The fact that humans did this to their own kind told Ralvar everything he needed to know about human honor.
Nothing, he thought grimly.They have nothing.
Word had reached him of a caravan moving through the pass. Under guard. Heading for one of the frontier worksites. He'd noted the information and dismissed it. Not his concern. Not his territory. The caravan would pass through and be gone, and the people inside would never know how close they'd come to a different fate.
But the storm had hit.
And now something was pulling at him. A scent on the wind that didn't belong, faint, underneath the rain and pine and wet stone, butthere. Present. Wrong.
Ralvar stopped.
The forest held its breath around him. He was massive even for an orc. Seven feet of muscle and scar tissue, shoulders broad enough to block a doorway, hands that had broken humanswords and human bones with equal ease. In the darkness, with rain still dripping from the trees and no moonlight penetrating the canopy, he knew exactly what he looked like.
A monster.
The word didn't bother him anymore. He'd been called worse by humans, and better by the warriors who served under his command. What mattered was not what he was called, but what he did. And what he did was protect the border. Protect his people. Kill raiders and smugglers and anyone foolish enough to think the Iron Wilds were theirs for the taking.
He'd been good at it for a long time.
He'd beenonlythat for longer than he wanted to remember.
The scent came again. Stronger.
Fear—but not the fresh hot fear of a fight. This was older. Exhausted. The fear of someone who'd been afraid for so long their body didn't know how to stop.
And underneath it: blood. Not much. Surface wounds, scratches. The kind you got from running through the forest in the dark.
Human.
Female.
Ralvar went very still.
He'd trained himself to ignore instinct when it came to humans. It had led him wrong once. Had led his warriors into an ambush because he'd trusted a human envoy's word, trusted the intelligence that turned out to be a trap. Four of his best fighters had died that night. Their names were carved into the memorialstone at the Northwatch outpost, and Ralvar had carved them himself, pressing the chisel deep enough to draw his own blood.
Keth. Marrus. Thren. Vella.
He said their names in his mind every morning. A reminder. A penance.
Never again.
But this scent—
He moved before the thought finished forming. Faster now, following the trail of broken branches and disturbed undergrowth, the occasional footprint in the mud. Whoever she was, she hadn't been subtle. Hadn't known how to be. She'd crashed through the forest like a wounded deer, leaving a path anyone with eyes could follow.
The trail led toward the cliffs and the old rock faces where the mountain started its true rise, where the terrain became too steep for casual pursuit. Smart, in a way. If she could climb, she might lose whoever was pursuing her.
But humans couldn't climb these cliffs. Not without training. Not in the dark. Not soaked through and running on terror.
Ralvar's pace increased.
He found her by the overhang.
She was curled in a hollow beneath the rock, her body pulled tight as if trying to compress itself into nothing. Wet dress clinging to her skin. Hair plastered to her face. Shaking with the visible, full-body shudders of someone whose warmth was failing, whose body was fighting a losing war against the cold.
Ralvar stopped at the edge of the hollow.
For a moment, he simply looked at her.
