Finished, he picked up the dog. She didn’t take the action well, struggling and fussing under her breath until he got a good position and the warmth of his body, combined with his repeated calming words, settled her.
With one last look at the trampled slope—at the blood still seeping from the trunks and roots of trees—he started down it, heading in what he hoped was the direction to the pass that led into the vale.
It took him a while to find it, but once he fixed on a landmark that was familiar, he knew his way and increased his pace. The ridge was not so snow-crusted as the territory west of the vale, and the trail left by passing ogr’ron feet was easy to follow. There had been the marks of other, larger boots, but they ended in a particularly trampled section of dense wood, along with a spattering of blood. The tracks of the halflings continued on, unmolested.
He put Vorja down when she became restless in his arms, and she limped along behind him gamely, dragging one back leg. It gave him a moment to work the kinks out of his shoulders, for she was no light burden, heavier twice over than his human and harder to comfortably cradle. His own wounds were starting to tell as the aches began to truly make themselves known, the gashes and punctures throbbing with hot pain.
When he reached the top of the ridge and found an outcropping of rock above the tree line where he could see the valley, a shudder of relief passed over him. The slope veered down for half a mile, thick and green with trees, and beyond that the grasses of the valley reared up to meet the forest.
He could see the first of a line of weary halflings breaking the forest and venturing out into the grasses. He could see in the distance the budding life of the new village, the smoke of cooking fires rising thin into the sky.
Home. Home. He tested the word in his mind, mouthed it first in the ogre tongue, then in the human to get a feel for it. Haven and protection. Things to fight for. Things to cherish.
He looked to the other end of the vale, at the foreboding dark lines of the keep perched like a beast atop the cliffs, and thought that there was a thing there to be cherished and fought for as well.
He grinned, the fierce, sharp-toothed grin that ogre warriors very seldom practiced with humor in mind, and started down the slope.
It wasn’t until he passed the obscuring shelter of the forest that he saw the problem. He’d picked Vorja up half way down to make better time, but he put her down once past the trees. He stalked through the grasses the rest of the way down slope to what appeared to be a very tense standoff between his group of exhausted halflings and a troop of mounted human soldiers.
There were weapons drawn on either side, his people scared and in an unknown place and not knowing what sort of reception to expect—the humans just being damned ignorant, considering the arrival of halflings from the western mountains was expected and was the very reason they were here.
Bloodraven was tired enough and sore enough to want to bash heads. He didn’t quite run, but he lengthened his stride considerably. There were more riders coming from across the vale and ah—to make matters worse, he could see the distant gathering of halflings making their way from the village at the far end. He cursed under his breath, close enough now to hear the sounds of human men babbling demands to ogr’rons who couldn’t understand them.
He reached the edges of his scattered folk and pushed his way through their ranks, pushing weapons down as he went.
“Lower your blade,” he roared in the ogre tongue to the foremost halflings—the largest and youngest, who had the shortest tempers and bristled in the front of the group. And to the human soldiers, “Put your swords away, fools.”
He was in no mood for politeness and they bristled back at him, human pride offended at being ordered about by the likes of an inhuman savage from the heights. He knew the look.
“All of your weapons are to be handed over,” the young human said, the silver of his insignia glinting in the sun. “In the name of the king, you... ogres...are to disarm and submit to our authority.”
It was the sneer in his voice that got to Bloodraven more than the audacity of the command. The fear of them he could understand, faced with forty giants, most of which were armed. But that this officious little human knight who, even mounted on his heavy charger, only stood a head above Bloodraven—that he should order them about with such disdain...it wasn’t to be tolerated.
He was tired and he wasn’t prepared to coddle the pride of some young officer out to prove his
authority.
“You and your king are welcome to try,” Bloodraven growled.
The young knight swung his shining and very probably virgin blade towards Bloodraven, who simply wrapped his fingers in the knight’s cuirass and yanked him out of the saddle. He held the little knight dangling with his feet above the ground, stopping the use of the blade with one hand that covered both the hilt and the human hand holding it effortlessly.
It was hardly a rational move, with two uncertain parties tensed around him. Blows might very well have been exchanged, save for the pounding of hooves behind the human troop and a human voice desperately screaming for everyone to stand down.
Of course, no one did—not until Alasdair shoved his way on foot into the center of things, barking at his men to back off and coming to a standstill next to Bloodraven and his dangling captive.
“Well, it seems as if you’ve had a difficult journey and a fortuitous one. Welcome back, Bloodraven.
And if you wouldn’t mind, put my lieutenant down?”
Bloodraven took a breath. Glanced at Sir Alasdair from the corner of his eye and noted the outstretched hand of greeting. Human politeness. He took another breath, forcing calm, and let the human knight down, eyeing the naked blade in the trembling man’s hand until Alasdair waved him to sheathe it and step back. Alasdair held out his hand again—a big hand on a big man, but Bloodraven’s still enveloped it.
“Forgive this nonsense,” Alasdair said. “New regiment just in yesterday, and not a one of them has seen any of you close up before. Nerves and fear. We’ll have them on both sides for a while, I daresay.”
Bloodraven grunted, his anger diffused—grateful to this big-boned, scarred knight.
“You have wounded,” the knight observed. “Let us help.”
“No. We can see to our own.”
Bloodraven just wanted to get his people to the end of the vale, where they could lay down their burdens and rest in a place without critical eyes, without the danger of misunderstanding that would lead to violence. They’d had enough of that lately. The only human he ached to see, he wasn’t even sure was sane enough to recall him.
He looked towards the dark keep, every instinct he possessed urging him to march there now and demand what was his. What was his—dangerous, deadly creature that Yhalen had turned out to be. So very ironic that Deathclaw had given him something he hoped to be the death of him, and that death had simmered and waited—to strike not Bloodraven, but Deathclaw himself. Bloodraven regretted to his core not having seen the shock in Deathclaw’s eyes the moment he realized that death was the only prize he would gain from his duplicity. Magic or no, he warmed with pride at the thought that Yhalen had struck his enemy down. They each fought with the resources gifted them, after all.
But there was the clan to think of—the new clan. And he had not come all this way to send these tired halflings into a foundling settlement filled with strangers from other clans. Half-blood or not, they were still of ogrish blood and temperament, and still possessed of the innate distrust of other clans. As well as the quick temper to initiate violence if some young male decided to attempt to assert dominance over some other hothead who hadn’t the patience to endure it.
The last thing Bloodraven needed was hostility among his own people.
Alasdair wisely pulled his men back, gaining a grunted agreement from Bloodraven to meet with him later to talk, and Bloodraven motioned his scattered, wary halflings towards the end of the vale and the distant gathering of ogr’rons waiting there to meet them.
Will you run to him like a dog to its master?
Elvardo’s sly voice echoed in Yhalen’s head. Elvardo’s innuendo.
Elvardo had implied other things, lightly said, that cut deep—but then, what did Elvardo ever do that was not woven through with ulterior motive?
Yhalen was honestly not sure if it was some sort of jealousy on Elvardo’s part, or simply in his nature to spew discord. Even so, his most malicious slights always seemed to have some spark of truth to them. So Yhalen hesitated in his rush to the stable, leaving unuttered those cutting responses on the tip of his own tongue—for after all, horrendous as it had been, Elvardo had saved Bloodraven’s life, and the feat had taken effort. And the Ydregi part of him, the part that still sat at the feet of the elders,
listening to their tales of tradition and duty, could not help but offer respect to his teacher.
Perhaps that same instilled habit had even altered Elvardo’s treatment of him, for though Yhalen seriously doubted that the dark lord had ever before taken the effort to share his knowledge in magical things—if his fits of frustration and lack of patience were any indication—he’d ceased his physical advances and the worst of his flirtations. As it should be between teacher and student.
He went instead to the nearest balcony overlooking the length of the vale and waited to see what would emerge from the wooded slopes to the west. He blunted his nails on the stone of the ledge, impatient and nervous for no reason he cared to examine.
Eventually they appeared, so far down the vale that, from the vantage of the keep, they were nothing more than small, dark figures exiting the pines on the mountainside. It was easy enough to stand there and simply watch, for he knew Bloodraven was not among them. And if he had been, was Elvardo right? Would Yhalen rush down like a fool, eager to regain his fetters?
Surely not. He had no wish to return to servitude or the facade of such. But a man could surely find interest in the cause that he’d had a hand in, that he’d shed blood for—willing or not—without ulterior motive. A man could admire another for having a bold dream and fulfilling it. He tossed that thought into the ether, pleased with his reasoning, but the air was still and silent, devoid of response.
He saw the approach of riders from the human camp and hissed air through his teeth, thinking no good would come of force descending upon force. The king’s men took too many liberties with the authority of their distant lord, and Yhalen was amazed that Elvardo still tolerated their presence in his vale.
He would be no less amazed if ogres, even of half human heritage, bowed before human arrogance.
He was sure Bloodraven would not.
What transpired he could not see, other than a milling of distant, tiny figures. Nor was his witchery refined enough to spy in any other manner. So he stood and watched and waited, until another small figure emerged from the trees with a smaller, animal-shaped form trailing slowly behind.
Yhalen knew. Without magicks and without clear sight, he knew who it was who stalked into the middle of the gathering far down the vale, and his blood rushed in his veins. He laughed—a half-mad sound in his own ears—and leaned his elbows on the ledge to catch breath that was suddenly harsh in his chest for no good reason. He laid his forehead on his arms, almost dizzy, and stayed there a while, his mind whirling in a dance of what he ought to do and what he wanted to do—of what was reasonable and what was sheer folly.
Folly, of course, was rushing out to intrude upon a group of tense, more than likely hostile halflings who hadn’t the chance to gain their bearings. Better to find something to occupy himself and let Bloodraven—let all the ogr’rons—catch their breath and find what ease they could in the distant settlement.
It took a great deal of effort to turn his back on the vale and walk back into the keep. To return his new room that was above ground and had a window, even if it didn’t overlook the length of the vale and give him view of what transpired there. He ought to rebraid his hair—strands of it still whipped about his neck and shoulders after a morning of unforgiving tutelage from Elvardo.
He separated the weave of the braid with his fingers, and dragged a heavy bone comb through the length, tugging distractedly at tangles. He contemplated, while it was loose, creating the thin Ydregi hunter’s braid that would fall before his right ear. He hadn’t worn it in a long while. He wasn’t sure if that was because he’d not had the indulgence of the time it took to craft the tightly woven, intricate braid, or he simply hadn’t any strong desire to boast it, distant as he was from Ydregi tradition in so many ways. He idly fingered the lock of hair it might be created from, then tightened his lips and gathered the entire mass of it behind his neck to separate into the three parts he’d need for a simple braid.
He could blame Bloodraven for that separation from home and custom—for tearing him away from all he’d known and dragging him unwillingly in the wake of his own ambitions. He’d been perfectly happy, sheltered in the great forest of his ancestors and never knowing the vastness of the world outside, or the cruelty. Never knowing the thrill of magic or the bitter taste of power—or of passion that burned so hot, it hurt and seared him to the core.
He yanked the foot of braid he’d already woven so hard it sent little fingers of pain into his skull.
He winced and cursed, encouraging the flood of cold reason that reared up in the face of his unreasonable desire to see Bloodraven in the flesh, safe and whole.