The Tun brothers did not go straight home that night. Harruq veered them off into the grassy hills south of Woodhaven.
“Why do we go this way?” Qurrah asked, his arm draped around his brother. His sagging body seemed ready to collapse into slumber at any time.
“I need to retrieve the swords I dropped,” Harruq said quietly. “I want to train with them.”
Qurrah nodded so absently that Harruq wondered if his brother even heard him. They walked in silence under the beauty of the stars.
“Hey, Qurrah?”
“Yes, brother?”
“What we did…is it…”
“Did you revel in the power granted to you?” Qurrah asked. Harruq paused, searching for an honest answer.
“Aye,” he said at last. “I did.”
“Then why do you now question it?”
Harruq shrugged. “Velixar’s strong. What do you think he wants with us?”
“Order,” Qurrah said. “We will kill, brother. It is all we are good at. It was what we were made for. What other purpose do you see for your life?”
Harruq shrugged. “I said it before. I’m here to protect you.”
“Then kill those that seek to kill me,” Qurrah said, a bit of his sleepiness leaving him. “Our master has given us so much. Power. Weapons. A purpose. What more could we ever ask for?”
“Yeah, what else,” Harruq said, shifting more of his brother’s weight onto his shoulder. Qurrah’s eyes drooped, and it seemed sleep would steal him away before they reached town.
Harruq found his blades without too much trouble. He laid Qurrah down. His brother slept peacefully, and in silence the half-orc took the old weapons into his hands. He looked to the stars. Even as a child, those far away lights had awakened something in him, something so different from what he thought he was. Right then, it was awakening guilt and fear.
“I do what I choose,” he argued to the stars. “No, what I must.”
The words felt hollow, nothing more than self-serving lies. He kept remembering the mother with her young babe clutched to her breast as she fled from him. When he had rammed her, she had tucked the child to guard it from the fall. Right before the kill, she had held him, trying to protect him.
“Why?” he asked. A part of him worried he might wake his brother, but he was too drained to care. “Why did she do that? She could have run faster without the child!”
No, he knew that answer. She would not abandon her child just as he would not abandon Qurrah. Then what was bothering him so? He fell to his knees and stabbed the old weapons into the dirt. The faces of those he had killed danced before his eyes, especially the mother and her child, and the young girl holding her little sister. The fear in their eyes. The screams. The panic. Horror.
“I do what I have to do,” he said again. But did the villagers have to die? All those children, mothers, sisters, fathers…nothing but a test. And all those small bodies he left for his brother to mutilate? What was it his swords were accomplishing? Every action, every kill, seemed to confirm the words of his brother. He was a killer and nothing more. His legacy would be one of death and emptiness.
The ghosts of the village clung to his back and neck. His choice was made. When he looked to the stars, he saw Aurelia’s face among them. He tried not to think of what she’d say if she knew what he had done. Guilt and regret meant nothing so he choked it down. It didn’t matter what he wanted. His oath was made. His swords had swung. The weight of blood was on his shoulders, and who was he to fight against it?
“I’m sorry if I’m weak,” Harruq whispered to his sleeping brother. “I can’t be like you. I can’t be strong like you…”
The half-orc buckled the old pair of swords next to the gleaming black blades on his belt. He then gently took his brother into his arms and carried him back to town. The weight of his brother in his hands was a feather compared to the burden on his heart.
9
Harruq arrived late to his sparring match with Aurelia. His face was haggard and his eyes bloodshot.
“Rough night?” Aurelia asked. She blinked as a tingle in her head insisted that something was different about the half-orc. After a few seconds, she saw it.
“Harruq,” she asked, “is it me, or did you grow thirty pounds of muscle overnight?”
“Yup,” Harruq muttered. “I’m magical like that.”
The elf glared at him.
“Sorry,” he said, his face reddening. “I had a long night.”
Aurelia nodded. She twirled the staff in the air and then hooked it underneath her arm.
“Ready to start?”
The half-orc shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Instead of starting, she lowered her staff and crossed her arms. “Something’s wrong, Harruq. Tell me what bothers you so?”
Harruq sighed and looked away. He gently tapped his swords together. “I don’t know. Bored.”
“Am I not a challenge?”
He made vague shrug that could be taken either way. Let her think that was it, he thought. It was a whole lot better than the truth. Aurelia, however, seemed none too pleased. She twirled her staff again.
“You might be surprised, orcyboy, but I could beat you in a spar.”