Wraith King 3 Read online

  Wraith King 3

  Jack Porter

  Copyright © 2020 by Jack Porter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  www.jackporterwrites.com.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Also by Jack Porter

  1

  Without taking my eyes off the orcs below, I unsheathed my sword from over my shoulder. The long blade didn’t even whisper as it slid from the leather, and I enjoyed feeling its perfect balance in my hand once again. On my left, Ilana the succubus had dropped her black cloak to the ground, revealing her dark, body-hugging clothing and tall boots. To my right, the red-haired woman Sarina had shifted into a Hellhound, and her eyes were glowing yellow as she crouched, ready to spring on our enemies below.

  The hot air of Hell was worse this evening than it usually was, feeling close and stuffy, with no wind to break up the dry, ashy atmosphere. A bead of sweat ran down my face and into my beard, but I ignored the tickling sensation, keeping my eyes on the band of slavers below.

  They had camped close to a nearby village and were obviously preparing an attack. Slavers like these rarely ever lit fires, and tonight was no exception, but with my enhanced eyesight, I could see the gleam of their blades as they swung them about, readying for battle.

  It wouldn’t be a battle, really, more of a massacre if the villagers dared to oppose them. But the humans of the Slavers’ Bowl rarely stood up to these roving bands, not if they wanted to live another day. And the tribute of young the villagers lost as slaves seemed a small price to pay for their lives.

  I wanted to spit on all of them. The humans in the area were pitiful and cowardly, and bowed down to the Wraith King’s minions with barely an angry glance. But if I didn’t stop as many slavers as I could, the chances of an uprising against the Wraith King would be slim indeed.

  And I needed to have as many free folk available as possible, when the time came.

  Whenever that might be.

  With a nod, I signaled to Ilana and Sarina, and we crept down the narrow trail toward the orc camp, making our footsteps silent.

  The first orc I killed didn’t even hear the sound of my blade slicing through its neck. The monster’s body fell to the ground with a thud, blood spurting, and its head flew off in another direction, rolling a few feet before stopping at the feet of the second orc, which Sarina had already attacked. In one swift movement, she had the smaller orc’s head locked in her maw, her teeth ripping at its flesh, the bones of its neck breaking with a sickening crunch.

  The sound was enough to rouse the others, and there were a few curses and harsh yells as orcs ran for us with weapons raised.

  I jumped into the middle of a pack of three, bringing my weapon down from over my head in a double-handed strike that cleaved an orc’s head in two. Pulling back, I allowed my blade to slide from its skull and with the same momentum, sliced open the belly of the second orc. The third was quicker than I anticipated, however, and with a roar, it knocked me in the shoulder with a heavy club. I staggered sideways for half a second, barely registering the pain as I stepped to the right to avoid another blow.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” I asked, taunting. “Should have hit me in the head, shit-for-brains.”

  And then, with one mighty swing, I chopped the orc nearly in half, just below the ribcage. The orc fell, and I pulled my blade out as if it was a knife cutting through Jello. With one more quick thrust, I buried my sword in the creature’s sternum, making sure it couldn’t do any more damage before I found another foe.

  Ilana was tearing at another orc’s face with her claws, and the monster screamed as she peeled its flesh from its skull and threw it to the side. The orc fell, and she finished it off with a dagger across its throat. Sarina already had a pile of bodies around her, and I jumped back into the fray, looking to finish this fight as quickly as possible.

  One bad fucker swiped at me with a battle-ax, and I sidestepped not a moment too soon.

  But then another took a swing at me with its short sword, and I felt a hot wound open on my right deltoid. Yelling, I gutted the first orc and then turned to decapitate the one who had stabbed me.

  I missed, sort of, but felt some pleasure when my blade ripped off the orc’s jaw instead of slicing through its neck. The motherfucker didn’t back down, however, and managed another swipe at me before I amputated its sword arm just above the elbow.

  I loved my new sword. Beautifully crafted by one of Nya’s elves, imbued with elven runes, and delivered to me straight from Blackhold Castle, it felt like an extension of my arm as I carved through the slavers.

  Thinking I didn’t have time to play with the bastard who had sliced open my arm, I stabbed straight through its throat and sliced it open. Hot, black orc blood spurted everywhere, and I felt the vile stuff hit my face as I knocked the slaver back with a foot to the chest.

  There were two more orcs to deal with, and Ilana and I backed them toward Sarina, who lunged at one from behind. With a strangled roar, the orc tried to fight her off as her jaws closed around its neck. She took it down while Ilana flew up to land on the last orc’s shoulders. With a movement that was almost too fast to see, she brought her dagger down into the base of its neck, driving the blade deep into its spine. The orc keeled over, twitching, and she hopped to the ground as she pulled her dagger free.

  All three of us were covered in blood, but the fight had been relatively simple. I was barely breathing hard.

  “You’re injured,” Ilana said. Immediately, she reached for my arm, where the blood was freely flowing from a nasty looking wound.

  “I think the fucker poisoned its blade,” I said, looking at it scientifically. “It feels more like burning than anything else.”

  Ilana looked alarmed. “Then sit down and let me look at it, Jon.”

  I sniffed and used a cleaner part of my other sleeve to wipe some blood from my face. “I think it’ll be all right. The pain is already disappearing. Let’s get out of here first.”

  At this point, Sarina put her Hellhound nose up to the wound, sniffed, and nodded.

  “See?” I said. “It’s fine. Let’s get out of here.”

  Ilana nodded, and we made our way back to our campsite and horses. “It’s not terribly common for slavers to poison their blades,” she mused. “They don’t want to risk kil
ling their new captives before getting them to a market.”

  “You think they were preparing to meet us at some point?” I asked. The three of us had been killing slavers for several months, but we never left survivors.

  “It’s possible they realize they’ve lost many bands recently, and although they might not know it’s you, the Wraith King might suspect.”

  “Good,” I said. “Let the bastard know I’m coming after his minions. Anyway, the poison isn’t working. I should be healed by morning.”

  The wyrm’s blood in my veins and the magic in my body had proved to be a powerful pairing in the last few months. And if orcs were poisoning their weapons with the hope of killing me, they had failed. I was too strong now. For any of them.

  And I liked killing them, relished it, even, which made these nighttime raids all the more fun. But killing slavers wasn’t my primary goal, and I hoped tomorrow would shed some light on our next steps.

  Because the fate of Hell wasn’t about killing orcs, wraiths, and Hellhounds.

  It meant finding a way to defeat the Wraith King himself.

  2

  There were two types of people in Hell. Those who wanted peace at any cost, and those who were willing to fight for freedom.

  The village we found late the next day was the first kind.

  I pushed open the door to the tavern, letting in the red light of the sky and momentarily revealing the dust clinging to everything within. Sarina, in her human form, followed me in, and we stopped as the door closed.

  Even though we made little noise, every eye in the room turned toward us. My eyes had become so magically enhanced that I didn’t need any more light than what the pitiful candles offered, but that didn’t make it any nicer to see the angry glares that were cast our way.

  The customers’ eyes flicked to the great sword strung across my back, to the daggers on my hip and thigh, and even the whip coiled and secured on my belt. Sarina was armed with a great sword as well, at her left hip, a shield slung over her back, and light armor covering her breasts and torso. Thin fabric draped over her shapely ass and legs, barely concealing them. Since she rarely fought anymore as a woman, the armor was mostly ceremonial for her. Her vibrant red hair fell down her back in loose waves, and she’d even donned heavy eye makeup for our travels.

  Instead of worrying about the rude crowd, I strode over to the short bar and nodded to the barkeep, who was a shrewd-looking woman with bony cheeks and hands. She didn’t say anything as she filled a mug with ale from a barrel, sliding it to Sarina first.

  It was the way of things in Hell, and I was fine with that. However, the barkeep seemed to dare me to speak as she filled another mug and gave it to me. The other patrons watched us for another long moment, and I could feel their eyes on me as I drained the mug. The ale tasted surprisingly good, and I wondered how this shitty little village had managed it.

  Probably from the selling of slaves.

  As if in confirmation, a small female half-elf, wearing little more than a dirty brown shift, sandals, a scarf tying up her hair, rolled another barrel of ale out of a back room. Her body was much smaller than any elf or half-elf I had seen, but she wasn’t a child. She was slight, though, with curves in all the right places. I knew that because the shift she wore was a bit too small and hugged her entire body. She looked up at me and caught my eye, and I noticed hers were purple. The half-elf looked away then, putting her gaze to the floor.

  She wore a slave’s collar around her delicate throat.

  “Hurry up, whore!” the barkeep shouted, and the small half-elf nodded, bowed, and hurried to push the barrel behind the counter.

  When she arrived, the barkeep planted her boot in the half-elf’s side and shoved her against the back of the counter. Then I saw a long, thin switch come seemingly out of nowhere, and the barkeep lashed the half-elf three times on the bottom in quick succession. Then, she raised the switch again and changed direction as if to strike the half-elf on the face.

  With mounting fury, I reached over the bar and grabbed the barkeep’s wrist. She whirled on me, her expression twisted in anger, and I squeezed her wrist until I saw pain cross her face.

  “Try doing that again,” I growled.

  The entire room, already not loud, grew still and silent.

  “Or what?” the barkeep challenged shrilly. “You have no right to stop me from beating my own slave, man.”

  “Or,” I said in a calm, dangerous voice, “I’ll have my redheaded friend here hold you while I beat you with your own switch. And trust me, I’ll deliver whatever you’ve given the half-elf multiplied by ten. You’ll be a bloody, weeping mess.”

  Suddenly, I felt a presence at my back, but Sarina had already turned. She stood with her back to the small bar, facing the patrons. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a large, brutish man eyeing us. He stood a few feet away, looking at Sarina, whose hand had gone to the hilt of her sword.

  But I didn’t look like someone to be trifled with, either, and he knew it. I’d gained quite a bit of muscle over the past few months in Hell, and with my natural height, I could be just as intimidating as anyone his size.

  “One step closer,” I told the brute, “and my friend will turn your balls inside out with her sword.”

  Trusting that Sarina would always have my back, I returned my attention to the barkeep, whose wrist I still held in an iron grip. “So,” I said. “What’s it going to be? Do you still want to beat that slave?”

  By now, the shrewish woman was flinching at the pain I was inflicting on her wrist, but I didn’t care. I had no more patience for her sort. Finally, slowly, and with a glare that would have murdered me if it could have, she relaxed the hand that held the switch. I grabbed it before it could fall to the floor, and, letting go of her, took both hands and snapped it in half. Then, for good measure, I snapped the pieces in half again.

  After letting them fall to the dusty floor with a muffled clatter, I turned back to the room. “Anyone else?”

  The brutish man was hanging back, and when he saw the look in my eye, he looked away.

  “Right,” I said. “We’d like to finish our drinks.”

  I turned back toward the bar and pushed my mug over to the barkeep. “Also, I’d like some information. Do you know of a woman named Ferlenna?”

  The barkeep looked at first as if she would refuse to serve me, but then seemed to think better of it. While she poured two more mugs of ale, the half-elf got to her feet. Her hair had come loose from under her scarf, showing that it was light purple in color, to match her eyes. She tucked it back inside her scarf, glanced my way, and nodded. I nodded back, and then she scurried out of the bar area.

  I was watching her go when the barkeep said scathingly, “Who wants to know about Ferlenna?”

  “Me,” I grated.

  The woman nodded grudgingly, and I thought maybe she would answer my question even though I’d just humiliated her in her own tavern. Then, her eyes glanced behind me, somewhere over my head, and I heard heavy footsteps approaching.

  I turned. The brutish man had found his courage at last and was rushing toward me with his fists raised as if he intended to pound my brains into the wooden bar.

  I didn’t even have to move away, though, for Sarina was already morphing into a Hellhound. Her shoulders moved back to form a hump like that of a hyena, her nose grew into a snout, and her arms and legs turned to those of a wolf’s. And, overall, she grew until she was the size of a small horse. As reddish fur sprouted over her body, she snarled at my would-be attacker.

  3

  The large man dropped his hands mid-punch and staggered back away from those fangs and glowing yellow eyes. The other patrons jumped to their feet, trying to get as far away from the Hellhound as possible. A few even ran into the back room.

  “That’s right,” I said loudly. “Want to fight us?” I drew my sword from over my shoulder and took a step forward in a fighting stance. “Anyone? No?”

  The brutish guy looked l
ike he wanted to melt into the wall, and his eyes darted to the door. But we stood between him and the freedom he sought.

  I didn’t want to kill anyone. Make an impression, sure, but not kill them. So, before things escalated to the point where we had to, I offered a sneer. “Thought not,” I said. I knew we were done with that place. If we tried to stay, death would be unavoidable.

  So I picked up the pieces of Sarina’s armor and gear, which were all attached together for this very purpose, and followed the Hellhound out, slamming the door shut behind me.

  “Shit,” I said. We had no choice but to leave. The villagers were already running, horrified, from Sarina. I kept my sword in hand until we got out of town and made our way to a small field a quarter of a mile away.

  To our horses and to Ilana.

  “What a fucking waste of time,” I said to Ilana’s silent question.

  Sarina, still as a Hellhound, trotted up beside me and transformed back into a human. She was naked now, of course, and I tossed her the gear so she could get dressed. Although I very much would have liked to take advantage of her lean, muscular, scarred body, we needed to get out of town before the villagers came after us with pitchforks.

  Not that we couldn’t have dealt with them with our eyes closed, but that wasn’t our purpose for coming into town. I needed to find Ferlenna, an old woman who supposedly had a deep knowledge of ancient artifacts. We hoped that she could give me a clue to the missing piece of the Elfstone.