The Darkslayer: Book 03 - Underling Revenge

by Craig Halloran

  “I’m not a man though.”

  She pulled his face in close and said, “You are a man, Brak. You walk like a man, and talk like a man, so you have to act like a man. People will think you’re slow if you don’t.”

  “All right…”

  Vorla led them back through the streets, back to where they came from. That rogue would have to know more. If he knew Venir, then that meant other people knew him as well. Besides, Venir was too hard to forget with his stories and all. She would find that thief or someone else and get the truth from them. This journey was wearing her down, and she wanted to get it over with.

  Brak followed on heavy feet as she tried to retrace her steps back to the Drunken Octopus. Her feet ached. They must have walked miles since they left there. They cut through a narrow alley like so many from before. It dead ended, which was odd because most turned from one place to another. Brak was looking up at the high walls that surrounded them; a few small windows with closed shutters were up there, nothing else.

  “Mah, I don’t like this place.”

  “Me, either. It looks like we’ll have to go all the way back.”

  “Yes, but it won’t be as easy to get back as it was to get here,” another voice said.

  Vorla whirled around, ripping her short sword from her sheath. Two men blocked their path just over a dozen feet away. A pair of crossbows was pointed at their bellies as well. Thieves! Blasted slat-ridden city! More faceless men filled in behind the two, brandishing knives and axes. The two in front seemed the most formidable. They wore grimy clothes and steel jewels. Their faces were haggard, starved, and their eyes were desperate and jittery. She could see where one was shaking and fighting to control it.

  Brak stepped in front of her, but she pulled him back.

  “What will it be? I have nothing.”

  The one on the right with a steady hand and feral eyes licked his lips.

  “Oh … everyone has something. That sword is something. Both of them. And your earrings, too.”

  “Call the Watch, Mah!”

  “Shut up, Brak!”

  The thieves started to chuckle, low and wicked.

  “Boys, they are lost ain’t they? Ain’t no watch down here … Mah!”

  “That sure is one funny name for a woman,” one said.

  “No stupid, that’s no name, she must be the big fella's mother. She’s a pretty one, too.”

  Vorla could feel Brak begin to bristle at her side. Any second, he would lunge and be shot. She grabbed his big arm, holding him back. She whispered through her teeth, “Be still.”

  Her boy’s hand went for his sword.

  Clatch –Zip!

  She felt something burning in her belly. She reached down and pulled up a bloody hand. A crossbow bolt was jutting from her stomach. It hurt. He knees buckled, and she sagged to the ground. She could see the nervous thief, looking at her, wild-eyed with shock. The other men froze for an instant.

  “Mah!” Brak screamed.

  But it sounded like it came from miles away. She saw her son tear his sword from his sheath and charge.

  Clatch –Zip!

  A bolt punched into him. The thieves went for their other arms. Brak’s sword was chopping up and down as the bodies were scrambling. The pain inside her began to ease. She reached inside her cloak and pulled out a pouch. Kill them, Son! Kill them all! I’ll miss you …. Vorla’s sight went black ….

  Brak sat at the end of the alley with his dead mother in his lap. He was wailing, his face drenched with tears and his cloak soaked with blood. A crossbow bolt protruded from his shoulder, but he didn’t feel it. He paid no mind to the half dozen bodies that were mangled heaps in the alley, either. He wasn’t sure how they got that way, and he didn’t care. His lamentations echoed in the alley, and the dogs of Bone of began to howl as well. His mother was dead, and he was abandoned and lost.

  Chapter 34

  The air became colder the farther he dropped. The tips of his ears were frozen. An icy chill wrapped around him like a blanket of snow as he continued his free fall. Venir had never felt such cold, only the blazing hot suns. He had fallen so far and so long that his ravenous hunger, once forgotten, began to grow. His aches and pains were only enhanced with the cold. The Mist wasn’t darker or lighter, just smoky and white, the way it had always been.

  He screamed, but there were no echoes. He listened for any source of life, but there was only the whistling in his ears. The fall, the everlasting journey into the depths of the unknown, was maddening. It was a foe that he couldn’t see or attack, one which kept him in a suffering grip. He lost track of time. Wait and die. Wait and live. He preferred the foremost. He was convinced he had been falling for hours, maybe days. Suffering, aching, starving. This is no way to live. His fate on Bish was not what he expected. A fall at the Warfield was what he would have preferred. Better to die. He pulled out the small dagger he had only just strapped on his belt and held the tip to his belly.

  Chapter 35

  “Ah … that’s great, so you do know where he is then.”

  Sis’s face scrunched up, her body tightening like a ball.

  “Yeh, so … we still ain’t telling you, Big Shot. That man’s a monster. Find him yerself!”

  Melegal juggled two small knives between his hands. Haze's cat eyes watched his every move intently. He whipped one through the air at Sis, but Haze snatched it from the air as Sis dived away.

  “Pretty quick, Woman, but your missed the other,” he said, looking down at her legs.

  A dagger was stuck in the ground, inches from her crotch. Haze scooted back, tugging the blade from the ground, flinging them both back his way. He pulled them from the air with a single hand and tucked them away.

  “Now, women, seeing how you all know where the man is, I am pretty sure one of you will tell me.”

  “No we won’t,” they all said, except Frigdah who was picking her nose.

  Great.

  Three stubborn and stupid women weren't anything he cared to deal with, but he had to. Nothing was going his way today. First it was Sefron, then Lorda Almen, followed by Lord Almen, then Venir’s bastard son and an unpleasant interlude with the City Watch. Now he had the Motley Girls to deal with. It was time to turn on the charm and bargain, not that they deserved it.

  He smiled, squatted down, and spoke softly.

  “All right then, girls, why don’t you just tell me? I’ll pay. I can get you better positions, out of this hole.”

  They didn’t say a thing, holding each other’s hands instead.

  “Come on Haze, certainly there is something I can do for you?”

  He noticed the bony woman was breathing hard, her eyes enlarged. She shook her head a bit. Her sisters looked at her and then him. Come on, Girl. Say something.

  She choked out a word.

  “No.”

  Melegal spun a large gold coin on his fingertip.

  “Hmmm … well, how about you then, Fatty. You can buy a lot of food and wine with this, and I’ve got many more.”

  Frigdah licked her lips saying, “Uh …”

  “We ain’t taking yer gold, Rich Man, that’s it!” Sis spat. “Leave us alone, or kill us!”

  It didn’t make any sense that these women would go to so much trouble covering for a single man. It was agitating him. Idiot women! But then he remembered Tonio’s face: split, twisted, and scarred. He remembered watching the man plunge a blade through Luke the Lute player’s throat, as causally as a child stepping on an ant. He had seen the man chewed up by Chongo and split in half by Venir. The memory gave him an inner shudder. That day, in the Octopus, had been one of the worst days of his life, until today. What did they see in the Royal that he hadn’t?

  “All right, so tell me why you fear this man so much?”

  Haze spoke up.

  “He’s mean and evil.”

  Sis followed up.

  “He kills women and boys.”

  Frigdah dumbly nodded her head.

  “
He's a bad, bad man.”

  Melegal put his hands behind his head, twisting back and forth.

  “Have you girls ever seen an underling?”

  They all recoiled, shaking their heads.

  “I have. I’ve fought them and killed them. I can handle Tonio, but you have to tell me where he is.”

  “No,” Sis said, “he’ll kill you. He’ll kill us all.”

  Fear. It was something even gold or Royals couldn’t control. Melegal had seen people commit suicide from overwhelming fear. Fear of torture. Fear of humiliation. Fear of starvation. Fear of failure. He was going to need something more powerful than fear in order to get these women to cooperate.

  Melegal straightened the floppy cap on his head and locked eyes on Haze.

  Show me to the man. Take me to the man. Tell me where the split man is.

  He felt his mind begin to glow. A gateway inside his head opened up and let out an eerie power. It felt good, a satisfying control, like a man breaking a horse for the first time. Melegal lapped up the exhilaration, feeling himself take control of the minds before him. Haze’s face turned from a guarded grimace to a transfixed gaze. The other women eyed him with muted disbelief.

  He could feel the thoughts and fears inside their heads. They were children that wanted to please him, but they were fearful of the consequences. He looked upon Sis’s pimpled chin. Tell me where he is. The woman’s chin dipped. He looked back at Haze, who wanted to tell him something, yearned to please him. He knew he could ask her to do anything: sleep, step, steal, and maybe even kill. He had to be careful what he said.

  He glanced over at the brute of the three, the mind of a child, trapped in a brain the size of an apple. Where’s the man, Woman? Frigdah started to drool and sway. He scanned them all again, his thoughts tugging at theirs, casting and reeling like a fisherman. He could feel the nibbles, the small bites, but fear kept them from taking the bait. Tell me, please tell me where the man called Tonio is.

  Haze’s thin mouth cracked open, the ever slightest. Sis lifted her hands towards Haze’s mouth. Melegal felt the mystic tether between them begin to thin as his frustration set in. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. Sis’s hand had almost covered Haze’s eager mouth.

  Melegal’s words rushed out with the force of a geyser.

  “TAKE ME TO WHERE THE SPLIT-FACED MAN IS!”

  The women rocked back, hands clasping their ears, bodies curling up into balls.

  Melegal was shaking a tad himself, his mind was hazy, and the floor seemed unsteady.

  “Whoa,” he said, putting his hand on his forehead.

  The women were shaking their heads and breathing heavy. Sis was clutching her heart, Frigdah her stomach and Haze her head. He could feel he had control of them, their feeble minds putty in his hands. They all looked at him, all faces as blank as stone. One by one, they got up and headed for the stairs.

  “This way,” Haze said.

  Melegal followed, saying under his breath, “My, oh my.”

  The guard lay still at the bottom of the stairs. What was Melegal going to do about him?

  “Stop.”

  They each obeyed.

  He had to think about this.

  “Sis and Frigdah, tell the guards about that man who fell. Do what you would normally do after someone falls. Haze, you take me another way out of here to where Tonio is.”

  Haze led him back down the corridor past the well and beyond. The catacombs under the streets were endless, but Haze navigated them as if she was born there. It was black, but he could hear her footsteps and feel the wispy edges of her clothes. It wasn’t long before they came upon a ladder leading up, consisting of iron rings in the stone. They emerged through a small manhole that opened out onto a backstreet.

  Clouds filtered out the bright sunlight in the dingy quadrant where they now stood. Melegal was surprised to discover they were on the other side of the Royal Roadway, not too far from the Drunken Octopus. Haze led him through the city, careful to avoid any curious faces. The people had distractions other than the mission of the two. No one cares what we do. Nor do we care what they do.

  Haze was a proven navigator. She knew the streets as well him almost. Melegal was more than familiar with the territory, taking note of a few short cuts she missed, but she showed him some others as well. An an hour went by before they were walking down a backstreet that was lined with alcoves and doors. Melegal knew the place, but it had been a long time since he had been there. It was another abandoned part of the city with no food or commerce. It was little more than stone walls and rusting gates that fought the decay of time.

  “Are we close, Woman?”

  “Yes,” she said, treading over the ground as if her footfalls might unsettle a trap.

  A hard drizzle had begun, making Haze pull her clothes around her tighter. Melegal noticed that under the woman’s clothes she had a curve or two. Maybe she wouldn’t be so bad if he just focused on her legs and not her face. She stopped and turned, almost catching him off guard.

  “Ahem … what is it?”

  “This is it,” she said, stepping halfway into a brick-layered alcove.

  Melegal stepped inside, and then her hand brushed against his. He turned, staring into her gray eyes. There was fear behind them still, and something else.

  “Don’t make me go down there, please! I brought you here. I did what you said. I don’t want to ever see that man again.”

  “I have no intention of letting him out. I only need to make sure he is there.”

  Haze's face loosened up. Melegal could feel the grip he had over her earlier was gone. She could go whenever she pleased.

  The rain started coming down harder now, and the two of them stepped inside the dripping alcove. Melegal stood before a doorway with steps leading down. A busted door was propped up against the wall. Haze tried to grab his hand, but he jerked it away.

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “Nothin’” she said, sticking her hands under her clothes.

  “So, he’s down there? What else is down there?”

  Melegal knew what it was: a solitary dungeon, a place where the worst criminals were holed up and starved. That’s what the bards' songs told, but these holes had been abandoned long ago. This was an ancient prison block, now a place of decay and superstition. There was nothing to be found; things could only be lost here.

  “He’s in a locked cell at the bottom.”

  “Is there a key?”

  “Yeah, but it’s in the sewer. Sis saw to that. She wasn’t gonna be the one that let that man go anywhere.”

  It hardly concerned him; Melegal never met a lock that he couldn’t pick. He didn’t have any intention of opening it up, anyway. He took a deep draw through his nose. There was only the smell of mold and decay, maybe a dead rodent as well.

  “Is this where you found the boy?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Is that boy all right?”

  “He is,” Melegal said, staring into the blackness. He had thought little of Georgio, if any at all. Still, the thought of the boy’s fingers being scattered on the table unsettled him. How much that must have hurt, having your fingers cut off one by one. Then he remembered what he had done to Haze, cutting hers one by one. He took a glance at her hand, but it was behind her back. She noticed him looking and blushed.

  The rain was steady now, splashing on the stones, making it difficult for him to hear anything else. He took a step down the stairs. Haze grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t touch me again, Woman,” he said.

  She still held on to the back of his shirt sleeve, a determined look in her eye as she said, “There is another way for you to prove he’s in there, but you can’t let him go.”

  Melegal stepped back up on the stoop.

  “This better be good. If not, I will go down there and let him out.”

  “No, no,” she said waving her hands in front of him. “But, it will cost you.”

  “I already offered
to pay; was I not clear?”

  “You were; you were, but I want something else, plus the gold.”

  Melegal folded his arms across his chest saying, “Tell me what you have in mind then, and I’ll think about it.”

  Haze licked her lips and ran her hands through her hair. Her eyes were shifting toward him, toward the stairwell, and back out to the rain. He had a feeling she was about to run at any moment. He touched her hand, speaking softly again.

  “Come on, Haze. What is it?”

  Her hand was trembling in his.

  “It’s a sword. We have Tonio’s sword.”

  Melegal squeezed her hand. Yes! Something was going his way for once today.

  “All right, Woman. Name your price.”

  She looked at him, eyes unblinking, and her mouth coming close to his.

  “I want you …”she said with a shaky voice, “and thirty gold.”

  “Which do you want first?” he said, taking a step closer.

  “You,” she said, looking up into his eyes.

  He could barely make out her face, thanks to the dark enclosure and the rain. Sometimes, you had to do what you had to do.

  Chapter 36

  “So how did Venir survive when the others didn’t?”

  “That, I don’t know. But, like I said, there was somethin’ different about the boy. I spent a long time with em’ after that. I taught him to track and fight, and he was good at both.”

  “Maybe it was the Silver Fish?”

  “Ah, I see he told you that story as well. He told me that one as a boy then, too. I never figured it for being true. I’ve never seen a Silver Fish before, and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

  “Like you said, things happen on Bish.”

  Mood rubbed his beard and gave him a nod.

  “I told him stories, too. He seemed to like that, said his grandfather used to tell em’ those, too. He said he missed em’. Every day he asked me when we’d catch up with the underlings. I told em’ sometimes it takes a lot of time and we’d catch em’ when he was ready.

  “The problem was that I had things to do, and I couldn’t be raisin’ a human boy. I’s King of the Dwarves, you know. Even I had to go home now and again. Dwarven Hole was no place ta raise a boy. He needed to be among his own, so I sent him to Bone ...” Mood said, shaking his head as his voice filtered off.