Chapter 30

Glaive ghosted through the trees like a cold wind, choosing carefully where to place her feet. Just ahead was a satyr hellcaller, not nearly as silent or as invisible as he thought he was. The Chieftain had given Glaive very specific instructions not to kill anyone, but that did not mean she couldn't enjoy herself.

She matched pace with the satyr for a while, watching. Glaive wondered idly how long it had taken for the renegade Elves to start growing tails and horns. Who knew? With all the time she was spending around Shadebreaker lately, maybe her hair would go white instead of black. Of course, that would take more time than she would probably live, but it was not Glaive's nature to worry about what wasn't in front of her.

The satyr froze as she pressed her knife into the base of his skull. She was gentle, just barely indenting his thin fur. His tail lashed at her knees. He betrayed no other sign of anxiety.

"I have a message," she said in her own language. "From the Chieftain of the Tattered Banner."

The satyr said something highly unconventional. Glaive grinned.

"I'll let you consider for a moment the fact that we are having this conversation when I could have just killed you," she said. "Or, for that matter, that I could still kill you and have it with one of the others instead."

"What's an Elf doing with a bunch of Orcs?" the satyr said.

"Turn around," Glaive said.

She twirled the knife idly in her fingers as the satyr turned, very carefully. He was about Glaive's height, and his fur was chestnut brown. His ears twitched as he looked at her scars.

"Oh," he said. "So you killed a Sentinel, huh? Good riddance. So what's the Orc want?"

"He said I should tell you we're just passing through," Glaive said. "You leave us alone, we leave you alone. We've got no gold, and hardly anything else worth taking. Oh, and also: if you attack us again, we'll disembowel you and strangle you with your own intestines. I'm paraphrasing, you understand."

"Un huh," the satyr said.

"That's all," Glaive said.

The satyr looked at her suspiciously. "You're not going to kill me?"

"Not right now," Glaive said. She smiled. The satyr backed away and faded into the brush without turning around.

Glaive went back to the caravan. She stepped onto the path near Kev'ran.

"Well?" Veren Redmorning said.

"Told one," Glaive said in Orcish. "Prob'ly tell the others."

"Do you think it will work?"

"Maybe," Glaive said. "Helps that you killed some. Satyrs not too bright, but understand cold steel pretty good."

"Most people do," Veren Redmorning said. "Thank you, Glaive."

"No problem," Glaive said, and slowed down so that she fell behind the Chieftain and his guards. Rokhyel Shadebreaker came quietly between them and the nearest warlocks. It amused Glaive that his gait had settled into one very similar to his manner of walking when he was a skeleton. He glanced at her as she kept pace with him, but said nothing.

"Always keeping track," Glaive said. "Always know where I am, or when I get in trouble. How you know that, Rokhyel?"

Shadebreaker looked at her. His eyes were very green under his hood. The effect was not quite the same as light in empty sockets, but Glaive understood its meaning.

"Not gonna bother me," Glaive said.

"How do you know?" he said.

"'Cause nothing does," she said.

Shadebreaker turned his eyes forward again. He held his notched blade in his left hand as he walked, careful not to strike those in front of him with the point. He has no sheath for it, Glaive recognized silently. I have never seen him willingly let it go.

"When I set the coil on a living creature, a thread forms between me and them," Shadebreaker said. "A conduit. I draw their life through it, and when they die, it breaks. I'm not sure how the medallion was meant to work, but I suspect it set up a stronger thread than the death coil. And since you live still, it has never been broken."

"But you are not drinking my life now," Glaive said, switching to her own tongue. "I would be able to tell."

"I will not take from you against your will," Rokhyel Shadebreaker said. "But I cannot fail to notice how far the thread stretches, and which way it goes."

"You are not reading my mind," Glaive said.

"No."

"Good," Glaive said.

"I thought nothing bothered you," Shadebreaker said.

"It does not," Glaive said. "But I've had my mind read. The other participant did not consider it a pleasant experience. And I would not willingly relinquish your company, Rokhyel Shadebreaker."

The dead man glanced at her again, eyebrows raised.

"Really?" he said.

Glaive grinned. "I do not recall that I've ever found it necessary to lie."

"Then why?" he said. "There is not much I can give you beyond simple presence. I have purpose, perhaps, or I would not continue. I have but little feeling."

"But I have no purpose," Glaive said. "I continue because I want to see what happens next. You possess what Elves would call a conscience. If I'm to serve the Clan without fatal offense, I may require it. As for feeling… I understand it little. It pleases me to be where you are. That is all I know. It's probably all I can know."

"If that's enough for you, I think we will do well," Rokhyel Shadebreaker said.

Glaive reached an idle hand and brushed the dead man's white hair back over his shoulder. An ignorant observer might take his lack of reaction for rejection. Glaive understood him better than that.

"I think so," she said.

They walked on together, the dead man in his new flesh and the Elf in her old scars. Not far behind them, strapped to the mighty shoulders of Begrin Hardbounder, swung the ragged flag in gray silk.

---

The Tattered Banner marched on.

Days passed. Nights passed. And, to his growing contentment, Veren Redmorning no longer slept alone. Nez the Small had never been happier, though it took her some time to believe that he really intended to keep her for life.

Kev'ran and Shel'yin began to make their own tentative arrangements. They were in part hampered by the unwillingness of either party to strike the other.

Kerd Bladeleaper looked with tolerance on the frequent absence of one of her raiders. It might not improve Lev's temper, but it certainly kept him busy.

Satyrs attacked twice more as the clan marched South. They were repulsed each time, with no casualties on one side and complete annihilation on the other. Things were quieter after that: word like the red Orcs (now increasingly gray) got around.

Perhaps Glaive saw the owl scouts as they flew to and fro, carrying their reports to Mistress Fallingrain. If so, she kept her own council, and viewed them with amused disinterest.

The weather began to grow warmer, and the snow gradually fell behind.

A month or so later, The Tattered Banner Clan stood at the edge of waving grassland, the foothills of the Stonetalons lying behind them. Palm trees dotted the brown landscape to the horizon.

Strange cries fell on Veren Redmorning's ears as he stood on the largest rock he could find, staring out over the new place. Some of the things that wheeled in the open sky were not birds, and some of the beasts that moved through the tall grass were not ones he recognized.

The air was warm at last. The sky overhead was blue, unhidden by trees and unmarred by any wisp of cloud.

He turned to survey his people. They clustered around him, murmuring as they stared around at their strange surroundings. Kerd and Lev and Shel'yin stood expectant, awaiting orders. Toward the back, he saw Nez the Small, now watching him with possessive pride.

"Tattered Banner," Veren Redmorning said.

The Orcs fell silent as all eyes turned to their Chieftain.

"Welcome home."

There were only forty-five Orcs present.

Their answering roar made the ground shake.

So you take some red Orcs from a dim red world

And a corpse with a rusty old sword,

And an Elf no one wants with a new broken blade

And an undersized blademaster lord.

You take up this iron and nickel and coal

And toss them all into the flame.

What comes out at the end isn't pretty, it's true.

But you'll find that it's steel, just the same.

THE END