The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces

by Craig Halloran

  “Not unless it smells worse than it used to.”

  “Smells?” Jasper asked.

  “Don’t worry, my sweet. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I haven’t been in the stone city in over a decade,” Hoff said. “I like the hot winds that skim my chin whiskers. Yet I hope there are some allies still left that I can call upon.”

  They ascended to the top plateau of the tunnel. The passage door stood wide open. Nothing stirred within the stable beyond. Not a single country mouse scurried in the hay. Venir nodded at Melegal.

  The thief stuck his hand beyond the threshold. On silent feet, he eased inside the stable. With his booted toes, he stirred the hay as he moved deeper inside. The stable door was closed. Rising on his toes, he peeked over the top. His head turned side to side. He faced Venir and the others and shrugged his narrow shoulders.

  Venir entered the stable, as did the others. He found Melegal’s gaze on him and said, “Nothing underling here. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something else.”

  Melegal adjusted his cap. His fingers checked the mechanisms on his dart launchers. He made his way over to the side of the stable door with the hinges on it. He gave a nod and climbed over it.

  The faint scrape of a sliding bolt touched Venir’s ears. He didn’t think the others would have heard it. The stable door swung outward, making a crack no wider than the breadth of a man.

  “Hurry,” Melegal ordered in a whisper.

  Everyone slipped through the narrow gap.

  Melegal closed the gate.

  They stood inside the enormous stables. Aged beams still held up the fragile-looking facility. There were many footprints in the ground—many more so than there used to be. In the past, very few people ever entered the barn.

  Staring into the rafters, Jasper remarked, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cobwebs. Such big ones, either. Creepy.”

  Melegal looked up. His eyes widened.

  Huge webs coated the spaces between the rafters and the huge portal in the roof. Pigeons by the dozens were caught in the webs. Black, bulky creatures with long legs bigger than a dog’s crept through the ancient wood.

  Jasper let out a gasp.

  “I’ve never seen so many.” Hoff started pulling his sword from its sheath.

  Venir clamped his hands over Hoff’s. “No. Everyone move really slowly. Follow me, and keep your eyes down.”

  As difficult as it was to pry his own eyes away from the rafters, he managed to lead everyone toward the northern door of the stables. Something banged into one of the stable’s doors. Venir took a glance just as Jasper did the same.

  The head of a spider as big as Chongo peeked through the bars of a gate. All eight green eyes were fixed on them. Its spider face banged into the door again.

  An old man teetered out of an open stable. He was nothing but shaggy hair and scrawny limbs. “Be quiet, Archibald. You and your children woke me from my—” The hermit froze in his tracks. Looking at Venir, he said in a hushed but loud voice, “You!”

  Melegal moved in on the man.

  The hermit flipped his hands up. “No alarm. No alarm. I’m pleased,” he said in a scratchy voice. “Delighted.”

  The stable rattled again.

  “Eh, let’s move out of Archibald’s sight. He gets very jumpy when people pass through.”

  Melegal had the fragile man by the elbow. “Be silent.”

  “Eh-heh. I knew he’d be back. I knew it.” He peeked past Venir. “Eh, you disposed of the guards.”

  Venir nodded.

  “There will be more. Zasmah! I’ll get grilled on this. Just come, and come quick.”

  With an approving nod from Venir, Melegal let the man go.

  The old hermit-like stableman led them inside a stall. “Just keep your voices low.” He pointed above. “Noise attracts. They won’t come after you without an order from the fiends. So are you here to roust them?”

  “It depends on how many need rousting,” Venir replied. The hermit had been there as long as he’d known the place. It was astonishing that the man still lived. “What can you tell us?”

  With climbing fingers in the air, the old man said, “There are thousands. More keep coming. But they pale in comparison to the royal faction. The royals play along with the game. Everyone suffers. The furnaces below burn the bodies of the dead. Day and night.” He sniffed. “Can you smell it?”

  It was the same smell that had lingered outside in the pyres of burning bodies. Now the smell seemed to permeate even the woodwork of the building. “What can we expect in the city?” The helm throbbed. Venir twisted his head around and rose to his feet. “We have company.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Ebenezer stood on his knees with his jaw hanging toward the ground. Elypsa’s slice had ripped right across his innards. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d be looking at his bowels spilled on the arena floor. Instead, there was a burning sensation. His fingers caressed the chainmail links underneath his sliced-open tunic. Blood dripped from his fingertips. He gave Elypsa a look.

  The underling woman with the perfect facial features gave him a victorious nod. The lithe fighter extended her forearm. “I pulled back. I like how you fight.”

  Absorbing the exotic perfection of the woman, he received her arm and, with a grunt, allowed her to help him to his feet. Admiring the sinewy features of her dark-skinned arms that fought with the weight of a man behind them, he said, “You are a marvel. Your mercy is noted.”

  An underling soldier tossed her a cleaning rag. Elypsa snatched it out of the air. “I only spared you in case I need a sparring partner later. You’re fortunate that my fury didn’t consume me, or else your disembodied head would be licking your bowels right now.”

  Holding his bloody stomach, Ebenezer said, “Noted.”

  Kuurn appeared at Elypsa’s side. The underling mage’s citrine eyes burned into Ebenezer. “Why spare this fool of a man? His husk is as useless as any other. All the men will die soon enough, anyway.”

  With a smile in the corner of her mouth and her eyes on Ebenezer, she said, “It’s something only a warrior can appreciate. It’s something that you would not understand, Kuurn.”

  With a twist on his thin black lips, Kuurn said, “Nor would I ever care to. I could kill this vermin with a single thought. Come, now. We have a wedding to plan.”

  Everyone’s attention turned to the figure in the stands. Master Sinway was on his feet. He rose in the air until the robes hid his feet and grazed the wood benches. “This mild entertainment has been quite enough for me. I have real work to do now.” He glided out of the arena with his entourage of underling soldiers.

  Elypsa sheathed her weapons and hooked her arm around Kuurn’s. “Come on, tall and gruesome. We have a wedding to plan.”

  Kuurn’s tight lips eased. “Assuredly.”

  With a final look back at Ebenezer, Elypsa added, “Same time tomorrow?”

  Sweat dripped off his chin when he replied with a nod, “Certainly.” He watched them go. He took a long breath and muttered, “Slat, I hope not.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Venir skulked in the stable with the others. His eyes narrowed on the old stableman, who teetered out of the shadows toward the underlings. The glaring eyes of the black-haired fiends locked on the man with hatred.

  The stableman bowed. “Eh, is there anything I can help you with?”

  Layered in dark leathers, the underling with long black hair as fine as corn silk clubbed the old man with a quick back fist. The fragile man spun to the ground, holding his eye and wailing, “Mercy! Mercy!”

  A second underling with a knot of hair on his otherwise bald head kicked the old man in the ribs. The small throng of underlings chittered with a sinister glee.

  The sound turned Venir’s blood to fire. He was coiled to spring. His knees started to bend upward. He gripped the haft of Brool, his axe, knuckles turning white. The leather wrap creaked. The underlings moved on into the deeper recesses of the barn.
The light-footed men moved with a swagger. Their small heads were tilted back in laughter. They had the cocky presence of conquerors.

  A lean hand gripped Venir by the bend in his arm. “Don’t you dare,” Melegal said in a barely audible hiss.

  Venir pulled his arm free, seeing the underlings stride with sinister smiles that almost touched their earlobes. They moved deep into the barn and headed into the stable with the concealed tunnel. Two of the underlings stood outside the gate in a sentry-like position, chittering back and forth.

  The old man crawled back into Venir’s presence. His mouth was bleeding. “I’d have lost a tooth if I had any left.” With a shaky finger he pointed. “They move to relieve and check the guard. It’s that time. The alarm will sound.”

  “Not if I buy us more time.” Venir rose. “Billip, notch those strings. Hoff, come with me.”

  The knight rose in a gentle rattle of metal. His face was stern.

  “We’re better off slinking into the city.” Melegal’s voice filled with irritation. “Let them launch their own investigation. Buy some time.”

  “They have to die anyway,” Venir replied. “The sooner we start, the better. Just keep a look out.”

  “Slat.” Melegal grabbed Jasper. “Stay on my hip.”

  Venir and Hoff waded out into the barn. Venir gave a huge smile. He slapped Hoff hard on the shoulder plate and added a stagger to the knight’s step. “You fight like a beggar!”

  Hoff shoved him. “And you fight like a milk-fed halfling.” He added a hiccup.

  The underlings at the end of the stable fixed wary eyes on the large men. They chittered back and forth with one another.

  Venir caught the puzzlement in their chittering. Their gleaming eyes were fixed on him. The closer he got, the wider their eyes became. With his helmet boiling with anger and an axe slung over his brawny shoulder, he marched onward without any acknowledgement of the underlings. He and Hoff shoved each other. Billip and Nikkel glided behind them. They shouted insults at one another with a flourish.

  The underlings barred their path with sharp steel drawn. Their eyes filled with anger at the man towering over them, yet a confused looked marred their gray, chiseled faces.

  Venir felt their tempers rise with his own. The underlings flew into a frenzy. Helm caused it somehow, he knew. It fed his anger as well as theirs. Containing himself, he glowered down at the wiry humanoids. “Eh, we’ve been sent to relieve the others.”

  “You are not royal guards,” one underling said in broken Common. He poked at Venir with a sharp sword. “Be gone or be gutted.”

  Venir gave Hoff a glance. Without warning, the pair of men split left and right. From behind the fighters, Billip let loose his bowstring. The first arrow pierced an underling’s throat. The creature gurgled and clawed at the air.

  Venir brought Brool down on the head of the other dismayed underling warrior. Slice! The underling’s skull gave way to sharpened steel, splitting to the neck. Black blood spilled into the dirt and straw. The smell of it sent Venir into a charge. He leapt into the stable and down to the pitch-black tunnel. With the armament fueling his efforts, he bore down on the other three underlings that traveled down the tunnel. They didn’t hear Venir coming. Slice! Slice! Slice!

  He glided back out to the stable.

  Billip and Hoff dragged the other dead underling inside the tunnel.

  “What now?” Billip asked.

  “Leave them behind the wall,” Venir said, gesturing toward the concealed tunnel. He gave a shrug. “Perhaps they’ll think it’s an accident.”

  The old man crept into the stall. “Well done. It might create a stir, but at least they’re dead.” He sawed his elbow back and forth. “At this rate, you’ll have them all dead in another month or so.”

  Venir moved out. “We don’t have a month. What’s the safest place for men like us in this city?”

  “The ghettos, I suppose. Not that anywhere is safe.” He cackled and blinked his white caterpillar brows. “The worst of the worst still manage to thrive in there. You know the type.”

  Just outside of the barn, Venir, Hoff, and Billip found Melegal and Jasper eyeing the local traffic. Melegal’s face because furious when he saw them. Storming up to Venir, he said, “Will you take off that bloody getup, you fool?”

  “We’re safer with it than without it.”

  “Put it away, you witless hound. We know these streets better than the underlings.” Melegal poked him in the chest. “Snap out of your fury.”

  Venir unbuckled the strap and tugged the helmet off. His temper cooled. “Happy?”

  “With that face? Never.” Melegal eyed them all. “Now, keep quiet, and follow me.”

  CHAPTER 25

  A lone sign hung over the front entrance to the tavern. The chains that held the wooden framework creaked in the dismal wind that did little to clear the stink of the alleys. The paint of the lettering appeared to be smeared in blood. Still, Melegal could read the words, which he knew as well as the cap that he wore—“The Drunken Octopus.”

  Behind him, the corners of Venir’s mouth had turned up very slightly. The warrior’s blue eyes, which burned with an everlasting fire, studied the shamble of a sign as if it hung in his dreams. “I smell ale and stew.” He lifted his shoulders. “How bad can that be?”

  The Drunken Octopus stood wedged between the framework of brick-and-mortar buildings that appeared to have fallen long ago. On the floors above the establishment were the small windows of rented apartments. But the tavern itself didn’t have any windows from which the sound and smell could escape.

  Holding her elbows as if there was a chill in the muggy air, Jasper said, “Are we going in or not?”

  Melegal held up a finger. He gave everyone a once-over. Other than Venir’s outlandish size and brutal frame, they might be able to pass without arousing suspicion. When they were weaving their way through the winding, sloppy streets and narrow alleys, they’d come upon hopeless people with their wills broken and their shoulders slumped. The citizens of Bish’s greatest city moved with the tentative feet of a nervous alley cat. None of them paid Melegal and company any mind. Heads down, they went on their way in a shuffle of feet so soft Melegal thought they could have been dead already.

  He reached out and put his hand on the door. The vibrations of low voices coursed into his fingers. The tavern was normally a loud place, but at the moment, it was fairly quiet. He swallowed, wetting his throat. He gave Venir one more glance. “If there is one black fiend within, behave yourself.”

  “Is that a jest?” Venir replied.

  “It’s an order.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Melegal cut him off. “We’ll go in first. You three merchants of fire be still.”

  Cracking his knuckles, Billip said, “Merchants of fire? What in Bish is that supposed to mean, you little rat?”

  “Stay.” Melegal pushed the door inward. The metal hinges groaned. With Jasper’s hand clasped in his, Melegal entered a room full of the most solemn faces he’d ever seen. They eyed him for a moment, then their muttering lips returned to their drinks. He eased over to the bar and froze when another figure crossed his line of sight—an underling with eyes like amber walked by him as if he wasn’t there.

  Jasper squeezed his hand. “We should go.”

  Backing toward the bar, Melegal made a quick head count. Buried in the room were more underlings with evil smiles on their faces. A chain hung from a woman’s neck, attached to a metal collar. She sat on the floor like a dog. Her frizzy locks of honey-colored hair covered her eyes. An underling sitting at the table jerked the chain. The woman let out a bark.

  Melegal eased into his stool. Jasper did the same. He twisted his head around, eyes searching for the barkeep. The old watchman, Sam, had his back to him. He scrubbed out a tankard with a cloth. Melegal said, “Got any rooms?”

  Sam turned. His dark eyes flickered with recognition then faded. “No, but we have ale and something new called port.�
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  “I’m familiar with it,” Melegal replied, “but I prefer the tang of the purple wine.”

  “Fine, but I’m pouring it in a tankard. The newcomers don’t care for it. They want port filling our gullets. Port of death they call it. Plenty of fresh blood has been spilled on this floor for drinking otherwise.” The barkeep filled two wooden tankards underneath the table. He clomped them down on the bar. “Watch your back, rat.”

  One of the underlings in the rear, behind the fireplace where Melegal used to sit, let out a shrieking chitter. A barmaid half-clothed in rags rushed over. Another underling sitting at a different table tripped her. The fragile maiden’s elbows and knees rocked the planks. Chittering laughter broke out.

  Melegal whispered in Jasper’s ear, “It’s a good thing Venir is not here.”

  “I wouldn’t have any problem watching him split their heads.” She took her tankard in two hands and drank. “You sold me on how evil they are, remember?”

  “I’m not trying to unravel that either, but not all wars are won with steel. Words and wile can have just as much of an effect.”

  She gave him a look. “Master of everything, huh?”

  “I used to read very much when I was young. I had privileges in the libraries of the castles.”

  “Apparently, you didn’t read anything about drinking wine that tastes so slatty.” Her lips puckered. “Tang is an understatement. You like this?”

  “As much as the blood in my veins. It’s an acquired taste I grew up on.”

  She set the tankard down on the bar and said to Sam, “I think I’ll have the port.”

  A man sitting stooped over the bar on the other side of Jasper stirred. He was layered in thick muscle up to his neck. He leaned back. “I’ll buy you that port, little sister.” He put a hand with knuckle tattoos on her thigh. “It would be my pleasure.”

  Melegal leaned over. The man’s voice matched the sideburns that graced his square head like bad gardening. Their eyes met.

  The sullen–eyed man said, “I know you.”