“You concealed it because you knew we would not have countenanced a personal vendetta being acted out? You knew we would not be pleased?”
“I couldn’t let someone else kill him,” Dathor muttered. “I had vowed it, promised it, I had decided—”
“So, yes, perhaps it isn’t wise for you to stay.”
Dathor let out a breath, nodding. “Yes, all right. That’s good. I will come to the south instead.” After all, he had accomplished everything he wanted to do here. He had killed Celedin, he had fucked her, and what else was there?
“You’ll go and tell your brigade that they must move to the tents, then,” said Methud.
“Wait, sir, the brigade should stay,” said Dathor. The men didn’t like him, but he had picked them entirely because he knew they were men who would be happy enough to stay put here, that they would not be angry about being denied the glory of the final battles in the south.
“So, you wish to come, but you want a different brigade?”
“I don’t need to command anyone,” he said. “I can just be there to… have insights.”
Methud looked him over.
Entirely the wrong thing to say, Dathor realized. “Look, I’m not trying to influence the army or the attack in a way that would benefit the elves. I have no loyalty to the elves. They cast me out of this country, and they have never treated me with anything other than contempt, and I promise you, there is no conflict within me.”
Methud regarded him. “Perhaps there should be some conflict. Perhaps your lack of it is suspicious.”
Dathor shut his eyes and then opened them, inwardly scolding himself. This was his life. Never accepted anywhere, always too much an orc for the elves. Now, he was too much an elf for the orcs.
“I think it’s best you stay here with the brigade,” said Methud.
“Yes, sir, perhaps you’re right,” said Dathor, nodding firmly. “Now that you say so, I am reminded that we spoke, sir, of how it does not do to concentrate all of our effort in one element of our plan.”
“We did,” said Methud. “You are correct that if we do not have these pockets of strongholds here, we lose our advantage. It doesn’t do to leave our worst men behind here, holding these various castles. We don’t want them to fall, after all. Keeping you here, with your brilliance and your ruthless strategies, perhaps it’s all for the best.”
“You flatter me, sir,” said Dathor tightly.
“The High Chieftain holds you in high regard,” said Methud. “I have sometimes heard you speak. When you wish it, you can be very convincing. And your ideas, like the idea of taking the woman in front of her husband, making him watch. You have a certain devious genius.”
When I had that idea, I did not think about her, though,he thought.But then it was my idea, so what was I to do, claim to be too squeamish to carry it out?
Maybe he wanted to carry it out.
Maybe it had been his most triumphant moment, in the end. Maybe he would never rise higher than he had in that moment, thrusting into her, looking at that expression on Celedin’s face.
“Again, sir, you flatter me.”
“Stay here, hold this keep, and show us that you are as devoted to your people as you claim to be. Show us you are not swayed by your elvish blood.”
“I am not an elf,” he said.
“No,” said Methud. “No, you are not.” But the way he looked at him, it was clear that Dathor was also never going to be an orc.
After Dathor was dismissed, he made his way through the tents, through the orcs who made up the foot soldiers of the army. No one called out greetings to him and he did not call greetings to others.
Of course, he’d never belonged anywhere.
Maybe with her, but only in moments with her, too. He certainly did not belong with her now. If he had ever thought he could belong with her, he’d thrown it all away with what he’d done to her in that chapel.
But it was the way of things.
Everything he’d said to her was true. Once the orc army had known he knew about this place, they said it was a natural target, because his familiarity would give them advantages.
And it was a test, of course.
