“A minor skirmish,” Qurrah said, echoing the elf’s words. “How amusingly wrong.”

Harruq had anticipated watching the fight over the wall from the roof, but instead they turned and watched the orcs slam into the human forces that surrounded the opening. The first push was brutal. Screams of pain and shrieks of metal on metal flowed into the city. Harruq watched an orc wielding two swords cut off the arm of one soldier, and as the blood from the limb splattered across his face, he turned and decapitated another with two vicious hacks. The orc roared in victory only to die as a soldier shoved his sword in his side and out his back.

“Will they make it through?” Harruq asked, in awe of the display. Qurrah glanced over the wall and then back to the main combat. Archers continued eviscerating the orc forces. If they could push into the city, their arrows would be a nuisance at best, but it seemed they had underestimated the human soldiers.

“They are running out of time,” Qurrah said. “But they might.”

He glanced back to the necromancer, and then he saw his eyes, just hints of red underneath the hood of his robes. Qurrah shivered as whispers traveled up his spine.

You silenced my pets, it said.

“I do as I wish,” Qurrah whispered back. He felt a touch of cold on his fingers, like the fleeting kiss of a corpse lover.

You ally with the city of men?

“Again, I do as I wish,” Qurrah whispered.

“Who are you talking to?” Harruq asked. “Qurrah, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Qurrah said. He tore his gaze back to the fight. More orcs had pushed inward so that they bunched in a wide circle. They flung themselves against the surrounding guards. Again he felt a cold chill, this time creeping across his arms like frost spiders. The sensation of being watched was unbearable.

“We need to move,” he said. “If the guards falter we might suffer.”