Free The Dark Lord's Handbook by Paul Dale Page A

truth it had been warm compared to the bitterness outside. The air stung his lungs as he breathed.
    From behind him there was a crack which reminded him of a coconut shy at the last summer fair that had been set up in Brindelberg’s town square. There followed a thump, like a sack falling off a cart, a strangled exclamation of surprise, another crack, and finally another sack-like thump.
    “Will you untie me now?” said Morden, not bothering to turn round. He didn’t need to see the two guards in a heap to know that Stonearm had lived up to his moniker.
    “That can wait,” said Stonearm from behind him.
    Morden was about to protest but faltered when he was hauled off his feet and the wind knocked from him as he was slung over the orc’s shoulder.
    The two torches had fallen clear of the barn and gave Morden a flickering sight of Stonearm’s work. One guard was in a pile and dead still. The other looked like he had more life in him; his head moved and he groaned. He set a hand on the hard packed earth and tried to push himself up, groaning once more.
    The groan was loud enough for Stonearm to hear. The orc spun round, all the while grasping Morden over his shoulder. Morden couldn’t see forward but could see the orc’s legs pump into action. Stonearm covered the short distance to the guard in a stride or two; one leg came back slightly higher as the other planted itself, and swung forward in a vicious arc. There was a sickening thud and the groaning stopped.
    Good feet for a big orc , thought Morden.
    “Here! What’s going on down there?”
    Morden twisted his neck to look up to the inn. At an upper story window a man was leaning out with a night candle held aloft. He was wearing a white night vest that shone in the moonlight, and a bent over nightcap.
    “Nothing to see,” said Stonearm gruffly.
    “What’s up with them two?” enquired the man.
    “They was asleep on duty,” said Stonearm.
    “What’s that you got on your shoulder?”
    “Nothing.”
    “That ain’t nothing. I’m not blind you know.”
    “Nothing to see. Go about your business. There’s a good man,” said Stonearm, adopting an official tone.
    “Don’t you think we ought to be leaving?” whispered Morden.
    “You stay there. I’m coming down,” said the man at the window.
    “I think you could be right,” said Stonearm.
    “You could throw those torches in the barn first though,” said Morden.
    “But that would set the barn on fire.”
    Morden sighed.
    “Clever,” said Stonearm. “A diversion. I get it.”
    From his backward facing vantage point, for the second time that day, Morden watched a building go up in flames as he was hauled away from it. He wasn’t sure which was more uncomfortable, the cart and its rickety wheels, or the knotted muscles that arranged themselves over Stonearm’s frame.
    There was quite a commotion behind them as the orc settled into a surprisingly quick gait. The fire had taken a hold and Morden could see people scurrying around. Morden wondered which one was Chidwick and how long he would take to get a pursuit going.
    They had made a mile in what seemed a bare few minutes before the orc turned sharply and jumped the low hedge that ran along the roadside. The cow that had been lying down on the other side must have been more than surprised by the sudden arrival of a huge orc carrying a not insubstantial Morden on his shoulder. There was a distressed moo and Stonearm went crashing to the ground. Fortunately the orc let go of Morden to break his fall and Morden was thrown free. Being crushed between Stonearm and a cow would be one of the more inglorious deaths for a Dark Lord , thought Morden as he landed face first in what felt like soft mud but was in fact, if the smell was anything to go by, cow slurry. He was dimly aware of Stonearm’s huge bulk likewise face down in the cow patties.
    Morden would have said something, along the lines of looking before leaping or some such, but didn’t want a