“No!” cried Aerhril in horror. “You are forbidden from shooting each other.”
Dathor shrugged at Celedin. “You heard the woman.”
“The way you allow her to order you about makes you seem far less of a man,” said Celedin to Dathor.
“Does it?” said Dathor, leaning forward, all of his hulking frame coming with him. “Does it, really?”
Celedin shook his head. “A game of cards.”
“No, we will not rely on chance to decide who gets the Peak,” said Dathor. “It must be about who deserves it.”
“Well, I deserve it. It’s been in my family for generations.”
“You and I share blood,” said Dathor. “So, by that argument, it’s mine as well. And I have actually been working to keep the place in order, whereas you sit around doing absolutely nothing.”
“Your behaving like a servant only proves that you shouldbeone,” said Celedin.
They glared at each other.
“Let us think on it,” said Dathor. “Let us think on what we should do to determine who gets it.”
“All right,” said Celedin.
“All right,” said Dathor.
THE TRUTH WASthat Dathor had tired of fighting Celedin. Perhaps he had tired of fighting in general. Perhaps his entire life had been nothing but fight.
Not even fight, really.
Defense.
His life had been his response to a series of attacks from all sides. Attacks, most especially, from the people closest to him, his family, who were supposed to protect and love him. His life had been exhausting and painful. He had grown used to being always at the ready, always primed for a strike.
When he had been young, he had sung himself a song, one that promised if he were to do something truly spectacular, something very brave, something like being the brilliant strategist who ended the war between the orcs and the elves, that this would somehow mean that all his suffering had been worth it.
He sang himself a song that he was being forged into a weapon, that this would all mean something, thathewould mean something.
And none of that had actually come to pass.
He was tired.
Perhaps he no longer cared about any of it. Perhaps he did not need to be the steward of the Peak. Perhaps everything would be all right as long as he got to love Aerhril, as long as they could stay here, in their beloved home.
These thoughts had been swimming in the abyss that was his dark subconscious for some time, but when Aerhril told him she was carrying his child, they all came together, crystallized, rising from the deep water to gleam like a bright beacon.
He would rather simply co-exist with Celedin than beat him, in the end.
Of course, Dathor was not about to admit that to Celedin. His cousin would not take it in the spirit it was offered. He would take it like a surrender.
Perhaps it was a surrender, but it did not mean that Celedin had won.
Dathor, as much as he had no desire to fight Celedin, would never allow Celedin to win.
But, even so, he made no real overtures to take the Peak away for himself or to oust Celedin. He settled for smaller little triumphs, demanding that he and Aerhril sleep in the steward’s chambers, for instance, and Celedin ceded quickly. Taking long, long baths in the deep tub there, baths so long that the water went cold, and still he lingered, glorying in the ability to do nothing at all but soak.
He brought orcs to live there. Neither Igbar nor Takte were quite welcome with Elrion anymore, so they came to live at the Peak, and Dathor insisted they join them at the table for meals, and Celedin fought him on that, and Dathor refused to back down, and eventually, Celedin relented.
Sometimes, over the coming years, orcs who had nowhere to go would find their way to the doors of Foxglove Peak, and they were always welcomed, given food and clothing and warm bed, always.
