Run! Kill! Slaughter the underlings! Kill till there are no more!
Surefooted, he raced into the forest, outdistancing his pursuing friends in seconds.
Yes!
He glided through the heavy brush with Helm, a dangerous beacon. If there were underlings near, it would find them. Venir and his axe would carve them down. Most men in the world hated the underlings, but not like him. Their vile nature was the opposite of everything he knew. They killed. Tormented. No discrimination among men, women, and children. The horrors Venir had seen fueled fires in his mind.
I want them all. Dead.
His feet sank into the soft mud of the jungle where a marsh filled with willows cropped up. The little grey-skinned fiends thrived in the dampest spots on Bish. Venir slipped underneath the gentle greenery hanging from the crooked branches. The sinking daylight subsided into the heavy natural darkness. Helm pulsated and throbbed. Venir’s heart pounded in his ears.
I can’t see you vermin, but I know you’re here. Helm says so.
His knuckles whitened on the axe’s dark oak shaft. His nostrils widened. There was sulfur in the air. The vile, distinct scent of the skin of underlings. Like men, they perspired. Unlike men, it wasn’t ever from fear. They feared nothing. Each and every one that Venir had ever encountered was a stone-cold killer. Hatred was their strength. Fear was their friend. They fed on the weak hearts and feelings of men.
Close. So close.
He zoned in on an underling pressed against the trees. It faced away from Venir, but its huddled form was quite distinct. A long, jagged blade filled its hands. Its head scanned from side to side.
Venir fought Helm’s pleading impulse.
Rush in. Cut it down. Run to the next. Cut them all down. Now. Now. Now.
Fighting his own urges that merged with Helm’s, he crept forward in the darkness. Twice, the underling’s ruby eyes glided over him, through him, until Venir was almost on top of it. Looking right at Venir, it cocked its head to the side and squinted its eyes.
How does it not see me? Am I toying with it, or is it toying with me?
It took everything Venir had to not strike it down immediately. The armament had powers he did not yet understand. He wanted to master it. He stood like a ready statue, dying to reanimate at every moment.
The underling in its black leathers and pinned-back hair came closer with the look of a dangerous predator. Sword ready, it cocked its elbows back to strike into the unknown.
Towering over the fiend, Venir unleashed his axe.
Slice!
The underling’s head popped off of its shoulders. The body and head hit the murky ground at the same time.
Helm still throbbed with urgent life, sending Venir in every direction at once.
“Chitter. Chitter. Chitter.”
The underlings appeared in all directions. Fearless and vengeful, they came.
Setting his feet, Venir faced the onslaught with unbridled power. The first underling rushed in with two blades, striking like a snake. In a single lethal strike, the axe’s spike gouged it in the neck.
Glitch!
Too-Wah! Too-Wah! Too-Wah!
Darts shot through the air.
Clatch! Clatch! Clatch! Zip! Zip! Zip!
Small crossbow bolts ripped through the leaves. Like violent insect stingers, the projectiles buried themselves deep in Venir’s legs. He exploded into a whirlwind of fury. “You think that will stop me?” He bore down on two underlings.
The wicked pair hurled javelins at his chest.
He swatted them aside with the flat of his axe, and with a single whistling swing, he cleaved the both of them in half. “Let the jungle have your blood!”
The underlings were everywhere. They came in twos and threes. Stabbing, cutting, screaming with vile resentment, they tried to tear the human juggernaut down. Lethal strikes bit at Venir’s skin.
Constantly in motion and guided by Helm, he dodged, twisted at the last instant. Venir’s awareness was beyond instinct. His hardened muscles functioned beyond normal limits. The underlings—their evil, treacherous ways—fed his battle-honed skills. Brool, his axe, arced overhead with bone-jarring impact.
Slice!
An underling lost its hand.
Chop!
Another lost an arm.
Chop!
Its leg.
Chop!
Legs.
Coated from the gore of battle, Venir tore through the forest like a gale of fury. His axe shattered bones. Cleaved skulls. Hearts and throats were punctured. Although he bled from lacerations and burned from the poison of darts, his fury did not stop. His will and Helm urged him forward.
Kill them. Kill them all!
Ranks decimated, the hive of underlings fought on. They shot. Jabbed. Chittered. Screeched. They attacked with the fearless ferocity of hungry wolverines. Skilled and deadly, one dashed in and carved a hunk out of Venir’s leg. Darts skipped off Helm.
A javelin pierced his side.
Venir roared. He snatched an underling by the neck in his mighty grip and yanked it up from the ground. He slung the fiend into another and hacked them both down. He zeroed in on the nearest thinning batch of heat and charged. A throng of three five-foot-tall terrors loosed another attack. Flanking Venir, one ducked under his swing. The others latched onto his legs like black ticks. Sharp teeth bit. Steel-hard nails clawed.
“To Bish with you fiends!”
Locked on his legs, the underlings bore him down to the ground. They ripped and tore at his skin.
Letting the axe go, he locked his forearm around one’s throat and squeezed until its eyes bulged. With his free hand he slipped out his long hunting knife and plunged it into the second underling’s side. It wilted as the underling in the nook of his arm suffocated and its windpipe cracked. He tucked the knife back into its sheath. Two more were dead, and Helm told him the third enemy lurked somewhere nearby. Venir could feel its presence. His calloused hands found the shaft of his axe again. His senses zeroed in.
Keeping to the brush, the underling loaded another crossbow bolt.
Venir closed the gap in two great strides and swung.
Metal rang off metal with jarring impact, sending a ringing shockwave through the forest.
CLANGGGGGGG!
Venir found himself face to face with a powerful figure as tall as he. The flame-headed stranger.
CHAPTER 33
“Your days are over, slayer,” the stranger said.
Deep in his battle-hazed mind, Venir recognized the man. Buried in his blood hunt, it didn’t matter. Nothing living or dead would stand between him and the slaughter of the foul underlings. Brool uncoiled like a steel spring and jabbed into the scales of the stranger’s dipping shoulder.
“Auhg!” the man yelled. And then without hesitation, the stranger slipped out of Brool’s reach and countered with size-defying speed. The great sword flicked out like a striking snake.
The metal of Brool crashed into the metal of Fang once more.
CLANGGGGGG!
The master warriors battled back and forth.
Venir cut, stabbed, and chopped.
The stranger parried, deflected, and countered. The man with scales on his arms swung his great blade with the ease of a stick, fencing like a true swordsman. The man staggered back against Venir’s relentless press.
Chest to chest, steel scraping on steel, they locked up head to head.
“You shouldn’t prey on underlings, slayer!” the stranger growled.
The statement only fueled Venir’s temper. The man was out of his mind. No one on Bish ever fought for the underlings. Face to face, he could see the deep anger in the man’s golden eyes. Resentment. Hatred. There was no doubt this man was here to kill him. He drove a knee into the man’s ribs a few times. Drawing his head back, he busted the rim of Helm into the man’s perfect nose. Crunch!
A powerful shove sent Venir tripping over the vines. Down on the ground he went. As he scrambled to his knees, h
is keen eyes caught the gleam of steel baring down on him. His arms snapped up the axe, catching the oncoming sword.
CLANGGGGGG!
The jarring blow shook his elbows. Venir twisted his axe, caught the sword between the blades, and held it fast. He kicked the man in the gut, doubling him over. With a surge of his legs, he charged the man back into a tree.
Thud!
The man shoved Venir’s chin back with his clawed hand. The stranger was muttering to himself, “Yes. Yes. Yes. I will kill him. Die, Darkslayer. Die!” With the strength of an ogre, he shoved Venir and broke the grappling off.
The two muscle-bound behemoths squared off again.
Venir held Brool tight in his bloody grip, ready to strike. His lungs burned. The boundless energy that usually fueled him ebbed.
Before him, the stranger stood, bloody nosed and wild eyed, his movements fluid and at ease.
Billip and Mikkel appeared from the brush, ranged weapons poised to attack. Billip let an arrow fly.
Twang!
The stranger easily slipped out of the arrow’s path.
“Impossible!” Billip said, nocking another shaft.
Mikkel aimed his heavy crossbow at the man and said, “I won’t miss.”
“Stay out of this!” Venir ordered. Chest and shoulders heaving, he added with a growl, “He’s mine!”
Mikkel pegged an underling squirming through the brush.
Clatch-Zip!
The bolt rocketed through its skull. “We have your back. Do your thing!”
Venir slid his shield from his shoulders, strapped it to his arm, and hunkered down. He eyed the foreigner and said, “Let’s dance.”
***
“It’s him! Kill him! Kill him!” Oran’s voice said in Nath’s head. “Kill the slayer!”
Fueled by constant thoughts of destruction, Nath waded in toward the warrior. He’d watched the slayer carve down the underlings like a cold-blooded killing machine. It was just as Oran had said. All of the horrific details had come to life.
Embedded in his thoughts, Oran urged him on, “Put an end to this man! End all of this madness! Bring me his head!”
Fang ready, Nath struck. Hard and fast, the sword hammered away at the Darkslayer’s shield. The warrior in the dark helmet—fierce, cunning, and crafty—jabbed at his eyes. His belly. His legs. The rangy man was quick and powerful. His axe was an arc of death. Nath matched everything the man had and then some.
Time to end this. Time to free this world from this disease.
He turned loose his own savagery.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The powerful blade Fang pounded into the warrior like the striking rain of a thunderstorm.
The great axe chopped at his legs.
Nath leapt high.
Swish!
Striking from mid-air, he poked the slayer in his metal head.
The man staggered back, reset his jaw, and marched back forward.
Matching weapon length for weapon length, Nath aimed high for the shield, stopped in mid-swing, pulled Fang back around, and chopped at the man’s legs.
The man’s axe, a living thing in his hands, banged the sword away at the last second. Off balance, the surefooted fighter stumbled through the tall grass.
Nath smote.
Bang!
Sparks flew like fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Oran said. “I can feel it! You have him! Kill him!”
***
Venir’s iron limbs gave way to the thunderous strikes of the lightning-quick man. With tremendous effort, he fought on. His will would not break or bend. But now, with all the nearby underlings dead, the armament no longer fueled his blood. It was him against the foreigner, who moved unlike any creature he’d ever known.
This is it.
With the sword hammering away at his shield, Venir summoned everything he had left and counterattacked. He lowered Brool and clipped the man’s thigh with the spike. The pounding of the sword ceased, and the attacker eased back. Arms feeling like lead, huffing for breath, his boundless energy gone, Venir tossed the shield aside.
To the end.
He locked both hands around Brool’s shaft. It was going to be a fight to the finish. A fight to the death. To match the stranger’s speed, he’d need both hands and all the strength he had left. Jaw set, he advanced again.
Fight or die, Venir! Fight or die!
Blocking out all doubt, he took the man. The great axe slammed into the brilliant metal of the outsider’s blade and drove it downward. He hacked. Chopped. Sliced.
The stranger sidestepped, parried, and countered.
Brool’s razor edge clipped the man. Cut the scales on his sinewy arms. Drew blood from his legs and chest.
Inches away from death, the man escaped again and again.
Venir poured everything he had into it. The axe rose and fell. His strikes became sluggish and clumsy compared to the finesse and weaving of the sword.
Keep swinging! Keep swinging!
Putting everything he had into it, Venir unleashed a side swing that would have split an ox in half.
Slice!
The stranger flattened in a fraction of a second and popped up again.
Venir’s heavy axe and tired frame shuffled out of balance. He started to recover his swing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the stranger’s sword coming back.
With a golden fire in his eyes, the stranger rammed his sword to the hilt into Venir’s chest.
Venir’s head snapped back, “Urk!” Brool slipped from his fingers.
The gasps of his comrades resonated in the deep recesses of Venir’s mind. Melegal’s ashen face appeared through the branches in the forest.
Venir felt life slip out of his body, from his fingers down to his toes. His eyes fixed on the sword plunged into his chest. The pain burned like a hundred fires. Raising his stare, he found the eyes of his opponent.
The bright eyes were filled with victory and a twisted confusion.
Spitting blood and racked with pain, Venir managed to say, “Well fought.” The last of his fires dimmed. His inner furnace of molten fury cooled. Somehow, Venir held on to the last thread of life. His bloody fingers clutched at the warrior’s red locks of hair and held them fast.
The fighter’s golden eyes enlarged.
Holding the man fast, Venir snaked out his hunting knife and drove it hilt deep in the stranger’s exposed chest. Dying, he said, “But you’re coming to the grave with me.”
CHAPTER 34
Led by Chongo to his friend’s aid, Melegal shouted at the others. “Why did you two idiots just stand there? You let him get killed!”
Venir’s body fell backward, sliding off the sword and toppling to the ground. The man with red hair collapsed as well.
“It was his choice,” Billip said, kneeling by Venir’s side. “Not ours.”
“He isn’t very competent in his reasoning! You know that!” Melegal looked at his friend. His strapping frame was broken and bloody, unmoving. The skin on his arms was clammy. “Bloodthirsty fools!” Melegal rarely raised his voice over anything, but today had been enough. Surrounded by piles of dead underlings, he’d reached his breaking point.
Kneeling alongside the other man, Billip pulled Venir’s knife from the stranger’s chest. “This one’s still breathing, I think.” He held his hand over the stranger’s mouth. “His breath has fire behind it. What manner of man breathes flame and survives a gash like that?”
“Finish him off,” Melegal suggested.
Blast my skinny hide, I’ll never get back to Bone. Fool of a man, Venir! Just had to get yourself killed, didn’t you?
“I hope you goons packed a shovel, because I’m not burying him. My back hurts just thinking about digging a hole that big.”
“Watch your mouth, Melegal,” Mikkel said. His jovial smile and tone were far gone. “That was as honorable a fight as I ever saw. Never seen two men fight like that. Never.”
“So
what do we do with this one?” Billip asked. “Why would he battle alongside underlings? No one does that.”
“Maybe it’s like Farc said, he’s something their dark mysticism summoned.” Mikkel tilted his head and added, “But it doesn’t feel right. None of it does.”
“It doesn’t matter now, either way,” Melegal said. He thumbed what looked to be sweat from the corners of his eyes. “Vee is dead.”
The warrior lay still as a stone with wounds all over his body, slick in grime and blood. It seemed a fitting end to the robust warrior, but the helmet still had a strange life of its own, even with the eyes within closed.
The jungle fell silent.
The hairs stood up on the nape of Melegal’s neck. Goosebumps rose on his skinny arms. He glanced down at Venir.
The man’s eyes snapped open. His hands lashed out and snatched Melegal by his shirt.
Melegal fought against the iron grip that seized him, but his voice was calm and matter-of-fact when he said, “Get your bloody mitts off me, you incorrigible ape.”
Venir’s fingers popped open.
Melegal hopped to his feet.
A lock of red hair was trapped between Venir’s fingers. He cast it away, unbuckled his helmet, and peeled it off his head. His hair was damp with sweat, but his face was clean from the nose up. A wary look was in his eyes. He said, “What happened?”
“This man fed you his sword through the chest,” Billip said, motioning to the stranger. He pitched Venir’s knife to him. “You bladed him. Somehow, like you, he still breathes but shouldn’t.”
Melegal rubbed the bumps from his bony arms, shaking his head. Bish didn’t offer explanations. Life moved on.
Venir’s color had returned, and so had the brightness in his eyes. He shrugged his broad shoulders and gave him an explanation: “Bish happens.”
Melegal set his steely gaze on the other man who lay near death on the ground. Chongo sniffed the man and licked his face and wounds.
“Chongo, get away from there,” Venir said with a groan. He got up to his feet. “Come.”
The muscular beast lay on top of the man. Billip reached for his collar. The dog snapped at his fingers and growled.
Clash of Heroes: Nath Dragon meets The Darkslayer Page 11