The Darkslayer: Series 2 Special Edition (Bish and Bone Bundle Books 1-5): Sword and Sorcery Adventures

by Craig Halloran

  “Grog is on me,” he said, staring through the room with fierce blue eyes. “Start pouring.”

  He crashed face first to the floor.

  Kam jumped off Fogle’s lap and rushed over. “Venir!”

  Fogle’s passion fled. “Slat.”

  CHAPTER 26

  A bucket of water splashed all over Palzor’s body, awakening him from his slumber. “What! What! What!” he said with his head jerking around.

  One of his guards stood in front of him with a bucket hanging from his mailed fist. Tight leather cords bound Palzor’s wrists, and he wore nothing but shorts. He was inside his warehouse, just outside the room he’d been in earlier.

  “Cut me loose, fool!”

  The guard, a sizeable man in plate armor with a heavy bruise on his chin, said nothing.

  “Are you mad? Cut me loose!”

  The guard’s eyes drifted over his head. He nodded. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “Who is back there?”

  The guard stepped forward and slugged Palzor in the jaw.

  He saw spots, and his head rang. He spat out a bloody tooth. Sniffed the air. “Melegal, is it?”

  No answer.

  “Must be. The mage doesn’t have these methods in him.” He spat more blood. “But you, you show promise … Melegal.”

  The guard dropped the wooden bucket over his head.

  Palzor fell silent. He hadn’t suffered the slightest sort of unwanted discomfort in decades. His thoughts raced. Last he remembered, he had everything under control and Fogle and Melegal were minutes from an inescapable dilemma. Well, the tables have been turned.

  The thief exploded into slippery action.

  Palzor’s body froze. He couldn’t even move a finger. How did he do that?

  Perhaps the mage had managed something he’d overlooked: a mind grumble or a certain spell. But he’d foreseen that. He could only listen in frozen fascination as Melegal dropped two underlings and two guards in sizzling fashion, his speed and movement superior to even Palzor’s.

  Magic. Must be. I certainly underestimated that thief. A shame. He could have been useful to me.

  Palzor strained at his bonds. The more he moved, the tighter they became. Well done. But he’d never met a rope that could hold him yet. Just a matter of time. Bound, naked, and weaponless, I’m still a dangerous man. He practiced some breathing exercises. Closed his eyes. Meditated.

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  A wooden object, maybe a spoon, struck the bucket in a steady rhythm, interrupting his thoughts. It went back and forth. On the right. On the left.

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  He wanted to curse, scream. It seemed Melegal was prepared for him. Perhaps it was he who had been duped. Set up. Deceived. He did have plenty of enemies. Had Jaen betrayed him?

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  The noise went on for an hour, a slow and steady pounding in his eardrums. He couldn’t focus. He could barely think.

  Beat that bucket all you want, but I won’t break.

  He sat still, trying to block out the pounding and the burning of his haunches under his seat. His back became stiff and achy. He felt old.

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  Angry.

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  He chewed at his lip and strained at his bonds a little at a time, hour after hour after hour.

  Please! Somebody come! I’m important!

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  ***

  The thumping on the bucket stopped. Someone behind Palzor removed it from his head. He strained his eyes, staring into nothing but the pitch black. He could make out the outlines of the same walls he’d stared at before, but the guard was gone. The air was cool on his sweaty neck.

  Time to negotiate.

  That’s when he noticed a table: waist high, narrow and rectangular. He could hear breathing in the room, very faint, but distinct, heavy. Although it had stopped, the thumping from the bucket continued to play on inside his head. His stomach growled. His throat was dry. “I could use more of that water about now.” He heard a chuckle. Very deep. Hollow.

  Who is that?

  He turned his neck.

  Smack!

  A heavy blow drove his chin into his chest. Bright purple spots danced in his eyes.

  “Melegal,” he said, “tell me your demands. I’ll double them.”

  Flint struck. A warm glow of light started up, casting his shadow over the table. He swallowed. Looking downward, he could see the bloodstains in the wood and the metal cuffs that locked his hands to the table. A pair of mintaurs, brawny, ram-faced, horned men almost five feet tall, stepped on either side, facing him. Their corded arms rested over their barrel chests. He didn’t know them.

  “Triple,” he said.

  The heavy voice laughed again. It sounded like a very big man, perhaps orcen.

  “And a fine retainer for your men.”

  The mintaurs picked up the table and rested it over his knees. A cold blade slid down his wrists, giving him a shiver.

  “We don’t need to be barbaric about this,” he said. “Just talk to me, Melegal.”

  Interrogation. He had used similar tactics on many, but he’d never been through it himself. And who was this Melegal anyway? Jaen had learned little about him aside from the fact that he had experience dealing with underlings. He had seemed an ideal candidate to be a go-between, someone who didn’t cower to the deviant breed. But Melegal had resisted, and his comrade, Venir, had gone into a fighting frenzy, screwing everything up. They were a different breed.

  His cords were cut.

  Palzor slipped his hands away from the mintaur’s grasping hands and started to rub them. “A moment of comfort, and my hands are yours to mutilate.”

  The mintaurs’ heads turned to the figure behind him.

  Palzor struck. Quick as a snake, his fingers plucked a small knife from a mintaur’s belt. He cut its wrist, making it flinch, and he lashed out at the other, who jerked back. Feeling movement behind him, he tilted his chair over, avoiding a skull-rocking blow from a mailed fist. He sawed the cords on his feet against the legs of his chair.

  Almost there! Almost out of here, fools!

  His sawing stopped.

  What! What is happening?

  He couldn’t move.

  No! Nooooooo!

  The strong grip of the mintaurs seized him and set him up in the chair. In a moment, they had cuffed his wrists to the bloodstained table again.

  At least I got a look at them.

  There was a big goon, a tall and meaty half orc wearing a beat-up hauberk of mail. Beside him stood Melegal, arms folded over his chest, wearing a fine traveler’s cloak, yawning.

  That’s my cloak.

  One of the mintaurs secured the bonds around his feet. The other set a hammer and nails on the table, along with a couple of blades. Palzor could still see, but he couldn’t move a single thing. Then the bucket was dropped over his head and the tapping renewed.

  Clok. Clok. Clok. Clok …

  ***

  Melegal dabbed a handkerchief under his nose and checked it. No blood, but the headache had returned. Palzor’s attempted escape was impressive, but anticipated. The King Thief was quick. Nimble. Deft. His movements could be replicated by Melegal, but not as fluidly yet.

  It’s a good thing I got the drop on him, or he’d be long gone by now, and I’d probably be dead.

  He watched the half-orc thug pound at the bucket. He’d hired these hands off the street. Durable and desperate, they made the best henchmen. Palzor’s guard stood watch nearby. He was affable for a thug. He didn’t much care for Palzor, anyway. He didn’t care for Melegal shocking the crap out of him again, either. Not too smart, he’d been easily convinced to change his loyalty.

  It was time to bleed information out of Palzor. Melegal needed a better feel for how things worked here in the City of Three. Palzor’s guard, Zurth was his name, might not have been too bright,
but he had a good memory. He had filled Melegal in on several key details. The rest, Melegal’s sharp mind began to fill in on its own.

  Perhaps it’s time I became a Royal.

  He rested in his thoughts until Palzor’s fingers began to wiggle.

  Showtime.

  ***

  The bucket was jerked off Palzor’s head and slung with a hollow clatter over the floor. Melegal stood behind the table, cleaning his nails. That was when Palzor saw all his rings on the rogue’s slender fingers, sparkling in the lantern light.

  “You can keep the rings,” Palzor said. “And there are many more where those came from. Treasures beyond comprehension.”

  “It seems you think little of my imagination, Palzor.”

  “I wasn’t questioning it. It was more of a statement.”

  Melegal slid his dagger into his sheath, leaned over, and began drumming his fingers on the table. “I don’t think you’ll be able to make use of these rings anyway.” His eyes slid over to the mintaurs, who withdrew the knives from their belts. “They require fingers.”

  A blade flashed down.

  Palzor slid his hand away.

  Melegal’s brows lifted. “Now that is fast. Very fast. Back in Bone, we have a game called Hand Stabs.”

  Palzor shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “We have our own version here, but I believe the rules are less confining.” He shifted his hands that were cuffed to the table. “What are the terms of this challenge?” Delay, Palzor thought. The longer things took, the more likely his loyal followers would find him.

  “Oh, well, it seems there isn’t much that you have to offer at the moment, seeing how I have your rings.” Melegal nodded to the mintaurs. They rested their elbows on the table and raised the blades for striking. “But my ears are open to your temptations.”

  “Then let us talk. I see no need to play this game.”

  The mintaurs struck at once.

  Palzor twisted his hands away.

  The back of one hand bled.

  “Oh, that’s a mark. That means you lose,” Melegal said.

  “Just tell me what you want, Melegal. This game is silly.”

  “Aren’t all Royal games silly?”

  Palzor leaned backward and laughed. “You’re no Royal.”

  “And you are?”

  “Of sorts, yes, I am.”

  Melegal nodded.

  The blades came down again, just missing Palzor’s hands.

  “How does one become Royal?” Melegal asked, drumming his fingers again.

  “You’re born into it,” Palzor said with a shrug. “You know that. Everyone knows that.”

  “Hmmm,” Melegal said, leaning back and rubbing his dimpled chin. “Have you ever known a good thief who didn’t have any fingers?”

  “As a matter of fact, I—”

  A blade flashed in Melegal’s hand and cut through one of Palzor’s fingers.

  Palzor screamed. His face reddened, and his breaths began puffing.

  Melegal withdrew his dagger, wiped it off with a handkerchief, and said,

  “Let the Royal Games begin.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Venir stirred from his slumber.

  “Where …” he said, starting to sit up. Pain raced through his body, and he eased back down.

  A candle lit the apartment room, and his frame filled a small bed. He had bandages all over him and a stack of pillows under his head. He caught the heavy stare of a towering figure sitting at the end of the bed.

  “Brak?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Venir’s vision focused, and he caught a soft smile on his son’s face. “Have you grown more already?”

  Brak nodded.

  “You can move?”

  Brak stretched out his arm and patted his legs. “Just about everything. Not so well, but I think, I think I’ll manage.”

  Venir noticed recent jagged marks on Brak’s face and arms, a dim fire in his blue eyes. “That makes me glad,” Venir said. Grimacing, he forced himself up into a sitting position. He could taste a scab on his lip, and everything else was sore.

  “I’m glad too,” Brak said, squeezing Venir’s ankle.

  Venir sucked through his teeth. “Easy now. I’m as tender as slain venison.”

  Brak chuckled. “Do you ever get used to it?”

  “What?”

  “Getting stabbed?”

  “Hmph … only when it kills me, I guess, and that’s happened a few times.” Venir peeled a bandage away from his arm. Stitches made tracks up his forearms. “Nice work. Who did it, Kam?”

  “Joline.”

  “Where’s Kam?” he asked.

  Brak shrugged his heavy shoulders.

  “Never mind. I’m certain I was the last person she wanted to show up here again. I probably got blood all over the place.”

  “You did.”

  “Was Kam upset?”

  “She made Jubilee and Jasper clean it up.”

  “No, about me.”

  Brak shrugged again.

  Venir decided to change the subject. For some reason, he didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “So you can walk again?”

  “I have crutches. Seems when I go … well … berserk, all my parts are working. When I snap out of it, I collapse, but I get more movement back each time.” He shrugged. “It’s happened twice since you’ve been gone.”

  “I haven’t been gone that long, have I?” Venir reached for a pitcher of water on the table. He slugged it down and wiped his mouth. “Ah! What sets it off?”

  Brak talked about what had happened when he, Georgio, and Nikkel battled the underlings. It riled Venir’s blood. His son went on to tell him how Billip, Georgio, Nikkel, and Boon had departed for the Outlands.

  “Why didn’t Fogle leave?”

  Brak shrugged.

  “Did I see Kam sitting on his lap when I came in?”

  Again Brak shrugged, but he looked away a little also.

  Something stinks, and it isn’t me. He closed his fingers into a fist. “Have you seen Melegal?”

  Brak filled him in on everything he knew about Jaen and Palzor. His big face saddened, and his chin trembled. “I almost killed Jubilee and Jasper. I almost killed all of them. I don’t want to kill my friends, Father.”

  Blocking out the pain, Venir stretched his arm forward and clasped Brak’s hand in his. “You haven’t killed any friends yet,” Venir said. “And I doubt you ever will.” Unless they move in on your woman. “Say, where’s my pack?” He looked around.

  Brak reached down in front of the foot of the bed and produced the sack.

  “That purse you carried is in there too. I’ve never seen so much before.”

  “You peeked.”

  Brak wiped his eyes and shrugged. “A little.”

  Venir pulled his pack toward him, dug into the back, and produced some coins and tiny precious stones.

  Brak’s eyes widened when Venir handed them to him.

  “You can buy some fine blades with that.”

  “Or an axe,” Brak said, eyeing him.

  Venir broke out in a broad smile. “I’ll be glad to show you how to use it.” He swung his legs off the bed and searched for his boots. They were scooted against the wall. He leaned over, stretching his fingers, and pulled them to him. Slowly, he stuffed them on, leaving him shirtless and wearing a pair of dark-green trousers he was unfamiliar with and bandages all over his shoulders and chest. He belted on his long hunting knife.

  “Where are you going?” Brak said. “You should rest.”

  “I’m going to see your little sister and perhaps her mother.”

  “I can get them.”

  “No,” Venir said, laying his hand on his son’s shoulder. He bobbed his chin. “I think I’ll surprise them.” And that wizard.

  ***

  “Kam, please, have a seat,” Fogle said, patting the sofa. “We’ll figure it out.”

  She had been pacing the floor for almost an hour, manicu
red fingers picking at her lips. She circled the sofa, made her way into the kitchen, and poured a mug of coffee.

  “That’s your second pot,” he said. “It’s just making you more jittery. Come, sit, discuss.” He patted the cushion again. “Let’s put our heads together.”

  She took a deep breath and sat beside him on the sofa with her knee touching his. It sent a fire through him. He touched her hand. It was warm and trembled a little.

  “I’ve never seen you like this,” he said.

  “You haven’t seen much of me at all,” she replied, staring out the window.

  “True, but from what I have seen, even the worst situation never rattles you.”

  “It doesn’t take much to rattle me these days.” She leaned back on his shoulder, and he put his arm around her. “I’m a wreck.”

  There were issues. Jaen and several of her guards were dead. The Order of Mages would take issue with that at some point. It was going to be a huge problem. Not to mention, Jaen was Kam’s half sister, and her family would have to be notified. But despite the blood splattered all over the tavern, none of that measured up to Venir’s reappearance.

  Maybe he won’t wake up. Kam’s scented hair flared his nostrils. She had an invigorating quality to her touch, her moves. We could always induce his sleep.

  “Have you ever thought about leaving this place?” he asked.

  “Never,” she said, “until recently. Everything has gone so wrong.”

  Erin started to cry.

  Kam sighed and pulled away from the couch. “Someone’s hungry.” She hoisted Erin up from the bassinette near the window and took a seat in a rocking chair, pulling up her blouse to let Erin latch on.

  Fogle tried to glance away.

  She caught his stare. “Are you blushing?”

  “I…” His head turned. He felt his face warming. “I suppose. I apologize.”

  “Don’t be silly, Fogle. It’s quite all right. I should have been more considerate.”

  I’m glad you weren’t. Bish, I sound like my grandfather.

  A soft knocking came on the door.

  “That’s probably Joline,” Kam said. “Do you mind? I’m certain she’s worried sick. It’s been nothing but madness around here.”