Page 61 of Orc's Pride

“Indeed. As long as you are alright in housing her for a while.”

“As long as you don’t believe she’s a danger to anyone, that is fine with me.”

“She is innocent, I assure you. Though… she does have a bit of a mouth on her.”

Gathal’s grin is back on his face, splitting his smile wide enough to show off his sharp fangs.

I reach up and pat Pitha’s arm. “We’re quite used to that around here.”

My words seem to break the tension up, even if I hadn’t meant them to. There is a soft and rumbling set of laughs that circle around all of us. I’m sure whatever my reputation among these men are, it’s definitely one that precedes me.

“Excellent.” Gathal gives a firm nod. “I’ll have her settle in where you see fit. While we’re here, I’d like to offer myself and my men to assist in helping you rebuild.”

That seems to surprise Pitha. “I can’t ask that of you, Gathal.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “You would do the same for me, no?”

“I’m surprised you’re not asking me to get on my knees to beg you.”

Gathal’s eyes are absolutely delighted as he says, “Oh. We can go with that too.”

“Gods, you are insufferable.”

“You make it so easy, though.”

My hand squeezes Pitha’s arm again, pulling him back from saying anything too nasty to Gathal that will end in the other Chieftain rescinding his offer. Though, even if I believe the orc would take it in good spirits, there’s always a possibility that it wouldn’t be the case.

And right now, the base needs all the help it can get.

Thankfully, Gor steps in too. “We would love to have your assistance. I can walk your men through what we need. It’ll be a lot of clearing out debris before we are able to start fixing things up.”

“Whatever you need, we’ll be more than happy to help.”

26

Pitha

Weeks go by and progress is slow, but we manage to unbury ourselves from the destruction left by the fark elves and Ishta’s betrayal.

Along with finding out a few more details regarding his departure from the right side of the war, I’ve come to find that there are many more secrets to this game we’ve been playing with the dark elf than I previously thought had been possible.

Since Gathal had been staying amongst the base, along with his men helping us uncover bodies and put families back together, we’d traded knowledge between us that had otherwise but lost to the separation of our clans.

He’d gotten the hunch a few months ago that there had been something in the works brewing between Ishta and his clan when Gathal had traveled to visit his lands for a trade deal. As with anything, the deal had gone over rather smoothly, but Gathal had recounted that afterwards had been a different story.

There had been whispered conspiracies among the clan the few nights that Gathal and his men had stayed—orcs coming and going in the dead of night while the rest of the clan slept soundlynot knowing anything was going on beyond their comfortable walls.

One night, Gathal had gotten curious and had snuck out to follow the orcs leaving Ishta’s encampment, only to find him having a secret meeting deep in the forest surrounded by those same orcs.

He’d told me that seeing it had given him a chill down his spine, and come morning, he and his own men had left with rather quick goodbyes and fled back to their lands hours away.

It sickens me that there had been orcs on that ledger that Dana had stolen. One name was too many—too many to throw their morals away in order to work with the dark elves. Gaining power should never be a priority.

Not when we’d come to this world to escape that harsh reality.

I’d be grateful for Dana’s unwavering support in all of this. She’d been by my side the entire time that we set to rebuilding the base and had stepped into a role as coordinator that she’d absolutely flourished in.

I’d been over the moon happy to see my own people finally showing her their respects as she put in her own weight helping—and even then some. Even though she’d gotten off to a bad start with the people here, they’d slowly been growing to trust her over the weeks.