“And a portion to those who are loyal,” Scorch said, picking Sidebor’s face up out of the dirt. “And if I’m to let you regain all your power, I need to be convinced of your loyalty, else I cast your eyes back into the fires.”
Sidebor gathered himself off the ground and dusted off his robes. He’d never sworn loyalty to anyone before, but many had sworn loyalty to him. Loyalty was another word for lies. The wicked never kept their oaths.
“My word is my loyalty,” he said.
“Good,” Scorch said, offering a smile. “And so, as they often said in worlds gone by, ‘It’s time to get busy.’”
***
Master Sinway bathed. The silky waters of the bath were warm, the bodies of the underling women wet and nubile. Their delicate hands eased the tension in his shoulders. Their perfumes enhanced his senses.
“Ah …” he said, nuzzling his head back between the breasts of another beautiful underling woman. All their hair was white, and long. The sheer garments of pink, lime, and azure clung to their bodies. They were the most splendid and beautiful creatures in all the world, until they became pregnant. Sinway blotted centuries of that from his memory. “Excellent.”
The world of Bish was strengthening. Becoming more and more powerful. He felt it. He experienced it. Tasted it. His battle with Scorch had been a moment of colossal survival. The stranger from another world, a place of unlimited power, had almost died. Sinway had almost taken it. He stiffened.
“Relax, Great One,” a woman whispered in his ear. “Relax. We shall fulfill all your needs. Subdue all your fears.”
The underling women called shallas were born seductresses by craft, each and every one an enchantress in her own right. They wrote scrolls, made potions. Created strange makeup and perfumes. Their soft hands were delicate and deadly. The words from their lips soothing and invigorating. They’d brought Sinway much comfort the past few months. He petted one’s hand.
“The Great One is pleased? No? Yes?” she said, batting her golden eyes.
“Silence,” he said, “silence.”
Sinway wasn’t settled. The war above was in good hands. The royals in all the major cities in a greedy collapse. One house after another fell under the spell. Barge after barge whooshed through the Current, loaded with hoards of treasure. Sinway didn’t see the harm in releasing the contents of his vault. I’ll take it all back anyway. In all of his centuries, he’d never seen men so easily bought. They hated each other. Never negotiated. Never dickered. They would kill each other first. It couldn’t have always been that easy, else the underlings would have been bribing the royals all along. What was different? Scorch? Bish? He had to understand what happened. It ate at him.
He rose from the waters. Two shallas dried him. Another draped him in his robes.
“Master, be at—”
He back-handed her across the cheek so hard she died.
“I said silence.”
In deep thought, he glided away.
CHAPTER 21
On Melegal’s heels, Venir passed through the entryway. The fine hairs on his neck flared. His stomach nodded. He staggered through a curtain. Blinked the dizziness from his eyes.
What in Bish just happened?
He stood inside the bar, just outside the curtain they’d passed through. The creepy little woman draped in black stood in front of him with her skinny arms crossed over her chest. Her hands moved like little spiders, kneading her narrowed shoulders.
“Come,” she said, gliding closer. “Sit, wait on your friend, and live.” She looked over his great shoulder. “Or go back through the curtain and die. The bosses are very careful. The slightest threat to them can be fatal.”
The creepy woman’s words were captivating. Convincing. Venir’s instincts still fired. There was a strange stench in this place. He glared down at her. Her cool expression remained.
“Your stool awaits,” she gestured. She wrapped her slender arm around his and walked him over. “The wait shouldn’t be long. I’ll buy you a drink.”
Venir leaned back and propped his elbow on the bar so he could face the room.
“No thanks.”
The raucous behavior in the Snake Pit did little to calm his battle heat. Sweaty bodies caroused with one another. Throaty chuckles were hurled. Women cackled with screeching laugher. Rank sweat intermingled with cheap perfume. A dwarf and mintaur clocked heads in a corner.
It was the kind of setting Venir normally eased into, but not now. Too many curious eyes drifted toward his great frame, and his fingers itched to hold a weapon. Or at least a shield.
The woman perched herself on the stool next to him and drank from the goblet of port the bartender set down for her. She kept her haunting eyes on him.
“Where are you from, Outlander?”
Another pair of men glided in behind her. Big and rugged. Earrings and scars. Sword belts buckled to their hips.
“I said, ‘Where are you from, Outlander?’”
Venir focused on the crowd. The tone had changed.
“She asked you a question,” said one of the toughs behind her.
Venir ignored him.
Another pair of toughs hemmed in on the other side of him. They didn’t have size, but they had numbers. One of them said to the toughs on the other side of Venir, “Did you say something?”
“I said that this light-haired lout needs to speak to our little Jasper when she speaks to him.” He pushed himself from the bar and rested his meaty fists on his wide hips. “We treat women right in this place.”
Venir’s skin bristled. His already hot blood charged. The entire room nonchalantly focused on him and the surrounding group. He rose to his full height and almost stepped on the speaking man’s toes. The man gulped.
“Are you challenging me?” Venir looked down into his eyes.
“We’ve customs, Stranger. You had best respect them.”
Knives and daggers whisked from sheaths. Murderous stares made his back tingle. Keen blades poised to strike like poisoned fangs among the rancor.
“Are you challenging me … or not?”
The roughneck’s hands fell to his blades. His bearded lip twitched. He glanced at the woman, Jasper, and back at Venir.
“Make it easy and just answer the woman’s question.”
Venir felt the pressing crowd of men, the rank sweat of their bodies building up with tension. He eased closer to the bearded tough and narrowed his blazing eyes.
“Answer my question. Challenge or not … Coward.”
***
Superior numbers. Unknown circumstances. These are a few of my least favorite things.
Melegal stood facing a semi-circle of assorted rogues, cut purses and back stabbers. No matter where in Bish he was, he always knew his kind. And they had the drop on him. Facing one or two was never a problem, so long as he had his cap. Three or more might be.
“I’m not sure about this one,” said a portly halfling garishly clothed as a merchant. “He appears more hapless than the last. And we know what happened to him.”
“Agreed,” said a half orc, eyeing Melegal up and down. He was hairy, barrel-chested, and naked from the waist up. A belt of knives decorated his hips, and his face was a chin-jutted scowl. “Worthless and puny as a tit mouse.” He spat.
A leather-jerkined dwarf with black bushy brows grunted. Another man in a high-perched hat scoffed under his breath. The others eyed him in their own silent fashion, and the room fell quiet. Melegal heard only their easy breathing and the groan under the boards of the half-orc’s feet. It reminded him of a bit of Two-Ten City, but without all the extra stink.
And I thought this was going to be a pleasant place. He made a quick scan of their faces. Now, who is in charge? He tucked his hand inside his trousers. Showed a wry smile.
“He doesn’t seem nervous for one so close to death,” the man in the high hat said. “Not a drop of sweat on him, unlike the others.”
“Perhaps he’s too stupid to fear what most likel
y is coming,” the halfling said. “But no one’s too stupid to feel the pain that comes before death. Even orcs feel that.”
The comment drew some chuckles, even from the half-orc.
That’s when another man spoke up. Standing like a crane, his words came with ease. “Jaen sends the strangest envoys. Hapless, the lot of them.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Knowing full well we make sport of killing what we don’t like. Doesn’t look like there be much sport of this one. I’m surprised he ever found the tavern on his own.” Another man whispered in his ear. His eyebrows perched. “Oh, you had an escort. He’s probably already dead as well.”
Melegal couldn’t help it.
He huffed a laugh.
“You find your escort’s death amusing?” the high-hatted one said. “I find amusement in that. Perhaps we shall bury this sickly man alive, with his large escort’s corpse on top of him.”
“Agreed.”
“I’d rather see him bleed.”
“Aye. A contest fighting old women, perhaps.”
“Hahahaha…”
Melegal finished his assessment, noting everything from the tops of their heads to the tips of their boots. Small blades were concealed in the rummage of their clothes. Their manners and tongues were polished. Voices strong and confident. Bellies full and paunchy. Quiet sorts that lifted treasure with ginger ease.
Amateurs.
Wouldn’t last ten minutes in Bone.
Not the lot of them together.
I should have moved here a long time ago.
“I’m here to pick up a delivery,” Melegal said. He pulled out the sack Jaen had given him. “And here is Jaen’s payment.”
“He speaks in our midst?” the half orc said, uncrossing his arms. “Without being addressed. An insult!” He whisked out two blades. They flashed between his fingers. “I might as well kill you now.”
“Can we stop with this childish banter?” Melegal said. “It’s been a long day, and I need to move along.” He jingled the sack. “Payment for package.” He winked at the half-orc. “And then I’ll be moving along.”
A growl rose in the half-orc’s throat. The hairs around his iron neck started to rise. His chest heaved.
Melegal remained still. His eyes scanned the others. The pack of rogues weren’t as adept as he, but they still might be dangerous, and he was no brawler.
But he wasn’t going to be treated like a stooge, either.
“Where’s the package?” he said, allowing a gentle bend in his knees. “My patience thins.”
“That’s it!” the half-orc said. His beady green eyes flared. His knotty muscles bulged in his arms. “I’m killing him. Jaen can send another. A woman would be better.” He charged in, daggers wide, poised for striking.
Melegal darted between the half-orc’s arms and punched a thumb-knife into his throat.
“Urk!”
Melegal twisted and escaped the half-orc’s lunging blades, which clattered off the floor.
Clutching at the blood gurgling from its throat, the half-orc fell face-first onto its own daggers.
Melegal made a show of checking his fingers. There wasn’t a drop of blood on them. However, just in case actual danger lurked somewhere in the room, he didn’t risk retrieving his thumb-knife.
Amateurs.
The rest of the rogues’ eyes widened a little. Fingers fumbled for hidden weapons.
“Well done,” the man in the high hat said.
“Aye,” grunted the dwarf.
“Besting that knife-wielding beast was no easy feat,” said the man who looked most like a commoner among them. “But you still have no right to stand among us.”
“I don’t want to stand with you. I just want to do Jaen’s business and leave.” The muscles in his jaws clenched. “I’ve waited long enough. I want to do this now.”
“Easy,” another man said. “We don’t even have your name.”
“And I don’t care to know yours.” He rattled the sack again. “Now, let’s finish this.”
“You need to come with us, then,” the man in the high hat said.
The group formed a single-file line headed toward a door in the back. Melegal stepped over the half-orc corpse and followed along, muscles knotting between his shoulders. Inside the door they went, three ahead of him and three behind. The passage was narrow, and dank with moldy wood. It bent and bent and bent before it opened up into another tavern-like room, similar in layout to the one above. He could hear the faint scuffle of footsteps and scooting chairs above.
Wonders never cease.
Two figures sulked in the shadows of the orange fire that burned beneath the stone mantle. One was big and heavy. Clothes like drapes. The other hooded and ghostly. They shared a bottle of Netherland Port on the table. There was an open chair between them.
The rogues sallied among the stools on the dusty bar, leaving Melegal standing alone. The immense man at the table groaned when he turned. Solemn eyes on his, the heavy man waved him over.
Melegal’s skin itched.
I don’t like this.
He took the seat. Rested Jaen’s purse and his palms on the table.
“You’ve brass, for a narrow man. I think it’s what we need,” the man said, dabbing the sweat on his head and on his thin mustache. “Most don’t make it this far. The last didn’t. And it seems you killed the one before him. A loss, but we’re hardly stricken.” He cleared his throat and drummed his gaudily ringed fingers on the table. “Now, your name is?”
“Melegal.”
There wasn’t much point in avoiding the conversation now. He was pinned in. No visible escape route.
“And you hail from?”
“Bone.”
The man cocked an eyebrow.
“Part of the exodus, I assume.”
“I fell from favor with my employer,” Melegal said.
“Interesting.” The man hefted the bottle. “Port?”
Melegal nodded. The syrupy liquid glug-glugged from the bottle. He hoisted his glass and sipped. The hooded man hadn’t moved a muscle.
“I am called Zoc. The main in-between. You’ll transact with me and them. We do all sorts of odd trades with the towers. It keeps the city running smoothly. And with the war, things are running a little differently.” He cleared his saggy throat. “Many crafts and many commodities are needed. Where they come from is no one’s business but our own.”
“I see,” Melegal said, taking another sip.
“And,” Zoc continued, wiping his greasy neck, “there will be times when you deal with others. You need to be alright with that.”
“I’m well-trodden.”
“Good,” Zoc said. “I’d like to introduce you to another associate. This is Urku, a new ally of mine.”
Urku reached for his hood, revealing sharp black nails on fuzzy grey hands.
CHAPTER 22
“Ward them off, Grandson!” Boon said. “I need time. Cover!”
“What are you going to do?” Fogle said, eyeing the onslaught of underlings coming their way, both over land and in the sky. The underlings would be upon them in a minute. At least four magi and a hundred warriors, accompanied by spiders.
I can’t hold that many.
“Tarcot,” Boon said, “come with me.” He started through the shrubbery. “Get me all the time you can get, Fogle.”
“Wait! Where are you going? How long will this take?”
Boon and Tarcot were gone, leaving only the rustling leaves behind them. Fogle clenched his fists in the air.
“Great!”
I shouldn’t be surprised. He never fills me in on anything.
All on its own, Fogle’s mind raced to calculate the odds while every moment the underlings swarmed closer. An angry horde getting bigger. Bigger.
But he was better prepared these days. More offensive in his tactics. His ways.
You have power. Spells. Slow them down, Fogle.
He summoned his power. A bright green missile the size of h
is finger appeared, hovering above his palm. He brought forth another and flung them down the hillside.
Shring! Shring!
The bolts streaked over the landscape like bright green arrows and pierced through the underlings in the front of the wedge, sizzling body after body. A dozen underlings collapsed on the ground. A clamor of startled chitters rang out, a second, two more. The horde surged forward again. Faster this time. Right over the bodies.
That was futile.
Less than a hundred yards away, the hands of the underling magi flared. Streaks of red-hot light shot up the hillside.
Fogle formed a mystic blue shield of energy and dug his feet into the ground.
The foreign energy hit him with hammer-like force, knocking his feet from the ground. Cracking his shield. Singing his hair.
He staggered up, shield high on his shoulder.
Scrazzz!
Another wave of bolts knocked him over. Crackled and disintegrated his shield. Numbed his shoulder and arm.
He spat blood and dirt from his mouth and crawled over to the rim, peeking over.
Great Bish!
The underling foot soldiers scrambled up the hill less than fifty yards away. He could see their gleaming gemstone eyes. The grey of their sharp teeth. The hands of the magi glowing with power inside their robes.
He glanced over his shoulder. No Boon. No Tarcot. He eyed all the fiendish faces.
He snarled. His temper swelled.
Me versus them… He summoned every ounce of power he had left and rose from the ground. So be it! Mystic bands encircled his arms in bright swirling colors.
Twenty-five yards away, the underlings rushed up the hill.
Fogle unleashed all his rage. His hatred for evil. His revulsion at the menace.
A fire storm of energy burst from his hands, engulfing the wave of underlings in mystic fire.
Screeches and clamors rose. Dark bodies burned, careening down the hillside, slowing the advance.
Arms still charged, Fogle blasted everything he had into them and fell to his knees, his smoking fingers extinguished. Panting for breath, he clutched his chest. When he looked up again, he was surrounded by glittering gemstone eyes. A dozen edged weapons poked at his back and neck. Figures shadowing him from above, robes billowing in the wind.
The Darkslayer: Series 2 Special Edition (Bish and Bone Bundle Books 1-5): Sword and Sorcery Adventures Page 25