Page 46 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

But while he was waiting, two young trolls crept across the road, heading directly for Gathren’s saddle bags.

Trolls, as a general rule, did not live in Lothnehil. The trolls had been chased out of the country long, long ago, and they had all been driven into an island to the northwest of Lothnehil. If there had been any trade with the trolls, that had ended immediately when Findas took the throne. Now, Findas wouldn’t even trade with the dwarves.

But there were rumors of scattered small groups of trolls, coming out at night to steal livestock or crops, to do petty vandalism, that sort of thing. And though Iahir had often dismissed such stories as just as likely the work of wild animals, he could not deny that he was looking at two trolls, right in front of him, and that they were going through Gathren’s saddle bags and pulling out the food she had taken from the inn.

Iahir dismounted from his horse, drew his sword and crept up on them. The trolls were keeping their gazes on the saddle bags and on the treeline in front of them, which make Iahir think that was where Gathren must have gone, and the trolls must have witnessed it.

Perhaps she’d gone to relieve herself or something.

He had little trouble coming up behind them, pressing the tip of his sword against the back of the skull of one of them.

The trolls were short, about the height of dwarves, none of them taller than four feet. Their skin ranged in hues from brown to green to gray, much like the orcs’ skin.

“Put that back,” said Iahir to the troll who was holding the food from Gathren’s saddle.

The other troll, the one who was not being held at sword point, saw Iahir and squealed. “Pale elves!” he cried, backing away. “Pale elves with nasty bright blades!” He turned and scampered away, leaving his fellow troll behind.

The other troll, who had wisps of dark hair over his skull, was trembling.

“Put it back,” said Iahir.

“Please, please, don’t kill us,” said the troll. “We wants to live.”

Iahir was unsure if the troll meant to include his other companion in the statement or if he considered himself plural.

“I will not kill you, not if you put the food back.”

“Hungry,” said the troll with a sigh. “We are hungry.”

“Put. It. Back.”

The troll put the food back in the saddle bag.

Iahir removed his sword tip. “All right. Run along, then.”

The troll looked back at him, still trembling, and then scurried off like a frightened squirrel.

Barely a moment later, Gathren came out of the nearby wooded area, buckling her belt.

Likely had been off relieving herself, then.

He could tell her that he’d just rescued her food from trolls. But seeing as she hadn’t witnessed it, she probably would only be horrified that he’d followed her, not grateful.

He rushed back to his horse and out of her sight.

She mounted her horse and galloped off without knowing he was there.

He resumed following her.

GATHREN HAD NOT been home now in some time, and she realized she had not heard anything from her mother in nearly five months. She had been stationed someplace in Arzakh for a time before the invasion, and there had been systems in place to get letters from Lothnehil. Mostly, they were paying off soldiers who worked the Rathog Pass to hand off letters to others and this way, things had gone back and forth.

But then, after the invasion was underway, Gathren had been shuffled here and there, to and fro, and she had tried to send word to her mother to tell her where she was, but it didn’t mean that word got to her mother, and it certainly didn’t mean that she was still in that place when her mother sent anything to it, which may or may not have happened.

Even so, when she came upon her family’s farm, and the small farmhouse was a charred, half-standing ruin, and most of the fields had been burned to nothing, it was a blow.

She hadn’t considered that something could have happened to the farm, to her mother, to her uncle.

She tore into the burned remains of her family’s farmhouse, and she found a body in a bed, but it was in her uncle’s room, not in her mother’s. Her mother’s room was empty. The burned body in her uncle’s bed, though, it could have been anyone. The features weren’t recognizable. It was more a skeleton than anything else.