Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) by Grayson Sinclair (poetry books to read TXT) 📗

The learning curve for using a sword attached to my arm was steeper than I’d have guessed, and Darren sliced me a few times while I got used to the difference.

Darren was gifted with the sword. He kept his form light and mobile, and his footwork was spot on. He put his body behind his attacks and was giving me a run for my money, but he wasn’t in the same league as me.

I parried his sword and brought my blade along his forearm, slicing a deep groove into it. He fumbled as his hand became slick with blood and nearly dropped his scimitar. He passed it to his off-hand and thrust at me.

In his non-dominant hand, his weapon was little more than a club as he clumsily tried to fight me. I caught his sword on my vambrace and brought my blade to slice through his wrist, severing the flexor tendons and median nerve, stopping him from holding his sword anymore.

It fell from his limp hand, clanging off the stone, while Darren stared at his bleeding hands and arms, wondering where everything went wrong.Fucked with the wrong person, asshole.

Soon as I took a single step, Darren snapped out of it and looked at me with fear. He paled and took off at a sprint, trying to save his skin. His goons followed his lead, and the two left alive limped away as Darren fled.

Like hell he’s getting away again! I sped forward, tackling Darren to the ground and bashing him with the flat side of my sword. While he was dazed, I got off of him and dragged him to his feet, placing my sword against his throat—a hair’s breadth from ending his miserable life.

“Tell me where she is, now!”

Darren tried to back away, but a quick slice on his neck dissuaded him of that. The cut wasn’t deep, just enough to let him know that I could have taken his head if I’d wanted.

“Look...if I tell you where she is, you’ll kill me anyway.”

I shoved him back against the alley wall. My blade still against his throat. “I can guarantee that if you don’t tell me, I’ll torture you until you do. So how about you save me the time and spill your guts before I spill them for you.”

Darren tried to put on a stoic face, attempted to brave the pressure he found himself under, but I could see the cracks in his psyche. At heart, Darren was a coward, even worse than the weasel. Darren preyed on the weak and those who couldn’t fight back. A scavenger. Nothing more.

“P—promise me, you’ll let me live, and I’ll tell you. I swear!”

You’ll suffer for your actions, but not until after you tell me what I want to know. I’ll let you think you’re walking away from this. I softened my glare on him. “Fine, but if I ever see you after this...”

“You’ll kill me. I got it. Never see me, I swear,” Darren interrupted, “She’s at the slave auction house, in the warehouse, where they keep the merchandise. She’ll be bound, but no one will touch her, I promise.”

I dug the blade a little deeper into his neck. Blood dripped down beneath my sword. “You could be lying.”

“I’m not! I swear!”

“Tell me about your master,” I demanded.

Darren backed up as far as he could go on the wall. Blood ran down his neck and arms to drip onto the street. He shook his head, violently.

“No way, worse you can do is kill me. Nothing compared to what he’ll do to me. Like nothing you’ve ever seen before, man. No way. Kill me or let me go, but I won’t talk.”

I thought about pushing him because I knew I could eventually get him to talk, but I had a better plan. I didn’t need him to talk.

With only a second to steel myself, I bent low and bit deep into his neck.

His blood spilled into my open mouth, and I braced for the transition. As the Mnemosyne took hold, Darren’s memories spilled as fast as his blood.

Flashes rolled through me. The first was of Darren and a man meeting in a tavern. The location looked like a seedy bar in the North Kingdom. The man across the worn table was handsome. A thin, yet rugged face, with short brunet hair, a thick goatee, and bright blue eyes. He lifted a hand to take a drink, showing a heavy black gauntlet with a mana crystal embedded in the center. The two of them conversed for a moment before the image faded.

The second memory started in the middle of a battle. Darren, Wolf, Mikhail, and Slip were assaulting a caravan, killing merchants, and robbing them.

The guards were killed, and the survivors were brought out. Several rabbitmen were among the caravan. Two of them resisted and grabbed the guards’ fallen weapons, only to be cut down where they stood. The others gave up after the deaths of their comrades. When the quick battle was over, the newly captured slaves were thrown in the back of a prison wagon.

In the back were two small children. They were very nondescript, except for their ears. Longer than the elves but not nearly as long as Eris’s. They curled backward slightly, which marked them as different, but their eyes were normal. Which discounted them as entomancers, but they were, without a doubt, non-human children. Demi-human perhaps? Not rabbitmen or wolf-men, they lack the ears.

The final vision was of a dark warehouse. The wood was in clear need of repair, and the room housed half a dozen cages that lined the back wall. Darren and his men stood in the room with a new man.

He was wearing a pristine white suit, with a wide brimmed hat that shadowed his