“Listen to what he says, Aurry,” Harruq said, a slight quiver in his voice.
“You play some interesting games,” the elf said as she looked around the room. She saw the torture devices, the wooden racks and the chains on the wall. She saw the blood pooled upon the floor. A sick room, she thought. Sick room for a sick man.
“Where are the others,” Gregor asked. “The assassin, where is he? I see one flutter of gray and I cut.”
“Cut him,” Aurelia said, the fire leaving her hands only to be replaced by ice. “And I will do the same to you, except I will have far more time to make sure it hurts.”
“She don’t mean it,” Harruq said, trying to smile. “You just let me go and we’ll all be happy and leave…”
Gregor leaned closer and shoved Harruq’s head against the wall. He knew he was in a tight spot, and the idea of the elf removing his own manhood did not appeal to him. Only by threatening the half-orc did he remain safe, but if he actually carried out his threat…
“Gregor,” Harruq said, his voice soft as if he did not want Aurelia to hear. “Just be calm. She’ll listen to me, you understand? I’m her husband, she obeys what I say.”
“What do you propose?” Gregor whispered back. The half-orc ignored the horrible glare Aurelia gave him, for while his tormenter was an idiot, Harruq knew full well the elf could hear him despite his whispering.
“Just this,” Harruq whispered before slamming his forehead against Gregor’s nose. The blow knocked him back, and that slight separation was all Aurelia needed. A javelin of ice flew from her hands and pierced his back. Lightning followed the ice, reducing him to a dead, smoking lump of flesh and black robes.
Aurelia crossed her arms and stood at the top of the stairs.
“So, do I always obey what you say, dearest husband?” she asked.
Clever ploy, nothing more,” Harruq said, grinning. “Now please, could you get me to Delysia? I think I’m going to pass out.”
True to his word, the half-orc slumped against the chains, unable to stand now that his adrenaline was fading. The elf pulled up her skirt as she walked down the stairs, not wanting to stain her dress on anything in the foul room. She kicked the curved blade Gregor had held, then looked up at the ceiling. A faded rune carved in blood covered it, designed to prevent magical scrying.
“The magic fades over time,” she told the dead tormenter. “And the runes need reapplied. Just thought you should know.” She looked over Harruq’s wounds, wincing as she did. The man had done a number on her husband, but he had suffered through worse.
“Aurelia?” a voice called down the stairs. The elf turned and shouted back.
“Come on down, Haern. Found the big ox.”
A blond man cloaked in gray appeared at the top of the stairs, twin sabers in his hands.
“The servants have been taken care of,” he said. When he saw Gregor’s body, he sheathed his swords. “And apparently so has the master.”
“Har’s passed out,” she said, fiddling with the locks. “Care to help me get him out of these so I can take us home?”
Haern pulled out a kit from a pouch hidden beneath his cloaks. A minute later, all the locks were undone, and Harruq slumped into Haern’s strong arms. The elf whispered words of magic, and then a blue portal ripped into existence, its blue light scattering the shadows of the room. Haern found Harruq’s swords and armor piled in a corner and tossed them into the portal. He then dragged the unconscious half-orc in. Aurelia entered last, but only after tossing a ball of fire at the rack of torture instruments, setting them aflame.
H arruq awoke the next morning at the touch of feminine fingers against his skin.
“Aurry?” he muttered, his eyes still closed.
“It’s me,” said a voice that was not Aurelia’s. “Lie still. I just started.”
“Hey, Delysia. Pleased as always.”
The priestess chuckled despite her concentration. White light surrounded her hands, filled with healing magic. She focused on the brutal cuts Gregor had made, cuts that looked dangerously close to becoming infected. The light poured into them, killing the sickness and closing the wounds. Each cut took several minutes of concentration, and by the time she had the half-orc looking decent, her entire body ached and her head pounded as if filled with a thousand ogres banging drums.
Harruq lay still for most of it. The healing magic soothed most of his pain, but the ache in his muscles would not subdue for days, and the strange stretching and pulling of his skin against the wounds was uncomfortable at best. As Delysia cast her spells, he heard a door creak open, followed by shuffling of robes.
“So how’s our half-orc doing?” asked Tarlak, the leader of the Eschaton mercenaries.
“Doing good,” Harruq said, eyes still closed. “Remind me to never listen when you suggest splitting up patrols.”
“Whine all you want,” Tarlak said. “You’re still alive.”
Harruq opened his eyes and glared at the mage. He was dressed in a bizarre assortment of yellow robes, yellow sash, and long, yellow pointy hat. Delysia stood beside him, rubbing her pounding temples. They were clearly brother and sister, with matching red hair and green eyes. Tarlak stroked his goatee, all the while trying to hold in a laugh. The half-orc glared harder, determined to whallop the man if he dared mock his predicament.
“I heard you almost lost something precious,” Tarlak said.
“Another word and I’ll shove your hat down your throat and pull it out your rear.”
“Very manly of you. Glad you can still do stuff like that.”
“I swear, Tar, I will.”
“Hush now,” Delysia said, frowning at her brother. “Stop pestering him so he’ll sit still.”
“If you insist,” Tarlak said, sitting down on the bed next to him. They were on the second floor of the Eschaton tower. Normally it was Delysia’s room, but it often doubled as a ward for an injured mercenary.
“At least we got the sick bastard,” Harruq said, closing his eyes and obeying a command by the priestess to shift onto his side.
“Yeah, about that.” Tarlak took off his hat and picked at it. “Turns out that wasn’t the guy.”
“What?”
“Stay still,” Delysia said, smacking him on the head with the palm of her hand.
“Thought you decided some Karak worshipper was doing all the mutilations?” Harruq said, doing his best not to move.
“I did, but that guy you killed…Gregor, right? Well this Gregor worshipped Karak, but he wasn’t a priest. He was just some spoiled son of a rich man that fancied himself a chosen of our dear dark god.” Tarlak put the hat back on his head. “That, and after you and Aurry so neatly dispatched him, we found another body near the castle. I won’t bore you with the details.”
Harruq raised an eyebrow at him.
“Alright fine,” Tarlak said. “You know me too well. Extremities dismembered. Hands were sewn onto his face, palms covering his eyes. Tongue gone. Bowels burned. Oh, and the neatest carving on his chest. They made some skull out of twisted skin and bruises…”
“Enough,” Delysia said, standing and holding her fingers against her chest. “Please, enough.”
“Sure thing, sis,” Tarlak said. He tipped his hat to the half-orc. “Get better. Tonight’s going to be another long one, and like I say, no rest for the orcish.”
“Thought it was no rest for the short?” Harruq said, immediately regretting it.
“Yeah,” the mage said, a pall coming over his cheery attitude at reference to the former member Brug. “Well, no shorties around to keep going, so got to deprive someone of rest, right?”
Harruq did not respond.
“He doesn’t blame you,” Delysia said once Tarlak had left the room.
“He should,” the half-orc muttered.
“You are not your brother,” she insisted, gently running a hand down his wounded back. “And you are not responsible for him or the company he keeps. Even if you were, Ashhur preaches forgi
veness.”
The priestess left, not expecting a reply. She was right.
T he rest of the Eschaton gathered around the fireplace on the first floor of the tower, drinking magically conjured drinks and discussing the previous night.
“Three bodies,” Haern said, shaking his head and staring at the fire. “They’re taunting us. No other explanation.”
“Escalation does not mean taunting,” Tarlak said as he came down the stairs. “Though it very well may be.”
“When Antonil asked us to help patrol, it was a single body found every three days,” Haern argued. “That night, and every night after, we have found a body for each night. They know we’re looking.”
“They?” Aurelia asked. She was seated in a luxurious red chair with a blanket over her. She took another sip of a hot brown drink that was deliciously sweet.
“That many bodies can’t be one man,” the wizard said. “And I still swear the priests of Karak are doing this.”
Delysia came down the stairs looking pallid and exhausted. Her brother tossed a blanket around her shoulders and led her to a cushion beside Aurelia.
“He’ll be fine,” she said. “Whatever cut him was far from clean, but I think he’ll…” She stopped, a spell of dizziness taking away her words.
“Thank you,” Aurelia said. Delysia smiled.
“What if it is the priests,” Haern said, his tone softer, more dangerous. “Will we finally strike at their heart?”
The women glanced to Tarlak, who sighed and began to explain.
“The priests have a hidden temple inside Veldaren. Very, very powerful spells hide its appearance, mask the evil energy within, and deny any attempts to scry its location. Supposedly it will reveal itself only to those who seek Karak’s favor.”
Aurelia leaned forward, suddenly very interested.
“But you know where it is,” she said. “Somehow you found it.”
Tarlak glanced to Haern.
“Not found,” Haern said. “I have been inside its walls. The Spider Guild did not take kindly to my faith in Ashhur.”
Delysia winced. She and Haern had spent many nights conversing underneath the stars. Haern had been a trained killer since birth, and so the opportunity to speak and think without fear of judgment or punishment had proven addictive. One night the members of the Spider Guild had assaulted them, dragging Haern toward the temple of Karak while leaving Delysia for dead.
“They thought to purge me of my belief,” Haern continued. Old wounds drained the life from his eyes. “I memorized the way, and I will never forget that building, both the illusion and its true form.”
“Then we tell the guards,” Aurelia said. “The priests of Karak are forbidden from the city. Once King Vaelor hears of an entire temple he’ll…”
“He’ll do nothing,” Tarlak said. “Because he already knows. Every king is informed on the first night they take the throne. They’re also told, in no uncertain terms, that they will die should they try to remove the priests from the capital.”
“How do you know this?” Aurelia asked. Tarlak feigned shock and insult.
“Why, because I’m a wizard, of course. I’m supposed to know these things.”
“The temple’s existence is common knowledge to the upper members of Veldaren,” Haern explained. “The priests focus their attention on the wealthy, and gain safety and power through them. The priests of Karak bring only the most faithful and rich to their temple, and even then they bring them blindfolded.”
“Why don’t the priests of Ashhur do something about it?” Aurelia asked.
“Open warfare on the streets?” Tarlak asked with a chuckle. “Fun as that would be, Callan and his ilk accept the temple as a necessary evil. But we, however, do not fall under their jurisdiction.”
“What was this about war on the streets?” Harruq asked as he came limping down the stairs. Aurelia frowned and rose from her chair.
“You shouldn’t be up and around, you’ll make yourself sick.”
“Haern’s beaten me far worse than this,” the half-orc argued, though his voice was weak and unconvincing. He accepted Aurelia’s arms and used her weight to reach her chair. She wrapped her blanket around him before sitting down beside Delysia.
“We don’t want war on the streets,” Tarlak said. “So we must be certain the priests are committing these murders and mutilations. But do we really have the strength to take them on, in their home no less?”
Haern leaned back and ran his hands through his blond hair.
“No. I don’t think we do,” he said. “But that hasn’t stopped us before. We have never taken such a great risk, so if we do, we must do it with all our abilities. If the priests of Karak survive, we will be guaranteed retaliation.” He looked around at his friends. “And I would not wish that upon any of you.”
“We need to be more vigilant,” Aurelia said. “We keep looking and keep searching. If we find and stop the priests outside the temple, they will view us as mercenaries performing a job. Those we kill will be faulted for being caught.”
“Will that be enough to deter the killings?” Haern asked.
“It will be if we kill enough of them,” Aurelia said, the hardness in her eyes frightening.
“Fantastic,” Harruq said. “Why are they doing these killings in the first place?”
“Karak seeks total devotion,” Delysia said after a long period of silence. “This means inhibition, compassion, and humanity must be purged. These mutilations, these sacrifices, are meant to show their faith. And I think we are ignoring one other aspect. Fear. There is a reason the bodies are being dumped for all to see.”
“If it is fear they want, they’re getting it,” Tarlak said, remembering the talk he heard the previous day. “And it’ll get worse, especially with how those three were found.”
When Harruq asked how, the wizard shook his head.
“Some things are best to remain in the dark. For now, we rest, pray, and do what we do best for the rest of the day. Come night, we’ll scour the city and hope to Ashhur we catch whoever’s doing this before more bodies are found strung from…never mind. Good day everyone.”
He downed the rest of his glass, made it vanish with a snap of his fingers, and then hurried up the stairs. To Harruq’s questioning look, Haern only shook his head and shuddered.
T hat night the Eschaton gathered near the western entrance to the city. The air was cold, and they all wore extra layers underneath their armor and robes, as well as thick cloaks wrapped about their bodies.
“Harruq, Aurelia, you search the southern quarter,” Tarlak ordered. “Del and I will scan the west. Haern gets the east. So far no one’s been taken from the north, so we’ll leave it be until they do.”
“You going to be alright without me?” Delysia asked Harruq.
“Sure thing,” the half-orc said with a wink. “Aurry will keep me safe.”
“If you find any priests of Karak, use your best judgment,” Tarlak said. “If they are too many, seek us out. Even if it is just one, treat him like a wild dragon.”
“Yes, daddy,” Aurelia said before taking Harruq’s hand and pulling him away. Haern bowed, tied his hair behind his head, and then leapt to the rooftops.
“Come on,” Tarlak said, casting invisibility spells over he and his sister. “Let’s see if we can finally catch these murdering crows.”
D espite the danger, the priests wore their black robes openly in the dark streets. Their success had emboldened them. No man or woman who noticed them would dare point an accusatory finger come the dawn. Leading the group of five was Pelarak, the revered priest of Karak.
“Tonight will be special,” Pelarak said, fingering the pendant shaped like a lion skull that hung from his neck. His voice was deep and firm, a powerful presence in the streets of Veldaren. “The fear we have caused is a pittance compared to our task tonight. Before the rise of the sun, the armies of Karak will conquer all.”
“What about the Eschaton?” the priest o
n his left asked.
“They have a part to play in this,” Pelarak answered. From his belt he drew a dagger. “Come. Our time is short.”
They followed him north, heading straight for the fountain at the center of Veldaren.
O ne good sleep,” Harruq mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his giant fists. “That’s all I want. Why is it when bad things start happening, we always have to scour the city at night?”
“Such a baby,” Aurelia said, jabbing him in the ribs with an elbow. “You’re a step away from dead every time you plop down in our bed. What happened to this fabled orcish stamina we elves always heard about?”
“Bunch of lies,” the half-orc muttered. “We like sleep, we like food, and we don’t like staying up all night staring at empty streets.”
The two were perched atop a building. Aurelia had used a levitation spell to bring them up. Other than a few drunks and stray animals, they hadn’t seen a sign of life.
“People are becoming afraid,” Aurelia said, frowning. “Staying home and avoiding the streets at night. But there is something else going on. Something… Harruq, look up.”
He sighed and glanced to the cloud-covered sky.
“Yup, might rain. Perfect.”
“No, look closer.”
He did, and was stunned he had not seen it before.
“Oh gods,” he said, his jaw dropping. “What does it mean?”
“We need to find Tarlak, now.” Aurelia grabbed his hand and leapt them off the roof, using another levitation spell to slow their fall. Hand in hand they ran as far above them the red skull of a lion blanketed the entire western sky, a ghostly image shimmering across the clouds.
A s Haern leaned over the edge of a building, nothing more than a pair of eyes shining in the night, he heard a strange cry. He could not place it, but it sounded bestial and deep. The stranger part was that he heard it from the sky. He looked up, and there it was, a giant skull with its mouth opened in roar. It was blood red and hovered above the city like an angry god.
“Not good,” he said before breaking into a sprint. Another roar thundered through the city, louder, angrier. Even without his exceptionally trained hearing, Haern could tell where it came from. He leapt from rooftop to rooftop, straight for the heart of the city.
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