The Darkslayer: Book 01 - Wrath of the Royals (27 page)

Grimacing, Venir grabbed Brool and his shield and ran where he sensed more underlings lurking in the grove. His battle raged mind became sluggish and each step was filled with pain. Although his body was burning and weakening with every stride, he forced himself to find the last few before his body collapsed. The helm assisted in beckoning him on. He saw underlings were near, bodies warm and red in the blackness. He cut between two trees, closing the distance between him and them.

The cords stuck fast as he struggled, peeling off loose pieces of his skin. His mind was in a frenzy to escape. He needed to remain calm, but those thoughts were gone.

Venir could see them coming. Two underlings strapped in leather with long blow pipes. He tried pushing through the web, but iron would have been easier to cross. His axe and arm were held fast, but he groaned while pulling Brool back and forth to cut through. The trees bent from his efforts. The blades cut through the tiny fibers, little by little, giving him more leeway by the second.

Toowah! Toowha! Toowah!

The barrage of bigger darts bit into him as his blood coursed like fire once more. He cut into the web as fast as he could, but the poison slowed him. Second by second, he felt his strength fade, the fire inside was consumed by life draining poison. He was numb from head to toe.
Not now! Not now ….

Relief entered a splinter of his mind. His pursuit was coming to an end. The cold dirt of a grave to lie in was welcoming to Venir. His lazy eyes looked up as the garbled sounds of the underlings chattered away. He still wanted to kill just a few more, but he would have to rest first. Venir’s blue eyes rolled up into his head and he no longer moved at all.

Chongo growled and charged, all four eyes bearing down on the underlings that burst from the marsh. Two underlings broke away to the right, dashing away from the fearsome sight. Chongo closed in on the fleet footed pair, great jaws snapping at the heels of the one who was half a step behind the other.

“Bite that vermin, Chongo!” Mood bellowed, axe shining in the light.

The underling ducked, swerving away, but Chongo snatched up the underling in his massive jaws. The underling swung its sword, but Mood knocked it away with his axe. One head of Chongo crushed down on the underling, killing it. The other dog head led the pursuit of the underling that was still running away.

The underling managed further separation as Chongo had slowed and dropped his prey. The open plain and its moons assisted Mood with keeping the underling in his line of sight. The dwarf spurred the beast onward.

It was a short-range shot, and Mood saw in a split second that someone was going get hurt. The underling’s wicked smile danced in the moonlight as it squeezed the trigger.

The underlings stared at the mass of flesh, prone as a possum, in a web. One launched another dart into his leg, but Venir did not react. They gave a loud whistle
,
a strange, inhuman sound that only underlings could make. The two underlings drew their swords as they approached their fallen foe.

Avoiding the webs, one went behind Venir’s back. The other underling stepped in closer to get a better look at Venir’s face. The underling’s lips curled up in a merciless grin. If this were truly the Darkslayer, the scourge of the underlings, they would be honored and praised indeed.

Venir could see and hear everything as if he was in a distant land. The figures, the sounds and smells were still there, vivid in his mind. Something ignited inside his head and raced down to his toes. The sluggishness was wearing off. His thickened blood began to thin and flow again. A fresh spring of life beat in his temples. He felt the nearby danger racing down his spine.
Die doing something or die for nothing!

As the underling’s rancid breath reached Venir’s nose his eyes popped open. The underling lurched back with a hiss. Venir punched Brool through the web, puncturing the underling’s neck. It dropped, gurgling to the marshy ground. The underling behind Venir drove its blade at Venir’s back, but it clanged off of his shield that he had pulled free. The webs were dissipating now that their caster was dead. The underling swung it’s blade in a high arcing swing.

Venir stepped out of the blades way and chopped off the underlings head.

“I hate webs,” he muttered as he tried to pull the tacky substance away. He spun slowly around.

“Where are they?”

He didn’t feel them close by, but the helmet wasn’t always right. He cracked his neck, side to side, and spat blood and saliva from his mouth. His arms and legs were aching and he coughed up blood. He gritted his teeth then started running towards the north end of the marsh.

“Crap,” he muttered as he ran through the murk, not wanting to believe that the last few underlings had gotten away.

A sudden
whoosh-thunk
erased the underling hunter’s grin as a sling bullet glanced off the back of its head. The underling shook off the blow, jerked up the tip of its crossbow, Chongo’s heart in sight.

Whoosh-thunk!

The underling’s head pitched forward, dropping it like a stone as the crossbow bolt sailed over Mood’s ducking head. Chongo tore into the helpless creature, both heads chomping and devouring bloody underling treat. The bone-crunching sounds turned Melegal’s stomach as he pulled along Mood’s side, dangling a sling.

“Sorry about that first shot,” Melegal said with a sheepish look.

“That’s okay. Where’s the other underling?” Mood said, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Hard to say. He ran like he had a hive of angry bees up his arse. I never saw anything like it. He just ran faster and faster, then he was gone.”

Melegal couldn’t have been more relieved. His heart stopped cold as that underling stopped in his path, muttered and buzzed away. The face of the foul creature sent shivers through him.

“Hmm … those underlings have some sneaky magic,” Mood said. “That musta been their leader blinking out like that. No matter, just hunters by the looks of ’em. I don’t think there’ll be any more left in this party. Our friend musta taken care of the rest, seeing how they was run out of that grove ’n all.”

Mood’s brow furrowed.

“Let’s head over to where they came out; Venir should be coming our way anytime.”

Mood waited a bit as Chongo gulped down the remains of the underlings while they made their way towards the grove’s edge. They waited as the mosquito’s hummed in their ears attempting to drink their blood. A rustle stirred not far from where they stood.

Venir stepped into the clear. Muscle, sweat, blood and metal all combined into a horrifying sight: a great gory man that the world of Bish called the Darkslayer. He was splashed with mud and guts from head to toe. His muscled legs and arms bled from a dozen wounds. Darts were still embedded, leaving black and purple marks. His chainmail shirt glimmered in the moonlight. His eyes blazed like a blue inferno and his voice was as dry as a bone.

His voice was almost inaudible as he removed his helm, revealing long sweaty locks of hair on a damp brow. Under his helmet his head had remained as clean as the rest of his face was filthy with grit. He spat more blood.

“See, Melegal,” Venir said as he coughed and hacked, spitting more bile, “green snake meat does more than just taste good. It remedies poisons and such. It’s saved my hide more than once. It’s already taking the pain from my legs.”

It wasn’t entirely true, they still burned, but he wasn’t complaining, he still lived.

“But not many people know about it, so keep it to yourself.”

Venir’s eyes fluttered, rolling up in his head as his body sagged towards the ground. Melegal leapt forward just in time to break his friend’s fall.

“Maybe so. Let’s get some water in ’em. If he ran all that way and then jumped all those underlings, he should ‘a been dead by now anyway. Them wounds are pretty bad, and I can’t say for sure green snake meat cures everything. No telling what those underlings shot him with.”

Melegal returned with some water. Mood began applying first aid to the passed-out warrior whose breathing was very shallow for so robust a man. They plucked the poisoned darts from his body, revealing more ugly purple wounds. Blood and pus ran freely as Mood squeezed and drained them. It looked painful to Melegal, but his friend lay still as a corpse.

Mood had done all that he could and now all they could do was wait. Melegal couldn’t sleep as he sat huddled at Venir’s side. Chongo lay alongside his master, eyes dropping and ears flicking up from time to time. Melegal couldn’t help but wonder what he would do if Venir didn’t make it. His best friend’s mortality never occurred to him. He drew a blanket over his shoulders as the aroma of Mood’s cigar lulled him back into a relaxing sleep, dreaming of green snake meat.

Trinos felt something like enjoyment from the affects her ripples were having on her world called Bish. Actually, it was not so much the ripples themselves as the ripples upon ripples that filled her with mild amusement. Was this how some worlds were able to reach infinite status? Worlds that were not supposed to make it made it anyway, while those that should have made it did not. Had other beings like herself tinkered too much for their own good, perhaps sending in ripples of good that turned bad?

Trinos felt she should know the answer to this, but then again, many of the laws of her universe had not been revealed. The end of her universe was yet to be found and certainly that was where the answers would lie. And without an objective, outside view of the universe, how could the universe ever be fully explained? This, of course, was not the problem Trinos had been assigned by her kind. But it did spark a thought now and again. She would see parallels between her life within the universe and the life on her tiny world called Bish.
Interesting.

Trinos had also found certain points in her captivating world that required additional study. In particular, there was the matter of conflict. She had created a world that contained both boundaries and conflict. The main boundary was a lack of interest in understanding any complicated formulas of science. The creatures of Bish lacked either the intelligence or the drive to study why they existed or why there were two suns and moons, all changing as she so desired. The people of Bish did not care about her stars or why they were there. It just was.

The only driving force was for power and control over the other beings in their world. Some races wanted peace, while others wanted war. One race could not ignore or survive without the other. In general, the races of Bish exhibited very little compassion, friendship, or joy. The people were hard and their need to survive and conquer always outweighed their need for affection. Greed and betrayal kept breaking down alliances and friendships, leaving all in Bish forever watching their own backs.

The creation of Bish had also led Trinos to contemplate the nature of good and evil. She had instilled both good and evil—although she herself was unable to engage in either—in order to confer strife. There had to be acts that resembled one or the other. Or had she merely created persons with good and evil traits for the sake of her own entertainment?

Trinos began to wonder if Bish was perhaps not such a good idea after all. She pondered destroying it, but could not. Would a mother destroy her own children? She continued her study.