When he opened his eyes, Aurelia stood, shocked by the red light wafting like smoke from Harruq’s eyes.
“You could never know what I am,” he said.
“I’ve seen what you can be,” she said. “Is that not enough?”
The words stung him. His vision swam crimson. He felt his hands close upon his swords. Perhaps he shouldn’t have saved her. Perhaps he should have left her bleeding upon the ground to die alone and…
“No!” he screamed, flinging himself to his knees. He drew his swords and flung them aside, not daring to have their touch near him just then. Velixar’s voice throbbed in his ears, a chant of promises and loyalty.
“Deny the gift,” Aurelia said, the faintest hint of magic on her fingertips. “Give me some shred of hope.”
He closed his eyes. Tears trickled down his face. He felt the anger growing inside him, but he forced it down. In his mind’s eye, he saw Velixar. The old prophet warned of death, retribution, and pain, but Harruq silenced him. Let the gift be gone. He denied the darkness within him. If this was betrayal, then so be it. He would pay the cost.
Great spasms racked his body. All the power Velixar had granted him fled. His muscles shrank inward, tightening in great, painful shudders. Several minutes passed as the horrendous pain tore through his arms, chest, and legs. Aurelia held him as he lay sobbing in pain. She did her best to comfort him, stroking his hair until all his dark strength drained away. Exhaustion came soon after, and for an agonizing time Harruq lay there, mumbling incoherently and waiting for the pain to fade.
At last, he looked up to Aurelia, his eyes a calm brown, the whites bloodshot.
“I love you,” he said.
Sleep took him, and relieved, Aurelia let her own eyes close and her hair drape across his face.
W ake up, Qurrah.”
The half-orc crept open his eyes to see the thoroughly unwelcoming sight of Velixar frowning down at him.
“Yes, master?” he asked, puzzled, for it was still before dawn. He had slept no more than a few hours, he figured.
“Who is it your brother travels with now?” Velixar asked. “You say he has abandoned you, but to whom?”
“An elf named Aurelia,” Qurrah said as he sat up. He rubbed his eyes, still feeling groggy. “Why do you ask?”
“Because he has rejected us, my disciple,” Velixar said. “His strength has left him. My heart burns with this betrayal, and I must know who to punish.”
Qurrah felt ill at ease. All around him, the sea of undead swayed and moaned as if they shared their master’s anger.
“Perhaps it is a mistake,” he said. “Or he has done so only to keep himself safe. Let me talk to him. He will listen to me; he always has.”
Velixar shook his head and pointed toward Woodhaven in the far distance.
“There is where he left you, and there is where he will regret…Qurrah, look to the sky.”
Qurrah followed Velixar’s gaze, and there in the distance he saw many white objects faintly illuminated by the stars.
“About a hundred,” Qurrah said. “But what are they?”
“Elves,” the man in black said. “And I know who leads them. Prepare yourself, my disciple. I have erred, and now we pay the price.”
Qurrah nodded, then closed his eyes and rehearsed the spells he knew. They were weak compared to his master’s but they would claim a few lives. His whip curled around his arm, yearning for more bloodshed. The white dots in the distance grew at a frightening rate.
“Such speed,” Qurrah said. “How?”
“They are the ekreissar,” Velixar answered. “The Quellan elite are the only ones capable of raising and flying the winged horses. When they fly in, stay low, and aim your spells for their horses. The rider will die from the fall.”
The man in black closed his eyes and spoke to the undead surrounding them.
“Hide our presence,” he ordered. “Spread about, and do not halt your movement for all eternity.”
The two thousand obeyed, scattering in a constantly moving jumble of arms and legs.
“That should help keep our presence hidden for a time,” Qurrah said.
“They are but distractions. The darkness will hide us from their arrows.”
Before Qurrah could ask what Velixar meant, his master was already in the midst of another spell. Inky darkness rose all about his feet, swirling like black floodwaters. Chills crept up his ankles as the liquid darkness grew. Velixar cried out the final words of the spell, spreading the darkness for a mile in all directions, so high it covered up to their necks.
“It is cold,” Qurrah said, his teeth chattering.
“You will not be harmed by it,” Velixar said, watching the approaching army. “With so much hidden, they will be hard pressed to target us among my undead. Hold nothing back. They are here.”
W hat should we do?” one elf shouted above the wind roaring past their ears.
“Rain down with our arrows,” Dieredon shouted back. “Watch for the necromancer. Ignore the undead once you locate him.”
The blasphemous blanket of darkness stretched out below them like a great fog, filled with bobbing heads of Velixar’s army. In that chaotic mass, Dieredon knew the man in black would remain well hidden. Not until enough of the undead had been massacred.
He readied his bow, his strong legs the only thing holding him to Sonowin. Three arrows pressed against the string of the bow, their tips dripping with blessed water. His quiver, as was the quiver of every elf flying alongside him, was filled with water given to them by their clerics of Celestia. When their arrows bit into dead flesh, it would be like fire on a dry leaf.
“Let no life lost this night be in vain!” Dieredon cried as they descended like a white river, raining arrows into the darkness. More than two hundred moving forms halted after that one pass, but a thousand more swayed in their sick, distracting dance.
“One free pass,” Velixar said, observing the flight of elves as they swarmed overhead. They banked around, still in perfect formation, and then dove again.
“Kill them now!” he ordered, his fingers crooking into strange shapes.
“ Hemorrhage! ” Qurrah hissed, pointing at the nearest horse. Blood ruptured from the beautiful creature’s neck. The rider steadied her best he could. He knew his doom, though, for the horse could not maintain flight. They crashed into the inky blackness, crushing bodies underneath before the swarming dead tore them to pieces.
Velixar’s first attack was far more impressive. Bits of bone ripped out from his undead army; femurs, fingers, ribs, and teeth flew into the sky in a deadly assault. The elves broke formation as the barrage approached. The first ten, however, were too close to have hope. Bone shredded wings and scattered feathers. The elves that were alive when their horses landed died by the clawing hands of rotted flesh.
Dieredon looped in the sky, his calm fading at the sight of so many of his friends killed. He fired arrows three at a time, his quiver never approaching empty. He ordered Sonowin lower, shouting out the command as another barrage of bone pelted four more elves to their deaths. Skimming above the darkness, Dieredon fired volley after volley behind him. When they were past the undead, he pulled Sonowin high into the air to observe the battlefield.
The ranks of the undead were half of what they had been, yet still he could not see the lowered black hood he so badly needed to see.
“Come, Sonowin, we will find him, even if it means killing every last one of his puppets.”
The horse neighed and dove, spurred on by the sight of its own kind falling in death.
B ehind you, master,” Qurrah said. He hurried the words of a spell as Velixar turned. An incorporeal hand shot from Qurrah’s own, flying across the battlefield to where an elf dove toward them, arrows flashing two at a time in the starlight. The hand struck the elf in the chest, freezing flesh and surrounding his insides with ice. The flying horse banked upward as its master fell limp into the fog.
“Beautiful, Qurrah,” Velixar said, his red eyes burning with bloodlust. His precious undead were being
