The Darkslayer: Book 02 - Blades in the Night (45 page)

“
That’s strange,” Venir said.

He glanced over at the others, who looked confused as well. It looked like any other girdle used in battle, broad in the front and buckling in the back. Venir ran his hand over it. It felt cold to the touch. Uncertainty crept in on the large man as he swung it over his shoulder.

“
Put it on, big fella! Or else I will,” Mikkel said.

“
Okay then.” Venir set down the sack and buckled on the girdle, then stood straight as he pulled his shoulders back. “There. Happy?”

“
Feel any different?” Fogle asked.

They were all ears.

“
Well … I think I do,” Venir said.

His belly began to warm. He felt good, better than he’d felt in weeks.

“
Like how?” Billip asked.

“
Like I can crush an underling’s head with my bare hands,” Venir said as he began clenching his massive fists and punching them into his hands.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

The sound resonated with power more and more with each blow throughout the room.

“
Pull out something else, man,” Mood said. “This is exciting!”

Venir shoved his meaty hand back into the sack and pulled out the next item.

“
Helm,” he whispered.

Indeed, it was the same helm, but the metal was darker now, almost black, and the ornate markings, copper, and brass seemed to gleam brighter than before. The spike on top gleamed of bright steel. The helm’s patterns tied in with the girdles: a matching set. In comparison to its predecessor, the helm seemed more polished and refined. Something had changed. He couldn’t wait to put it on his head.

“
Don’t put it on,” Fogle Boon warned.

“
Yeah, I don’t want to see you running out of here like a flaming ogre as you usually do,” Mood said.

Venir felt himself smile. He could feel color filling his rugged cheeks, and he couldn’t wait to see if Brool awaited inside. He set down the helmet and reached inside. Everyone’s jaw dropped as he reached in and pulled out the final armament.

“
Brool!” they all whispered loudly.

Venir held the mighty battle axe before his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. It was as if a long lost friend had come home.

It was the great battle-axe, the hand-and-a-half axe, as he liked to call it. But it had changed as well. The rich red oak shaft was now a deep ebony oak in color. The massive twin blades and spike were no longer the titanium dull gray burnished metal. The axe head now gleamed bright with steel like that of the finest forged in Bish. It no longer appeared as the rugged devastator that he swung with ease, but instead is was purified and refined, but every bit as menacing, if not more so. His burning blue eyes examined the length of the massive weapon from spike tip to shod as exhilaration filled his body.

“
How’s it feel?” Mood asked, his green eyes wide.

“
Stand back and we shall see!” Venir said.

The others moved out of the way as he began whirling away. The balance was as perfect as before. The heft seemed even lighter. A furnace inside him began to explode.

He tested his weapon with two-handed little chops and slices. A film of sweat gathered on his brow as he began to go into a trance. He burst into a furious motion, whirling the blade like a storm of lightning around his body. He felt his companions step farther back. He wanted to cut through something. He had to. The sound of the twin blades whistling through the air was all he could hear as he wove a pattern of destruction around his body. He couldn’t take it anymore. He rushed over to one of many thick posts supporting the room and with a single two-handed stroke he cut clean through it.

“
You’re gonna fix that!” Mood shouted.

Mood’s booming voice jarred Venir from his haze.

“
Sorry, Mood,” Venir said. “I just got carried away. I’ll fix it when I get back.”

“
Is there anything else?” Fogle asked.

Venir had forgotten about the shield. He knelt down and reached inside. Nothing. He stepped back up.

“
I guess the girdle will have to do,” Venir said.

“
You leaving right now?’ Billip asked.

“
Oh yeah … it’s time to slay the day!” Venir said. “I’m getting Chongo ready. Fogle Boon, it’s time to go. Meet me up top.”

Venir couldn’t wait to leave. Whatever awaited him, he was ready for it.

“
Hold on!” Fogle said. “You aren’t running off anywhere without this.”

The mage produced a leather strap with an amber gemstone hanging from it. The small man was careful to step around Brool as he tied the strap around Venir’s neck.

“
What’s this for?” Venir asked.

“
In case you run off, I can find you, or we can,” Fogle said. “Who knows what will happen if you put on that helmet or even smell an underling? I can’t have you leaving me high and dry.”

“
Yeah, Boon, you gotta watch him! He’s always running off in the middle of the night or even battle. That’s a good idea,” Mikkel said as he rubbed Venir on the head. “I’ll say this though, Vee, I hate to have to miss out on the next encounter. Skull Basher likes being in Brool’s company. Nothin’ but smashed underlings and dark blood. Carve the Bish out of them, brother!”

“
Yep … you never know,” Billip said. “Anyhow, we’ll be on our way, after we say our good-byes … to the ladies.”

Mikkel and Billip grinned as they slapped Venir on the shoulder and headed out.

“
Make it quick!” Mood bellowed down the hall after them. “As for you, Venir, you need some armor. You don’t even have a shield now—no way of protecting yourself. I’ll grab you a vest of dwarven scale and then we
all
will be on our way.”

Venir hadn’t expected Mood to come along. Then he remembered what the dwarf had told him: countless dwarves had been torn apart and stuffed into holes. The Blood Ranger would want to avenge them. Venir knew that he himself must have been the cause—something to draw him out into the open. How many more had suffered for him and the sack? Dread overshadowed his excitement. He had to get this over with. But he didn’t want them to come along.

In the dawn, miles north of Dwarven Hole, the cadre of two men, a dwarf, and a mintaur traveled on the backs of horses and a giant two-headed dog. They managed to hold the warrior down long enough to gather supplies and come up with a plan. In some haste, they all left before Venir got away.

Wearing the magic girdle and clutching Brool—but keeping the helm in the sack for now—Venir was in the lead atop Chongo’s massive back. The big dog swayed with the rhythm of his twin tails as they headed past the City of Bone in the distant west. The party traveled close to the eastern edge of the world of Bish, where the great mists threatened to engulf them.

The world of Bish was unique, the lands surrounded by endless mists and bottomless cliffs that no one was known to return from—or come from. No creature or fowl of the air was ever seen to venture there, either. The world’s inhabitants avoided the rim all together. Lately, though, things had begun to change. Folks started asking questions and seeing things in the mist.

Venir’s group traveled for days into the hot winds that blew down from the north. Flanking along the small dwarven army, they marched dead center toward Hohm’s Marsh. Somewhere ahead, underlings waited—likely the pair that Mood suspected … the ones from the battle at Warfield.

Dwarven scouts on stout ponies came and went from their group, updating Mood, king of the Blood Rangers, as to their discoveries. They were not far from Hohm’s Marsh now, but the bodies they found, of all races, were becoming more frequent and the stories were more horrific. Venir could see that Fogle Boon was appalled. The man had yet to face pure evil. “Be ready,”
Venir told the mage over and over again. Fogle Boon muttered along, his face taut, his narrow eyes focused.

Venir simmered at the stories of destruction. He felt responsible and it weighed him down. He wanted to get it over with … alone. His reckless nature began to take over. He considered leaving them in the night. Something interrupted his plans.

Krowwww-ak!

The odd sound passed through his body like the crackling thunder from a nearby storm. Then it happened again.

Krowwww-ak!

Mood lurched up in his saddle and came to a quick stop.

“
What in a hairy orc’s hide is that, Venir?” Fogle stated.

“
No idea. Never heard that before,” Venir replied.

“
It’s a balfrog!” Mood cried.

“
What’s that?” Fogle asked.

“
A toad the size of a mountain,” the dwarf said.

Mood rounded up the dwarven scouts on each of their flanks. A look of worry crossed the dwarf king’s face. Venir had never seen that look before.

“
A toad? Is that anything we need to worry about?” the mage asked, as if in relief.

“
No, but it’s somethin I got to worry about. Me kin don’t know what a bloody balfrog is. Methinks I’m the only one to survive a battle. It’s been centuries. I go to help kill it. I know how.”

“
Why don’t they just leave it alone?” Fogle asked.

“
Man, didn’t you learn about us in the Hole?” Mood said. “We don’t retreat. We are as hardheaded when faced with an obstacle as an ogre, just a lot smarter. I got to get up there. Last time, over a hundred dwarves died before we got him down. That thing has the hide thicker than steel, and up close, that croak can kill you. Three tongues strike like monstrous snakes and eat’cha in a wink.”

“
You need us?” Venir asked, shaking Brool.

“
No, you keep your course. I’ll catch up.”

Mood then barked some orders to his scouts and headed off in a gallop on his horse north toward Hohm’s Marsh to the battle, his thick blood-red hair billowing behind him.

“
WOOO-HAAAAA!” Mood bellowed.

Venir wished Mood had taken the others with him.

“
I don’t like how things are going all of a sudden,” Fogle said. “Things seem to happen pretty fast on these ventures with you. Mind if we pause and I cast a spell?”

Venir pondered the man’s wisdom. “You are your own man. Do what you think is best. Seems you have been around long enough to realize the kind of trouble I’ll get you in.”

“
That’s true.”

The mage dismounted along with Ox, who brought the large rucksack with him. The mage procured a scroll, then sat down cross-legged.

“
Don’t disrupt me,” Fogle said. “And don’t let
anything
else disrupt me, either, but stay very near.”

Ox stood tall nearby and Venir turned his back, then peered north and waited. Venir could hear the faint mumblings of the mage, minute after minute, when in the north, he saw something in the distance come into focus. He held his hand over his eyes, blocking the suns, for a clearer look. Close to a hundred yards away, he swore he saw himself, Chongo, Fogle Boon, Ox, and their mounts. Venir then turned and saw Fogle standing behind him, his large head showing bright eyes and a wide smile.

“
You like it?” Fogle said.

“
What is it?” he asked.

“
It is a phantasm, or mirage rather, of our images. It will mimic us from ahead and should fool anything. It’ll take away their opportunity for surprise, while giving us one.”

Venir nodded. “That’s really something. How long will it last, though? We still have a decent journey ahead.”

“
It will last continuously, or until someone comes in serious direct contact with it, or kills me.”

Venir knew anything would help. As far as Fogle, he figured it would only prolong the wizard’s death. It wasn’t the wizard’s fight. Then again, maybe it was everyone’s. He didn’t know. Still, Fogle and Ox would give him an edge he didn’t have before. Maybe it would make a difference.

Melegal tended to be the best planner in the city, but not in the Outlands. The pair relied more on skill and improvisation as keys to their survival over the course of their years. How many weeks had passed since he’d given thought to his friend the thief? Venir assumed he was doing well, but still he wondered if their days of venturing for profit had come to an end. Only time would tell.

“
Fogle, I can’t hold off from this fight much longer. If you are going to be ready, then I need to be ready. Who knows what is in store for me, maybe nothing, but I can’t put it off.”

Venir pulled out his sack.

“
Just wait.”

“
No. If there were any underlings within the next few miles, Chongo would have sniffed them out. Trust me, Chongo can track anything, especially those dark little fiends.”

Venir scratched the heads of the big pooch.

“
At least wait until we get on our horses then,” Fogle said.

Ignoring Fogle, Venir took out the helmet. The spike on top and ornate markings gleamed bright in the rising sunlight.
Ready or not, underlings, here I come.
He strapped the helm on his head and waited. It fit just as before. The metal was cold on his forehead. Unlike with the girdle, though, he felt nothing new.