The Cost of Betrayal (48 page)

It was Aurelia who asked this. Other than worry for her husband, she had revealed little of her opinion on the matter.

“If he’s not wise, then Lathaar might need to fetch that Mira girl to protect us,” the wizard said with a chuckle.

No one laughed.

Q
urrah awoke with the dawn, rising from the warm bed with a ferocious cough. The stolen life had healed much of the sword wound, but the pain and blood remained, clogging his throat. The cold air did little to help. Tessanna stirred, but he kissed her eyes back to sleep. He slipped into Velixar’s robes and pulled tight the sash. Xelrak’s words haunted the morning air.

It may take time, but he will return. Karak has sworn this to me.

Qurrah cinched the robe tighter. Bracing himself, he opened the door to outside. The chilly air swept around his robe, danced about his legs, and crept its way to his arms and chest. He met it head on, not wishing to disturb Tessanna’s slumber. He closed the door behind him.

The earth remained dead all about the home, a gray scar on the orange and red canvas of the forest. Qurrah found comfort in its death.

“I sought you to help my wounded lover,” he whispered to a phantom image of his brother he imagined floating along the wind. Frost punctuated his every word. “And now I return, wounded by you.”

At least one thing had not changed. He attuned his mind to the darker things in life. He could sense death, and the soul he sought was so strong its pull was like a noose around his neck.

“Karnryk.” He whispered the half-orc’s name, having never been told it before. The spirit was so desperate to return to life that it was flooding his mind with memories, the way ghosts haunt old homes, dark caves, and the gallows where souls had died. Karnryk should have known better. He had forgotten Qurrah’s promise to him.

Karnryk’s body was a mess. Something about the cabin scared most animals away, but the carrion eaters were unafraid. Coyotes had consumed his innards. Worms and insects feasted on the remains. His face was puffy, his eyes long gone. To his mild amusement, the corpse’s right arm was gone, most likely as a late meal for a scavenger mutt.

He heard a ghostly wail, and the soft touch of fingers pressed against his neck, chilling his blood.

“You are too late to be brought to life,” Qurrah whispered to the ghost. “At least, not how you wish. My way, however, does not require freshness of the body.”

He spent the next hour carving runes into the dirt surrounding the fetid corpse. Tessanna did not join him. The trials of the past few days had taken their toll, and she slept deep into the morning. That was fine with him. Qurrah preferred torturing in seclusion.

“
Drak thun, drak thaye, kaer vrek thal luen,
” he chanted. “
Kala mar, yund cthular.”
They were the words of his teacher, Velixar, and the unnamed Master. The words made him shiver with memory. The runes glowed, the body shrieked, and Karnryk lived once more, if life was the correct word.

“Stand up,” Qurrah ordered. Karnryk growled. The first tug-of-war match had already begun, mere seconds after being granted life. Inside his head, Qurrah saw a silver thread linking the two. One end wrapped about Qurrah’s skull, the other, Karnryk’s throat. The more the warrior pulled, the deeper the ache, but the stronger Qurrah pulled, the less and less will the undead monster kept. In physical strength, Karnryk may have been the greater, but when matched in willpower, he was by far the inferior.

“I said stand,” the necromancer shouted. The giant, rotting half-orc lurched to attention. Bits and pieces sloshed off him. Qurrah grabbed his head and forced it downward, placing his other hand over the empty sockets. He cast a spell so the undead thing could see, even though the eyes were long gone. This done, he made sure Karnryk watched the rotting pieces of himself fall.

“How was your stay in the abyss?” the necromancer asked.

“I’ll kill you,” the enslaved being growled back. Qurrah chuckled.

“You did not answer my question.”

He sent a mental command to his minion, his will so strong that Karnryk could only obey. He plunged a hand into his ribcage and crushed the remains of his heart. As a rule, undead did not feel pain. Their lungs did not inhale, their hearts did not beat, and their blood was unmoving in their veins. Qurrah, however, had deviated from the original spell. Much of Karnryk’s original self had come back from the abyss, and through magical means, retained the sensations of touch, taste, and smell. Most important of all, he had come back able to feel pain.

Qurrah denied him the ability to scream. He would hate to wake up Tessanna.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” he asked. His mouth pressed against Karnryk’s ear as if whispering sweet words to a lover. “How soft and weak it is? I wonder how many eggs lay inside your flesh. You will find out, in time. Every hatchling will crawl about, blind and rabid for flesh, and they will feast. You will feel every bite. Every burrow. They are in your head, your feet, your chest, even that thing that made you a man before Tessanna mutilated it beyond recognition. Press harder. Mash your heart to pieces. You don’t need it, not anymore.”

He could feel Karnryk’s hatred seething in his mind. He laughed

“A promise is a promise,” Qurrah told the living corpse. “And I keep my promises. Tear out your tongue. I hear you clearly enough in my mind.”

Without hesitation, Karnryk shoved his hand in his mouth and yanked out his tongue. He held it out to Qurrah as if it were a great offering.

“Throw it to the wolves,” the necromancer ordered. “Your jaw next.” Tongue and jaw flew into the forest. Karnryk stood erect, his face locked in an enormous hollow smile. Tiny shreds of his tongue hung from a hole above his neck, coated with dried blood. A tiny bug crawled up, poked its head about, and then crawled back. Karnryk felt every skitter of every leg down his windpipe.

“Very good,” Qurrah said. “I will come for you tomorrow morning as well, and every morning after, until I am sated. Stand where you are, perfectly still. Enjoy the sensations within you.”

The threats ended inside the half-orc’s mind. Pleas and bargains flooded in. Karnryk would kill, obey, serve, anything at all, as long as he was spared the ability to feel.

You will make an excellent bodyguard one day,
Qurrah told him in his head.
But that time is later. You are not broken yet.

A single thought and the words ceased. The link between them broke. All Karnryk could do was follow his order, which chained his will greater than that which chained the moon around the world. He stood perfectly still, even when a swarm of flying bugs arrived, swirling down his nostrils and throat to make gluttons of themselves.

T
he bitter aroma of boiling roots greeted him upon entering the cabin.

“Morning lover,” Tessanna said, her voice calm and quiet. “I’ve made us tea to drink. World’s getting cold, so I made something hot.”

The half-orc ran a hand through her hair before sitting at the tiny table. She retrieved two wood-carved cups from a shelf, pausing to stare at one. A memory of her father sitting by the fire, a knife in one hand and a block of wood in the other, flooded her mind. A shaggy brown beard dirtied his face. Mommy walked by covered in flour. She kissed daddy on the cheek and playfully tugged his beard. The memory was good. Mommy was alive, her mind was one, and father still loved her. A single tear ran down her face. She didn’t notice. One cup she placed in front of Qurrah, the other opposite of him. She took the boiling kettle, stirred the insides with a long wooden spoon, and then filled both cups.

“Did you enjoy yourself out there?” Tessanna asked as she placed the little kettle back over the fire.

“He needed to pay for what he did to you,” Qurrah said. “And yes, I did enjoy it.”

The girl nodded. She sat down, wrapping the cup with her hands and staring into the thick brown liquid. She didn’t sip it, not until Qurrah did. It tasted bitter in her mouth, strong and bitter, but it was good.

“Did you pick the roots yourself?” Qurrah asked.

“Yes.”

Nothing else. Qurrah accepted this, expecting her to remain silent. For once, something weighed upon her apathetic self beyond the tarnished shreds of her childhood.

“I want to see her again,” she blurted. Qurrah sipped a bit more of the tea.

“Who?”

“Aullienna loves me,” she said. Her hands clenched the side of the table. “But she’ll be forced to not love me. They will make her. They will. I won’t let them.”

“You know they will not let us return to see her,” Qurrah said.

“But I have to,” she said. Another tear rolled. “They’ll ruin her. Not like me. A different way. I must see her again, Qurrah, I must! They love her because she is normal, she is happy. They wouldn’t love her if she was like me. They hate me for how I am. They would hate her, too.”

“What are you saying, Tessanna?” Qurrah grew alarmed at how white her hands were. She clenched the table so hard her skin scraped off her fingertips.

“I looked in your book,” she said, her attitude shifting. She turned shy. “I looked at all the pretty runes that make people go crazy. I saw me in them, Qurrah.” She held up her arms. “I saw what I see in me. It will make her like me. They won’t love her when she is like me, and then they will give her to us. I can see her again. And I’ll never stop loving her, not like they will.”

“Show me the runes you saw,” Qurrah said, jumping from his seat. Tessanna lazily pointed to their bed, where the tome lay open.

“It’s the fourth set down on that page. I even read them aloud. They felt right, just right.”

“You read them aloud…but you said you couldn’t read?”

Tessanna giggled like mad. “See? They’re me. How would I know them if they aren’t me?”

Qurrah scanned his eyes over them, instantly recognizing the symbols. They looked very much like those the girl carved in blood across her arms. They were in the final third of the book, and although Qurrah had tested forty forms of insanity, it would have been another hundred before he had reached them.

“You want me to read these to Aullienna?” he asked. Tessanna nodded.

“Please. It won’t hurt her. It didn’t hurt me.”

He felt his gut tighten, and his breath went shallow. “If I do this, Harruq will never forgive me.”

“Will he forgive you now? What do you have to lose? He must be punished, Qurrah. He hurt you. It was all you dreamt about last night. Hurting him. Making him angry.”

She stood from the table and approached, her eyes livid. Life danced in them, more than he had ever seen.

“You can help us all,” she said. “Your brother will learn. The Eschaton will learn. I will have her, and she will love and have me.”

“If I cure your mind, I can cure hers as well,” Qurrah said, feeling his resolve weaken. “I will do no permanent harm to her. Harruq will forgive me, but first I must be stronger to cure you. I need a spellbook beyond the ones I have been given.”

“What is it you need?” Tessanna asked, sliding her body against his. Her hands brushed and caressed.

“Darakken’s spellbook,” he said. “The paladin knows where it is. He can bring it to me.”

“Then let’s do it,” she whispered, nibbling on his ear. “She will be like me for only a little while, and it’s for good, right?”

Qurrah grabbed her wrists and spun, shoving her against the wall. With surprising strength, he pinned her hands above her head. The girl gasped at the sudden force, but it was not of fear, anger, or even surprise.