The Darkslayer: Lethal Liaisons (Series 2, Book 4) (Bish and Bone Series 2)

by Craig Halloran

  He looks more monster than man.

  The other man pulled his off. His hair was long, auburn, and greasy. He was tall, but his wrists were bony.

  Huff, the mallet’s handle is as big as his legs.

  The second man kept his head down. He rubbed his scruffy moustache and spat on the ground.

  This won’t be a challenge. This vagabond will be slaughtered.

  The men began to murmur and whisper. A name caught Corrin’s ears.

  No, it can’t be.

  The second man lifted his head, and his bright-green eyes scanned the crowd of men. His nose twitched. He looked up higher and locked his eyes on Lord Grom and said, “Hello, Grandfather.”

  Corrin’s heart thumped in his chest. Creed!

  CHAPTER 22

  Eyes squeezed shut, Fogle staggered back against the desk. He grasped it, fighting against the spinning room. He had closed his eyes in time to avoid the sunburst Ruut cast, but the spell still packed a punch. Disoriented but opening his dazed eyes, he dove on top of Ruut, who had freed himself of his magic golden bonds.

  Ruut, quick for a bookish man, darted away, pulled up the hem of his robes, and made a bead for the door.

  Fogle gathered his feet and charged after the man. What am I doing? He summoned his power and shot a missile at Ruut’s backside. A turtle-like turquoise shield popped up, deflecting the ray of light.

  Ruut let out a laugh, clasped the handle of the door, and said, “You are such a fool, Fogle. A late one at that. You’ll die for this.” The man turned and tugged on the massive oak door.

  Once Ruut made the outer chamber, it would be over. The entire tower would close in on Fogle. Desperate, he snatched a melon-sized bust of an ancient wizard’s sculptured face and hurled it at Ruut. The heavy object sailed through the air, passed through the shield, and clocked Ruut in the back of the head.

  The wizard crumpled to the floor.

  Fogle seized the man by the collar, jerked him up, and punched him hard in the face. Bap!

  “What are you doing?” Ruut said in astonishment. “You hit me, with your fist?”

  “Unconventional for a wizard, isn’t it?” Bap! Bap!

  “Stop! Lords of the Tower! Stop it!”

  Fogle didn’t. “Where is Kam?” Bap! “Where!” Bap! “Is!” Bap! “Kam?” Bap! Bap! Bap! “Tell me now!”

  “No,” Ruut wailed.

  Fogle grabbed the wizard’s arm and twisted it behind his back.

  The man screamed. “All right!” Face busted and bleeding, Ruut started to sob. “Stop,” he moaned. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.” Gasping, he added, “She’s in the Nexus Chamber.”

  “What? Why there?”

  “Testing and experiments for the students.”

  “She’s a guinea pig!”

  “Not by my doing,” Ruut said, grimacing. “Can you ease off the pressure now?”

  Seeing red, Fogle wrenched on the arm, dislocating it.

  “Yeow!”

  “Brak,” he said. “Fetch me that gag!”

  “I can’t see.”

  Fogle grabbed Ruut by the collar and dragged him across the floor. Again, he bound the man to the chair and gagged him. Quickly, he cast a spell on the man’s bonds and made them secure. “You’re such a sissy, Ruut. I didn’t even have to have a grumble with you. Perhaps it’s for the better. The way I’m feeling, I’d have turned your mind into goo.” He balled up his fist.

  Ruut’s eyes went wide.

  “Pah.” Fogle dropped his fist and turned to face Brak.

  The big fellow was rubbing his eyes.

  “Does it sting?”

  “A little,” Brak said, tilting his ear. “Everything goes bright and black. When will I see again?”

  “A few years.”

  “A few years?” Brak jerked up and banged his head on a low-hanging lamp made from lapis lazuli. “Ow!”

  “No, fool,” Fogle said, checking the scrolls on Ruut’s desk. “Hours, perhaps days, though. One never knows. Depends on the person.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Being silent often does wonders for one’s health.” Fogle made a quick search through the chamber, picking up on the oddities and looking for anything useful. But like most good magi, Ruut didn’t keep much, just the necessities. Pen and parchment, garish oversized pillows, and morsels of dried rations. Everything else was customary décor that came with the study the man earned. “Breathe easy, Brak. I can always…”

  “Always what?” Brak fumbled around the room and took a seat on a pillow.

  Zap you out of here. That would be the safe thing to do. You’re no good to me now. Another dimension door would do it. He couldn’t tell Brak that, however. The young man had proven wise to many things, and there was only one more that Fogle could cast. After that, he’d be trapped. “I can always think of something. Just give me a few moments. Maybe you’ll see something.”

  “It’s like a bright sunrise.”

  “See, it’s pretty. You should be happy.”

  “Makes my eyes ache.”

  You make my head ache. “Just hold on.” Fogle continued his search, poking and tapping on shelves and objects. It must be here somewhere. He glanced at Ruut. His former classmate’s eyes were intent on every move he made. “Yes, you know what I’m looking for, don’t you? Heh.”

  “What are you looking for?” Brak asked.

  “His spellbook.”

  “Don’t you have yours?”

  Fogle pulled some books out of a mahogany shelf and tossed them on the floor. “Yes, but I want his.”

  “Why?”

  “He might have something useful in there.”

  “Like getting me my eyesight back?”

  “No, we’re not ones to repair the damage we’ve wrought. Certainly you know that?”

  Brak stood up from his pillow. “I’m starting to tire of your tongue. I want to find my father and Kam. Where did you send Venir, anyway?”

  “He’ll be fine.” Maybe not. So what. “He aids us, whether you believe it or not.”

  “No,” Brak said, lumbering around and knocking things over. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “It’s the blindness.”

  “No, it isn’t!”

  “Don’t be a fool, and keep your voice down!” Fogle hissed. He grabbed hold of a thick book bound in hide leather with a dyed red leather cord wrapped around. His fingers tingled to the touch. “Ah, now this looks promising.” He caught Ruut’s eye. “Yes, this is it, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Brak growled, making his way toward the sound of Fogle’s voice.

  “Spellbook.” Fogle muttered an enchantment. The cord glowed. “Well done, but as expected, Ruut. I don’t suppose you’ll give me the word, will you. I could unravel it with my power, but that would take some time, and I can’t spare any at the moment.” He made his way over to the lamp, twisted off the bottom, and poured the oil on the book.

  Ruut made a startled groan.

  Fogle put the book in the lamp’s flame. The fire burned atop his finger. “So you can let me look in your book, or,” he said, lifting his brows, “I can burn the entire thing.”

  Ruut’s narrow shoulders sagged. Through his nostrils, he sighed.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Fogle removed the gag but kept the flames on his finger close to Ruut’s eyes. “Don’t be tricky.”

  “You always were a big-headed bastard,” Ruut said.

  “Is that the word?”

  “No,” Ruut said with a frown. “Red Spice.”

  Fogle placed the rag back in Ruut’s mouth. On the table, the cord on the spellbook unraveled. He headed for the book. Brak stepped into his path.

  “Step aside, if you don’t mind,” Fogle said.

  Brak murmured something angry and unintelligible.

  Fogle’s head snapped up.

  Brak’s glowering eyes showed pure white. His powerful arms lashed out and snatched Fogle off the floor.

  �
�Brak, no! Ulp!”

  In an angry and effortless heave, Brak sent Fogle crashing through the window.

  CHAPTER 23

  One underling tried prying Brool from Venir’s iron grasp. It grunted. Another clutched at the helmet, while two others toyed with his shield. Their chitters were excited and the sounds triumphant.

  Kavell laughed. “Enjoy your trophies, no thanks to me.” His eyes scoured the room. “It’s going to take a dozen apprentices to clean up this mess.”

  The underlings paid him no mind. Obsession with their prizes was in their eyes. One whipped out a long knife and started to saw off Venir’s hand.

  “Not here!”

  The underling stopped, glowered at Kavell with deep-red eyes, and hissed, “Where, then?”

  “You have the means. Move him into one of your holes below. We already have enough gore in the chambers.” Kavell scoffed. “Unheard of.” He had another pressing matter. Someone had sent Venir here, and he could only assume that someone was Fogle Boon. It was time to track the man down. Eliminate another threat to his power.

  The underlings poked and prodded Venir with sharp fingernails and daggers.

  Kavell sighed. “What are you doing now? Did you not hear me?”

  “They say he cannot die,” one said. It was red-eyed and swarthy. A wavy bladed dagger was gripped inside its palm. He raised it over Venir’s heart. “I need to make sure before we move him. After all, all you used was an illusion.”

  “Not to mention the quarts of blood you spilled from the man,” Kavell said. He lifted his nose. “Fine. Do what you must and get out, you little black trolls.”

  “Mind your tongue, Kavell,” the underling said. “You don’t want to fall from our favor.”

  “No, of course not. Certainly not after I manhandled the scourge of your kind without even lifting a finger.” He checked the hem on his sleeve. “On with it, then. Now I’m as curious to see if he’s dead as you are.”

  The underling plunged the dagger deep into Venir’s heart. A bright flash washed over the room. Venir sat up straight. He gasped. He scowled. Glancing at his chest, he grabbed the dagger, ripped it out, and tore it through the underling’s throat.

  “Preposterous!” Kavell said. His limbs became numb at what he beheld.

  The musclebound, gore-splattered warrior tore into the underlings. In lighting-fast strokes, he sliced. He impaled. Showers of red-black rain coated Kavell’s fine robes. The devastating blade tore through two underlings at once. In seconds, they were all dead.

  Impossible! Kavell’s lips fought for words. “Mah, mah, mah…” He found none. He wanted to run, but his feet would not move.

  Stepping over the corpses, Venir closed in, clasped Kavell by the throat, and squeezed. Through the eyelets of his helmet, he glared at the wizard with savage eyes. “Take me to Kam.”

  Kavell made a feeble nod.

  Venir spun him around and pinned him up against the wall with his forearm. “Don’t move, don’t speak, or I’ll gut you.”

  Feebly, Kavell nodded.

  Venir retrieved Brool and his shield, securing them over his brawny back. He then hooked his arm over Kavell’s shoulder and kept a long hunting knife to his throat. “Lead the way.”

  Swallowing, Kavell led them both out of the chamber and into the hall. Every surface was polished marble from top to bottom. The candelabras and chandeliers were pewter and twisted in alien patterns. The waxy sticks were all lit with a smokeless, yellow, mystic flame.

  Think of something, Kavell.

  His mind raced. His body and his will didn’t seem to be his own. Instead, he was under the power of a stone-cold killer. Elemental. Powerful. The likes of which he’d never seen before.

  “No tricks, Kavell,” Venir growled. He pressed the blade against the mage’s soft skin. “I can make it hurt, or I can make it quick.”

  He felt his warm blood running down his neck. “This... this way. She’s down... downward in the Nexus Chamber. Unharmed, I assure you. After all, she is my daught—ulp!”

  “Just walk.”

  At the other end of the hall, two brass doors waited. They didn’t have any handles on their shiny and smooth surfaces.

  “Push that,” Kavell said, eyeing a pair of pearl buttons, one above the other, about the size of an eyeball. “Top is up and bottom is down.”

  “You do it,” Venir said, scanning the area.

  Kavell stretched his finger toward the button.

  Venir’s ape-like arm squeezed him harder. “No tricks.”

  “This will be strange, but it’s no trick, just something clever.” He poked the bottom button.

  The brass doors split open, revealing a tiny room without any exits.

  Kavell felt Venir’s muscles tense when the huge man said, “Dead end, wizard. Is this a jest?”

  “No, no, not at all, I assure. It’s a means of traveling up and down. Like a shaft, similar to the mines, or in the great kitchens in those castles in Bone.”

  Venir’s throat rumbled. “I see.” He pushed them both inside. The door slid shut. “Which one?” Venir said, eyeing the rows of pearl buttons with arcane symbols on them.

  “Might I?” Kavell said, poking out his finger. The shock was wearing off, and his sharp wit was returning. The reassuring words of a spell eased back into his mind. You can handle this, Kavell. Just outsmart him. This should do it. He started to touch a button.

  Venir pulled him back. “Think of us as one body. Whatever happens to me,” the man said right into his ear, “will certainly happen to you.”

  Kavell’s finger drifted down to another button and he replied, “Certainly.” He punched in a combination of buttons. They lit up one at a time with a soft eerie glow. We’ll see about that soon enough.

  CHAPTER 24

  Melegal braced his foot against the Stack’s brick wall and tugged. Muscles bulging in his sweaty neck, Slom pulled the door free. Jasper slipped inside.

  The underlings spat a barrage of darts at them.

  Toowah! Toowah! Toowah!

  Melegal ignored the burning sting in his arm and returned fire from his dart launchers.

  Twing! Twing! Twing!

  An underling took one in the eye and fell down.

  “Get inside,” Slom said, shoving him in.

  Both inside with Jasper, they fought to close the door. Underling hands clasped at the rim, trying to tear it open. Slom braced his back against the door and dug his heels into the dirt, pushing against the underlings in the doorway. “There!” He pointed. “Go up those stairs!”

  Melegal gaped. The dry heat inside seemed to suck his marrow dry. The air was suffocating. A bright-orange glow came from the belly of the stack. A volcano of sorts. Hot. Fiery. A lumbering fire giant in heavy sleep, daring to be awakened. A stone staircase crept upward and around the interior wall. It was only a foot wide or so.

  “I’m not going up those stairs,” Jasper said, wiping the sweat from her eyes. Her robes clung to her damp body. “I can hardly breathe the air.”

  “Go!” Slom shouted. “The longer you take, the more likely you suffocate and fall.”

  Coughing, Melegal jabbed into the prying hands of the underlings. Howls of pain erupted on the other side. He kept hacking underling flesh into bits until the tattering skin disappeared.

  Slom shoved the door shut. His chest heaved. “We need something to hold it.”

  Melegal snatched up a large plank of wood and anchored it against the door and some set stone in the floor. “That’ll have to do.”

  “You know,” Slom said, “I wouldn’t have done the same for you.”

  “Of course not, bastard.”

  Slom smiled.

  Melegal took Jasper by the arm and darted for the steps. Up they went. Jasper held back, gawping at the great chasm of fire below. “I can’t. I can’t.”

  “You must,” Melegal said, “just hold on to me.” He coughed.

  “No.” She started to crouch.

  Back pressed against
the wall, Slom said, “I can carry her.”

  “You’ll have to guard our backside.” Melegal huffed, squatted down by Jasper, and said, “I’ll take her. Jasper, just keep your eyes closed and trust me.” He scooped her up, pushed up on his legs, keeping his back tight against the wall, and renewed his ascent. Jasper trembled in his arms.

  “Move faster,” Slom said to him.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” Melegal admitted.

  “Go faster,” Slom said. “We have company.”

  Melegal shifted his head to the other side of Jasper. The underlings surged through the door. The three of them were only a third of the way up the spirally wall that eased in a gentle slope around and around the stack. “Have they not any handholds going straight up?”

  “A good thief can make the climb.”

  “I’m not worried about me.”

  “Oh.”

  The underlings closed in on agile feet. Some stopped, firing dart after dart.

  Jasper let out a painful cry and jerked. Melegal’s fingernails dug into the wall. “Be still, girl! You’re going to turn us into coal.”

  “But…”

  “They’re only darts! You’ll live!” Melegal pushed himself, stone after stone, up and up. He glanced up. It was a long way to go to the tiny portal at the top. I’ll suffocate before I get there. Every step was agony.

  Clang!

  “We have contact,” Slom said. He fought against the underlings that caught up.

  Clang!

  “I can swing steel forever! Rawr!”

  An underling fell off the stairs and plunged into the furnace.

  “One down,” Slom said, “too many to go.”

  Melegal continued his climb. Each step took longer. His legs had started to burn. The heat was quickly draining his strength. Almost a dozen underlings were racing up the steps now. It was only a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, before they cut Slom down. That left only him to defend himself and Jasper. And the slightest imbalance would send them into the roaring flames.

  “Jasper,” he said in her ear, still climbing, “if you have anything left, now is the time to use it.”

  She squeezed him harder.