Page 45 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

She licked her lips. “You are doing this because you are still trying to coerce me into bed with you.”

“No,” he said. “No, not at all. As I said, you may have need of someone to look after you.”

“Look after me?” She only laughed. “Who has nearly died twice in the past two days? Oh, it’s you, my lord. And who has saved you? Oh, it’s me. But, yes, I need looking after.”

“Well, company, then. You’d like some company.”

“Would I? Would I, really?”

“I think so, yes.”

“I think that you are the most lecherous and disgusting creature that I have ever met,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But you like me.”

“Not that much,” she said. “You are elf nobility. You are rich and very entitled and very horrible. I am an orc warrioress from a small farm in the Silvarenna. So, there has never been any world in which we would have enough in common to spend so much time together. We have always been going to go our separate ways. We will do that when we come to the road that leads to Cirlahir.”

“Yes, but what if I wished to come with you—”

“No,” she said, and her eyes flashed.

Iahir wondered if he should tell her the truth, that he simply did not wish to go home and see his father, or any member of his family, for that matter.

But if he did that, she would ask why, and he had no desire to try to explain it. He was not even sure if he had a good reason for not wanting to go home, when it came down to it.

So, he decided to simply pretend to go down the road towards Cirlahir, to wait a bit, and then to follow after her, from a safe distance where she could not detect he was behind her, until it became prudent to show himself.

She’d likely be angry that he had followed her, but then she was always a little bit angry with him. In fact, most people were a little angry with him, much of the time. It would all work out in the end, he thought.

People didn’t stay angry with him. He was too charming for people to remain angry with him. And also, they saw that their anger had little effect on him, and they simply gave up being angry.

He felt a bit embarrassed at himself, chasing after her, stalking her, really, all because he simply didn’t want to go home. What sort of man can’t face his own family?

Of course, when his father found out that he had killed Findas?

That was going to be bad.

His stomach turned over, a feeling of panic knifing upwards through him.

He forced himself to breathe and he did not think overmuch on that again.

He followed.

She did not stop often.

She stopped once to eat, provisions they had taken from the inn—that he had purchased, he told himself, and shouldn’t she have brought him along willingly if only because he had money?

But then, it was not that much further for her, because if she rode straight through, she could be in Cairlon by the late evening, sometime after dark, and she would likely not need to spend money. So, perhaps it did not make any sense for her to rely on him, in the end.

Eventually, they crossed from the Vale into the Silvarenna, and everything was almost immediately different.

It was not so much the land, although the craggy mountains of the northern range were visible in the distance. It was instead the fact that the road was uncared for, rutted through with a number of carved out gulleys from rainwater, the rivulets from storms running through the dirt. The roads were narrower, as well, dustier. On either side of them, things seemed to grow wilder—more thorny bushes and tangles of bushes and unruly leaves. He knew that it was only that no one took the time to clip things back from the road here, so that everything seemed savage and wild.

It seemed as if they had crossed from one world to another, and he felt a feeling at the back of his neck, one of worry, as if he was leaving civilization and crossing into some other wild country, where anything might be possible.

She stopped again, but when he came upon her horse, she was not there, and he didn’t know where she had gone.

He concealed himself and waited. He certainly wasn’t going on without her.