“We protect the king, not him,” said another.
“No!” Osric bellowed. “We protect them both. He is just as important, perhaps more. Guard him from the demons’ spears!”
A squad of demons flew low and flung their spears, but the knights saw their approach and shifted their shields together to form a wall. The spears dented the metal, and one splintered through, but none pierced flesh.
“I cannot see,” Qurrah insisted. Two balls of fire detonated among their ranks, his vision blocked to their approach. The knights did their best to give him room. Shadows leapt from his palms, forming nine-fingered hands that grabbed an incoming barrage of boulders, crushed them to small stones, and then flung them into the air. Demons fell, the stones snapping bones in their wings or knocking them unconscious. Qurrah smirked, clearly enjoying the sight of their deaths.
“West!” one knight shouted. Another barrage of spears thudded into their shields.
The undead pressed against the rearguard, who lacked the numbers to fight them off effectively. Without the solid line and barriers to hide behind, the dead gradually pushed them back, clawing and beating the defenders to death one by one.
“How fares my army?” Theo asked. He lay on his back, his arms crossed over his chest.
“They fight bravely,” one knight said.
Osric wished he could say they were winning. The battle on the front was turning against them. The rearguard had begun to crumble. The demons circled, slashing at any vulnerable defender. Only Qurrah kept them safe from the terrible Velixar, and the half-orc’s eyes shone with a feverish madness.
“Unto death,” Theo said, a smile creasing his bloody face. “They’ll sing songs of our stand.”
“If there any left to sing,” Qurrah said. He pointed a finger at where he thought Velixar stood watching the fight. He felt the last of his strength draining away. It’d been too many spells, too little food, too little rest. But if he was to die, he’d give them one last show. One last moment of defiance against Karak and his pets.
“You cherish your demons above all else,” he said. A fireball soared in directly for him, but it crashed against a magical barrier and detonated early. “So let this burn far beyond my death.”
He lifted his arms. The fire on the arches brightened, changed to a deep purple hue, and then erupted before any of the demons could retreat. The fire bathed the heavens. It streaked through the clouds like an army of molten wyrms, searing flesh and devouring wings. The demons fell by the hundreds, the rest retreating. Throughout the display, Qurrah laughed.
“Unbelievable,” one of the knights whispered when the half-orc collapsed beside the king.
“You’re not done,” Osric said, kneeling down beside him. Everything he saw about the man showed he was wrong. His eyes rolled in his head, his countenance hardly alert. His extremities trembled, and a cold sweat bathed his body. Osric clutched him in his arms and held him.
“You must stand,” he said. “You must defend us.”
Fire roared in from the riverside, and unheeded it swarmed over the front line of the defenders, killing friend as well as foe.
“I can’t,” Qurrah whispered.
“You must!”
“I can’t!”
A meteor slammed into the bridge a few yards away, blasting through the stone. A group of men fell through with it, doomed to drown in their heavy armor.
Osric shifted the half-orc’s weight to his left arm, then clasped his hand in his.
“You did us proud,” he said. “Until death, I’ll defend you.”
Qurrah smiled, and it seemed a great weight left his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”
Osric stood and turned toward the front line, which wasn’t much of a line anymore. Men of Thulos rushed ahead, cutting down the defenders. Without their king, and helpless before the steady barrage of fire and shadow that tore through them, they could not continue their stand. The knights gathered tight, and they rallied as best they could. The spells stopped for a moment, and in that reprieve they fought back. Osric himself killed five, building a pile of dead at his feet. They shouted praises to their homeland, daring the mercenaries of Angelport and soldiers of Felwood to charge.
Instead they stepped back, and a man in a black robe approached. His eyes shone red in the darkness of his hood.
“Velixar,” Osric said, and he breathed the word like a dark omen.
The specter lifted its bony hand and pointed. Fire burst from his fingertips, swarming about the knights. Osric screamed as he felt his flesh bubble and peel under the tremendous heat. He tried to stand, to swing at the damned thing that had broken their defenses, but his pain was too great. He coughed, and he tasted blood on his tongue. Again the man raised his hand. Osric glanced back to Qurrah, who knelt beside the king.
“Forgive me,” said the half-orc. Then came the fire, the pain, and then nothing.
19
T essanna staggered across the bridge, pulled along by Velixar’s icy grip on her wrist.
“At last they have broken,” he said, pushing toward the front. “In the end, Qurrah could never withstand my strength.”
She bit her tongue and held in her retort. Velixar seemed far too unhinged to argue with. His eyes flared wide, and the changes of his features advanced at a rapid pace. More than ever he seemed like a monster loosed upon the world, and his touch filled her throat with bile. He cleared his way through, casting fire on the defenders. Her head swam from the heat and the smoke. Horrible as it seemed, she hoped Qurrah was dead. She wanted to find a body, a cold corpse that Velixar could not torture, could not harass, could not try to make her…
But then he was there, kneeling beside another wounded man. Velixar killed the knights with him, and with a wave of his hand, sent his troops swarming past, to overwhelm the men behind.
“Who is that with you?” Velixar asked, tilting his head to the side.
“King Theo White,” said the wounded man. “Go burn in the Abyss, you demon. We crushed your army. We slaughtered ten for every one of us that fell.”
“A king?” Velixar asked. “Amusing. You died for nothing, cretin. And I shall rule in the Abyss, not burn. Perhaps I’ll meet you there in another age.”
He ripped rib bones from a nearby body and flung them through the king’s eyes. The man convulsed for a moment, then lay still.
“You were a fool to abandon us,” Velixar said. “I must say, I never expected such weakness. From your brother, perhaps, but never from you. And those robes? White? Is this a joke, Qurrah? Do you really think they accepted you? You were a pawn for their defense, nothing more. It is easier to have you as a friend than an enemy.”
Qurrah chuckled, but his grim laughter died when he looked past Velixar to Tessanna. Their eyes met. Tessanna felt her heart flutter, and Velixar’s grip tightened on her wrist.
“Don’t,” she said, but it didn’t matter. He flung her to her knees and shoved a dagger into her hand.
“You know what you must do,” he hissed into her ear. “He has abandoned you, and he has abandoned me. There is no place for him in Karak’s world. Cut his throat. Spill his life across your hands. There was a time you reveled in the sight of blood. Remember that. Become that same beautiful creature once more.”
She looked at Qurrah. A thousand emotions swirled within her breast. She thought of his bitter words to her for sleeping with Jerico. She thought of the times they’d shared alone, their lovemaking vicious and desperate. They’d clung to each other through the most horrible of tragedies, and she’d clawed his chest when Aullienna died. There had to be good times, though, moments of sun and warmth. That time by the rose, they’d declared each other husband and wife, more than lovers. Had they lived up to such a promise? Who was she to judge? She’d let Thulos into the world, dooming them all, and why? Because she’d been hurt? Because she wanted to punish Qurrah?
