Page 117 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

The goblins chattered loudly in their goblin language, which neither she nor Iahir spoke. That had made trade with these creatures… challenging, but they had not expected a double-cross like this, where the goblins were willing to fight them and take back the gold they’d paid for the spices she and Iahir had brought.

Iahir wasn’t touching her, suddenly. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see he had swooped out, dancing gracefully as his blade snicked through the air. Three goblins fell. “There,” he said, “done more than my share, I think.”

She stabbed another goblin. “The next time you say we should trade with goblins—”

“Yes, yes, I know. This is all my fault,” he said, skewering another goblin himself.

She swung her sword in a wide circle, knocking down more of them. “It’s always your fault.”

“It’s lucky you find me so comely, I suppose, warrioress, or you’d leave me behind.”

“Lucky indeed,” she said, but it came out as a grunt, because she was stabbing another goblin.

Iahir thrust behind himself, sticking a goblin in the stomach. He pulled his sword out, swung it around and stabbed another.

She looked around, and there was nothing else coming out of the darkness. “That’s all of them?”

“Don’t jinx us, warrioress,” he said.

They put their backs to the shore and began to back towards their boat, holding out their swords.

“You held your own there,” she said.

“I like to think, under your tutorage, my swordplay is improving. But I’d be happy to have more sparring lessons, any time you’re amenable.”

She couldn’t help but smile. They were a very good team. “I do think you’re making some improvements, my lord.”

“Yes?”

“But you have quite a ways to go, of course.”

“Of course,” he said.

And they had made it to the boat. She jumped inside, getting the oars, he shoved off, waded through the water, and then climbed in with her.

There, in the distance, more goblins.

“Drag me to Nilhaem,” she breathed. “That was only the first of them. There must be fifty of them now.”

“Yes, we wouldn’t have stood a chance,” he said. “I promise we’ll never sell anything to goblins again.” He took up an oar.

“Well, we couldn’t have known,” she said, taking up another oar.

They began to row towards their ship.

The ship was named The Sweet Surprise, and they had not bought it only because of the name, but the name had seemed quite appropriate.

It had come outfitted with its own crew—mostly dwarves, though it wasn’t a dwarvish vessel but an elvish one, which was good, since a ship made for dwarves would not have been comfortable for either of them—they were too tall. The crew had on it several orcs, however, a troll, and only one elf. Its owner had been killed in the uprising, and the son who had inherited the thing wanted rid of it so that he could join his family in the country where they had fled to get away from the orcs. His father had been a merchant, dealing spices, and they had seamlessly taken over his business, with the help of the crew.

It wasn’t as if the crew accepted their odd coupling immediately, but after Gathren threatened anyone who had anything negative to say with her dagger and Iahir said that he would throw them off the ship without back wages, everyone learned to keep their mouths shut.

And she would say now, two years on, that there was no prejudice amongst any of them.

Now, as the dwarves above them began to pull the ropes up on their little boat to lift them up onto the ship, it felt as if coming home to family.

“Those goblins give you trouble, cap’ns?” said Doin as they embarked onto the deck of ship. They were both called captain by the ship hands, since they were equally in charge of everything.

“They did, in fact,” said Iahir.