David Dalglish: Weight of Blood

“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.

He did his best to sleep until dawn.

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.