“Me? No.” She leaned over and straightened his cap. She kissed him on the lips. “I can’t wait to show you how grateful I am.”
He ran his hands up her thighs and squeezed her rump. “Why wait?”
“Because the wait will be worth it.”
Ka-boom!
Melegal sprang toward the tiny window and pulled open the shutters. One of the wizard towers was burning. Another huge ball of flame brightened the night sky and blasted into the tower. The entire city shook.
Ka-booom!
The magnificent piece of architecture teetered and fell. Huge clouds of smoke filled the streets. Cries of alarm erupted from once-sleeping throats. Melegal closed the shutters.
“What did you do that for?” Jasper said.
“Because the view is horrible.”
A hard knock sounded on his apartment door.
“A moment, Zurth,” Melegal said, jumping into his trousers and stuffing his feet into his boots. He slugged down his coffee and buckled his sword-belt on. He looked at Jasper. “Open the door.”
She stepped across the tiny apartment and twisted back two dead bolts and opened the door.
Zurth stood in the doorway, eyes wide, big, and ranging. Towering behind him, the uniquely svelte half-orc, Slom, waited. “What’s going on, boss?” Zurth said.
“The sky is falling. It’s falling all around us.” He took Jasper by the hand. “To the Nest.”
CHAPTER 4
“It’s wrong. Bloody well wrong,” said a Bloodhound named Foxmire, a heavyset man. He wiped the sweat from his clammy brow. Corrin and he were posted in one of the castle turrets, manning the ballista. It was well after nightfall. “That’s three more this month already.”
Corrin leaned against the framed window of the turret house, sharpening his blade on a whetstone. It made slow scraping sounds. Below, the front gates of Castle Bloodhound were being opened. Good Bloodhound men, accused of treason, were being banished from their life-long home. Insanity or greed. Sometimes hard to tell the difference.
“Corrin,” Foxmire said to him, blinking, “you’re an outsider but family now. What do you make of all this?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I keep my tongue as silent as my mind.”
The puffy man’s neck rolled. He blinked repeatedly. “Aye, I see. I see.” He wiped his hands on the sides of his trousers and took his place back behind the ballista. “But for the Bish of it! No one is talking about anything. And we’re talkers. Especially me. Not to mention I can’t sing anymore.”
“You can still sing,” Corrin said, putting away his knife. “Just make sure you don’t end up singing with a noose around your neck.”
Foxmire shook his head. “I’m beginning to think that might not be so bad. Better than being fed to the underlings.”
The front gate groaned, and its gaping iron maw started to open. Bloodhounds bearing torches formed an aisle leading outside into the black streets. The lampposts were no longer lit in the streets, making for a darker night. Three men, stout and shackled, were marched at spearpoint outside of the front gate.
“Those are my brothers,” Foxmire said. “Poor bastards.”
The gate started to close. Children sobbed. Women wailed. These men had families. They all did. But treason, or the slightest murmuring of it, was not tolerated. Not by Lord Grom. Corrin’s gaze glided over to the bearish figure standing at the battlements that overlooked the wall. He was surrounded by three men and a dozen dogs. Huddled at his side, Lorda Almen stood in dark robes with the wind in her hair, shivering. Lord Grom lowered his paw on her shoulder and pulled her into his side. Corrin sucked his teeth. It’s going to be murder trying to murder that maniacal mongrel.
The gate closed, and the courtyard fell silent. Outside the wall, one of the banished Bloodhounds reached his shackled hands high in the air and pleaded, “Lord Grom, mercy! Please!” The other two Bloodhounds pulled down the man’s arms. He fought them off. “Please! I’m not guilty! I swear it by my dog!”
“He needs to shut his mouth,” Foxmire said. “He’s only drawing a swifter death to himself.”
“A swift death would be mercy,” Corrin said, eyeing the streets. His blood went cold. Along the walls of the buildings, something scurried. They’re dead already.
“He should give them a fighting chance,” Foxmire said. “They’re men, unlike those vile vermin they’re being fed to.”
“Aye.”
Two of the banished Bloodhounds sprinted down the street. Their shackles rattled on their arms and legs. Driven by fear, they plunged into the shadowy darkness and disappeared. A sharp cry ripped through the streets. “Aaaiiieee!”
“Please, Lord Grom. My commander! My liege!” The last remaining man dropped to his knees. “Save me!”
Lord Grom didn’t budge. A pair of underlings riding on the backs of spiders crept toward the kneeling man on silent legs. Lorda Almen turned her head into Grom’s side. The kneeling man turned and rose up on two legs. He took one last pleading glance back at Lord Grom. The Lord turned his back and started to walk inside the castle. The banished man sprang into a full sprint.
Spider webbing shot out from the insects. Zzzzit! Zzzzit! The man was jerked from his feet and smacked hard onto the ground.
Click. Corrin whirled around. Foxmire had unlocked the ballista and aimed it at the underlings on the other side of the wall. Corrin pushed the man off the pedestal and secured the weapon. “Are you mad?” He pressed a blade to the man’s throat. “You’d have a hundred bugs crawl inside here and kill us! All over three men. Gather the wits you have left, fool!”
“B-But—”
Corrin pressed the blade in harder, drawing blood.
“S-Sorry.”
“I like you,” Corrin said, removing his knife, “but I hate stupid, understand?”
Rubbing his neck, Foxmire nodded.
“Aaaaiiiiieeeee!”
Outside the wall, the man had fallen. A pair of underlings with glittering blue eyes hacked into him. Their curved blades rose and fell with bloody precision. Spattered in blood, they chittered with glee and chopped off the man’s head. One held it up, swung it around and around, and hurled it high over the wall.
The mortified women and children screamed.
The underlings strolled back into the shadows with mimicking laughs.
I still can’t decide who I’d rather kill: Lord Grom or those fiends. Corrin’s fingers twitched on his sword pommels. He felt eyes on him and turned. Lorda was standing inside the archway one level below. They locked eyes. Her expression was sour. He nodded. She left.
***
“It’s preservation,” Lorda said inside Grom’s ear. Inside her quarters, she rubbed out the knots on Grom’s brawny shoulders. You’re such a hairy beast. A disgusting hairy beast. “You’ve done what must be done.”
Grom clenched his fists. “Why don’t they understand that? What I do, I do for their own good. All of their own good.” He swallowed down a goblet of wine and wiped his forearm across his mouth. “Yet they turn against me.”
You turn them against yourself, fool. Rather, I turn them against the fool. “They will thank you for it once it’s all over.”
“You keep saying that.”
And I’ll keep saying it until you’re convinced. I’ve already convinced you you’re a tiger in bed, when it couldn’t be the more otherwise, you fat sot. “Why don’t you lie down so I can walk on your back, hmmm? Your mighty frame is more than my tiny hands can handle.”
Knees popping, he rose from the chair, lumbered to the bed, and collapsed on the mattress face first. “Put another log on the fire, will you?”
She kicked her way through the dogs lounging on the floor and tossed another log on the fire. She dusted her hands off and turned and glared at the network of hounds between her and the bed. Mangy curs. You’ll all be underling soup once your master is gone.
CHAPTER 5
“Yes, Mistress?” Eep said, buzzing along Trinos’s side. His
clawed fingers clutched in and out. “How may I be of service?”
Trinos sat upright on Oran’s couch, running her hands over its plush red velvet cushions. The underlings had odd tastes, loving the beautiful just as much as the horrible. Comfort had a place in their diabolical consciences. Behind her, on either side, the Nameless Two stood silent. Alert. Ready. Nothing had passed in Oran’s lair since she brought them here.
“You can still find him?” she asked of Eep.
“Yesss.”
“Hmmph.” She took a breath and let out a sigh. She’d been patient in her search for Scorch. It had taken weeks, but now she had him, thanks to Eep. Scorch knew many things, but he didn’t know more than her when it came to the world that she created. The mystic realm, an invisible place, where Eep traveled and could spy on all things, gave her the edge she needed. When the time came, she would strike and end Scorch, the Meddler, once and for all. She patted the cushions with her hand. “Sit.”
Eep’s orbish eye widened a bit. He drifted over, black wings buzzing. The wings came to a stop, and he plopped onto the cushions.
Trinos caressed the bumps on his hard skin with her fingers. “You are a gruesome little thing, aren’t you?”
The imp cocked his head.
She touched his hawkish nose. “Such a terror, but amusing.”
“Eep go kill something now. Make funny.” He wrung his hands. His long red tongue snaked out of his mouth. He eyed the Nameless Two. “Yes?”
Trinos could tell that her presence did little to curb the appetite of the bloodthirsty minion. After all, he’d been created to hunt and destroy. The deadly familiar almost made her feel guilty for holding him back. It continued to stir the conflict within her. Bish, her entertaining world, wasn’t so entertaining when the innocent filled the lands with their blood. She needed to stop it, but she had long ago realized that she didn’t have the power to do that anymore. She’d given that up. The only thing she could do was stop Scorch from taking over her world. Maybe take a few more underlings down with him.
All of this fighting is exhausting. But it’s not boring. “Eep, show me where he is. Let me see.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Blink.
Eep’s sight was hers. He raced through a colorful mystic realm of fog and magic. Below him, the world of Bish zipped by until the imp came to a stop. Scorch hovered in the night sky, miles away from the City of Three. He was bright eyed, with a mane of golden hair. His robes were white and accented in deep blue. He was a perfect specimen. He was talking.
Behind him, another man, a long-faced warrior wearing a suit of chainmail, floated. Eyes as big as saucers, he stared at the ground hundreds of feet below.
Scorch stopped speaking and began to scan the sky with eyes that glowed with yellow fire. He tilted his chin right at Eep.
A shiver went up Trinos’s arm, standing the fine hairs on end. Come back!
Blink!
“Did he see you?” she said with shortened breath.
“Sensed me, perhaps.”
She rubbed the chill out of her shoulders. I need to be more careful.
***
Scorch glanced over at the soldier suspended near his side. The winds were tearing through the man’s scraggly beard. “Did you see that… what do you call yourself again?”
The man swallowed, forced himself to look over, and said, “Cappy. I’m Cappy.”
“Its best that you don’t look down,” Scorch said, peering into the clouds. “The longer you look, the more likely you’ll fall. Now, did you see anything?” He cocked his head. “Of course not, you were looking down.” He brushed his tawny locks from his eyes. Something had been there. A wink. A twinkle. “Hrmph.” He pointed at the city below his feet. The tallest tower was still hundreds of feet below. He said to Cappy, “Yonder.”
“Yonder?”
“It’s an expression. Please, take a gander at your fair city. It’s about to light up the night.”
A monstrous fireball streaked through the sky. One of the tall towers erupted in a flash of light. It became a gargantuan torch. It crumbled and fell.
“Listen for it,” Scorch said, cupping his ear. The screaming and wailing began, soft and distant, yet clearly discernable to his keen ear. “Can you hear that?”
Cappy nodded. He wiped his sweat-soaked face. “Did you do that?”
“No, the underlings did. They are such a merciless breed. Are you hungry?”
“What?”
“Hungry?”
Cappy vomited.
Scorch frowned and shook his head. “I suppose you’ll be hungry in a bit. Cappy is what you call yourself?”
“Aye.” Cappy squeezed his eyes shut and spit the grit out of his mouth. “Can I please go down now? What do you want with me, anyway?”
“You’re a sordid man, Cappy. I like it. Do you like pickles?”
“I suppose.” Cappy popped one eye open.
“What about jig? Have you ever had jig?”
“That’s the swill they make in Hohm, I believe. I’ve been there before.”
“Ah, well perhaps we have something in common. Did you ever meet a fellow named Morley Sickle?”
“No.” Cappy closed his eyes again.
“Just keep your eyes on me, Cappy. You’ll be fine. Did you ever meet a gal named Darleen?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
Scorch rubbed his lip. “I don’t suppose you’re friends with any underlings either.”
“No. I’m not friends with much of anybody.” He clutched his stomach.
“Why is that?”
“People don’t like me much.”
“How come?”
“Because I don’t like them.” Cappy tried to walk toward Scorch but went nowhere. “Please let me down.”
“Do you like me?”
“It’s hard to like someone who terrifies you.”
CHAPTER 6
Muscles bulging, Venir lifted a stone half his size onto his shoulder and heaved it aside. Two children climbed out of the hole and scurried away. Nearby, Brak carried a wooden post and wedged it between the busted wood of a crushed building. There were voices pleading for help inside. He put his weight down on the lever, lifting part of the building and opening a foot-wide crease. A woman started shoving her toddler outside. Venir scooped the girl up.
“Hurry, woman,” Brak said in a strained voice.
Another child crawled out, followed by another and another. They cried and screamed for their mother.
“Be silent,” Venir growled. “We’ll get her.”
The air was thick with dust, and what was left of the area was covered in sediment. The tower had crushed everything nearby. Thousands must have died in the night.
“Is that all, lady?” Brak said. His face reddened.
The mother crawled out of the hole. The fleshy woman was scraped up, and several bad cuts showed through her torn gown. “Thank you! Thank you!”
The wood groaned just as Brak eased off the lever. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes.
“Well done,” Venir said, handing Brak a crying toddler. “Look, you made a new friend.”
“Thanks.” Brak stared at the screaming child. “Uh, lady, will you please take your baby?”
The woman gathered all of her children up and led them away.
Brak dusted off his hands. “Now what?”
“Keep working,” Venir said. “I don’t sense any underlings.”
They worked hours past dawn, digging bodies dead and alive from the rubble before they headed back to the Magi Roost. The doors and windows were boarded up. They went around back and knocked. “It’s Venir!”
Joline opened the door. “Thank Bish, you’re alive!” She rushed up and hugged Brak, then Venir.
“You didn’t really think I’d be dead, did you?” Venir said, removing Helm, grabbing a tankard, and filling it with ale. He quaffed it down in one gulp.
“I guess I should know by now that it would take more than a Wizard’s Tower fal
ling on you.” She pinched his cheek. “I’ll fetch you some stew.”
“Come on,” he said to Brak with a nod. He meandered out of the kitchen and onto the tavern’s main floor. No fires burned. The stonework was cold. The mystic twinkling lights from the chandeliers were dim. He set Helm on the table. The chair groaned when he sat down. Brak’s did the same. “I bet you’re hungry.”
“It’s bad, but it’s been worse.” Brak used his finger to wipe the dust off the table. “Everything’s going in the slatter, isn’t it?”
Venir cocked a brow. “Well, it isn’t all in the slatter yet.”
“Sure seems like it.”
“Don’t fret. You’re doing well, Son,” Venir added. He felt eyes on his back and glanced over his shoulder. Jubilee stood on the balcony with baby Erin in her arms. “Aw, see, Brak? Things are all the brighter.” He stood up and spread out his arms and spoke in a gentle voice. “Erin, come to Father.”
Jubilee started to walk her down. Erin started to cry.
“Set her down,” Venir said.
“But—”
“Just do it. You’re making her mad.”
With a sigh, Jubilee set Erin down on her feet. The toddler wrapped her tiny hands on the rails of the stairwell and began her descent down the steps one at a time.
“She’s doing it,” Brak said with a big smile. “She’s really doing it. Come on, Erin!”
Joline bustled in with two large bowls of steaming stew and a loaf of bread. She noticed Erin. “Jubilee! You pick up that baby!”
“She’s fine, Joline,” Venir said. “Let her go.”
“You men make my heart explode.” She set the food on the table and began chewing on her nails.
One step at a time and a few minutes later, Erin reached the bottom and teetered right for Venir. He scooped her up in the nook of his massive arm and tickled her belly. She giggled while he swung her around. “That’s a good baby! You’re growing so well.”
The Darkslayer: Lethal Liaisons (Series 2, Book 4) (Bish and Bone Series 2) Page 2
