The Darkslayer: Book 04 - Danger and the Druid

by Craig Halloran

  “Trinos, all of the men we have are rebuilding the castle. All the rest are our sworn enemies. We’ve betrayed our own to follow you,” he swallowed hard, “and our pleas of compassion have gained nothing more than open hostility. Falcrum died by his brother's own hand, and Valcor was poisoned by his own mother's hand.” She had brought food, built shelters, bathed children, and yet still the hostility remained. She had even parlayed with Royals only to be rejected with open mockery and disgust as she petitioned for them to take better care of their citizens. Most of them had laughed in her face while others just gaped at her in fascination. The men, their minds as vile as snakes, had peeled off her clothes before her first toe crossed the door’s threshold. When she departed, for the first time in her infinite existence she had been concerned for her safety.

  She nodded in a graceful motion.

  “I just said find me twenty men, and I shall take care of the rest.”

  “But where?”

  “Anywhere you think you can find them. Now go,” she commanded.

  District 27 was changing. The old was being used to rebuild the new. The citizens, the most pitiful lot in the entire city, smiled on occasion at the sound of the troubadour that played a small gold-painted harp and sang. The ramshackle storefronts displayed a vase of flowers or two. She liked flowers. And fresh food was being baked nearby, which was necessary because she had become very fond of pie.

  Her toes didn’t seem to touch the ground as she walked and settled herself on a bench near a dried up fountain centered in what used to be a very active plaza. She peered up into the sky, filling her lungs with air behind her perfect breasts, and pondered the suns she had created. She wondered if Scorch was experiencing the same resistance she was or if he even cared. She could do just about anything that she wanted with material things in her world, but she didn’t have that kind of power over the willful people. It was frustrating.

  “Men,” she said, addressing a hapless looking crew that was working on the stonework of the fountain, “are the repairs complete?”

  A young man with blue bags under his eyes pulled off his cap and replied, “Yes Trinos, but if I may: there is no water in this place. It’s not run with water since I was a boy, and even then it ran with very little.”

  She rubbed her hands on her skirt that covered most of her voluptuous thighs and said, “The water is coming, and this fountain will return to its original vitality for all to enjoy.” She smiled.

  The man stammered, saying, “But the Royals—You can’t steal their water! They’ll wipe us out.”

  All of the workers blanched as Trinos let out a pleasant little laugh and said, “It’s not their water, Corrin. It’s mine.”

  CHAPTER 28

  There was darkness, familiar sounds and pain. Voices, more than one, like shattered crystal, penetrating the recesses of his hazy mind, speaking in a language he swore he understood. There was wheezing and a bubbling sound coming from his busted face, and when he tried to open his mouth to speak it felt like a stake was jabbed in his head. He tasted blood and gravel.

  “What now?”

  Venir heard that. He strained to open his swollen eyes. One remained shut, heavy as a stone. The other cracked open the ever slightest, catching what he believed to be a moon's blue light. He coughed hard, and his entire body lurched in pain.

  “He lives, so let him live,” a voice as rough as rusting iron said. “Times like this we need all the help we can get.”

  “Blast you and your ideas,” said another whose voice was full of irritation. “We’ve no time or supplies to be tending to some stranger, clearly left for dead. He probably has more coming after him, and it’s just more trouble for us, as if we don’t have enough already.”

  Venir heard the man spit and curse.

  “We take a vote then,” a reasonable woman’s voice offered. “It’s only fair. Look at the man. He’s a fighting man; his size is even greater than Baltor’s.”

  Somewhere, a man who sounded as if he had a mouth full of food complained, “What do you mean? Baltor’s bigger than that cripple and stronger than any man. Yellow hairs are weak, like women.” He sounded stupid, too.

  The woman continued.

  “Finish your meal, Baltor. I only meant he was almost as big. Your belly and head are far superior.”

  Baltor made a sound of satisfaction, but a few others laughed quietly and snickered. Venir wanted to laugh himself, but it hurt to even think about it.

  “Listen,” another man interjected, “I’ve drug this lout for three days already. He must be three hundred fifty pounds, and I’ll not take him a foot farther. My back's killing me. Let the vultures and wolves have him, I say. He’ll not be fighting anything but misery for weeks, maybe months. I certainly doubt he’ll ever walk again.”

  Lazy Bastard!

  “I’ll pull him,” the woman said, “and a good bit quicker than you. You might as well ride the stretcher as well. Those stumpy legs of yours aren’t worthy of a dwarf.”

  “What did you say?” The man said with a sneer.

  “Maybe you can ride Baltor's shoulders and get some fresh air to fill that big nose of yours, seeing how you’ve had it shoved up Caralton’s arse—”

  “Enough!” The voice of the first man who had begun the conversation interjected. “We vote, then. There are seven of us, and I’ll break any ties.

  “I want to make a plea for the man’s life first,” the woman decried.

  “You’ve made your case clear Adanna, and we haven’t the time to be slowed any longer. We are days away from the nearest Outpost.”

  Outpost!

  Venir’s mind was on fire with elation. Men, women, the smell of stew, the taste of Bish’s dirt, a hooting owl, the smell of a fire, crackling embers and the metallic pings of a heating metal pot. He was back, back on Bish, and judging by things he was in the south. If he could only speak or pull free of the bonds that had him strapped to a man-made stretcher.

  “What about Outlaw's Hide? It’s closer,” one man said.

  “And filled with orcs and gnolls,” the woman responded.

  “And men just as well. For all we know the Outpost is wiped out. You’ve seen the fields. The Royals have fled the south, and no word of aid has come,” the leader added.

  What are they talking about?

  “We don’t know that!” she disagreed.

  “Silence! We’ll vote now! Let me see a show of hands of those who think the man should remain in our care and custody.”

  The voices were coming from behind his head, only adding to the agony that he could not see them. He was propped up at a low angle, leaving him an unfortunate field of vision as well. It was as if he wasn’t there, his fate sealed by a council of accusers that he could not face. Venir’s dry mouth and swollen tongue were yearning with thirst. Water. Maybe that would loosen his jammed up jaw.

  “Hmph! Only two votes to care for the man, I see.”

  SLAT!

  Venir began to struggle with his bonds, but he could feel little more than his fingertips moving.

  “I’m sorry, Adanna. It seems you and your mother have lost out again.”

  “Father, this is an outrage! That man deserves life. He’s a fighter, I tell you. We’ll need him.”

  “Sit down, Girlie,” one of the other men chided. “The man will last little more than a day at most. No man can live without taking in water for more than four days, and I’ll not be givin' up any more of mine.”

  “No, Father! At least loose his bonds and leave him to die with whatever he has left.”

  “Adanna, let go of me. I’ll not leave the man, a criminal so far as we know, to be a prone meat basket and be ravaged by coyotes or bugbears.”

  “More likely underling scouts will take his head and parade it like the rest in their horrible fields.”

  Underlings!

  Venir’s hands clenched in and out, pumping more life into his broken body. After all, it had been an underling that cast him in the Mist.
Underlings that slaughtered his family. Underlings that slit Georgio’s throat. And Underlings that he lived to hunt and kill. He hadn't made it this far and escaped the madness behind the Mist to fail now.

  He heard the scrape of a sharp blade coming out of its sheath. His blood surged behind his temples.

  “Someone hold his head down while I slip this into his heart. Baltor, start digging a hole. Rogue or not, he deserves a man-made grave.

  The sound of sobbing women was drowned out by his instinct to stay alive. Venir summoned every fiber of remaining strength and heaved at his bonds.

  Snap! Snap!

  He growled in pain like a wounded beast.

  There was a sharp gasp behind him when he sat up, half-blind, and began to rise to his feet.

  “Great Bish!” someone exclaimed.

  Venir winced as he felt a pair of hands wrap around his waist and steady him.

  “Someone help the man!” the father commanded.

  “But we voted!” One said.

  “Yes!” Another agreed.

  Venir got a better look at them now, a well-armed but ragged bunch of strangers. Straightening his knees, he pulled back his bullish shoulders and rose to his full height.

  “Eek, he’s tall, like an oak.”

  “But can he walk, or follow? He’ll slow us down.”

  Venir grimaced as he stepped forward.

  “Easy, Man,” the woman said.

  He was trying to say, "Let go," but it came out as, “Wetgrowr”.

  A man, tall and lean, in trousers, bearded and with a strong chin eyed him with suspicion, the short blade in his hand rapping on his pants leg. He, as well as the rest, appeared to be of a better ilk than outlaws or Brigands, but one could never tell for sure. He spoke with more patience in his voice this time.

  “Man, can you speak or not? We don’t need some mute that can’t sound the alarm tagging along.”

  “Aye,” he said, managing a half-hearted smile. He lived, back in Bish, southern Bish to be exact. “Need g-grog.”

  “Hah, well some water will just have to do. No grog or ale for leagues, Man, just a ragged bunch of mercenaries scurrying along the safety of the Mist. No safer place than the edge of the world right now; the underlings have seen to that.”

  A moment of panic seized him as his hands fell to his chest. He groaned. His body tamped from head to toe in agony. Something pinched his insides. Busted ribs and splintered bone. Suck it up! The sack, once safely tucked in his shirt, was gone. He looked at his fingers, where one appeared to be dislocated. He pulled it back into place with sickening pop. On his other hand, the left, the tips of his outermost fingers remained blackened and gone.

  “Sack,” he mumbled.

  “I have it,” the woman said, “but it was quite empty.”

  “Smother him with it!” someone said. Venir turned away from them all, looking into the mist that was less than a mile distant. He wanted to be as far from it as far could be.

  “Get me my sack, and I’ll leave you to yourselves,” he said, the weariness still heavy as wet canvas. He could barely stand, and walking more than a dozen feet seemed an impossibility at the moment. Pain was something he’d become accustomed to over the years, but being immobile was not.

  The woman that was helping him stand up looked up at him. She was a stocky woman, a short-haired red head with round and caring eyes. She said, “Your injuries are too severe, Stranger. You’ve a busted shoulder and ribs, and your leg seems to be broken.”

  The leader handed him a canteen of water, eyeing him with concern. “Don’t drink it all.”

  Venir gulped in a mouth full, then another.

  “Ah!” he said aloud, his voice rich and robust once more. “Now that’s good water, and I’d kill a hundred underlings for more.”

  “Man, I should cut you where you stand for drinking all of that.”

  “Kill him! He’s a thief!”

  “A big, giant, stinking crippled thief."

  Venir laughed. My, had he ever missed the insults of people. He said, “You’ll do no such thing, my friends. Not without being dragged into the blood and dirt as well.”

  They all bristled.

  “The fool doesn’t have a weapon, and now he threatens to kill us all? Kill the lunatic.”

  “Will you shut up, Lout,” she pleaded to Venir. “My father’s not one to be trifled with. He’s not one for joking; he’s moody.”

  “Ha, your father must have been fed breast milk from an orc when he was a child. A big fat one with three tits and two teeth at that. He misses her, I bet.”

  No music could have sounded sweeter to his ears than the sound of steel coming unbridled from their beds. In a moment, four men surrounded him as he stood face to face with the leader, but looking down upon him.

  The leader said, “Man, your tongue is as twisted as a serpent’s tail. My orc mother had four tits, not three!”

  Everyone looked at the leader, then Venir, then back to the leader.

  Venir knew they were waiting for their leader to spill his blood. He could feel their fear and anger, but the man before him remained calm, eyes giving him closer study.

  “Perhaps, Stranger, if you shaved that beard from your face you might not seem so disturbing. You look like a bugbear's nanny. Of course, I can only guess you are trying to hide the ogre portion of your heritage.”

  “Good for me, but sad for you, clearly being bred of two-legged swine, but your eyes are still quite dashing,” Venir said, stretching out his aching limbs, feeling his knotted muscles begin to loosen beneath his skin.

  “By Bish,” the leader said, “Venir, is that you inside that busted face and elder’s beard?”

  “Aye, the underlings haven’t gnawed the meat from my bones yet, Hogan. I live.”

  Hogan came over, clasped his hands and looked up in his eyes saying, “Before, you were almost as big as a horse, but now you are, Venir. It’s been ten years since we last hunted together, and I thought for certain you were dead, Man.”

  The rest of the men and women were stupefied. An older woman, Hogan’s wife, handed Venir a small loaf of bread and some wine.

  “Ah, you were holding out on me,” he said to Hogan.

  “You asked for grog. But Venir, where have you been, Man? The underlings are over running the entire world these days it seems,” he said, guiding him to the fire.

  Venir limped over and sat down. The fire's glare seemed to ignite the coals of his blazing blue eyes as he said, “Tell me more about the underlings.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “How do you expect me to defend myself in these treacherous mountains in these bonds, Fogle?” Cass asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  The journey back to the hot ground of Bish wasn’t any less treacherous than the journey there. Fogle’s razor sharp mind had regained its focus with the help of a few feet-warming spells. Still, his head was clogged and draining with snot, and there was little he could do to control that.

  “AH-Chooo!”

  Cass stopped and turned, saying, “Ah, poor little wizard has a runny nose. Unhitch me and I can help you with that.”

  “No thanks,” he said, avoiding her irresistible gaze.

  She was a distraction now. The seductive swagger of her hips drew his gaze when she navigated the snow as if she was part of the snow itself. And every hour or so she had another comment to say: playful, wonderful, tempting, suggestive and even evil. Fogle had defeated her, though. He was the smarter person and stronger as well, but her power was in what she offered him, a want once fulfilled but not fully satisfied. He was curious.

  She stood there, waiting for him to catch up, offering a smile.

  “Fogle, you have won. I’ve given my word. There is no need for these bonds,” she said, pleading, submissive. “The Blood Ranger knows this. You know this, and if something happens to me, then who will care for your dog? I would hate to see your journey wasted, beyond you losing your virginity, of course. And there is so much more exploring
we can offer one another.” She smiled the kind of smile that offered many splendors. “After all , it’s going to be a long walk.” She brushed up against him, looking up into his eyes, the snow flakes falling gently on her beautiful face.

  He tore his gaze away, shoved his way past her and trotted up along Mood’s side.

  “She's witching, isn’t she, Wizard?”

  “What do you mean?” he answered.

  “Ho! I can hear every little word of yer chit chat back there. She’s controlling everything from your head to your groin.”

  “No, that’s not the case,” he denied. “If anything, I’m controlling her. I’m just letting her think she’s getting control. Ah-CHOO!”

  A heavy hand slapped him on his back, almost knocking him to the snow-covered ground.

  Mood then said, “Keep telling yerself that then, Man, and you’ll be in the grave sooner than expected. Remember where you are; this is Bish, yer never in control.”

  Fogle disagreed. He was always in control.

  “No, I have control over my own actions, regardless of the circumstances.”

  “Is that so, Wizard? Then tell me, were you in control when you slept with her? Was that part of your plan, or hers?”

  “That’s different. I was trying to seduce her,” he said, immediately feeling like a fool after he said it. Cass had caught up and was laughing along with Mood's robust ho’ ho’s.

  “Bish on you both!” he cursed. “You outland peoples are impossible.”

  He walked away, hiding his blushing face and fighting to ignore the soreness of his icy nose.

  “She’s right, you know,” Mood growled back at him.

  “About what?” he shot back. He watched Mood slice her bonds apart.

  “She has to be able to fend for herself if needed, and we have a long way to go.”

  Great! Fogle kept on walking over the frozen and rocky tundra. He didn’t bother a glance at Cass when she knelt down to nuzzle with the wolves, but he could feel her pink eyes on his back, stirring the memory of her soft lips pressed against his.

  “Whoop!” he cried, as his boots slid out from under him and he crashed to the ground. BONE! He tried to scramble back to his feet but slipped again, this time jamming his knee into a jagged piece of rock. Pain jabbed into his flesh, and he felt his anger and frustration swelling. Mood’s words were loud and clear in his mind for some reason, Remember where you are; this is Bish, yer never in control.