The Darkslayer: Book 02 - Blades in the Night by Craig Halloran Read Free Book Online Page B

stepped out into the seductive grasp of the City of Bone, an old stable hand emerged from an adjoining stall. He hobbled across the barn and out of the main entrance. Wide-eyed, he kept muttering over and over to himself, “I must tell him. I must tell him.”

 
CHAPTER 8
     
     
    Catten’s thoughts were heavy as he made haste from the Underland. He had been banished from his seclusion, power, and comfort of the cave lands. It was unsettling. His mind played countless scenarios of the task ahead. The destruction of the Darkslayer was a challenging assignment and his only way back home.
    He blamed himself for their failure less so than his brother. Verbard had been careless and cocky the last time. Catten didn’t doubt that his twin blamed him for the failure, either. His brother never found the fault with himself. Neither did he, for that matter. The truth was, failure was something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. It disturbed him.
    A fifteen-foot-long barge made of black wood glided over an underworld river called the Current. The Current was a black stream of ice-cold water that didn’t flow. Few creatures lived in the waters that ran through a catacomb of cave tunnels. The tunnels were narrow and low to enormous and high, but one could little tell the difference in the sheer blackness if you were not an underling. The water of the Current had a foul sulfur-like smell. Even the underlings could not drink it, but they found its waters cleansing, and some life thrived within the murky deep.
    A steady breeze billowed Catten’s robes as he stood at the fore. He and his brother were not unaccompanied, either. They traveled with new companions, just as the clever and silver-eyed Verbard had promised. Catten preferred to rely on his scrolls as well as some other unique oddities to accompany him. Still, he’d also brought some added security for himself.
    As Catten stood at the bow of the rudderless barge, two other underlings stood behind him. They were not hunter warriors such as the elite Badoon that had failed them before. Instead they were armed with flexible black-plated armor, bracers, closed-face helms, and twin scimitar-like swords on their hips. They were Catten’s personal bodyguards that had protected him for over a hundred years. Their skills in battle were rivaled by few in the Underland. They were called the Juegen, and as long as he had them with him, he was confident he would stay alive.
    Farther behind him, he could hear the heavy breathing of his brother’s escorts. They were the opposite of his perfect guards: armorless, filthy, stupid, and savage. All six of the disturbing creatures huddled in the back, smacking their twisted lips and growling at one another. Catten kept his distance, glaring at his brother, who stood in the middle of the barge cleaning his nails. Catten didn’t know which disgusted him more: Verbard’s nonchalant attitude or their other escorts.
    The others who accompanied them were urchlings, but much different from the rest of their kind. Whereas typical urchlings were smaller, hunchbacked, and hairy, these were a taller, stocky, corded, and an albino version of their kind. They had four nostrils on their bat-like faces and could track like a bloodhound. Their claws hands were that of a ferocious wolverine and their tiny brains followed simple orders to perfection: hunt and destroy. His brother had spent generations breeding their kind for occasions such as these. But this group had never hunted with the underling lords before. He better have control of them.
    After countless hours of whisking over the black water, Verbard asked, “So, brother, I can’t help but let my curiosity overcome me, but where exactly are you taking us?”
    Catten turned and faced his brother. “Oran’s lair.”
    Verbard nodded. “That was my suspicion. Of course, you never are one for surprises, now are you?”
    “ Would you have made a different choice, Verbard?”
    “ No, I am just saying