The Darkslayer: Book 03 - Underling Revenge

by Craig Halloran

  Mood stormed right up on his toes and began breathing down in his face, reminding him of the elemental that had crushed Ox. He had the distinct feeling that same fate was about to befall him. He’s delirious! Don’t move, Fogle! Be still … be silent!

  Mood yelled in his face.

  “I wasn’t gone more than an hour! Madness it is!”

  Fogle felt like something sucked the marrow from his bones. Impossible!

  Mood turned and walked away toward the fire. Fogle felt his heart start inside his chest again. For minutes, he watched from a distance as Mood sat by the fire, grumbling to himself. He summoned up his courage, walked over, and sat down as well.

  “So … what did you see in there?”

  “Mist thicker than soup ... and nothing else.” Mood shifted on the ground as his green eyes glinted in the fire. “There’s no sound, er taste, er wind in the air. The only thing I could smell was myself. The cliff they speak about was there. I supposed that’s what it was.”

  Fogle didn’t want to ask it, but he did.

  “Do you think Venir could get out of there?”

  Mood shook his head and said, “No … not without this rope anyhows. I didn’t even go in that far, just a few hundred steps, maybe a few more. Without this rope … I don’t think I could have made it out. Not after even just a hundred steps! Pah! I’ve been in dangerous places before, but nothing ever shook me up like being in there.”

  “Something’s got to be in there, though.”

  “Yeah, something … I just hope it’s not Venir.”

  Both of them stared into the mist now. Fogle Boon felt a sudden compulsion to get as far away from there as possible. He snapped his fingers and the rope unknotted from their waists. Slowly, like a snake, it began to coin itself up.

  “How long’s yer trick last, Mage?”

  “We can use it many times. Mood, what are we going to do now? I’m at my wit's end.”

  Mood started a new cigar.

  “I say’s we go back to Dwarven Hole. I can send out some scouts to help us look abroad. I need to see if anyone of my seers has knowledge beyond this mist. What about you, Human? You gonna stick it out with me, or go home?”

  Home, the City of Three, and the finest women and wine in Bish. There was no other place that he would rather be, but he had left for a reason. He had questions about Bish, and about himself. His foresight told him that only "life and death" adventures would reveal the answers he sought. Besides, he was getting used to being out in the wilderness. His experiences with the arts of survival were changing him. He was getting physically, mentally, and mystically stronger, and his confidence grew daily. For some odd reason, he thought his grandfather, Boon, would be proud.

  “I’ll stay with you. I want to find Venir And that underling, too.”

  “Ho, ho … you want to be a Darkslayer, too? Now that’s something else. Well, I’m not tracking that underling. The blasted thing about killed me, and I’ve seen em’ kill my kin before. Be careful watcha want for, Little Man.”

  Fogle didn’t regret what he said. If Mood was trying to make him feel foolish, it wasn't working. It didn’t encourage him, either. He would heed Mood's warning. Still, something about that underling festered inside of him.

  He held up the coil of rope.

  “Ye can keep it,” Mood said.

  He took it over to his horse, put it in his rough sack, and grabbed the broken staff of his grandfather, Boon. There were so many incoherent things that his grandfather Boon had told him, one of them being There is more out there. Of course there is, he had thought so many years ago, but he hadn't cared at the time. He tapped the busted staff on the ground. It must still have some power; why else would Boon have given it to him. He put it back in the sack.

  “When you want to go?” he asked.

  “Might as well be now,” Mood said.

  “I have another spell I want to try, so do you have anything of Venir’s?”

  Mood stood up, his face as grim as ever in the firelight.

  “We’ve got the knife that was in the underling. Whatcha gonna do now, Wizard?”

  He gathered the knife and handed it to Mood and said, “What’s the hilt made from?”

  “Bone.”

  “Can you shave a piece off?”

  “Yes. Can't you? ‘Fraid of cuttin’ yerself?”

  Fogle Boon produced a thumb knife from under his robes. He shaved the side of the hilt, but nothing was produced.

  “Ah … gimme that,” Mood said, snatching it away. The Blood Ranger produced a blade of his own. “How much you want?”

  “Just some heavy shavings.”

  He watched as Mood peeled a piece that rolled up the edge of his blade.

  “Perfect,” he said, holding out a small jar. Mood knocked the curled strip of bone inside. Fogle grabbed his kit, opened his spellbook, muttered, and lit up his eyes.

  Mood huffed as he rambled away saying, “This again? I’ll be looking for monsters. You do what you must. Just don’t take too long.”

  He stuffed components of feathers, oils, ground up insect shells, and wax in the jar and shook it up. He studied and memorized a new spell, one he had added to the spellbook on his own. The mystic words were now coiled up in his mind, waiting to be unwound. Tomorrow then. First rest.. He lay down and slept.

  It was bright morning when Mood kicked him.

  “What?”

  A heavy boot punched his thigh again.

  He swung his arm saying, “All right.” Mood was standing over him, hands on hips. He moved faster.

  “I’m going. Just a second and this will be done.”

  Mood slung himself up on his horse and began to trot off.

  “Hold it! You’ve waited this long, what’s a minute more?”

  “A minute I ain’t got and —”

  “Fine—GO—but you’ll wish you hadn’t. Besides, I need you.”

  “For what?”

  Fogle shook up the jar and poured it on the ground. He focused on the image of Venir and with a word the spell inside his mind uncoiled. He watched as the ground began to bubble, boil and sparkle like chipping flint stones. From the ground something began to grow and take form. He shuffled back and bumped into Mood.

  “What is it, Little Man?” Mood said with a twinge of awe in his voice.

  He stepped back beside the dwarf and waited. A bird-like form almost eight inches tall appeared. It was ebony in color, with a hard sheen to its frame. The bird had the face of a hawk, black-beaked and white-eyed. A row of jagged feathers rose on its neck as it stretched its wings. It had the wing span of a much bigger bird, and its under-feathers were streaked with white. Its legs and talons were black, but ringed with tiny gray stripes.

  It flapped up into the air, soaring high. Fogle lost sight of it in the bright light of the two suns. He summoned it back. A black dart dived down from the air, the wings flapping a few feet from his outstretched arm, where it perched itself. The small hawk had little weight, but a menacing look.

  “Strange feathers for a bird,” Mood said, rubbing his chin.

  The onyx hawk’s feathers were hard and sharp, like and insect or bug. It looked more like a statue than a living thing.

  “This is my familiar, Mood. I call him Inky. His feathers aren’t the normal sort. I gave him a thicker shell, more like a hornet. He’s tougher, no need for food and water, just my own version of something else. Back in school they taught us to use familiars to retrieve things and deliver messages. All of the other familiars were too easy to kill: rats, dogs, cats. Most magi don’t mind, but I didn’t like seeing my familiars die, so I created him, just bending the rules a tad,” he said, as a thin smile turned up on his bookish face. “Inky was the best. He’s hard to find and kill.”

  “Strange … so what’s he supposed to do?”

  He pulled out his thumb knife and said, “Can I have a piece of your beard?”

  Mood drew up like an ogre.

  “Are ye mad!? No dwarf cuts his
beard! Y’d be better to try and cut off me leg first!”

  Fogle wasn’t ignorant of all customs; he was just raised not to care.

  “I just need a hair, or something. The bird can find you that way, in case I’m not around.”

  Mood snatched the thumb knife from him and shaved some hair from his arm.

  “Feed it to the bird … please,” he said, sticking his arm out.

  The onyx hawk gulped it down like a worm.

  “That’s it. Go Inky!”

  Inky spread its wings, flapped away, and disappeared into the mist.

  “You actually think that thing can find Venir in there?”

  Fogle didn’t. The bone from the hunting knife didn’t seem like much of an attachment to tie the spell to the man. Normally, blood, skin or hair was used to track something with magic such as this. Sweat or a strong personal attachment might work, too. He sighed. He hated to see Inky go. The creature wasn’t real, but it wasn’t indestructible, either, just hardier than most. If anything, the bird might help eliminate the possibility that Venir was in there. That seemed to be the most likely case.

  “I’d say he has a better chance than we do,” he remarked

  “What if it don’t come back out?” Mood inquired.

  Better it than me.

  “You worry too much, Mood.”

  “What if it gets killed?”

  “I’d know. So as long as it lives, we have hope.”

  They both got back on their horses and headed south. Fogle Boon kept his eyes away from the Mist. Maybe it was time to quit worrying about Venir altogether. After all, it seemed that the man wanted to be alone. I wonder how Kam is getting along.

  Chapter 63

  The black dragon loomed over Venir, its foot-long fangs dripping with saliva, its long serpentine neck grazing back and forth over his body. Its nostrils sniffed and snorted at him like a dog's. Venir didn’t stir. His body and mind remained in a deep sleep. The dragon had three claws and one thumb on each hand, more man-like than lizardish. A thick fingernail capable of tearing through steel gently poked his body. It snorted at him again, stirring Venir’s hair that spilled from underneath his helm. Its neck coiled back like a serpent's, and it began looking around. Its big face snapped back over him.

  It grabbed him with its short humanoid arms. They seemed small compared to the rest of its body, but they still held Venir like a children’s doll. The dragon's black wings stretched out fifty feet wide. The suns illuminated the leathery membrane of skin that formed them. The wings began to beat and pound the air like a storm as the dragon rose from the ground. In moments, the man and beast were high in the air, while Brool lay alone on the ground below. Over the rushing silver-blue waters of the river the dragon went. It crossed over hills, valleys and small mountain-like ranges. The leaves of the treetops below were green, brown and yellow, and many trees were of an unknown variety.

  In the distance, a fortress jutted from the ground to the sky. It was monolithic. Cut rock formed the stones that built its walls over ten stories tall. It resembled the City of Bone, except it was more like a Ziggurat, not just a perimeter wall. The dragon landed outside of its walls where an iron portcullis was open, rusted and twice the size of Bone's huge gate. Vines thicker than a man’s leg crept up and over the massive fortress. The rest of the exterior was crumbling and coated in moss. The land that surround it was lush with overgrowth, and any evidence of civilization was centuries gone.

  The dragon set Venir down, roared, and launched itself into the sky. WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

  It disappeared into the light. The suns crossed over the sky and dipped below the horizon. Venir lay still as a rock; only the rising and falling of his chest gave evidence he was alive. The pale yellow moons cast an eerie shadow over his unconscious body.

  A man appeared in the gateway, black and enormous. He was clothed in a commoner’s tunic, fingers and neck adorned in gems and gold. The giant stood over fifteen feet tall, and his face and decorated earlobes were long. His black brows buckled as his merciless eyes fixed on Venir. The giant kneeled down, scooped him up like a rodent, and took him inside the fortress.

  Chapter 64

  It was a morning he dreaded more than any morning before. A pig pen would have been a more preferable place than Castle Almen. The beautiful palace that he had come to admire so much might as well have been a dungeon. The comforts he had sought all his life were here, but now they only made him uncomfortable. Melegal kept his head down and eyes forward as he headed up the stairs from the servants' quarters.

  No one seemed to pay his presence any mind. The servants were brisk with their tasks. He slipped past a few of them in the corridor and made his way into the castle's main halls. There was more than one way to Lord Almen’s place below the kitchen. Still, the shortest distance was the way he had passed through the last time. Lorda Almen, please, not today. He shifted his floppy hat on his head as his eyes darted all around. It was quiet in the main chambers; the expected rumbling of voices in the dining hall was vacant. Good. He was early, and he knew Lord Almen to be early as well. In three long steps he strode past the sofa where Lorda Almen’s gracious figure had entrapped him before.

  There were voices, female voices, coming from the kitchen. Lorda! He was stuck inside the corridor. Turning back was the only way out. After he turned, he noticed two figures in the sofa room. Slat! It was a servant man and one of the Almen siblings. He didn’t slow, just continued down the corridor and ducked inside an alcove under a stairway. Lorda Almen’s voice was getting stronger. Another woman was with her, a younger woman, almost as striking as Lorda herself. Melegal knew of her, but not a lot. She spent much time with the Lorda, though.

  He pressed himself against the wall inside the alcove. A three-legged cherry chestnut table with a huge vase full of fresh flowers was the only thing between him and the hallway. It was a lousy place to hide, but it would have to do. He propped Tonio’s sword in a dim spot on the inner side of the alcove. She can find me, but not the sword.

  From behind the small table he heard the women’s laughter, tranquil and fluid. Melegal’s heart was in his throat. Calm down! They had stopped; their robed legs were turned and facing the sofa room. Go in! Go in! Go in! More chatter and laughter broke out. It was something about a spree on the Royal Roadway and last night’s dinner at another castle. Shut up and go, wenches. The conversation continued another ten minutes. Interesting, I must remember that. The women’s gowns almost hid their feet, but they had turned back his way. Their slippers were as quiet as dust on the floor as they stepped down the corridor. Almost here.

  He could see the women walking hip to hip, arms around each other’s waists like mother and daughter. Again they stopped less than ten feet away. Melegal felt his heart freeze when the younger woman spoke, “Lorda, have you got word back on Tonio? It’s been so long, and I fear something terrible has happened to my beloved.”

  You got that right.

  Lorda’s voice was soothing when she said, “Oh, Rayal, you are so sweet. I am sure he is fine. He’s a soldier now. I’ve known men to be gone for years. You knew that. Are you lonely, Dear?”

  “Lonely is an understatement,” she said with desperation in her voice.

  “I see, so you’ve been holding out all of this time. Such a charming woman with men following her every curve. Rayal, you can’t be expected to hold out for him.”

  Don’t take the bait.

  “No, it’s not that. I just want to be crushed in his arms again and gaze on his handsome face once more.”

  Oh no, you don’t want to do that, Lady. Be careful what you wish for.

  “I knew my son was wise when he chose you. You are strong, Rayal. You’ll make it through this,” Lorda said, as her feet shifted in the direction of the table. “Ah, the smell of tiger roses, my favorite.”

  He could feel Lorda Almen hovering over the table and smell her fragrance as she inhaled the rose petals.

  GO UPSTAIRS! GO UPSTAIRS! GO UPSTAIR
S!

  His brain began to tickle as he continued with the suggestion.

  Their feet shuffled, turned and headed back down the corridor.

  “Rayal, come and do some gardening with me today. I would adore your company. Let’s go upstairs and change.”

  “Oh, Lorda, I am so sorry. I have to take my little wench of a sister to the stables today, for her weekly lesson. I just love to watch her torment the urchins. She’s such a monster.”

  Lorda let out a pleasant laugh and said, “I see, little Elizabeth is still a blossoming thorn.”

  “There’s no changing her course, it appears. I can’t even beat a good deed out of her.”

  The two women were laughing now. Lorda added.

  “She’s an odd little wafer. The last time she was here she told me a story about a two-headed puppy you hid from her.”

  What’s this?

  “Oh … she did? When was this?”

  Surprise, she’s seen it, too. Melegal’s mind began to spin another direction.

  “The last time you brought her by. I told her she must have been seeing things. Two-headed dogs … ha, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Yes, my little Elizabeth is such a little liar.”

  Good recovery.

  “Is she now?” Lorda asked with a hint of doubt.

  “Did I just hear someone mention a two-headed dog?” a loud voice sounded from the stairwell above.

  Lord Almen. Son of a Bish!

  Melegal’s blood ran cold. If Lord Almen caught him here, his life would be over. Melegal’s knees began to ache. The long period of squatting had strained his thighs, and he could feel his body tremble. It didn’t help that everything else from hair to toe was already aching from the contest the other night at the Octopus. I’m way off my game.

  “Ah … my handsome husband has arrived. I see you haven’t lost your touch for eavesdropping on women’s gossip. It’s no wonder you are so good with us ladies.”

  Melegal could hear Lord Almen's leather-soled feet coming down the marble steps. The next thing he saw was Lord Almen’s feet joining in with the group. He heard Almen’s lips peck his wife’s lips.