“And what’s that?” Jubilee said.
“We have Jarla.”
The girl chuckled and then picked up a canteen, soaked a rag with it, sat down by Brak, and placed the rag on his head. “You’re going to be fine, Brak. Just hang in there.”
“How sweet,” said Jarla. “The little girl cares for the giant man. Does it bother you I’ve already had intercourse with him?”
Jubilee rolled her eyes and shook her head.
On one knee, Fogle at last turned to Jarla when he spoke. “Was that really necessary?”
Jarla leaned forward as far as she could. “I know it bothers you, mage. I’ve seen the desire in your eyes. The jealousy.” She glanced at the nearby tent and pulled up her knees. “Let me give you something warmer than fire could ever be.”
Eyeing her legs and finding the sultry look in her eyes, Fogle’s heart beat faster. His mouth dried.
My, she’s a temptress! A lesser man would certainly risk his own neck. Even I can’t help but consider risking mine.
“I must admit I’m flattered you would try to seduce me.”
“No man can resist my charms once he gets to know me.”
“Just as your men have to prove themselves to you, you will have to prove yourself to me.”
Gently knocking her knees together, Jarla said with a purr in her voice, “I’m trying to prove myself to you, Fogle.”
He swallowed. When he’d first laid eyes on Jarla long ago she had stirred his blood. There was something mesmerizing and powerful about her that the other women in his life didn’t have. A dangerous element. A different desire. He turned away from her scarred and beautiful face and said to Jubilee, “I have to meditate. Can you handle her without me?”
Jubilee pulled out a knife and stuck it in the ground. “I can handle her just fine.”
Without giving Jarla another glance, Fogle crawled into his tent.
“Meditate about me all you want, wizard,” Jarla said to him. “But the real thing is far, far better.”
Fogle closed the tent flap behind him.
Curse my eyes, I want that woman!
***
Jubilee finished tending to Brak, added more wood to the fire, picked up her knife, and sat down cross-legged in front of Jarla with the fire at her back.
“You’re stealing my warmth, little girl,” Jarla said.
“Good,” Jubilee replied. “You don’t deserve any.”
Jarla glanced at the sky. “I suppose you’re right. I am a wretched person. I bet you can’t imagine anyone more wretched than me.”
“I’ve known people far worse than you who wanted me dead too, but here I am.”
“Well, aren’t you quite the little sprite. Pretty too.” Gazing at Jubilee, Jarla tilted her head to one side. “You have the cheekbones of a Royal.”
Jubilee sat up a little bit. “That’s because I am a Royal.”
“Oh really? How interesting. And do you care to share which house?”
“No.”
Jarla nodded. “I see. I was raised by the Royals. My father was a top soldier for the Royals. I was brought up hearing about all of the battles and triumphs. I dined in the finest castles just like one of the Royals’ very own. I had the finest of everything―and best of all, the best training. Like my father, I had a knack for swinging steel.”
“What happened?” Jubilee asked.
“Well, I became every bit the soldier my father thought I would be. I was renowned within the ranks of some rather apt men. Cherished by some, but unknown to me, I was despised by many others.” Jarla’s face and voice became distant. “You see, I was not of Royal blood. I wasn’t entitled to anything. Perhaps I thought more of myself than I should have.”
Jubilee shrugged. “That’s not surprising.”
“Oh, I certainly was confident.”
Jubilee took her knife and started picking at the ground with the tip. “There really isn’t any reason I should believe your story. Not that it matters. I won’t let you trick me.”
“No, I’m not trying to trick you. My words will ring true.” Jarla lifted her chin. “See these scars on my face?”
Jubilee nodded.
“The Royal soldiers I fought and bled to defend did this to me.” Jarla’s dark eyes locked on Jubilee’s. Her voice became a sneer. “They cut me. They burned me. They raped me. My so-called brothers in arms treated me like a common whore. They even left me for dead. Can you imagine what it would be like if your comrades, Fogle and Brak, did the same to you?”
Jubilee pulled her knees to her chest, glanced back at Brak for a second, then turned back to Jarla and said, “They would never do that.”
Jarla responded, “That’s what I thought too, and I was only a few years older than you are now.”
CHAPTER 16
The bizarre slug-like eeblers split apart. One eebler headed toward the women’s cell, and the other toward the men’s.
Nikkel threw his boot at one of them. “Get that thing away from me!”
“Venir,” Kam said, “do something!”
“Billip,” Joline shouted with desperation, “protect me!”
The eeblers inched closer and faster.
Venir locked onto the bars again, trying to pull them apart. Billip and Nikkel lent a hand and started tugging as well.
The eebler nearest Kam’s cell was inches from the bars, and the three women started screaming.
“Get up on something, Kam! Take the high ground!” Venir said.
“There is no high ground!” Jasper yelled back. She shot a look at Melegal. “This is your fault!”
Melegal squeezed up to the bars and said, “Back off, men! Back off and allow me!”
The men slacked off.
Venir said, “What are you doing?”
With a pair of small metal thief’s picks in his slender hand, Melegal reached through the bars and began working the lock from the other side. “I’m getting us out of here, lout.”
“Why didn’t you do that days ago?” Nikkel asked in astonishment.
“I was waiting to see how things turned out. I didn’t realize it would be this bad.”
The eebler picked up speed and started squeezing its bulbous body through the bars. Its little teeth were snapping.
“Pick my legs up. Pick my legs up!” Melegal said.
Venir snatched Melegal up by the boots and backed away from the eebler as best he could.
Melegal hung parallel to the hard stone floor with one hand on a bar while the fingers of his other hand were busy along with his eyes―fixed on the lock.
“Slow the thing down,” Venir said to Billip and Nikkel.
Billip threw a bucket at it.
The eebler’s creeping pace didn’t slow. It sped up, aiming for Venir’s toes.
The big man crept up on the stone bench, and with his powerful arm he held Melegal’s feet up by the toes with his fingertips. “Hurry up, Me!”
The women screamed louder. Erin’s cries became shrill.
The eebler started slowly crawling up the stone bench.
“Come on, Me! Come on!” Venir said to Melegal.
“These dwarven locks aren’t anything I’m accustomed to. More thorough than men’s, I’ll say that much. Who’d rob a dwarf, anyway?”
Pop. Snap. Clack.
Melegal smiled at Venir. “I got it.”
Venir slung Melegal’s legs away.
Hanging onto the metal bar, the thief swung out of the cell.
Venir leapt to freedom, and Billip and Nikkel bustled after him.
Melegal darted away and out of the dungeon door.
“Where are you going?” Venir called after the thief.
“Help, Venir! Help!” Kam screamed.
Venir grabbed the steel bars, braced his feet against them, and pulled. Thick blue veins popped out on his arms and legs. His faced turned red and purple. Battle heat surging, he put all of his iron will and strength into one tremendous focused effort. “Yuuuuuuuuuurgh!”
The metal bars groaned. The door bowed against the lock.
Nikkel wrapped his arms around Venir’s waist and started pulling him back.
“Keep pulling! Keep pulling!” Billip said.
The metal tore out of the lock. The heavy metal door ripped from the hinges.
Venir threw it aside with a heave.
The women rushed out of the cell.
Jasper was wailing, “Get it off me! Get it off me!” The eebler was crawling up her robes. Billip grabbed the robes at the hem and tore them off over her head and tossed them far away. Aside from a flimsy cotton shift, Jasper was practically naked.
The second eebler was crawling back out of the men’s cell. Its hungry jaws were chomping and grinding. Antennae popped up out of its back like horns, and it started to make an eerie shrieking sound. “EEEEeeeee!”
“I’m not waiting around to see what happens!” Jasper turned to run away and bumped right into Melegal. She pushed past him, saying, “Where have you been, idiot!”
Venir grabbed Melegal by the collar and shook him. “Where did you go?”
“Unhand me.” Melegal dangled a ring of keys in front of Venir’s eyes. “I’m not a runaway like you.”
Venir let him go, glanced back at the eebler, and started shoving everyone toward the door.
CHAPTER 17
The stable was the first place Venir went. He was relieved to find Chongo there, wagging his tails. Venir saddled up the two-headed dog and told him to find the dwarves.
The huge dog led them into the greater depths of Dwarven Hole, farther down than Venir had ever been before. It must have been hundreds of feet down. Perhaps thousands.
“We go any farther, and we’ll wind up in the Underland,” Billip said, eyeballing the cavernous stalagmite ceiling. “I say we head back out.”
“No, we need to find out what happened. This is too strange.”
Chongo was leading Venir now, and all of them were together, men and women. Everyone was oddly quiet. Venir couldn’t blame them. They must have been tired of the dwarven place after being cooped up for days.
Venir rubbed Chongo’s necks. “Besides, Chongo is onto something, or we wouldn’t be down here.”
They traveled another hour down wide passages and winding corridors. The smoothly cut stones no longer formed the tunnels; instead the fine architecture of the dwarves was nothing but cave walls.
Chongo barked. The loud echoing sound startled everyone. He surged ahead, jostling Billip and Nikkel out of his path.
Venir jogged after Chongo.
The beast was sniffing and snorting at the floor and walls. Chongo let out a bark again and sprinted ahead.
“Keep up, everybody!” Venir yelled back at his friends and took off at full speed.
Chongo turned down one tunnel that formed a straight line. It got bigger, taller, and wider the farther he traveled. Chongo came to a stop. His stiff tails wagged from side to side. His huge heads hung over a ledge.
Venir came alongside Chongo and looked down. Thousands of dwarves were milling about a camp-like city inside miles of humongous cavern. Tiny torches, lanterns, and glowing green rocks illuminated the odd place with strange light. There were tents and other small structures, stables, fences, and gardens as far as the eye could see. An underground river ran between the rocks and disappeared in the ground underneath. Almost all of the dwarves stood around quietly, as if they were waiting for something.
Everyone finally caught up with Venir, and most of them were laboring for breath. Astonishment filled their eyes.
“What are they doing?” Kam asked.
Venir grabbed his pack off Chongo’s saddle and slung it over his shoulders. “Just wait here. I’m going down there to find out.” He took steps carved in the rock a hundred feet down into the underground valley and walked into the camp.
The dwarves paid him no mind. Instead, they whittled, tended sheep, hammered iron, and completed dozens of other purposed and mundane tasks.
What’s wrong with them? Why don’t they notice me?
He sought out a dwarf dressed in a leather apron who hammered steel at a forge. “Blacksmith,” Venir said, “what is everyone doing down here?”
Continuing his hammering, the blacksmith said, “The King told us to wait here until he returns, and we shall. Feel free to do the same, stranger.”
“Mood told you this?”
“Aye. King Mood. He’ll be back once the war is over.” The dwarf pounded the hot steel with his hammer.
Bang! Bang!
“We’ll be fine until then.”
“What if he doesn’t return?”
“We’ll give him fifty years.”
Venir departed and rendezvoused with his friends.
“Well?” Melegal asked.
“I think your underling friend Elypsa has something to do with this,” Venir said as he took Chongo by the reins. “And my gut tells me Mood and the dwarves are heading into a trap. Kam, I’m going after him. I hate to say it, but—”
“Don’t say it.” Kam hefted Erin up on her shoulders. “Because wherever you’re going, we’re going too.”
Joline stepped forward. “But I’m not.” Her sweet face was creased with worry. She hugged Kam and Erin. “My heart can’t take any more adventure. I’d rather stay here with the dwarves, if they’ll take me in.”
Billip took Joline’s hands. “I will stay with you, my sweetest.”
A tear ran down Joline’s cheek. “No, they’ll need you. I’ll be here. You just make it back to me when this mess is over, Billip.” She gave him a long kiss followed up with a hug, and her body shuddered as tears ran down her cheeks. “Now go and put an end to the dirty little fiends.”
CHAPTER 18
Elypsa stepped out of a black portal onto the sand. The portal closed. The bright suns glared into her eyes, and she shielded them with her hand. Two black silhouettes stood in front of her with the suns to their backs. Her vision cleared, and she got a better look at them.
A slender underling with citrine eyes, short hair, sharp teeth, and sandy-gray robes spoke first. “Greetings, Elypsa. Glad to see you are well.”
“Of all the underlings to be found by, I am found by you, Kuurn.” She leered at the figure beside the mage. It was a vicious, all black and covered in smooth muscle. He was different than the others, however. A row of spikes went down his spine like hard jagged rocks. His elbows had spikes too. A sword was strapped on his back. “And what manner of fiend is this?”
“Oh, my companion is a vicious of a new sort.” Kuurn looked at the humanoid with admiration. “He’s more underling than monster. A mind of his own and everything. Another successful experiment of Master Sinway’s.”
Elypsa shot Kuurn a look. “Sinway sent you?”
“So to speak. I volunteered, of course. Master Sinway offered his assistance.” The underling made a coy smile. “And if I’m successful, he’s promised me your hand.”
Elypsa’s hands fell to her swords. “If you try to take my hand, I swear I’ll take yours.” She couldn’t stand Kuurn. The underling had fawned over her for a hundred years. She didn’t like his attention. Or his arrogance. Or the fact that he was a rival to her family, Catten and Verbard. Ever since the pair of brothers had died, Kuurn had reveled in reminding her family of their deaths.
Standing a little taller than her, Kuurn smoothed his robes with his long fingers. “You really ought to be thankful, Elypsa. You were in quite a predicament. If not for my grand skill, the dwarves would have turned you into a pot of stew.”
Elypsa turned around. Dwarven Hole was miles away. “I had it under control. I soon would have been free without your help.”
“Oh, you don’t know these lands well enough to survive on your own, Elypsa. You’re skilled with the sword, but you’re a kept woman. Without Sidebor, you never would have made it this far. What happened?”
“I believe I had a run-in with the Darkslayer.” She ground her teeth and squeezed the hilts of her sword
s. “I almost had him.”
“What happened to Sidebor? The slayer killed him? It looked more like something else happened.” Kuurn floated beside her and held a ruby gem. It gleamed in the suns for her to see. It was Sidebor’s eye.
“So you found him. Good. And no, the slayer didn’t kill him. Someone else did.” Still staring toward Dwarven Hole, she noticed something else coming. It was the black shadow from the dungeons. “Your elemental returns, I see.”
Kuurn revealed a small black gem-speckled jewel-box from his robes and opened it up. The shade, part man and part shadow, blinked its pair of glowing eyes and vanished into the box. The underling mage closed it and tucked the box back into his robes. “Feel free to thank me anytime, my soon to be betrothed. Now, it’s time to resume our journey. Master Sinway is waiting to hear about your betrayal and your adventures.”
“Not yet.” Her eyes were still fixed on Dwarven Hole. “Where is Master Sinway?”
“He’s in the City of Bone.”
“We aren’t going back to the Underland?”
“No, he requires our services in Bone.”
“And what about the dwarves marching toward Bone? Are the underlings ready for that?”
“You planted the seed, Elypsa. Whether or not it blossoms is yet to be determined. Either way, our kind is ready for them.” He stretched out his hand. “Come now. We need to begin our journey.”
“We’re walking?”
“For now.” He looked at her feet and rose higher from the ground. “Well, you and the vicious will be walking.”
“We need to wait.”
“And why is that?”
“In case those humans survive.”
“You mean the eeblers didn’t take care of that?”
“I didn’t stand around and watch. The portal was open, so I went.”
Kuurn shrugged. “Fine. We’ll wait a bit, but only because it’s my wish to please you, and I know you’ll want to delay your reunion with Sinway as long as you can. See how compassionate I am?”
She didn’t reply. She stood with the suns at her back, wind whipping her cotton-white hair like a flag. Keen eyes searching the barren landscape, she stood as a statue hour after hour. Finally, a small party on horseback and on a beast emerged from the ground.
The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces Page 76