The Weight of Blood (Half-Orcs Book 1)

BOOKS BY DAVID DALGLISH

THE HALF-ORC SERIES

The Weight of Blood

The Cost of Betrayal

The Death of Promises

The Shadows of Grace

A Sliver of Redemption

THE WORLD OF DEZREL

A Dance of Cloaks

Guardian of the Mountain

1

T
he 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. Gaping mouths shrieked mindless wails, their voices bone-chilling and unrelenting. 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,” Harruq muttered. He shivered as a skull sailed just above them, its screech turning to chaotic laughter. The sound raced up and down his spine, triggering fear no matter how irrational.

Qurrah watched as if immune to the sound. He was so much smaller than Harruq, his slender body wrapped in rags, thin flesh 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?” 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 its significance. 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, condemned for the tainted blood coursing through their veins. 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 must 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. Shrugging, he flung it toward the distant army of orcs.

“Not done yet,” Qurrah said, 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, and their fires dimmed.

When the necromancer noticed Qurrah’s meddling, his mental link pulsed with incredible energy. Colors swarmed through his mind, dark purples and reds across a macabre 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. Its rank claws touched his face, turning the sweat on 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 hail 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 lurched onto his feet.

“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 along the wall, but Qurrah saw this and shook his head.

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

“Sure thing,” Harruq agreed. “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 containing 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, he peered around the corner to find a soldier dressed in finely polished armor raising his sword in salute. At first Harruq did not see who he saluted, but an elf fell from the roof and landed before the soldier.

“An elf,” Harruq whispered, managing 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 hailed, pulling off his helmet. He was a middle-aged, blond-haired man who had 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 who said he was dangerous, that he might be…”

Another communal roar, even closer.

“I know,” Dieredon glared. “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 onto the roof. He mounted his horse, patted her side, and then took off into the night.

“Damn it all!” Antonil shouted, slamming his mailed fist into the wall. 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 answered, 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 suggested, 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, allowing him to climb to the top despite a moment of flailing. 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, using a windowsill as a foothold. Together, they stood upon the roof and gazed over the wall, mesmerized by the sight before them. Mere seconds away, hundreds and hundreds of orcs charged. Their race could see as well in night as in day. That same racial ability allowed the two brothers to watch the approaching orcs,  lean muscle bulging underneath their sweat-glistened pale gray skin. 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 who fell were trampled by the rest, but the masses 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 observed, pointing to the black shape hidden underneath robes and a hood. “Those alongside him are dead, Harruq. They serve only him.”