He shook his fist at the giant and screamed, “I live!”
The giant roared and rotated back for another swing.
“Bish Almighty,” he said, realizing that his tongue, along with the rest of him, had lost its cushiony vitality. He backpedaled, stumbled over a rough stone, and fell. He tried to scramble to his feet only to fall again. Time to die!
“Mood!” he yelled, but he knew already the Blood Ranger wouldn’t come. “Cass!” But it was too late. The giant leered down on him and swung.
***
There was noise: wails of battle, mountainous bellows and the sound of rock and bones being shattered. Mood struggled to rise to his feet with the bitter taste of a mouthful of blood and dirt, which wasn’t so bad for a dwarf. Especially a Blood Ranger no less. Still, his vision was blurry, and everything was a haze, and he couldn’t tell if he walked or ran as he reeled toward the sounds of battle. The giant who had smashed him like a fly was dead, but the damage had been done. Mood, born and bred to fight, had been in some bad scraps before, but this last one got him.
“Eethum!” he yelled, but it came out in more of a garbled sound.
Ahead was another giant, bigger than the rest of the hill giants, one he didn’t remember seeing before. The black bearded dwarves hurled spear after spear into its legs, but the giant didn’t slow down. They looked like grim faced puppies attacking a man. The giant was big, with muscular trapezoids up to his pierced ears. He swung a hammer like a well-trained soldier, each blow ripping the rocks from the ground and sending Mood's brethren flying.
“Retreat! Retreat!” he yelled, but not one dwarven fighter turned.
The giant snatched one fallen dwarf from the ground, clenched his leg in his mouth, and shook him like a dog.
“No! Blasted giant!” Mood said, fighting to regain his feet.
The giant dwarves unleashed another assault of missiles into the giant’s face as their comrade kicked and punched within the monster's mouth.
The hammer came down, crushing the nearest dwarf to a bloody pulp and shaking the ground. As Mood ran, it felt like the inner fiber of his being was tearing apart. He didn’t notice his clavicle sticking out from his skin or the ribs jutting out underneath his arms or that his face was blackening underneath his bushy blood-red beard. All he knew was if that giant didn’t die soon, he and his brethren would.
He banged his axes together and yelled as loud as he could.
“Come on, Giant!”
The monstrous man stopped and spit the broken dwarf from his mouth.
“That’s right! I’m talking to you!” he said as the wind picked up and billowed his beard.
Another sharp clang of battle axes came together as Eethum appeared from underneath a pile of rubble, caked from head to toe in dirt and blood.
The remaining black bearded fighters backed up, dragging their comrades out of the way. The giant stuck its chest out and laughed. It looked more like a man than the others, cunning like a hunter, whereas the typical hill giant was more brute than brains. Mood now realized this wasn’t a common hill giant that mixed with the ogres. This giant was something else: the real thing he’d rarely seen before. The last time he battled a full bred, he’d barely survived. No doubt this battle wouldn't be any different.
“AH … BLOOD RANGERS! HA! HA! HA! WHAT A PLEASURE IT WILL BE TO KILL YOU BOTH,” the giant said in a voice that was commanding and full of power. “YOU LITTLE INSECTS WILL NEVER LEARN, WILL YOU?” The giant was twirling its massive battle hammer around like a stick. “I AM TUNDOOR … HA-HA-HA … AND I’LL BE CRUSHING YOUR HEADS!” It swung its hammer over his head and slammed it into the ground with incredible force. The ground exploded, knocking Mood and Eethum from their feet as a billow of dusty smoke rose, thick as soup.
“HA-HA-HA!” the giant’s booming voice mocked. “I CAN SEE YOU! SMELL YOU! AND HEAR YOUR DYING BREATHS!”
A sliver of uncertainty raced through Mood’s spine. The smoke was confusing. One moment the giant was there, the next moment it wasn’t. He could usually track a giant blindfolded, but at the moment he couldn’t sniff out a single thing at all. Either his senses had been damaged, or the giant was using some of its tricks.
Eh? he thought a split second before he dove to the ground.
The giant’s hammer whooshed over his head.
Mood rolled left and kept going. It felt like a bag of knives was rattling inside his chest. He spat his blood into the ground.
The giant’s foot came down inches from his head.
He struck, axes cleaving through skin and deep into muscle.
“OW! THAT STINGS, LITTLE RANGER! HA-HA-HA! TUNDOOR HEALS FAST! YOU’LL NEED A BIGGER AXE THAN THAT!”
CHAPTER 5
He was told his old room, the one he, Lefty, Melegal and Venir had shared, was now occupied by a brood of sordid men. It left him empty. Georgio stood on the stairs looking down inside the Drunken Octopus and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. It wasn’t the same. The roughshod tavern’s atmosphere was as dead as the candles on the chandeliers. He was used to more activity mid day. Instead, he, Mikkel and Billip were greeted with hard stares from faces he didn’t recall. It was as if the tavern had received a makeover. Mikkel’s broad face was smiling as he shoved Georgio towards the bar.
“Move it, Boy. I’m as thirsty as a fish on a hook.”
“Aye,” Billip said, brushing past him with a greedy look in his eye, “let’s eat, drink, and get a room.” He cracked his knuckles in front of him. “And let me do the talking. I’m not paying coin if I can find some fool to do it for me.”
“Fine,” Georgio said, frowning and taking a seat at the bar. His stomach rumbled. “They have good stew, but the bread is always stale.”
“Perfect!” Mikkel said.
One table at a time, he scanned the room. Not a face was familiar. But something was. His heart almost stopped as he locked eyes with a man in a wide brimmed hat. McKnight! His regrown fingers tingled as he stared at the man whose hat was the only thing that resembled the Detective. This man had a shaggy head of hair spilling out from underneath the brim, and there wasn’t a single tooth left inside the mouth of his sagging face.
“Here,” Mikkel said, shoving a mug of ale into his hand. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen an underling.”
Georgio shook his head and took a sip of the bitter ale. “Nah … just thought I saw that guy who chopped my finger off, is all.”
“If Melegal chopped him up and fed him to the pigs, then I’m pretty sure you’re not going to ever be seeing him again.” Mikkel patted his shoulder, looking around. “So this is where Venir used to stay, huh? No surprise, but you’d think there’d at least be some pretty girls.”
Georgio scrunched his face up as he looked around some more. He'd never spent much time on the main floor. Someone his age wasn’t allowed, but he’d changed. He took another drink. He felt like more of a man now. A sad one that missed his friend, Venir. He was hoping he’d see him here.
“Say, Sam,” Billip said to the pock-faced barkeep, “tell me what you’ve heard about this Blond Haired Butcher? What’s the bounty up to now?”
Georgio remained facing the fireplace on the other side of the bar. It had always blazed with a big orange fire, but now it was filled with long dead ashes. Beside it was Melegal’s table, now occupied by the men who had taken over the room upstairs. They slammed their fists on the table and guffawed over a bunch of senseless jokes. A few meaty women kept them company, and they had no shame when it came to keeping the men’s attention. Georgio had brushed shoulders with the leader while passing down the stairs. Jeb. That’s the name Melegal had said. Georgio laughed at the thought of Melegal boxing him. I wish I could have seen that.
“The City Watch is offering a thousand gold for this man’s head,” the barkeep said, smoking a cigar and twisting the water from a rag.
“A thousand gold!” Billip exclaimed. “For one measly man? Pah, that’s a bunch of lies. Last I heard,
it was a hundred.” Billip twisted the hairs under his chin. “Still, a hundred or a thousand is a lot of money. I could live well off that. For a while, anyway.”
Mikkel clonked his empty tankard on the table.
“Another,” he said, twisting his large frame in the stool towards Billip. “One hundred or one thousand, Billip, it would all slip through your fingers as easily as sand in a grate. You’ve never kept a hoard longer than a month, I’d say.”
Billip rattled a sack of coins in front of Mikkel’s face and said, “I’ve still got more coin than you. Now tell us, Sam,” he slid a few coins across the bar, “you know something else, don’t you? I can tell by the look in your eye. I’ve owned a tavern myself, you know.”
Georgio locked eyes for a moment with Jeb, the man across the room who was whispering something into the ear of one of his comrades. Jeb, a stout man with a brawny build underneath his jerkin, seemed like just the kind of person looking for a fight. Something about the man’s coarse black hair, mustache and sideburns didn’t sit well with Georgio as he watched a larger man, almost as big a Mikkel, make his way across the tavern and take a seat at the bar. He didn’t like the look of that man, either. He turned around and folded his hands across the bar.
“I’ve heard the man can’t be killed,” the barkeep said, “and he’s got a scar that runs straight down the middle of his face.”
Georgio’s blood ran cold. Tonio!
CHAPTER 6
“I’ve seen such man in here, months ago. A tall one, as tall as you,” he said, nodding towards Mikkel, “came in here and stabbed a troubadour through the back. The blood’s still on the table. Things haven’t been quite right around here since then, if you ask me.” He refilled Mikkel’s tankard and pointed at Georgio. “Not since that boy’s big friend left, that is. Venir. I sorta miss having that big lout around here. He kept things interesting, if not even friendly, so to speak.”
Mikkel and Billip looked at each other, then at Georgio.
“What?” he said, trying to hide his trembling hands.
“I think that man, whatever sort of evil he may be, has a vendetta on your friend. Why else would he be going around and killing all the yellow-haired people? He’s even killed members of the City Watch. People have seen him do it. The urchins say he lives in the sewers. I’ve not seen a yellow hair in this tavern in weeks, if not months.”
Georgio swallowed hard and rubbed his throat. Maybe that’s what Melegal’s warning was about. “Go to Three and Live. Stay in Bone and die.” But Tonio wouldn’t be after him. He’d be after Venir, and no one had any idea where Venir was. Georgio slumped in his seat.
“Ewww!” Mikkel said, “I’m not going into any sewers, Billip. Let’s drop this nonsense and go find Nikkel. We haven’t even checked outside the wall yet.”
“Quit nagging me, will you? We’ll look for your boy then. It’d just be better if I had some additional booty, is all. Besides, I’m beginning to like it here. Reminds me of the Orc’s Elbow.”
“Stay if you want,” Mikkel said, poking Billip in the chest, “but me and Georgio will go.”
“What?” Billip cocked an eye and looked over his shoulder. The large man from Jeb’s group was walking away with something cupped in his hand. He took a quick look at Mikkel and said, “That big bastard just lifted my purse.”
“Serves you right.”
Billip flung his tankard into the back of the man’s head. The man crashed head first into a table, Billip’s coins spilling everywhere.
Georgio jumped from his stool while men and women erupted from Jeb’s table. He could hear blades whisking from leather as they knocked over the tables and charged. Georgio stood brandishing a tankard in his hand. Mikkel right behind him.
“Don’t any of you dogs move, or I’ll skewer this mutt of yours,” Billip warned, holding a dagger at the man’s throat. “And you better get your foot off my gold,” he eyed one of the thugs, “or I’ll add some holes into you.”
“Back off!” Jeb ordered in a rugged voice. “Back off, I say.” His gang of men pressed behind him, a half dozen in all, one looking just as tough and ugly as the next. Jeb held out two knives with wide blades and brass pommels, waggled his wrist, and stuffed them behind his belt. The rest of his men followed suit. “Now let my man up, Little Man,” he added, folding his arms across his broad chest.
“I'll collect my coins first,” Billip said, flexing the muscles in his wiry forearm, “or this little man’s going to skin this big man like an antelope. Then comes you.” Billip nodded at Georgio. “Gather my coins before I let this lout up.”
Georgio shook his head, but obeyed.
Jeb snorted a laugh. “Is that so?” Jeb scratched at his side burns. “We’ll see about that. Tell you what, Little Man.”
Georgio looked up at Jeb and then noticed Billip's cheeks flaring. Billip wasn’t small for a man by any means, but Georgio had noticed that he now stood as tall as him. Even Kam was taller than the wiry archer. He scooped up all the coins he could find and retook his place beside Mikkel.
“That’s enough, Jeb.” The barkeep interrupted. “I’m not having any more of my customers run off. You’ve run off enough of them already.”
“Shut it, Sam, or I’ll see to it you’ll have no more customers at all. Now let my man up from the floor.”
Billip clonked the man’s head off the hardwood planks and rose to his feet. Georgio tossed his coin sack over, and Billip snatched it from the air. Jeb’s hands slipped back to his knives, and Mikkel was breathing down his neck as the tension began to thicken. Billip cracked his knuckles and popped his neck as he walked over and stood face to face with Jeb.
The brute looked down on him, sneered, and said, “Well?”
“Georgio, Mikkel, look at this man. He’s awful pretty for an orc, wouldn’t you say?”
“What?” Jeb said through clenched teeth.
“Knock him out, Jeb!”
“Jeb? You’re the man called Jeb? The Jeb. The best brawler in Bone?” Billip said, stepping back a half step and holding up his palms. “Oh, I’ve heard about you.”
“Yeah, what about it, Little Man?” Jeb replied with a half-smile.
Billip shrugged, his face turning from fearful to whimsical.
“I heard you beat an old woman with the iron gloves, but judging by your face, I’d say she got the best of you!”
“That’s it!” Jeb roared, ripping out his knife and lunging forward.
Billip caught him by the wrist and twisted the blade free in one fluid motion. Billip cracked his head on Jeb’s hard chin.
Georgio pounced on the man’s legs, sending the three of them sprawling to the floor.
“Stop!” The barkeep screamed.
Someone ripped Georgio free from Jeb’s legs, a brute of a man with arms of corded iron, and slung him into the nearest table.
“Bone!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet and wiping the blood from his nose
Billip and Jeb were hammering away at each other, one hard punch after the other. Mikkel picked one man up over his head and tossed him into the other three. The women screamed the vilest of things as they slung whatever they could find at Mikkel.
The Drunken Octopus was in a frenzy now, with everyone fighting for themselves. Georgio jumped onto the back of the nearest man and dragged him to the ground.
“CHALLENGE! CHALLENGE! CHALLENGE!”
Mikkel clocked a man in the jaw whose eyes rolled up in his head as he fell like a stone.
“I SAID CHALLENGE!”
Every one stopped, even Billip and Jeb loosened their grips around each other's throats, but their eyes were still hot with rage.
“You’ll be paying for all this damage, you fools!” Sam said, standing on the bar and holding a large club. “But there will be no more. No fighting in this place without a challenge. Now you, troublemakers,” he pointed to the three of them. “Get back over to the bar, or get out.”
Georgio slid off the man’s back and headed over. B
illip and Mikkel joined him.
“Jeb! You make your challenge. You three, that includes you, Boy, accept or go!”
“Fine by me,” Mikkel said, flexing his arms.
All eyes fell on Jeb. The burly man had his hands on his knees, sucking for air, when he pointed at Georgio.
“I challenge the lad then, Sam!”
“Coward!” Billip blurted out.
“I’ll say,” Mikkel added, holding Billip back.
The barkeep added, “Sorry, but he’s in this. Of course, you don’t have to accept. You can just go if you want to.”
Georgio felt every eye in the tavern upon him.
Mikkel laid his heavy hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.”
Georgio shoved his hand away.
“Yes, I do. I’m a man the same as the rest.” He pointed at Jeb. “What’s your challenge, Man with a Face Like a Goat's Behind?”
The women snickered, as well as a few of the men.
Jeb tucked his thumbs in his belt and laughed out loud as his disheveled men joined in. Georgio’s cheeks flushed red. His hand slipped to his sword.
“None of the lad,” Jeb said, teetering on his toes, “but I tell you what. I’ll let you draw from the cards. But, first you need to make a wager.” Jeb looked over at Billip and said, “That purse of yours will do.”
“Ah! Stupid Boy!” Billip said, eyeing the sack in his grip. “Fine, I’ll put it up, but you’re going to owe me, Georgio. He tossed his purse to the barkeep. “I’ll be shuffling those cards first, if you don’t mind.” He extended his hand.”
Jeb shrugged.
The tavern’s old vitality was rekindled. The fireplace was lit as a trove of new faces filled in from the streets. This was more like how Georgio remembered it. He took a long sip of ale. I wish Venir was here.
The Darkslayer: Book 05 - Outrage in the Outlands Page 3
