Arc 1: Chapter 23: Clash in the Elf Lord’s Hall
“Care to catch me up?” Catrin asked.
Her voice was strained, but still had some strength. I knelt at the dhampir woman’s side near one pillar of Irn Bale’s hall while a goblin tutted over her wound.
“The scarred elf wants my weapon,” I said, indicating the axe I held. “It’s a relic of their people.”
“Uh huh.” Catrin nodded, then winced as the goblin physik pulled a fragment of azsilver from her shoulder with long, scalpel-sharp claws. “That doesn’t tell me why my wound’s being treated. Why doesn’t he just take it from you?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Custom. The elves — all the eld really — bind themselves to old traditions. If he takes the axe from me by force, he loses face, tells his whole court that he’s a tyrant who does as he pleases… gives them implicit permission to do the same. You can’t afford that sort of recklessness in a society with memories as long as theirs.”
“So, what, he’s trying to butter you up? Get you to give it to him?” Catrin eyed the congregation of Eld and spirits. “Funny way of going about it.”
I shook my head. “Not quite. He’s going to fight me for it, but I have to agree to do it of my own will. He can’t just attack me.”
Catrin winced again. The goblin said something in its own language, its voice a bubbling hiss. It wasn’t one of the Disfavored, like the goblin noble at the Falconer keep — the od that clung to it was cleaner, less hateful. I spoke back to it in the same tongue, and it grumbled incoherently back. Catrin eyed me and I coughed.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you? First you show up as a vagabond looking to join Falconer’s little fraternity, then you’re a spy and assassin, then some sort of noble warrior… now I find out you speak goblin.”
“Sidhecant,” I corrected. “All the Eld know it.”
“Sure, sure. So why don’t you just refuse to give it to him?” Catrin asked, eyeing the axe.