The Cost of Betrayal (Half-Orcs Book 2) Page 25

Aurelia kissed him on the cheek and glided up the stairs. She rolled her eyes as she reached halfway, for her daughter’s crying had ceased. She certainly did not miss the multiple feedings and the starvation of sleep, but she was starting to understand why so many told her it was the second year to fear. Not to make the trip pointless, she continued on, figuring she could get her thickheaded husband’s swords.

  Her skin chilled when she reached the top. Their door was wide open. Sitting on her knees with her back to the door was Tessanna.

  “Run kitty-kitty,” said the girl in a sing-song voice. “I see a big dog, yes I do. Climb, kitty-kitty, big dog’s coming and he comes for you!”

  Peals of laughter erupted from Aullienna’s mouth as Tessanna tickled her, making funny growling sounds as she did.

  “More!” the little elf girl cried.

  “I see a kitty-kitty, yes I do. Black and brown and a bit of blue. Meow, kitty-kitty, hungry little lass. Chase the mice, chase the mice, aren’t they fast!”

  Aullienna smiled, mimicking gestures Tessanna made with her hands. Her tiny fingers fumbled the movements, but Tessanna would reach out and mold them correctly. She pretended her hand was a cat, and before Aullienna pulled away, the cat pounced.

  “Nooo!” she shouted, her eyes wide as her smile. As she leaned forward, giggling, she saw her mother. “Mama, we’re playing!”

  Tessanna lurched to her feet and retreated away with downcast eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “She was crying, and I thought she was lonely. I’ll go.”

  “No,” Aurelia said, stopping her. “You may stay, if Aullienna wishes. Just promise me you won’t…hurt her.”

  The sincerity in her black eyes was impossible to deny. “Never would I hurt a child,” she said. “Never.”

  “Do you want Tessanna to stay with you a little while longer?” Aurelia asked her daughter. The girl bounced her head up and down.

  “She’s plays. She’s a kitty! Kitty-kitty and a mouse.”

  “The mouse didn’t do a good job running away,” Tessanna said, sitting next to her on the illusionary grass. “She needs to learn. Mice are sneaky.” She acted as if Aurelia were not even there. Her hand crouched and jerked about, accompanied by twitching noises.

  Aurelia watched them play, torn. In the end, she did what felt right. She let them be.

  You wanted to see me, Tar?” Harruq asked, poking his head into the wizard’s room. It had been three days since Lathaar moved in, and with Qurrah and Tessanna also staying in the tower, things had been chaotic. The half-orc frowned when he saw his wife standing next to him, a dark expression on her face. Tarlak looked equally serious.

  “Can you read?” he asked.

  “Long as the letters are big and the words are small,” he said, flicking his eyes back and forth. Neither found this amusing. Aurelia handed him a small piece of parchment. He read it, struggling only occasionally to make out the words.

  Tarlak Eschaton, leader of the Eschaton Mercenaries,

  The formal bounty is already announced, but due to the increasing brutality of the murders, I, Antonil Copernus, Guard Captain of Veldaren and servant to our great King Vaelor, offer an additional seven hundred gold pieces above the current eight hundred if you bring me the culprit known as the Veldaren Reaper. This increase is only if he is alive. He has taken twelve children, cut their throats, and done atrocities improper to list in complete detail. This bounty shall diminish a hundred gold for every body henceforth found in such a manner. I am confident you may stop the loss of life, given the fine skill of your mercenaries.

  Loyal servant of Neldar,

  Antonil Copernus.

  By the time he finished his hands were shaking and the final words were a blur.

  “You think it’s Qurrah,” he said. It was no question. It was an accusation.

  “The night they returned, that very same night, these murders began,” Tarlak said. “And I have spoken with your wife. You and your brother were the Forest Butchers of Woodhaven. The details of the murders, as well as the targets…”

  “Qurrah is killing children once more,” Aurelia interrupted. “Without you, but he is.”

  Blood surged to Harruq’s face, and a thousand thoughts jumbled his mind. He tried to say something, but nothing seemed right.

  “It is without you, isn’t it?” Aurelia asked, quieter.

  “I made a promise,” he said, pieces coming together in his mind. “And I haven’t broken that promise. But Qurrah’s made no such promise, to me or you. I’ll talk with him.” He tossed the paper to the wizard.

  “We need more than talk,” Tarlak said, rising from his chair as the paper fluttered to his desk. “We need guarantees. Perhaps it isn’t him. We’ll be patrolling the streets tonight, just in case. Do what you can. I do not take the death of children lightly, Harruq. I’ve seen what you are now, and any worshipper of Ashhur should know that a man can change. But some don’t.”

  Harruq nodded, his eyes distant. Deep down, he felt a bitter sting. He had changed. He knew he had, and welcomed it as much as he feared it. But he was not his brother. He turned and marched out the door. Aurelia watched him go, sadness in her eyes.

  “Can he stop him?” the wizard asked. When she said nothing, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her much as a father might hold a child. “Things will turn out right in the end. But I will not harbor a man who commits such acts.”

  “He loves Qurrah so much,” she said. “I don’t want him hurt.”

  “Qurrah will hurt him, Aurry. We both know it. All that matters is when, and what becomes of the two afterward.”

  They both glared at the letter as if it were an intruder in their home, bringing only poison and pain. Aurelia flicked her fingers and burned it to ash.

  “We will catch whoever is doing these things,” she said. “And I pray to Celestia we catch a stranger.”

  Tessanna and Aullienna danced together in the grass, playing like neither held a care in the world. Qurrah quietly watched, feeling a tugging on his heart he was yet to decipher. It always hit hardest when Tessanna would scoop the little girl into her arms and share in her laughter.

  A loud bang turned him about. Harruq stormed over, his face flushed. Qurrah stood, preparing for some sort of ill news.

  “Why?” Harruq asked, his whole body trembling with rage. “Why’d you have to continue like this?”

  “Like what, brother?” Qurrah said, his own cold anger growing at the sudden, unexpected attack.

  “Don’t lie to me. The children in Veldaren. It’s you doing it.”

  The necromancer frowned. His eyes narrowed down to thin, serpentine slits.

  “Do you accuse me out of proof or conjecture? I know nothing of what you speak, but your anger is enough. Children have died in the city.” When Harruq said nothing, the half-orc smirked. “I take it their deaths were gruesome? Their entrails smeared across the streets? Any fool can desecrate a body, yet you come running, already judging me guilty?”

  Tessanna halted her playing, watching the two with her black eyes. Aullienna sensed her seriousness and frowned. She tugged on the woman’s dress.

  “Up!” she cried. Tessanna scooped her into her arms, and with tears in her eyes, she held the little girl close.

  “Did you do it or not?” Harruq asked.

  “The question is, dear brother, why do you care?” Qurrah chuckled, the laughter hiding his fury. “Do you suddenly regret all that you have been? Are you now willing to wish death and judgment on one who must kill fifty more children to rival the blood that stains your hands?”

  “It’s not right killing them!” Harruq shouted, his face inches away from Qurrah’s. “Don’t you get it? They’re someone’s son, someone’s daughter, no different from Aullienna! I’d kill any man a hundred times over for laying a finger on her. All that shit about saving them from life’s tortures, and not a word was true. Life is not suffering!”

  “Your life is not suffering,” Qurrah said. “Bu
t there are a million others who live under the same sun who do not agree. You are but a flailing child in this realm, Harruq, and no prowess with blades will ever change that. Your wisdom is like a worm lodged in an oak. Do you dare tell me what is right and what is wrong?”

  “Damn it, Qurrah, just listen!”

  “No!” Qurrah shouted, throwing magical power into his voice. “I will not kneel to my own brother. There was a reason I left this tower, and now I remember why.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” Tessanna said, drawing both their ire. “I like it here. I like Aullienna.”

  “You’re not leaving, Qurrah Tun,” Tarlak said, exiting the tower. “Until I know who this Veldaren Reaper is, you may consider yourself a permanent guest. Surely you understand?” In case Qurrah didn’t, his hand slipped into one of his deep pockets, fingering a sparkling wand etched with sapphires.

  Tessanna sensed movement behind her as she watched.

  “Should this turn ill, I would hate for Aullienna to be hurt,” Haern whispered into her ear. “Let me take the child.”

  Aullienna, who had begun crying, saw Haern and reached for him. Tessanna relinquished the child.

  “Why?” Aullienna asked, her shrieks turning to sniffles.

  “They are hurt,” Haern whispered to her. “For different reasons, perhaps, but the hurt is the same.”

  He took her into the tower.

  “Tessanna,” Qurrah said, drawing the woman’s attention away from the child. “Do you mind the stay?”

  “It is fine,” she said, her voice quiet and uncertain. “I just want to play with Aullienna.”

  “Come inside, then,” Tarlak insisted. “We’ll figure all this out.”

  Qurrah ignored the squirming of the whip around his arm and accepted.

  The half-orc poured over his tome as the stars braved the darkening sky. Tessanna quietly watched him. She did not want to break his concentration, nor did she want his attention. She just wanted to feel his touch against her arm as he read next to her. That was all.

  Harruq poked his head into the room as if he were a robber.

  “We’ll be back before morning,” he said.

  “I hold confidence in your abilities to catch such a madman,” Qurrah said, not looking up from his reading. “Exonerate me quickly so I may leave in peace.”

  “Yeah. Sure thing.”

  He left. Qurrah showed no sign he cared. An hour passed, and like thieves in the night, the Eschaton mercenaries scoured the streets and rooftops of Veldaren, seeking its Reaper. As the hour ended, Qurrah abruptly shut his book and rose from the bed.

  “Where are you going?” Tessanna asked, seeing him pull low his hood and wrap his whip about his arm.

  “I will find this knave whose meddling has turned my brother against me,” he said. “I will return before the others.”

  “Please come back soon,” Tessanna said, her eyes wide. “I can be alone, but right now I don’t want to be.”

  “Aullienna sleeps in the highest room,” he said as he opened the door. “Go to her if you must.”

  He hurried down the stairs and into the deepening night. Tessanna sat on the bed, her knees curled against her chest. She gazed into nothing, for her mind was on the man she had grown to love, if love was indeed what she felt. Desperate for the emotion, she made her way up the stairs, slid open the door, and stepped inside. Stars mimicking the real location of the night sky covered the roof. A soft breeze blew across her skin. Her bare feet brushed the wooden steps to Aullienna’s bed, but she did not go up. Knowing the child was nearby was enough. She lay on her side, her head on her arms, and did her best to stay awake.

  Where is it you hide, fledgling killer?” Qurrah asked as he searched the streets. He closed his eyes, reopening them with a sight known only to those who walked the darkest roads of life. What he saw shook his chest and made his heart stumble.

  COME FIND ME CHOSEN OF KARAK

  COME FIND YOUR SAVIOR

  COME FIND YOUR KILLER

  FOLLOW THE BLOOD FOOL

  COME FIND ME

  Across every wall, this message throbbed in a deep purple. To normal eyes it would be unseen, or glimpsed only in passing and then immediately forgotten. Qurrah saw it. It splattered buildings as if the previous night’s rain had been of blood. More ran along the dirt, crisscrossing in tiny streams that clogged the gutters and merged into great rivers leading west.

  “Fledgling you are not,” Qurrah said. “But I am no fool.”

  He waved his hand and cast a spell. The blood faded, dissipating as if it had never been. The writing on the walls vanished. Only the river remained, for he wished it so. Some illusions did have purpose.

  He dashed down the street, following the river. Haern, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, passed over the area Qurrah had been but a second too late, his eyes seeing only shadow where he would have seen the necromancer hurrying away.

  Seen anything unusual?” Tarlak asked the Tun couple.

  “The time the bodies have been found varies greatly,” Aurelia said. “We must be patient.”

  “Or perhaps he’s just not killing tonight,” Harruq grumbled, his meaning clear.

  “A lack of killing this night does not prove him guilty,” Tarlak told him. “Although it sure doesn’t help him, either. Keep looking. Stick to the poorer parts of town. It seems our killer prefers them as his hunting grounds.”

  They broke apart, Harruq and Aurelia south, Tarlak east. Traveling below them, a shield of darkness wrapped about his body, was Qurrah. He followed the blood river west.

  Nothing marked the alley different from any other, not unless one looked with the hidden sight. Runes marred both buildings beside it. They were ancient symbols of death, hatred, and exile written in an archaic script. The entrance was blocked by a broken cart filled with rotted fruit. Only a tiny gap remained, and Qurrah knew it was made for him. He stared into the unnatural darkness within. Whoever this person was, he had done the killings with purpose, and his gut told him it was to bring them together.

  “I am here,” he said to the alley. “And I fear not who resides within.”

  He entered.

  A waiting man sat before a dead fire. He looked nineteen, twenty at most. His skin was pale and thin. His eyes were the darkest shade of blue he had ever seen. Every feature on his body suggested hunger and suffering. On a healthy man, his nose would have seemed pointed, so in his emaciated state it was jagged and thin. The sagging of such a young face darkened every feature, and placed a visage about the eyes that shrieked hatred and anger.

  “So many years,” the man said. He remained seated, and did not welcome his guest. “Your name. I must know the name of Karak’s chosen.”

  “You have not earned it, nor have you given me yours,” Qurrah said, sensing the shadows swirling about him.

  “I have no name,” the man said, his smile vanishing. “I have lost the honor of Karak’s title. For a time I was Xelrak, death bringer of our dark god.”

  The name turned Qurrah’s stomach. He recognized the name. Velixar had spoken it in purest contempt.

  “You are the one who brought low the Citadel,” the half-orc said. “A puppet of Velixar.”

  The man who had been Xelrak chuckled at the name.

  “I owe much to Velixar, both gratitude and suffering. He found me as an orphan, gave me life when I should have died, and then raised me as his student. Karak’s blessing was greatest then, and I rivaled even Velixar in power.” His shallow face smiled.

  “Your power would have faded the second you turned upon the man,” Qurrah said, enjoying the hurt and anger that flared in those horrific eyes. They looked like dams before a river of insanity, and the years had formed many cracks.

  “What do you know of Velixar?” Xelrak asked. “Did he tell you of his past, of his creation?”

  “I know he died to Ashhur’s hand, and Karak brought him back to serve.”

  “That was hundreds of years ago,” the other necromancer said.
“So long he has walked this land. I have searched for him, but Karak’s whispers are clear. I am not to meet him until I meet with you.”

  “You will never meet him, not until the abyss,” Qurrah said. “Velixar is dead.”

  He expected the man to be shocked, or at least flustered, but instead he laughed.

  “Dead? You think him dead? I dreamt of that battle, half-orc. I saw your cowardice and abandonment. It may take time, but he will return. Karak has sworn this to me.”

  Qurrah’s unease only grew. Something was amiss, and the knowledge of Velixar returning did little to help. He had thought him dead. He had almost wanted him dead. His life with Tessanna happened only because of his passing. What would happen if he returned?

  “Why did you bring me here?” Qurrah asked, wishing to remain no longer.

  “Your name,” the starved man snarled. “I will speak no more until I know your name.”

  “I am Qurrah Tun, now tell me your reason.”

  “Things are rumbling,” Xelrak said. “Rumblings in the realm of gods. You are blind, even Karak’s closest servants are blind, but I have been told. I was his chosen, but I lost my master’s favor. I must regain it.”

  He stood. His robe was identical to Qurrah’s, only faded and filthier. Dark magic crackled at his fingertips.

  “Give me your power, master!” he shrieked and laughed and cried. “Long has been my exile, but let me prove my worth to you!”

  Before Qurrah’s eyes, Karak granted him that very wish. Lightning struck the ground, swarming through the frail form that was Xelrak. Blood and faith mixed, and from the deepest pits of the abyss, magic came forth. The blue eyes shone with power. His smile was of pure pleasure.

  “I have no reason to kill you,” Qurrah said, summoning his own magic in defense.

  “The stalemate shall soon be ended,” Xelrak shouted in triumph. “One of us will lead the world into darkness, Qurrah or Xelrak, and it must be the stronger!”

  A blast of pure raw energy shot from his fingertips, its color deeper than the chasms beneath the world. An ethereal shield spread from Qurrah’s hand. The two spells collided in a thundering clash, known well to spellcasters like the sound of steel on steel was to skilled swordfighters. Qurrah felt his mind bend under the pressure.