The Darkslayer: Book 02 - Blades in the Night (3 page)

“
Do you really think the underlings would hold back if they were tracking you? They sure didn’t last time,” Mood said.

Venir watched as Mood slammed one of his axes into a nearby stump.

“
No,” Venir finally answered.

Then they were both quiet. The crickets and the owls seemed to fall silent too. The breeze, the fire, and Mood’s cigar smoke began to soothe Venir’s nerves, making him reflective. He had survived much in the harsh world of Bish, and was the better for it, but of late, things seemed out of place. It had never been normal for him to even ponder such things. Now it seemed common in his thoughts.

Mood broke the silence as he cracked some branches and tossed them on the fire.

“
The underlings are thick as roaches, nowadays. My brethren and I are hard pressed to keep tabs on ’em. They’re bolder, using daylight more. Of course, you’ve figured that out the hard way. They’re getting ready for a surface war, I think, but not doing it like they used to.”

“
My problem, Mood, is that I used to be able to pick them apart and hunt them on my own terms. But once I put on that armor …” Venir looked over at his armaments. “I can’t stop till I kill them. It just keeps … pushing me. I have to be careful there aren’t a hundred too close to me or else I’ll go after all of them. That’s why I do what I can in the Outlands. There aren’t too many large groups.”

Venir sat down by the fire.

“
Ah, now, it can’t be that bad, can it?” Mood said.

Ignoring Mood’s question, Venir shook his head and said, “Besides, I don’t think I’m going be wielding the armaments forever.”

Mood raised an eyebrow at that, but then went on chewing and puffing on his cigar.

“
Looks like you’re stuck with ’em now,” Mood said. “Stop thinking and keep fighting. I’ve seen a lot o’ things on the battlefield in this world, but never anything that could go through underlings like you do. You’re a strong man and born that way. You can handle it.” Mood pulled Venir back up to his feet. “So make the most of it and kill all the underlings you can. You’ll be happier for it. I know you.”

“
I guess you do,” Venir said. He rubbed his hands together over the fire. “I can’t believe I’m putting all this thought into it. I need to … Eh, I’ll just stick with carving them into little chunks of troll food. Just don’t let me get too close to the Underland.”

The husky dwarf now began carving a chair out of a massive log he’d downed.

“
I’d be glad to help,” Mood said. “Now, how’s Chongo? I assume he’s safe since you didn’t bring him along. I’m also sure he would have smelled ’em out long before you did.”

“
That’s true. And he’s fine. I let him sit this one out. Georgio’s been keeping an eye on him.”

“
Really? And how is the boy? Silly little fella, but he makes me laugh,” Mood said, still chopping away.

“
He seems to be doing okay, given the circumstances. He’s none the worse for wear.”

Even as he said it, though, Venir felt guilty for having not done a better job protecting Georgio in the Outlands. If only the boy had learned to stay put, things would have turned out better for him.

“
Glad to hear it,” Mood said. “Now, let’s fetch us something to eat. I bet I can catch dinner before you can!”

“
You’re on!”

At that, the two hulking figures separated and slipped into the deep shadows of the forest.

The world of Bish was a secret place, resting deep within the vast, wondrous folds of a cold, dark universe. Its creator was Trinos, who was once a mortal of a similar world. Her kind had discovered the means to travel the stars and gain limitless power. With this power, they now created their own worlds.

As her kind had spread out across the vastness of space, they found that they were not the only ones: other races, too, had discovered the endless expanse of time and space. They all thrived within the universe, united in their quest to find its purpose, its end. Yet, they could not. Once great and powerful, these beings now seemed to themselves as minuscule as molecules, scattered like stardust among the galaxies and stars—free to do as they pleased, yet feeling trapped within the enormity of space, where the limitlessness of their power often left them bored and restless.

Still, each had an agreed undertaking to fulfill. Trinos took the charge of monitoring new and old worlds that had been created by beings such as herself. These worlds came and went, never reaching the limitlessness that Trinos and other infinite beings had acquired. Most worlds extinguished over time.

Many had shown hope and promise, but these were not enough. Sooner or later, all manner of creatures seemed to display self-destructive patterns of behavior. Selfishness, greed, and ambition would outweigh more cohesive, constructive behaviors like love, peace, and joy. At one time, Trinos had also experienced such things as joy, pain and love, but that was long, long ago—now just a fragment of her consciousness.

The creators of these worlds were often careless in their projects, and they lacked the vision to give their worlds a purpose. Often they would merely abandon them, as they were not permitted to interfere. None, it seemed, could duplicate what their own race had achieved, and the source of their own power remained a mystery to them.

Trinos, though, had grown rather disenchanted with her charges as she watched these worlds collapse again and again. Those to whom she reported these outcomes seemed not to mind how they fared, one way or the other. It began to frustrate her. In a moment of inspiration, she decided to create her very own world. It would be one that could survive under the harshest of conditions, and bear humanoids, whom she had come to favor.

It would be a place where magic would supplant technology. Its people would have no desire to understand or care why they were there. Good and evil would be locked in eternal conflict, but a delicate balance would be maintained by a powerful source of magic that would change sides before one conquered the other, and so avoid ultimate destruction. The world would be full of colorful survivors—desperate, greedy, passionate, and fierce. Chronic mayhem and conflict would leave little room for peace among the races, with villainy pitted against heroism, each striving to eliminate the other at all costs.

Unknown to its inhabitants, the power to keep this world in check would be wielded by only one man, woman, or race at any time. And at this particular moment in time, the magical power lay in the hands of a warrior, a furious juggernaut relentlessly opposed to evil.

At present, Trinos had little interest in the matter. Over the course of the world’s existence so far, she had been pleased with its results. It had survived. Teetering on the edge of its own self-destruction, it had managed to recover time and again. The world called Bish was rather a marvel, and had remained her secret for quite some time, which pleased her. But nothing lasted forever, for even those with limitless power were not beyond the reach of chance, fate, or chaos.

And so, upon her most recent return to enjoy the delights of her world, Trinos discovered that another infinite being—Scorch—had come upon her jewel of Bish and tampered with it. Now, the world of Bish was in decline, destined for destruction. She felt the stirring of anger in her once emotionless belly, and she embraced it. It gave her a sense of purpose: to pursue this meddler. But before she gave chase to Scorch, Trinos managed a quick fix to try to staunch the damage by bestowing additional power to the magical equalizer, hoping that this would be enough to check the decline. Then she set off, leaving the world of Bish to deal with its predicament on its own.

Below the blazing surface of Bish, Lord Catten sat deep in thought, tapping his index finger into the pewter armrest, now riddled with tiny dents from his black, pointed nail. He was a humanoid, like all other races on Bish, and black robed, but with a covering of light gray rat-like fur over his body. His head hair, eyebrows, lips, and sharp nails were all black, and his teeth gray and pointed.

He was an underling, archrival of the human race. Their populace terrorized the surface world, although the massive, convoluted caves of the Underland remained their home. His race was matched against the humans in the battle for dominance on Bish. The underlings were more powerful in magic and had superior longevity to all other races, except for the dwarves. The humans, however, had superior numbers and other formidable talents that made them difficult to extinguish. There was nothing he hated more.

The humans, meanwhile, remained divided among themselves, torn between good and evil in their daily struggle with the harsh elements on Bish. By contrast, the underlings’ fierce hatred for surface dwellers united them. Catten and his kind had one quest: seeking the utter destruction of their enemies. They were cruel, calculating, and merciless, hunting and torturing their victims more for power and pleasure than necessity or survival. Catten himself so delighted in these efforts that it was often a game for him and his kin.

Underling soldiers came and went across the surface of Bish at all hours of day and night, as orderly as worker ants. They were small in stature, more the size of small human women, and their movements were fluid and lithe, though not graceful. They would watch, observe, and report—then maim and execute helpless inhabitants throughout the land.

Though daylight did not bother them, they usually struck at night—it was their way. The terror they struck into the hearts of all races was unrivaled, as all the races feared them. Leaving a bloodied trail by dragging corpses, they left horror in their wake, and would often take prisoners deep into their caves, never to be seen again. Sometimes they would leave a mutilated survivor or two with stumps for hands to recount the nightmare to others on the surface, and those demoralizing horror stories had no equal in instilling deeper fear.

Of late, however, successful underling invasions had been less numerous. It had been years since the underlings had engaged in a full-scale battle on the surface, yet they kept busy plotting and scheming while practicing guerilla-like games. They were still the most dangerous race, but they had become more cautious of their losses and casualties, simply because they did not reproduce as easily as other races. They had to be careful when they struck, for a single miscalculation could wipe out a score of soldiers or more.

Lord Catten was not enjoying the pressure of tracking the formidable Darkslayer any more than a mouse would enjoy trying to catch a cat. He simply could not understand why this one man was so hard to kill. He sighed, though his narrow gold eyes remained unblinking over his hawkish nose. The eyes were the feature that most clearly distinguished one underling from another. Their heads could also be a variety of shapes, but it was the uniqueness of their eyes in which they took most pride. Eyes came in all possible shapes, sizes, and any color of the spectrum, and anyone who survived a face-to-face encounter with an underling would never forget the sight.

Underlings so valued their eyes, in fact, that they would preserve those of their fallen brethren, though what they did with the bodies was uncertain. Their enemies, however, would burn their bodies rather than bury them, lest their magic revive them, as had sometimes been rumored.

Catten frowned. The battle casualties had been growing for the underlings. Yes, the Royal forces of Bish had gone on the offensive, preparing the villages and small farming towns under their watch. But there was another force that had been steadily racking up a body count of underlings over the years, a force whose deeds alone had rallied the most inept of farmers to fight for their survival.

The Darkslayer had become the greatest thorn in the side of the powerful underlings, and because of him, their fearsome grip on Bish was weakening. At first, the Darkslayer had been only a pest, but now he had spread the poison of inspiration among their enemies. Catten and his brother, Lord Verbard, had been charged with his elimination, but these two powerful underling magi had been without success so far.

The two underling brothers were centuries old and stood a full five and a half feet tall, towering over their brethren. But now they sat on their pewter thrones in a cavern filled with objects of their desire, the dark walls glowing with the faint blue hue of the underlight, which derived from magic more ancient the even their knowledge.

Lord Verbard seemed less concerned than his brother; at the moment, his silver eyes were absorbed with the spectacle of the two urchlings before them, who were beating a captured human to a pulp. Urchlings were half-sized underlings with limited intelligence. They wore no clothing, had hunched backs, coarse body hair, knotted muscles, and white eyes, yet they were every bit as malicious as other underlings. Right now, their shrieks and chittering made Catten long to jam a spike into their heads to stop their wails of twisted triumph.

Bored at last, Verbard dismissed the two from his chamber with a sharp
chit
, and the urchlings dragged the disfigured and bloodied corpse of the man out of sight, much to Catten’s relief.

“
Did you not enjoy the show I arranged for you, brother?” Verbard inquired, leaning back in his throne.

Catten remained silent and brooding.

“
Come now, Catten. You use to
adore
that! You have been quiet for weeks. If you will not talk, you may force me to return to my mate. I do not wish that. You know how it is when they are pregnant.”