Page 70 of Elven Lies

“They do make a fairly convincing argument,” Rowan said with a chuckle as he finally headed toward her.

“Don’t encourage them.” She studied their prisoners. “Can either of you tell me exactly what Aldous owed your boss?”

The big orc snorted. “Are you kiddin’? We don’t make the big deals. That’s for the boss.”

“That’s why they call him the Big Boss,” his buddy added.

And clearly, the Big Boss had a shortage of competent messengers.

When she and Rowan finally reached the far wall of level five, Rebecca lowered her voice. “I honestly don’t think there’s anything else we can do at this point.”

He chuckled. “You mean other than a willing surrender so they can take us back to their boss and trade in a few prisoners to be on his good side again?”

“Yeah, besides that,” she said flatly and rolled her eyes. “They’re bound from giving us his name. They don’t know what kind of deal Aldous made with their bossorwhat he owes. And I don’t think they’re even capable of giving us anything else we can actually use.”

“And you brought me over here for this secret huddle to see if I had any other ideas?”

“Not really.”

Rowan snorted and gestured toward the orcs. “I mean,theseguys aren’t exactly overflowing with inspiration.”

“Yeah, you’re right there. Okay. We might as well end this now, then.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

She pointed at him. “Just don’t offer any more valuable information about me to these guys, all right?”

They headed back toward the orcs together.

“What aboutun-valuableinformation?” Rowan asked.

When she shot him another deadpan glare in warning, his grin returned.

Both orcs started to tremble again when she approached them, their eyes wide and their breathing ragged to the point of speechlessness when Rebecca knelt beside Tusks first to untie his ropes.

“W-what are you doing?” Shorty whispered.

“This isn’t getting any of us anywhere,” she said.

Tusks bucked away from her. “Stop! No! What are youdoing?”

“Just hold still.”

Standing a few yards back, Rowan folded his arms and giggled at the show.

As long as he wasn’t spilling secrets or Shade intel to random idiots who wouldn’t have figured it out on their own.

A short moment later, she’d untied and released both orcs, then dusted off her hands and stood. Both prisoners remained on the floor, though they sat up to recover a little dignity. Even then, they remained still, staring at her as if untying them were a death sentence in and of itself.

It had been a long time since she’d dealt with anyone this moronic.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she told them. “I’ve untied you, and I’m gonna let you go. When I do, you’re gonna go straight back to your boss and explain to him that the changeling Aldous Corriger is dead and won’t be paying any of his debts to anyone.”

Once again, the orcs gawked at her, trying to share occasional wary glances as if they thought she couldn’t see it.

“And that’s it?” Shorty asked.

Rebecca nodded. “That’s it.”

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