Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) (13 page)

“How long until we reach the mountains?” she asked.

“My journey south was… confused,” he admitted. Caged in a covered wagon, hidden from sight and unable to see out. After the first skin of drugged wine, he had known better than to drink or eat anything they gave him, but how much time had he lost in that first haze of poisoned sleep? “I do not know how long we traveled.”

Her glare softened and she studied the ground beneath her feet. “Lord Alviss’s lands were three days’ journey from the castle, though I heard him brag he had made the trip in two on a fast horse.”

His lip curled. “He probably ran the beast to its death.”

She twitched a shoulder, her hand going to her side. “How long were you traveling before Lord Alviss’s men found you?”

“I was a day and a half from the passage.”

“Two more days,” she murmured.

“To the passage.”

She had slowed, favoring her side, her shoulders hunched and her forehead grooved with discomfort. “How long from there?”

“Arianna, you must rest. Please.” Her back, at least, was healing well. Too well, perhaps. He wanted to believe it was only that her body was used to the abuse she’d received, to ignore the things her father had said. And not only because it made her far more worthy than he deserved. If there truly was elf blood on this side of the mountain, and those who knew what to do with it, those who remembered the elves at all, it made things far more dangerous for his people than they’d ever realized. Even if they’d stopped Gunnar, this was not the end. There would be other Gunnars, and what happened when there was no Arianna to stand in their way? No Signy, willing to die to keep such knowledge from wrong hands? And now that Gautar stretched so far north, they were bound to find passages, ways through the mountain rather than over it. If there was one, and he had found it, then there could easily be another.

She stopped, leaning against a tree, panting. “You should leave me behind. Someone is bound to have noticed I’m missing by now, the search will have gone beyond the castle. My brothers will send riders. Rodric won’t be able to delay them without drawing suspicion.”

“If it is your brothers who have taken charge that may be so. But the riders will not know what to look for and your tracks, such as they were, disappear two days behind us. Let me carry you. If not for your fever, to confuse the trail.”

“It was your suggestion to let me be found.”

He shook his head. “That was before.”

Before
, her lips shaped the word, her eyes narrowing. “Before what, exactly?”

“Before we were bound.” He held out his hand, determined not to consider what else he meant by it. What else there already was, in that binding. “Come. Two days to the passage and once we reach the other side, no man will find us.”

“And how far to the other side?” she asked, pressing her hand more firmly against her ribs.

A day’s journey through the heart of the mountain, but at least it would be warm. The last warmth she would feel until they reached the village. And how long would she last if the fever rose as it had last night, fed by the cold? He had feared for her when she was healthy, but he had never dreamed of taking her while she was already so weak. So weak even walking such a short distance made her balk.

“Two days.” He would make it longer if need be, even if he had to pretend his own side pained him. “But there is no chill in the rock. Two days of warmth, Arianna, to burn the fever from your bones and heal us both.”

He prayed to the Ancestors it was not a lie.

She was too tired to argue when he picked her up again, so exhausted she even slept, her head against his shoulder, her body pliant. In her sleep, she trusted him. But awake… Awake she still believed he could leave her behind.

Because she did not know any better. And how could he explain without entrapping her even more completely? He did not want her with him out of pity or duty or as repayment of a debt, even less because she had sworn a vow without understanding its meaning. He had promised her freedom and he meant to give it to her, even now.

He walked until his arms ached, and when she showed no sign of waking, he kept on. In the mountains she would have to walk or risk freezing. It was not the nights he feared, for he knew how to shelter her from the cold by packing snow, or blackrock fire, and it would be simple enough to curl his body around hers in the absence of other means. But while they traveled, he had no way to warm her beyond the cloaks they carried. Wool instead of leather, the wind would spear her with every gust. It wouldn’t be enough.

If the poison and fever still lingered, nothing would be enough, elf-blooded or not.

Bolthorn found them an old panther’s den to spend the day, half-hidden by a thicket of brambles. He had to curl himself around her to fit inside, and between the warmth of his skin and the leaves and mulch beneath them, Arianna slept more comfortably than she had in days. Not that she would admit how much the sound of his heartbeat reassured her when she woke to some forest noise or dreamed of the king’s ghost breathing in her ear.

Wood smoke woke her again at dusk, alone. She crawled out from the shelter of the brush—whiteberry bushes, worthless for eating, but determinedly thorny all the same—to find Bolthorn roasting the haunch of an elk. The rest of the animal hung skinned and limp in the fork of an oak tree, nearby. She stared at it for a moment, then pulled the cloak tight around her body and sat down near the fire. The nights were getting colder, even without the chill of stone.

“There is a village to the east,” he said, glancing up at her as she sat. “A tower flies a pennant of three white mountains on a navy field.”

She shivered, staring at the flames. “Lord Alviss.”

“Will they recognize you?”

“Some of his guardsmen might, but not so far from Gautar.” Had they realized Alviss was missing too? She pulled her knees to her chest and picked at a loose thread on the cloak. “He didn’t have an heir. The king—he would have appointed one, at Alviss’s…” Her stomach twisted and she took a deep breath. It was only a word. So why did it stick in her throat? “His steward probably doesn’t even realize he’s—dead, yet.”

“Arianna…” She could feel Bolthorn’s gaze, even his compassion, but she buried her face in her hands, unwilling to see it. A crunch of leaves and he was beside her, the warmth of his body impossible to ignore. “Had I known who he was…”

She shook her head, turning her face away. “Don’t. Don’t say you would have killed him anyway, please. It still would have been me who brought him to his death, just like I did the king. Just because I didn’t break his neck doesn’t mean I wasn’t part of it.”

“This burden is mine,” he said, “twice over, for you acted in my interests more than your own. But Alviss chose his fate. Had he not abused you and threatened our escape, he would not be dead now. Had he been an honorable man, he would be living still.”

“I suppose you would say the same about the king.”

He sighed, combing his fingers through her hair. Her scalp tingled, spreading warmth down her spine. “If I had known how your father treated you, I would have seen him dead even if he had never threatened me or my people. A man like that has no right to kingship.”

She half-moaned, burying her face in her arms. She was not worth so much blood. No one was. “My brothers are too young, hot-headed, and even if they weren’t, it will likely mean a war. The nobles will fill their heads with foolishness, try to use them to reach the throne themselves, and some man among them told the king about my mother’s blood, about the power she might have had. What if they speak of it to her sons, as well? It is not just the king, Bolthorn, or even Alviss. It is rivers of blood, all spilled because I—” she strangled the words before they slipped over her tongue, clapping a hand to her mouth. Loved you. Loved him. Love. Surely it was not true. Surely she could not mean those words after only...

Had it only been ten days? It felt like eternity. Like Bolthorn had been as much a part of her life as Rodric or Isabel, always there, waiting with that same insufferable patience for her trust. But after yesterday, when he had pushed her away, what purpose would it serve to admit such a thing? Even if he spoke to her with kindness, with compassion. Even if they were friends, what kind of wife could she be to an orc? She was so weak, so helpless.

“Because?”

She shook her head, closed her eyes, tried to breathe, slow and steady. Her side ached, a stabbing pain with each breath. All this time she had tried to tell herself it was about her mother. About stopping the king from hurting those incapable of defending themselves. Had it ever been at all? She was such a fool to want Bolthorn, to think if she went with him, he would want her the same way. Whatever elf blood her mother had possessed, whatever power, it did not mean she had any of it in her own veins, and it did not mean she could ever stand as an equal among the orcs.

“It doesn’t matter if his guardsmen know my face,” she said, but even to her own ears, the words sounded strained. “Aren’t we staying in the wood?”

He was silent for a moment, and she knew if she looked up, she would see his eyes narrowed and glowing. She didn’t. She couldn’t, or he would see it all in her face. Her heart thudded too loudly. He’d hear that too, but all she could do was breathe. Slow. Steady. If he did not speak, she would scream.

“We need bread,” he said at last. “And a fur lined cloak and boots for you, if not gloves as well. There are silver cups in the basket we might trade, and the skin, though it is untanned. I would gladly offer the meat as well in exchange, but I dare not show myself to haul it. Perhaps if you show them the hide as proof, and tell them where to find the rest?”

“What?” She lifted her head, staring at him, but he had leaned forward to turn the meat. “Yesterday you argued that I shouldn’t walk to confuse our trail, and today you want to send me into Alviss’s village to trade silver cups from the king’s own table?”

He grunted and settled beside her again, his expression grim as he watched the meat sizzle and pop. “It is a necessary risk.”

“You can kill an elk with nothing but a belt knife and your bare hands, but trading for bread is a necessary risk?” His face, when he looked at her, was so lined with grief, she rocked back, the air leaving her lungs. “Not the bread.”

“Not the bread,” he agreed.

“The clothing, for me. You’d risk them knowing where I am for the clothing. But surely if I am elf at all—”

“The mountains are unforgiving, Princess. The wind bitter and cruel. There is a reason it is only the orcs who live so high upon its slopes. With slippers and a wool cloak, even a full-blooded elf would freeze to death, and you already fight the poison and its fever.” His gaze returned to the fire. “We must risk this.”

She pressed her forehead to her knees and listened to her heartbeat. Steady now, for all the good it did. They might not recognize her as their princess, but they would note her. A bedraggled woman appearing from the woods in a ruined velvet gown, a stranger no less.

“Then I suppose,” she said slowly, sending a silent prayer to the Ancestors that Bolthorn’s wound in her side would not cause her to collapse upon the road, “I will need some disguise.”