Weight of Blood

David Dalglish
1

The two brothers were almost to the wall when the skulls flew overhead.

“Make them stop!” cried Harruq Tun, hands pressed against his ears. Beside him, Qurrah Tun stood mesmerized by the sight. Hundreds of skulls bathed in purple fire sailed over the walls of Veldaren like dark comets. They shrieked mindless wails from gaping mouths, voices cold and resonant. A few soldiers fired arrows, but most hid behind their shields.

“Why do you cower?” Qurrah asked, striking his brother on the shoulder. “The skulls are nuisances, nothing more.”

“Sorry,” said Harruq. He shivered as a skull dipped down above them, its shriek turning to chaotic laughter. The sound ran up and down his spine, triggering fear no matter how irrational.

Qurrah watched as if immune to their sound. He was so much smaller than Harruq, his slender body wrapped in rags, flesh thin meat clinging to bone; yet he was unafraid. Shame and embarrassment burned in Harruq’s cheeks. He towered over his brother, his hands beefy and arms muscular. Nothing should scare him. He was supposed to be Qurrah’s protector, not the other way around.

“Where can we climb up?” Harruq asked, hoping to get his mind off the skulls.

“There,” Qurrah pointed. A narrow set of stairs climbed to the parapet and Harruq led the way. The city gates were lost in the distance, city guards clustered about them.

“Look,” Harruq said. “Orcs.”

He spoke the word with an odd reverence, but they both understood. Unlike the humans, the two brothers’ skin was dark and tinged with gray, their ears long and curled to a point. They were half-orcs, tainted blood and condemned for it. The people of Veldaren hurled the word at them like a dagger, but in truth, neither had ever seen a full orc before.

“Now we’ll finally see,” Qurrah said, “what we are, what we are meant to be.”

Thousands of orcs spilled into the west, needing no light to see in the darkness. They howled and cheered, drums and war chants mixing with the shrieks of the skulls. Harruq felt his temples throb. A wail rolled over him as a deathly comet swirled about, spotting the two and eying them like prey. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop from shaking.

“Can you stop them?” Harruq asked, squinting at the sky.

“Perhaps,” said Qurrah, eyes distant and unfocused. “But orcs don’t use necromancy, not if the stories I’ve heard are true. Someone else travels with them – someone who could be strong.”

“When it comes to this mind stuff, no one’s stronger than you.”

Qurrah chuckled.

“We’ll see.”

He closed his eyes, letting his mind sink into the ether. Like scent to a bloodhound, Qurrah could sense the magic flowing all about him. The flame surrounding the skulls flared even brighter, but beneath their tails trailed long threads of silver. When Qurrah looked up, he saw hundreds of the threads twisting and curling together, coiling toward a hidden presence deep within the orc army. Taking in a deep breath, Qurrah pooled his strength and focused on the skull taunting his brother, visualizing the thread, and seeking to sever it.

There was a pull on his chest – the taste of copper on his tongue. When he opened his eyes, the skull fell to the battlements. The jaw snapped and rotting teeth clattered to the streets below.

“You did it!” Harruq picked up the skull, frowning at its ordinariness. With a shrug, he flung it toward the distant army of orcs.

“Not done yet,” said Qurrah, sweat lining his face, his breathing soft and ragged. “There’re so many. So…many…”

He closed his eyes. This time, he didn’t grab just one thread. He grabbed them all. They screeched and twisted in his grip. His head pounded, and the pull on his chest was so great he felt he might pitch over the wall to his death. Qurrah’s well of magic drained at frightening speed. He almost let go, but he thought of his brother, shaking under the spell of the skulls.

No, he thought. Enough. Cease your chatter.

He clutched tighter, the threads braiding into a giant rope in his mind. High above, the skulls quieted, their fires dimmed.

And then the necromancer noticed Qurrah’s meddling. The rope pulled taut and pulsed with incredible energy. Colors swarmed through his mind, dark purples and reds across a canvas of black. He felt his chest tightening, his neck constricting. A scrying eye was upon him, now, and he was losing. It felt like an arrow pierced his mind, and through it, words seeped into his head.

Run. Die. Collapse. Fear. Failure.

An apparition swirled before him, blacker than the shadows, red eyes smoldering. It touched his face with rank claws, turning the sweat of his brow to ice. The arrow squirmed deeper. Qurrah focused every bit of his will upon it, desperately seeking to repulse it. His well of energy, which he’d thought empty, burgeoned and over-flowed. The arrow snapped, banishing the necromancer’s presence, but leaving a solitary impression squatting at the back of Qurrah’s mind:

Curiosity.

Qurrah opened his eyes. He lay on his back in his brother’s arms, yet he didn’t remember falling.

“You’re alright!” Harruq hugged him.

Qurrah laughed.

“He lost,” he said, pointing to the night sky. “And he doesn’t know how badly.”

One by one, the skulls’ fire went out and they fell like morbid hia upon the city.

“Limitless,” Qurrah said, his smile trembling. Blood ran from his nose, and his skin was so pale Harruq could see his veins. “The well is limitless.”

His eyes rolled into his head. Without another word, he collapsed.

He dreamt of fire poured into flesh and a man whose eyes were glass.

Q urrah!” Harruq shouted when his brother finally opened his eyes.

“How long?” Qurrah asked as he pushed himself to a stand.

“Not long,” Harruq said, holding Qurrah’s shoulder to steady him. “The orcs are almost here.”

As if on cue, they heard a collective roar from the south. Harruq glanced at the stairs back up the wall but Qurrah saw this and shook his head.

“We need to get closer to the fight,” Qurrah said, his words slurred. “I need to see him.”

“Sure thing,” Harruq said. “Come on. I have an idea.”

He grabbed Qurrah’s arm and hooked his elbow around it. Qurrah was too weak to complain, so together they ran down the streets. They passed closed homes filled with people praying for safety and victory. Looming ahead of them was the southern gate. Hundreds of soldiers stacked against it, their shields braced and ready. All along the walls, archers released arrow after arrow into the darkness.

“How are we to get closer?” Qurrah asked.

“Ignore them,” Harruq said. “I know what I’m doing.”

He led them into an alley in between several worn buildings made of stone. He stopped just before the next set of homes, for he heard talking. Holding Qurrah back with his arm, he peered around the corner. A soldier dressed in finely polished armor stood with his sword raised in salute. At first Harruq did not see whom he saluted, and then the elf fell from the roof and landed before the soldier.

“An elf,” Harruq whispered, which managed to grab Qurrah’s attention. Now both peered around the corner, curious why such an exotic creature had arrived mere seconds before war.

“Greetings, Dieredon,” the soldier said, pulling off his helmet. He was a middle-aged man with long blond hair and numerous scars on his face.

“Greetings to you as well, guard captain Antonil,” Dieredon said, taking a step back and kneeling. “Though I fear greetings is all I may offer you.”

Antonil pointed to the wall, and he asked something which neither could hear when the orc army shouted another communal roar.

“The ekreissar will not aid you,” Dieredon said when the noise died. He shook his head, and a bit of sadness crossed his face. “We have been forbidden. Ceredon insists this is a minor skirmish, nothing more. We are not the keepers of man.”

“Minor skirmish?” Antonil shouted. “What about the necromancer traveling with them? You’re the one that said he was dangerous, that he might be…”

Another communal roar, even closer.

“I know,” Dieredon said. “Forgive me, Antonil. I will watch, and I will pray. Whoever started this war will not go unpunished.”

The elf whistled, and to the brothers’ surprise, a winged horse landed on the rooftop of a nearby home. Its skin and mane were sparkling white. Dieredon bowed one last time and then leapt into the air, using the ledge of a window to swing himself up to the roof. He mounted his horse, patted her side, and then took off into the night.

“Damn it all!” Antonil shouted, striking the wall with his mailed fist. Still shaking his head, he stormed back to the gate, muttering curses.

“What was that all about?” Harruq asked.

“King Vaelor asked for aid and the elves declined,” Qurrah said, chuckling. “The King’s pride will not take too kindly to that.”

“He and his pride can suck a rotten egg,” Harruq said. “Hurry or we’ll miss the battle.”

He pulled his brother down the alley to where a tall, crumbled house leaned near the wall.

“Onto my shoulders,” Harruq said, grabbing Qurrah’s knees and hoisting him high. Qurrah latched onto the roof, paused, and then stepped onto Harruq’s shoulders. The extra height boosted his head and chest above the roof, and flailing momentarily, he climbed all the way up. Harruq clapped for him, and he smiled at the next roar from the orcs. It was a goofy smile, and Qurrah recognized the fear hiding behind it.

“Hurry,” Qurrah said as Harruq climbed his way up, using a windowsill as a foothold. Together they stood upon the roof and gazed over the wall, mesmerized by the sight they saw. Hundreds and hundreds of orcs charged, mere seconds away. None carried torches. Their race could see as well in night as in day. That same racial ability allowed the two brothers to watch the orcs approach. Their bodies bulged with lean muscle and their pale gray skin glistened with sweat. Some wore mismatched armor, though most had only skulls, straps of leather, and war paint covering their bodies.

Wave after wave of arrows rained upon them, and those that fell were trampled by the rest. They were not even slowed. Harruq pointed past the army to where a long line of men stood in the distance, carrying no light or torch.

“What are they doing?” he asked.

Qurrah searched the line, and he saw what he suspected.

“The necromancer,” he said, pointing to the black shape covered in robes and a hood with its cowl pulled low. “Those with him are dead, Harruq. They serve only him.”

“Huh,” Harruq said. “Lot of good he’s doing. How are the orcs going to get through the wall, they have nothing but…”

The man in black robes lifted his hand. Qurrah saw pale and bony fingers hooked in strange formations. Then came the fire, erupting as if those fingers were a crack releasing the melted rock of the abyss. The sudden light blinded them both. The fire burned through the orcs as a solid beam, melting their bodies and scattering their remains. When it struck the wooden gate, it exploded. Wood shattered. Guards behind the gate howled as molten rock struck them, piercing through their shields and armor.

The orcs roared at the sight, not at all upset at their own losses. The way into the city was clear. Axes and swords held high, they rushed the opening.

“A minor skirmish,” Qurrah said, echoing the elf’s words. “How amusingly wrong.”

Harruq had anticipated watching the fight over the wall from the roof, but instead they turned and watched the orcs slam into the human forces that surrounded the opening. The first push was brutal. Screams of pain and shrieks of metal on metal flowed into the city. Harruq watched an orc wielding two swords cut off the arm of one soldier, and as the blood from the limb splattered across his face, he turned and decapitated another with two vicious hacks. The orc roared in victory only to die as a soldier shoved his sword in his side and out his back.

“Will they make it through?” Harruq asked, in awe of the display. Qurrah glanced over the wall and then back to the main combat. Archers continued eviscerating the orc forces. If they could push into the city, their arrows would be a nuisance at best, but it seemed they had underestimated the human soldiers.

“They are running out of time,” Qurrah said. “But they might.”

He glanced back to the necromancer, and then he saw his eyes, just hints of red underneath the hood of his robes. Qurrah shivered as whispers traveled up his spine.

You silenced my pets, it said.

“I do as I wish,” Qurrah whispered back. He felt a touch of cold on his fingers, like the fleeting kiss of a corpse lover.

You ally with the city of men?

“Again, I do as I wish,” Qurrah whispered.

“Who are you talking to?” Harruq asked. “Qurrah, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Qurrah said. He tore his gaze back to the fight. More orcs had pushed inward so that they bunched in a wide circle. They flung themselves against the surrounding guards. Again he felt a cold chill, this time creeping across his arms like frost spiders. The sensation of being watched was unbearable.

“We need to move,” he said. “If the guards falter we might suffer.”

“We’re already high up,” Harruq said. “We’re perfectly safe…”

“I said now!” Qurrah shouted. He doubled over, hacking and coughing. His breath was raspy and weak.

“Please,” he insisted. “Take me from the wall.”

“Alright then,” Harruq said, grabbing his brother’s arm. “Just hold tight.”

He leapt off the roof, pulling Qurrah with him. As his feet smacked the hard ground, he buckled his knees and fell back, catching his brother as he did. Without a word of thanks, Qurrah stepped off him and leaned against the wall. His whole body shuddered. He had often looked into the darkness. For the first time, the darkness had looked back, and was amused. Whoever this necromancer was, Qurrah knew he had been an idiot to challenge him.

“Lead the way,” Qurrah said. “And forgive my outburst.”

“I understand,” Harruq said, ignoring the pain in his knees and the bit of blood running from his elbow to his wrist. “We need to hurry, though.”

He looped his arm through Qurrah’s and then hurried down the alley. As a soldier’s body collapsed at the end, the two stopped, and Harruq swore.

“The orcs made it through,” he said, to which Qurrah nodded. “This could be bad.”

An orc stepped into the alley, blood splashed across his gray skin. He held a sword in each hand, both coated with gore. Shouting something in a guttural language neither understood, the orc charged.

“Get back,” Harruq said as he shoved Qurrah to one side. He slammed himself against a house, barely dodging a downward chop of the blades. The orc curled the swords around, all his strength behind the swing. Harruq ducked, narrowly avoiding decapitation. Qurrah lunged before the orc could strike again, latching onto his wrist and letting dark magic flow. The orc howled, feeling as if a hundred scorpions stung his flesh. Flooded with adrenaline, he hurled Qurrah aside, desperate to break the contact between them. Qurrah’s thin body crumpled in the dirt. At the sight of it, Harruq felt his rage break loose.

He slammed his fist into the orc’s stomach, followed by a brutal kick to the groin. Harruq rammed his elbows into the orc’s face, baring his teeth in a feral grin as he felt cartilage crunch. Staggering back, the orc dropped one of his swords and clutched his face.

“His sword,” Qurrah shouted loud as he could. “Take it, brother!”

Harruq obeyed without thought. He dropped to his knees, grabbed the sword, and rolled forward. Steel smacked where he had been. Now on his back, Harruq flung the sword up before him, clutching the hilt with both hands. The orc smashed his own blade downward, and as they connected, Harruq did not feel fear or the strain of his muscles. He felt exhilarated. Even though the orc pressed with all his strength, he could not force the kill.

At last, Harruq pushed him back, and in the brief opening he spun his sword around and buried half the blade into the orc’s gut. The orc gasped something unintelligible, dropped his other sword, and fell limp. Harruq stared at the body, his hands shaking from the excitement and his breath thunderous in his ears. A hand touched his shoulder. He recoiled as if struck.

“Well done,” Qurrah said, his eyes locked on the corpse. Harruq recognized that look. His brother had seen something he wanted, and he would have it. “A strong life and a fresh death.”

“The battle?” Harruq asked. Even as they stood there, he watched several orcs go running past, howling murder.

“We will partake in our own way,” Qurrah said, kneeling beside the orc. The savage clutched his stomach, his hands the only thing holding in his innards. Qurrah’s thin, ashen face curled into a sneer. Harruq turned away. Perhaps his brother would think him weak but he would not watch. He heard a sudden shriek of pain that morphed into a long, drawn out moan. As the last of the air left the orc’s lungs, Harruq turned around, startled by the sight.

“Beauty in all things,” Qurrah said, purple light dancing across his face. “Especially those things that are controlled.”

An orb floated above his open palm, seemingly made of thick, violet smoke. Within its center, a face shifted, glaring out with sunken eyes. When it opened its mouth, no sound came forth, just a soft puff of ash.

“A soul seeking release,” Qurrah said. “How destructive, I wonder?”

“Get rid of it,” Harruq said as he picked up the other sword the orc had dropped.

“You disagree?” Qurrah asked, his delight ruined by a sudden frown.

“No,” Harruq said. He thought to explain, and then just shrugged. “It makes me uneasy,” he said instead. “But do as you wish.”

The frailer brother approached the end of the alley where the sound of combat was strongest. His steps faltered only once. When Harruq moved to catch him, Qurrah glared and leaned against the side of a house. When a luckless orc rushed too close to the exit Qurrah hurled the orb. It exploded in shadows and shifting mists of violets and purples. The orc collapsed, white smoke rising softly from his tongue. In the sudden blinding light, Qurrah laughed.

“Never,” he said, “could I have imagined it so beautiful.”

A n hour before dawn the last of the orcs died, cornered by the city’s soldiers. The Tun brothers were not there to see, for they had snuck back to the outer wall at Qurrah’s insistence.

“I know his plans,” Qurrah whispered as they stared across the open grass covered with trampled orc bodies pierced with arrows. “He is familiar to me, though I know him not.”

“He isn’t your former master, is he?” Harruq asked as he fiddled with his newly acquired swords. He had taken a belt and some sheathes from one of the dead bodies but he was having a devil of a time getting them to fit correctly.

“No,” Qurrah said. “He is dead. I killed him. Whoever this is, he is someone else. Someone stronger.”

He pointed into the darkness.

“There,” he said. “He returns.”

Robed in black, the figure approached unseen by the guards. He lifted his hands, which shone a pallid white in the fading moonlight. So very slowly their color faded, from white, to gray, to nothing, a darkness surrounding and hiding them.

“What’s going on?” Harruq asked. He pulled one of his swords out from its sheath, pleased by the feeling of confidence it gave him. Qurrah said not a word. His eyes were far away. His lips moved but produced no sound.

“Qurrah?” Harruq asked again. “Qurrah!”

He struck his brother on the arm. Qurrah jolted as if suddenly awaking.

“The dead,” Qurrah said. “They rise.”

Sure enough, the arrow-ridden bodies stirred. As if of one mind, they stood at once, ignoring any injuries upon them. Some hobbled on broken legs. Others shambled with twisted and mangled arms. The brothers watched as hundreds more lumbered through the still-broken southern gate. A few belated alarms cried out from the exhausted guards, but they were too few and too late. Unencumbered, the horde of dead marched out to where the necromancer waited with outstretched arms.

Harruq and Qurrah watched until the sun rose in the east and all trace of the necromancer was gone.

“What is it he wanted?” Harruq asked, breaking their long silence.

“More dead for his army,” Qurrah said.

“No,” Harruq said. “With you.”

Qurrah nodded, knowing he disrespected his brother to think he might not have noticed.

“He wanted my name,” Qurrah said. “I did not give it. I have served a master once. I will not do so again.”

Harruq frowned but said no more. Together they climbed down from the wall and returned home.

H ome, to the two half-orcs, was in the older, mostly abandoned southern district of Veldaren. Those with wealth had drifted northeast, closer to the castle and away from the busy streets and markets. When King Vaelor had ordered all trade to come in through the western gate, and not the south, it had been the final nail in the district's coffin. The homeless, hungry, and destitute flooded the rows of abandoned buildings, clawing them away from their legal owners with their very presence, and sometimes, their murders.

Harruq and Qurrah played that game well. They had grown up on the streets of Veldaren and fought for every scrap of food they had eaten. They had punched and kicked for every soft, dry bed. Then, one day, they finally killed.

“A fine home is any home that's yours,” Harruq said as he forced back a couple planks sealing a window. “Ain't that right, Qurrah?”

“Whatever you say.”

The window unblocked, the two climbed in. They lived in what had once been a large shed. The door was still boarded shut, but the window, well…

For two such as they, windows worked as well as doors.

They sat diagonally of each other so they had room to stretch their legs. Harruq unhooked his belt and placed his swords in a corner, brushing their hilts with his fingertips.

“I want to learn how to use them,” he said. “Think anyone will teach me?”

Qurrah laughed. “You'll find plenty that will teach you how to die to one,” he said. “I'm not sure about the other way around.”

Harruq shrugged. His mind kept replaying the fight with the orc. Untrained and unprepared, he had still won. What could he accomplish with training? How many might fear him if he had skill to match his strength and steel to match his anger?

“I know of a way,” Qurrah said, pulling at one of many loose strands of his robes. “A way for you to practice. You saw what I did with that dead body.”

Harruq nodded, disturbed by the hungry look in Qurrah’s eyes.

“I did,” he said, “and it scared the abyss out of me.”

Qurrah dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “With exposure comes understanding. Fear not what I do. I am always in control. However, I have no way to learn, Harruq. I have no school, no teacher, nothing but scattered memories of my wretched master when I was nine. Nevertheless, death… death has a way of teaching us things. I can sense its power so clearly in its presence. I need it. You must give it to me.”

Harruq crossed his arms and stared into the corner.

“People die every day here,” he said. “Shall I find their bodies and bring them to you?”

“For now,” Qurrah said. “Yes. If the death is fresh, the power should still linger.”

Harruq reached out, grabbed his brother's wrist, and clasped his hands in his.

“I won’t like it,” he said. “But I’ll do it for you.”

“We are better than them,” Qurrah said, standing so he could look through the cracks of the boards across the broken door. “Stronger. Life is for those who take it. I need you to understand this, brother. Together, we can become something great.”

“Like what?” Harruq asked. “What can we become?”

Qurrah's eyes twinkled, but he said not a word.

G uard captain Antonil marched through the street, fifty of his men in perfect union behind him. His face was a portrait of stoic calm but it was all a lie. His heart was troubled and he had not a soul to tell why. He held a proclamation of King Vaelor to the entire nation of Neldar. He had argued as best he could, but his words meant little. When he asked that someone else deliver the proclamation, a frown had crossed the king’s smooth face and he had slammed a lotioned hand against a table.

“It will mean more coming from you!” the king had shouted. “They will know the seriousness of my order. I will not be flooded with spies, treated like a mere peasant, and then insulted by such blatant snubbing of my humble call for aid. Let them know I am king, my dear Antonil. Make sure they know.”

Antonil halted at the center of Veldaren where the four main roads of the city interconnected and a large marble fountain towered over all. Not bothering to call for silence or attention, he unrolled the scroll and shouted its edict. Because of his rank, the troops in attendance, and the overall respect given to the man who had engineered the city’s successful defense only days before, he was quickly given a respectful silence.

“By order of the King, all elves are to be removed from Neldar lands. They shall not travel within our cities, live in our settlements, or trade with our people. They are banned in all possible sense of the word. They have abandoned us, so let us abandon them. These are the words of your King, Edwin Vaelor, and may they never be forgotten.”

Antonil closed the scroll and then nodded for his soldiers to return to their post. Holding in a curse, he headed to the royal stables. He needed to speak with Dieredon and personally break the terrible news.

Q urrah watched with a smirk on his face as the guard captain hurried away.

“Elves banned,” he said to his brother. “Amusing, though unnecessary. Only handfuls live within these walls, and they are just diplomats and messengers. Our king is a spiteful, paranoid one.”

“Not my king,” Harruq muttered loud as he dared. He meant to say more but stopped as another man neared the fountain. He was large, well muscled, and scratching at a long beard that stretched down to his belt. In a massive voice he shouted to the many that passed by.

“The royal guard is in need of able-bodied men to help rebuild the walls of the city,” he shouted. “The work will be hard, but we offer a threepence of copper a day. Come to the castle and ask for Alvrik.”

He repeated the message three more times and then wandered back north.

“A threepence,” Harruq said. “We could eat well for weeks.”

“The king must be desperate for workers,” Qurrah said. He raised an eyebrow at his brother. “I take it you're interested?”

“I'm strong enough for whatever they want from me,” Harruq insisted.

“We have no need for money.” Qurrah said. “We take what we need. We always have.”

“My day is spent in boredom and you know it,” Harruq said. “How long will they offer that much coin?”

Qurrah popped his neck, wincing as he did. “So be it,” he said. “Take the work…if they'll take you.”

This put a bit of a damper on Harruq's enthusiasm.

“Course they will,” he muttered, his frown refuting the confidence in his voice. “Why wouldn't they?”

A lvrik,” Harruq muttered as he approached the giant double doors leading into the castle, flanked on each side by two soldiers. “Avrik? Alrik? Avlerik? How the bloody abyss did he say his name?”

He stopped when he realized the soldiers were staring at him with none-too-happy looks on their faces.

“Oh, hello,” he said, doing his best to smile. “I was looking for, er, Alvrik. He was just in the center of town, and…”

“Does the orcie want some money?” one of the guards asked. He jabbed the soldier next to him with his elbow, and both laughed in Harruq's face.

“Just want some work,” he said, his deep voice muttering and almost impossible to understand.

“Head on around back,” one told him. “Alvrik will be waiting, if he'll take you.”

“That'd be west,” said the same rude guard. “You know which way west is, right?”

Harruq's hands opened and closed as he imagined his swords held within them, ready to butcher for blood while the soldier proceeded to say the word ‘west’ as long and drawn out as possible.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and hurried off.

Alvrik sat at a small table with a single sheet of parchment. Beside him sat a young man with an inkwell and a quill. Several people stood in line before him, so Harruq slipped into the back and tried to calm down. He had never done anything like this before. He had stolen food, fled from guards, lived in poverty, and kept to himself. He and his brother, that was his life. What the abyss was he doing asking for work?

He almost left. Several men in front of him turned away, dejected or angry. He didn't hear the reasons why and didn't want to know. The idea of so much money, more than enough to buy warm food and clean drink, kept him there. At last it was his turn, and he approached the table where Alvrik sat chewing on a piece of bone long since void of meat.

“You,” he said before Harruq could mutter a word. “You don't look like all the others.”

“I'm not like the others,” Harruq said.

“That so?” Alvrik face hadn’t changed in the slightest. “Tell me why.”

“Stronger,” he said. “Tougher. Whatever work you got two men doing I can do alone. Whatever hours you got them working I can do double.”

“A large boast,” Alvrik said. He took the bone out of his mouth and pointed at Harruq's ears. “You got orc blood in you.”

“I do.”

“Will that be a problem?” Alvrik asked.

“Up to all the others you hire,” Harruq said. “But I'll be fine. I don't start much, but I always finish.”

Alvrik laughed. He nudged the man next to him, who grabbed the quill.

“Give me your name,” he asked, dabbing the tip into the ink.

“Harruq,” he said. “Harruq Tun.”

“Well, Harruq,” Alvrik said, slowly nodding his head. “I'll see you right here at sunrise tomorrow. Got that?”

Harruq grinned ear to ear, even his nervousness unable to lessen his excitement.

“I'll be here before the rooster knows it is dawn.”

A sharp pain in his gut dragged Harruq from his dreams. He lifted open a single eye and glared at the blurry image of his brother.

“The sun is almost up,” Qurrah said, kicking him again. “You need to be as well.”

“What are you…awww, damn it.”

He sat up straight and shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz that clogged the vast empty space between his ears. Qurrah helped by offering a third kick, this one right to the kidney. Harruq gasped and staggered to his feet. He was outside their little home in seconds, urinating on the grass.

“Hadn't pissed yet,” Harruq shouted to his brother. “You could be a bit kinder, you know.”

“At least you're awake,” Qurrah said back. “Now get to the castle. I may not approve, and I still do not trust them, but for once we might have something worthwhile to eat. I won't let a simple thing like sleep keep us from it.”