“That’s all you have, you black-coated fiends?”
Helm throbbed a warning in his head.
Ranged weapons tore through the air. Venir flattened out on a rock, crushing a struggling underling beneath him. Bolts, javelins, and spears clattered and splintered off the rocks.
Dragging the underling by the hair, Venir climbed to the highest point of the spire and yelled at the underlings on the rim of the canyon, “You missed me, fiends!”
The chittering fiends launched another flurry.
Venir shielded himself with the underling. The spears buried deep into its body.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Laughing, Venir hoisted the body over his head and flung it into the canyon. He beckoned the enemy his way. “Come and get me!”
Volley after volley came, but Venir hunkered behind the shield and in the cover of the rocks.
An emerald-eyed underling peeked up over the ledge.
The Darkslayer spiked its eye out, sending it screaming into the gap.
“Keep coming, furry rodents! Keep coming! Brool feasts on your eyes!”
The underlings thickened below the rocky spire. They clawed over one another, chittering from their lips and gnashing their teeth, scrambling up the rock. A sea of them had Venir completely surrounded, more than fifty feet below.
Helm’s eyelets smoldered with the black fires of a furnace, and Venir bellowed, “Come! Come! I’ll slaughter every last one of you!”
Volleys whistled through the air. Underling warriors launched themselves at Venir one after the other.
The towering titan was too quick and skilled. He butchered the underlings one after the other. He evaded the aerial attacks time after time. Black blood dripped down the rocks. Gore coated him from head to toe. Tireless as a river, Venir fought, minute after minute, turning past an hour, fueled by a power beyond mortal comprehension. He didn’t know if he was doing the work or if Helm was. He didn’t care. He liked it.
A blood ranger horn blared from within the passage below. Not a single underling relented on the assault of Venir. The gigantic warrior caught a glimpse of the dwarves. They pressed through the gap, pushing the distracted underling forces back.
The tide was turning on the black-hearted fiends. They had their shields at the front, but dwarves shoved through the distracted underling ranks from behind, spilling out of the passage and into the floor of the canyon by the hundreds.
Lifting his war axe high, Venir let out a dwarven battle cry. “Huzzah!”
The underling soldiers weren’t prepared for close combat with the heavily armored blood rangers. The stout hatchet-swinging fighters carved a path right into the heart of underlings.
Venir kept at it. He was a tireless automaton, chopping and hacking away. Brool was covered in gore, and Helm was coated in a hundred layers of black blood.
Underlings rushed up at him and died.
Chop! Hack! Glitch!
They kept climbing. They kept dying.
Powering his axe through the waist of a sword-swinging underling and leaving it to fall into its guts, Venir howled.
Helm unleashed a new warning.
Venir’s arm hairs stood on end.
Floating underling mages encircled Venir. The black robe-wearing fiends hovered above the rocks, far from his reach. Their sapphire eyes glowed with mystic fire. Sharp black-nailed fingertips crackled with energy.
Venir grabbed his shield and hunkered down just as explosive bolts of power blasted from their fingertips. Green bolts lit up the sky.
Sssssrazzz-Boom! Ssssrazz-Boom! Sssssrazzz-Boom! Ssssrazz-Boom!
The jarring impact skipped Venir over the rocks onto the pinnacle’s edge. He tasted blood and metal in his mouth. His muscles juttered and twitched. Agony coursed through his bones. Fighting the blinding pain, he rose back to his feet and spat. “It will take more than that to kill me, underlings!”
Evil eyes flashing, the underling magi cocked their arms back and loosed their powers against the Darkslayer again.
Venir sprung behind some rocks and hid behind his shield.
Two bolts slammed into it and popped his head back into the rocks with bone jarring force.
Head ringing and filled with pain, he gored an underling soldier that had crawled into his blind spot. It stuck on Brool’s spike, and Venir moved the underling corpse in between him and the underling magi.
The fiends launched their mystic fury. The power slammed into the dead underling skewered on Brool’s tip and tore it away.
Sssssrazzz-Boom! Ssssrazz-Boom! Sssssrazzz-Boom! Ssssrazz-Boom!
Venir was getting pounded against the rocks with hot glowing energy. The relentless attack singed his arms and tore at his skin. “Is that all you have?” he yelled.
The blasts kept coming.
Pounded by the supernatural, Venir couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. The metal of his smoking armor seared his skin. His grip on Brool slipped.
CHAPTER 37
Hit by one bolt of power after another, Venir started to rise to his feet. “Slat on you!” He hefted Brool by the handle, and with all of his power he launched Brool spike first at the underling mage in the middle. His aim was true. Brool speared the center underling clear through the chest.
Glitch!
Brool and the center underling plummeted downward and out of sight. The remaining underling magi’s harsh faces filled with shock and fury. And then they linked hands and their eyes grew confident again. The one on the end closest to him raised its hands, fingertips glowing.
“Never again!” Venir roared. He backed into the rocks, gathered his legs underneath him, and charged. Planting his foot on the ledge, he leaped into the gang of hovering underlings, slamming into the center two and holding on. “I have you now, fiends!”
The screeching underlings tore at the Darkslayer as they spun in the air and plummeted toward the ground. They kicked and bit at him.
He held on with anger, dragging them out of the sky. They were no match for Venir’s armament-enhanced might. He locked one up in the nook of his arm and held it fast. Wind whistling through Helm, he glanced down at the horde of unsuspecting underlings in the fight of their lives with the blood rangers and lesser dwarves.
The underlings’ magic didn’t slow their fall fast enough. The three of them crashed into the ground hard.
Crunch!
With the furry black bodies crushed beneath him, the first thing Venir spied among the chaos was Brool. He surged through a wave of startled underlings, snatched up his axe, and turned into a whirlwind of fury. Black blood and body parts flew. A clamoring howl of terror and outrage followed. Venir mowed through the black throng on one side, and the dwarves carved out the other side.
“Yes!” he cried. “They fall like black rain from the sky!”
Venir spun in a full circle, turning Brool loose through armor, furry skin, and bone in fatal collisions. The death count piled up around him in a mound of bodies. He stood on the bones of the dead and those that hissed in agony, killing one underling after the other.
“I’ll have you all!” bellowed the Darkslayer.
Brool cleaved skull after skull. Smashed through metal and busted through bones. Venir head butted an underling, shattering its nose. He was too big and fast for the brood. The dwarves were closing in and cutting through their back side.
Muscles pumping axe chop after axe chop, Venir downed his foes with delight. An hour later he was surrounded by nothing but furry black bodies. There was no one left to swing at. He stuck Brool tip first into the death pile, looked at the surrounding body of hard-fighting dwarves, and said, “Huzzah!”
They replied in kind, “Huzzah!”
Panting for breath, Venir bent over with his hands on his knees and puked. Spitting, he said, “That’s better.” As soon as he rose up, Mood appeared.
The King of the Blood Rangers was coated chin to toe in the black underling blood. A fat cigar was burning in his mouth, and cinnamon smoke cut through the
baking stench of death in the air.
“What happened to you?” Venir said.
Angrily, Mood said, “I was bewitched, that’s what. Curse me! I cannot believe the evil vixen enchanted me.” He pounded his chest. “By the time I came out of it, I’d led my kin right into the gates of slaughter. I hardly remember anything until we were up to our armpits in underlings.”
Venir stepped out of the underling pile, walked up to Mood, and slapped him on the shoulder. “Bish happens.”
Gazing up at the pillar of rock Venir had been fighting on top of, Mood replied, “You can say that again. Good for us you happened along.”
Venir followed Mood’s stare. The top of the pinnacle dripped with black blood that glistened in the last setting sun. Underlings lay dead on the pinnacle’s rim. At the bottom of the rock more bodies lay on the ground, crushed and contorted.
“You must have taken two hundred black hearts yourself.” Mood blew a ring of smoke into the sky. “I’ve never seen anything like it. They came after you like moths to a flame. They lost their minds, climbing up there like that. I saw you. A mighty gale of blackened steel.”
Spying the canyon’s main rim, Venir noticed there weren’t any more underlings. “Did we kill them all?”
“Perhaps the ones within, but I think the rest of them fled. They’re regrouping between here and Bone, I imagine.”
“How many dwarves did you lose?” Venir asked.
“Enough,” Mood said, wiping the blood from his eyes. “It’ll be a long time burying them. Let’s burn these fiends first. All of them in a pile so high they’ll smell the smoke all over Bish.” He turned and faced his brethren and lifted his twin axes high. “Death to the underlings! Every last one of them!”
They replied with excited arms and weapons pumping in the air, “Huzzah!”
Epilogue
Lip curled, Melegal said to Jasper, “I can’t stand it when they do that.”
Their party was in the canyon among the blood rangers, dwarves, and jung, watching Chongo give Venir a bath with his tongues.
“I think it’s endearing,” Jasper replied. Her dark eyes were playful for a moment when she plugged her nose and fanned the smoke from her eyes. “But that smell is awful.”
“It’s not Quickster this time.”
The pyre of underlings was far away from where they stood. Yellow smoke rolled up into the sky, and ashes showered the ground. The pungent smell was toxic but not nauseating.
“The dwarves are breaking their backs on this. I’ve never seen so many shovels.”
“Me either.” Jasper’s eyes fixed on Venir.
Melegal looked over there as well.
Shirtless and sitting, the lout’s Olympian frame was covered in lacerations and dark bruises. Kam was stitching him up while he bounced Erin on his knee. They were both laughing.
“I never imagined a battlefield could be so jovial,” said Jasper.
“The deader the underlings, the happier Venir,” Melegal replied. He reached down and helped Jasper up to her feet. “Let’s go and see what’s going on.”
“All right.”
Standing in front of Venir, Melegal said, “That’s an awful lot of wood you chopped down for your little bonfire over there. What kind of wood did you use? It stinks.”
“It might stink, but it keeps the bugs away. I’m surprised it doesn’t work any better on rats,” Venir replied.
“Only a lout would try to use underlings for wood,” Melegal said.
Chongo licked him.
He smacked the dog’s nose with his cap. “Don’t do that. It’s disgusting.”
Grinning ear to ear, Venir said, “It’s healing to my flesh and refreshing to my bones. You should try it sometime.”
“I’ll be fine. Always.”
“Nobody’s always fine,” Kam said. She was sewing up a deep gash in Venir’s leg. “Just ask the underlings.”
“Ha ha! Now that’s my woman!” Venir leaned in to kiss Kam.
She pushed him back. “Not now. You smell like an ogre. Not to mention you’re covered in dog slobber. Of all the places to fight, you had to pick a canyon without a river.”
Melegal squatted down. “So what’s the plan, Vee? Is Mood back in his right mind?”
“Yes, and we will continue the journey back to Bone.” Venir rubbed Kam’s arm. “You’ve never been to Bone before, have you? It’ll be exciting.”
“Yes, another great city run by the underlings.” Melegal straightened his cap. “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they intermarried with the Royals.” He looked at Kam. “Present company excepted.”
“We’ll fight them all if we have to.” Venir kissed Erin on the forehead. “And when it’s done, we’ll open the finest tavern in the land.”
Kam eyed him.
“Second finest,” Venir remarked.
“So this isn’t actually a war?” Melegal added with some sarcasm. “My, I had it all wrong. It’s a business trip.”
Venir gulped down some water from a canteen, wiped his forearm across his mouth, and said, “We can’t do this forever, so we might as well profit.”
“Now that, I can get behind,” said Melegal.
“Good. Now sharpen that steel on your hips. We have work to do.”
BOOK 7: WAR IN THE WASTELAND
CHAPTER 1
“Don’t move!” Jubilee yelled at Brak.
“Stop squirming!” Fogle added.
Inside the Red Clay Forest, a place of sweltering heat and suffocating beauty, Brak was sunk to the waist in quicksand. His horse, knee-deep in it, whinnied and nickered. Olg and Ugg, the half-ogre brothers, were in the muck too. Both of them flailed and moaned. It had been nothing but misery since they fled into the forest to get away from the underlings.
Riding tall on Nightmare, Jarla barked a command. “Listen to them, you fools! Heed my words and be still! Fools! How many times have we warned you not to wander away in this forest?” A mosquito as big as her hand landed on her head. She swatted at it. “Ugh!”
“Urmph!” Ugg said, looking at her.
On his hands and knees at the foul, muddy pool’s rim, the tall and lanky healer, Slim, called out, “Not you, Ugg. As she says, you need to remain calm. We’ll get you out of here. Nice and easy. The more you squirm, the more you will sink.”
The brothers babbled in ogre at one another. Their ugly, brutish faces had brows that protruded like the edge of a cliff covered in black moss for eyebrows, which lifted and buckled. Their murmurings held a note of fear.
Brak sat on the back of his horse, sinking. The honorable beast shifted beneath him. “Easy, girl. Easy.” He stroked the horse’s neck. “Be still, and we’ll get out of this mess.” The muddy waters bubbled up in spots, swallowing the horse’s neck to the top. Trying not to sound alarmed, Brak said, “Someone needs to do something fast.”
“We are.” Fogle had a stretch of rope and was tying it to a tree. The knot the wizard made kept failing. “Son of a Bish!”
“Faster,” Brak repeated.
Working the rope, Fogle said, “This isn’t exactly my forte!”
“Why don’t you just cast a spell and lift them out?” Jubilee asked.
“Why don’t you shut your yap?”
Feeling the murk suck him even deeper into the hole, Brak said, “Bickering isn’t going to slow the sinking. Someone look for a branch or something.”
Everything had happened fast. For three days, the travelers had wandered the forest, searching for a way out. For some reason, the forest seemed to want to keep them hemmed in. Either that, or it was trying to gradually kill them. Everyone was at a loss as to how to get out—even Jarla. As seasoned as the brigand queen was, the uncanny place perplexed her. Her commanding tongue was more silent than it normally had been. Then the bickering began. The party became split on what to do. It didn’t take long for Jarla to leave them all behind. Less than an hour later, the forest started to swallow him and the ogres whole. Jubilee had ridden with Brak, but h
e’d managed to fling her away from the danger. Slim had also remained free.
“Brak, I can’t lose you.” Jubilee reached out with a long branch she’d fetched. “Grab this!”
Brak stretched out his arm. His fingers snagged the very tip. He gave it a gentle tug. The effort pulled Jubilee into the quicksand with a splash. “Just stay back, Jubilee. Fogle, do you have that rope ready or not?”
“I got it!” The wizard slung the coil over to Brak. “Catch!”
Brak caught the slack end of the rope. “Finally.” He wound the rope around his wrist. With his free arm, he reached over for the nearest ogre. “Take my hand, Olg or Ugg.”
The desperate ogre Ugg locked his hands around Brak’s wrist. Olg clung to his brother.
“Hang on!” Brak pulled on the rope. The rope unfastened from the tree. He pitched over into the waters.
“Brak!” Jubilee screamed. “You idiot, Fogle! Somebody, do something!”
Chin deep in the quicksand, Brak said, “Yes, please.” His stomach sank along with his body into the sands. Helplessness crept in just as it had when he’d been paralyzed. His father’s words sounded in his head. “Bish takes everyone. Any day can be your day.”
Jarla appeared from the forest with a smirk on her face. “Perhaps this is meant to be.” She dismounted. Casually, she pushed past Fogle and took the rope from his hands. “This is why we shouldn’t divide. Division is deadly.” She fastened the rope to Nightmare’s saddle horn and mounted. She made a tick-tick sound. Nightmare slowly plodded forward, dragging the ogres out of the murk.
Brak continued to sink. The waters were up to his lips.
In a shrill voice, Jubilee said, “What are you doing, Brak?”
Fighting to speak, spitting mud from his lips, he said, “I need to save the horse. Throw me the rope, Jarla.”
Jarla held the rope, staring at Brak like a cat toying with a mouse.
The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces Page 83
