Larha jumped off the bed. “Well, now, I’m ever so curious.”
“Hope I pull it off,” he said. He looked at Aerhril. “Thatwepull it off.”
“Oh, I’m to be part of this?” she said, climbing off the bed as well.
It took a while to get Larha to leave, because she kept asking questions, but eventually, Dathor sent her off and he helped Aerhril pack her trunk.
As they carried it to the carriage together, he explained to her that they were going to assassinate Findas with the help of the nae Oir elves who he’d asked Elrion to contact for him. He’d sent out letters to them days ago and gotten a response from one of them just now. They were going directly there, to visit this man in Renegahan.
She was going home. She hadn’t been there in many years now. She could not help but feel a pang about it.
When they arrived at the carriage, a female orc was sitting up top, holding the reins. She was introduced as Gathren,and Dathor told Aerhril that she’d been instrumental in putting the plan together and she was coming along.
The man they were going to see was named Marthlis, and he was expecting them. He was the head of a resistance already, and they had been attempting to move against Findas for some time.
“The problem is,” said Dathor, “I had hoped to have the promises of the orc army, of an alliance, but we have nothing to trade with them except for the knowledge that the orc army is coming.”
The carriage was driving off now, leaving Bilkwood behind.
She looked out into the tree trunks of the forest, and she thought she would miss this place. It was beautiful, and she had liked the way it had felt to be encased in all the trees, to be close to the waterfall.
“But the orcs are just letting us leave?”
“We did not ask permission,” said Dathor. “I decided to leave.”
“Things were not getting any better, I suppose?” she said. “You said they weren’t listening to you.”
He sighed heavily. “It is the way things always go for me. Too much elf blood for the orcs to take me seriously. Too much orc blood for the elves to think I’m anything other than a brute.”
She took his hand in hers. “I’m sorry.” She eyed him. “Is the knowledge of the army coming, is that enough to trade?”
“I hope it can be,” he said. “I hope it can mean that they will understand that now is the time to strike against Findas. That the chaos of this revolt is the best time to do it, if they want to end him. That if they wait, if Findas crushes the orc rebellion, he’ll be stronger than ever, more difficult to topple, that his supporters will be even more entrenched in believing in his glory.”
“But it’s a risk,” she said. “We are not on the orc’s side. Not on the elves’s.”
“We are fighting for us,” he said. “We always have been, and we always will be.” He squeezed her hand.
She lay her head on his shoulder.
Bilkwood was in the southernmost part of the Silvarenna, so it was not an arduous journey by carriage to the capital city of Renegahan. It took them but half a day, and they arrived in the late afternoon, as the sun hung heavy in the sky, as the shadows stretched long.
Dathor and Gathren communicated several times about the directions he’d been given by Marthlis, and Aerhril could tell, though Dathor did not say it aloud, that they were taking a risk trusting this elf at all. It could be a trap.
She was thinking this, her heart pounding in her chest, as he leaned his head out the window to discuss which street to take, and she noted that an elf soldier had seen him inside the carriage.
She reached up and took his wrist. “You are being too conspicuous,” she said to him.
He turned back to look at her, eyes wide. “Gathren, just do your best,” he called, tugging his head back inside, pulling the window closed, and the curtains in the carriage tight against it.
But the damage was done.
Their carriage was stopped.
Someone banged on the door, and she was obliged to open it. There were three soldiers out there, hands on their swords. One had drawn a revolver, though he was just holding it at his side, not pointing at anyone.
She forced herself to remain droll. “Hello there, is there something we can do for you fine men here?” She leaned forward. “I do find the look of a man in uniform to be ever so stirring.”
“The orc,” said the soldier with his revolver. “Does he have papers?”
