of winter. It went right over the heads of the grunts. On its downward curve, it cut through a hellcaller's neck with a soft hiss, and Nez blinked as the satyr's head fell off. But the glaive's momentum was not checked. It went on to cut an ugly slice across the chest of the next satyr on its way to slicing off the arm of a third. When it finally struck the snow, blood splattered around it in a bright fan.

"Whoa," said Nez the Small. She shook off her paralysis and dove down the travois to get another glaive, barely noticing that she'd cut one of her fingers when she threw the first one.

Nez heard a sizzle and a scream. The dead man had arrived. A moment later, he appeared beside her, climbing up the travois to get a better shot with his next death coil.

"Nez the Small," he said, without looking at her. He snapped his sword forward, and a satyr died with a shriek. The Shadebreaker's white hair whipped around his head in a nonexistent breeze.

"Yeah," Nez said. She clambered back up next to him, a glaive in each hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to kill satyrs. Um. Borrowed this Elf thing."

Nez picked out another furry demon who was slightly separated from the others, calculated, and threw. This time the glaive cut her target almost in half, then buried itself in a tree trunk. "Demons. Got two and a half last time," she said.

"It does not matter," Shadebreaker said. "They are retreating."

The satyrs were indeed retreating. The surviving five or six vanished back into the woods.

"You say so," Nez said. "Um. 'Scuse me." She climbed down again, put the remaining glaive away, and ran to get the others back. She wiped them off as best she could on whatever was handy, which in this case turned out to be dead satyrs.

The rearguard was not large, perhaps ten Orcs. Every single one had survived, and every single one was responsible for at least one dead satyr. Lev Darksun had to shove his way out of a pile. Nez heard him swearing as he wiped entrails from his tunic.

She was shaking, now that it was over. Nez did her best to ignore it - and the sudden stench of dead satyrs- as she went to put away the Elvish weapons. She did it a little reluctantly. They were pretty, and light, and she wouldn't have minded keeping one. Probably belong to the Glaive. Don't want to mess with anything of hers, for sure.

The grunts were reorganizing themselves, and Nez watched as one jogged up toward the column front to report. The few peons who had had time to throw collected their darts and got back into their harnesses.

Rokhyel Shadebreaker stood looking down at the smallest peon in the clan. Nez looked back a little nervously.

"I going to get in trouble?" she asked.

"On the whole, I think not," the dead man said. "Come with me, Nez the Small."

---

"She did what?" said Veren Redmorning.

As he watched, the little peon winced almost imperceptibly. Rokhyel Shadebreaker stood behind her. The addition of flesh had not lent his face more expression. Less, in fact, since Redmorning could no longer gauge his thoughts by the light in his sockets.

"She found the bag of glaives," the Shadebreaker said. "By my count, she is responsible for three dead and one maimed. Her aim is very good."

Behind him, Dib Loudwhisper chuckled. Redmorning felt the rumble through the soles of his feet. A quick glance to his right revealed that Kev'ran was, well, not smiling, but looking less glum than usual.

"It surely must be," Veren said, looking down at the other Orc. "Who taught you to throw, Nez?"

"Nobody," Nez the Small said. "Um. Veddy taught us to throw darts."

Obviously she wasn't joking about your quick hands. Veren Redmorning said, "Would you like to have one of the glaives?"

Nez looked at him sharply. He watched emotions change places rapidly over her face until she decided he was serious.

"Yes, Chieftain," said Nez the Small. "Like that a lot."

"We'll have to ask Glaive, of course, but I don't think she'll object. Where is she, Rokhyel?" he asked the Undead.

"Behind me," Shadebreaker said without hesitation. Redmorning frowned, seeing nothing. Glaive appeared atop the nearest travois a second later, crouching with her hands pressed to the hide cover in front of her.

"Pretty neat trick," she said. "How you do that, dead man?"

"No doubt it is because of the medallion," Shadebreaker said evasively.

"Un huh," Glaive said. She turned to look down at Nez the Small. "This little Orc kill three satyrs?"

"Yes," Rokhyel Shadebreaker said.

"Then keep all glaives you want," Glaive said. She vaulted down to the ground easily. "Probably be good idea, 'cause it gonna be a while 'fore you catch them too good."

"Yeah," Nez said. "Cut my hand once already just throwing them."

"Being able to throw them at all is an accomplishment," Veren said.

Nez raised her head. "You think so, Chieftain?"

Redmorning blinked, startled, as large green eyes locked onto his. For a moment he was frozen by the absurdity. Nez stood in the presence of a killer Elf and an Undead twice his age, and looked at him as if his opinion was the only one that mattered.

It's the only one that matters to her, he realized.

What followed could only be called epiphany. He looked down at Nez the Small, and for the first and last time in his life, he knew.

It'll never work, thought the rational part of his mind that occupied most of his thoughts most of the time.

(You don't know that,) said a part that was far less rational.

She's a peon. A Chieftain should take a fighter.

(She's no weakling. Shadebreaker's word is good on that.)

She's too short, he argued.

(And so are you,) said the inner Veren with finality.

Bloody Hellfire, Redmorning thought, and the other voice remained in smug silence, knowing the field was won – and lost.

Redmorning realized he had been silent for far too long.

"Yes," he said. "I do." A brief mental scramble produced appropriately Chiefly words. "You've done a service for your Clan today, Nez the Small. There's not much we can do for you in return, but I'll see it's never forgotten."

Nez blushed furiously, completely unable to speak.

"Go on back and have Veddy look at your hand," Veren prompted, taking pity on her. Who's going to take pity on me? Nez bowed and turned to walk quickly away.

Glaive watched her go.

"Silly Orcs," she said.

"Why is that?" Shadebreaker asked.

"Good thing you got no gods," Glaive said. "Be making one out of Chieftain, they all get like that."

"She is a peon," Kev'ran said. "Most Chieftains take no notice of the Orcs who do the low work."

"Hm," Glaive said. "Redmorning maybe less dumb than I thought."

With that, she slid over the side of the travois and vanished from view.