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

by Craig Halloran

“You look like you just crawled out of a sewer filled with dead underlings. And you smell.”

  “Like dead underlings?”

  “No, like you, but worse.” She cracked a smile. “I’m glad you aren’t dead. Don’t leave me again, Brak. I like having you around.”

  “I have to fight when I have to fight.” He looked back down the channel. Dwarves moved like ants, gathering and preparing new equipment. “I don’t like leaving them. They wouldn’t leave us.”

  Jubilee grabbed his blood-stained hand. “I understand. But for the moment, you’re mine.”

  They entered the tent where Nikkel had been taken to rest. Slim stood outside with Quickster. Chongo licked the quick pony’s face and sat beside him. Inside the tent, Brak found Fogle, Nikkel, and Cass. Fogle sat with his eyes closed and the spellbook open on his lap. Cass leaned against the main tent pole in the center, eyeing Fogle with hungry interest. Nikkel, sitting up on his cot, gave Brak a wave.

  Brak started to speak, but Kam gave him a quiet shush. The inside of the sweltering tent went dead quiet. Fogle’s lips moved, but no sound was made. His body trembled on the last syllable. His eyes opened wide. His eyes weren’t there. Instead, there was a scene living and moving in the back of his eyes.

  “Come, Billip, look at what the ebony hawk sees,” Fogle said in a mystic voice.

  Billip took a knee in front of Fogle. Brak could see something akin to what he saw when he rode on the back of Blackie. The view soared over the Outlands, over the crowds gathering at the walls of the city. The bird soared over the wall, past the castle spires, and above the carnage-filled streets of the city. It was difficult to see on account that Fogle’s eyes were only so big.

  Cracking his knuckles, Billip said, “What am I looking for, Venir or a spot for your bird to land? This view is making me queasy.”

  “We need a spot inside or outside of the city. You know it better than I. Tell me what is safe.”

  “I thought you said you could find Venir with this bird. Why don’t you find him first?” Billip said. “That would make the decision easier.”

  “That will take time. It’s even harder if Venir is on the inside. Billip, decide quickly.”

  “We can’t all go into the city at once. The underlings will see us. Wait, wait, go in there. That barn.” The view swooped into the huge barn that was in deteriorating condition. “Yes, that’s as safe as any, but we better be ready for anything.”

  “I know just where to go,” Fogle said. His eyes turned to normal. He reached out and said, “Help me up.”

  Billip pulled him to his feet.

  Fogle closed his spellbook. “Follow me outside.”

  Brak followed behind Fogle and the others. Outside he gasped. Brak wasn’t sure what he would call it, but there was a huge doorway waving in thin air big enough to ride a chariot through. A view of the barn was in it.

  “It’s a dimension door,” Fogle said. “Inky is my marker. He waits on the other side.”

  Most everyone gawped. “That is very impressive,” Kam said.

  “I can achieve much when I have time to plan.” Fogle looked at Billip. “Lead the way.”

  Brak took Chongo by the reins. He walked through the doorway at the same time Billip and Nikkel did. The doorway was gone when he looked back. Out of thin air, Jubilee popped into view. Cass, Kam, Erin, and Slim leading Quickster and Nightmare came, followed by Fogle.

  “That was weird,” Jubilee said. “Really weird.”

  They were in the back end of the aging barn. Nothing stirred but them.

  “Now what?” Cass said.

  Chongo snorted. The beast started down the barn. Brak pulled back. “Whoa, Chongo, whoa. Hey, I forgot, Chongo can find Venir too, but he’ll never make it through the city without being noticed.”

  The big dog growled.

  “We need to stable him for now.” Slim led Quickster into a stall then came back and got Chongo. “I’ll stay with them.”

  “I will too,” Cass said. “The rank city is no place for a girl like me.”

  The ebony hawk fluttered down from the rafters and landed on Fogle’s shoulder.

  “Let’s go find my father.” Brak took one step and froze. A spider twice the size of Chongo with bright blood-red eyes lowered from the rafters at the other end of the barn and scurried right at them.

  CHAPTER 29

  Lorda Almen, Rayal, Elizabeth, and Jasper sat in the high-backed cloth chairs in one of Castle Bloodhound’s living rooms. The fireplace was cold, but dozens of large candles were lit. The stained glass windows with images of many different hounds offered little light.

  Rayal sipped on a goblet of wine, Elizabeth against her hip. Across from her, Lorda sat on the sofa. A huge dog named Manx lay at her feet. Jasper sat on the other side, nibbling at her fingertips.

  “This is boring,” Elizabeth said. “I want to do something. I miss shopping.”

  “Believe me, I miss you shopping too,” Rayal replied.

  “Must you always be so rude, you ugly hag?” Elizabeth fired back.

  Manx growled, and Elizabeth turned ashen. She pulled her legs up on the sofa and wrapped her arms around Rayal. Manx started barking. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Corrin’s dog, Burk, wandered into the room and howled.

  The air between Rayal and Lorda shimmered, and Manamus Kling appeared. Black and white strands of hair tinted with gray barely touched her shoulders. Her features were strong and her dark eyes piercing. She was probably a beauty once, but her drab attire and unkempt hair led Rayal to believe she’d abandoned her beauty for something deeper and twisted long ago. Rayal took a knee. “Lorda Manamus.” She pulled Elizabeth to the ground with her. “What a surprise.”

  “Yes, granddaughter, it never did take much to surprise you.” Manamus held a staff of gnarled wood that twisted from top to bottom in her aging hands. Elizabeth rushed into her grandmother’s waiting arms. “Nanny Manamus! I missed you!”

  Manamus hugged the brat of a girl and poked Elizabeth’s nose. “I missed you too.”

  Rayal stood with a sliver of a scowl forming on her face. Manamus and Elizabeth took to one another like rain falling in a river. Manamus had never hugged Rayal or mentioned a kind word. She kept almost everyone at a distance.

  The dog sat, but Manx’s teeth stayed bared.

  “Welcome back, Lorda Manamus Kling. It’s a pleasure to have you in Castle Bloodhound again. I take it there is a turn of events you’d like to share.”

  “In due time.” Manamus’s attention was focused on Jasper. “Who is this dark little morsel?”

  “This is Jasper, from the City of Three. She is my guest. An ally of Rayal and Creed.”

  “You are a sorceress.” Manamus walked over to Jasper and sniffed her. “Ah, you have potential. Who is your master, young girl?”

  “I was trained in the Olive Tower by the High Conjurer, Dalsay.”

  Manamus gave an approving nod. “I know the man. I know many. I know much.” She touched Jasper’s hair and rubbed it between her fingers. “You can learn much more from me. I’m not held back by the rules. Humph, you have grit to you. I sense it. We need stronger women in the order.”

  “I’m strong, Nanny,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes, yes, you are.” Manamus patted her cheek. She turned her attention to Lorda Almen. “You keep unique company. Tell me what has happened. What do you know?”

  Rayal fought the urge to speak out of turn. She let Lorda Catherine Almen do the talking. Lorda Almen eloquently explained the plans to infiltrate Castle Kling and assassinate Master Sinway with the assistance of Altan Rey.

  “It’s a fine plan aside from the part where you allied yourself with that worm, Altan Rey.” Manamus said. “The House of Kord is a lower house, often divided. They’ll side with underlings. They are cowards, hence their lower standing in the castle. Still, I am curious. There are strange fates that dabble in our world. Your friends, Venir and Creed, they are in the castle. Altan leads them close to the m
ark, dangerously close. But killing Master Sinway, heh, that’s not possible. His very presence makes my bones cry. If I had power such as his, I too would take the world.”

  “Venir has a weapon that can destroy him,” Rayal interjected. “He’s the scourge of the underlings. They cannot stop him.” Lorda Almen and Manamus both gave Rayal the big eye. “Sorry, but I thought that detail was worth mentioning.”

  “The man I saw with Creed did not have a weapon on him,” Manamus said. “How is he going to acquire this weapon?”

  Rayal got the funny feeling that she might have said too much, but she answered anyway. “Altan Rey has it. It’s a sack bound from leather. He stores this armament in it.”

  “How does this armament work?” Manamus asked.

  “I don’t know the answer to that. It’s an axe, helm, and shield working as one. I’ve seen him fight with it. The underlings go into a frenzy. The man becomes indestructible.”

  Stroking Elizabeth’s hair, Manamus said, “I see.”

  “I know of what she speaks,” Lorda Almen said to Manamus. “Creed possessed this armament as well. It nearly destroyed him. I’m not one to put my faith in these fabled items. They can be unreliable.”

  “Magic often is when it is not properly wielded.” The elder woman seemed to go into deep thought for a moment. Her eyes slid side to side as if she were searching library shelves. “The Mantle of Power. There are rumors and stories of such an item. It chooses its bearer, serves a purpose, and moves on to another. So the necromancy soothsayers say. If things are as they say they are, I’ll keep an eye out for it. This has been helpful.” Manamus gently pushed Elizabeth aside and looked down on her. “Be wise. I’ll be back for you soon enough.”

  “But Nanny Manamus…”

  The air shimmered, and Manamus was gone.

  With awe, Jasper said, “Your grandmother is very powerful, Rayal. That was incredible.”

  “I know,” Rayal said.

  Lorda stormed across the room and slapped Rayal hard in the face. “Don’t ever speak out of turn again, or I’ll feed you to the underlings.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Underling soldiers entered the jailhouse. With the ring of rattling keys, they unlocked some of the cages. They started near the front, where the exit of the building was. At the point of small spears, they herded several men out. The men, lacking in food and water, ambled out of the door, shielding their eyes from the hot sun as soon as they crossed the threshold.

  Venir and Creed sat still. Their sweat glands were bone dry. Deep inside, Venir yearned to get out of the cage. He needed to stretch his limbs. Taste a moment of freedom.

  A trio of underlings approached. They were stocky brutes, even for underlings. Their faces pinched, and their red eyes glowered between Venir and Creed’s cage and the one across from them. They opened the other cage. Two husky, hairy men were dragged out of the cage. The tall men stood a full foot higher than the barely five-foot-tall underlings. They forced the men down on their knees and walked them out. The exit door closed behind them.

  “Curse those vomitus pisswillers,” Creed said in a cracked voice. “I’m so thirsty I think I could kiss an underling. I can’t believe I was happy to see them.”

  Venir let out a short laugh. “Aye, and I’m so hungry I could eat one of those fiends.”

  “Fools!” a man said who was curled up in a cage adjacent to Venir’s. His hair was brown but turning gray. His new beard was scruffy and the muscles in his forearm well defined. “When you leave, you don’t come back. It’s one way to death.”

  “You’re telling us that none of those men will return?”

  The man crawled to the ends of his cage and pressed his face against the bars. His olive eyes were penetrating. “None return.”

  “Maybe they are being relocated?” Creed said.

  “Or kept as pets,” Venir added.

  A few prisoners sniggered.

  Venir continued, “I hear many underlings and royals have become betrothed. They bear children with honey locks and gray rat skin and eyes black as coal.”

  “You dare mock a royal!” the older man screeched. “You impudent sot! You will die next. I will see to it!”

  “Your brood has already seen to the deaths of thousands of your own kind in this city.” Venir’s voice rose. “Your kind allied with the fiends like fools. Now, we all pay for it. Shut your face hole, old man, or I’ll rip out of these bars and kill you myself.”

  The man crawled into the back of his cage and curled up with his back to Venir.

  “I’m not sure which you hate more, the royals or the underlings,” Creed said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find an underling’s black heart beating in a royal’s chest.”

  “Aye, but men can still be wicked whether they are a royal or not. It’s just so hard to tell.”

  Venir simmered in his thoughts. He’d grown up with the royals’ treachery. In truth, he never found that much good among them. It was a rare thing. Even most of the soldiers, who were practically slaves, were bad. They pretended to protect people, but in truth, they were only protecting themselves. He’d seen right through their royal games decades ago.

  The door opened again, and the trio of underlings from before hustled over to Venir’s cage. Kazzar was with them. He chittered angrily at them, and they opened Venir’s cage. Creed crawled out. Venir followed. As soon as Creed stood, an underling cracked him in the back of the knees with a rod. Both men crawled out on their knees, across the courtyard, where Kazzar led them into the bowels of the castle. They were allowed to stand once they made it to the stairs.

  There was a preparation room that was nothing more than wooden benches and cold stone walls. Venir had been in rooms like this before. It was where the contestants waited for the contests, ceremonies, and battles for the arena games inside the castles. The prisoners were gathered inside, male and female, and Castle Kling servants painted the men’s bodies. Some of their hair was cut, and some was dyed.

  “What are they doing?” Creed whispered to Venir.

  One of the hulking underlings drew back to strike Creed. Kazzar let out a sharp chitter. The underling stopped. The underlings put their hands on Venir and Creed’s backs and shoved them inside. Venir caught Kazzar’s eye as he was leaving. The mage gave him a quick nod and left.

  Venir and Creed were escorted to separate wooden benches. Each had two underling guards on them with spears at their chests. Servant women set a bucket of black stain on the benches. The woman with Venir had black circles under her eyes, and her arms were stained black up to her elbows. Her stomach growled. Venir sought her eyes and gave her a wink. She tightened her lips, soaked a towel in the bucket, and started running it through Venir’s hair. The same was happening to Creed.

  “I object to this treatment,” Creed said. “These are my locks, my precious red locks.”

  “Would you rather they shaved it?” Venir said. He was looking at a man’s hair as bushy as his beard. The servants had shaved half of it off. “I think bald would suit you.”

  An underling stuck a javelin in Venir’s face and chittered at him. Venir kept talking. “When the time comes, I’m going to shove that stick up your arse, you little black fiend.” The underling screamed in his face. Venir was a split second from head-butting the underling when Kazzar came back in. He took some of the underlings aside and spoke to them in a fierce tone. The underlings chittered back and forth with him before finally skulking away. The underling guard hung back against the walls. They eyed the prisoners with hatred.

  Kazzar hung around. Strolling through the preparation room, with the hem of his dark robes dusting the ground, he said in Common, “Men, you are being honored. You will fight in front of the greatest underlings of all. Your rulers. For the citizens of Bone are conquered. Fight well and you will be rewarded. Food, water, possibly wine. And if you are not very formidable at all…” He touched a stocky man that was getting painted all over his body. The man shook lik
e a leaf. His belly bulged from starvation. “Fight your best, for there is honor in your death.”

  “And what if we refuse to fight?” the bushy-headed man that was getting his head shaven asked.

  Kazzar looked at him. “Refuse to fight and you will die an excruciating death.”

  “Will you at least feed us before we fight?” the man pressed. “Let us be at our strongest.”

  “Food and drink is your reward. Have I not made myself clear? We want you so hungry that you will kill for it.” Kazzar hissed at an underling servant dressed in a gray tunic with a slighter build than the others. It picked up a bucket and handed it to the man that was speaking. “You can eat that.”

  The man reached into the bucket. All the prisoner’s eyes hung on him. He withdrew a handful of white grubs that wriggled between his fingers. “This is disgusting. I can’t eat this.”

  “Yes, you can, and you will.” Kazzar uttered a chit. Underlings closed in on the man. “Now, start eating or die.”

  Big eyed, the man stuffed the grubs into his mouth. He chewed, gagged, and swallowed. Coughing, he said, “There. I’m full.”

  “No, the bucket is not empty. Keep eating. Eat or die.”

  The man shoveled in the grubs handfuls at a time. Creed’s face soured. As the man ate, Kazzar didn’t seem to mind the quiet talking among the men. Venir said to Creed, “You are familiar with this, eh?”

  “Yes, though I wasn’t a royal, I was brought to these arenas to train. I’ve seen plenty.” The woman ran her fingers through his hair, darkening it in streaks of black. “Will this wash out?” he said to her.

  “I don’t think that matters,” she said.

  “You, Venir? Have you trained in these pits?”

  “When I was younger, I was brought into rooms such as this. I was an urchin,” Venir said. “The royal youth used to beat the Bish out of me for sport. But I learned. Since then, nothing has changed under the suns, but this paint is different.” The men were painted in distinct black patterns, from face to toe, trimmed with red and white accents. It gave them all an imposing look. He looked at the woman working on him. “Make me look really scary. I like scary.”