David Dalglish - The Death of Promises

“Shush,” Tarlak said. “We both are. My head is going to explode if I cast another spell, but we have no choice. More are coming, Aurelia.”

She looked back to the city, and there she saw the wolf-men, almost five-hundred running on all fours. They were less than a mile away, yet already they could smell the fear in the sweat of their prey.

“I can’t,” Aurelia said, turning away. Her eyes downcast, she shook her head again and again.

“You can,” Tarlak said, taking her head in his hands and forcing her gaze back up to him.

“No,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “Please, I can’t.”

“You will,” Tarlak said. “And so will I. If we fail, we fail. But I will not let any more die, even if it means dying myself.”

The ice below them faded, its duration ended. Tarlak lowered them to the grass, took off his hat, and reached inside. He pulled out a single vial. He had hoped for more but he had been too quick to scavenge items from his tower.

“Drink this,” he told her. “It’ll clear your head and make you feel like you just had a solid hour of sleep.” The two stepped out from the stream of refugees running a blind east, with no goal other than to leave the city far behind. A few spotted the wolf-men, and their screams of fear alerted the rest. They fled faster, pushed harder. Those who tripped or were too weak to continue were trampled.

“Pay no attention to behind us,” Tarlak said. “Stand still and cast until you can’t cast anymore, and even then continue. If we take enough, then maybe they’ll have a shot.”

The wolf-men howled in unison, ready to kill, ready to feast. Aurelia drank the contents of the vial, all her will keeping her from gagging on the foul taste. Her mind did clear, and the terrible ache in her temples faded. She dropped the vial to the grass.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t mention it,” Tarlak said. He took out a wand from within his robe and held it with both hands. “Let’s just hope I get the chance to make you another.”

A worn and battered pair, they waited for the wolf-men to close the distance and the slaughter to begin.

H arruq stood before the gap in the wall. His head was down, and his hair covered his face. Salvation and Condemnation were at his sides, their tips jammed into the dirt. His eyes stared at the people that fled to him and the safety he had offered. Even in their panic, they made sure not to touch him. Something about him made them stay clear. He did not see, but those that passed stared in admiration or reverence. He was like a deity made of stone.

Several thousand men and woman had fled by the time Harruq saw the first orcs. They were scattered and few, the teeth lining the edge of a gaping maw swallowing his entire city. It was swallowing people he loved. It would not swallow him. The last of the refugees screamed for help, but he did not move. He would not reach them in time, and if he left the gap orcs might escape the city and give chase. So he watched, his heart too calloused, too exhausted, to feel anything more than anger as the innocents were butchered and mutilated before him.

“You will die before you pass,” Harruq said to the first to approach. The orc ignored his words and hefted his two-handed axe above his head. Salvation lashed out and cut his throat in a single, blinding motion. The sword returned to its original position as the body crumpled before him. A second neared. Condemnation cut the axe from his hand, looped around, and disemboweled him. The orc crumpled, gasping out his pain. Harruq saw none of it, heard none of it. A strange anger had settled over him. It was not raging or burning; it did not consume him like so often anger had. Instead he felt it filling his veins like ice. As three orcs charged him, he knew without question they would die by his hand. There would be no pleasure in the killing, no thrill in the act, just a deepening of the strangeness enveloping his mind.

Harruq smashed away the axe aimed for his head, stepped forward, and buried one sword to the hilt in the orc’s gut. His other parried away a thrust so that the orc holding the sword fell forward. Harruq’s elbow turned his nose to a splattered mess of cartilage and blood. He then pulled free his sword and slashed the remaining orc’s neck. Blood poured across the black steel. Four orcs lay dead at his feet. He stared down the street, where more than forty approached. They carried pieces of humans like trophies. His anger strengthened.

“Come and die like the animals you are,” he shouted to them. He held his swords crossed above his head, a glowing ‘X’ that dripped blood. The mass of orcs charged. They had killed many, but not enough. They knew the innocents fled outside the walls. Only Harruq remained in the way. Only Harruq.

He swung with all his strength, the magic in the swords cutting bone like it was dry wheat. He took out the legs of the orc before him, stepped back, and then swung again. Three more fell, their armor broken, their chests and bellies pouring blood across the ground. As the bodies fell they formed a barrier to the others behind, one they had to stumble and climb across. Harruq gave no reprieve and offered no inch of ground. The orcs swung, cut, and bit, but he did not feel the tears in his flesh, did not know of the blood that poured across him. All he knew was the death in the eyes of those he killed, and they were many.

As the last of the forty died or lay dying, Harruq screamed to the morning sky, a single cry of anguish, sorrow, and anger. It echoed throughout the town, intermixing with the sobs of the trapped, the bellows of hatred, and the pitiful weeping of those whose lives now belonged to Karak. Qurrah did not hear the war cry, but he felt it in his heart.

C ome,” Velixar said as the last of the undead marched through the walls. “It is time we entered as the conquerors we are.”

The man in black raised his arms to the heavens, his red eyes rolling into his skull. He opened his mouth and whispered, and his legions of undead obeyed.

Karak! they shouted. Karak! Karak! It rose high from rotted throats and mindless flesh. The walls shook with the cry. All who heard felt the lion’s condemning eyes upon their backs. The dark priests joined the shout, and the lion’s roar traveled for miles. The orcs took up the chant. Those who knelt, forfeiting their souls for their lives, whispered it. The entire city became a writhing cauldron of death, blood, and worship.

Karak! Karak!

But there were still those fighting against him and whose lips worshipped him not, whose hearts followed Ashhur even as they struggled to survive inside the maelstrom.

K arak be damned!” Harruq shouted as he cut down his orcish attacker. “You hear me? Karak be damned!”

He buried his sword deep into the gut of another, so that blood poured hot across his hand and wrist. He yanked out the blade and kicked the body back, another obstacle for the incoming mass. His anger had evolved. He felt it flooding his being with strength, wild and desperate to be used. His focus was no longer the narrow knife edge but instead wide. He saw everything, felt everything, as the battle grew desperate. Fifty more had come, and they charged and howled with wild abandon. Harruq braced himself and prepared for the onslaught, but then he saw they were running out of fear.

Harruq had but a few to massacre. The rest were buried by Sergan and his soldiers.

“Well met gatekeeper,” Sergan said, his enormous axe hefted onto his shoulder. “So what’s the toll? I can’t pay in gold, but I got plenty of orc heads for you!”

Harruq wiped the blood from his weapons and sheathed them. For a brief moment a grin lit up his face.

“Two heads a man, can you pay the toll?” he asked.