Page 33 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“Well, he was asleep,” said Gathren.

“True.” Iahir paused for a moment, then resumed walking. “Yes, someone, one of his ministers or someone should have been there to wake him and interrupt me. But no one came.” He tilted his head to the side. “On the other hand, Findas had grown distrustful of all of his ministers and advisers, thinking that they were working against him secretly or some such. Perhaps he’d forbidden anyone from rousing him?”

“There, you see,” she said, nodding at him.

He glanced at her sidelong, his expression grave. “Thank you, warrioress.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” she said.

They had reached the horse. She surveyed the saddle and then looked at the both of them. The saddle was already a bit uncomfortable for her use. It had been made for an elf, and she had broader hips and heavier thighs than an elf. They were not both going to fit on the saddle. “You’ll have to sit directly on the horse, behind the saddle, I think.”

“It isn’t your fault either,” he said.

She turned to him, her movements sharp.

“You did not even know when the attack was going to come,” he said. “You could not have caused it.”

She untied the horse, put a foot in the stirrup, and hoisted herself up. “Well, I do not know if that makes a difference. I have been part of this invasion. I don’t know if I quite realized what it would lead to.”

“It’s Findas’s fault,” said Iahir, reaching for the pummel and pulling himself up easily, gracefully. He settled on the horse behind her, not on the saddle. He wrapped his arms around her middle. “Have to do this or I’ll fall off.”

“Findas’s fault?” she said. “You mean, because of how he treated the orcs?”

“Oh, yes,” said Iahir. He tightened his grip on her.

She sucked in a breath.

“Too tight, warrioress?” His voice was low, right at her ear.

“No, of course not,” she said softly. “We can’t have you falling off.”

She patted the horse’s neck, hoping that it would be able to bear both of their weights for the journey to the inn. Then she felt as if she simply thought at the horse to move, and it did, and in the right direction too.

They left the smoking chapel behind them and they rode off together.

10

IAHIR WAS LIKELY a horrible person, in the wake of everything, to be enjoying the fact that he had to use his arms to encircle her waist or else he would fall from the horse. He supposed that he should feel guilty about that fact, but he didn’t.

Perhaps the guilt over everything else had too far eclipsed his ability to feel guilt about anything else. He would rather have only concentrated on all the places he was touching her, or on the way that the bottoms of her breasts sometimes brushed his hands where they were clasped around her waist, but she wanted to talk more about King Findas.

“I don’t think Findas is the only reason,” she was saying. “I think perhaps he only exacerbated a problem that already existed. Because you must see that orcs have been badly treated in Lothnehil for some time.”

He did not know what to say to that. “I suppose that there have been accidents in the mines that are primarily worked by orcs?” he said. “Missing limbs, cave-ins, whole teams of miners suffocating before help could get to them? You will say that if it were elf workers, others would care more?”

“Accidents in the mines,” she repeated blandly, no emotion in her voice.

“Sorry,” he said. “That clearly is not what you meant. I have not paid strict attention to things outside of my own sphere, I suppose. But I do remember a protest in the streets once about maimed orc mine workers, and I did think it was likely true that elves more readily sacrifice other species than their own to dangerous work. I thought that was reprehensible.”

She only sighed.

He tightened his grip on her. There, perhaps he would simply let it all go, then, and concentrate on holding onto her. He wondered if it would be the very worst thing in the world if he made an attempt to bed her now.

He concluded it would.

This was not the time.

So, he said, “All right, warrioress, you might as well explain yourself. How is it that your people are badly treated?”