Mehen often told her she was stubborn, a complaint Havilar often repeated. Farideh headed for the crowded fountain. For once, Lorcan would see exactly how stubborn she could be. She sat down on the edge of the fountain, resolutely ignoring the insistant pain of her scar.
Mehen dreamed.
He was following the redheaded woman from the temple through a forest. Not a forest like Tymanther’s scraggly mountains-heavy evergreens interspersed with bone white birches and monstrous oaks. Around their feet, ferns swished and shushed as they passed. The world smelled damp and resinous, like wet pine.
He remembered waking in the temple, preparing to go haul stone. He remembered the redhead-Rohini, that was it-coming to find him. He must have fallen asleep, though, since he couldn’t make himself ask her where they were or what they were doing. He couldn’t do much at all but follow along after the hospitaler. He hated the dreams he knew were dreams yet couldn’t wake from. But at least Arjhani and Uadjit hadn’t made an appearance yet, to drag up everything that had happened so long ago.
Rohini turned to him.
“Stop,” she said, and he did. In his dream, she looked strange-stronger, fiercer, almost bestial. She grinned at him, but it looked more like she was baring her teeth.
“We’re going to fight some of those orcs you mentioned,” she said. “But I need you to avoid killing them. I want as many as possible alive.”
“Of course,” he said.
“And another thing,” she said. “I won’t look like myself. So mark me-if you hurt me, Mehen, I will hurt you back.”
Confused, he regarded her. He didn’t want to hurt Rohini. He couldn’t hurt Rohini. He drew his falchion, and bowed over it to her, his new commander.
“Good,” she said. Her form wavered and for a moment, she seemed to have wings and talons, her hair a cloud of bloodred. He blinked and he found himself looking instead at a lean and muscular male orc, his face crazed with deliberate scars, his dark hair tinged red. Her face? Her hair? No, it was simpler to call the orc as he looked-young, male, and oddly handsome.
Somewhere deep in his mind, Mehen sighed. This was going to be a long, strange dream.
“Lead on,” he heard himself say.
The Rohini-orc strode through the brush, making no effort to dampen the sound of his passage. Even in his dream, Mehen knew where to step and how to slide around the densest brush. Even if Rohini didn’t care, it was his way.
The squad of orcs crouched around a low fire, finishing the remains of a midday meal. Twelve of them. Half nursing wounds that could not be more than a few days old. All males, but one-a shaman decked in totems and packs of herbs. She was as big as the males though.
At the sight of the Rohini-orc, those who could took up their weapons. At the sight of Mehen they leaped to their feet and Mehen recognized them-it was the remnants of the same group they’d clashed with on the road. Judging by the biggest one’s bellow, they remembered him too.
The Rohini-orc said something in a language Mehen didn’t know, and the big orc cut short his war cry. A few more words and he regarded the Rohini-orc cautiously and curiously. The shaman stared openly and eagerly.
To kill them would be simpler. Clustered like this, if his falchion could reach one, it could reach them all. If they attacked the way they had on the road, there’d be no discipline in the rush-if any of them were archers they’d forgo the bow for the swords and axes that lay at hand, instead of scurrying into the brush. He wondered how hard one could punch an orc before one might kill it.
The Rohini-orc noticed the shaman’s attentions and chuckled. He turned to her and murmured something. The shaman blushed, and Mehen wished he could snort or roll his eyes.
The shaman abandoned her fire and took a place beside the Rohini-orc. Two others of the group also rose to stand beside him. The big leader stomped and howled as they did, baring his big tusks and beating the face of his shield with his sword.
“Now,” the Rohini-orc said in Common, “is where you aid me.”
The leader lunged forward, and suddenly Mehen found himself standing between the Rohini-orc and the leader’s sword. He brought his falchion up to block. The orc’s rough blade caught against the hilt, and Mehen threw him off.
Two more orcs stood, one with his arm in a sling, one with a bandage over his forehead, but neither too wounded to defend their commander. The first’s axe clanged against Mehen’s breastplate, knocking his breath from him. The second was a little smarter with his sword-the blade dipped in behind the plate and cut a deep gash under Mehen’s stronger arm.
The leader roared again, but Mehen slammed his good elbow into the orc’s chin, armor crashing into bone. The orc’s head snapped back and he stumbled. Mehen swung his fist, the falchion’s grip still in it, forward and into another’s sternum, then swept the blade of the weapon across the third, shearing through the hide armor and into his belly. That one probably wouldn’t make it.
The world shifted again and once more he was between the Rohini-orc and another blade, but this time the attacker moved too fast and the blade slid up toward Mehen’s face, cutting a line across his cheek and ear frill. Mehen roared in sudden pain, but his exhalation came with a burst of lightning.
The lighting leaped from the attacking orc, to a pair of wounded seated on the ground, and up to the orc he’d attacked before. The two wounded collapsed, as did the orc he’d first attacked. He hoped they weren’t dead. Rohini would be displeased.
The only orc still standing was the one with the sword who’d stabbed Mehen behind his breastplate-a wound which was steadily bleeding and making it harder and harder to hold his heavy falchion.
Mehen dropped the blade and pulled a pair of daggers from his belt. The swordsman grinned-with those little blades, Mehen would have to get right up close to do any damage.
“Come on then,” Mehen growled.
With a bellow the orc pulled his sword up and swung it down, aiming for-no doubt-the gap in Mehen’s pauldron. Instead, Mehen threw up his arm and stepped into the strike.
The swordsman’s blade came down hard on Mehen’s wrist guard, and the impact shook the dagger from his hand and rattled his arm all the way to the shoulder. But Mehen kept his focus: for that split second, the swordsman’s focus was on his victory and not on protecting himself. Mehen’s off-hand dagger darted in and plunged up to the hilt in the swordsman’s ribs, with the soft hiss of a punctured lung. The orc goggled at Mehen, and then slid to his knees. Mehen wrenched the blade free, and sliced it across the orc’s neck-a quick death for a quick warrior, he thought.
“Three dead,” the Rohini-orc said. Even as an orc, his voice was musical. “I expected better.” He shook his head. “I hope for your sake, Mehen, that they take well to the Chasm.”
“Your forgiveness,” he said. Why was he apologizing? He shook his head. Pain radiated up his arm and across his chest.
This wasn’t a dream. “My wrist is broken,” he said, regarding the awkward angle in a dazed sort of way. His breastplate was full of blood too.
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate it-” The Rohini-orc stopped as Mehen hefted his falchion once more and pointed it at him.
“What is this?” Mehen demanded. “Where am I?”
The orc clucked his tongue. “Don’t you remember?” he said, and suddenly it wasn’t an orc standing there but Arjhani.
It’s not Arjhani, his mind insisted. You haven’t seen Arjhani in years.
But all the same his heart knew no one else could be standing in front of him, giving him that wry look he knew all too well. No one else had those brassy scales. No one else made Mehen’s heart collapse with the words, “I thought you were helping me. Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” he murmured, as the dream took hold again. “Never.”
Sairche had to wonder if Lorcan had noticed her trick yet, as often as she’d been using it. Invisible, she slipped in behind Rohini and watched as the succubus threatened her brother. She settled down on the same chest of drawers and waited as Rohini left and Lorcan picked himself off the ground and started swearing at the mirror again.