The Darkslayer: Chaos at the Castle (Book 6) (12 page)

“
Hurry up, Boon,” Fogle said.

The thought of Cass being dead rattled him
. He could still see her limp form being dragged away.

“We need a plan,” Boon said
. “Barton, when you crest that edge, get after them. Fogle, you and I will grab the woman, but you need to focus. They’ll have darts, poison, paralyzation at their disposal. We’ll need thicker skin to drag her out of there. Much thicker.”

Fogle knew immediately what
Boon was talking about and summoned his power. He’d readied the spell in his mind earlier. His skin toughened like hide leather. Boon dipped under his added weight.

“Well done
. Now, when you get her, grab her and get out of there. I’ll handle the rest,” Boon said. He stopped just below the crest. Barton hung on the rock at their side. “Can you make that jump if you have to, Barton?”

His big face leered down
. He said, “Barton will make big splash!”

“And don’t forget about the dog,” Boon said. “Now listen to me
, Fogle, don’t come back for me. Get to safety. I’ll catch up if I have to. Ah, and one more thing.”

Boon led them over the edge and set Fogle down. Barton cleared the lip and rolled to his
feet.  Fogle could see the underlings and spiders heading back up the path less than thirty yards away.

Boon held out his hands.

“Barton, give me your finger.”

Barton extend
ed his hand.

“You going to make me fly?”

Boon wrapped his hands around the giant’s finger and smiled. “No. I’m going to make you fast. Very fast! But it won’t last long, so make the most of it.”

Barton’s face brightened like the suns.

“Go! Go! GOOOOOO!” Barton said. He smashed his fist in his palm. “This is gonna be fun!”

Fogle could see every underling stop and turn.
  Like black coyotes, they dashed down the ravine. Angry. Chittering. Two spiders the size of horses scurried over the waters at full charge.

Barton met them all head on. His fists drummed like giant flails.
“Barton hate bugs!”

T
he first spider and rider were turned into piles of goo. More underlings and spiders piled on the giant. Barton was a hurricane of flesh in their midst. Snatching, stomping, tearing and rending them like bugs.

“I see the dog
.” Boon pointed. “Move now, Fogle. I’ll try to cover you.”

Without thinking, Fogle ran up the
wall of the ravine. Through the ebony hawk’s eyes, he could see Cass’s form still being dragged along. He pushed his way through the branches and caught one in the face.
Blasted trees!
His chest was heaving when he emerged in the clearing. He cut into the underling’s path.

The underling
stopped. Pale blue eyes leering at him. It pulled a short jagged sword from its belt and charged.

Fogle summoned a word of power
, shattering its blade.

The underling kept coming. S
lammed into him full force, driving him into the ground. In an instant it wrapped its claws around Fogle’s throat.

He couldn’t breathe.
It was strong as a man, but Fogle was stronger. The iron skin he’d summoned saw to that. He grabbed the underling by the wrists and started pulling them away.

“Must! Save! Cass!” he said
. He gave it a heave, tearing its arms away.

It hisse
d, sinking its teeth into his shoulder.

Fogle didn’t feel a thing
.

I
t bit again. Its claws ripped at his robes.

“These are my only robes
, you fiend! The Bish with you!”

Grabbing a round rock from the stream bed
, he clocked it in the head.

The underling held on, determined, like a hungry badger.

Fogle muttered a word of power, ignited his rock-filled hand, and smote the underling again in the skull.

Crack!

Its head busted open like an egg. Its jaw slackened.

Fogle shoved its dead body off him
, gasping for breath.

“Cass
!”

Pitching the rock, F
ogle scurried alongside her. Removing the rope from around her neck, he lifted her limp form up in his arms and backtracked.

Ahead, the battle raged on. Barton’s bellows echoed up the ravine like thunder
, and bright bursts of energy sizzled and crackled into the underlings from all directions. Even the barks of two angry hound heads could be heard. But the woman in his arms was not moving.

“Hang on, Cass
.” He was shoving his way through the thicket. Inky, in the branches above, shrieked. Fogle stopped. Something else was moving their way, and moving fast. He surged through the forest.

“Boon! Boon!” he
said. Finally, He emerged where he’d started.

Barton and Chongo were finishing off the underlings
. Boon’s hands were smoking.

“I see you got her!”

“Boon, you know that spell for the portal?”

“Yes, why?”

“We could use it now.” Fogle tried to contain his panic. “Underlings are coming. I can see them. Hundreds are close and beyond them, thousands!”

“Go then! Continue your quest, Grandson! I’ll slow them down.
Use the spellbook!” He looked over the falls. “Make it count!”

Fogle could see Barton and Chong
o’s work was finished. Both were bleeding, but the underlings and spiders were pulverized.

“We’ll all flee together, Boon! You gave your word.”

“To save the girl and the dog, not the man!”

“But, he has all the power, you said
.” Still holding Cass’s limp body, Fogle muttered, summoning a cushion of air along the falls. “Barton, Chongo, come!”

Obeying, they came, stepping off the drop into mid-air where they slowly lowered.

“Come on, Boon! They’re close! You can’t take them all!”

Boon stared back at him with a grim smile on his face
. “They’re so much more fun to kill in bunches!”

D
rifting down past the lip, he lost sight of Boon. He shook his head until they landed at the pool in the bottom.

Barton rinsed the blood from his hands
. “That was fun. We do that again soon, right Wizard?”

Fogle
draped Cass over the saddle and swung himself up onto the horse.

“Sure, Barton
.” He dug his heels into his horse.

Barton and Chongo followed.

Inky soared above the grove, showing Fogle swarm after swarm of underlings piling inside. They coated the landscape like black moss.

One moment
, the grove was calm and quiet. In the next was a series of explosions and bright colorful spots.

“Enjoy
, Grandfather.” Fogle didn’t look back. He couldn’t fight the feeling he’d never see his grandfather again.
No one could survive that. Not even The Darkslayer.
Come, Inky.

CHAPTER 14

Toowhip.

Toowhip.

Toowhip.

Venir open
ed the heavy lids of his eyes, squinting in the brightness. It was daytime. It was pain time. Everything from head to toe throbbed.

Toowhip.

Toowhip.

Toowhip.

Something struck his face again and again, like tiny stinging insects. His arms rattled, and his wrists ached. From the corner of his eye, he saw a long metal needle jutting from his face.

What?

There w
ere needles in his arms, dozens of them, each leaving a red swelling mark. His head felt like it weighed a ton. He lifted his chin and locked eyes with a ruby eyed underling. One of many. His arm trembled in his bonds.
This can’t be!

It was Outpost Thirty One, but filled with a different ilk, underlings. Hundreds of them were at work within the walls of the huge fort, pushing carts over the courtyard, hammering steel by forges, and ordering motley assortments of men, orcs and kobolds about. Remnants of the Brigand Queen’s army. It was a vision of Venir’s world turned inside out. A nightmare.

Toowhip.

Toowhip.

Three underling soldiers, little more than five feet tall, adorned in black leather armor, had Venir surrounded. Each reloaded a small blowgun and spat a needle at him. One chittered, pointed at his face with the long nail of his finger, and spat.

Toowhip.

Struck him on the tip of his nose.

“Come closer
, Underling, and I’ll shove that up your arse,” he said. But it was unintelligible. His tongue was thick as wool.

Ignoring the throbbing
, Venir scanned his conditions. He was on a set of scaffolding two stories tall and shackled to the wooden blood-stained deck. On the corner of the deck, a bucket sat, with moisture on its lip. He thirsted. Below him, underlings were at work, some staring up with gemstone eyes to catch a look at him. They chittered and gestured. Some laughed before looking away. He’d never heard an underling laugh before. It was a disturbing sound. Shrill and creepy.

One of the underling guards ma
de his way down a ladder, hopped to the ground, and disappeared into one of the buildings below the massive catwalks. It seemed Venir’s awakening required the attention of somebody.

Dying of thirst, Venir eyed the other two underling
s. He fought the urge to ask them for water. He’d never ask an underling for anything. He’d die first. Despite the ache and stiffness in his wrists, he plucked out a dart and flicked it away.

Toowhip.

Toowhip.

For every
dart he picked, a half dozen more replaced it. His arms, legs and torso were covered with a hundred little stings. He kept plucking. Watching. Fighting the pain and ignoring the mocking chitters of the underlings.

Two underling
s were whipping an orcen man in the stockades. Other humans pulled carts with weapons and armor, while underlings clad in black armor trained. The underlings moved about the confines of the fort like parts in a well-oiled machine, running drill after drill. Their sharp blades moved fast, glinting in the light of the two suns.

Venir’s thoughts drifted to Slim and Commander Jans. Did the underlings know they were
near? “Ugh!”

A dart caught him in the lid of his eye.

He reached to pluck it away.

T
he underling grabbed his wrist.

“Get your claws off m
e, Fiend.” Venir said.

One
underling clocked him in the head with a long stick while the other kicked him in the thigh.

Venir yelped.
“Bone!” He reversed his grip, snatched the underling’s wrist, and jerked it to the ground. Wrapping the underling’s neck in the nook of his arm, he squeezed, ignoring all the needles being driven farther into his arm.

The other underling guard beat on his head with fury.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

Venir held on. He’d kill one more underling before the day was done. He heaved. The underling
’s tongue writhed out of its mouth. Claws stretched out for its last grasp of life. It shuddered and convulsed. Venir crushed its throat. The sound of steel being ripped from a sheath caught his ears. He whipped around. The underling guard’s arm coiled back to strike his throat.

A
commanding voice shouted out in underling.

The underling sentry stayed his h
and, chest heaving. Nostrils flaring.

The
platform groaned as a figure made its way up the ladder.

A burly underling warrior, the size of two in one
, appeared.

Venir had never seen such an underling
before. Dark plate covered its chest, and its arms and chest were as thick as an ape’s. Dark ruby eyes glowered at him as it walked over and struck him in the face with its mailed gauntlet.

Venir saw spots
. Tuuth’s big pale frame appeared behind the underling commander, holding the canister he had carried to signal for the Royal Riders.

A
moment of awful clarity. Venir realized his plan was not such a good plan after all. He’d never considered the consequences of the canister falling into underling hands.

Bish, I’m a fool!

All he could do was hope the underlings wouldn’t figure out what it was there for.

The burly underling commander grabbed Venir by the hair and pounded the tiny needles deeper into his chest, one blow after the other.

The excruciating pain was blinding
. He cried out.