FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  The horse snorted, banked around, and dove straight for the approaching hands. A quick spiral avoided the first wave. Dieredon clutched his bow and held on for dear life, his eyes locking on the man in black who stood perfectly still, his arms at downward angles from his body. The rest of the elves were in full retreat. He was the only one left.

  Qurrah watched Dieredon’s approach with a gnawing fear in his chest. It seemed no hand could touch this one, the horse possessing dexterity beyond what any creature that size should have. Velixar showed no sign of being aware of their approach. His eyes had rolled back into his head as he controlled the multitude of magical hands.

  “Be gone,” Qurrah said, firing several pieces of bone. All pieces missed. He tried to cast another hemorrhage spell but the words felt heavy and drunk on his tongue. His mind ached, his chest heaved, and when the spell finished it created nothing but a wound the size of an arrowhead in the side of Sonowin.

  “Master, defend yourself!” Qurrah shouted as loud as he could. Still nothing. More and more hands curled in, surrounding Dieredon and Sonowin in a magical maelstrom, yet still they came.

  “Fly, Sonowin,” the elf shouted. “Fly safe!”

  Dieredon leapt from Sonowin’s back, the blades on his bow gleaming. He fell through the air, the long spike on the bottom aimed directly for Velixar’s head.

  “Master!” Qurrah shouted again, shoving his body against Velixar’s. His concentration broken, Velixar lost his control of the black fog. The darkness swirled inward as if Velixar were the center of a giant drain. The blackness filled him, surrounded him, and consumed him. When all returned, and Dieredon was about to land, a wave of pure sound and energy rippled outward. Velixar was waking, and he was angry.

  The wave sent Qurrah crashing against a giant undead man still wearing rusted platemail. The collision blasted the air from his lungs. When he hit the ground, stars filled his vision. Dieredon fought but could not resist that same wave of power. The point of his blade halted a foot from the top of the black hood before he flew back. In the distance, Qurrah watched his master glaring at the damned elf who had fallen like a mad man.

  “Scoutmaster,” Velixar growled, his voice deep and dark like an ancient daemon of old. “Twice you have looked upon me and lived. No more.”

  Dieredon twirled his bow, his face calm and emotionless.

  “Too many have died at your hand. What life you have ends tonight.”

  Velixar roared, a sound that made Qurrah shiver and avert his eyes. His master’s back was to him, so he could not see the face that Dieredon saw, which was full of rotted skin and crawling, feasting things.

  Suddenly Dieredon pulled back. The blades in his bow snapped inward.

  “Arrows cannot hurt me,” Velixar mocked. “They did not the first time. Why do you hope so now?”

  “Because these arrows are different.”

  He fired three at once, all burying deep into Velixar’s chest. The man in black screamed as the sacred water burned his skin. He fell to one knee and vomited a pile of white flesh and maggots.

  “You will suffer,” he gasped. “For ages, I will make you suffer.”

  “Try it,” said Dieredon.

  Two more arrows flew, but they halted in mid-air. Velixar stood, his hand outstretched, gripping the projectiles with his mind. The elf fired two more volleys but all the arrows froze beside the others.

  “Fool,” Velixar hissed. At once, the arrows turned and resumed their flight, straight at Dieredon. The elf dove, rolling underneath the barrage. Not an arrow had hit earth before the elf tucked his feet and kicked. The blades sprang from his bow. He crossed the distance between the two in a heartbeat.

  Velixar accepted a stab deep into his chest. A pale hand grabbed Dieredon’s throat, its grip iron and its flesh ice.

  “It will be painful,” Velixar said. Vile magic swirled about his hand, pouring into Dieredon’s neck. The blood in his veins clotted and thickened.

  A toss of his hand and the elf flew through the air. He rolled across the ground without the usual grace he had shown in combat.

  Qurrah glanced about, paralyzed with fear. The remaining elves were returning, deadly and furious, and the darkness that had protected them was gone.

  “Do you feel it?” Velixar said, stalking over to the dying elf. “The blood in your throat is clotting. Your mind will starve and your heart will burst trying to force blood through.”

  He knew he should speak. He had to warn master. But he could not open his mouth. He could not move. The pegasi were closer. They were readying their bows. He had to speak!

  “Can you feel it?” the man in black asked. “Can you feel your heart shudder and throb? Here, let me help your pain.”

  Dieredon lay on his back, staring up at him. His chest was a mess of pain, his mind light and dizzy. As Velixar reached down, his maggoty face smiling and his hand dripping unholy magic, a wave of arrows rained upon him. Five buried into Velixar’s back. Six more found his legs and arms. He arched and shrieked as the blessed water seared his wretched body.

  Dieredon staggered to his feet, his bow still in his hands. The man in black reached around and tore out the arrows from his body. Still no blood flowed.

  “My name is Dieredon,” the elf gasped. “Know it before I send you to the abyss.”

  He fired two arrows, one for each eye. They shattered into fire, and finally blood did flow. It ran down the dead flesh and bone that was his face, over his black robes, and pooled in the grass below. He fell prone, still screaming his anger and fury. For five hundred years he had walked the land of Dezrel. All that time, all those killings, and this was how he would fail.

  “Karak!” he shouted, all his power fleeing him. His undead minions collapsed, their souls released. The gates to the abyss opened before his eyes, and he felt the pull on his soul. The dark fire already burned. He saw the face of his master, and the sick grin there horrified him.

  “I will not die!” he shrieked. “I will not die!”

  His flesh burned in fire, his bones blew away as dust on the wind, and only an empty robe remained of the being that was Velixar. Yet, still haunting the wind, was his final cry, a promise to the world of Dezrel.

  “I will not die!”

  Chapter XVII

  MILES AWAY, HARRUQ AWOKE SCREAMING. Aurelia rushed to his side as he curled into a ball, shuddering frantically.

  “He’s dead,” he said. Cold sweat covered his body. Remnants of his nightmare floated before his eyes, the icy voice of Velixar rolling over him in his vengeful fury. All he’d known, all he’d ever loved, was dead and gone. Only Karak had remained, furious at the loss. Through it all, one single fact pulsed as an undeniable truth.

  “Velixar,” Harruq said, clutching Aurelia’s hands and sighing with a mixture of relief and terror. “He’s dead. I’m free.”

  Aurelia kissed his forehead as the half-orc drifted back to sleep, still overcome with his exhaustion. To her eyes, it seemed he slept far better than he had before.

  Qurrah did not know what to say or do as he watched his master die. His entire world had just come crashing down in the darkness. Above him were more than fifty elves, each one eager to bury an arrow in his back.

  “Harruq,” he said, crawling amid the bodies. He desperately hoped none would spot him. He reached a large stinking corpse lying on its back with a golden arrow in its forehead. Qurrah shoved the cadaver onto its side, curled underneath, and then let it fall atop him. The weight crushed his fragile body and the smell was awful, but it was his only cover. Miserable, he hid there, quietly whispering.

  “Where are you, Harruq?” he said, his face buried into the dirt. His tears fell to the grass. “Harruq, I need you. Where are you?”

  Then he heard talking and shut his mouth.

  “Are you alright, Dieredon?” an elf asked. The scoutmaster nodded, leaning heavily on his bow.

  “I will be fine. His magic left my body upon his death.”

  A neigh brought his att
ention upward. Sonowin landed next to him, her white hair stained red in places. She nuzzled the elf and snorted something.

  “You worry too much, old girl,” Dieredon said, his voice cracking several times. He patted her once and then turned to the elf standing nearby. “How many did we lose?”

  “Half. We paid dearly to kill this man.”

  “A heavy price,” Dieredon said, gingerly climbing atop Sonowin. “Heavy, but well worth its weight in blood. A great evil has left this land. Let us return to Woodhaven, for this place of death turns my mouth sour.”

  The two took to the air and joined the other survivors. They did not try to locate their dead among the hundreds of other rotting bodies. Instead, a few elves flew low and scattered firestones, small pebbles that burst into flame upon landing. Grass and bodies ignited, and the battlefield rapidly swelled into a giant funeral pyre.

  Qurrah crawled out from underneath the body as flames erupted all around him. Everywhere he looked, he saw embers and corpses. He spotted the robes of Velixar and ran to them. He picked them up and shook them, furious that no body remained.

  “You lied to me, Velixar,” Qurrah said. “You said you were eternal. You said you held the power of a god. But you lied. You are nothing but dust.”

  Surrounded by fire and death, the half-orc stripped naked of his rags and donned the robes of his former master. Despite all the arrows and heat, they seemed in perfect condition. Even the stain of blood was already fading. Qurrah held the side of the hood to his mouth and coughed as the smoke grew ever thicker.

  “Goodbye, Velixar,” he said. Then he chose a direction and staggered away. Slowly, and with a few wide curves through the carnage, he found a way out. He huddled the black robes tighter about his thin body, relishing the soft feel and perfect fit. Smoke clogged his lungs, but the stinking waves of it were lessening the farther he walked.

  “Where are you, brother?” Qurrah asked once he could breathe freely. In the dark before the dawn, it seemed he would receive no answer.

  At last, he could travel no more. He had no food, no destination, and no company. His limbs were weak and his head throbbed. To his knees he slumped, and he let time pass and his strength return, while his mind rummaged for ideas of how to proceed.

  While the sun was still a sliver peeking over the horizon, Aurelia shook Harruq’s shoulders to wake him. She then sat back and put her hands to her forehead while the half-orc tried to remember where he was.

  “Can you find him?” Harruq asked her, realizing what she was doing. He sat on his rear and began readjusting his armor to his more slender frame.

  “In time,” she said. “I have met him only once, but I doubt there are any like him. Stay quiet and be patient.”

  Her mind was a net, and she cast it further and further out, scanning the rolling hills and the plains beyond.

  “Found him,” she whispered.

  A blue portal ripped through the air before Qurrah, beckoning him. He looked through but saw only mists and distorted landscape. Seeing nothing to lose, he got to his feet and stepped inside. He felt the sensation of traveling a great distance yet his mind insisted he had taken only a single step. He could see the orange glow of the great pyre several miles away.

  “Brother!” Harruq cried, wrapping him in a hug. Qurrah endured it, keeping his hands at his sides. “I was so worried about you!”

  “Velixar is dead,” Qurrah said, eyeing Aurelia warily.

  “We know,” the elf said. “It is well to meet you again, Qurrah.”

  Qurrah stepped back from his brother, and Aurelia noticed his robes and frowned.

  “You should have left them. He was an evil man. Following in his footsteps will lead to a similar fate.”

  The half-orc said nothing. For a moment all three glanced about, the atmosphere akin to air before a thunderstorm. Qurrah broke the silence.

  “Woodhaven is behind us,” he said. “I have made mistakes, as has my brother. I saw you leave with him, and I know you sacrificed much to protect him. For this, I thank you. All I ask is that we speak naught of this again. If we are to travel together, it is my only wish.”

  “A wish gladly granted,” Aurelia said, a tiny smile finally cracking free. “So where is it we should go?”

  Qurrah glanced at his brother and shrugged.

  “The only homes we have known are Woodhaven and Veldaren. I doubt either will gladly accept us.”

  “I have never been to Veldaren,” Aurelia said. “Although I have heard it is beautiful, in its own way. I can get us inside, if all you fear are the gate guards. The edict to banish elves is foolish, anyway. After the casualties he took in Woodhaven, the king should be forced to revoke it lest any human villages be attacked.”

  “I wouldn’t mind going back home,” Harruq said. “Sound good to you, Qurrah?”

  “Wherever you two go, I will follow,” he answered.

  “Settled then,” Aurelia said. “You two are going to have to play along when we get there, though.” She glanced at the sky, which was still speckled with stars even though dawn fast approached. “We’ll wait until morning. I could use a bit more sleep.”

  She walked away, cast a levitation spell upon herself, and then settled in for sleep hovering an inch above the grass.

  “Odd girl,” Qurrah whispered. Harruq forced a laugh. To Qurrah’s eyes, he looked exhausted, and the shrinking of his muscles was glaring.

  “I’m sorry I left you there at Woodhaven,” Harruq said. “And I’m sorry you were alone when Velixar died. How did it happen?”

  “Elves came and attacked. No apologies are necessary, Harruq. All is forgiven.”

  “No, it’s not all forgiven,” he said, grabbing his brother’s shoulders. “I can see it in your eyes. Please understand. I would have given anything to be there with you.”

  Qurrah’s bloodshot eyes lost their rage and sorrow.

  “But you weren’t.” His voice lowered, as if he were afraid Aurelia would hear. “You abandoned me for her. You left me, still wounded and alone. And I know what you did, brother. You turned against Velixar. You denied the gifts he gave you.”

  “He’s gone,” Harruq said. “And I want that strength no more. We are not his slaves.”

  “We were his disciples.”

  “We were his weapons!” Harruq shouted. He glanced back at Aurelia and held back a curse.

  “Weapons,” he said again, his voice an angry whisper. “Nothing more.”

  “If that is your belief,” Qurrah said, settling down upon the grass. “But don’t forget the blood on your hands. You killed more than I, brother. Now leave me be. The night has been long, and I need to rest.”

  Harruq let Qurrah sleep in the flattened grass by the fireside. As for him, he sat between Aurelia and Qurrah, glancing back and forth between the two.

  “I can love them both,” he repeated, though seeing the robes Qurrah wore, he wondered how long before that love split to one or the other.

  Epilogue

  FAR AWAY, ASH FLOATED ON a cold breeze, sucked into a forgotten cavern within a chasm feared by orcs and goblins. On the damp floor it fell, coalescing into a black muck, which stirred by unseen and unfelt winds. Here a bone poked up from the filth, there a fingernail. Floating above, transfixed in patient stasis, a soul awaiting a host, shone two crimson eyes.

  The Story Continues In… Book 2: The Cost of Betrayal

  Afterword

  DAVID DALGLISH GRADUATED FROM MISSOURI Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in Mathematics. When trying to be productive, and stave off returning to working fast food, he writes and self-publishes various fantasy novels, of which he’s sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

  He also has a lovely wife and two beautiful daughters, with all three being far better than he deserves.

  If you want to check out more by him, his fan page is at: https://www.facebook.com/DavidDalglish

  Web page: http://ddalglish.com

  The Half-Orcs

  Book 1: T
he Weight of Blood

  Book 2: The Cost of Betrayal

  Book 3: The Death of Promises

  Book 4: The Shadows of Grace

  Book 5: A Sliver of Redemption

  Book 6: The Prison of Angels

  Book 7: The King of the Vile

  To hear about future bundles from Novel Bundles Services sign up to: smarturl.it/novelbundle

  BEAR HEART

  K. J. Colt

  Chapter I

  THE SMELL OF BURNING FLESH lingered in my nostrils and stuck to the back of my throat. My stomach churned, and I squeezed my eyes closed, focusing on breathing through my mouth. Father kept pushing the scorching steel against my arm. I growled like a bear to fight the pain, and onlookers returned my call. Beads of sweat trickled down my temples and cooled my skin. Father removed the glowing iron that bubbled with the remnants of my flesh. I braved a glance at my shoulder, eyeing the raw wound. Soon, it would scab and turn into a bear claw scar to match Father’s.

  But before then, I would take part in the Bestial Passage tomorrow, competing against the firstborns of four other tribe leaders. The people of my tribe were called Bears, and the competition required that each contender kill their tribal animal under precise and dangerous conditions. I prayed to the Mother of Nature that I would be given a blade, or a spear.

  Father hauled me to my feet. I met the eyes of warriors, mentors, counsellors; all Bears who served my father directly. Wolves howled a prideful song for their young champion, Skelkra, in the southernmost section of the city encampment of Vilseek. More cries germinated a seed of fear within me. I focused on the swirling flames of a bonfire licking at the first stars penetrating the afternoon sky.