The mages scurried over to Brak and began stuffing the food into his mouth. They tried to feed the ogres too. The huge men sniffed the food and turned their faces away.
“Ogres are very contrary when it comes to fruit and vegetables,” Slim said, “but I have no complaint.” He opened his mouth wide.
“So are we being stuffed so that we can be cooked, wizard?” Jarla said. “What kind of deal did you make?”
“I bartered for your freedom,” Fogle said.
“At what price?”
“By relinquishing my own,” he said.
Jarla lifted her brows. “Hmph.”
“Fogle, no,” Jubilee whined. “Let them take Jarla. She’s as big a witch as they are.”
“I’m sorry, but Jarla doesn’t have anything to offer unless there is some sort of deep magic in her scowl.” He made his way to Jubilee and pointed to the vines that bound her hands. “Do this one first.”
A mage came over. His fingers brushed over the vines. They fell away.
Jubilee rubbed her wrists. “Thanks. So what’s going to happen now?”
“Assuming that everyone behaves themselves, the forest magi are going to lead all of you out of the forest.”
“Just like that?” Jarla said.
“Free her last,” Fogle said to the magi who’d started to loosen her bonds. “She a bit unstable at times.”
The magi freed everyone but Brak and Jarla. Brak continued to eat as fast as the magi could fill him. The strange men mumbled back and forth in astonishment.
Fogle said to Jarla, “No sudden moves. Just be on your way, but give me your word that there won’t be any more treachery between you and them.”
“I’m not giving you anything,” Jarla said. “How is Nightmare?”
“Fine.”
“She better be.”
Fogle gave a nod.
A mage freed Jarla.
Moments later, Brak was up on his feet. His eyes were clear again. He let out a loud belch that echoed inside the cave. “What happened?”
“Come on.” Fogle led them out of the cavern. Amid the greenery were dozens of forest magi. Their fingers were clenched at their sides. Half of them carried the staffs of gnarled wood. Nearby, Nightmare nickered.
Jarla looked at Fogle. “So we can go?”
“They will take you to whatever edge of the forest you wish.” Fogle stepped closer to Jarla. “After this day, I’ll probably never see you again.”
In her cold voice, she said, “Are you expecting teardrops to fall from my eyes? Would a good-bye kiss make you happy?”
“That would do well for a thank-you.”
“Well then, perhaps those ogres can kiss you.” Jarla mounted her horse. “Whatever deal you made, I didn’t ask for.” She spied Rane standing out among the strange men. “Is that the one you made an arrangement with?”
“Yes.”
“Your inexperience in deal-making shows.” Jarla made eyes at the others. “Come on, then. You all wanted out of this odd place, so I suggest you make haste. One never knows when the door of opportunity will close.”
Dejected, Jubilee said to Fogle, “You can’t stay here. We need you.”
Kneeling down and holding her shoulders, he said, “This is where our road together ends.”
CHAPTER 10
In the radiance of the day, huge, scaly paws with black talons dug into the ground, slinging the dirt aside. With its armored belly one with the ground, the black dragon dug up the shallow grave. It gave a snort that stirred the dust. Bearing rows of sharp teeth, it let out a deep cackling from inside its throat.
“Is this what you brought me out here for?” Cass’s voice was as sweet as honey but filled with disappointment. The stiff winds of the outlands tore at the layers of gossamer that covered her nubile body from head to toe. The druid leaned over the grave. “Old bones. Old dogs dig up old bones, not dragons.”
A dead body lay in the trench. She brushed the dirt from its robes, revealing fine blue cloth underneath.
The dragon, Blackie, tipped his chin. He let out a moan.
Using her hands like small spades, Cass cleared more of the dirt away. A cloth covered the man’s face. She pulled it back and let out a gasping laugh. “I expected to see worms eating a man’s face, and instead, I get a glimpse of the man’s skin still attached to his bones.” She brushed more dirt from his face. “Boon.”
Blackie clawed at the ground, nodding his thick neck.
“Yes, he is another one of those who was not supposed to leave the Under-Bish. Your giant friends are still in a tizzy about him. I wonder why that is? He’s but a man.” She ran a finger over his moustache. “An old one at that. It must have been his time.” With hands on her knees, she let her mind wander to an image of Fogle. She thought of him from time to time. A wry smile formed on her face.
Blackie snorted in her hair.
“Stop that, will you?” She pushed his nose aside. Blackie nudged her, almost knocking her over. “You are the one that led me here. I’m not the one that led you here. Whatever is on your mind, do it quickly. I have no desire to bake out here.”
The dragon lowered his head over the pit where Boon rested. Cass stepped aside. The dragon opened up his great mouth, which was more than capable of swallowing the man whole. A fine mist sprayed from Blackie’s mouth. It coated Boon from head to toe like morning dew. The dragon eased back.
Arms crossed, peering over the rim, Cass said, “And what was that? I’ve never seen you spray anything before. It seems you’ve been keeping secrets from me… again.”
Blackie shook his scaly black neck. The dragon was built low to the ground like a fortress. Great wings were folded behind his back. Armored ridges covered his back and every bend in his body. Everything on the grand lizard was hard, but his face was smooth. He let out a loud chort.
“I know you lie. All males lie, whether they are man or beast.” She sighed. “Now what?”
Chort! Blackie blinked. He started into the hole. Chort!
Cass glanced down.
Boon’s energetic eyes had opened.
CHAPTER 11
Venir led the way. He rode on Chongo. Melegal rode Quickster. Billip and Nikkel were also on horseback. It was night. The moons, pale red and blue, had begun to lower in the black sky. Chongo’s ears were perked up as he traversed the rugged landscape. The mounted beast was quiet compared to the hooved animals behind him.
“Forgive my naïveté, Venir,” Melegal said, “but how much longer until we see the illuminating spires of Bone?”
“We should be there an hour before the dawn breaks. I told you not to come.”
“No, I need to see that shambling city of the dust. It will give me something to yearn for. I tire of the dirt and sand that coats my every move.” He dusted off his sleeve. “I’m unable to escape a single grain.”
“You’ve never been that impeccable,” Billip said. The archer’s head hung low.
Nikkel’s did too. He rubbed his blurry eyes. “And to think I could be sleeping right now.”
“None of you needed to come and get a glimpse,” Venir said.
“Oh no? Well, tell that to Kam. She insisted. And I know better than to tell her no,” Billip said. “Hungover or not, when it comes to her, I do as I’m told.”
“Perhaps that’s why you are so fit to be a nanny,” Melegal said to Billip.
Nikkel chuckled.
Billip replied, “Says the man who can’t handle a little dirt on his sleeve.”
The party of men went back and forth like that until the moons fell and the suns started to rise. Miles ahead, the City of Bone waited on a flat plain. Venir’s keen eyes could make out the castle spires above the western wall. The faintest wink of light glowed within the castles behind the wall’s towers. Everyone dismounted.
Melegal extended a long brass spyglass. His skinny hand twisted the spyglass frame. “Those campfires seem strange to me.” He lifted his head. “What is that odor?”
Billip and Nikkel covered their noses. Nikkel coughed.
Venir’s nostrils flared. He knew exactly what the smell was. “You aren’t looking close enough, Melegal.”
Melegal returned the glass to his eye and shifted his view. People were huddled up by the thousands along the massive stone city’s outer wall. They were stretched out in all directions. A pair of men carried a corpse by the arms and legs and tossed the carcass into the flames. “They’re burning them. What sort of madness is this?”
“The worst kind,” Venir said.
Melegal passed the spyglass around. Everyone took a look. A flaming mass catapulted over the southern wall. Legs and arms flailed, on fire, before smacking hard into the ground. Melegal took the spyglass back. He studied the wall. Underlings manned it. There were royal soldiers too. “Bone is completely sold out, just like Three!”
“Are you still wanting to return?”
Melegal rubbed underneath his lip. “Well, my cat is in there, so yes.”
“We need to get a closer look,” Venir said with a smile. “Feel the people out.”
“You aren’t going down there. They’ll spot your big white head from a mile away,” Billip said. “Me and Melegal will go. We know how to fit in better.”
“I’d like to go,” Nikkel said.
“You need to keep an eye on him,” Billip said. “And don’t let him talk you into any trouble, either. Too much time with Venir, and you’ll wind up storming the western gates. Just stay put, the both of you. We’ll only be down there a few hours.”
Venir didn’t reply.
“Agreed?” Billip said to him.
Venir gave a shrug.
CHAPTER 12
Melegal and Nikkel slid into the encampments crammed all along Bone’s outer wall. They’d abandoned any visible weapons and hobbled within the crowds like one of the city’s own. The people were dirty and decrepit. Flies buzzed all around the filth. People by the thousands clamored to get inside the sanctuary of Bone’s walls. It had been just over an hour when another corpse went sailing over the ramparts with a loud flick sound. Some of the people flinched.
The body sailed upward, reached the pinnacle of the arc, and came down.
“That one does not burn,” Billip remarked with his head tilted toward the sky.
The corpse plummeted to the earth, smacking hard into an elderly man who’d just woken. Seconds later, both of the dead were hauled off to the fires.
Melegal felt his stomach turn. Nothing but madness surrounded them. Inside the walls, the underlings worked with men. Outside the walls, scores of royal soldiers and the city watch fought to maintain order. They drove the flocks of people away from the expansive walls with spears and clubs. Their refined armor had tarnished. The once-proud luster in the soldiers’ eyes had been replaced with despair. All of their efforts to maintain the desperate mob were either halfhearted or filled with cruelty.
Squeezing through the masses, Billip said, “These are southern folk.”
“Yes, I follow their long-drawn gibberish.” Melegal slipped by some itchy fingers that clawed at his clothes as they neared the southern gate. Terrific in size, the monstrous iron gate was closed. So was the arched pedestrian lane. People were crammed inside the arches, hammering at the gates. Their pleas were shouts of desperation.
“Let us in!”
“We starve!”
“Don’t leave us to the slaughter!”
Melegal turned his back. Looking south over Billip’s shoulder, he could see people coming in droves. Every new wagon that arrived was raided by mobs of people. “This is sick. What has possessed these people?”
A man missing his legs, who used his fists for canes, ambled up to Melegal’s knees. He had a head and face full of scraggly graying black hair. “I’m not of much use, but I hear quite well. I know things. Got any eats?”
Melegal squatted down. “I have a very pointy knife.”
“You speak to me as if I’m someone that has something to lose,” the cripple said. “I’ve nothing to lose, but I offer what I can. I only ask for a morsel in exchange.”
“That won’t happen among this flock of carrion,” Melegal said. “I’m certain they could smell milk from a goat’s tit a mile away.”
The cripple nodded. “Agreed. Follow. Come. Follow.” The hobbled man cut through the crowd at an alarming speed for a person who used his arms for legs. He led them toward the pyre of smoldering bodies and stopped. There wasn’t anyone around. “No one likes the stench, so it’s the best place to have a conversation without someone prying into your business. Everyone pries. I’ve seen them kill over pigeon slat.”
“Sounds like you know many things.” Melegal slipped a thumbnail of jerky from his pouch. The cripple snatched it in one fluid movement and stuck it in his mouth. “Ah, that’s good. Peppery.” He sucked on it from the side of his cheek. “I might die a happier man this day.”
Billip stayed within earshot but kept an eye out.
“So what do you know, Legless?” Melegal asked.
“You men were curious about why the southerners flock here. The underlings rule the south all the way to the Mist.” Legless scooted from the fires. “A little too close. Eh, as I was saying, they seek refuge, but those gates don’t part. Those soldiers you see, they come in shifts. It’s a nasty thing when they come in and out, fighting the breach. There are orders to kill any troublemakers. Much blood has been spilled with their steel.”
“You speak with the tongue of the city,” Melegal said. “Were you within and are now cast out?”
“I’m a citizen of Bone. The underlings only want the able-bodied within. I was nothing more than old fodder for the royals—a fallen watchman that lost his legs for sleeping at his post. I was hauled out in a wagon before the refugees came. It was that or the furnace, they said.” Legless reached inside his shirt and produced a brown cap with a black bill. “It’s sentimental.”
“That could be anyone’s.”
Legless rolled up his sleeve, revealing the tattooed markings of the city watch on his forearm. “You know that is the real thing.”
Melegal rubbed the back of his head. He still had a small knot that never went away from when the city watch nearly clubbed him to death on the Royal Roadway. “So how many underlings reside within?”
“The underlings walk the streets like citizens as if they built our city.” He spat on the ground. “The royals cower to them, and I don’t see how. Their minds are in some sort of delusion. In all my days, I’ve never seen the royals cower to anyone or anything. Yet here we are.”
Melegal scratched his chin. Scanning the faces in the crowd, he noted a few able-bodied people moving in an orderly fashion through the camp. Hmmm. He sauntered over to Billip.
The archer’s eyes were searching every face from the ground up to the highest spires. He was nodding.
“I suspect that you are thinking what I am thinking,” Melegal said.
“Is that so? I doubt that,” Billip said.
“Well, it would be hard for me to figure out what you are thinking. I, however, thought of it first.”
“And?”
“I believe the underlings don’t realize that an enemy army lies right under their noses.”
Billip’s eyes lit up. He stopped popping his knuckles. “I am surprised. And who better to lead this wretched army than one of their own kind? Heh.”
“So you agree.”
Billip shrugged. “As hard as it is to believe that idea came from your lips, I do.”
“Good. Now that I’ve come up with my part, I’ll let you and Venir come up with the rest of the plan.” He glanced over at the fire, searching for Legless. The man was gone. A little tingle went down his spine. “It seems our half man has wandered off. I don’t like it. Find him.”
Barely moving his head, Billip replied, “I found him.”
Melegal followed the direction he was looking at and found a horse soldier armored in links of steel from head to toe. Legless tugged o
n the man’s stirrup. In a frantic way, the half man pointed right at them. The soldier called for reinforcements. A squad gathered.
Melegal said to Billip, “Slat on that dirty little spy.”
CHAPTER 13
Accompanied by the forest magi, Brak, Jarla, Slim, Jubilee, and the half-ogre twins broke free of the forest. Without a word, the magi vanished into the forest, leaving the party when the red clay met the dirt. Brak let out a sigh, though his breathing didn’t come any easier. Fogle wasn’t there, and it was as if a part of Brak was gone. The wizard had been swallowed up in the confines of the unforgiving forest.
“We can’t just leave him in there.” Jubilee shared a horse with Brak, riding behind him. “It’s not right.”
Nightmare nickered. Sitting tall in the saddle of the dapple-gray horse like a dark queen, Jarla said, “He made his choice. I can live with it.”
“Of course you can,” Jubilee said.
“I know I’m grateful to be out of there,” Slim said. The slender seven-footer’s hands were on his hips. His light eyes peered around. “I’m not so certain where we are now.” He pointed. “Is that north? It’s so hard to tell.”
“It is north.” Jarla nudged the horse with her knees. Nightmare moved forward.
“Where is she going?” Jubilee said.
Brak shrugged. “Jarla, where are you going?”
The woman kept going.
“We’re better off without her, you know.” Jubilee tugged on Brak’s arm. “Aren’t we?”
“I suppose,” he replied.
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
“There isn’t any other direction to go,” he replied. “The underlings chased us from the south. We can’t go back that way. I’m not sure where else to go aside from Bone. What do you think?”
“I think we should find Fogle.”
“In there?” Brak glanced at the color-filled forest. “Finding a needle in a haystack would be easier. No, we need to go north. The more of us, the better—and that includes Jarla. If we run into any underlings, we’re going to need her fighting skills.”
The Darkslayer: Series 2 Special Edition (Bish and Bone Bundle Books 6-10): Sword and Sorcery Adventures Page 17
