Read The Darkslayer: Chaos at the Castle (Book 6) for Free Online

In the Mist, there were sounds of life. Here, there was nothing.
    Here , it was black. Painful. Agitating. Eroding and sweltering. The minutes felt like hours. His great strength faded. His will was breaking. This wasn’t like the dungeons in the City of Bone. This was much worse. A hundred times worse, it seemed.
    Fool.
    Images were coming and going inside his mind. Friends and foes, distinct and drifting. What had he done in life that had led him here? Into the belly of his very enemy? Georgio and Melegal, what had become of them? And the tiny boy, Lefty? He’d forsaken them so he could pursue his enemy. Perhaps Billip and Mikkel were still looking after them. It seemed like decades since he’d seen them.
    His k nees trembled. He sagged to the ground. His feet were numb from countless hours of standing. The middle of his back felt like an anvil was stuck inside it. He wanted to sit, rest, but his pinned and swollen wrists wouldn’t allow it. He hung. Locked in the stockade. His suffering increasing by the minute.
    No. Must fight it. Focus.
    It was hard to even think, but the beautiful face of Kam found its way inside his mind. Why would any man leave such a magnificent woman? Only a bull-headed fool would do that. And he had no lust for her now. Only the desire to see her face and to know that she was alright without him.
    M any other memories came to mind. The Battle in the Pit with Son of Farc. As devastating as that had been, he’d rather risk another beating than die like this. And the blonde-haired half-orc woman, Dolly, with the snaggled teeth. Why did he wonder about her?
    Jarla.
    Was that when all the madness started? The day of her betrayal? The day he took the armament from the sack and hewed down the gnolls, Throk and Keel? His swollen fingers twitched in the darkness. His life had been nothing but underlings after that. He’d hated them even before. They’d killed his family when he was a boy. They’d buried him alive. Yet he’d survived somehow.
    Mood.
    Chongo.
    They had saved him before. He lurched inside the stockade. Rocked his bullish shoulders back and forth, on his toes.
    “Grrrrr … umph! ”
    Nothing moved but him.
    He tried again with the same result.
    “B ish!” His voice was more of a croak than a sound.
    He’d failed his friend s and his dog. He’d failed them all, and they would all die at the hands of the underlings in the end. Now, all he could do was sit in misery and wait for his slow death to come. His thoughts drifted back and forth, between reality and some other world, hour after hour, day after day for all he knew.
    His inner fire was dim, but not out. Not as long as the scent o f underling skin that he knew so well was about. Hatred kept his heart beating when most men’s would fail. Vengeance stoked the coals in his belly. Somehow, if he could get ahold of one more underling, he could die satisfied. If he could even just sink his teeth around one of their throats.
    ***
    Dead silence. His ragged breathing. His only company until the familiar sound of a key being turned in a lock clicked in his ears. It might as well have been a trumpet blast that jostled Venir from his sleepless slumber. Stiff as a board, every joint in his body ached. He tried to move. The gash in his thigh where the underling stabbed him throbbed with its own life.
    “Water,” he said. It wasn’t audible. The deep recesses of his mind blurted out another warning.
    Be quiet , Fool! Shut up! Listen!
    A steel door swung open and banged against the wall . A rush of cool air followed. Chill bumps rose along his arms, igniting each and every hair.
    I’m still alive after all.
    Booted feet entered . Rubbing plates of armor and weapons jangling followed. It was music to Venir’s ears―until someone poked him in the ribs.
    He jerked in his shackles and moaned.
    Bloody bastards!
    “Check the cuffs on those leg iron s, and unfetter the stockade,” a man said. His voice was familiar.
    Venir turned his head .