Book of Kinsey: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 2) (2 page)

The hobgoblin overlord smiled at the thought and ripped off another chunk of horseflesh from the leg bone held in his broad hand. He chewed with pleasure on the tough meat while watching goblins scoop water from the pristine lake until Harn’s thick voice drew his attention back to the bickering.

“We can take the oomans’ grub on the way to Stone Mountain,” Harn was saying. “No need for the dwarf grub!”

Maharuke turned away from the lake to focus on Harn once more. “Stupid!” he growled. The hobgoblin overlord threw the horse leg at his second.

The bone tumbled through the air, end over end, until it connected with Harn’s forehead. The meaty drumstick bounced off the fat hobgoblin’s skull with a loud thunk and toppled to the ground. Harn blinked, stunned.

“You said yourself, they know we’re comin’!” Maharuke shouted over the ensuing howls of laughter, cutting them short. “You think they just gonna leave them fields for us?!” He shook his head angrily. “No. Stupid. They gonna burn ’em. They gonna burn everything before we gets to it! Them moles is different. They won’t burn nothin’.”

The fat hobgoblin began to get to his feet, his pierced features twisting in rage.

Screams from the goblins behind Maharuke interrupted whatever Harn had been about to say. As one, Maharuke and the other tribe leaders spun around in surprise.

Broken body parts dangled from the jaws of a gigantic crocodile that had lunged from the still waters of the lake into the group of laboring slaves at the water’s edge. A deep-throated rumbling presaged another plunging snap of the beast as it tried for more of the scrambling goblins. A hiss of frustration bled from the massive maw after teeth closed on empty air. The tiny, terrified minions scattered in every direction, leaving precious few morsels to distract the monster. The rumbling growl came again as the luminescent orange eye fell on the campfire and the large bodies surrounding it.

The croc was enormous, dwarfing even the deep-swamp pythons that commonly grew to more than forty feet in length. The swinging head was ten or more feet of jaw by itself. The tiny goblins trying to rush away looked like terrified mice fleeing from an enraged cat. Huge claws speared and crushed bodies into the mud as the giant body slid entirely out of the water.

Maharuke laughed as the other tribe leaders scattered. He grabbed hold of Harn as the fat hobgoblin attempted to rush by, anger forgotten. “Coward!” Maharuke bellowed as he twisted Harn’s arm behind his blubbery back. The hobgoblin overlord then wrapped a muscled forearm under Harn’s multiple chins.

Harn squealed in pain. “We do as you say. Let go! We do as you say!”

“Yes, we do as I say,” Maharuke roared. He twisted Harn’s arm until it snapped under the pressure.

The fat hobgoblin screamed and flailed at Maharuke with his free hand. The giant croc was gaining momentum as it charged the campfire. The tail thrashed wildly as it came.

Maharuke’s lips peeled back with a chuckle of wicked satisfaction, and he shoved his second in command into the path of the charging monster.

Harn stumbled forward, screaming in panic. His broken arm dangled uselessly as he tried to step out of the crocodile’s charge. The croc’s jaws split wide and twisted slightly to engulf Harn’s tottering body. Harn’s panicked screams turned to howls of pain as the massive jaws closed upon him, crushing his ribs.

Maharuke bellowed with laughter at the sight of the blood streaming from his former companion’s face. It had been far too long since he had had a good fight, and Mot had favored him with the reminder that even here, beauty often heralded danger.

Maharuke unsheathed a mighty two-handed sword. The wickedly barbed blade glinted in the reflected light of the campfire and the last gasps of the dying sun. Black runes inlaid through the runnels drank in the combined light and gave back nothing. He had received it from Selen’s own hand when he proved himself worthy of leading the host. He had waded deep in the blood of others to provide that proof, and he would gladly do it again.

The crocodile had halted its rush as it consumed the broken body of Harn. It worried the corpse as the jaws worked at the blubbery flesh. The croc was huge, but Harn had been better than thirty stone of muscle and flab. Wet snapping rolled from the giant jaws as the croc reared its head high to move the meal into its gullet.

Maharuke lunged under the huge head and twisted his body in a fierce two-handed swing.

The edge of his broad blade bit deep into the lower jaw of the giant reptile, severing it from the beast’s body. The scaled jaws dropped at Maharuke’s feet with the mangled remains of his erstwhile second, and the croc reared away from the pain, coughing violently. The beast’s expulsion of breath mingled its blood with Harn’s, and Maharuke reveled in the warm, sticky feel as it coated his body.

Maharuke pressed his attack, rushing toward the croc as it thrashed away from the sudden pain. He leapt high and brought the enchanted blade down in a two-handed thrust, spitting the long snout of the crocodile just in front of the eyes. His weight and momentum slammed the sword entirely through the armored skin and bone, skewering the head to the packed earth. Agonized hissing escaped the throat of the beast, and it desperately tried to roll away from the pain.

Maharuke slid to the ground, leaving his weapon to pin the beast, and drew almost two feet of steel from a sheath at his side. Ebon runes like those on the sword had been etched into the blade of this knife as well. The flat black of the inlay drank the meager light hungrily. Maharuke held the knife in one hand as he vaulted over a clawed forelimb that was attempting to roll the massive body.

The crocodile’s thrashing exposed the pallid underbelly of the beast to the orange glow of the failing day. Maharuke sank the blade into the flesh and began to run down the length of the body, pulling the knife along the scales as he ran.

The monster’s skin parted as easily as cloth under shears. Offal spilled out onto the ground, and the stink of it swept up to envelop Maharuke.

He backed away from the thrashing body and watched with smug satisfaction as the monstrous croc played out its death throes. “There be your sacrifice,” Maharuke roared at Harn’s shaman, who cowered behind the other leaders that had finally stopped running. Maharuke gestured at the mangled forms of croc and hobgoblin alike.

It had been a satisfying fight, but too short. The chieftains and their shamans had barely had a chance to run for shelter before it was over. The group shambled back as the giant crocodile shuddered its last and lay still.

If Harn’s death had disturbed Yunn, the shaman hid it well. He glanced at Barkon as if seeking guidance or permission. Barkon inclined his head but made no move to rise. Yunn began mumbling a prayer as he hunched over his former chieftain’s body with a ceremonial dagger drawn. He carved symbols into Harn’s bile-covered forehead and sang out to his god of death, Mot the Destroyer.

Yunn’s body convulsed and his eyes rolled back. The singing faded to an indecipherable gabble, and he began to twitch and drool. Maharuke and the others watched as Yunn’s body settled and his eyes rolled back into place to focus once more on the world around him. He looked at Maharuke with eyes reminiscent of the dead croc’s and spoke. “We divide as you say. Tell us how we be splittin’ and it’ll be done.”

Maharuke’s grin deepened, and his yellow eyes turned to regard the lake that had once more settled to placid beauty. The sun had failed completely, leaving the water like black glass.
These lands
will
be mine
.

Erik limped in the wake of the small troop of dwarves as they made their way to the pack animals that had been promised.

The last thing that he could recall before waking to the disturbingly pale visage of the “Master” was the brief struggle in the deep jungle. He and Sacha had been dragged into the depths of the undergrowth and bundled into sticky webs by
something
as men died around them. He shuddered at the thought of Mason being impaled on otherworldly spikes. The dying man’s screams had filled his ears until the threads that cocooned him deadened his nerves and blackened his consciousness.

Mason and the others had been no friends of his, true, but still Erik had wished them no malice. Bale had given them a job to do, and they were intent upon fulfilling it. Even Mason’s “offer” of a quick death had been made not with a wish to kill him but in the sure knowledge that Erik would die soon. The effort Sacha was demanding would have cost those that survived dearly; Erik’s death was just a reasonable transaction to the soldier.

How much time had passed since their capture Erik didn’t know. The Master had not answered his questions. Enough time might have passed that Princess Sloane could have already married Prince Alexander. She seemed to wield some authority back in the clearing, or feel she did. He cursed his still-muddled thoughts. At the least, he could have asked Rouke for news of the trip. There remained so much that he still didn’t know.

What he did know was that his injuries had been miraculously healed–
well, partially healed anyway,
he amended as a loose stone threatened to upend his unsteady stride. Erik was no surgeon, but the potential consequences of a collapsed lung were no mystery, and that was before the rough treatment of the river. The two bolts he had taken should have been the end of him.

Grousing like Kinsey,
he thought, watching his son’s body sway in its litter. Kinsey would have been hot about the remnants of pain in Erik’s gimpy leg and asking why this pale stranger had acted on his behalf at all.

Kinsey’s suspicion about the motivation of others could be tiresome, but in this case Erik himself wondered about the motivations of this Master character. More importantly, he wondered whether the man was trustworthy or even technically a man at all. There had been a very strange presence to the pale figure that made Erik’s elven ears twitch.
Most likely, we are best served to be away,
he thought.

Erik scanned the underlying brush and the heavily wooded jungle beyond.

All seemed calm. The Tanglevine River flowed west in peaceful consistency, and even the wildlife buzzed with the normality of day-to-day life. If an attack waited for them in the surrounding foliage, it was too well hidden for Erik to sense.

His adopted son jostled with the sway of his two bearers as they bore him through the dense jungle basin. Kinsey’s clothes were in tatters, but no bruises marred his flesh. He appeared to be at peace, a state that had not graced his features in more than a year.

Rest, my son. You have earned it.
Erik turned his attention back to the path ahead.

The backs of dwarves crowded the trail. Their short, stocky frames rolled steadily forward across the rough terrain without pause. The eldest, whose name was apparently Sargon, had taken the lead. He was followed closely by a pair of golden-haired dwarves and six others of various sizes and shapes.

An equine whicker caught Erik’s long ears, and he called out, “Something stirs ahead.”

Sargon’s head snapped up, and he gazed back at Erik with an appraising look.

Erik pointed to a small bluff that was just visible through the jungle before them. “Your pack animals wait there, I assume.”

The old dwarf nodded and quickened his pace. The others followed, setting off at a near run.

Even with his longer stride, Erik found it difficult to keep up, and the dwarves pulled steadily away. He gritted his teeth and attempted to ignore the flaring pain as he attempted to catch up.
At least I’m still alive,
he thought with a grunt.

When he caught up, several of the dwarves had already mounted the sturdy miniature horses and looked impatient to be on their way. Sargon was fretting over the rigging of a sling that would carry Kinsey’s litter.

More than a dozen ponies were gathered here. Each had been packed and laden with supplies.
Whatever else the “Master” may be,
Erik thought,
he is well prepared.
There was a singular discordant item in the clearing. Dak, Kinsey’s warhorse, towered above the diminutive tableau. Proud and aloof, the warhorse’s head swung toward Erik and tossed his long, rusty mane in recognition. The monstrous animal was twice as tall at the shoulder as its smaller cousins and nearly twice their girth as well.