The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces

by Craig Halloran

  Manamus uttered a word of command. “Tuukah-Rieen!” A black orb lying in the arena flew across the room and into her hand. She squealed. “The Orb of Negation! I delight!”

  At that moment, Master Sinway turned his focus on the mother and son pair. Kuurn faced them as well. Both underlings glowered at them.

  Stepping in front of Ebenezer, Manamus addressed Master Sinway in a haughty voice, “Get the Bish out of our castle, underling! You have no power over me now!” The orb hummed. An unseen force sliced through the air. All of the underling spellcasting faded.

  Master Sinway hissed. “Only a fool would think that bauble can harness me.” His eyes bore into hers.

  Manamus stared right back. “Only a fool would challenge me in my own castle! Death to you, Master Sinway! Death to all underlings!” She flexed her mystic strength. Shockwaves busted up the seats in the bleachers. Master Sinway, Kuurn, and many other underlings stumbled. Sinway was on his knees. “Surrender!”

  Rising from the seats, Sinway hovered over the ground. His fingertips glowed red. “You have gravely underestimated your enemy.” He opened his palms. The orb ripped free of Manamus’s fingers and flew right into his hand. He held the orb in his palms. It smoked, sizzled, and dust drained through his fingers. “Time to die, Manamus.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Venir’s knees buckled the moment he saw Elypsa slide the sword out and Kam fell. The fight left him for a fleeting moment. The underlings piled on him. He collapsed into the seats. Fists struck his face. Something stabbed into his body. These weren’t the soldiers, but more common underlings, in robes, temporarily stripped of their powers.

  Sadness turned to anger. Life flowed back into his fingers, and they locked around an underling’s throat. He crushed the fiend’s windpipe. His arms started pumping. His fists smashed faces and caved in chests. Erupting out of the flock with a guttural roar, Venir knocked an underling out cold. He threw another out of the stands.

  “You will pay! You will all pay!”

  He savagely beat underlings bloody with the length of chain attached to his neck. He whipped it over his head, striking faces with loud snaps. The robed underlings were helpless against the assault. Soldiers finally came. Reinforcements. Many were bare chested, and others were in armor. They wore the bones of their enemies like jewelry. Heads were shaven, bald in some cases and others in mohawk and other designs. They struck at Venir, coming in low and fast, carrying wavy blades in their fingers.

  “Taste my steel, fiends!” Swinging the chain, Venir took a badoon warrior from its feet. Inches from destroying another underling with a kick to the face, Venir was hoisted out of the stands by the neck. Above him, an underling mage floated. It was pulling him up by the chain like a man hanging from a rope. “Curse you!”

  The blue-eyed underling spit down on Venir. It chittered with triumph.

  Venir hung by his neck over the arena. His toes dangled eight feet from the ground. He saw Kam, bleeding out, lifeless. Fire ran through his bones. He looked up. Grabbing the chain over his head, he climbed up, hand over hand.

  “I’m coming for you!”

  The underling’s eyes grew. It let out a desperate chitter. A mystic missile shot after Venir. The underlings had regained their powers. The energy jangled his body. It sizzled his skin. He convulsed, held fast, and continued the climb. Less than a foot from the underling’s toes, Venir hung by one arm and swung himself upward. His fingers locked on the underling’s ankle. He yanked so hard the leg popped out of the socket.

  The underling howled.

  They tumbled to the ground. Venir landed hard on top of it. Its rib cage caved in. Venir scrambled over to Kam and scooped her into his arms. “Kam! Kam! Stay with me, Kam. Don’t die on me.”

  She wasn’t moving. Her body was clammy and cold.

  Venir choked. “Nooo!” His hairs rose on end. He turned. Fogle and Jubilee stood inside a barn on the other side of a portal that had formed. He set Kam on the other side of the portal. “Bury her for me.”

  Fogle gave a stiff nod.

  Venir reached out and touched Erin with his blood-stained fingers. “Be strong, little girl.” Venir called out to the others in the arena, “Brak! Slim! Get out of here, now!” He grabbed Nikkel and Billip by the collars and flung them through the portal.

  The spider collapsed underneath a barrage of mystic missiles. It twitched as it burned. Slim ran for the portal, carrying Cass in his arms. They dived through.

  “Brak! Chongo! Come!”

  The beast had separated from the man. Brak was in the stands, laying the cudgel, Spine Breaker, upside underlings’ heads. The whites of his eyes were showing.

  “He’s gone berserk,” Jubilee cried out. “You’ll never get him back!”

  “The Bish I won’t.” Venir started forward.

  Billip jerked him back by the chain. “Wait for us.”

  The air around them shimmered. The portal collapsed. It snipped the chain, leaving only a few lengths attached to the collar on his neck. Venir picked up the first sword he could find. Grabbing a dead underling by its coat of mail, he used it as a shield and charged the stands. “Huzzah!”

  ***

  Manamus and Master Sinway took to the air. Lightning streaked from their fingertips. Manamus slammed into the wall, her clothes smoking and her wits momentarily jangled. On command, she summoned the wooden benches to life. The planks snapped from their fasteners and shot into the air. They made a coffin around Master Sinway. Using her mind, she caught it on fire.

  The flaming coffin burst into fiery cinders. Master Sinway swooped across the stands and clamped his finger over her throat. “You are formidable but pitiful at the same time, human witch. A shame you weren’t wise enough to prove yourself useful.”

  She spat in his face. “I’ve seen it myself. You will die one day.”

  “Yes, perhaps a day a thousand years from now.” He fastened his eyes on hers. “Enjoy your immortality in the grave.”

  In the distance, a horrified Ebenezer screamed, “Mother!”

  “Son, you were always my pride!” Manamus’s eyes started to smoke. Her blood simmered. She shrieked like a thousand banshees. Her skin hardened into char. Her blood became burning embers, and her entire body turned into ash. Nothing was left but her robes.

  CHAPTER 13

  Georgio woke with the suns glaring in his eyes. Blinking, he wiped the drool from his mouth. He lay in a bed of hot sand. A fierce wind full of sand grains stung his face. He jumped to his feet. “I see the suns! I see the suns!” He spread his arms out wide. “Thank Bish, I see the suns!”

  A bug flew in his mouth.

  He coughed, sputtered, and swallowed it. “Yecht!”

  Endless stretches of the barren land went on for leagues. It was nothing but rocks, dirt, and sand, with very sparse vegetation from the bone trees and cacti that stood against the wind. As foreboding as the landscape was, it still brought a smile to his face.

  “Say, where’s Barton?”

  The giant was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Lefty. Cupping his hands over his mouth, he called out. “Lefty! Lefty!” A lizard with a red tail scurried past his feet, stopped, flicked its tongue, and vanished into a crack in the ground. “Oh great, now I’ve lost them, or they lost me.”

  Behind him the Mist loomed miles away, stretching up higher than the eye could see. He shivered. “I don’t care if they are back in there. I’m not going that way.”

  He dusted the sand from his curly hair while searching the ground. The winds were wearing footprints ten times the size of his away. He followed them at a trot. Half a mile into it, his mouth was dry as a bone, and his clothing was drenched in sweat. “Bone, I forgot how hot it is.”

  In another mile he caught sight of the giant in the distance. Lefty sat on Barton’s shoulder like a blond-haired parakeet. They were stopped at the edge of an overlook with their attention far below. Georgio caught up to them.

  “Thanks for leaving me behind,” he said.

>   Lefty swung his legs from the front side of Barton to the back. “We didn’t leave you. We were scouting.”

  “I’m a better scout than you are. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “I tried kicking you. You sleep like a rock, so we left you.”

  Georgio frowned.

  “Not for dead, just so we could take a look around.” Lefty ducked aside as Barton started digging in his ear. The halfling’s face soured upon sight of a glob of wax on the giant’s fingertip. “Ew!” He hopped down from the twelve-foot-tall giant’s shoulders. “I hate it when he does that.”

  Georgio moved toward the ledge. “So, where are we?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.” Lefty stood on the rim with Georgio. “It’s somewhere where the trouble is gathering.” He pointed. “Look.”

  Far off, a city of tents covered the ground. Bodies moved among them in an organized fashion.

  Squinting, Georgio asked, “Are those men or underlings?”

  “It’s too far for me to see. I was trying to decide whether or not I should approach them or just get a closer look.”

  Georgio called up to the giant, “Barton, you have a big eye. What do you see?”

  Barton’s attention was on the tents, but there was a spacey look in the giant’s eye. His lips twitched.

  “I asked him the same question, but he’s not speaking for some reason,” Lefty said, looking up at Barton. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. It’s weird.”

  “Well, we can’t just stand here. We need to find Venir and I need a drink. I say we scout.”

  Lefty shrugged. “Lead the way.”

  Georgio looked over the ledge. It was very steep, leading down into the valley, but the rocky outcroppings made for easy foot- and handholds. “Going down is quicker than going around.” He squatted down and slid over the edge. “Barton, you stay here, I guess. We’ll be back.”

  Barton stood stone-faced.

  Lefty crawled down the ledge. He was halfway to the bottom before Georgio made it ten feet.

  Irritated, Georgio said, “Will you slow down?”

  “No, you speed up.” Lefty scurried down the rocky wall like a spider monkey.

  Picking up the pace, Georgio climbed down hand over hand. The rock gave out under his toe. He slipped, lost his fingerholds, and fell. He skipped, tumbled, and bounced all the way down the wall until he hit bottom. He couldn’t move.

  Lefty doubled over, clutching his belly. “Tee-hee-hee-hee!”

  A lance of pain shot through Georgio’s shoulder as he tried to move. “Argh!”

  Fighting to compose himself, Lefty said, “Did you get hurt?”

  “Yes, I got hurt.” He managed to sit up. “My shoulder’s busted.”

  “Well, it should be. You rolled off that cliff like a boulder. You should have seen your face.” Lefty made some ghastly expressions. He giggled again. “Then, wham, you landed on your shoulder and part of your face.” He stuck his finger out at Georgio. “See, there are cuts all over it.”

  “Yes, I can feel it. Just help me up.”

  Lefty grabbed Georgio’s good arm with two hands. Still giggling, he helped haul Georgio back to his feet.

  Georgio walked over to a pile of rocks and searched over the flat surface until he found an edge. He slammed his shoulder into it. “Gaaaaah!”

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Does it sound like I feel better?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you felt well enough to fall down that cliff again. That was gut busting.” Lefty wiped the tears from his eyes. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed. It feels good. I remember doing it all the time.”

  “We both used to. I guess laughter’s hard to come by these days.” He smiled. “Let’s go. Maybe we’ll find something to laugh at again later.”

  As they walked, Georgio glanced back toward Barton. The giant squatted like a statue slouched over the rim. Strange. They made it another mile before they both saw a dust cloud approaching east of their direction. “Riders,” he said as his hand fell to his sword.

  Lefty plucked out his dagger. “Worse yet. Riders on spiders.”

  “Bish, I hate underlings.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Wild-eyed, Brak the berserker swung Spine Breaker into an underling’s skull. The crack sounded like a board breaking as its head mushed like a melon. The fury had only begun. Up to his armpits in underlings, Brak busted up one after the other. He choked one by the neck while bashing it in the face with the cudgel. The gray-skinned fiends fell in heaps of busted bones and sagging limbs. Every strike Brak made caused a loud fiery crack.

  Chongo bull-rushed a wave of underlings over the arena wall. He pounced on them in tandem. His claws ripped open their chests. The underling soldiers rallied. They tossed javelins into Chongo’s flank. Some stuck and some didn’t. The huge dog shook off the oversized needles. Baring his fangs, he growled, barked, and attacked. He snatched an underling in his jaws. With a fierce bite, he crunched through its chain mail. He slung the underling aside, struck fast as a snake, and chomped into another underling’s leg.

  Venir’s powerful legs carried him high in the air. With the help of his hand, he propelled himself over the arena wall. He gored an underling in the chest with a quick thrust. He ducked under an attacker’s bladed swing. He clobbered in a jaw with a backhanded strike.

  Get the sack!

  Vaguely aware of the fighting that surrounded him, he focused on the mystic sack lying on the bleachers. Sinway abandoned it when he crossed the arena to attack Manamus. Her flesh turned to dust. The foul smell of burning flesh and crispy hair defiled the air. Venir sensed the underling’s presence coming back. He forced himself upward in the sea of fighting. He had to retrieve the sack. Already his lungs burned and labored.

  Another man fought in the stands—Ebenezer Kling. He was long and rangy, with broad shoulders, fighting with the skill of a true swordsman and the heart of a lion. The heavy length of steel he wielded turned aside the underlings’ smaller weapons and quickly brought death. But Ebenezer too was outnumbered.

  The walls were closing in. Time was running out. Venir had to get the armament, kill Master Sinway, and save them. He gutted an underling.

  “Churk!” it garbled.

  Venir hefted it up with one arm, and slung it into two others. He spied the stitched-up sack. It was little more than a body length away. Fingers outstretched, he leapt.

  ***

  Ebenezer’s heart turned around the moment his mother, Manamus, died. They’d never had the strongest of affections, but in the end, her final words made it clear. He mattered. She mattered too. The underlings would have to pay. He parried a sword and countered with a slice to the neck. “This is my castle! Get the Bish out of it!”

  Using his length, he beat the enemy forces back, steel catching meat from time to time. He paid for it. The underlings flanked him. Spears jabbed at his ribs. A tip struck his thigh. With a chop of his sword, he sliced through the spear’s handle, twisted his strike, and cut through the underling’s leg. “Argh!” he cried out. A metal tip dug deep into his shoulder blade. He jerked away and spun. Five underlings pounced at once, driving him to the ground.

  ***

  Venir’s fingertips brushed against the soft leather of the sack. Underlings pounced on his back. Their sharp fingernails dug into his arms, pulling him back. “Get off me, you evil ticks!” He crawled up the seat and reached for the sack again.

  The entire arena trembled under the power of Master Sinway’s voice. “I’ll take that.” The sack glided away from Venir’s outstretched fingers into Sinway’s awaiting hands. “Enough games!”

  The plank seats vibrated. The air stirred. With a burning look and gesticulating hands, Venir, Brak, Ebenezer, and Chongo were lifted into the air.

  “Kuurn,” Sinway said, “let’s string these fools up.”

  The slender underling’s citrine eyes glowed with fire. Kuurn made an open pass across his face with his lo
ng-fingered hand. Webbing spread from the top rafters to the bloody arena floor, dividing the arena in half.

  One by one, Sinway used his telekinetic power to stick Venir and company back-first on the webbing. Venir wriggled. The more he did so, the more the webbing took hold. Brak thrashed like a wild man, burying himself deeper in the webs. The webbing clung and ripped his skin the more he jerked. “Brak! Calm yourself before you rip your face off!” Venir ordered.

  If his words were heard, it didn’t show. Brak moaned and growled with savagery.

  Venir had full view of the mayhem he and his friends had caused. Underlings were clumped over the seats and the arena wall, gored, broken, and bleeding to death. The survivors gathered alongside Master Sinway and Kuurn. The deep hatred in their eyes bored into Venir and company. He’d wounded them deeply. They cut him deep too when Elypsa killed Kam. The lone female underling was lying against the arena wall. She stirred. With languid eyes, she shook her head and stood up. She staggered toward the center of the arena, and with help from her brood, she climbed into the stands. She took her place between Master Sinway and Kuurn.

  Creed lay in the arena as well, sitting in his own pool of blood. His back was against the wall. He held up his sliced-off hand with his good hand. Though painted, the skin that could be seen on his face was pasty and ashen. His breathing was shallow. His eyes were rolled up in his head. He looked more dead than alive.

  “Keep breathing, Creed,” Venir said.

  The man didn’t respond.

  Master Sinway stood tall, feet floating over a foot off the ground. His robes dusted over the planks. “I will give you credit, mortal; you fight with a gallant heart. You don’t know when to quit. Even I admire the fighting spirit. But this show is over.” Master Sinway tossed the sack over his shoulder in an uncharacteristic way. “You’ve singlehandedly slain enough of my brethren, and it ends once and for all today.” His fingers ran over the stitches of the sack. “As for this bizarre creation that has aided my enemies far too long, I shall destroy it. But first I will destroy you, as promised, one bit at a time, for the pleasure of my brethren. Kuurn.”