Dux Bellorum (Future History of America Book 3) (74 page)

"I told you I'm gonna shove that thing up your ass.
 
And I ain't starting with the smooth end."

The crowd screamed as a gunshot went off just outside the gates, but Spike didn't seem to notice.
 
He walked forward casually, arms outstretched, offering Erik a clear shot at his wide torso.
 

"Go ahead.
 
Free shot.
 
I should at least let you get a good hit in before you die."
 
His hand twirled the crampon.
 
"Then it's my turn."

The crowd hollered and moaned.
 
People started to flee.
 
The chaos outside the fort threatened to push in through the throng gathered to watch Spike and Erik duel to the death.
 
Somewhere out there, Erik knew Brin was still alive.
 
If anything, he had to keep Spike occupied long enough for her to escape.
 

He figured if Ted hadn't shown up by now to put Spike down like a rabid dog, their attack must have failed.
 
They'd made a good show of it, though—judging by the half dozen bodies in the dirt of the parade ground.
 
Spike's guards had been decimated, but it didn't seem to be enough.

A peace settled over Erik.
 
He realized his fate had been sealed.
 
The dozen or so people still blocking the gatehouse now had the look of serious religious zealots—eyes wide, rapid breathing, hands clenched.
 
Just glancing at them, Erik knew they were betting on him losing.
 
He made a mental note to steer well clear of them.

That left Spike.
 
The hulking convict continued his slow, deliberate advance, still smiling.
 
Erik settled into his low stance and held the rake handle up in front of him as if it were his practice
bokken
.
 
It was about the same length though the shattered oak handle hardly had any balance at all.
 
He'd have to compensate with sheer muscle, but the handle would make a fine sword.

At least I'll go out on my feet.
 
Erik held his breath and sent a brief prayer heavenward, seeking forgiveness and asking for someone to watch over Brin and his unborn child.
 
He let the breath out and lowered his shoulders, feeling himself more centered and calm than he'd been in months.
 

It was time.

Erik shifted the handle to a high ready position, his arms to the side of his head, the handle
 
forward in what looked like an awkward pose.
 
In reality, Erik had struck the samurai version of a batter waiting for the perfect pitch.
 
In a split second, he could drive the impromptu sword down with tremendous force using the long muscles of his back to swing his arms.
 
He hoped the deceptive stance would give Spike pause.
 

It did.
 
The big convict stopped his advance and stared at Erik, the sickening smile fading from his face for the first time.
 
"What the fuck is this?
 
Ballet?"

"
Watashi no ban
," Erik said quietly in Japanese.
 
My turn.

Spike grunted and lunged, closing the final five feet with alarming speed.
 

Erik slipped his mind into auto-pilot and allowed muscle memory to take over.
 
This was nothing more than a high-stakes
kata
, after all.
 
He stepped into Spike's attack and brought the oak handle down in a blur.
 
The stout wood snapped against Spike's right arm with a loud
crack
.
 
Spike howled and jumped back, rubbing his forearm.

Erik didn't pause.
 
He spun in the opposite direction, swinging the rake handle in a wide circle.
 
The jagged tip grazed Spike's left arm, causing him to lunge off balance to mitigate the damage.
 
He stepped away cursing as he examined the new tear in his uniform.

He never got a chance to quip something witty as Erik pressed the attack, whirling his 'blade' above his hand and slashing down and to the side, driving Spike back through the dust.
 
The convict grunted with each impact.
 

Erik stepped forward, parrying Spike's increasingly desperate attacks and ignoring the ones that actually landed on his arms and shoulders.
 
As long as he continued to advance and kept the handle slashing through the air, the massive convict's size and strength were negated.
 
The oak cracked against his ribs and shoulders, slapped his forearms and even grazed his sweating, bald head. Each impact spun and pushed Spike back and back again.

At length, Erik paused to catch his breath.
 
Spike doubled over, gasping for air.
 
He limped back, adjusting the grip on his crampon.
 
His body looked damaged and weakened, but his eyes blazed with a fury that sought only blood.
 
He was far from beaten.
 

Good.
 
I'm not done with you yet either.
 

He stepped forward and drove the jagged point of his 'blade' at Spike's exposed throat.
 
The big man swatted the tip away again and again, growing more irate the more Erik stabbed at him.
 
Every time he struck out at Erik's weapon, he winced when his bruised and battered arms made contact.
 
The crowd grew more vocal as Erik took the upper hand.

Erik blocked all the extraneous noise and commotion out, focusing the entirety of his anger and determination on ending the life of the man in front of him.
 
He thought of his father and pulled the handle in a vicious backhanded swing.
 
The crack of the wood against Spike's jaw sent the larger man reeling.
 
Erik thought of his mother, dragged screaming from her house as her husband died at her feet.
 
He pummeled Spike's back when he turned to move away.
 
The oak staff in his hands shuddered with the impact of wood on bone.
 
Spike cursed and Erik pressed his attack further.

He thought of his family home, burned to the ground by Spike's friends, likely at his order.
 
He swung the handle in two wide arcs, impacting either side of Spike's left knee, one after the other.
 
The man was defenseless to stop him now.
 

Erik felt a surge of power course through him.
 
He swung faster and harder, ignoring the burn from his muscles.
 
Each impact sent a jolt up his tired arms that renewed his strength.
 
Spike sank lower and lower into a crouch, trying to present the smallest target possible—hardly easy given his size.

Then it happened—Erik stepped forward to deliver a crushing blow to Spike's head, but the bigger man struck with the speed of a rattlesnake.
 
The crampon flashed through the air and Erik staggered back, fire searing the left side of his face.
 
It had happened so fast, he wasn't sure what hurt more, the ragged tear in his cheek from the tip of Spike's weapon, or the dull ache from his mouth where the massive head of the crampon had impacted his jaw.

He gingerly felt his teeth with his tongue.
 
A molar was loose.
 
The smell of iron filled his nose and blood coated his tongue. Erik stepped out of Spike's reach and raised the tip of his bokken out of the dirt.
 
Spike, half-beaten to a pulp, laughed, a ragged, hollow sound.
 

"I ain't done with you yet, boy.
 
When this is over," he said, gasping for air, "I'm gonna throw your mama to the boys and take your woman my self.
 
Before you die, I'm going to make you watch—"

Something snapped inside Erik.
 
Time slowed to a crawl.
 
In an instant, he was transported back in time to the Freehold, when the two men had attacked Brin and Susan on a warm sunny day in June.
 
He and Ted had raced out of his darkened apartment to find Susan unconscious on the ground and the would-be rapist closing on Brin.
 

Erik remembered the flash of steel in the sunlight as he drew Grandfather Hideyo's
katana
.
 
He remembered how the ancient steel shuddered as it had severed tendon and muscle with ease.
 
He remembered how the body fell out of his way as he rushed to his wife's side.
 
He remembered the anger that drove him forward like some kind of berserker, uncaring for his own safety, seeking only to destroy his enemy.

He felt that same anger flow through him now.
 
His vision narrowed to a red-rimmed tunnel.
 
The sounds of the world faded to a distant buzz.
 
His heart thudded in his chest, his arms burned with the effort of beating Spike to death, and his face throbbed.
 
He charged.

Erik released his fury on Spike's bent form.
 
He rained blows down with reckless abandon, picking his targets as they appeared—back, shoulder, the exposed neck, a hand, a knee—it didn't matter, he struck out at any part of Spike within range.
 
The image of Spike laying on the ground, a quivering, broken shell of a man drove him forward.
 
He knew he couldn't keep the frenetic pace up for long and poured all his strength into the crushing attack.
 
Swing after swing after stab he pushed his own body to the limit, pummeling Spike.

In a desperate attempt to gain space, Spike spun after taking a strong blow to the back of his neck—a strike that would have killed a normal man.
 
He ignored the next attack on his shoulder and struck out with the crampon as Erik landed the hit.
 

In the split second before he could pull his pitchfork handle back, Erik felt a jolt of fire flare in his hip.
 
Knocked sideways, Erik staggered a step and cried out in pain, falling to one knee. A quick glance told him Spike had landed a solid hit with the crampon.
 
He didn't see any blood.
 
A glance at Spike explained it all—in his desperation, the convict hadn't reversed his grip.
 
He'd hit Erik with the flat head of the railroad spike, not the tip.

Spike bellowed and charged him.
 
One clawing hand reached for Erik's throat, the other brought the dull, glistening crampon in for another stab.
 
This time, the point was facing the right way to do serious damage.
 

Erik was having none of it.
 
It was time to finish things.
 
He lurched to his feet.

He brought the makeshift sword down with all his remaining strength square in the middle of Spike's forehead.
 
The impact jarred his arms and with an air-rending
crack
, the oak handle exploded.
 
Not missing a step, he moved forward as Spike fell back, stunned.
 
Before the convict could fully recover, Erik lunged, thrusting the stump of his sword as hard as he could, straight at Spikes neck.

The big man saw the attack at the last second and flinched, the jagged end of Erik's weapon merely grazing his neck.
 
Erik cursed and spun clockwise, bringing the end of the handle around in a hammer-fist strike.
 
The blunt end of the handle connected with the side of Spike's bloodied head.
 
Erik felt a sickening crunch as bone yielded to wood.

They both collapsed to the gravel in a heap of bloody arms and legs.
 

Erik rose to his knees.
 
Spike didn't.
 

That was all the invitation the onlookers needed.
 
They shoved Erik back and pounced on the inert form of the man who had lorded over them and turned their lives into a living hell.

They tore at Spike's flesh with their hands and teeth—some used broken rocks or bits of trash, whatever they could find.
 
He turned away from the macabre scene and tried to ignore the screams and curses.
   

As he looked up from the ground, Erik spotted Brin standing in the middle of Fort Ticonderoga's gate.
 
Her hands flew to her mouth as she ran to him through the river of tortured humanity struggling to get at Spike.
 
Erik wrapped his aching arms around her and buried his face in her hair, ignoring the shouts of triumph that exploded around him.
 
He let her half-drag him through the refugees, heading out the gate.

"It's over," Erik muttered, more for himself than Brin.

Chapter 79

EMP

P
O
S
IN
STARED
OUT
his floor-to-ceiling office window, overlooking the Beijing skyline.
 
Americans were such a contradictory people—always talking of freedom but treating their citizens like slaves.
 

Who would have thought they'd launch a military coup in their own country?
 

That was never something anyone had predicted, even in the old documents and plans from the Cold War he'd used to create the current operation. It just wasn't something Americans did.
 
They were the ones in the business of rescuing
other
countries after a
coup
.
 
He stared out at the glittering lights of Beijing. It didn't matter anymore, he supposed.