The Shadows of Grace (Half-Orcs Book 4)

by David Dalglish

  This time there were no cheers or clapping. The angels stood stunned, their greatest fighter knocked low by a mere mortal. Harruq stood, sheathed Condemnation, and then offered a hand.

  “We’re good at adapting,” Harruq said. “You need to remember that.”

  Judarius accepted the hand, but his face was a somber glare as he brushed the dirt and grass from his armor. Blood trickled from his nose.

  “I have much to practice, and much to learn,” Judarius said. “That should never happen again.”

  He pushed his way through the angels, but before he could leave Ahaesarus was there, blocking his way.

  “If we underestimate them, it is always our own failure,” Ahaesarus said. Judarius glanced back at Harruq, shook his head, and then continued on without saying a word.

  “I’m sorry,” Harruq said as Ahaesarus approached and the rest of the angels dispersed. “Didn’t mean to upset him.”

  “Just as we need to learn of you, you need to learn of us,” Ahaesarus said. “We are not perfect. We have pride and anger and doubt like we did when we served Ashhur on Dezrel. Judarius needed a bit of humbling.”

  Ahaesarus led him back to Aurelia and Tarlak, who sat waiting by the fire.

  “Now that was great,” Tarlak said, a giant grin on his face. “You did us human types proud.”

  “We’re but soldiers made for battle,” Ahaesarus said. “So forgive us if your creature comforts are lacking, and the food poor. It doesn’t appear we will catch the demons. If we cannot gain ground, we will slow our pace and link up with Antonil’s army.”

  “It seems that will be the case,” Tarlak said. “Where’d the paladins run off to, by the way?”

  Ahaesarus chuckled. “They are discussing what you would refer to as theology with Azariah. I would stay away if I were you.”

  “Not much for the particulars?” Tarlak asked. Instead Ahaesarus shook his head and patted his sword.

  “Ashhur has given me people to protect and a sword to protect them with,” the angel said. “For me, that is enough.”

  20

  Qurrah hurried throughout the camp, doing his best to find comforts that weren’t there. Pillows, blankets, even torn cloaks would do. He looked wearied and feverish, his skin pale and his shoulders stooped.

  “She still has weeks before she will be give birth,” Velixar said as he watched Qurrah search through their supplies. “There is no need to panic.”

  “The months have been hard on her,” Qurrah said, shaking his head. “Traveling night and day, hanging from the arms of demons, all because we cannot rest, cannot slow.”

  “She is a strong woman. And Veldaren is not far. Just a few more days, Qurrah, she can last that long.”

  “No!” Qurrah shouted. He turned and gestured to the surrounding forest, the trees blooming with orange flowers and thick, wide leaves. “Here. We stay here.”

  The man in black crossed his arms. His shifting face narrowed in the center, as if his entire being were focused where he glared.

  “You will be vulnerable,” said Velixar. “We have not made it this far for you to be ambushed now.”

  “Harruq’s pets are miles away,” Qurrah said. “And it doesn’t matter. Months left or not, our child is coming soon. Tess knows it, and I trust her. Now please, out of my way.”

  Velixar stepped aside. As Qurrah hurried past, Velixar pulled his hood low and looked away.

  “I will be near,” he said. “There is an old altar to Karak a mile north, following the creek upstream. I will pray for you both.”

  “Thank you,” Qurrah said, his entire body sagging as if hundreds of men clung to his back and limbs. “But we won’t need it.”

  The demon army took flight as the sun set, leaving Qurrah alone in the sudden silence. To him, it was a great relief. Solitude was something he craved, and for months, solitude was the one thing he had been denied during their flight across Dezrel. But now they were alone, just he and Tessanna.

  “Finally,” Qurrah whispered.

  Deeper into the forest the trees closed together, as if their trunks and roots intertwined, making them one being. Tessanna lay against one such tree with two trunks, a few thin blankets underneath her swollen form. Sweat poured down her face.

  “Not ready,” Tessanna said as she saw his approach.

  “You will do fine,” Qurrah said, laying a cloak across her body as she shivered in the cool night air.

  “Not me,” she said, then winced as an enormous cramp filled her abdomen. She closed her eyes and clawed the grass. Qurrah watched, a horrible sickness in his chest. His beloved was suffering, and there was nothing he could do to ease the pain. Nothing he could do to quicken the experience. He could only remain at her side, impotent, worthless.

  No, he thought as Tessanna grabbed his hand and held on as if her whole body were falling from him. He wasn’t worthless. He was needed, desperately so. He put both his hands around hers, and when her pain subsided he allowed himself to smile.

  “You will be a good mother,” he said to her.

  “And you’ll be a horrible father,” she said, aware enough in her exhaustion to crack a smile. “Get me something to bite. This is only going to get worse.”

  He found her a stick, used his dagger to carve off the crumbly outer layer, and then handed it to her. She bit down on the center, breathed deep, and then moaned as another wave of pain flooded through her abdomen. Qurrah held her hand, stroked her face, and kept silent, wishing again and again he could ease her pain.

  An hour passed. He checked her only once, and saw nothing resembling a baby. Her cramps worsened, and it seemed she clung to life by a single, vicious thread of pain and determination. Every wave she leaned forward, tears flowing from her eyes as she moaned and screamed and pushed. Every wave he thought she would die, her tiny frame breaking under the stress. But she was strong, so much stronger than he had ever given her credit for.

  Another hour passed. He checked her, and saw what he thought was a head. He kissed her fingers and told her.

  “I know,” Tessanna said between deep, labored breaths. “I can feel her when I push.”

  “Her?” Qurrah asked, a tiny smile pulling at his lips.

  “I know it’s a her,” she said, leaning back and trying to relax even as her lower back throbbed in agony. “I just know.”

  The night deepened. Every few minutes her screams pierced the silence. Tessanna felt the baby’s shoulders push through. The pain was beyond immense. The pain was everything. Blood poured out of her. Qurrah knelt at her feet, a blanket in his hands. She had to be close, she had to be. Her body couldn’t take anymore. She felt herself tearing. The contractions worsened. She pushed and pushed.

  “Get it out of me,” she sobbed, her dark hair matted to her face.

  “One more,” Qurrah said, same as always. “Just one more.”

  She gave him one more. She pushed, and Qurrah cried out as he saw the child’s head push through. Fluids rushed over his hands, but he didn’t care. He grabbed the little form and pulled.

  “A girl,” Qurrah said as he lifted her to his chest. The forest turned silent but for Tessanna’s gasps of air. The silence turned cold.

  “Qurrah?” Tessanna said, trying to sit up but unable to muster the strength. “Qurrah? Say something!”

  The child wasn’t moving.

  Qurrah used his dagger to cut the umbilical cord, then dropped it. He put his finger into the baby’s mouth, clearing out what he could see, but it didn’t matter. He held no life. He held a shell. He stroked the girl’s face with a trembling hand. Her eyes were closed. Her nose was scrunched against her face from the birth. Red splotches covered her slimy pink skin. But she was beautiful. And she was stillborn.

  “Qurrah!” Tessanna cried amid a deep sob.

  “You bastard,” Qurrah whispered, tears pouring down his cheeks. “How dare you? How dare you…”

  “Give her to me,” Tessanna screamed. Qurrah wrapped the body in a cloak and handed it
over. Tessanna clung the child to her chest, weeping. Qurrah stood, his whole body shaking, his heart swirling with too many emotions to understand. Above it all, above the pain and the betrayal, he felt anger.

  “He promised us a life,” Qurrah said. “He promised.”

  He gestured to their child.

  “Is this the promise of Karak?”

  “Don’t leave me,” Tessanna said between wracking sobs. “Please, don’t leave me.”

  He knelt beside her, and into his pale, shriveled hands he took the baby’s small fingers. The pain inside him seemed unbearable. The sense of loss, beyond anything.

  “What have I done to you, brother?” he dared ask. “Is this it?”

  He stood. Tessanna lay there, blood pooled about her as if she were some sacrificial offering to a craven deity.

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded.

  “He promised,” Qurrah said, stumbling north. “I have to.”

  The forest was red to him. Red with death. Red with anger. High above the stars were drops of blood, like that which covered his daughter, his divine curse. Everything he had done. Everything he had offered and lost. Cruel. Cruel and vicious and horrific. Someone had to pay. Someone had to suffer, as he suffered.

  The trees suddenly cleared, and Velixar waited by a fire amid a circle of stones. He stood, and at the look in his disciple’s eyes he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Qurrah did not answer. Instead, he hurled a bolt of shadow at Velixar’s chest. Stunned, Velixar staggered back as the magic crushed his bones and tore into his rotting flesh. The second bolt, however, he did block, batting it aside with his hand as his glowing eyes glared in the darkness.

  “How dare you strike at me?” Velixar said. “Tell me what happened!”

  “You are a liar!” Qurrah shouted. Purple flame poured from his fingers. Velixar crossed his arms and summoned a shield. The fire rolled across it, unable to penetrate. Qurrah’s whip lashed out next, cracking across the shield with loud sparks of flame. Velixar released his protection, leaped away from the whip, and then clapped his hands. Shadows shot like arrows from the sky, each one piercing Qurrah’s flesh and dissolving into mist that flooded his body with pain. Qurrah ignored it with ease. He had felt more pain that he had ever thought imaginable. A few stinging darts meant nothing.

  He braced his wrists together and stretched his fingers. A solid beam of magic shot forth, sparkling with stars and planets of a lost galaxy. Velixar crossed his arms and raised them high. A wall of stone tore from the ground. The beam shattered it like glass. Velixar rolled, barely dodging the beam, which continued on through several trees, exploding their trunks and burning their leaves. The trees collapsed, and from their branches the grass set fire. Smoke billowed as the two glared, their forms demonic in the flickering red and yellow light.

  “When have I lied?” Velixar asked as he staggered to his feet. “I promised you Tessanna would conceive, and she did!”

  “The child was dead!” Qurrah shouted back. “You promised us a lie. A cruel joke. Everything you are, everything you claim, is a lie or a joke.”

  “I am the only truth this world has ever known,” Velixar roared. He grabbed a clump of dirt and threw it. The dirt melted into a black goop that burst into flame, slamming into Qurrah’s chest with the force of a bull. Qurrah collapsed to the ground, gasping for air and rolling along the grass to put out the fire.

  “What truth do you know?” Velixar asked. “Tell me, oh wise one.”

  “Truth?” Qurrah gasped on his hands and knees. “I know one. My brother loved me, and I hurt him more than I ever knew.”

  “Your brother,” Velixar said, throwing his hands up in disgust. “He was weak, a fool. He turned his back on the both of us, Qurrah, you once knew that as well as I!”

  Qurrah stood and raised his hands high. Spells slipped through his lips. All around the fire grew in strength, fully surrounding them. It was as if they were in their own personal piece of the Abyss, reserved just for them. From within the fire, bones tore up from the ground, the remains of many sacrificed hundreds of years ago in the name of Karak. Gripping them in his mind, he flung them like spears at Velixar.

  Karak’s prophet made a noise akin to a growl as the bones smacked into his face and chest. He pointed at Qurrah, his patience ended.

  “Hemorrhage,” said Velixar.

  Qurrah gasped as a large portion of his chest exploded in a shower of blood. He collapsed to his knees, his arms clutched tight against his body. He tried to cast a spell, but his head was dizzy, his vision blurred through tears and exhaustion.

  “Kill me,” Qurrah said as Velixar approached. “Kill me, and let the weight of the portal crush you as well. I am too damn tired for this.”

  Velixar paused, fighting for words.

  “I promised you a child,” he finally said. “But even I do not hold the gift of life. If it was denied to you, then it was denied to you by Celestia, or Ashhur, not by me.”

  Qurrah wiped tears from his eyes, smearing blood across his face.

  “I will never trust a word you say,” Qurrah said, glaring through his blurred vision.

  Velixar shook his head as he stood.

  “Such a shame,” he said. “Suffer however you wish. This world is almost ended. I have no time for your doubt and self-pity.”

  He turned and walked through the fire, and he was not burned. Qurrah got to one knee, took a deep breath, and stood. His heart pounded in his ears. He wasn’t sure which way was south. He closed his eyes, and in his heart he begged Tessanna to help him. When he looked again, the fire had parted before him. He hurried through, still clutching his chest. He ran past trees when he saw them, and stumbled off of them when he didn’t. His mind was desperate. He had to get to her. He had to hurry.

  When he found her she still held their child in her arms. She was crying.

  “You left me,” she cried when he returned. “How could you leave me?”

  He stumbled to her side, buried his face in her neck, and held on for dear life.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling consciousness fading fast. “Please, Tess, I’m so sorry.”

  And then he saw nothing, heard nothing, but in his dreams, he still felt the pain. It seemed no matter what, he would never escape it.

  He dreamt of their child, never even given a name.

  Qurrah awoke covered with a cold sweat. His chest felt like ants crawled just underneath his flesh, biting and digging. It was still dark, the stars hidden by branches.

  “It hurts to move,” he heard Tessanna say to him. He shifted closer to her on the dirt, resting his head against her chest.

  “We’ll be all right,” he told her.

  “She needs to be buried,” Tessanna said.

  At this Qurrah turned over and looked at his lover. The dead child was still in her arms, completely wrapped in the torn cloak. It was a tiny, pitiful package.

  “I’ll do it,” Qurrah said. He got on one knee, then clutched the dirt as a wave of dizziness assaulted him. He fought it away. So what if he’d lost a lot of blood. He’d lost more before, and he had no time for weakness. He stood, took a few steps away from the tree, and saw a patch of soft earth.

  “I have nothing to dig with,” he said, glancing back to his lover.

  “Your hands,” she said.

  He fell to his knees and started digging. Rocks tore at his soft skin, and his fingernails cracked as they dug into the cold ground. He ignored the pain. At one point a jagged edge of a stone cut into his finger, and as his blood dripped into the grave he found it oddly fitting. At last he stood, curled his arms against his chest, and nodded to the dead child.

  “Give her to me,” he said.

  She offered the bundled cloak, and he took it, sickness growing in his stomach as he felt how little it weighed. Tears ran down his face, along the scars he had cut, determined reminders at how he had sworn to cry no more for his brother, to weep no mo
re for his guilt and his loss. They seemed pathetic now, a ridiculous gesture. He might as well have stabbed himself in the heart.

  Into the ground went the bundle. He returned the dirt to its hole, and all the while his gut groaned with anger and hurt.

  “A fire,” Tessanna said when he finished. “Build a fire atop her grave.”

  He had not the heart to argue or question her desire. He gathered a few branches and piled them together. A simple spell, and sparks flew from his fingers, setting the wood aflame. A shallow grave with a fire for a tombstone. Again, fitting.

  “We have to name her,” he said as he watched the fire burn. Tessanna sat up, dragging her lower body as if she were paralyzed. She scooted back so she could lean against the tree, and as her head pressed against the bark she let her eyes linger on the fire.

  “Teralyn,” Tessanna said, closing her eyes. “My mother's name. Let her die as Teralyn.”

  “She can’t die,” Qurrah said, an ugly frown on his face. “She never lived.”

  “She lived inside me!” Tessanna shouted, startling him. “Don’t you dare say that!”

  He felt foolish and vile. “I’m sorry,” he said. He knelt beside the fire and spread his arms as if he were an offering. The heat washed over him. Silence followed for several long minutes. Any time the fire flickered or weakened Qurrah tossed another branch onto it and showered it with sparks. He had every intention on having it burn throughout the night. He felt he could live forever without sleep. His dreams, he didn’t remember them, but he remembered the horror chasing him when he awoke.

  “What do we do now?” Tessanna asked, breaking the oppressive silence.

  “Velixar lied to us,” Qurrah said.

  “Do we turn against him?” she asked. She bit down on one of her nails and chewed. “He’s powerful. Not as much as he used to be, but neither are you. And if he dies, you die.”