“Ashhur loves you.”
The blood spilled at his feet, melting the snow and spreading a red haze across the hilltop. Jerico felt his hands and legs go numb. Tears ran down his face, freezing hard to his skin. If he ever tried to look away, Velixar was there, clutching his neck with his horrific hand, forcing him to look. A husband and wife, arm in arm, trying to be brave. A wounded soldier, gore covering his armor. One after another, he spoke the words, the conviction in him dying with each cut of Velixar’s sword. He no longer tried to give them his strength. He had none to give.
The line seemed unending. Over a hundred died before him. His words were the last they heard. His eyes were the last they saw. He tried to give them something, a hope to cling to, but instead the words became a death knell. The words felt sick on his tongue, a terrible perversion that pierced his heart.
When Velixar missed a cut, Jerico could take it no more. He fell to his knees and sobbed as the woman collapsed before him, her arms and legs twitching as she gasped in air through the hole in her throat. It took her almost a minute to die, and Velixar made no effort to hasten it. Behind them the line of refugees sobbed and pleaded for mercy. The light in Velixar’s eyes burned brighter.
An old man was next. He wore plain robes of gray, and half the hair on his head was missing, taken by old age. Jerico looked up to him and tried to say the words. Velixar had cruelly told him to never speak a lie, and now he wondered if he could. He didn’t know the meaning anymore. He could hardly tell what he was saying. The old man looked back, and then he reached out and put a hand on Jerico’s shoulder.
“Ashhur loves you,” the old man said, just before Velixar cut him down. The man in black seethed, kicking the body.
“Get him out of here,” he said.
The next was an elderly woman, and the way she looked at the old man’s body she was most certainly his wife. Tears wetting her face, she smiled at Jerico.
“Ashhur loves you,” she said to him.
Velixar killed her as well, this time not with a blade but a spell. She collapsed, her heart bursting. The dark paladins could not carry her away fast enough. A boy with red hair and a shadow of whiskers on his upper lip approached. He’d seen Velixar’s rage, had seen his disapproval. He looked to the paladin and said the only words he could say, the only blow he could strike against his conquerors.
“Ashhur loves you,” he said just before he died.
As did the fourth. And the fifth. The line had seen his torture. They had heard his words. Suddenly it was they offering themselves to him, speaking the words he’d been forced to say, removing the condemnation he’d been forced to give.
After the seventh, Velixar snarled. He’d had enough. Far in the back, several had taken up worship songs of Ashhur, singing them loud with tears running down their faces.
“Kill them all,” he said to his minions.
The undead tore them to pieces. Jerico sobbed amid their shrieks.
“Do you yet understand?” Velixar asked.
“Even in darkness,” the paladin whispered amid his cries. “Even in darkness…”
Velixar didn’t understand, but he knew he’d brought Jerico to the very edge, then somehow lost him.
“Burn the rest of the city,” he said, turning away from the carnage. “All but the bodies. Bring them to me. I have need of them.”
“Ignore that order,” Ulamn said as he landed with a heavy gust of wind. “We will need the supplies within, as well as maps. Besides, my men would appreciate a roof over our heads while we ponder our next move.”
Velixar waited a moment, the silence thickening as he stared at the powerful war demon.
“So be it,” Velixar said. “Leave them where they lie. I will summon the dead myself. Stay the fires.”
Jerico sat up as several more demons landed, their weapons dripping blood. Tessanna put her hand on his and glared at the rest, as if reminding them that the paladin was hers and hers alone.
“Your orc approaches,” one of the demons said, his deep voice full of contempt.
“Then leave me alone to greet him,” she replied. Ever since Velixar’s display, she had grown somber and quiet, and when she spoke her voice quivered. “You have your orders. Go pillage and rape and do whatever it is you do.”
Velixar was long gone by then, walking toward the conquered city with a trail of undead behind him. They were alone, the demons and Tessanna. The thickness of the air refused to thin. Jerico squeezed Tessanna’s hand and then stood. The demons bristled, and one laughed.
“Does the paladin seek death?” the war demon asked.
Tessanna’s eyes flared wide, but Jerico shot her a look. Her face darkened, and she lowered her face so her long black hair fell across her eyes. Her tongue stayed still.
“You seem so eager to kill me,” Jerico said. “So much for war. You’re cowards, vultures. Where is my armor? Where is my mace? Would you butcher a child and then shout your victory to your kin?”
The demon pointed his bloody sword toward him, the tip hovering an inch before his neck.
“A paladin of the coward god is always a treasured kill,” the demon said. “You seem to have lost your allure as a pet. The girl no longer cuts you at night. Or does she do other things? Has she found better way for you to entertain her?”
Jerico let a smirk curl his lips.
“A treasured kill,” he said, ignoring the latter comments. “So apt to describe yourself as well.”
He stood to his full height. He stretched out his arms. Even though the sword tip hovered before him, he showed no fear in his bloodshot eyes. His face was wet with tears, yet still Jerico smiled.
“Strike at me, you’ll die,” he said. “You have your orders. Be gone from us.”
The demon looked from Jerico to Tessanna, and he saw the swirling frost that surrounded her fingertips.
“The girl has stripped you of your pride,” the demon said. “You are just a dog. One of these days, it will be the master that kicks you dead, not us.”
They took flight toward the ruins of Kinamn. Jerico let his arms fall, and he closed his eyes to hide his weakness. He had almost hoped for death. After that day, he felt ready for it. Footsteps approached, he heard them clearly, and it took little guess to whom they belonged.
“What nonsense was that?” he heard Qurrah ask.
Jerico felt the leathery whip lash out and wrap around his neck. So far the fire remained dormant, and he kept his eyes closed and his body still.
“The demons grow bolder,” Tessanna said.
“Come,” Qurrah said. “We must set up camp within the castle. I will not be left out of their plans. They will not diminish my role so easily.”
“You’re just a damn doorway to them,” Tessanna said. “They’ll ride you like a horse until your legs break and your sides burst. They’ll expect me to dance on your corpse, but they’re fools, all of them. Fools.”
The bitterness in Tessanna’s voice startled Jerico’s eyes open. The whip slid free from around his neck, for Qurrah was just as surprised and confused.
“We must go,” Qurrah said, clearly unhappy Jerico was there to witness their conversation.
“No,” Tessanna said. “I will camp here. Jerico too. Stay here with me or go to the castle. Where is it you belong, my lover?”
Qurrah’s lip curled into a sneer.
“Sleep well on the grass,” he said. Furious, he started to say more, then stopped and stormed back toward the city. Jerico watched him go, a numbness coming over him. He sat on his knees and wiped the tears from his face. He looked to the great pile of carcasses left Velixar, their bodies so mangled and torn they were useless as undead. He felt oddly detached now, as if the trauma had shaken something loose in his head. One day it would hit, overwhelm him, but for now he felt so terribly numb.
Tessanna sat next to him and took his hand again. His wariness returned, for he knew what she wanted of him, but for the moment she only held him tight. If she were drowning and he
were offering her safety she might not have gripped any harder.
“I don’t hate you anymore,” she said. “Do you care?”
He said nothing, so she continued.
“I tried so hard. I still want to hate you. I thought nobody could be so perfect. You held on against my touch, my pain, my knife. It seemed nothing could break you, but something finally has. Do you know what broke you, Jerico?”
“What?” he asked, his throat dry and his skin cold.
“Your love broke you,” she said. “For the ones that died before you. People you didn’t know. People you couldn’t help. People doomed to die. You loved them anyway. I don’t know about Ashhur, I don’t know if he loved them before Velixar’s sword fell, but I know you did. You loved, and loved, until it was ready to break you, until you were on your knees sobbing, your mind a shell drained dry. I know that feeling, gods I know, I know it… I know it…”
She leaned closer to him, her forehead resting against his neck. The first of many sobs broke loose from her lips. For a long while she cried, her tears wetting his neck. She never tried to speak. Gently he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close. At last her tears slowed, and she sucked in weak gasps of air.
“I’m so tired,” she cried. “It hurts so bad, but I try to keep together, to be whole for him. I must be strong. I can never be weak, not with him. He’ll break without me. But you’ve never cared. You broke loving them, and then were made whole when they loved you in return. I’ll never be made whole. I’ll never be good enough. Mother will crush me, the gods will forsake me, and Qurrah will forever blame me.”
Jerico struggled with what to say. So much of her struggle was beyond him, but her grief was real enough. He offered the only thing he knew he could give.
“I could pray for you,” he said, his voice a whisper.
She leaned away from him, sniffing and rubbing her nose with her arm.
“No,” she said, looking so sad and terrible and beautiful. “Not for me. For my daughter. For Teralyn.”
Jerico opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He nodded. Slowly Tessanna leaned closer toward him. Her fingertips traced along his arm, then wrapped about his neck. Her head tilted. Jerico closed his eyes. Gently her lips pressed against his, and as his mouth opened he felt her tongue pressed between his teeth.
The kiss ended.
“I’m scared,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I should hate you. I don’t, and that scares me so much, so very much…”
“This is wrong,” Jerico whispered back. “You have to know that.”
“I do,” Tessanna said. “I don’t care.”
She sat atop him, her legs straddling his waist. Her arms encircled his neck. Jerico tried to remember the wild look in her eyes, how she’d thrust her dagger into his flesh, how she’d twisted and cut and bled every bit of pain out of his body. The memories were dull, like his flesh to the snow.
“I need comfort,” she whispered. “Qurrah judges me, but you don’t judge, you don’t hate, you’ve loved me all this time and now I want to love you.”
The vows he’d made screamed protest in Jerico’s mind. Love. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know.
Damn it all, Jerico thought. Stop yourself, Jerico. Stop yourself. Stop. Now.
He didn’t. Arm in arm, she gently rocked back and forth. Tessanna laughed as she cried. At his climax, she gasped openmouthed, then smiled as the tears curled toward the edge of her lips. Jerico gently lifted her off and fixed his clothes. He sat hunched over, as if a great burden sat upon his shoulders.
“Never again,” he said, refusing to look her way. “We can’t do this ever again.”
“You know you will,” she said. “With you, I’m…”
“No,” he said. “Just stop. I can’t do this. I can’t fail you like this. I’m sorry, Tess. I’m so sorry.”
No matter what she said, he kept his eyes to the ground, and long into the night he stayed awake and miserable, staring at the fires burning in the conquered city, for once feeling like he deserved the miserable cold as more snow fell from the sky and bit into his flesh.
They stayed a week, gathering supplies and setting up a small garrison to hold against any of the rival lords that still remained in the land. Fresh with rest, food, and sleep, the army marched out of Kinamn, once more giving chase after the remnants of Neldar.
8
It seemed years since Qurrah had looked upon the gods’ bridges, but there he was, standing before the simple but elegant structure spanning the Rigon River. He and Tessanna had been alone then. No army, no Velixar, no priests or gods. Just the two of them. They had been cold and hurt, the death of Aullienna still a fresh wound on both their souls, but with each other to hold, they had survived the pain.
“Would you even let me hold you now?” he wondered aloud. The rest of the army still slept, the sun having not yet banished the stars and moon. Whatever closeness he had with Tessanna was gone. Something was in the way, and he needed to figure out what. Was it something he had said or done? Was it the paladin?
“Solitude is often the best way to solve one’s problems,” Preston said, approaching from the direction of the slumbering army. “But discussing them with friends also helps.”
“I would hardly call you friend,” Qurrah said, pointedly keeping his stare locked on the bridge. “I hold better friendship with the worms beneath the soil, Preston.”
Preston chuckled, not bothered by the refusal to use his adopted name.
“You don’t like me. Fair enough. Your loyalty to Velixar is near unshakable. I understand, I really do. For years we treated a single message from him like the divine word of Karak himself.”
“I was his apprentice,” Qurrah said. “And I assure you, Karak speaks through him.”
“How do you know?” Preston asked. “He has set himself as ruler of an army that will soon crush all resistance. If he closes the portal after Mordan’s destruction, who will stop him from emerging King of all Dezrel?”
Qurrah crossed his arms and glared.
“You’re a fool if you think that is what he desires,” he said. “Why are you here?”
“The paladin,” Preston said, glancing back to the camp. “He still lives. We both know he should have bled out months ago.”
“He keeps Tessanna happy,” Qurrah said.
“I’m sure he does,” Preston said with a smirk.
“What are you implying, priest?” Qurrah asked, his hand gripping the handle of his whip.
“I have watched carefully,” Preston said. “And they are often alone. Very often. Why is it you no longer sleep at her side, Qurrah? Is it because someone else has taken your place?”
The whip lashed the ground, erupting in flame. The half-orc’s look promised death.
“You insult me with your insipid logic and blatant lies,” he said. “The maggots in the fields hear Karak’s word more clearly than you. There is more wisdom in a pile of shit. Be gone from me, or I will tear the bones from your flesh and cast them into the river.”
Preston laughed.
“Such anger,” he said. “Is it all for me?”
Qurrah watched him return to the camp. His whip burned the cold earth, charring black the remaining bits of grass. His entire insides heaved and spun. The idea of losing Tessanna to another man infuriated him. He had avoided the idea, but now it was in the open and he could not deny it. He was losing her. Just how far from him she was, he didn’t know.
He put away his whip, hoping Karak’s vengeance would soon fall upon Preston. If it didn’t, then he himself would have to bring forth punishment. First, he needed to make things right with Tessanna. He hurried back to their camp, where Tessanna huddled before a fire on the outskirts of the encampment. Jerico slept next to her. The very sight of him so close to her filled his heart with jealousy.
“Morning, lover,” she said, no emotion in her voice.
“It is time,” he said, pointing to the paladin. “He needs to be dealt wit
h, one way or the other.”
Tessanna drew her knife and twirled its point against her finger.
“Are you telling me what to do, Qurrah?”
The half-orc snarled.
“Damn it, Tess! Why are you doing this? Why do you keep him alive?” His voice softened. “What does he offer you that I do not?”
At this, she tilted her head and stared as if perplexed. She seemed completely unaffected by his rage.
“He speaks of things I’ve never believed,” she said. “He offers things I don’t understand. But I want to break him, make him as I am. And I intend to take pleasure in the making.”
“You’ve slept with him,” Qurrah said, quieter. In the silence that followed he begged for denial, firm and sincere. But Tessanna would not give him even that.
“Does it matter if I did?” she asked. Still apathetic. Still emotionally dead. Qurrah could not take any more. He knocked the knife from her hand, grabbed her by the neck and lifted her to a stand.
“Don’t you dare treat me like this,” he said, his face inches from hers. “Not after all we’ve lost for one another. The sacrifices we’ve both made.”
There was a time she would have been excited by such a display of domination and power. But not anymore. Anger flared in her eyes, and rage replaced apathy.
“Let go of me!” she shrieked. Her hands slammed against his chest, magical strength flowing through them. He dropped her as pain spread throughout his body. He doubled over onto his knees, unable to stand. Tessanna’s whole body shook as if unable to contain her emotions.
“You’re weak now!” she screamed. “Look what Karak has done to you! Your skin sags, your hair grays, and your eyes sink like stones. You are not my Qurrah. You are a shell. Even worse, you bastard, you think it my fault. Either accept your sins or deny them. Do not bear the burden and then cast the blame to me!”
She licked her lips and pointed at Jerico, who still slumbered. She had cast a spell upon him, and knew he wouldn’t wake for another hour.
“He is but a plaything to me. He gives me comfort. I am yours forever, Qurrah. I bear your child! Why is that not enough? Why am I never enough?”
The Half-Orcs: Books 1-5 Page 108
