Chapter 182

Neia never counted herself as one much for tears, what of those she had in her childhood were few and far between. These were fresh, new, and raw. But like the tears of her childhood, she ran out of them very quickly, wiped her face, and tilted her head backward to look up. Olasird'arc's body had all but curled around her in a horseshoe pattern, his head looming large up above where she sat.

"Thank you. For saving my life, I mean." Neia said, "I'm sorry about the trouble." She added, "And for my reaction just then. I was just thinking of what I left behind."

"Regretting your choices?" Olasird'arc asked neutrally.

"Not for a second, but I can still regret the cost. There were only two back there I cared for, and now I can only hope they're alright, and I doubt I'll ever know. But still, I'm alive, and that counts for a lot more than I can say." Neia answered abruptly and stood, the orcs remained on bended knees, "But why are they kneeling to you?"

"They're not." Olasird'arc answered, "They're kneeling to you. You spared two sons, a daughter, there are three living nieces and nephews, and more recently," Olasird'arc stuck out his foreleg and held the razor claw above the head of the orc that Neia recognized, "spared this one."

"I am Thalren of Red Mace. Chief of this tribe. Those others he names, kin from other orc tribes, Huntress of the Wildlands, our huts are in your debt." The rough voice held none of the fear that touched him once before, and things began to fall into place for Neia when Olasird'arc explained.

"The pregnant women, the wounded?" She asked.

"Some were kin to chiefs, others, kin to others, Huntress of the Wildlands. In battle, you are revered enemy, here, now, we may repay our debt with loyalty instead." Thalren explained, "I failed as chief, I offered your comrade rule, he says he also is a failed chief."

Neia felt her ears start to ring.

"You are no more human, no more our enemy. If you will be our chief, Great Warrior, we orcs will follow you." Thalren raised his head and blinked his eyes.

Neia still heard the ringing in her ears at the overwhelming offer. But as it faded, suspicion replaced it.

"I assume your tribe is in trouble." Neia framed it as a statement rather than a question, and there was a rumbling among the numbers that continued to assemble and take position kneeling in their places.

"Yes. Always trouble. In last generations, we could raid the wildlands by going through secret paths in small numbers, take food, and return. We did not need to fight you long, we could even hide whole tribes of our women and children, to keep our warriors fighting fast and hard with nothing to protect. You prevented much of that, and so when the wars began, we did not fight as we once did. It is hard to fight and defend." Thalren explained himself and Neia found herself nodding along with sympathetic understanding.

"So your tribes have faced some unexpected defeats, and hunger…" Things clicked completely into place as Neia spoke to him, the wider implications of her actions and what it meant for this place well away from her duties gnawed at her conscience a little bit.

"I understand, so you want the one who defeated you, to lead you to victory instead… demihuman pragmatism is something I've always agreed with…" Neia half said to him, and half said to herself.

With nothing at all behind her to go home to, and no other place in the world she knew of that she could live without being hunted or killed, there lay only one remaining question. "Olasird'arc, will you stay with me, and help me here? Is there somewhere else you want to go?"

"My home was taken, I have no treasures, my mates and children were surely slaughtered by the Demon Emperor, there is nowhere for me to go." Olasird'arc answered her, and Neia immediately put a hand down on the claw that she found close by.

As she did so, she noticed something else, it was barely noticeable, but it almost appeared as if her skin were 'tiled' or more like… 'Scales?' She touched the back of her hand, looked closer at her arm, it wasn't quite the same, but it was almost marble-like smoothness, the roughness of her tough skin was almost gone.

'So… there is more coming… maybe?' Neia wondered and part of her mind wanted to scream out in frustration that she was no longer herself, but she refrained. 'He saved my life, I thought death was going to be the consequence, I guess in a way, I was right.'

Every part of her body felt stronger than she'd ever known it to be, and that for the warrior within, brought elation despite the cost, but even that was nothing compared to the tidal wave of sympathy. The bereft look on the defeated dragon lord that brought her bow down, had her tend to his wounded and nearly dying frame months before, remained burned into her memory.

"Alright. I'll do it." Neia said and stood up. "Neia Baraja, Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, is dead. I can no longer serve the Holy Queen. I have no people behind me, so… I accept the people in front of me, but I can't displace a faithful chief."

She approached the kneeling orc chieftain and put a hand out to him, his porcine features and recessed eyes were the opposite of beautiful in her mind, but the depths of desperation that lay in his face revealed that his situation was worse than he suggested. His body shivered under her cold winter breath. He took her hand and pressed his snout into it.

"Frost, you are like frost to the touch and to the eyes." He said quietly.

She laughed a little, drawing curious eyes up to her, it was hard not to let the bitter noise leave her throat, "I'm not laughing at you, Thalren, only remembering. Because of my face, I was sometimes thought to be frigid, an 'ice queen' in temperament, now my body fits the name. I simply find it funny is all."

"The Queen of Frost." He said, but not mocking, he said it with reverence, not mockery.

"Only Queen or King is over chief. You are now Queen of Frost. Life debts of orcs will be repaid, I will call all orcs of the hills, all know Wildlands Huntress, if she leads as Queen of Frost, bearer of dragon's blood, rider of the dragon's maw, all orcs will follow if it means salvation from death."

"It has a good sound to it, 'The Queen of Frost'..." Olisard'arc answered.

"Better that than death." Neia answered and withdrew her hand and put it to the pathetic moldy sack she wore as clothing, "But… I need something better than this to wear."

Nobody could argue with that.