FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Never,” he said, “could I have imagined it so beautiful.”

  An hour before dawn, the city’s soldiers cornered and killed the last of the orcs. The Tun brothers were not there to watch, for they had snuck back to the outer wall at Qurrah’s insistence.

  “I know his plans,” Qurrah whispered as they stared across the open grass and the arrow-pierced orc bodies that covered it. “He is familiar to me, though I know him not.”

  “He isn’t your former master, is he?” Harruq asked as he adjusted his newly acquired swords. He had taken a belt and some sheathes from one of the dead bodies, but he was having a devil of a time getting them to fit correctly.

  “No,” Qurrah said. “He is dead. I killed him. Whoever this is, he is someone else. Someone stronger.”

  He pointed into the darkness.

  “There,” he said. “He returns.”

  Robed in black, the figure approached unseen by the guards. He lifted his hands, which shone a pallid white in the fading moonlight. So very slowly their color faded, from white, to gray, to nothing, a darkness surrounding and hiding them.

  “What’s going on?” Harruq asked. He pulled one of his swords out from its sheath, pleased by the feeling of confidence it gave him. Qurrah said not a word. His eyes were far away, and his lips moved but produced no sound.

  “Qurrah?” Harruq asked again. “Qurrah!”

  He struck his brother on the arm. Qurrah jolted as if suddenly waking.

  “The dead,” Qurrah said. “They rise.”

  Sure enough, the arrow-ridden bodies stirred. As if of one mind, they rose together, ignoring any injuries upon them. Some hobbled on broken legs while others shambled with twisted and mangled arms. The brothers watched as hundreds more lumbered through the still-broken southern gate. A few belated alarms cried out from the exhausted guards, but they were too few and too late. Unencumbered, the horde of dead marched out to where the necromancer extended his arms to embrace them.

  Harruq and Qurrah watched until the sun rose in the east and all trace of the necromancer vanished.

  “What is it he wanted?” Harruq asked, breaking their long silence.

  “More dead for his army,” Qurrah surmised.

  “No,” Harruq said. “With you.”

  Qurrah nodded, knowing he disrespected his brother to think he might not have noticed.

  “He wanted my name,” Qurrah said. “I did not give it. I have served a master once. I will not do so again.”

  Harruq frowned but said no more. Together they climbed down from the wall and returned home.

  Home to the two half-orcs was in the older, mostly abandoned southern district of Veldaren. Those with wealth had drifted northeast, closer to the castle and away from the busy streets and markets. When King Vaelor had ordered all trade to come in through the western gate, and not the south, it had been the final nail in the district’s coffin. The homeless, hungry, and destitute flooded the rows of abandoned buildings, clawing them away from their legal owners with their very presence, or sometimes their murders.

  Harruq and Qurrah played that game well. They had grown up on the streets of Veldaren and fought for every scrap of food they’d eaten. They had punched and kicked for every soft, dry bed. Then, one day, they finally killed.

  “A fine home is any home that’s yours,” Harruq said as he forced back a couple planks sealing a window. “Ain’t that right, Qurrah?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Once the window was unblocked, the two climbed in. They lived in what had once been a large shed. The door was still boarded shut, but the window, well...

  For two such as they, windows worked as well as doors.

  They sat diagonally of each other so they had room to stretch their legs. Harruq unhooked his belt and placed his swords in a corner, brushing their hilts against his fingertips.

  “I want to learn how to use them,” he said. “Think anyone will teach me?”

  Qurrah laughed. “You’ll find plenty who’ll teach you how to die by one,” he said. “I’m not sure about the other way around.”

  Harruq shrugged. His mind kept replaying the fight with the orc. Untrained and unprepared, he had still won. What could he accomplish with training? How many might fear him if he had skill to match his strength and steel to match his anger?

  “I know of a way,” Qurrah said, pulling at one of many loose strands of his robes. “A way for you to practice. You saw what I did with that dead body.”

  Harruq nodded, disturbed by the hungry look in Qurrah’s eyes.

  “I did,” he said, “and it scared the abyss out of me.”

  Qurrah dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “With exposure comes understanding. I am always in control, so don’t fear what I do. But I must learn, Harruq. I have no school, no teacher, nothing but scattered memories of my wretched master when I was nine. Nevertheless, death... death has a way of teaching us things. I can sense its power so clearly in its presence. I need it. You must give it to me.”

  Harruq crossed his arms and stared into the corner.

  “People die every day here,” he said. “Shall I find their bodies and bring them to you?”

  “For now,” Qurrah said. “Yes. If the death is fresh, the power should still linger.”

  Harruq reached out, grabbed his brother’s wrist, and clasped his hands in his.

  “I won’t like it,” he said. “But I’ll do it for you.”

  “We are better than them,” Qurrah said, standing so he could look through the cracks of the boards across the broken door. “Stronger. Life is for those who take it. I need you to understand this, brother. Together, we can become something great.”

  “Like what?” Harruq asked. “What can we become?”

  Qurrah’s eyes twinkled, but he said not a word.

  Guard captain Antonil marched through the street, leading fifty of his men marching in perfect union. His face was a portrait of stoic calm, but it was all a lie. His heart was troubled and he had not a soul to tell why. He held a proclamation of King Vaelor to the entire nation of Neldar. He had argued as best he could, but his words meant little. When Antonil asked that someone else deliver the proclamation, a frown had crossed the king’s smooth face and he had slammed his lotioned hand against a table.

  “It will mean more coming from you!” the king had shouted. “They will know the seriousness of my order. I will not be flooded with spies, treated like a mere peasant, and then insulted by such blatant snubbing of my humble call for aid. Let them know I am king, my dear Antonil. Make sure they know.”

  Antonil halted at the center of Veldaren where the four main roads of the city interconnected and a large marble fountain towered over all. Not bothering to call for silence or attention, he unrolled the scroll and shouted its edict. Because of his rank, the troops in attendance, and the overall respect given to the man who had engineered the city’s successful defense only days before, he was quickly given a respectful silence.

  “By order of the King, all elves are to be removed from Neldar lands. They shall not travel within our cities, live in our settlements, or trade with our people. They are banned in all possible sense of the word. They have abandoned us, so let us abandon them. These are the words of your King, Edwin Vaelor, and may they never be forgotten.”

  Antonil closed the scroll and then nodded for his soldiers to return to their post. Holding in a curse, he headed to the royal stables. He needed to speak with Dieredon and personally break the terrible news.

  Qurrah smirked as the guard captain hurried away.

  “Elves banned,” he said to his brother. “Amusing, though unnecessary. Only handfuls live within these walls, and they are just diplomats and messengers. Our king is a spiteful, paranoid one.”

  “Not my king,” Harruq muttered loud as he dared. He meant to say more but stopped as another man neared the fountain. He was large, well-muscled, and scratching at a long beard that stretched down to his belt. In a massive voice, he shouted to
the mulling throngs.

  “The royal guard is in need of able-bodied men to help rebuild the walls of the city,” he shouted. “The work will be hard, but we offer a threepence of copper a day. Come to the castle and ask for Alvrik.”

  He repeated the message three more times and then wandered back north.

  “A threepence,” Harruq said. “We could eat well for weeks.”

  “The king must be desperate for workers,” Qurrah said. He raised an eyebrow at his brother. “I take it you’re interested?”

  “I’m strong enough for whatever they want from me,” Harruq insisted.

  “We have no need for money.” Qurrah reminded him. “We take what we need. We always have.”

  “My days are spent in boredom and you know it,” Harruq said. “How long will they offer that much coin?”

  Qurrah popped his neck, wincing as he did. “So be it,” he conceded. “Take the work…if they’ll take you.”

  This put a bit of a damper on Harruq’s enthusiasm.

  “Course they will,” he muttered, his frown betraying the confidence in his voice. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Alvrik,” Harruq muttered as he approached the giant double doors leading into the castle, which were flanked on each side by two soldiers. “Avrik? Alrik? Avlerik? How the bloody abyss did he say his name?”

  He stopped when he realized the soldiers were staring at him with none-too-happy looks on their faces.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, doing his best to smile. “I was looking for, er, Alvrik. He was just in the center of town, and...”

  “Does the orcie want some money?” one of the guards asked. He jabbed his elbow into the soldier next to him as both laughed in Harruq’s face.

  “Just want some work,” he grumbled, his deep voice almost impossible to understand.

  “Head around back,” one told him. “Alvrik will be waiting.”

  “That’d be west,” said the same rude guard. “You know which way west is, right?”

  Harruq’s hands opened and closed as he imagined his swords within them, ready to butcher for blood while the soldier proceeded to say the word ‘west’ as long and drawn out as possible.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled and hurried off.

  Accompanied by a young man scribbling on a sheet of parchment, Alvrik sat at a small table in front of a group of people waiting in line to address him. Harruq slipped into the back and tried to calm down. Never before had he done anything like this. He had stolen food, fled from guards, lived in poverty, and kept to himself. For he and his brother, that was life. What the abyss was he doing asking for work?

  A swelling of nerves in his gut almost forced him to leave. Several men in front of him turned away, dejected or angry. He didn’t hear the reasons why and didn’t want to know. The idea of so much money, more than enough to buy warm food and clean drink, kept him there. At last it was his turn, and he approached the table where Alvrik sat chewing on a piece of bone long since void of meat.

  “You,” he said before Harruq could mutter a word. “You don’t look like all the others.”

  “I’m not like the others.”

  “That so?” Alvrik’s face hadn’t changed in the slightest. “Tell me why.”

  “Stronger,” he said. “Tougher. Whatever work you got two men doing, I can do alone. Whatever hours you got them working, I can do double.”

  “A large boast,” Alvrik said. He took the bone out of his mouth and pointed at Harruq’s ears. “You got orc blood in you.”

  “I do.”

  “Will that be a problem?” Alvrik asked.

  “Up to all the others you hire,” Harruq said. “But I’ll be fine. I don’t start much, but I always finish.”

  Alvrik laughed. He nudged the man next to him, who grabbed the quill.

  “Give me your name,” he asked, dabbing the tip into the ink.

  “Harruq,” he said. “Harruq Tun.”

  “Well, Harruq,” Alvrik said, slowly nodding his head. “I’ll see you right here at sunrise tomorrow. Got that?”

  Harruq grinned ear to ear, even his nervousness unable to diminish his excitement.

  “I’ll be here before the rooster knows it’s dawn.”

  A sharp pain in his gut dragged Harruq from his dreams. He lifted open a single eye and glared at the blurry image of his brother.

  “The sun is almost up,” Qurrah said, kicking him again. “You need to be as well.”

  “What are you...awww, damn it.”

  He sat up straight and shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz that clogged the vast empty space between his ears. Qurrah helped by offering a third kick, this one right to the kidney. Harruq gasped and staggered to his feet. He was outside their little home in seconds, urinating on the grass.

  “Hadn’t pissed yet,” Harruq shouted to his brother. “You could be a bit kinder, you know.”

  “At least you’re awake,” Qurrah said back. “Now get to the castle. I may not approve, and I still don’t trust them, but for once we might have something worthwhile to eat. I won’t let a simple thing like sleep keep us from it.”

  Chapter II

  MONTHS LATER, HARRUQ AWOKE AT the dawn, jerking upward and uttering a sharp gasp. A constant cry of danger rang in his ears. A quick survey showed he slept alone in their small shed, his brother missing.

  “Qurrah?” he dared ask.

  “Outside,” came Qurrah’s muffled reply.

  Harruq stretched, pushed away a plank of wood from the window, and climbed out. The sun was halfway visible, the standard noises of the city only in their infancy. Leaning against the shed, his eyes staring off toward the sunrise, waited Qurrah.

  “What are you doing out here?” Harruq asked.

  “Did you sense it?” Qurrah asked.

  “Sense what?”

  The smaller half-orc shook his head.

  “If you must ask then you did not, at least not directly, though I did hear you startle awake. Perhaps a fleeting glimpse of it…”

  “Qurrah,” Harruq said, crossing his arms and frowning at him. “What is this about? Tell me.”

  “Remember the necromancer we witnessed at the siege?” Qurrah asked. “It is him. He has haunted my dreams lately, and today he whispered the name of a place I have already researched for my own purposes. I think we are being guided, though I dare not pretend to know why.”

  Harruq shifted, the dark expression on his brother’s face making him uncomfortable.

  “What’s the place?” he asked.

  “It is where our mother came from,” Qurrah said. “A town called Woodhaven. Well, two towns really, Celed and Singhelm. They have since grown together and merged. It is an interesting place, Harruq, where elves and men live together, each in their respective parts of the city. Their tolerance of other races is, obviously, a necessity. I have thought to take us there.”

  “Why do we need to leave?”

  “Your work is almost done,” Qurrah said. “The walls are repaired, and half the men who worked with you have already been cut loose. I, however, have much to learn but cannot do so here because of prying eyes and attentive ears. I need privacy. I need silence.”

  “What for?” Harruq asked.

  “No,” Qurrah said. “Don’t ask when you full well know the answer.”

  At this Harruq nodded. Yes, he did know. Over the past few months, he had killed seven men and carried their bodies to his brother.

  “I still have at least a week,” Harruq said. “Give me until then, alright? We could use the money.”

  “I have saved much of what you earned,” Qurrah said. “We will be able to eat, not well, but enough to live.”

  “If you say so,” Harruq said. “Good luck with your, uh, studies. I have a wall to finish building.”

  “Stay safe,” Qurrah said, offering a small wave as his brother trudged north. When he was gone, the smaller half-orc slipped back into the shed, removed a false floorboard, and grasped a small pouch containing various herbs, bones
, and knives. Reaching back in again, he took out an object wrapped in sackcloth and soaked in blood. A knife in hand, he opened the pouch and closed his eyes. His mind attuned, he carved into the remains of a man’s heart.

  On his way back home, the threepence jingling in his hand, Harruq spotted a patrol of guards approaching. He glanced to the right, where the small alley led back to their shed. If he hurried, he might be able to make it before they noticed…

  He was halfway down the alley when he heard a voice call out.

  “Hey!”

  Harruq kept going. He was used to harassment and verbal abuse from the guards. Once out of sight, though, he was usually out of mind. He relied on that as he turned a corner into the small space around their shed. Qurrah, who had been resting on the shallow grass, hurried to his feet at Harruq’s approach.

  “What is the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing, but you might want to hide in there. Quick!”

  “I will do no such thing,” Qurrah said.

  “I said hey!” shouted the same man. Harruq stepped in front of Qurrah and then turned, staring down a group of five heavily armored guards. Swords and clubs hung from their belts, though a fifth carried a weapon neither of them had ever seen before. It was a wooden stick with a bulbous gem on one end.

  “You stop when asked or pay the price,” said one of the guards.

  “If he can even understand us,” said another.

  “We understand perfectly,” Qurrah said, stepping to one side. “What has my brother done to warrant your attention?”

  “We’re on a quest,” said the man wielding the strange weapon. He had a stubbly beard and a hooked nose with a thick scar along the top. “A great quest from the king, you could say. We’re to rid scum from the city, elven scum. You know what I think? I think elves can look like anything. They’re devious little pricks like that, and you two seem rather ugly and devious, don’t you all agree?”