Venir removed his backpack and took out his helmet. “They’re getting bolder now. They’ve been directly attacking Royal outposts such as this. And right now, the Royals of the north seem to be leaving them to die.” He buckled the helmet on. “It’s sick. Men can’t even trust men in this day and age.”
Groaning, Nath dismounted. Fang in hand, he approached the fort. “Are you expecting company?”
Venir rapped his knuckles on the helmet. “Not if I greet them first. Stay back if you want.”
Sword resting on his shoulder, Nath followed the man and dog into the abandoned fort. The interior was nothing more than the busted remains of what had been. Dead men. No dead underlings. There were even horses picked clean to the hooves. He shielded his nose with the back of his hand. With his sword’s tip, he lifted up the remnant of a charred purple-and-silver banner with leaves in the stitching.
“A decent house,” Venir said with a shrug. “The Royals keep the trade routes clear toward the north and south with posts such as this. It was a tight network until the underlings took over Outpost Thirty-One. Now the Royals, high in their castles, have all but abandoned their men. Some still stay and fight, however. This was them. The brave.”
“We have our fair share of problems like this where I come from, but nothing quite like these underlings.” Nath slapped at a fly the size of his thumb on his neck. “And I swear there aren’t so many insects!”
“It’s not as bad in the Outlands. Just hotter. I prefer that climate.”
Nath’s nose crinkled. Bish had a gamut of foreign smells, but this one was new. He tightened his grip on his sword. Venir’s stride through the fort came to a halt, and he cocked his head to one side and poised his axe to swing. The breeze stopped. Chongo’s tail went stiff, and his large head hung low.
The ground shifted beneath Nath’s feet. Vibrations shuffled the loose dirt and pebbles. A green mist drifted up from the ground, covering his feet. The hair on his neck stood on end.
“Venir, what do you know of this?”
“Sorcery,” the warrior said, “with the stench of the underlings.”
The mist rose higher, like the rotting stench of the dead.
Nath started to cough.
Chongo began to howl.
In a moment, Nath’s eyes were covered and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. While he was stumbling forward and fighting for breath, tentacles erupted from the ground and seized his legs. “Guzan!”
CHAPTER 38
Hands behind his back, thumbs digging into his palms, Oran stood on the small black craft that skimmed quickly over the black waters of the Current. Aided by magic, the craft moved quicker than usual. Underlings had more time than most, living hundreds and in some cases more than a thousand years. Now time was pressing, and he wanted to get as far away from the likes of Lords Catten and Verbard as he could. He’d never hear the end of it. Not from them. Now he’d failed at the minute task of killing the pest called the Darkslayer.
“I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life.”
Moving faster than a thundering horse, the craft cruised beyond the great forest and toward the jungles near Two-Ten City. Unlike most underlings, Oran had allies outside the Underland realm.
The craft came to a halt on a soft bank in the darkness. Cloak dragging, Oran wound through a long network of caves until he emerged outside beneath the light of the moons above. He made his way through the shadow-filled black, pushing aside branches through thickets and trudging into a deep ravine. Just as he hit bottom, a knot of people far bigger than he surrounded him. One, a gnoll packed with muscle in his neck and shoulders, carried a sword big enough for two men to hold.
The underling held up his hand, filled with red, glowing fingernails, and spoke in the common tongue. “It is I, Oran. I need a great service performed.”
The gnoll stuck his sword in the ground. “Speak it.”
“Recently,” you dog-faced fool, “in Two-Ten City there was a red-haired menace called Nath. His arms had black scales like those on a snake. Find him. Kill him and everyone he is with. I want his head. I want all of their heads.” Oran tossed a bag into the gnoll’s chest.
The gnoll poured out the contents in his hand. The others, orcs and men, gasped. Gemstones twinkled like color-filled stars in his hands.
“There is more than that to come if you can follow through. Use that as a bounty.”
“Bounty?”
“I’m not toying around with this!” The tips of Oran’s fingers glowed with a deep-red fire. “You will do as I say or I will bury you. All of you!”
Wide eyed, the gnoll and company took a half step back. “It will be as you say, Oran. A bounty.”
“Yes,” he hissed. “A bounty. I want every rogue and cutthroat from Two-Ten and beyond hunting this man down!”
The gnoll nodded. “It will be done as you say.”
Oran’s hand flashed with red light, and a bolt of fire shot from his hand into the heavily armored half-orc guard, who was missing half his arm. The body shook and trembled. The hair sizzled and decayed. A smoking corpse in red-hot metal was all that remained.
Snarling, Oran said, “It had better be.”
CHAPTER 39
Spiders! Bigger than Chongo, hairy black arachnids erupted from the ground and latched onto Nath’s legs. He pierced one in the body, drawing forth an eerie screech. In a flash of steel, he hacked into another, splitting through its fang-filled face. Dark green gobbets splattered all over and burned through his clothes and into his skin.
“Argh!” Nath cried out.
“Sand spiders!” roared a thunderous voice above the charge of the scurrying masses. “Their venom is lethal!” Heavy chopping sounds cut through the hovering mist. A spider’s leg whizzed by Nath’s head. “Don’t just stand there. Kill them!”
Lungs filled with choking gas, eyes stinging, Nath fought on. The spiders surged from all directions, erupting from the mist and spitting poison at his legs. He stuck Fang in one’s face, ripped out Dragon Claw from the pommel, and gored another.
Zzzlip!
Webbing tangled up his feet, and a hard tug dropped him to the ground. “Sultans of Sulfur!”
Zzzlip!
More strands of webbing pinned his arms to his sides, cutting off his chopping motion. A spider scurried up and sank its teeth into his arm. Ahead, another spider, bigger than two, was hauling Nath toward its mouth. It was a big, black-haired thing, its bulk ghastly. Red insect eyes had a hungry glow in them, and the chopping teeth that filled its mouth sizzled with dripping venom.
Nath kicked it as best he could. The webbing held his efforts at bay. “Get off me, scary thing!”
Venir emerged from the mist, axe high in the air and coming down fast.
Chop! Chop! Chop!
The blade splattered the insect into twitching legs and goo.
“I forgot to mention the silk they spin.” Venir sliced the webs that tethered Nath’s legs with one of the razor edges of his huge axe. He gored the smaller spider with the axe’s spike and flicked it off Nath’s arm. “At least now you know.”
Using Dragon Claw, Nath started sawing the webbing from his arm.
“I wouldn’t try that, it will stick.” Venir hacked down a charging spider.
Coughing, Nath continued to cut. His blade’s keen edge sliced the webbing away. “Seems my steel’s as sharp as yours, eh?”
Venir pushed out his palm and said in a low voice, “This is underling magic. The fiends are near.”
Climbing back to his feet, blades ready to fight, Nath replied, “Then what are we waiting for?”
A bright bolt of lightning ripped through the mist and slammed into Nath’s chest.
Sssraz!
Nath was lifted from his feet and knocked back into the leftover goo from a spider Venir had just killed. Chest burning and teeth tasting like metal, Nath said with a groan, “I need to get that breastplate back, Venir.”
The fierce warrior was gone, but
angry chitters and battle cries erupted from beyond. Covered in spider goo and wracked with pain, Nath forced himself to his feet, braining an oncoming spider with his sword on his way to the sounds of battle.
Chop! Hack! Slice! Urk!
As he staggered through the dilapidated fort, the mist started to lift.
“Over here,” said a rugged voice.
Turning his head and shoulders, Nath found Venir nearby. Three underling fighters lay dead at his feet. The fourth was impaled to the ground by Brool.
“That’s the last of them,” said Venir. “This one here in the robes called the lightning. Stings like a hive of bees, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve been stung worse,” Nath replied. He rolled his neck and sighed. “I need to get out of here.”
Holding the underling corpse fast with his boot, Venir tore his axe from the body and wiped the blades on its robes. “And go where?”
It was a good question that Nath didn’t have an answer to. His best bet was to track down the underling Oran. After all, he was the one who had cast the spell that brought him in on the Bish side. Corzan had cast the other portion, on the Nalzambor side.
But Nath’s gut told him that what he needed was improbable at best. He needed help. “We know these underlings use magic. Are there others aside from them that do?”
“There are, but most of them are Royals that hole up in the bigger cities. I can’t say I know many. Strange they are. Aloof and creepy, at least the ones I’ve met.”
Nath scratched below his eye with his pinky nail and stared up at the bright sky with a sigh. The bright-orange suns hung like brilliant sunflowers in the foreign sky. His heart sank. “You know, there is only one sun and one moon where I am from.”
Venir peered above. “Sounds cold. One would think you’d have fur on your arms instead of scales.”
“It’s a fertile land with harsh winters and mild summers. The mountain peaks are always frozen. But sunrises and sunsets aren’t so devastating to the skin. Most of the land is lush and full of less temperamental greenery.”
Venir slung his axe over his shoulder. “Sounds like you need a trip to the Red Clay Forest. Plenty of pretty plants in there, and I suppose that place would take to you.” He reached down and rubbed Chongo’s neck. “Look, Nath. I don’t know where to tell you to start on this journey, but if you want to seek out the underlings that voodooed you, I can help.”
“I appreciate it. Just give me a moment, eh? I need time to think.” He glanced at the spider grime coated on his arms. “Yech.”
“Sand spiders. Pretty nasty, eh?” Venir eyed one of the eight-legged fiends. “Your friends the underlings sometimes ride on them.”
“They ride on the backs of bugs?” Nath said, not hiding his disgust.
“Just like horses. Up walls and under bridges. It’s a creepy sight that chills your bones.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s different, but there are plenty of enemies such as this where I come from.”
“Tell me.”
“Wurmers. Eh, I guess to you they’d be giant black lizards. Some have wings and fly through the air. Many breathe fire, too.” He didn’t go on about it. There just didn’t seem to be much of a point. “That’s just one of many frightening things.” He limped toward the deteriorating fort’s exit. The spider venom on his leg still burned, and his body was far from healed up from the chest wound he had suffered. His eyes landed on Venir’s horse. “Great Guzan!”
The horse lay dead on the ground with a sand spider sucking on its neck.
Nath stormed over and hacked the spider into goo. Covered in sweat, he dropped his sword and bent over with his hands on his knees, panting for breath. He turned his chin toward the approaching Venir.
“You look frustrated,” said the younger warrior. “Don’t be. Bish happens all the time.”
“Do you ever get used to it?” Nath asked.
“You don’t have a choice.”
***
The Clash of Heroes: Nath Dragon Meets the Darkslayer, continues in 2016 …
***
Comments from Craig
What’s up? First off, I wanted to try something new and do a crossover and have some fun. Normally, I don’t take risks per se, as I am always trying to knock out a current series of books, and I don’t want to mess up my writing timelines.
I’m pretty particular about staying on my schedule so I can feed you underlings your stories. I really had to force myself to write this one, so I had the cover done first, sent it out to a few readers to see what you thought, and Slice! Crack! Pow! My schedule was turned upside down. The Crossover has arrived.
So, my goal was to do just one book, but when I started writing and having fun, I realized I didn’t want it to end. Nope. I just couldn’t end it here. So many writers finish off stories with a wave of a wand, and I can’t stand that. Getting home can’t be easy for Nath. Hence, he’s stuck in the worst world of all: Bish.
That said, I hope this story delivered and that I didn’t confuse any other story timelines. I had to be careful in my execution, but I wanted to bring back some old characters because I like them. In particular, The Darkslayer readers will remember them.
As a reminder in case you didn’t read in the beginning, Venir, the Darkslayer, is younger in this story. It takes place before his first book begins, Wrath of the Royals. It’s years earlier. As for Nath Dragon, he is at this stage in Series 2, Tail of the Dragon, sometime after Book 2. I say that because book three wasn’t written yet when this story was completed on 11/5/2015. Man, I hope someone is reading this in 2025. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Hang in there. Part 2 will be coming soon enough, and who knows, it might even turn into THREE parts at most.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Halloran resides with his family outside of his hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. When he isn’t entertaining mankind, he is seeking adventure, working out, or watching sports. To learn more about him, go to: www.thedarkslayer.com or www.craighalloran.com.
Other Works by Craig Halloran
The Darkslayer Series 1
Wrath of the Royals (Book 1)
Blades in the Night (Book 2)
Underling Revenge (Book 3)
Danger and the Druid (Book 4)
Outrage in the Outlands (Book 5)
Chaos at the Castle (Book 6)
The Darkslayer Series 2
Bish and Bone (Book 1)
Black Blood (Book 2)
Red Death (Book 3)
Lethal Liaisons (Book 4)
Torment and Terror (Book 5)
The Chronicles of Dragon Series
The Hero, the Sword and the Dragons (Book 1)
Dragon Bones and Tombstones (Book 2)
Terror at the Temple (Book 3)
Clutch of the Cleric (Book 4)
Hunt for the Hero (Book 5)
Siege at the Settlements (Book 6)
Strife in the Sky (Book 7)
Fight and the Fury (Book 8)
War in the Winds (Book 9)
Finale (Book 10)
The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2
Tail of the Dragon
Claws of the Dragon
Scales of the Dragon
Teeth of the Dragon
Quest of the Dragon
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files
Smoke Rising
I Smell Smoke
Where There’s Smoke
Smoke on the Water
Smoke and Mirrors
Holy Smoke
Up in Smoke
Smoke ’Em
Smoke Out
Zombie Impact Series
Zombie Day Care: Book 1
Zombie Rehab: Book 2
Zombie Warfare: Book 3
Connect with him at:
Facebook: The Darkslayer Report by Craig
Twitter: Craig Halloran
www.CraigHalloran.com
ig, Clash of Heroes: Nath Dragon meets The Darkslayer
Clash of Heroes: Nath Dragon meets The Darkslayer Page 13
