Slice! Slice! Stab! Cut!
Throats opened. Bellies were gutted.
Howls of anguish and anger filled the alley to the rooftops. The frenzied hoard trampled over one another. Bolts zinged through the air.
Creed kept swinging. Stabbing. Cutting. Parrying. A symphony of steel. He headed for the light ahead. The main road led to home. He could outrun them if he could just get away from them.
Faster Creed! Faster! Attack! Attack! Attack!
Underlings fell like bloody leaves at his feet. Dark blood slicked the stones. Throwing elbows and pommels, he fought like a hungry bear.
He sunk his blade into the last underling to bar his path, ripped it out, and sped ahead.
Clatch-Zip! Clatch-Zip! Clatch-Zip!
The underlings poured through the alleys after him like pack of jackals, all their cunning tactics gone. They wanted his blood. They wanted it bad. Creed had mown down dozens of them. It was personal.
He flew by one lantern on the street then another, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“HOUNDS! HOUNDS! HOUNDS!”
Castle Bloodhound was a hundred yards away. He glanced over his shoulder. The underlings were less than ten yards from his back, gaining. Twenty, maybe thirty of them.
“Little bastards are fast!”
He turned it on. Legs and lungs on fire. His right leg turned stiff as a board. A bolt protruded out of his thigh.
Poison!
Fifty yards away.
A sword licked across his back. With everything he had left, he howled like a hound.
“AaaaaaRoooooooooo!”
His vision dimmed.
Thirty yards away.
Open the door, blast it!
The gate swung open. A tide of dogs flooded out in small coats of armor and dashed straight for him. There must have been a hundred of them, maybe more. The hounds darted by Creed, jaws wide, and slammed into the underlings.
Creed stumbled and hit the ground, gasping for breath. Behind him, the dogs tore into the underlings in a frenzy. The attack dogs were big. Bullmastiffs and Rottweilers. Their jaws were iron clamps on underling arms and necks. That’s why no one messed with the Bloodhounds. Not the City Watch, soldiers, nor Royals. Their dogs were loyal, fearless, relentless unto death.
Painful yelps caught Creed’s ears. He crawled up on his hands and knees. The underling forces had rallied and now struck. One dog went down, then two.
“NO!”
Creed pushed himself over the road, swords scraping over the stone. Strong hands grabbed ahold of him and dragged him away. He screamed once more and the darkness came.
***
“Is he well?” Lord Grom said.
“As well as can be,” Haggie said. She dipped a towel in a strong-smelling substance and rubbed it on his chest. “Strange these wounds didn’t heal like the last ones.”
Creed sat in his bed, inspecting his stitches. They were sore and his stomach was queasy. Shifting in his bed, he groaned.
“Be still,” Haggie said, poking him with her crooked finger, “or you’ll tear those through.”
“I’m fine.” He looked at his grandfather, who was glaring at him. “For now.”
He looked away. Here it comes. He found the eyes of Lorda, who sat on the edge of the bed. There was a concerned look in them. She likes me some. She must. Corrin was in there too, leaning on the frame of his door with his hand tucked in his scabbard belt. He’d taken a beating days earlier but his steely gaze had returned.
“Fifteen,” Lord Grom said, glowering at him. He took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled.
“Dogs?” Creed said.
“Aye.” Grom snorted. “And two men as well.”
Creed’s shoulders slouched. The sickness in his belly swelled. It had been over a day since they dragged him inside. A jar full of leeches sat on the table by his bed. Haggie had spent the entire time drawing the poison from him. Stitching over a dozen wounds and doctoring him with elixirs that kept the fever down. He rubbed his naked wrists. His eyes searched for the armament. He didn’t see it.
“Grandfather,” he said, “I can’t express—”
Lord Grom’s glare was like a hungry grizzly’s, his words hot as fire.
“Don’t say it!” He pounded his fist into his barrel chest. “Good men died, and many of our finest hounds, all because you want to play some kind of hero! I told you! I warned you! What were you thinking!”
Creed swallowed hard and pulled his covers up. He’d never felt smaller, nor more foolish. The last of all people you wanted to upset was his grandfather. It took much to do that.
“I’ll make it right,” Creed said, wincing.
“Oh, you can bring back the dead, can ye? Is that your secret from your little bag of tricks?” He held up the stitched-up leather sack and waved it in his face.
Slat! How did he find that?
“Can you stuff the dead in here and bring them back?” Grom roared. “You know I don’t care for this mysticism! You are a swordsman, Creed! A Bloodhound. You can only trust flesh and blood. You are loyal to us, and us alone, or you will be alone!” Grom spit through his beard. “Am I clear!
“Certainly,” Creed said. He reached for the sack.
Grom snatched it away and turned his attention to Haggie.
“How well is he?”
She shrugged her fragile shoulders and offered a grin of crooked teeth.
“He’s tender but well enough.”
Lord Grom snorted through his nose.
“Get up! Come with me.” He eyed the room. “All of you but the hag. Take this.” He tossed her the sack. “Dispose of it.”
Pain shot through his back when he jerked up out of bed.
“What? No,” he argued. “That is mine and mine alone! It has nothing to do with this!”
Lord Grom struck him in the chest with his mallet-sized fist, knocking him back onto the bed.
“It has everything to do with this!” He headed for the door. “Now get up and come!”
Creed slipped out of bed with his head and shoulders drooping. Lorda fell in behind him and Corrin swung open the door. Lord Grom was the first one out.
“Hounds! Take us down!”
Two Bloodhound sentries in leather armor lead them through the castle. They passed the dining halls and kitchen and went through the kennels. Over a hundred dogs lay in there, curled up and silent. All of them were treated like people. Out of the kennels they went and through another courtyard and stopped where a stone wall greeted them with a pair of ancient doors.
He glanced back at Lorda. She was holding her nose and her face was downcast. He reached back and touched her hand. She squeezed his and let go, shaking her head. She wouldn’t look at him for some reason, not that she often did.
The wooden doors creaked when the guards pulled them open. Torchlight flickered within.
Lord Grom looked back at him and said, “Come.”
“Why?”
Lord Grom glared at him and said, “Don’t test me, Boy.”
Creed hadn’t been in this part of Castle Bloodhound since he was a boy. It was a dungeon of sorts. A place where his father said they kept the unfaithful. He had an uncle that he’d visited here once, but he’d never seen him again. He had no idea if his uncle lived or died.
Grom led them down dark stairs and the slime slick walls. The air was musty, dank and foul. Lorda started coughing.
Two more Bloodhound sentries greeted Lord Grom at the bottom of the steps and offered a salute. They were rawboned and gritty. Haggard looking in their leather armor, even for Bloodhounds. Their eyes locked on Lorda and enlarged. Creed stepped in front of them and glared.
“At ease,” Lord Grom said, treading deeper inside.
Two rows of three iron cages lined the block stone walls. All were empty save one. Someone lay huddled up in the corner in a pile of old blankets and rotting hay.
Creed wondered if that was his uncle.
Why’s he bringing me to
see him? I don’t need this. I’m not a child prone to these scare tactics.
“I don’t see the point in this, Grandfather.”
Lord Grom stood by the open door of another cage. Inside were a stack of blankets, three buckets of water, and a large pile of fresh hay.
“You’ll get two good meals a day and all the water you need.”
Creed laughed. “What? Are you joking?”
“Inside, Creed,” Grom warned.
He stepped back. “I’m not going in there. Grandfather, I’ve made a mistake, but I don’t deserve this!”
“Get inside! Don’t make me tell you again!”
“You’re mad!”
“No, you’re mad! Your antics will get us all killed. I can’t risk that. You will learn your lesson.”
“And if I don’t!”
“Then you may never see the sunshine in Bone again.”
Lord Grom meant it. He felt it in his bones. He turned and ran right into the sentries. There were four. He punched the closest one in the belly. He shattered the nose of another. Something hit him in the back of the head like a hammer.
Crack!
Down he went, getting pummeled all over. The sentries dragged him over to the cage and tossed him on the hay. Blinded by pain, he didn’t move. His face started to throb and the swelling began.
Lord Grom slammed the metal door shut.
Bang!
Creed lay there stunned. Dumbfounded.
Why? He wanted to say it but he didn’t. It didn’t matter. His grandfather had made his mind up and he wouldn’t change it.
“Your comrades will be well cared for, Creed. That is, assuming they don’t do anything foolish.” Lord Grom looked right at Corrin and Lorda. “If they do, they will surely be joining you.” He turned his attention back to Creed. “Think about who you are loyal to, Creed. The Bloodhounds are survivors. We’ll take service with whomever, whenever, and wherever we have to. This plague of the underlings will pass. I need you to think hard on this, Creed. Times change. People do too.”
Creed didn’t know which felt worse: the lumps on his head or what his Grandfather had said.
“Let’s go now,” Lord Grom said.
Corrin frowned at him with a shake of his head.
Lorda rushed over and pressed her face to the bars.
“I’m sorry, Creed. I’m sorry.” A tear was in her eyes. “I just wanted to protect you.”
Lord Grom grabbed her arm and peeled her away.
“Go, Woman! My patience is thin!
One by one, all of them disappeared up the stairs and the heavy door creaked to a close. The small dungeon was silent. He’d never felt more alone.
How long will he keep me here? A day? Two?
The figure in the cell adjacent to him stirred. A haggard man with skinny bones crawled over to the bars.
“Heh, heh, heh,” the prisoner said in a scratchy voice, and then broke off into a coughing fit. “Don’t think you’re going anywhere ... Eh! Lord Grom just wants them to think that ... Eh! He feels threatened by you. Felt threatened by me, too ... Eh! Enjoy the quiet and the rats. You’re here to stay. Long time ... Eh. Long as me ... Eh.”
CHAPTER 21
Darleen woke to a bright beam of sunlight in her eyes.
“Dawn already,” she said, slinging her big legs over the edge of the bed. She stretched her arms, yawned and scratched her neck. “I think I need to smell some coffee brewing.” She swatted the goon in her bed. “Get up and make me some coffee, Dasan.”
“Mrrph?”
“You heard me.”
Darleen tossed her heavy nightgown to the floor, put on her trousers, and buttoned up her shirt. Walked around Kam’s apartment, which was now hers. The other goon was sprawled out on the sofa with drool in his mouth. She pinched his arm.
He jolted, whipping out his dagger, with blurry eyes looking all around.
“What! What! What!”
“Settle down, Ozark,” she said. “Get up and make me some coffee.”
The heavy-set goon rolled off the sofa and shuffled into the apartment’s small kitchen. Darleen sat down on the sofa and kicked her feet up on the table. The morning suns filled the room with light, but it wasn’t in her eyes. She liked this spot. It was just perfect in the morning. She was really fond of the apartment. It was quaint. Comfortable. And better yet, she had plenty of help to keep it up. She’d worked hard all her life for others, and now they worked for her.
“This is the life,” she said, leaning her head back on the pillow.
“Did you say something?” Dasan said, making his way out of the bedroom, rubbing his hairy belly.
“I need coffee,” she said, “and put some of those leaves in it. My head’s full of slat.”
“Ozark says we’re out of coffee,” Dasan said when he reached the kitchen.
“I didn’t ask if we were out of coffee, did I?”
“Er … no, but—”
“I told you to make some coffee.”
“But how do I—”
She got up, stormed into the kitchen and grabbed a metal ladle. She cracked him in the head with it.
“You go get some more!”
Ozark chuckled.
She stormed over to him, brandishing the ladle.
He cringed, covering his face with his thick arms, saying, “Sorry, Darleen. It’s just funny he’s so stupid.”
“And you aren’t?”
He lowered his guard.
“Well, no, not like—”
She whacked him right between the eyes.
“Ow!”
Darleen was a big woman but they were bigger men, rugged and brainless, but she liked that about them. They were a shameless and entertaining pair that reminded her of some of the rowdy bumpkins back in Hohm, the City of Mist. And they were the only people that seemed to like her. She swatted the man on the arse with the ladle.
“Get your gear on. We’re going downstairs. I’m going to teach you two lards how to fetch coffee in case this ever happens again.”
In the kitchen, Dasan said with a long face, “I think that would be wise, Darleen.”
Shaking her thick head, she made her way to the door, picked up her boots and put them on. She took a deep breath into her heavy chest. I hope he’s not down there already. She’d been spending more time in the apartment since Kam’s collapse over something Master Sidebor had done. She didn’t understand it and she didn’t care to understand it either. She might not care for Kam so much, but she liked Sidebor even less. Scorch doesn’t need him. And I don’t want him.
She tied up her boots and slipped on her trapper’s vest that hung on a peg.
Sidebor had even run off all the followers Scorch had brought along. They’d been good help too. Needy, but hard working.
“We’re ready,” Dasan said, smiling.
Ozark and Dasan stood side by side in full leather armor that gave her stomach flutters. I sure like a man in armor. Stupid or not.
“Shame you don’t look that good naked,” she said, tapping her foot by the door.
“Oh,” said Ozark, the shorter heavier one. He opened up the door for her.
She pinched his cheek hard as she passed, and downstairs she went.
No one was at the bar and there was no sign of Sidebor either. Her throbbing head started to ease. Good. She could hear plates being stacked up in the back but the tavern floor was empty. The cleaning unfinished. A few patrons still lingered.
“Where is everybody?” she said. She pointed to the patrons and said to her goons. “Get them out of here. We don’t serve breakfast unless you pay for a room. And them’s been here all night. Now run them off.” She popped into the kitchen. Brak was there. Nobody else.
“Where is everybody?”
Brak had a stack of dishes squeezed between his paws that he shoved onto a high shelf. He looked at her and said, “The Markets.” He shuffled by and grabbed a shovel. Scoop by scoop, he filled the coal ovens.
“All of them?”
Brak didn’t stop shoveling.
“Joline says today’s annual Market Festival. She told them yesterday to be early for the best prices on all things. Merchants come from all around, she says.” He propped the shovel back in the corner. “They should be back soon.” He looked down on her.
His eyes were bright blue, drooping. She didn’t know what to make of Brak. He was big, bigger than Ozark and Dasan, quiet. Something smoldered inside him that left her uneasy.
“Can you make coffee?”
He nodded.
“Well, put some on and grab me a pound to take to my room,” she said. “And you better be getting some help down here. Those ovens need to be cooking.”
“I can start it,” Brak said. “No problem.”
“Just don’t you be eating all of it. I’ve heard that tummy of yers.”
She left the kitchen and bumped into Ozark.
“What?” she said.
“Uh, well, we got all them out, save one. He’s stubborn. Kinda mean looking.”
“What?” She shoved him aside. “Let me get a look at him.”
Dasan stood, thumbs hitched in his belt. “Alongside one of the tables in the back, near one of the fireplaces.” He had a nervous look in his eye.
Darleen strolled over with her hand drifting to her knife.
The man at the table was no slouch. Big knotty shoulders bulged under a sandy cloak. His face was hard and scarred. Square jawed. Blue eyes harder like iron. She didn’t recall seeing him before.
Darleen hitched her leg up on the chair and rested her elbow on her knee.
“You can come back later, Big Fella. The Roost is closed.”
“Grog, Ale, Coffee,” the man said in a hard voice. His eyes slid over to the hearth. “Fire.”
Dasan and Ozark looked at one another, then her. Small daggers were concealed in their fingers.
She made a pausing gesture with her hand.
“Listen, we get lots a new faces in here all the time. Some mannerly.” She shrugged. “Some not. We got an order to things around here. Come back later and I’ll serve you a pot myself.”
The man leaned back, hitched his tremendous arm over the back of the chair, and said, “Since when do they let ugly women serve anything in here?”
Ozark and Dasan’s eyes widened.
The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces Page 10