The Cost of Betrayal (49 page)

“You’re using me, aren’t you?” he said. “You care not for me or my brother. You want their daughter.”

“Yes,” she moaned. “But you use me as well. And we both like it.” He pressed harder against her arms. His chest shoved against hers, pinning her. Her breath quickened, and against his chest, he felt her nipples hardening.

“I would do anything for you,” he whispered to her. “Anything. You do not need to play me for it.”

“Please,” she gasped. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

He took her there, right against the wall, dwelling in her lust. At her climax, she tore her mouth away from his and shrieked his name, but it was not the name he expected.

“Master,” she screamed. “Master! Master!”

He finished shortly after, a bitter feeling in his heart. He knew his role, then, the one he was meant to play. He would play it. Until she needed him as a true lover, an equal, a husband, he would play it, and enjoy every second.

24

H
aving worms eat his flesh wasn’t worse than the abyss, but it was comparable. When night fell a new torture arrived. It came with yellow eyes, patches of missing fur, and a limping gait that explained its desperation. The animal could no longer hunt for food. It would have to do with the carrion it could find, and that night it had found Karnryk.

Qurrah’s order was simple: don’t move. So he didn’t. When the coyote nibbled on his lone hand, he knew a good punch would send the wretched thing running, but knowing and doing were two different things. With a sickening crunch, it tore off a finger and rolled it about its mouth.

Enjoy it,
Karnryk thought, lost in a sick delirium.
Chew it good. Maybe even choke. I got plenty for you to eat, you sick little mutt. Think you can eat all of me? My head, too? Scoop my brains out so the gnats won’t crawl through the holes in my eyes to feed?

Crunch went the bones in his hand. It latched on with a feverous grip, yanking until the wrist broke. Tail between its legs, the mongrel ran off with its prize.

When I kill him, it’ll be by clubbing him to death with my elbow,
he thought. Gods help him, he couldn’t even bite, not with his jaw lying twenty feet away in the dirt. His only recourse, his only salvation, was imagining the brutal death of his master. By sword, by foot, by choking, by throttling, smashing his head in a door, burning his face in fire, bleeding him out bit by bit before a stream, everything was good. Every bit of it would be fun. If he had his way, he’d deserve his return to the abyss. He’d take Qurrah with him, hauled over his shoulder to throw him to the demons.

“Something ate your other hand,” Qurrah mused the next morning. “A shame. You have no way to wield a sword.”

Yes, s
uch a horrible shame,
came Karnryk’s words rudely into his mind.
I can still kick people to death for you, though, you sick bastard.

Qurrah took a stick from the ground and rammed it through an eye socket.

“Uncalled for,” he said. “And unwise. You need a sword hand or you are of no use to me.”

Then start searching coyote stomachs, because you’re not finding it around here.

Qurrah yanked the stick out and shoved it through the other eye socket, twirling it about for good measure.

“You’ll get a new hand,” he said. “I’ve a task for you. Once you’ve completed it, I’ll return you to the abyss. Until then, though…” Qurrah reached into his pocket and pulled out a stale piece of bread. He mashed it in his fingers, scattering crumbs around the rigid warrior’s feet. He wadded the rest into the gaping hole that was Karnryk’s face.

“That should ensure you plenty of company for the day.”

The necromancer trudged back to the cottage, pondering a way to obtain a new sword arm for his slave. Meanwhile, Karnryk silently invented new curses as the first of many flies flew down his throat to investigate the wonderful new smell.

H
aern waited until Harruq and Aurelia were upstairs playing with their daughter before slipping into Tarlak’s study.

“Afternoon, Haern,” the wizard said, not looking up from his bookwork. “So what brings the grand servant of our king to my humble little room? By the way, you’ve been wandering around the city, haven’t you?” He glanced up so his frown would be visible. “Your burns haven’t healed. You shouldn’t be sleuthing about.”

The assassin shrugged. Scars covered his face and hands, although Delysia promised him they would fade. Several fingers were wrapped in bandages. Miraculously enough, his hair had survived mostly intact. Only a small patch near the front had been burned off, so that it appeared he had a receding hairline. Haern combed his blond hair forward best he could to hide it, but it did no good.

“I believe I found where Qurrah is hiding,” he said.

“Say again?”

“Karnryk spent a good two months dropping coin for any information about Tessanna,” the assassin explained. “He and his cronies vanished weeks ago.”

“And not long after Qurrah returned here with Tessanna,” Tarlak said, making the connection. “Those wounds to the girl, Karnryk made them.”

“Which means Karnryk found them,” Haern said, leaning with his hands atop Tarlak’s desk. “A few cut-rate thugs knew the girl’s father. Evidently, he had a debt to them, gambling of some sort. They followed him to his house, mostly to ensure he couldn’t hide if his debts grew out of hand. I’ve talked with them. There are a few markers, and eventually a path deep enough in the woods. I can track it.”

Tarlak folded his hands together and cracked his knuckles.

“I know I must be wrong, but I get the distinct impression you want to go after them again.”

Haern grinned. “I’ve got a score to settle, wouldn’t you agree?”

The wizard chuckled. “Hoping you would learn from the first time was foolish of me, wasn’t it?”

He stood, closing his book. His hand absently scratched his beard as he stared at the cover, pondering. “Lathaar is right,” he said at last. “Until they make a move, it is best to leave them be. I’m glad we know, in case something does happen. For now, let’s keep this knowledge between ourselves.”

“Quiet in the night,” Haern insisted. “There will be no battle. No warning.”

“I said no,” Tarlak warned. “And they had no warning the first time, either, but you still came back a burned mess.”

The assassin’s eyes darkened. “They cannot kill me.”

“Those marks on your face say differently.” The wizard sighed, knowing he had gone too far. “I’m sorry, Haern. I can’t risk it. If we take them on, we go together. Right now, I’m keeping my word with Harruq, or he’ll never trust me again.”

Haern bowed.

“I pray you are right,” he whispered, pulling the hood back over his head. “And I pray they accept the uncommon grace they are being given.”

With a flutter of gray, he was gone. Tarlak slumped back in his chair and reopened the book.

“I hate being in charge,” he muttered.

I
have an idea for his hand,” Tessanna said one morning after a violent hour of lovemaking.

“My pet’s?” Qurrah said, his head nuzzled into her length of hair. The girl laughed at his words.

“Yes, your pet’s. We need him to hold a big scary sword right?”

“Right.” His breath tickled her neck, and she laughed again.

“I can make him a new hand. One of stone. If you find me a rock, and a fire, I think I can make it. I think.”

“That is a lot of thinking for tiny little you,” said Qurrah, leaning on his elbow. He shivered as she traced a finger across his naked chest.

“I want to help. I should help you, right? It’s the right thing to do?”

“Yes, love,” he said. “It is the right thing to do. How large a stone do you need?”

“Big as a fist,” she said. “Shouldn’t that be obvious?”

The half-orc laughed. “Yes. You’re right.”

It took him half an hour to find the perfect stone. He pried it from the dirt beside the river. It was smooth and round with a flat bottom. He threw it against a tree twice, just to ensure it could endure a pounding. Only dirt caked off with each collision against the bark. Satisfied, he cleaned it in the river and trekked home.

Tessanna was ready for him. A small fire burned steadily in the dirt. Three small rocks with blood-drawn runes formed a triangle about the fire. Even more blood dripped into the flame, pouring freely from a cut on Tessanna’s wrist as she gazed on with glee. When she saw the stone, she beamed.

“Perfect,” she said. “Come here. Put it down. I want you to watch.”

He set it next to the fire and then glanced at the glyphs on the runes. He recognized the three, but it made no sense. They were symbols usually involved with resurrecting the dead. How would they help with making a hand for his pet?

“Tessanna, how do you know…”

“It’ll work,” she said, bobbing her head enthusiastically. “Don’t ask me how, even though you just did, you naughty boy. I know. Like I know a lot of things.”

Without another word, she picked up the stone and placed it in the center of the fire. The burning twigs shoved aside and continued to burn.

“Imagine a hand,” she whispered, running her fingers across Qurrah’s face to close his eyes. Her voice grew cold and aged. “A hand forged by gods and granted power by things we dare not see. Imagine each vein, pulsing with gold. Imagine its claws, short but strong as steel, their tips stained with the blood of a thousand victims. This hand can wield the mightiest sword and brace the greatest of shields. Imagine it, lover, and I will make it. Let me see, and then you shall see as well.”

He did imagine such a hand, its flesh stone, its veins gold, and its thick fingertips red. Her words painted it in his mind sure as a brush on a canvas. He focused on the hand, mesmerized by the strength it possessed. He dimly grew aware that Tessanna was casting a spell, but the haze that enveloped his mind swirled the knowledge away. The hand could have belonged to a deity, he thought, one that made the rock of earth and gave purpose and rhythm to the stones and rivers. A man could die by that hand, and there would be no shame.

“Open your eyes,” he heard his lover say. He did. Deep in the fire was the hand. He cried out and stepped back, for it pulsed with a life unworldly. The fingers flexed one by one, even though it ended in a simple stump at the wrist. The flesh was gray and impossibly strong.