Greenwillow cut him off. "What are you doing? Are you mad?" She bent and retrieved the pass, blowing chaff off the wet paint.
"What?" Sunbright snapped back. "Me mad? You don't believe that chip of bark will protect us, do you?"
"Of course I do! That orc might be starry-eyed and dense as an oak tree, but he's honest enough. And he's empowered to issue passes, and now we've got one! So we don't need to skulk through the woods anymore, and so lose time. We can hie straight to Tinnainen."
"Listen to yourself!" Sunbright waved his hands in frustration. "An honest orc? Orcs can't be trusted, starry-eyed or not! Nor can most 'civilized' men, for that matter."
"Nor any men at all, say the elves. Think, frost-brain! We failed to slip past an orc patrol this far from Tinnainen. The closer we get, the thicker the patrols! We can't skulk any farther through the woods. Furthermore, if we tried and got caught, we'd likely be executed as spies. So we have no choice but to march down the middle of the road-as we've every right to do, after all-with this pass pinned to my breast."
"Save yourself the trouble!" Sunbright grabbed his hair, pulling on his topknot. "Just prop your sword in the road and put that against your breast! Better to fall on your own sword than go down to a dozen hacks from bloodthirsty orcs."
"I won't argue," And with that, Greenwillow spun about and tramped off down the road. Sunbright called after her, then yelled, then swore, and finally trotted to catch up.
He waved his hands at the openness above and to either side of them. "I still say this is stupid."
"Save your breath for walking, human."
Their new status as legal delegates to the One King was tested about noon. Climbing a steep road, they ran into a patrol of orcs coming down the ruts. Human and elf froze and waited nervously, Greenwillow's hand clearly showing the pass.
The five orcs pulled abreast of them, then shuffled around until Sunbright felt the hair on his neck and arms rise. He anticipated his last sensation would be the back of his skull caving in. But one of the orcs snatched up the chip of bark, studied the spider mark, then gruffly handed it back. Snarling at the others, they passed on without a word.
Sunbright let out a long breath.
"Now do you believe me?" Greenwillow glared with gray-green eyes.
"Yes. You were right and I was wrong. But glory to Garagos, being a diplomat is harder than being a fighter!"
And so they traveled for two more days. They slept two nights in the woods and, when closer to the city, spent one night at an inn. The place looked perfectly normal, for all that orcs and orcish men hung around outside sipping weak ale and bragging crudely of their conquests, sexual, battlefield, and otherwise. Inside, the human proprietor and his wife maintained business as usual. Too usual, in fact. They conspicuously acted as if nothing were wrong and there weren't a horde of orcs within spitting distance. Attempts to draw them into conversation went nowhere, and all the time they displayed smiles so tight Sunbright thought their faces would crack. But the elf and barbarian bought a passable meal and good brown ale, the harvest having just passed, and slept on pallets on the common room floor.
So it was that, finally, they came within sight of Tinnainen. It occupied a high plane almost devoid of trees, and the rocky road wended right to its front gates. Another road crossed the main one, and past the city steeper foothills gave way to distant mountains. In this direction, Tinnainen was the first or last city along the road, a fairish size but tiny compared to Dalekeva, yet it served as a market for whole communities scattered through the mountain range. Again, there was a small town surrounding the gray-walled city, which by fresh paint and new stonework showed it had been reinforced for defense, with catapults and ballistae on the largest flat-roofed building.
In the distance, crofters' homes were scattered in fertile pockets, but there was no farmland to speak of, for the land was stony and broken. It was sheep and goat country, and the smell of the pens by the roadside swept Sunbright up in a wave of nostalgia that almost smothered him. Too, the weather reminded him of home, for it had turned colder at this higher elevation, and clouds meshed and clashed over the mountains, churning the sky first blue and then gray. A shrill wind came and went, sucking around his bare legs. He couldn't help think that Talos, god of the tempests, was telling him to go back, go back.
The gates stood open and were thronged by orcs who largely ignored the traffic. In such a small city, everyone would know everyone, even the occupiers knowing the occupied. But the guards perked up quickly enough when the two strangers approached. Greenwillow showed her pass, explaining she desired an audience with the One King. Sunbright watched the traffic, which consisted mostly of humans going about their business. The people of Tinnainen, as in many small communities, resembled one another in sporting narrow, pointed jaws and beetling brows. But they seemed content enough with the orcish army occupation, buying and selling and gossiping. From a tavern Sunbright heard the sound of men singing, and occasionally a woman's voice joining in. It can't be too cursed a place, he found himself thinking, but he would still have liked to question one of the locals for a few minutes in a quiet corner.
An orc captain took Greenwillow's pass and detached two soldiers to escort her somewhere. The orcs spoke among themselves in a grunting, gargling language that sounded like someone choking. Sunbright watched Greenwillow's eyes. He'd neglected to ask her if she spoke the language, but read in her face that she did, for she followed the exchanges with feigned indifference. So the ignorant barbarian took his cues from her and stayed close on her left side, for she fought right-handed.
Tramping through the crowded streets, Sunbright looked for signs of oppression and found none. Whatever the One King's plans, he'd kept a rein on pillage and rape. They soon arrived at what Sunbright thought of as the city palace, entered a small side door, and squeezed into a room barely larger than an alcove.
The guards left them to a human clerk, and Sunbright breathed easily again. But soon he found himself missing the orcs. The clerk was a fussy, irascible woman who questioned them endlessly as to their mission.
"I told you thrice now," Greenwillow finally snapped, "I'm a delegate from the High Elves of Cormanthyr, here to see the One King!"
"And I've told you, elf, the king is a busy man! He doesn't admit every saucy snippet that marches in here! Give me the missive to read, and I'll decide if it warrants the king's attention!"
Greenwillow cursed under her breath in elven, but handed over the missive, which Sunbright now saw for the first time. It was a wide and lumpy sheet of old parchment, much scraped and curled, folded thrice and sealed with blue wax with a simple sigil. With no pomp whatsoever, the clerk jerked her thumb under the wax and snapped the seal, uncrinkled the parchment, and read for a long time.
Finally she reread a section, then folded the missive shut. "I see. Wait here." She heaved her massive butt off a bench and passed through a wooden door.
" 'Kings think they rule, while clerks really do,' is a saying at court." Greenwillow sighed and studied the ceiling, reaching up and fingering dust along a beam.
Sunbright drummed his fingers idly, went to a shuttered window in the wall, and peeked between the slats. "What if the king… Garagos!"
His shout was drowned by an inrushing wave of orcs. They carried not studded clubs but hardwood batons, and wore red-and-black tunics and steel helmets and breastplates and greaves. There seemed to be a hundred of them, and they stampeded into the tiny room like a herd of mad buffalo. Before Sunbright or Greenwillow could even draw steel, the wave smashed into them, plowed them into a wall, drove them under feet and greaves and pounding batons. Sunbright was literally smothered under a ton of gray flesh and bright steel, and blows crashed, like an avalanche, on his head. He heard Greenwillow shriek just once. Then the lights went out.