Which meant I would have to call Wilson and perhaps even Evelyn. See if their contacts could come through for me. “Hassle upon hassle,” I muttered, turning to Eris as we left. “Looks like we’ll be spending a few more days in Central.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun. We can explore some more. See a few more sights.”
“That we can, love,” I said as I stepped outside, into the darkened alleyway and right into the fist of an unknown assailant.
It crashed into me like the fury of a god, knocking me to the ground and sending my head spinning. I spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth onto the street, which was already covered in blood.
Too much blood to have come from me.
I looked up to see Doorman, dead on the street. His throat was slashed and spilling all-too-human blood onto the stone. I guess I found my answer after all these years.
Standing only brought more pain as a foot slammed into the side of my face, sending me right back to the ground.
More pain as my opponent kicked me—sharp pain to my chest, ribs, and stomach. I was grabbed roughly by the hair and dragged out of the doorway. I fell on my back as warm blood poured out of me, pooling and mixing with Doorman’s.
My attacker stood over me, through my swollen eyelids, I could make out the smug, smiling face of Darren.
“Surprise,” he taunted.
Footsteps scuffled from my left, and I turned my head to see Eris fighting five of Darren’s goons, and it wasn’t going well.
Eris summoned a swarm of insects. Spiders and cockroaches poured out of the filthy alley, but the second they appeared, Darren paled, letting go of me to deal with her.
He pulled a syringe from his long brown coat and jabbed the needle into her neck. A second later, she slumped over, unconscious. With the stream of magic cut off, the bugs fled back to their homes.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Can’t have you ruining my plans with your little insects, girl. I won’t have you fuck things up twice,” Darren said. “Take her while I deal with him.”
I stood to my feet, fighting back the pain to face Darren.
“You’re not going to fucking touch her!”
Three of the goons rushed me while the largest goon, a thick built man with dead eyes, carried her over his shoulder. The men were big and clumsy in their black leather armor. All clearly used to their size and intimidation getting them whatever they wanted. From their movements, I could tell they only had the barest hint of how to actually fight. Even wounded, I can take them.
The first guy, tall with a shaved head and a wispy beard, put all of his weight on his right leg as he swung a wide right haymaker.
I stepped toward him, threw my left hand just over his bicep, and brought it around back to me, clenching tight. With his arm trapped, I rotated my shoulder and brought his entire torso toward the ground. He struggled against me, but I had the leverage. I brought my knee up sharply, slamming it to his face.
Blood rained from his broken flesh, but I wasn’t done. The other goons were on me, but I kept a lock on the one in my grasp and kept his body between the others. With a twist, I pulled bleeding goon’s arm from his socket and shoved him towards his comrades.
He careened into one of them, taking him to the ground, but I didn’t manage to get both. The other one, a lanky man with a pockmarked face and thick, curly hair, threw a few jabs at me.
I slipped his punches and hit him with a left hook. Teeth flew as his head snapped to the side, and he staggered from the blow. I brought a low roundhouse to his chest and fractured his ribs. He went down and stayed there, clutching his side.
The final goon was getting off the ground, and I didn’t bother fighting him. I took my hunting knife and threw it, burying it to the hilt in his heart. He crashed to the ground as he bled out.
It’d taken me only a minute to dispatch the three goons, but it had given the brutish one holding Eris time to escape.
Godsdamn it!
A dark chuckle bubbled from my heart. “Lose something, knight?” the Aspect asked, laughing.
Fuck you!
I tuned out the insidious laughter of the Aspect to focus on Darren.
“You’re going to tell me where she is, right now!”
He’d been leaning against the alley wall, hands in his pockets, while I fought his men, but he pushed off with a laugh.
“No, now I’m going to savor this moment,” he said, taking a shiny object from his pocket and slipping it on his fingers.
Brass knuckles. Shit.
“Hope your Exoskeleton can hold up,” the Aspect snickered.
I was tired of the mind games, and it wasn’t helping me. I settled into my stance and watched Darren’s feet. He had good technique, and his leather armor was well suited for quick movements. Darren brushed an errant lock of his auburn hair that fell to his forehead with his left hand and swung with his right.
He feint almost worked, as my eyes gravitated to his hair, but his hips gave him away, and I stepped back as his knuckles grazed my nose.
Darren followed his sucker punch with a kick to the groin. I twisted my leg to deflect it, but his boot collided with the side of my knee hard, and I stumbled. He flicked his knuckled hand out in a jab, and I blocked, but it was just a fake to set up his cross. His left hand hit me square in the jaw, almost in the same spot as his first hit. Pain flared to life from the left side of my face, and I fell to the flagstones, spitting out a thick gob of blood.
The pain was intense, but I’d had worse. I stood up, and a warning flashed across my vision.
Warning! Proximity to Hive Queen Greater Than 100 Meters
Penalty Activated: -20 to all Stats
My strength fled, and I sagged as exhaustion set in. Darren took the opportunity to smash my face with his brass knuckles.
Absolute pain obliterated my world, and I lost consciousness. When I came to, blood poured freely from the side of my ruined face, and Darren was smiling.
“Doesn’t feel too good, does it, asshole? How’s it feel to be on the receiving end of the worst beating of your life? Not fun, is it?” he shouted as he hit my face again.
I blacked out again.
When I came to, Darren was kneeling over me, his too-white teeth grinning a malicious smile. “Really need to thank the weasel for coming through for me. It’d have taken me ages to find you on my own.”
Phineas! That rat bastard! I’ll skin him alive when I find him! But I had more pressing concerns at the moment—namely, the man beating me to a pulp.
My face was a mess of pain, but I could still fight.
Darren stood and drew his scimitar. I aimed a kick to the side of his leg, hitting the peroneal nerve that runs up the shin, locking his leg in agony.
He dropped to the ground and seized up, screaming in pain. I had a few seconds to breathe.
“Once more, allow me to offer you power, knight. They’ve absconded with your queen, and you need me to get her back.”
Hell, no. I’m not making a deal with you. I can handle this on my own.
I opened my inventory and pulled out a health potion. I uncapped it and brought it to my lips to take a sip when my hand locked up. The glass bottle slipped from my fingers and shattered on the stones.
“Whoops.”
Go to hell!
It just laughed. In the time it took for whatever the Aspect did to wear off, Darren shook off his pain and stood with his scimitar once more.
I drew my blade and prepared to engage him. Darren swung, keeping his movements light. He was quick with his sword, but I parried each of his strikes.
He switched from slashes to thrusts, and I countered. I swung, but as I reached the end of my attack, my hand locked up again, and my blade slipped through my fingers.
I could do nothing as Darren kicked my sword away and thrust forward, stabbing me in the chest. It went through my armor and even my Exoskeleton but stopped before it pierced anything vital.
“Care to keep this going, knight? You’ve wasted enough time
already. Just imagine what vile things they’re doing to her as we speak. I bet they’re pawing over her lovely porcelain skin right now.”
I screamed wordlessly, tearing my vocal cords as I seethed in pitch black hatred at the voice in my head. I’d have killed myself just to kill it if I could’ve, but I was frozen and seconds from death.
Fine, you godsdamned bastard. Deal. Give me your power.
“At your command, sir knight.”
Warning! Forceful Activation of Abilities!
Hive Guard
Chitin Blade
Warning! System Corruption!
Forceful Activation of Passive Ability: Hive Mind
My pain vanished as Hive Guard took effect, pooling black over my skin and healing my injuries, allowing me to fight back. I knew I’d just made a mistake, but I didn’t have time to waste.
Worry about the rest of that shit later. Right now, Darren needs to die!
He was enraged when my body healed itself, screaming in rage, he swung at me. “Why won’t you fucking stay down!”
On reflex, I brought my hand up to defend myself, but what came up wasn’t my hand. A long black sword of chitin enveloped my arm, jagged with uneven lines and wickedly sharp. It met his scimitar and nicked the edge.
Darren backed up when he realized the danger and came at me carefully.
The learning curve for using a sword attached to my arm was steeper than I’d have guessed, and Darren sliced me a few times while I got used to the difference.
Darren was gifted with the sword. He kept his form light and mobile, and his footwork was spot on. He put his body behind his attacks and was giving me a run for my money, but he wasn’t in the same league as me.
I parried his sword and brought my blade along his forearm, slicing a deep groove into it. He fumbled as his hand became slick with blood and nearly dropped his scimitar. He passed it to his off-hand and thrust at me.
In his non-dominant hand, his weapon was little more than a club as he clumsily tried to fight me. I caught his sword on my vambrace and brought my blade to slice through his wrist, severing the flexor tendons and median nerve, stopping him from holding his sword anymore.
It fell from his limp hand, clanging off the stone, while Darren stared at his bleeding hands and arms, wondering where everything went wrong.Fucked with the wrong person, asshole.
Soon as I took a single step, Darren snapped out of it and looked at me with fear. He paled and took off at a sprint, trying to save his skin. His goons followed his lead, and the two left alive limped away as Darren fled.
Like hell he’s getting away again! I sped forward, tackling Darren to the ground and bashing him with the flat side of my sword. While he was dazed, I got off of him and dragged him to his feet, placing my sword against his throat—a hair’s breadth from ending his miserable life.
“Tell me where she is, now!”
Darren tried to back away, but a quick slice on his neck dissuaded him of that. The cut wasn’t deep, just enough to let him know that I could have taken his head if I’d wanted.
“Look...if I tell you where she is, you’ll kill me anyway.”
I shoved him back against the alley wall. My blade still against his throat. “I can guarantee that if you don’t tell me, I’ll torture you until you do. So how about you save me the time and spill your guts before I spill them for you.”
Darren tried to put on a stoic face, attempted to brave the pressure he found himself under, but I could see the cracks in his psyche. At heart, Darren was a coward, even worse than the weasel. Darren preyed on the weak and those who couldn’t fight back. A scavenger. Nothing more.
“P—promise me, you’ll let me live, and I’ll tell you. I swear!”
You’ll suffer for your actions, but not until after you tell me what I want to know. I’ll let you think you’re walking away from this. I softened my glare on him. “Fine, but if I ever see you after this...”
“You’ll kill me. I got it. Never see me, I swear,” Darren interrupted, “She’s at the slave auction house, in the warehouse, where they keep the merchandise. She’ll be bound, but no one will touch her, I promise.”
I dug the blade a little deeper into his neck. Blood dripped down beneath my sword. “You could be lying.”
“I’m not! I swear!”
“Tell me about your master,” I demanded.
Darren backed up as far as he could go on the wall. Blood ran down his neck and arms to drip onto the street. He shook his head, violently.
“No way, worse you can do is kill me. Nothing compared to what he’ll do to me. Like nothing you’ve ever seen before, man. No way. Kill me or let me go, but I won’t talk.”
I thought about pushing him because I knew I could eventually get him to talk, but I had a better plan. I didn’t need him to talk.
With only a second to steel myself, I bent low and bit deep into his neck.
His blood spilled into my open mouth, and I braced for the transition. As the Mnemosyne took hold, Darren’s memories spilled as fast as his blood.
Flashes rolled through me. The first was of Darren and a man meeting in a tavern. The location looked like a seedy bar in the North Kingdom. The man across the worn table was handsome. A thin, yet rugged face, with short brunet hair, a thick goatee, and bright blue eyes. He lifted a hand to take a drink, showing a heavy black gauntlet with a mana crystal embedded in the center. The two of them conversed for a moment before the image faded.
The second memory started in the middle of a battle. Darren, Wolf, Mikhail, and Slip were assaulting a caravan, killing merchants, and robbing them.
The guards were killed, and the survivors were brought out. Several rabbitmen were among the caravan. Two of them resisted and grabbed the guards’ fallen weapons, only to be cut down where they stood. The others gave up after the deaths of their comrades. When the quick battle was over, the newly captured slaves were thrown in the back of a prison wagon.
In the back were two small children. They were very nondescript, except for their ears. Longer than the elves but not nearly as long as Eris’s. They curled backward slightly, which marked them as different, but their eyes were normal. Which discounted them as entomancers, but they were, without a doubt, non-human children. Demi-human perhaps? Not rabbitmen or wolf-men, they lack the ears.
The final vision was of a dark warehouse. The wood was in clear need of repair, and the room housed half a dozen cages that lined the back wall. Darren and his men stood in the room with a new man.
He was wearing a pristine white suit, with a wide brimmed hat that shadowed his features. The man wielded an ivory cane in his off-hand. Darren handed over the bound demi-human children as the man passed Darren a heavy sack of gold.
The man fiddled with his cane, tossing it from hand to hand with a flourish. He balanced it and rubbed the tip of the ivory, drawing my eyes. Embossed into the pale bone was a familiar symbol.
The hand clutching the barbed hourglass.
I found you, bastard! The man in white was my target.
The visions faded, and Darren winced in pain as blood dripped from his wound. Only a second had passed, and I leaned back, letting go of him, spitting out the rancid tang.
“Thank you for your help.”
“I’m free to go, right? You promised.”
I shoved my chitin sword through the bottom of Darren’s mouth, into his brain and out the top of his head.
His eyes glazed over, and his jaw went slack, opening just enough, so part of my sword was visible poking through the roof of his mouth. Blood poured out of his lips to soak into his shirt.
I withdrew the blade as Darren slide down the wall to lay in a heap on the pavestones in an ever-growing pool of his own blood.
“I lied.”
Chapter 23 - Chains of the Past
“Good riddance,” I spat, stepping over his rotten corpse.
As soon as the fight ended, my nascent power flooded out of my system, leaving me weak. I feel different, s
trange. The magic inside my heart burned furiously, but inside that heat, a blizzard raged. The icy black magic was stronger; it pulsed through my heart, melding with the fire of the Hive magic.
I just made a deal with the devil, wonder what it’s going to cost me?
I picked up my fallen weapons and stepped inside the doorway to the Rose, stopping to look at the doorman. “Sorry you died because of me,” I whispered to the corpse.
My apology fell on dead ears. It was for my benefit alone. The dead have the luxury of being unburdened by such concerns as want.
Once more, I walked through the darkened hallway of the Rose. Phineas sat in the same booth, looking smug and content, counting a huge pile of gold. That just further damns him. He sold us out!
He looked up as I approached. His small eyes bulged at the sight of me, as he choked back a yelp of fright and tried to leap out of the booth.
My foot caught his knee, dislocating it with a sick pop, followed by a high-pitched shriek of pain. A few of the other patrons looked around at the noise, saw us, and went back to minding their own business. Wise of them.
“Hello, again, friend.”
Phineas ignored me and attempted to hobble away on his one good leg. I kicked his other leg out from under him, sending him crashing into a nearby table. They toppled over in his wake.
“Where you off to in such a hurry?”
He climbed to his feet, and I kicked him right back down. He sprawled out over the tables and chairs. I knelt and shattered his arm at the elbow. He screamed even louder this time, his cries echoing through the hushed bar.
Our little show had garnered the interest of most of the shady patrons, who had stopped their dealings to watch me break every bone in the weasel’s body.
“Get the fuck up!”
Phineas obliged and weakly rose to his feet, supporting himself as best he could with one leg. He leaned against one of the support beams to balance himself.
“Duran, I’m sorry, I couldn’t turn down the money,” he confessed. Not even bothering trying to lie to me.
Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) Page 35
