He started to walk again. “Is it all hopeless, then? We must turn the country to rubble if we wish to have basic rights? And then, we are all plunged into some age of darkness and destruction, halting all progress?”
“The revoltisprogress,” she countered.
“But the orcs will not keep up the infrastructure of the country if they rule—”
“I am not saying that,” she said, “not that orcs should rule everything in the wake of it all. But we must entirely topple the elves. We must make themrespectus.”
“You have just finished saying they never will,” he said.
“The world on the other side of it must be for orcs and elves both,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “there we are agreed, at least.”
“The orc council will never see that,” she said. “You can talk until you are blue in the face about needing the elves, about what good elves provide for the country, all of it, but you will not get through to them.”
He sighed heavily. “I have squandered all the goodwill I had with the orc council by saying positively foolish things about elves. They thought I was being swayed by my elf heritage. They were right. I was viewing the elves incorrectly. I had a rosy opinion of them.”
“An assassination, however,” she said. “It would not, perhaps, need the entire support of the council to go forward.”
He furrowed his brow. “What are you saying?”
34
AERHRIL AND LARHAwere lying on their stomachs on the bed in Aerhril’s chambers, playing a game that Larha had modified from a girlish activity in which one wrote down a number of male names and then made several choices and went through, crossing out names here and there until one found the man one was meant to be with.
In its original form, it was a game played by girls to determine their husbands.
In Larha’s case, she was using it to determine which orc’s lap she would sit in that night.
Aerhril had asked the other elf too many questions about all of it. She had to admit that watching her be passed around and shared by the orcs made her aroused, but she also could not imagine doing it herself. She could not believe that Larha was enjoying herself as much as she claimed, but Larha said that she thought it may have been her calling.
“I think I was put on earth to service orcs,” she said with a shrug. “I think I may have been made by the gods for such a purpose.”
Aerhril did not think the girl was joking about it. Larha really did seem to be enjoying herself.
She and Dathor had been here for two weeks, and she was growing accustomed to the rhythm of it all, and she had grown secure in the idea that Dathor was not going to be forced to share her. If she had been frightened of that, shedid not know if she would have found it as arousing as she did.
The door opened and Dathor came in to the bedchamber. “Oh,” he said. “Larha, you’re in here.”
“Hello,” said Larha, looking up at him with a coquettish smile.
Aerhril elbowed her. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” said Larha.
“Looking at him in that way.”
Larha giggled.
“Tell Larha goodbye,” said Dathor to Aerhril.
“Goodbye?” said Aerhril. “Are we leaving?”
“We are,” said Dathor. “And I’m afraid I can’t share anything else in front of her.”
“You think I cannot keep secrets?” said Larha. “Are you moving against the orc chieftain?”
“No,” said Dathor. “I’m going to attempt to save the entire country, but no one is going to understand that’s what I’m doing, I’m afraid.”
