paladin of Ashhur is never such. It is just. It is wise. It is needed.”
Tessanna shook her head. If Velixar was right, Karak was letting Preston roam free to test his priests’ faith. Tessanna, however, could not care less. She hurled a bolt of lightning at him. Preston crossed his arms and braced his legs. Thunder sounded in the valley. The lightning parted, its strength gone. The high priest shook his head.
“You will suffer for such audacity,” he said.
“She will not,” Velixar said, pushing his way through the tested, Qurrah following after. “And you are a fool if you think you have the ability to harm a single hair on her head.”
“You protect her?” Preston asked, incredulous. “After what she has done?”
Velixar frowned. He could see more priests filtering their way through the crowd. For once he was being tested, and not the other way around. Karak’s prophet was far from happy. If he protected Tessanna, even after she murdered several of the tested, Preston would have ample fuel for his rants against him. So be it, he thought. The girl was far more important.
“Jerico is hers to torture,” he said. “He is hers to kill. You had no right to send the tested after him.”
“They did only what they felt was needed,” Preston said. “And to have a paladin survive while surrounded by so many of us faithful is a blasphemy!”
“Blasphemy?” Velixar roared. “You challenge the voice of Karak, then speak of blasphemy? We march to victory, to our god’s very freedom, and you think Karak finds such horrible insult in a broken man shivering in the cold as he pulls a cart like a beaten donkey?”
Qurrah felt his whip writhing around his arm. It wanted blood, and it seemed to share his disgust with Preston. If it ever came to that, the half-orc decided, he would make sure the whip got the killing blow.
“You play dangerous games,” Preston said. He glanced about, making sure enough of his priests were nearby. “And you suffer our enemies to live. You appoint yourself leader without peer, without proof. Perhaps Karak’s voice is not so loud in your ear as it once was.”
“You damn yourself with such words,” Velixar said, his deep voice rumbling with anger. “But how many will damn themselves with you?”
Preston did not answer. He left, calling for his priests to follow. The tested went with him, resuming their songs. Their wild voices chilled even Velixar, for the worship was not to Karak like it should have been. They sang in near insanity, enjoying the power and certainty of their fanaticism. It pained him greatly to think that Karak was not with them.
“He needs to be dealt with soon,” Qurrah said when they were gone.
“You’re right,” Velixar said, pointedly glaring at Jerico. “He does.”
J erico slowly curled onto his side, ignoring the flares of pain in his shoulders. He lay on dying grass, without a blanket for warmth. They were a week out from Veldaren, and after the fourth day, when it became clear he did not have the strength to pull her carriage, she gave him his shirt and granted him permission to sleep beside their fire. His back had been to them, but he was curious about the sounds he heard. Rolling about, he peered through the flames. Tessanna knelt, one hand shakily supporting her body, the other holding back her hair.
“Breathe,” Qurrah told her, who knelt beside her with a hand on her shoulder. “Deep breaths. The nausea will pass.”
Tessanna heaved, but only tiny bits of spittle and acid came out. Jerico frowned, remembering a comment she’d made to Qurrah as they left Veldaren. She was a pregnant woman. He had been so focused on the carriage and remaining silent, he’d let the comment pass right over him, but now he truly pondered its greater meaning. The girl with blackest eyes was with child, most likely the half-orc’s.
How dangerous a spawn, he wondered. But Keziel said daughters of balance never bore children…
He focused, for they were talking again.
“I don’t think it wise to keep him much longer,” Qurrah said when her heaves were gone. Tessanna stared at the earth, her lips quivering and her breathing raspy and uneven.
“What other mode of transport do you suggest?” she asked.
“You have your horse.”
“Too jarring. You know that.”
Qurrah stood, pulling her to her feet with him. “Then have a tested pull your carriage, I don’t care.”
“I don’t like them,” she said. “They’re like dogs with rabies. They’ll bite us soon.”
The half-orc fell silent. So far neither knew Jerico watched, and for that he was glad. Surely one of them would gouge his eyes out if they realized.
“Forgive me, Tess, but you two worry me,” Qurrah said at last. He seemed almost ashamed to admit it. To this the girl crossed her arms and suddenly turned shy and quiet. Jerico had to strain to hear her words over the crackling of the fire.
“He confuses me,” she said. “And he excites me. But he also makes me angry, very angry, Qurrah. I want him to fuck me, and then I want to kill him. He is something that this world no longer needs, and I want to prove it.”
The half-orc swore and looked away. Jerico swallowed, his mouth suddenly very dry. He knew his life hung by a thread, but never realized how fragile that thread was.
“You’re mine, and mine alone,” Qurrah said. “Torture him however you wish, but do not let him take you. Promise me that.”
“I will be the one doing the taking,” Tessanna said, the shyness all but gone.
“Promise me.”
He turned back to her. She met his gaze, unafraid, unwavering.
“I will do as I desire,” she said. “That is all I know how to be.”
Qurrah shook his head and muttered something Jerico could not hear. Still muttering, he left their camp. Tessanna followed, drawing her knife and calling her lover’s name. She was furious, that was obvious. Hidden well, however, was her fear, but Jerico saw a tiny spark of panic when Qurrah had left.
As he was pondering ways to use the situation to his advantage, he heard footsteps behind him.
“Do you now understand?” Velixar said as he sat beside the fire. “You are nothing that you wish to be.”
The paladin remained silent, still holding onto his original plan. Velixar shrugged, not bothered in the slightest.
“You wish to be a light in the darkness,” the prophet said. “But to Tessanna you are a temptation. To Qurrah you are a threat. To the rest in this camp, a nuisance. To no one are you a beacon. To no one are you an example. This is what our world shall be. What role do you have within it?”
Velixar crossed his arms and leaned forward, knowing he would receive no answer.
“I do not share the blind hatred of my brethren, Jerico. You are not an animal needing exterminated. You are strong, intelligent, and carry enormous faith. But you are wrong. When you boil it all down, you are wrong. About this world. About mankind. About your faith. It is not too late to rectify that error.”
Jerico sat up and shifted so that he and Velixar faced each other on opposite sides of the fire. He watched the features slowly change on Velixar’s face, the shifting barely perceptible.
“Your face,” Jerico said. “Is it true, or is it a lie?”
Velixar tilted his head to one side, caught off-guard by the question.
“It is as true as anything in this world,” he said at last.
“Then my faith is no error,” Jerico said, a great weight leaving his chest. “Not if that is your truth. A shifting, liquid truth is something I want no part of. You call me obsolete. You say the world has moved on. So be it, for that means Ashhur has never moved. We moved from him.”
Velixar shook his head, saddened.
“Such faith and wisdom,” he said as he stood. “Wasted.”
He waved his hand and whispered a spell. Velixar’s frown was the last thing Jerico saw before his eyes closed and a deep sleep took him.
J erico endured the following weeks in silence. In spite of the pain in his legs, the ache in his arms, and the hunger in his belly, he no longer felt abandoned by Ashhur. It wouldn’t be long, he thought, before he went home. A few more days of pain were nothing compared to an eternity of glory. The war demons looked upon him with disgust, the priests and the tested with rage, but he endured.
Whenever he pulled the carriage, Qurrah was nowhere to be found, and whenever they stopped, he would
