Clash of Heroes: Nath Dragon meets The Darkslayer (13 page)

CHAPTER 33

“Your days are over, slayer,” the stranger said.

Deep in his battle-hazed mind, Venir recognized the man. Buried in his blood hunt, it didn’t matter. Nothing living or dead would stand between him and the slaughter of the foul underlings. Brool uncoiled like a steel spring and jabbed into the scales of the stranger’s dipping shoulder.

“Auhg!” the man yelled. And then without hesitation, the stranger slipped out of Brool’s reach and countered with size-defying speed. The great sword flicked out like a striking snake.

The metal of Brool crashed into the metal of Fang once more.

CLANGGGGGG!

The master warriors battled back and forth.

Venir cut, stabbed, and chopped.

The stranger parried, deflected, and countered. The man with scales on his arms swung his great blade with the ease of a stick, fencing like a true swordsman. The man staggered back against Venir’s relentless press.

Chest to chest, steel scraping on steel, they locked up head to head.

“You shouldn’t prey on underlings, slayer!” the stranger growled.

The statement only fueled Venir’s temper. The man was out of his mind. No one on Bish ever fought for the underlings. Face to face, he could see the deep anger in the man’s golden eyes. Resentment. Hatred. There was no doubt this man was here to kill him. He drove a knee into the man’s ribs a few times. Drawing his head back, he busted the rim of Helm into the man’s perfect nose.
Crunch!

A powerful shove sent Venir tripping over the vines. Down on the ground he went. As he scrambled to his knees, his keen eyes caught the gleam of steel baring down on him. His arms snapped up the axe, catching the oncoming sword.

CLANGGGGGG!

The jarring blow shook his elbows. Venir twisted his axe, caught the sword between the blades, and held it fast. He kicked the man in the gut, doubling him over. With a surge of his legs, he charged the man back into a tree.

Thud!

The man shoved Venir’s chin back with his clawed hand. The stranger was muttering to himself, “Yes. Yes. Yes. I will kill him. Die, Darkslayer. Die!” With the strength of an ogre, he shoved Venir and broke the grappling off.

The two muscle-bound behemoths squared off again.

Venir held Brool tight in his bloody grip, ready to strike. His lungs burned. The boundless energy that usually fueled him ebbed.

Before him, the stranger stood, bloody nosed and wild eyed, his movements fluid and at ease.

Billip and Mikkel appeared from the brush, ranged weapons poised to attack. Billip let an arrow fly.

Twang!

The stranger easily slipped out of the arrow’s path.

“Impossible!” Billip said, nocking another shaft.

Mikkel aimed his heavy crossbow at the man and said, “I won’t miss.”

“Stay out of this!” Venir ordered. Chest and shoulders heaving, he added with a growl, “He’s mine!”

Mikkel pegged an underling squirming through the brush.

Clatch-Zip!

The bolt rocketed through its skull. “We have your back. Do your thing!”

Venir slid his shield from his shoulders, strapped it to his arm, and hunkered down. He eyed the foreigner and said, “Let’s dance.”

***

“It’s him! Kill him! Kill him!” Oran’s voice said in Nath’s head. “Kill the slayer!”

Fueled by constant thoughts of destruction, Nath waded in toward the warrior. He’d watched the slayer carve down the underlings like a cold-blooded killing machine. It was just as Oran had said. All of the horrific details had come to life.

Embedded in his thoughts, Oran urged him on, “Put an end to this man! End all of this madness! Bring me his head!”

Fang ready, Nath struck. Hard and fast, the sword hammered away at the Darkslayer’s shield. The warrior in the dark helmet—fierce, cunning, and crafty—jabbed at his eyes. His belly. His legs. The rangy man was quick and powerful. His axe was an arc of death. Nath matched everything the man had and then some.

Time to end this. Time to free this world from this disease.

He turned loose his own savagery.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The powerful blade Fang pounded into the warrior like the striking rain of a thunderstorm.

The great axe chopped at his legs.

Nath leapt high.

Swish!

Striking from mid-air, he poked the slayer in his metal head.

The man staggered back, reset his jaw, and marched back forward.

Matching weapon length for weapon length, Nath aimed high for the shield, stopped in mid-swing, pulled Fang back around, and chopped at the man’s legs.

The man’s axe, a living thing in his hands, banged the sword away at the last second. Off balance, the surefooted fighter stumbled through the tall grass.

Nath smote.

Bang!

Sparks flew like fire.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Oran said. “I can feel it! You have him! Kill him!”

***

Venir’s iron limbs gave way to the thunderous strikes of the lightning-quick man. With tremendous effort, he fought on. His will would not break or bend. But now, with all the nearby underlings dead, the armament no longer fueled his blood. It was him against the foreigner, who moved unlike any creature he’d ever known.

This is it.

With the sword hammering away at his shield, Venir summoned everything he had left and counterattacked. He lowered Brool and clipped the man’s thigh with the spike. The pounding of the sword ceased, and the attacker eased back. Arms feeling like lead, huffing for breath, his boundless energy gone, Venir tossed the shield aside.

To the end.

He locked both hands around Brool’s shaft. It was going to be a fight to the finish. A fight to the death. To match the stranger’s speed, he’d need both hands and all the strength he had left. Jaw set, he advanced again.

Fight or die, Venir! Fight or die!

Blocking out all doubt, he took the man. The great axe slammed into the brilliant metal of the outsider’s blade and drove it downward. He hacked. Chopped. Sliced.

The stranger sidestepped, parried, and countered.

Brool’s razor edge clipped the man. Cut the scales on his sinewy arms. Drew blood from his legs and chest.

Inches away from death, the man escaped again and again.

Venir poured everything he had into it. The axe rose and fell. His strikes became sluggish and clumsy compared to the finesse and weaving of the sword.

Keep swinging! Keep swinging!

Putting everything he had into it, Venir unleashed a side swing that would have split an ox in half.

Slice!

The stranger flattened in a fraction of a second and popped up again.

Venir’s heavy axe and tired frame shuffled out of balance. He started to recover his swing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the stranger’s sword coming back.

With a golden fire in his eyes, the stranger rammed his sword to the hilt into Venir’s chest.

Venir’s head snapped back, “Urk!” Brool slipped from his fingers.

The gasps of his comrades resonated in the deep recesses of Venir’s mind. Melegal’s ashen face appeared through the branches in the forest.

Venir felt life slip out of his body, from his fingers down to his toes. His eyes fixed on the sword plunged into his chest. The pain burned like a hundred fires. Raising his stare, he found the eyes of his opponent.

The bright eyes were filled with victory and a twisted confusion.

Spitting blood and racked with pain, Venir managed to say, “Well fought.” The last of his fires dimmed. His inner furnace of molten fury cooled. Somehow, Venir held on to the last thread of life. His bloody fingers clutched at the warrior’s red locks of hair and held them fast.

The fighter’s golden eyes enlarged.

Holding the man fast, Venir snaked out his hunting knife and drove it hilt deep in the stranger’s exposed chest. Dying, he said, “But you’re coming to the grave with me.”

CHAPTER 34

Led by Chongo to his friend’s aid, Melegal shouted at the others. “Why did you two idiots just stand there? You let him get killed!”

Venir’s body fell backward, sliding off the sword and toppling to the ground. The man with red hair collapsed as well.

“It was his choice,” Billip said, kneeling by Venir’s side. “Not ours.”

“He isn’t very competent in his reasoning! You know that!” Melegal looked at his friend. His strapping frame was broken and bloody, unmoving. The skin on his arms was clammy. “Bloodthirsty fools!” Melegal rarely raised his voice over anything, but today had been enough. Surrounded by piles of dead underlings, he’d reached his breaking point.

Kneeling alongside the other man, Billip pulled Venir’s knife from the stranger’s chest. “This one’s still breathing, I think.” He held his hand over the stranger’s mouth. “His breath has fire behind it. What manner of man breathes flame and survives a gash like that?”

“Finish him off,” Melegal suggested.

Blast my skinny hide, I’ll never get back to Bone. Fool of a man, Venir! Just had to get yourself killed, didn’t you?

“I hope you goons packed a shovel, because I’m not burying him. My back hurts just thinking about digging a hole that big.”

“Watch your mouth, Melegal,” Mikkel said. His jovial smile and tone were far gone. “That was as honorable a fight as I ever saw. Never seen two men fight like that. Never.”

“So what do we do with this one?” Billip asked. “Why would he battle alongside underlings? No one does that.”

“Maybe it’s like Farc said, he’s something their dark mysticism summoned.” Mikkel tilted his head and added, “But it doesn’t feel right. None of it does.”

“It doesn’t matter now, either way,” Melegal said. He thumbed what looked to be sweat from the corners of his eyes. “Vee is dead.”

The warrior lay still as a stone with wounds all over his body, slick in grime and blood. It seemed a fitting end to the robust warrior, but the helmet still had a strange life of its own, even with the eyes within closed.

The jungle fell silent.

The hairs stood up on the nape of Melegal’s neck. Goosebumps rose on his skinny arms. He glanced down at Venir.

The man’s eyes snapped open. His hands lashed out and snatched Melegal by his shirt.

Melegal fought against the iron grip that seized him, but his voice was calm and matter-of-fact when he said, “Get your bloody mitts off me, you incorrigible ape.”

Venir’s fingers popped open.

Melegal hopped to his feet.

A lock of red hair was trapped between Venir’s fingers. He cast it away, unbuckled his helmet, and peeled it off his head. His hair was damp with sweat, but his face was clean from the nose up. A wary look was in his eyes. He said, “What happened?”

“This man fed you his sword through the chest,” Billip said, motioning to the stranger. He pitched Venir’s knife to him. “You bladed him. Somehow, like you, he still breathes but shouldn’t.”

Melegal rubbed the bumps from his bony arms, shaking his head. Bish didn’t offer explanations. Life moved on.

Venir’s color had returned, and so had the brightness in his eyes. He shrugged his broad shoulders and gave him an explanation: “Bish happens.”

Melegal set his steely gaze on the other man who lay near death on the ground. Chongo sniffed the man and licked his face and wounds.

“Chongo, get away from there,” Venir said with a groan. He got up to his feet. “Come.”

The muscular beast lay on top of the man. Billip reached for his collar. The dog snapped at his fingers and growled.

“Seems he likes the stranger, Venir,” Billip said, backing away. “Strange, strange indeed. He just eats the underlings.”

Venir picked up his knife. “That’s no underling.” He reached down and scratched the dog behind the ears. The waist-high beast had a few wounds of his own. He still licked at the wounded man on the ground. “I’ve never seen Chongo act like this for a stranger. And this man seemed confused.”

“And who wouldn’t be? Clearly he doesn’t belong in this armpit of the world,” Melegal said. He smashed a mosquito sucking on his neck. “Bone! I don’t belong here either. Venir, it’s time to get out of here.”

“Take a moment and catch your breath.”

“I’m not out of breath.”

“That’s because you didn’t fight anybody,” Mikkel said with a slight return of his smile. He shook some gore from his club. “Not that you wouldn’t have, given the opportunity.”

“I say I’d fare better than Venir did and not wake up with a wound the breadth of a canoe in my chest. Now, I mean it, it’s high time we departed.”

Billip began stacking underling weapons in a pile. There was a gleam in his dark eyes. “Underling steel by the bushel. Hah. Even you should be thrilled about this, Melegal. It’s quite a haul, it is.”

“The only thing I want to haul is my skinny arse out of here!”

Mikkel picked up a huge sword that lay on the ground and swished it around. “Bish! What a thing this is! The balance, the weight. I’m no swordsman, but even I know perfection.”

Melegal eased toward the magnificent blade, along with Billip. He had an eye for detail and had seen his fair share of weaponry in the world. The Royals lusted and boasted over such weaponry in their world. But the dragons with twinkling gemstone eyes built into the crossguard were entirely an unseen thing.

“We’ll get a fortune for it.” He nudged Melegal with his elbow. “What do you think? Split it four ways?”

“It’s Venir’s to decide,” said Melegal.

Venir, chin sagging on his chest, flipped his hand. “Have at it … but this man’s heart hasn’t stopped yet. Billip, Mikkel, why don’t you take your leave with Melegal if you wish? Chongo and I will stay with this man.”

Incredulous, Melegal replied, “Oh, so now we can leave? Now that you’ve had your fill of the underlings, we can suddenly go?” He wanted to spit. “Fine! You two burly brigands take me to Bone, and I’ll fetch a price so high for that sword that you’ll be sleeping in gold.”

“Now you’re talking,” Mikkel said. His big smile returned. “I like how you think, skinny man!” He took a few steps away from Venir and the crowd, whistled for his horse, and suddenly dropped the sword. “Ow! It burned me!”

“What do you mean, it burned you?” Billip asked.

Rubbing his palm, Mikkel blew on it. “I mean that hilt heated up like an iron. Don’t believe me?
You
try it.”

“You’re crazy.” Billip strolled over and picked it up. “See? It’s fine. Cool as a cucumber—Ow!” He dropped it and kicked it away. “Cursed thing!”

“Told you.” Mikkel shook his head and said back to Venir, “We’ll let you decide what to do with it.”

“Just wrap it up in some cloth or something,” Melegal argued.

“If you want to take it, you take it then.” Billip poured a canteen of water on his hand. “I’ve got a blister from it!”

“Venir, are you really going to stick with that dead man?” asked Melegal.

Massaging Chongo’s neck, Venir replied, “We’ll catch up.”