The Darkslayer: Series 2 Special Edition (Bish and Bone Bundle Books 6-10): Sword and Sorcery Adventures

by Craig Halloran

  Clatch-zip!

  A bolt ripped through one side of the underling’s temple and stuck out of the other. Billip slung it aside, gasping for breath. Nikkel stood nearby with a smile on his face. Bolt Thrower was slung over one shoulder and Skull Basher was on the other. An underling with his face caved in lay at his feet. “You’re welcome, old man.”

  Billip snatched his bow from the ground. He aimed at Nikkel, whose eyes were wide as moons, and fired. The arrow streaked by Nikkel’s shoulder into the neck of an underling. “You’re welcome, youth. Let’s figure out how to get that gate open.”

  The enemies were more focused on the horse riders than the men standing in the street. Together, Billip and Nikkel picked their way through the surging knot of fighting. The riders wedged themselves between the wooden doors, preventing their closing. They’d gotten the upper hand, leaving an opening to get to the mechanism where the soldiers cranked open the gates.

  Billip called out to Hoff. The royal knight’s hard sword strokes went from one side to another of his laboring horse. His long moustache flowed with every strike. Horse and rider were one, knocking, stabbing, and trampling underlings and soldiers on the wrong side. He caught Billip’s eye between heavy-handed blows. “I smell victory! Get those gates open!”

  Starting to salute, Billip’s own smile faded. Out of nowhere, a royal knight with the banner of the House of Kord on his chest galloped toward Hoff.

  “Hoff! Look out!” Billip pointed wildly as he yelled.

  Hoff turned toward the oncoming assailant. He caught the full force of the lance in his chest. He tumbled out of the saddle with shock-filled, glassy eyes. He hit the ground and was trampled.

  Billip swallowed.

  Nikkel screamed, “Nooooooo!”

  The royal riders turned one against the other. What would have been a victory turned into a slaughter. The ranks were broken. Half of the riders fled. The others died. As it turned out, only a handful of the royal riders were on Hoff’s side. Now, aided by the underlings, they turned on Billip and Nikkel.

  “Got any ideas?” Billip said to his friend.

  Nikkel patted his father’s metal skullcap that rested on his head. “Fight or die!”

  CHAPTER 39

  “Venir, what are we doing here?” Melegal said.

  The group took to the streets after the riders, but a city block from the West Gate, Venir rode Chongo to the roofs of the buildings. Melegal, Brak, Ebenezer, and Creed were huffing and puffing when they caught up with him.

  “I’m getting a bird’s-eye view of things,” Venir said. He and Chongo overlooked the battle surging in the streets. The underlings made his head simmer.

  Ebenezer stood beside Chongo, catching his breath. “The royals fight!” he said. “I feared I might not see that day come again! My heart swells!” He jerked back. “No! What are you doing? You fools, no!”

  The royal said it just as Venir watched Hoff go down.

  “That’s why I hate the royals!” Jarla said.

  A handful of riders fighting on the right side of things dropped their weapons. They raised their hands in surrender. Except for Billip and Nikkel. They stood with their backs to the iron gate, ready to fight to the end.

  “This fight isn’t over yet! I’ll distract them. You get the gate open!” Venir gave Chongo a slap on the neck.

  The huge dog barked. “RAAAAAW-UUUULF!”

  The gate-front battleground fell silent. Heads whipped around. Necks, underling and man, twisted. Horses jumped.

  Chongo’s paws were on the ledge of the building. He was poised like a great lion. From the top of his saddle, Venir called down to the quieted crowd, “Looking for me, arseholes!”

  The underlings’ eyes attached to him. They slunk forward with itching fingers on their weapons.

  Venir could see the hatred grow in their gem-speckled eyes. They hissed and chittered angrily. The royal riders tugged at the reins. Their horses' hooves stamped. Venir’s nostrils flared. He growled once more. “Get that gate open! Yah!”

  Chongo leapt off the building into the gathering underlings. The fiends came at them from all directions. Brool came alive in Venir’s hand. He struck from one side of the saddle to the other like a man whipping a racing horse. Bone, muscle, and sinew gave before the lethal blade.

  Hack! Chop! Slash!

  If the underling didn’t die, it was mutilated. With reckless but lethal execution, Venir attacked. Chongo chomped. Venir fought the urge to let the battle consume him. As much as he wanted to kill, he needed a distraction.

  “Ride, Chongo! Ride!”

  With an underling clenched in each mouth, Chongo leapt away from the fray of battle and galloped down the street. Every underling that saw them followed.

  ***

  “What’s everyone standing around with a slack jaw for?” Melegal said. “You heard the man; let’s get that gate open.”

  “Even with the underlings gone, it won’t be so easy,” Ebenezer said. “There are over fifty riders and soldiers down there. And the gates need the strength of at least three men just to pull one side open.”

  “What’s the matter? Afraid of risking your royal neck?” Creed propped himself up with a sword, swaying slightly. “We’re going in there!”

  “Fine,” Ebenezer huffed. “The gates are pinned down at the bottom. You have to remove the links. All of them. It’s the same in the castles. It won’t be easy.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Ebenezer. I know how to open a door.” Melegal started to twist the ring of vanishing.

  Brak called out again. “Look there!”

  Storming down the street, Jarla rode on the back of Nightmare. Fogle sat behind her, arms clinging to her waist. The horse had a purple aura. It galloped impossibly fast into the stunned royal knights. Jarla’s sword took a man’s helmet and head from his shoulders. The knights surged against her. Their weapons glanced off her body as if she was made of metal. Out of nowhere, the citizens poured out of the alleys and attacked the royal knights.

  “Yes! Now’s our chance!” Brak led the men down to street level. With a thunderous battle cry, they engaged the enemy.

  Melegal gave the ring a twist. Like a cat on the run, he made his way for the gates. He arrived in time to save Billip. The archer was a split second from being butchered by a knight’s sword. He got a hold of the man’s collar and gave him a shock. Billip turned. He had a bewildered expression.

  Still invisible, Melegal said, “You can thank me later. Now go crack some heads instead of your knuckles so I can get these gates open.”

  The iron gate was secured with metal pins that must have weighed five pounds each. They were hammered into a loop of iron. He’d need a hammer to knock the pins out. He glanced around. There was an alcove inside the archway. He snuck inside and grabbed the hammer. Gently, he started tapping the first of the three pins. It didn’t give. Melegal sucked through his teeth.

  I’m going to have to hit harder. Bish! I’ll lose my cover.

  With two hands, using all of his body weight, he swung into the pin. It popped out. He reappeared.

  I knew it!

  With all of the commotion going on, he kept at it. He knocked out the second pin in the middle ring. A royal soldier called out to their crossbowman and pointed at Melegal. “Kill him!”

  Soldiers climbed down ladders from the top wall. They rushed Melegal. He fired the dart launchers into two men’s faces.

  Twing! Twing! Twing! Twing! Twing! Twing!

  The soldiers dropped to their knees, clawing at the darts in their faces.

  The crossbowman fired. Melegal tried to shift out of the way. The crossbow bolt hit his neck. Arms flailing, neck bleeding, he fell to the ground.

  CHAPTER 40

  Mood heard the giant, Ogar, rumbling with deep laughter. The giant had just consumed an underling. The biggest of all the giants, Ogar was double in height than most. With underling flesh hanging from his teeth, he sought out Mood. “We have avenged ourselves. Now, we aban
don you to your doom. May your brethren perish to the gray-skinned swill!”

  “You won’t be missed!” Mood yelled.

  Ogar lifted his chin skyward. Raising his hairy arms, he called to the sky. The sound he made was loud and unnatural, like the wind was crying. His body faded. The giants that lived shimmered into transparency and vanished.

  The underlings’ chittering became chortles of triumph. New vigor overcame them.

  The dwarves broke from the melee. By the thousands they gathered, forming a caterpillar of shields. Covered in shields on the outside and over the top, they marched toward the City of Bone.

  Mood moved at the front of the formation with a shield of his own. “Huzzah, dwarves! Huzzah!”

  The dwarves advanced step by step. The underlings hurtled their bodies against the shields. The dwarves in the center stabbed them with spears. The dwarven caterpillar bled dwarven red and underling black toward the hellish gates of Bone.

  ***

  As hard as it was to do, Venir let Chongo run. They outdistanced the throng that chased them down the street. They collided with group after group of underlings. Venir hacked them down, urging Chongo onward before the regiment of underlings caught up with him. The cat-and-mouse game wasn’t easy to do with Helm. He’d done it before, however, and led many underlings to their doom.

  A husky woman with coarse black hair waved her arms at him from one of the rooftops. There was a second woman with her. They both wore simple dark dresses that weren’t in the best of shape. Neither one of the women were in very good shape either. They waved him into an alley.

  Sis? Frigdah?

  Venir didn’t have any idea what they were up to, but he’d been down a hard road before with them. He gave them the benefit of the doubt. “Chongo! Left!”

  Claws scraping over the pavement, the dog took a sudden turn. He stormed the alley, slowing to a trot at the halfway point between roads. Underlings filled the alley behind him. There was no turning back.

  From the rooftop, Frigdah called down to Venir, “Keep going!”

  At the far end, a crowd of men had gathered. They carried crude knives, clubs, and hatchets. Chongo lunged forward. At full speed, the dog jumped over the heads of the men. Venir turned back. His heart swelled with pride. The citizens of Bone came to life. Hundreds of men spilled into the alley. Hundreds more lined the rooftops. They pelted the underlings with rocks, bricks, and anything that could crack bone.

  Venir thought he’d never see the day when the rotten citizens of Bone, known for little more than rollicking debauchery and self-indulgence, would fight together in a unified purpose. It was a beautiful thing. It took all he had not to join that battle with them. He found Sis and Frigdah on the roof and gave a nod. “Yah, Chongo! Yah!”

  Faster than a horse, they headed to the western gate. The citizens pulled riders out of their saddles. They climbed the walls onto the ramparts and took after the underlings. Venir made a beeline for the crossbowman on horseback shooting at Melegal. Brool whistled. Slice! He took the man’s head off.

  Melegal lay against the iron gate, holding his bleeding neck. He was more peaked than normal. “I can’t believe I got hit.”

  Venir jumped off Chongo. “You should be more careful. If you aren’t going to die, get that last peg out. Brak! Get over here!”

  Brak emerged from the slaughter. The white on his cudgel was gone. It was covered in blood down to his knuckles. “Yes?”

  Venir pointed at the pulley system to the gate. It was made from heavy chains. On each side was a huge wooden wheel with arms made for men to push and lift the gate. The arms were busted off. “Bone! Grab those links and start pulling.”

  “You won’t be able to lift that,” Melegal said.

  “We’ll see. Knock the peg out, bleeder. Brak! Get after it!” Venir set his axe and shield aside. He grabbed the links of metal, and pulled. The gate held fast. “Melegal, get that peg out!”

  The thief hammered away at the peg. “It won’t budge.”

  Brak sauntered over. Taking the hammer from Melegal, he swung it into the peg. The peg shot out like a cork from champagne. He handed the hammer to Melegal. “There you go, little man.”

  “Together, Brak!” Venir said. “Hand over hand, one link at a time. Heave!”

  “Ho!” Brak fired back. The gate groaned. The metal teeth rose out of the ground.

  The hardening muscles in the men’s arms bulged. The gate climbed higher. The seven-footer pulled down the chains like he was raising a flag.

  “Slat,” Venir thought, admiring his son. “He’s stronger than me.”

  The gate hit the top. Melegal locked the mechanism that held the gate up. “One more to go.” People pounded at the door on the other side. “This one is solid. It will be heavier to heave for you mortal men. We’ll need horses.”

  “I bet I can lift it,” Brak said. Unlike the iron gate, there was a handhold at the bottom. The pegs that held it fast were on the side. Melegal knocked the smaller pegs out. Brak put his back into it. Veins popped out on his forearms and temples. He growled. The steel gate inched upward.

  Venir joined his son. Together, they lifted tons of steel as high as their ankles. “Bone, my back is breaking!” The gate inched downward.

  A dwarf with more black beard than face squeezed through the gap. He strutted over to an alcove hidden under the archways. The was a loud clank. Gears turned, and the steel gate glided upward.

  Brak flung his arms up along with it. “I told you I could do it!”

  “I’ll be,” Melegal said as he looked up at the huge metal cylinders hanging from chains. “It’s a weight and pulley system. Gah!”

  By the hundreds, the shield-bearing dwarves streamed into the City of Bone. Like worker ants with steel armor, they took to the ramparts and secured the walls. Hours of fighting went on, inside and outside of the city. The gates were lowered again. The western quadrant of Bone was secured by dwarves and men. The citizens that didn’t make it back inside were slaughtered.

  Near the gate, after the fighting settled and the underlings slunk back into the castles, Venir sought out Mood. “Welcome to Bone.”

  Mood lit a cigar. “It smells as bad as it ever did.”

  “It wasn’t as bad until your arrival.”

  “Ho-ho! I suppose not.” Mood reached over and petted Chongo’s snout. “You bailed the dwarves out of one big hole. We’ll always be grateful. But the fight is far from over.”

  “I know.” Venir unbuckled his chin strap. He sensed something. He felt eyes on him coming from the towers of Castle Kling. “If anything, the war for Bone has just begun.”

  EPILOGUE

  Inside the highest tower of Castle Kling, Master Sinway watched dwarves and men working together. Elypsa shook her head, her lavender eyes aflame. “The tide has turned. I don’t like it. I just don’t understand how this can be.”

  “You are young.” Master Sinway’s clasped hands clenched. He was still wrestling with how the Darkslayer slipped through his fingers. The man should be dead, but the armament kept him alive. It defied probability. “Stay close and you will learn.”

  “Such learning is painful. Our people have suffered great losses, all on account of one man. He wields that armament. I don’t understand it, but even you could not stop him.”

  Sinway turned his gaze on her. “I don’t take your meaning, Elypsa. What are you suggesting?”

  She stood her ground. “In the arena, you should have fought, but you fled.”

  Sinway took her white hair with a firm grip. “Do you question my wisdom?”

  “No, Master Sinway.” Sweat beaded her forehead. “Forgive my lack of faith.”

  “I don’t forgive. I don’t forget. But I will let you learn, Elypsa.” He released her. Turning back to the window, he said, “Let them think they are winning. Don’t you probe your opponents for a weakness when you fence with them?”

  Thumbing away the tear running down her cheek, she nodded.

  “And the
n what do you do?”

  “I deliver the lethal blow when they least expect it.”

  “Yes, it will be like that, but one thousandfold.”

  BOOK 10: THE BATTLE FOR BONE

  CHAPTER 1

  In the barren stretch of the outlands, Georgio brushed his curly, sweat-drenched locks out of his eyes. With Lefty Lightfoot standing beside him, the pair, man and halfling, made an insignificant shield in front of the young giant, Barton. The striders, dozens, had encircled them all. Spears ready, the bug-faced mantis-like men advanced. Clutching his sword, Georgio said, “What are you doing, Kocus? Just leave us and the giant be, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Hauk! Hauk! Hauk! Kill the giant!” the leader of the striders, Kocus, hollered out. “Step aside, human.” The four-armed strider, with extra-long legs, cocked back two spears at the same time and launched them at Barton. The spears sailed true, imbedding themselves deep in the meat of the giant’s forearms, which shielded his face.

  The towering Barton, standing over ten feet in height, let out a howl of rage. His burned face and drooping eye, wounds suffered long ago, lit up from an inner fire. “Stop attacking me!”

  Georgio swatted a strider’s spear aside. “Stay back!”

  “Step aside, human.” Kocus’s bug eyes narrowed on Georgio as he made clicking sounds with his mouth. “Or you will die in one hundred pieces. So will the halfling.”

  “I don’t owe that giant anything,” Lefty said to Georgio. “I’d rather live for me than die for him.” He looked over his shoulder at Barton. “No offense, but you did try to kill us once.”