THE DARKSLAYER
VOLUME II
CRAIG HALLORAN
THE DARKSLAYER, VOLUME TWO
By Craig Halloran
Amazon Edition
Copyright © 2010 by Craig Halloran #TXu 1-734-829
TWO-TEN BOOK PRESS
P.O. Box 4215, Charleston, WV 25364
www.twotenbookpress.com
ISBN Paperback: 978-0-982-7799-3-4
1st Edition
ISBN eBook: 978-0-982-7799-4-1
eBook Version 1
THE DARKSLAYER is a registered trademark, #77670850
www.thedarkslayer.com
Illustrations by Ernie Chan
www.erniechan.com
Publishers Note
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
THE DARKSLAYER
VOLUME II
CHAPTER 1
Beneath two blazing suns, the restless man known as Venir frowned as he trudged along. His hair was pulled back in a thick braid that ended just below his brawny shoulders. Venir’s bright blue eyes contrasted with his tanned skin. He wore nothing more than a light set of tanned leather armor over outdoor garb, with a white cowl around his neck. A long hunting knife hung from his belt, the sheath’s tip tied down against his lower thigh. His dark leather pack seemed small hanging from his expansive back.
Venir pulled a grimy hand across his forehead to wipe away the sweat. He swore his already reddened skin was cooking. Looking up toward the two fiery orbs in the sky, he longed for the night, but felt compelled to press on. The Outlands could send an unprepared person into a delirium—especially in this kind of heat—but Venir was prepared. He still had his bearings.
Stopping and kneeling, he took off his backpack and extracted two canteens. He chugged a few thick sips from one, then set it down beside the empty one. Venir waited, watching the breeze create tiny whirlwinds over the sun-baked surface. Mirages shimmered in all directions as far as he could see. Greenish brown cacti of all shapes and sizes, some poisonous, stood scattered over the landscape. He knew what he was looking for, and none of these would aid him. He needed to travel farther east for water, but he would not. Venir’s mission was to cut down the underlings, and he knew they were close. He had to find them, and he had to do it on his own.
The underlings were not accustomed to the broad daylight. They would stay just below the surface until the time was right. Venir knew how they used their magic to burrow into the ground, where they would wait, spying, before killing at will. This was one of the reasons they were such formidable enemies.
If he could just find a burrow, Venir would have the jump on them. Just like any other beast, underlings left signs of their movement. Few knew their signs or cared to know: who would want to follow an underling, anyway? But Venir did—he always did. He and a handful of others knew that the underling burrows formed a network throughout the hard surface of Bish. More caves and tunnels went far below the burrows for safety.
The dwarves, too, kept tabs on many of these tunnels. Underlings tended to travel on the surface only at night and in small groups. Their tunnels were small, more like giant snake holes, and on occasion one might find an abandoned one on the surface. Over the past few days, Venir had found several, hoping they were traps he could spring, but there had been no shred of life in any of them.
Wiping the sweat from his brow again, Venir reached into his backpack. He pulled out a large, worn leather sack and dropped it down with a clank. He began to unroll it, then held it in both hands and stared at it. A sour expression crossed his grizzled face. I don’t need you.
Yes, the contents of the leather sack would give him what he needed to find the underlings. And he knew the contents of the sack would not be in his possession forever. What would he do then? Before he’d gained the items, Venir had survived fine without them while hunting underlings—better than any other man alive. Yet the sack gave him what he needed to make it much easier and even more … delightful.
He shook his head. I can do this on my own. He rolled up the sack and stuffed it back into his pack, along with the canteens, then slung it onto his shoulders once more. Venir walked southeast into the empty landscape. The Red Clay forest wasn’t far away, but he would wait until night to stop and camp there.
Then he felt a tremor beneath his feet, and a large hole opened up before his eyes. He backpedaled, but another hole began to open behind him. As two gigantic sand spiders emerged, his gut told him to run. But four underlings scurried out of the holes and surrounded Venir. The small humanoids wore black leather armor and were armed with short swords and crossbows. Their fingers were clawed, their teeth sharp, and they had coarse black hair and colorful wicked eyes.
“Bone!” Venir cried, whipping out his hunting knife and charging toward the two closest underlings on his left.
His incredulity at their sudden appearance was only surpassed by his hatred of them—a hatred that he knew had blinded him into waging this fight without his prized items. As Venir bounded forward, his mind wondered: how had he ever imagined that he could take them on alone, without the help of the armaments that remained tucked away in his leather sack?
Pride had overcome instinct. Venir should have known better. But it was too late now.
Caught off guard by the rushing warrior, the two underlings dropped their hand crossbows to draw their short swords. His long knife sliced through the neck of the first like the underling was a chicken in a slaughterhouse, but then the other lunged at Venir’s armored chest. He sidestepped the attack and drove his knife straight through the underling’s heart, pulling it out again and again with a bellow of triumph. Black blood splattered onto him and spilled over the dusty ground.
He whirled toward his other attackers. The remaining two underlings had mounted the pony-sized sand spiders. They attacked. He ran. The sand spiders, Venir knew, were far worse than underling hunters, and it would take more than a hunting knife and courage to handle a single sand spider. The enormous, tarantula-like arachnids bore down on him. He could hear them chittering at his heels. They were fast. He was faster. Got to make it to the forest.
Pushing himself beyond his known limits, Venir increased the distance between himself and his pursuers. Pride be damned. He needed time to get out his mystical armament from the leather sack. Slowing down would be his end, so he sprinted onward.
Venir hear a shrieking sound, and he knew there had to be more underlings in the area. His legs pumped faster and faster, toward the edge of the Red Clay Forest far off in the east. His best chance was to lose them in the forest—if he survived that long. His legs and lungs felt ready to burst.
Then he saw the forest’s edge shimmering in the distance. Might make it. But then sand began whipping into a small storm all around him. He ran on, sure at first of his direction, until the wind picked up and confusion beset his course. Then he could not see to move. Underling magic! Hot sand tore at his skin. His frustration and frenzy mounted. He couldn’t breathe amidst the swirling thick sand. He pulled his cowl over his face and stumbled on until he could walk no more.
As he crawled forward, Venir saw that four more lightly armored und
erlings—wielding odd swords and small crossbows—had surrounded him. They chattered back and forth in cruel mockery, knowing that their sandstorm would suffocate him and render him unconscious—if not kill him. They began banging their short swords together in triumph, loud screams erupting from their twisted faces.
Venir heard it all through the whipping wind as he struggled to breathe. His felt his blood coursing through his thick blue veins. They had him; he knew it and so did they. He fought through the storm, the sand and dirt stinging his skin like a thousand bees. He only had one chance. He yanked off his backpack, pulled out then leather sack, and reached deep inside.
It was time to make them pay.
*****
As their sandstorm began to subside, the underlings waited, grins of anticipation on their faces while they continued to bang their swords together. But then they saw something.
In the center of the dying storm, the large silhouette of the rising man began to take shape before their eyes. The swirling ceased and they stopped banging their swords together.
The man stood in place—ominous—like a statue, coated head to toe in the harsh grit of the Outlands and the storm they’d conjured for him. A black helmet now sat strapped onto the man’s head, the helm topped with a single serrated spike that glinted faintly in the blistering sunlight. Dirt and sand encrusted the rectangular eyelets of the helm. Strapped to the man’s left arm was an ornate round shield. In his right hand, he held a massive twin-bladed battle-axe with a smooth spike protruding from the top.
The underlings hovered before the unexpected sight, eyes wide with curiosity—and surprise.
They had the Darkslayer within their grasp.
*****
Venir remained motionless, as if petrified by the storm that was no more. He could not see the enemy through the dirt-sand film that covered him over from helmet to boots … but he could hear them.
Come closer, fiends.
He could also feel them, and his head pulsed underneath his helmet. Venir wanted to destroy them, and he would wait no more. Finally, he let out a deep growl, then began shaking off his sandy cocoon.
Venir raised up his great axe Brool and banged it flat against his helmet. The grit fell from his eyelets. He grinned: he felt like he had stepped out of an iron furnace, his muscle and steel now joined as one.
Still smiling, he watched them step back, their bright eyes darting back and forth as they chattered. He knew what their hisses meant. They thought they had trapped the infamous Darkslayer—the scourge of their kind. Within their reach, they no doubt thought, was revenge for the countless brethren that had fallen at the hand of the Darkslayer.
And he would let them take their chance at him—just like all those that had fallen before them.
“You have me, rodents! So come and get me!” he shouted.
But he didn’t wait for them to move. Venir lunged toward them like some starving bobcat chasing rabbits, all the while brandishing Brool.
The underlings rushed in, then screeched back as Venir began whirling his battle-axe around his body in a blistering tornado of steel. He swept the heavy blade into the nearest underling. Sinking Brool deep into its chest, Venir dropped the creature with a sickening crunch. Another underling, though, took advantage of Venir’s focus and cut him in the midsection. With a roar, Venir slammed his head toward the underling, jabbing his helm’s serrated spike into its eye socket. He twisted it out, leaving a ghoulish hole in the fiend’s head.
But then he spun around, sensing something.
Zip! Zip! Zip! Zip!
Venir ducked and raised his shield. A volley of crossbow bolts ricocheted off his helmet and shield. Another embedded itself in his shoulder, drawing a grunt of pain from him. His head throbbing, he felt his bloodlust beginning to overcome him.
Four more. Stay with them—and the spiders.
He watched the two underlings hop off the spiders that now scampered in to flank him. Both spiders scurried forward, and Venir’s gaze darted back and forth between them, eyeing their hairy legs, black eyes, and gaping maws. He smashed one in the face with his shield. Green acid erupted from the spider’s mangled face and sizzled when it struck his shield. Raising his axe high, Venir prepared to brain the creature. But then something from behind entangled his feet and jerked him down. As he hit the dirt, Venir saw that the other spider had caught him with a cord of its webbing and now reeled him in like a fish. He kicked at the sand as he was dragged toward the creature. Every second brought him closer to the beast’s open jaws, which he knew dripped with venom. He only had seconds left. He kicked harder at the slippery sand, trying to slow himself down, even as he heard the underlings cackling at his impending doom.
Then, from the other direction, he saw the wounded spider lunge at his head. He lifted his shield and fought it off. It hairy arms tried to tear the shield away from him. Venir could now hear the snapping jaws at his feet.
“Bone!” he cried.
Then Venir felt something tug at his toe. Adrenaline raced through him. He let go of his shield.
“Enjoy it, beast!” he yelled.
He jerked up into a sitting position, seeing his boot enter the mouth of the spider. With one arm, Venir brought down Brool with all his might.
Crunch!
From the foul creature’s mouth came an ear-shattering screech. Then its head burst open and its eight legs flailed. Venir let out a howl as the venomous acid splashed onto his leg, burning more than fire itself. He turned and crawled in the opposite direction, still feeling the webbing on his lower legs.
His eyes fell upon the other spider, which seemed intent on destroying his shield. He took Brool’s edge and cut away the corded web from his legs. Grimacing, Venir stumbled back onto his feet—just in time to see two more underlings charge at him in a rage. His arms felt heavy as he swung his axe back and forth. The clangs against their swords resounded, loud and sharp. Venir felt his leg going numb. And two other underlings—the ones who had ridden the spiders—yet hung back, no doubt waiting until he’d been further weakened, or killed, by the two now facing him.
He had to end this.
Then one underling hacked at his legs while the other pressed him backward. Venir slashed his axe at arm’s length. The underlings leaped back in time to avoid decapitation, then they prowled around him. He could feel their hesitation. One barreled toward him, sword arcing high. Venir parried, his axe spike sinking through the underling’s breastplate and into the flesh of its chest.
But, even as he drove the spike deeper into the enemy’s chest, Venir felt the other underling hacking at his back, slicing deep into his mail.
“Enough!” Venir yelled.
Whirling around, he let go of his axe and grabbed the underling by the wrists, squeezing. It screamed and dropped its weapons. Then Venir jerked it arms wide as it kicked at him. Leaning into the creature, Venir slammed his metal helmet into its skull.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Feeling the underling’s blood all over his face, Venir slammed the helmet into its skull one last time.
Bang!
And then came a crunching sound. Its face bones had cracked. It hung there, limp in his arms. He flung the dead underling through the air. It landed in the gaping maw of the spider that had been chomping his shield.
Venir’s blood-smeared helmet glistened like black oil in the sunlight as the two remaining underlings now flanked him. Their hand crossbows bore down on his chest.
“Come on!” Venir cried.
For all his bravado, he knew he was about to faint. He couldn’t feel his legs. His chest heaved in dry gulps of air. But the underlings didn’t seem to realize that. They looked back and forth at one another and backed away. He took a painful step forward, snarling as loudly as he could. Chittering sounds burst from their lips, and they turned and buzzed across the landscape like fireflies. Venir dropped to his knees and croaked out a laugh. He became aware of the burning in his shoulder and legs, knowing that he was not yet ou
t of jeopardy.
“Ahh!” he shouted, wrenching out the small bolt that had lodged in his shoulder.
He had survived, but he needed first aid—fast. Time was running out. He could see the sand spider’s poison eating the skin off his leg. Red, swelling boils rose up as large strips of skin began peeling off. He had to act.
Then he heard a sudden sucking sound behind his shoulder. He looked over and caught the grotesque sight of the remaining spider. It was drawing the last drops of blood and juice out of the underling. The black creature was almost a husk.
With a groan, Venir limped in agony to where his axe Brool protruded from an underling’s chest. Nauseated and gagging, Venir grabbed the underling’s short sword. He could feel the acid on his leg spreading. Black and purple spots hung before his eyes. The only cure lay in the belly of the beast itself.
Venir made it over to the spider he had brained earlier. He dropped beside the twitching beast. Grimacing, he rolled the foul thing onto its back, hoping it was a female. It was. There between the head and the abdomen lay a small, hairy black egg sack. He sliced it open. A thick, milky pus with a horrible stench seeped out.
“Ooh … Smells like an orcen shower,” he said, spitting the foul taste from his mouth.
He plunged his hand in and pulled out a glob of the thick milky goo, which he then began to smear over his leg. The relief in his burning ankle was instantaneous, and he fell flat on his back in elation. He was now so woozy that he was on the brink of passing out, but he willed himself to stay awake. If he fell asleep, he’d be baked alive—or maybe eaten by the other spider once it finished its underling meal.
The Darkslayer: Book 02 - Blades in the Night Page 1
