Imin tells Lar what's coming to him

“What is this I hear?” Lar growled.

Imin had not come in smiling, and he did not make a joke now. For many moons something in their relationship had been shifting, and now it seemed to have slipped away entirely, like a slide of rocks when the dirt of the hillside is worn away.

Lar slowly lifted his left shoulder to reassure himself of the weight of his long dagger inside his coat.

“Are your ears getting so old you need me to repeat something you already heard?” Imin asked.

“My ears and my arms are younger and stronger than yours, Imin. I simply want to hear you say it. It’s always amusing to hear you incriminate yourself when you admit to something else I haven’t yet learned.”

Imin’s right hand was hovering dangerously near his hip. “Have you appointed yourself guardian of the men now?”

Lar swung his head down close enough to Imin’s to peer behind the veil of pale hair at the scarred cheek beneath. “Say it!” he hissed.

That sufficed: Imin dodged away from him. Now he spoke defiantly, but Lar knew it was only because he had let himself be intimidated.

“I raped a woman! Is that the one you wanted to hear, or should I keep guessing?”

“That’s the one!”

Lar turned and kicked a stool across the room, but he was twisting Imin’s collar in his fist even before it clattered into the wall.

“What for?” he snarled.

“For Khara.” Imin’s mouth was set in a grim line, but his eyes were wide with fear.

“What did that girl do to Khara?”

“What did Khara do to that beast who killed her?” Imin countered.

“That elf killed Khara for the same reason I tried to kill the Cat-​​woman. You know that, Imin. I am to blame for her death, and I am the one who is going to avenge it. Not you.”

Lar shoved him away – far enough away that Imin would still have to cross the space between them if he chose to draw a knife while straightening his coat.

But Imin merely brushed himself off and muttered, “Her sons should.”

“Not you! And now you’ve taken this to the men. I did not want the men involved.”

“The men are already involved,” Imin sneered. “They took that stinking dog among them when even his own people didn’t want him.”

“Those men who took him in should not be surprised if they have to deal with us, but that girl on her little farm there had nothing to do with him. And now every man in this valley is going to be in arms against us!”

Lar was slowly intimidating him right into the corner, but at the last Imin darted around him and circled back into the center of the room.

“I liked you better in the old days, Lar,” he muttered. “Before the elf Dre got his fangs into you.”

Lar felt his scowl twitch into a grimace.

Imin saw his chance and leapt forward to bark at Lar from nearly beneath his chin. “Now all you care about is serving his sick whims and working on your own private vengeance – as if you’re the only elf who has ever lost anyone! Maybe Khara would still be alive if you’d just taken that Cat-​​woman like the elf Dre wanted!”

“Enough!”

“Or if you never let the elf Dre in here at all! And Dasi would still be alive too! And all these half-​​man babies! Stinking Mother! You killed the elf Sela because you didn’t want any more of these half-​​breed babies, and then the elf Dre comes and you start breeding them like the men with their cattle!”

“No more!”

Lar wanted to silence him, but he was paralyzed by a sick fascination with his own failings. It was queer to hear them being repeated by a voice that came from outside his own head.

“That’s right!” Imin cried. “No more! Next time you try to get us to serve your own interests or Dre’s, you’ll see just how far we’ll follow!”

“What is this ‘us’ – ‘we’?”

Lar had only meant to object to Imin having taking it upon himself to speak for the others, but Imin understood it differently.

“Us! My people! Not yours! You’re only here because your own people don’t want you – just like that stinking dog – ”

Imin always knew when his words would anger Lar to the point of swinging blindly at him, and he always ducked away in time. Now he laughed.

“Try it, Lord!” he sneered. “You’re in for a surprise! You’ve never suspected how many of the elves who seem to be following you are only following me as I follow you!”

“You!”

“Yes, me!” he laughed. “The ugly little troll with the scarred face – me! Try it if you don’t believe me. But I’m warning you, Lar. Next time I do something you don’t like, you better pretend you ordered it anyway.”

“That’s what this was about! It wasn’t about Khara at all!”

“Her sons will get their own revenge, I told you,” Imin said coolly. “This was about you, Lar. I don’t care if the men hate us all. They can’t touch us. But when you get what’s coming to you, I want you to find that even the men won’t take in the shit-​​eating dog you are.”

“You’ve gone too far, Imin,” Lar growled.

Imin shrugged. “One of us has. One of us certainly has.”