The Cost of Betrayal (Half-Orcs Book 2) Read online

  “So how do we find him?” Tarlak asked.

  “That is simple enough,” said a voice from the stairs. The three turned to see Haern sitting on the lower steps, wrapped in his cloaks. His lowered hood exposed his golden hair and fair skin. Despite her weakness, Aurelia felt a tingle go through her at the sight of him.

  “No disguise?” the wizard asked.

  “No need, not in here. And you do not need to hunt down Dieredon.”

  “Why is that?” Harruq asked.

  Haern chuckled.

  “I will bring him to us.” The assassin stood and pulled his hood over his face. His voice immediately shrank to a whisper. “I must ensure the other thief guilds learn from the ruination of the Spider Guild. Before I finish, I will send word to the elven lands that we stand ready to collect the bounty.”

  Tarlak scratched his beard. “Clever. We don’t want her captured and turned in, so we just beat everyone to the punch by doing it ourselves?”

  “Sure this is a good idea?” Harruq asked, looking to Aurelia for an answer. The elf nodded.

  “Do it,” she said. “Killing bounty hunters gets old after awhile. They make it so damn hard to get a good night’s sleep.”

  The men in the room stared at her with inquisitive looks. She winked back to them.

  “Don’t ask.”

  They didn’t.

  Qurrah and Tessanna slipped out to the forest long before Harruq awoke. The half-orc carried Pelarak’s papers with him cradled against his chest. Tessanna did not ask where they went, or why, and Qurrah did not say. They stopped at a stream. A fallen tree stretched across it. The two sat on one end and listened as the sound of birds filled their ears with a sweetness unfitting either of them. Qurrah had never learned to appreciate it, and Tessanna had long forgotten the peacefulness the sound used to impart her.

  “I want to show you something,” Qurrah said, handing her the papers. Tessanna glanced over them and shrugged.

  “I cannot read,” she said, handing them back.

  “They are runic words of power. They can drive any living man insane just by hearing their recitation.”

  The girl smiled. “Sounds fun. Too bad I’ll never try them.”

  Qurrah nodded, his eyes refusing to look at hers. “I wish to cure you, Tessanna. For everything you’ve done. I can decipher what happened to you. I can learn to undo it. Will you accept this from me?”

  The girl’s eyes flared with pain, and her entire body shriveled away from him.

  “I just wish to help,” he said.

  She shook her head, pain bleeding out her eyes in the form of tears.

  “As I am, Qurrah. Can’t you be with me as I am? Can’t anyone?” She stood, backing away as if he were a monster. “People have tried. It hurts so badly, Qurrah. My mind is broken glass, and all they do is shove the shards together and hope they stick. I’ve killed every one of them. I never mean to. Please, please, I don’t want to kill you.”

  “This is different,” Qurrah said, approaching her even though she cowered away. “I am no priest. I will not beg to a god who shall not listen. I will find what broke your mind, and I will remove it. You deserve this.”

  Tessanna felt a tree press against her back. She glanced about, but had no place to go. Qurrah blocked her path.

  “I thought you loved me,” she cried, sliding to the ground as the rough bark tore her skin. “I thought you were different.”

  Qurrah knelt and grabbed her hand. Anger flared, and her black eyes widened.

  “I am different,” he said. “I have suffered as you have. If I could undo my childhood I would, but no cure exists but death. I am beyond salvation. You…” He released her hand. “You deserve better than I. You are beautiful. You have life burning inside you. It is the least I can do.”

  The girl absently touched the black of his robes, rubbing the cloth in her fingers.

  “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  She stood, a visible change sweeping over her. Her eyes looked into his with strength and fire. “Take me. Now.”

  Qurrah felt his heart skip, and his nerves flare with fear and lust. “What? Why?”

  She grabbed the front of his robes and pulled him to her. Their lips met, and for one long moment, they kissed. It ended when she bit down on his lip, tasting his blood across her tongue. He forced her back, gasping for air.

  “You wish to cure me,” Tessanna said, a wildness swirling within her eyes. “You love me. I know it. But if you love me, you must love me as I am now. Then you may change me. But love me now. Prove it.”

  “I can’t,” Qurrah said, rubbing his lip with his fingers and then staring at the blood upon them. “I don’t know, I’ve never…”

  He stopped, but he had already said too much. Tessanna laughed as she finished what it was he meant to say.

  “Never done it before?” she asked. Her eyes burned with lust. “Take me. Or I will take you.”

  She pulled him closer once more, locking their lips together in a salty, bloody kiss. Qurrah felt his resistance drain away. The passion swirled across his tongue. Throughout his body kindled a virgin flame. When she removed the sash of his robe, he did not stop her. At the foot of that tree, he made love to her. She was fire underneath him, wild roaring fire, and never could he have imagined the pleasure of being burned.

  When they finished, Tessanna cried.

  “Please help me,” she whispered into his ear. “You’ll kill people, won’t you? For me?”

  “If I must,” Qurrah whispered back. She pulled him close so that her tears wet his hair.

  “Do it. I’ll help you, if you want. Just promise you’ll never leave me.”

  “Never,” the half-orc said.

  Tessanna stood, her bare skin shivering in the autumn air. She went to bathe in the stream.

  “I’ve slept with many men,” she said, turning back to him. Her tears were gone. Apathy had stolen over her. “But you were the first I’ve ever made love to.” With that, she slipped into the water. As she bathed, Qurrah slept, the doubts and whispers in his own mind alleviated for one glorious moment.

  Fallen angels rejoiced in black song as they watched. The promise of death had brought the two peace. Never before had Karak’s truth shone so pure and so lovely.

  11

  In the back of the crowded bar sat a man with three empty tankards in front of him. He smoked in the shadows, only his eyes and the smoke of his pipe visible. A young boy entered the bar, glanced around, spotted him in the corner, and then approached.

  “I have a message from Melhed, sir,” he said.

  “Out with it.”

  “He says the best purse is held in yellow clothes, to be bought by tomorrow’s eve.”

  The man blew a ring of smoke and tossed the kid a dull coin through it. “Get on out of here.”

  The boy bowed and left.

  “So Aurelia’s in the hands of the Eschaton?” he muttered, filling the end of the pipe with more blackweed. “Puppets like them shouldn’t be allowed such a fine catch.”

  If the message was true, someone from the elves would come to take Aurelia by tomorrow night. That left little time to plan an ambush, but he was confident his boys could get it done.

  “Another mug,” he shouted. A serving wench heard his demand and rushed a glass to him, fast enough that froth drifted down its sides.

  “Good girl,” he said, offering her a wink. She smiled, holding in her shudder until her back was to him. The man laughed, having seen that same reaction a hundred times before. Luckily for the wench, he was in a good mood. He might have killed her otherwise, if only to cheer himself up.

  An hour later, he paid for his drinks and left.

  Come in,” Aurelia said as she heard a knock on her door. She expected Harruq, but instead Brug entered, his face already in full blush.

  “I have something for ya,” he said, one of his hands hidden behind the door.

  “Well let’s see it,” she sa
id, leaning up against the pillows of her bed.

  Brug stammered a bit, sighed, and then brought his hand out. The elf gasped when she saw what he held. It was her staff, bearing little resemblance to the original plain stick of wood. The whole of it had been tarnished and darkened so it resembled a long, thin branch. Beautifully painted leaves spiraled down the length. Carved along the sides were spiders, frozen in the process of making a web that spanned from leaf to leaf. The webs thickened near the top, crisscrossing into a dizzying display. In Brug’s hand, the staff radiated a soft green, highlighting only the leaves and bits of web that touched them.

  “Brug,” she gasped. “It’s beautiful! Please, let me see it closer.”

  He handed the staff to her, his blushing reaching ripe tomato color.

  “I try to make something for every member we get,” he stammered. “I’ll get ya that pendant, but for now, will the staff do?”

  At first, Aurelia said nothing, too busy running a finger across the smooth webs and sensing the slight aura of magic.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, this will most definitely do.” She pulled him close and kissed his forehead.

  “None of that mushy stuff,” he said, jerking away. The red of his face spread to his ears. “Anyway, Tarlak said to tell ya Dieredon is coming sometime tomorrow to claim your beauty…uh, bounty.”

  “I’ll be ready,” she said, grinning. “Thank you for the staff.”

  “Was nothing,” he mumbled, beating a hasty retreat from her room.

  When Qurrah and Tessanna returned, the half-orc went to find Tarlak.

  “What’s the matter?” Tarlak asked, shutting the door to his room behind Qurrah.

  “I wish Tessanna to stay here,” the half-orc said. “Not as a member of the Eschaton, but merely as a guest.”

  The wizard plopped into his chair and leaned back, his fingertips drumming the desk. “A guest? We usually don’t do that type of thing here. But, who cares about what we normally do, eh?”

  “Can she stay with Aurelia and Delysia?”

  Tarlak shrugged. “I have no objection. You will need to ask them. Oh yeah, I finally got that portable hole. Harruq’s been working upstairs the whole day. You have a room now, instead of a cubbyhole among boxes.”

  “Much appreciated,” said Qurrah. “And I will ask the girls if they mind her staying. If you wish, you may take her rent out of my pay.”

  “Nonsense,” the wizard said, emphasizing this with his hand. He stood and walked Qurrah to the door. “You’re family now. You don’t charge family rent. Not the members you like, anyway.”

  Qurrah chuckled. “Very well. I will speak to the girls.”

  “Don’t go too far tomorrow,” Tarlak said. “We might need you when Dieredon comes.”

  “I understand.”

  The half-orc told Tessanna the news. Aurelia and Delysia readily agreed to let her stay, albeit on a few bedrolls piled between their beds. The tower was getting crowded, but no one seemed to mind.

  Melhed paced inside his small but luxurious home. His frame was scrawny and triangular, matching the shape from the top of his head down to his laboriously trimmed black goatee. Throwing daggers lined his belt, oiled and well cared for.

  “They won’t show,” the man said, his voice sounding like a rat squeaking. “I knew they wouldn’t. They drank themselves dumber than mules, and now I’m stuck.”

  A knock on his door ended his whining. He looked through a peephole to see a mammoth muscled chest covered with blue and black armor.

  “About time,” the spindly man said, throwing open his door. “You’re late.”

  The floor creaked under the giant weight as the highest paid killer in all of Neldar stepped inside.

  “Shut up, Melhed. I’m here, and that is all that matters.”

  “Where’s your men,” Melhed asked. The giant man chuckled. It was a deep, dangerous sound, and he knew he was treading on very thin ice.

  “They are warriors of Karnryk!” the giant man shouted. “They will be here.”

  Melhed disappeared to get drinks ready. Karnryk picked at his teeth. He was a half-orc, his human mother raped by an orc. Karnryk had grown up an outcast, his large ears and chubby face earning him names like Dogface and the Pig. His enormous size and strength, however, had granted him a few perks. He had been educated. He had been trained. Nearly every guild in Neldar had seen his enormous potential, and the half-orc had milked training from every single one before abandoning them when their usefulness was at an end. Now he worked for himself. The pay was better, and his reputation had spread far and wide.

  “You heard about the spider guild?” Karnryk shouted to Melhed, who was two rooms away.

  “Someone told me it was no more. I assumed they were joking.”

  “It’s no joke,” the half-orc said. “The Watcher killed most of them, and the rest begged themselves into the other guilds. Sickening, really.”

  “How so?” Melhed asked, returning with huge pitchers full of ale. Karnryk downed one in two huge gulps.

  “They quiver at the name of the Watcher,” he roared. “They act as if he were a demon or a god. It is my name they should fear, not his!”

  “To be fair, you approve of what the thief guilds do, while the Watcher, well, doesn’t.” Melhed sipped at his own, much smaller cup. “If you called a bounty on the heads of all thieves, people would cower at the thought of your approach.”

  The giant man leaned back in his chair, which creaked loudly in protest. He wore little armor, feeling no need for it. A sword the length of an average man hung from his back, notched and chipped from many battles. Scars ran down his face. His eyes were an ugly yellow. Still, he was stronger and meaner than a raging bull, and such attributes lent him many friends.

  “Knock-knock,” a voice shouted at the door. A group of men barged in, all carrying drinks. They were armed to the teeth, and beneath their ragged street clothes shone glimpses of old chainmail.

  “Put your ale away,” the half-orc said to Melhed. “They’ve already had enough.”

  “Of course, Karnryk.”

  The pitchers of ale vanished, to the groans of the small rabble.

  “Hey, I’m thirsty,” one in particular said, starting after the scrawny man. The half-orc grabbed him, wrenched his arm, and slammed his body to the ground. The man cried in pain, his hand pinned underneath him at an awkward angle.

  “Shut up all of you,” the half-orc roared. “This ain’t the usual crap we go after, so I need all of you sharp. Now spill the beer and listen up. We finally get to do what I’ve always wanted to do.”

  “What’s that?” asked one, sneering at the pinned man.

  “The Eschaton tower. We’re going to make it ours.”

  A cheer rose throughout the men crammed into Melhed’s home.

  “Don’t the Watcher live there,” one man dared ask. Karnryk grinned at him, his eyes filled with anticipation.

  “Yeah, he does, and get ready to collect the hidden bounty. By tonight, every one of us is going to be stinking rich.”

  Another cheer. Karnryk didn’t bother to say he would claim the bulk of the secret reward offered by the heads of the thief guilds. The others would be well off, but nothing six months of binging on ale and women wouldn’t whittle away to nothing.

  “Melhed, did you figure out a plan?” the half-orc asked.

  “It’s simple, but I think it will work,” Melhed replied.

  “Shut up, all of you!” Karnryk shouted. The room immediately quieted. After a gesture to start, Melhed explained the plan.

  They covered themselves with the morning dew and crunched fallen leaves underneath their bodies, while the birds of the forest listened to their moans. When their flame burned out, Tessanna once again bathed in the chilly stream. Qurrah remained in the grass, dabbing a hand in the water.

  “Qurrah?” Tessanna asked, the water up to her neck.

  “Yes?”

  The girl swam away, her eyes never leaving him. “How di
d you know I could heal the elf?”

  The half-orc shrugged, not wanting to spoil the pleasant morning by thinking. “I didn’t. And I did. I’m not sure I can explain.”

  “That won’t do,” the girl said. “You knew somehow, didn’t you? Now tell me.”

  Qurrah glared. “I’m not lying. I don’t know how I knew. You’re different than me, though. I’ve practiced necromancy all my life. Have you?”

  Tessanna lowered her face below the water so that only her eyes peered out. The half-orc sighed.

  “Fine. You’ve been inside my mind. You know what I have done, what I have learned. Where did you first gain access to magic?”

  The girl dove all the way under, turned, and then lunged to the surface, her long black hair flailing behind her, the scattered drops raining down all about.

  “I don’t remember,” she said, her back to Qurrah. “I’ve always known.”

  “Nonsense,” the half-orc said. “What was the first spell you cast?”

  “I don’t know,” she lied. Under Qurrah’s glare, she finally swore and told the truth. “I was four. A kitten died when my father stepped on it. He said it was an accident. I put my hands on it and I healed it.”

  “You brought it back as undead,” Qurrah corrected.

  “No, I healed it,” she insisted. “My first spell was not necromancy. I didn’t delve into that until…” A playful look overtook her face. “Until I had fun with daddy. People starting dying around me after that. After daddy. I hope you aren’t one of them.”

  Qurrah joined her in the water then, taking her thin body into his arms. The girl nuzzled her face into his neck.

  “I could stay with you all day,” he told her.

  “Then what’s stopping you?”

  The half-orc grinned at her, realizing she had asked an excellent question. What was stopping him?

  “Nothing,” he said. Tessanna bit into his neck, hard, yet he only felt pleasure. “Nothing at all.”

  We’re walking a long way to go a short trip,” one of Karnryk’s thugs grumbled. “You think this necessary?”