King of the Bastards (21 page)

When Meeble started to sit up, Rogan gripped the weapon with his
other hand and felt a latch give near the handle. Still gripping the device, he
felt it explode in his grip…no…the explosions popped out the end of it, and
sprayed into Meeble’s injured shoulder, causing the creature to howl more.
Rogan dropped the weapon, then picked it up. He pulled and squeezed and
couldn’t make it do that again. Cursing, he grabbed the weapon by the butt and
drove it down like a spear into the wound beside the spearhead. Meeble howled,
swinging over himself with his left hand, clouting Rogan’s head and dropping
him to his behind.

Meeble rose up, knees down, hands flat to support this rising,
and flinched, the right shoulder still carrying the spearhead. He walked on his
knees to get closer to Rogan and drew his left hand back to strike.

From his back, Rogan kicked both feet into the spearhead, shoving
it further into Meeble’s shoulder, and again, glancing off a bone in there. The
left hand blow fell, but Meeble contorted, missing Rogan and striking the
floor. To his knees, Rogan grabbed the end of the spearhead and twisted it,
ripping to the side, grinding away from the bone joint inside Meeble and
cleaving his flesh open further.

Meeble howled, got up, and staggered near to the second tube
Rogan had let go that wasn’t broken. For a moment, Meeble paused, waving his
left hand in a circle. The tiny glowing disk started to expand in the air.
Meeble then focused on Rogan and swung again. Rogan crouched, ducking the blow.
He jumped up, grabbed the spearhead and hung by it, then dropping down, got
ahold of Meeble’s dangling arm and pulled it about behind his back. Rogan leapt
as Meeble spun, trying to get a bead on his opponent. Rogan had swung about as
Meeble turned, momentum carrying him around to curl his legs on Meeble’s left
arm from behind, all the while he chicken winged the brutal right arm under his
body. Meeble screamed in pain as Rogan felt the shoulder pop out of the joint
and the flesh shred further.  

Rogan slid off Meeble’s back, took a knee, and gave him another
forearm to the balls. Meeble hunched again, and Rogan moved about him.
Typically, Rogan could get any opponent up on his shoulders and break said
enemy’s back, but that move wouldn’t be possible with Meeble. Rogan did the
move in reverse, letting Meeble’s hunched body drape over his shoulders. He
pushed away with all his strength, separating Meeble from the earth and fell
backwards, dropping the beast into the glass tube that had come to rest near
the remains of the other. Meeble’s body smashed through the glass and his howls
deafened Rogan.

Rogan crawled off the debris and slid a few feet in the escaping
amber water. Searching for his sword pieces, and spotting the soul jar of his
grandson still sitting on the shelf not far from Amazarak, Rogan’s knee hit the
armored gloves of the shaman’s suit of armor. He stood, picking up the right
gauntlet, seeing the series of pointed fingertip knives. Rogan laughed, seeing
Meeble struggling to rise in the mess, blood all over the side of him that
impacted on the tube. Rogan put his hand in the metal glove, hardly fitting it
in, but able to make the fingers work.

“Bastard,” Meeble mouthed, gagging and trying to rise, but
falling to his back in the debris.

Rogan stalked to him, metal glove extended out. He beat his chest
with his left hand and shouted, “King!” He raised the right hand and stabbed
down, pointing the fingertips at the gaping wound in Meeble’s shoulder. The
glove tore in deep. The cries rang loud and Meeble tried to rise, but Rogan
dropped the gauntlet again and again. Then he stepped back, taking a slight
slap to the face, but the blood from his nose only made the grin Rogan wore all
the more cruel. Rogan shook off the gauntlet and grabbed Meeble’s ruined right
arm, twisted it about and fell back. With some effort, the arm separated
completely, and Meeble’s mouth opened so wide…and no sound came free.

Meeble flopped over, body convulsing, but up on his knees.

Rogan swung the arm like a bludgeon, striking Meeble’s face with
his own arm stump. Blood smeared his face and Meeble struggled to gasp. When
Rogan reared back to strike again, Meeble’s left hand shot out, grabbing at
Rogan’s throat, but seizing his jaw.

“Kill you,” Meeble groaned, weak in his words. “Die, bastard
king.”

Rogan kicked back and freed himself from Meeble’s grip. Again, he
struggled with the arm of the creature that had come off, and it flipped about,
the hand of Meeble in the face of its owner.

Meeble grabbed Rogan with his feet, getting on top, gripping the
barbarian’s thighs, left hand trying to strangle him. The dissected arm between
them, Rogan and Meeble were near nose to nose. The arm between them was about
all that saved Rogan as the weight of the monster bore down on him. Annoyed by
the limb, Meeble tried to remove it with his chin, his body failing. Nowhere
near as strong as before, Rogan thought.

Rogan forced his hands up between them, took the right hand of
Meeble, and gripped the dew nail on the wrist. Meeble glared at him as Rogan
forced the dew nail near to his left eye. Meeble dodged it, drawing his head to
one side, but the dew nail caught on the edge of his eye socket. Rogan
head-butted the hand and pulled, ripping the edge of Meeble’s eye socket open,
tearing flesh away, causing the eyeball to bulge out. Rogan embraced Meeble
like a lover, but he didn’t kiss him, he sank his teeth into the monster’s
eyeball, yanking the orb free.

Convulsing in new pain, Meeble pulled away, howling again, and
putting his hand to his eye socket. Meeble tried to get up but his body had
lost so much blood, he fell to his knees.

Rogan spat the eye of Meeble at Amazarak in the glass booth and
missed. He then threw the arm of Meeble like a disk, impacting it on the glass
booth Amazarak hid inside. The clear surface cracked and broke, and the shaman
tumbled out onto the floor. Rogan breathed heavy, walking like a newborn colt
over to the soul jar of his grandson, and spotting the broken sword he’d
carried for so long. He gripped the pommel in his right hand and the jar in the
other. They felt good in his hands. 

“God damn…” Meeble hoarsely gasped, flat on his back, coughing
more. “God…damn…you…”

Rogan roared, “God? Speak to me not of gods. It wasn’t a god that
laid you low, you sonofabitch, it was just a man.” Rogan stood over him,
straddling Meeble’s head. “Take that into your void, disappear back into your
labyrinth where all monsters hide. Carry into your dreams and waking moments
that a simple savage sent you back into the dark, howling night!” Rogan slammed
the soul jar into the empty cavity that once held Meeble’s left eye. He then
raised the broken sword and screamed, “WODAN!” The pommel dropped and his knees
slammed on either side of Meeble’s head. The handle of the sword smashed into
the soul jar, driving it deep into Meeble’s skull. Rogan gripped the edges of
the pommel and forced it further into Meeble’s head. Rogan didn’t know if the
soul jar entered what passed for Meeble’s brain, but that move made the breath
stop from the creature’s lungs and the legs to stop kicking.

Amazarak slid against the wall, watching Rogan as the weary man
stood, dropping the sword piece on Meeble’s chest. He faced one of the glowing
boxes still functioning and screamed.

Rogan’s head raised and he stared at him. Out of breath, Rogan
wondered, “Now, you scream like a bitch?”

“The power of my ship is compromised! The engines are critical!”

Rogan peered at the floating circle behind him, and thought it
looked like a tunnel, one Meeble traveled through, one the shaman helped open.

“We are going to die!” Amazarak screamed, then turned, not
expecting Rogan to be right in front of him.

“No, just you,” Rogan grinned weakly, but his hands were apt
enough to seize Amazarak by the arms and pull him near the portal, then swung
him about.

The shaman skidded but stopped a foot away from the glowing disk.
Eyes wide, he stared into it.

“The gate to the labyrinth!”

He turned to see Rogan running and executing a drop kick right
into his chest. Amazarak flew backwards, his body folding into the portal
swirls. Rogan hit the ground and watched the portal spin, shrink a little in
size, but stay floating.

All around him the mountain shook and the metal trim started to
fall from the walls. Rogan peered into the gateway and saw things, faces he
couldn’t recognize and a horror that should never be named. He ran from the
room and the machines about him howled.

Rogan ran as the mountain shook around him. He ran for the light
of the outside, but was soon blinded. He fell into light and then darkness.

ROGAN’S EYES OPENED
to see Javan staring at him,
looking relieved. He then scanned the area, seeing only the red braves he
brought up the hill, exhausted, spent, but grinning. Rogan also saw a weak
looking Akibeel, free from the sabers.

The cave and mountain top were a pile of rubble. Trees were
sticking out at bizarre angles as if a child were dissatisfied with their toy
construction and destroyed it.

“Sire!” Javan said. “It was spectacular! The mountain came down.
It destroyed itself and Amazarak died just outside here, his heart burst
through his chest.”

Rogan nodded and sat up, seeing Asenka laying on the ground, her
chest not moving and blood all over her. Zenata knelt, weeping by her side.

“I saw some of it.” He looked away from her body. “I saw what
destiny has in store for those who dare defy the simple edicts of Wodan.”

Javan, confused, asked, “What are you saying?”

“My grandson, unborn, his soul was caught in transit, was given
blessing by Wodan to live and fight, but that bastard wizard across the sea set
him loose and that shaman Amazarak imprisoned him. Loosed and invoked, I think
Wodan took back his gift. At least, that is all that makes sense of that
nightmare in there. He was disturbed from his boredom with humanity. Wodan
looked out the corner of his eye and saw me. Rhiannon help me, with eyes like
glacial ice, he saw me and was angry, but he turned and saw those who mocked
him…pretended to be him…and stole his gift.”

“But what happened to the mountain? What happened to Amazarak?”

“Wodan shrugged.” He coughed and lay back again. “Amazarak was
cast into a hole ripped in the air, fell into eternity. But I faced a member of
the Thirteen, Javan.”

Javan gave him a questioning look. “Really, sire?”

Forearm over his eyes, Rogan replied, “I’m not crazy. I battled
Meeble himself.”

“And how did that go?”

“I won. He’s in pieces in there under the mountain, inasmuch as
anything like him can die. I think I sent his form away from here, but who
knows if he can manifest again, given enough flesh and souls?”

“Asenka…” Javan said, but stopped speaking.

Rogan didn’t look over again. “I see. Perhaps she’s the luckiest
one on this mountain.”

§

With workman-like purpose and with not many words involved,
the tribesmen tore down the poles of the red lodge of Amazarak. While they
performed this task, uttering curses on the pieces, like they themselves
contained evil, they took note of Rogan and Javan, working elsewhere in the
clearing.

Gathering up a mound of branches, they created a thick bed to
which Rogan carried the body of Asenka. Rogan put her on the mound with great
care, like he handled a child that still breathed. He stood back and none drew
near him, not even Javan, until he turned to face them. Rogan picked up her bow
and placed the weapon across her body, chin to pelvis. His blue eyes looked at
her as his tired face remained expressionless.

Javan broke the silence. “Sire?”

Rogan looked to the sky and then turned away from him. He said to
Zenata, “Say a prayer to her gods, girl. We must go down the mountain.”

Looking slightly hurt, Javan patted her back and pushed her
forward to say her prayers. The girl still stood stunned and Javan whispered,
“He is as he is. Please do as he asks.”

“Bastard,” she muttered as she began to pray.

Wearing the word like a crown, Rogan walked from them and stared
into the sky. For a moment Rogan thought he saw an object, like a gigantic bird
far off. He blinked and it was gone.

The braves grew near to the mound, struck flints, and in time,
Asenka was afire. The embers rose up and flew off into the air.

“Her gods will carry her spirit home,” Rogan said quietly. “I
have a meeting with my gods coming soon. The road of the gods will be well
traveled before that day, however.”

Tears exploding from her eyes, hands clenched to fists, Zenata
raged at Rogan, “Is that all you can say for her?”

Rogan looked at the body afire and then to the girl. “She made me
happy for a little while. I’m sure she felt the same, but please don’t make my
ass heavy with romantic thoughts. Save them for my nephew, who still has heart
enough to give more than a fuck about tomorrow.”