Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [152]
“Got me a few,” the dwarf said with relish. “Didn’t have as much fight in them as I’d-a liked, though. Scrawny things.”
“There’s a reason for that,” said a soft, angry voice beside them. They looked up into the thin, careworn face of a half-elf woman.
Since the villager clearly wanted to talk, Bronwyn patted the ground beside her in invitation. The woman sank down and after a moment’s hesitation took the package of trail rations Bronwyn quietly handed her. She slipped it into her apron. “For my children,” she said grimly. “They will have little enough until the new crops come.”
“This is not the first time the orcs attacked,” Bronwyn surmised.
“No, nor will it be the last. They are desperate creatures, and they are fighting for their survival. As I understand it, the paladin order destroyed an orc settlement in the hills to the south. The orcs cannot hunt the hills without running afoul of paladin patrols. The paladins hunt the orcs with great fervor, for this provides practice-practice!-for young knights who wish to learn to fight and kill.”
Bitterness seared through her every word. “Strange talk, coming from an elf who just lost kin and home to orcs,” Ebenezer observed.
“I have no love for orcs,” the woman stated, “but I know what is happening, and I do not place all the blame on the monsters who attacked. What choice do the displaced orcs have when their hunting grounds are taken from them? They must raid towns and farms in order to survive, and so they do.”
“Gotta keep the orcs down,” Ebenezer put in, his face showing puzzlement over this dilemma. “If you just leave ‘em be, they breed like rats.”
The half-elf sighed. “I suppose. But now we are the ones who must move. Those of us who are left.” She rose, briefly touching Bronwyn’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for your kindness, and for hearing me. Talk doesn’t change anything, but all the same, I needed to have my say.”
Ebenezer watched her go, looking clearly uncomfortable with any conversation that put ore-hunting in a bad light.
He shrugged and turned to Bronwyn. “You ever find that toy thingabob you need?”
“No.” Bronwyn raked a hand through the stray wisps of her hair, wishing as she did that she could smooth over this problem as easily as she tamed her fly-away locks. She untied her braid and loosened it, meaning to gather up the loose bits in a fresh plait.
“Here, lemme,” the dwarf said, pushing her hands away. “You got a moon-eyed look, like right about now you couldn’t walk and spit at the same time. Braided me many a horse’s tail, so don’t you be worrying.”
Bronwyn obediently turned her back to the dwarf True to his word, he started to deftly braid her hair for her. “The ‘toy’ is gone,” she said wearily. “The ores cleaned out the village of almost every useful thing, and a few extras. It looks to me as if they stole all the war toys and left the rest.”"When times are hard, young ones hurt plenty. Hard to see it,” Ebenezer mused, “but I’m guessing even an ore gets a bit of a grin out of handing their whelp something that’ll help the little one forget an empty belly or a hurting heart.” He cleared his throat. “Not that I’m in favor of ores, mind you.”
“So noted,” Bronwyn said. “What next?”
“Well, we go get the toy back. A heat-blind dwarf could follow the trail. The ores are holed up in some caves not too far off the mountains.”
“There are only two of us,” she pointed out. “We certainly can’t ask the paladins of Summit Hall for help.”
“I’m with you there,” Ebenezer agreed. “Lemme study on it a mite.”
They fell silent until the dwarf finished his soup. “Seems to me this is a pretty nice place. People hate to leave their home. Might be, they don’t have to. Gotta get rid of that ore tribe for once and final, though.”
A passing elf woman pulled up short when she heard this. She dropped to a crouch beside them and shoved a lock of thick blond hair from her face. “Tell us how.”
The dwarf studied her. “You’ve just done fighting. You ready for more?”
“Tell us how,” she repeated.
* * * * *
The villagers set to work at Ebenezer’s instructions.