by Brian Keene
“Or at least to our friends down south again. So they will fight behind me, but not for themselves? In my old age, I am to serve as a mercenary general to an army, plying my skills the way the whores in Sodom do? By Wodan, what a damned joke! But if we wish to return home in time… Fine. I will accept the terms. But tell him if he leaves out any information or double crosses me, the next guts he reads will be his own.”
Akibeel smiled, his black eyes signaling understanding.
§
Akibeel and his people slowly settled in around the campfire. Rogan eyed them uneasily, still not completely trusting their intentions. Javan, ever the diplomat, offered the Kennebecks fat slabs of cooked bear meat, which they gratefully accepted. They smacked their lips, rumbling with pleasure. One of the red-skinned natives produced a leather skin filled with liquor, and passed it around the circle. Rogan took a swig and handed it to Javan. The youth drank greedily, and then it made another round.
After a few draughts, the aged barbarian warmed up to his new employers.
“Tell Akibeel that his people make good wine.”
Javan translated for Rogan. “He thanks you, sire, and promises there is more where that came from.”
“Bring out these women,” Rogan laughed. “I would see them. Why do they hide? Let them come forth and drink. Are they deformed like the men?”
The moon vanished behind dark clouds, and the campfire seemed to dim, as if swallowed by the darkness. Akibeel cried out in panic. He thrust a bony finger toward the distant mountain range.
Rogan yanked his sword from its sheath, half falling back to his ass. “What now, dammit?”
Javan said, “He fears that Amazarak is casting a spell from his lodge on high. They regret not bringing along their two champions to meet us.”
“Champions?” Rogan grunted. “If they have these men, what need have they of us?”
“These two champions, Takala and Eyota, want no part of the fight. They wish to leave the area.”
Akibeel grew more animated.
“He says the spell gets stronger. Be wary, sire.”
Rogan eyed the shaman skeptically and then gazed at the dark mountaintop. “Akibeel can tell that from here, can he?”
“Apparently, sire.”
The Kennebeck people quickly dispersed, fleeing towards the safety of the forest.
Rogan scowled. “Why do they run away?”
“They fear Amazarak’s magic. Croatoan is hungry.”
“Does he eat people?”
“I am not certain.”
Akibeel gestured at the mountain. An emerald light now emanated from it.
“Wodan’s sack,” Rogan breathed. “Look at that! Sorcery if I’ve ever seen it.”
“He says again to be cautious,” Javan warned.
“For what?”
As if he’d understood the warrior king, Akibeel raised one trembling, gnarled finger and pointed at the ocean. Rogan and Javan turned, staring at the surf as something dark emerged from the water.
“Be wary of the dead.” Javan gulped.
The clouds parted, and the moonlight revealed the true state of their enemy. A line of black corpses rose up from the waves. Saltwater dripped from their bloated flesh as they padded onto the sand. One of them still wore a necklace of tiger’s teeth; the chain embedded in its swollen flesh. Another clutched a curved blade in its leathery fingers, yet in the top of his head gaped a hole. Seaweed and saltwater filled the space where his brain should have been. The creatures shambled toward them, their faint, soulless cries drifting across the beach.
Rogan recognized them immediately, despite their putrescence. These were the bodies of the corsairs they’d slain, Karza’s warriors, animated and seeking revenge, even beyond death.
“Zombies,” Rogan muttered. “Wodan’s balls, I hate zombies.”
One’s bloated stomach hung horribly swollen, as if it were pregnant with child. Another missed a leg below the knee. It hopped on one foot, collapsing every few yards. All of the corpses were in bad shape with shark-frayed ribbons of flesh hung from their frames. Broken bones poked through their mottled, parchment-thin skin, and shredded lips pulled back against shattered teeth. Their stench was horrific.
With a cry, a seagull darted down out of the night sky and pecked at one of the creature’s ears, hoping to dislodge the morsel. The zombie reached up, grasped the bird in its fist, and squeezed. Then it flung the lifeless gull to the sand and continued approaching.
The sixth zombie to clamber across the beach was absent much of his skin, exposing muscles and veins. A sea-worm tunneled through its neck and another burrowed through its shoulder. One of the creature’s eyes was missing, and a small hermit crab scuttled in the empty cavity. Seawater ran from the ghoul’s gaping mouth. One of its arms was also gone. The hand on the other arm clutched a curved sword. The creature raised the weapon and pointed it at Rogan in recognition.
Sighing, Rogan turned his head, listening to his joints pop. “Is there no end to this madness? I have killed them once. Must I kill them a second time?”
Without waiting for a reply, he charged forward to meet his opponents, counting seven of the creatures on the beach, plus seven more heaving themselves from the water. He exploded into their midst, broadsword whistling through the air, cleaving rancid flesh, slicing through decaying muscle and tissue.
One of the zombies parried his follow-up attack, and their swords clanged together. Rogan turned his head away. The stench wafting off the corpse made him gag. Blocking the curved blade’s descent, Rogan grasped the undead warrior’s arm and tried to pull him forward onto the point of his broadsword. Instead, the creature’s skin slipped off, revealing bone. Rogan stared in horror as the thing smiled. Its face had been half-eaten by fish, and the fleshless cheek swarmed with larvae. A seashell jutted from the raw wound where its nose had been.
“Wodan take you, dead man,” Rogan whispered.
The old king leaped into the air and lashed out with his leg, kicking the zombie in the head. His boot sank into the soft flesh. Rogan laughed as bits of brain matter and skull fragments splattered onto the wet sand. His landing, while graceful, was not nearly as nimble as it would have been ten years before. His agility, like the hair in his salt and pepper mane, lessened with the passing of each winter. Rogan spun on his heels, wheeling to face his next shuffling opponent.
Before he could renew his attack, several arrows sprouted from the chests and throats of the living dead. The shafts were not of the type Javan had been using. Rogan ducked, warned by some primal, battle-honed instinct, as more missiles flew from the forest. The arrows found homes in the monsters, but had no effect.
Several women stepped out of the shadowed woods, and silently reloaded their bows. Each sported flowing, shiny black hair; but none was of the Kennebeck tribe, nor of the ginger skinned Olmek-Tikalize from the southern continents. These tan women stood much taller, and their eyes were drawn up at the sides, almost like those from the distant Eastern lands that Rogan had raided as a teen.
“I grow weary of this,” Rogan muttered, ducking the clumsy swing of a zombie. “Tonight, I merely wished to sit, drink and eat, and warm my bones beside the fire—and perhaps explore between the legs of one of these red-skinned or tan-skinned women, deformed or no. Now, instead, I slay those already dead.”
The zombie’s reply was a gurgled moan.
“To Hades with you all,” Rogan roared and hacked the legs out from under it. “How many times must I kill your lot before you stay dead?”
The pathetic undead were not much of a fighting force. Still, they swarmed him with their numbers. More of the foul creatures poured from the sea. The female archers fell back, lest their hail of arrows strike Rogan. Pulling his sword, Javan sprang forth.
Rogan sliced another zombie in two at the belly. Undaunted, the corpse’s lower half walked on. Its upper portion flopped into the water, and then pulled itself back across the sand. Rogan’s sword fell once, twice, severing the ar
ms. Then he cut the disembodied walking legs in half, dividing the hips. Something grasped his boot. He glanced down, shuddering in revulsion as the decaying hands trailed across his feet, dragging the severed arms behind them.
Javan brought down another slow moving corpse. A severed hand crawled up his back like a spider and clutched at his throat. Shuddering, he yanked the thing off and flung it into the ocean.
“Uncle,” he shouted, “this is madness! There is no way to kill them. Each limb we hack off becomes yet another opponent.”
“Tell that Kennebeck wizard that this is his kind of fight, not ours.”
Javan confessed, “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t? Do as I say, boy.”
“Akibeel isn’t responding. He sits cross legged at the fire, ignoring my pleas. That is why I joined the battle late.”
“What? The fool. He picks a poor time to rest!”
“I think he’s in some sort of trance, sire.”
Rogan spat onto the sand. “I hate wizards almost as much as I hate zombies.”
The zombies encircled the two exhausted men. Javan and Rogan stood back-to-back, swords held ready. The undead moved closer. Javan winced at the stench. Rogan blinked sweat from his eyes. The corpses raised their weapons.
“WODANNNNNN!” Rogan roared, preparing himself for the onslaught.
Then, as abruptly as they’d emerged, the creatures fell limp and tottered into the surf.
Rogan prodded one of the corpses with his sword, but it did not move.
“This time, let us hope they stay dead.”
“Indeed, sire.”
The bodies began washing back out to sea with the next crashing wave.
Akibeel rose, opening his eyes and shouting into the heavens. Rogan followed his gaze, and noticed that the strange emerald light on the mountaintop had vanished as well.
Javan relayed, “Akibeel says that he placed himself in a spell and entreated his gods for a blessing. The blessing came.”
“Well, Wodan bless my ass. How can I fight one such as that? No wonder his champions, Takala and Eyota, want to leave and won’t even show up to face me. Will Amazarak summon the dead to accost us with every step we take towards his god? How do we know that this shaman didn’t pull that trick to gain our compliance?”
Javan interpreted for Akibeel again and said, “He knows your doubts, but begs you not to worry.”
Rogan eyed the strange women from the forest. “Why?”
“Because he will fight with you. He will stand by your insides.”
“He will what? You have not translated correctly, boy. You meant to say that he will stand at my side.”
Javan shook his head. “No, sire. Begging your pardon, but Akibeel distinctly said insides—I am sure of it.”
The women drew closer. The tallest faced Rogan and spoke to him in a language he knew.
“We will fight beside you as well, if you will lead us. Do not discount Akibeel’s powers, for they are great.”
“Who the hell are you women?”
It was then that Rogan noticed all of them had only one breast. Their right breasts were missing. In their place stretched knotted scar tissue.
“I am Asenka,” the tall woman said. “That name means grace. This is my sister, Zenata.” She touched the shoulder of a younger female warrior. “Her name means gift of God.”
“I am Rogan. That means bloody bastard with a hard on. This is Javan, which means servant of a bloody bastard with a stiff cock.”
Javan stifled a grin.
Asenka’s nostrils flared. “You will help us, oh man of Keltos?”
“First, how is it that you understand my speech, sister?” Rogan asked, sword inserted in the sand like a cane.
“We are all that remains of an ancient tribe that trekked across this land centuries ago. You have seen our skill with bows. That is why—”
“That’s why your right tit is cut off,” Rogan interrupted. “So you can shoot better. I’ve been around what there is of this world, and have seen the practice before, when I was a teen. Singed at birth or puberty, are you not?”
Asenka nodded in surprise.
“Well, at least you’re on our side.”
Asenka smiled. Her purple eyes nearly looked like coal.
Speaking in hurried whispers, Akibeel pawed at Javan’s elbow.
Rogan frowned. “What is the old monkey chattering about now?”
“He says we should leave the beach now, before Amazarak sends more foes to test our strength.”
Javan and Rogan agreed to let the thin red men of the forest gather up the weapons scavenged from the bireme, since they could not carry the load themselves. In quick order, they collected up the weapons, pieces of armor, and other useful items. The Kennebeck shaman summoned two-wheel wagons pulled by other tribesmen.
“First they call forth women warriors,” Rogan said. “Now wagons. What else do they have hidden in yonder woods? Catapults? Perhaps a hundred fine horses?”
“Akibeel says that is all, sire.”
Rogan stroked his graying beard. “Tell them to return and watch a few days after high tide. There are apt to be more weapons and armor drifting in on the bodies of the dead. Scavenge what they can. We will have need of it.”
Javan and the women warriors followed the old shaman into the forest. Rogan looked back to the waves, caught his breath, and thought of his eldest son. Even now, Rohain, his flesh and blood whom he’d taught to hunt, fish, and kill, was probably in chains. And his survival, and the survival of their kingdom, depended on Rogan helping these strange folk slay their wizard and his evil pagan deity—one of the Thirteen themselves. Rogan felt something he had not experienced in many years.
Fear. Just a twinge, but there all the same.
Javan stopped at the tree line and looked back at his brooding uncle.
“Sire? We must be off. Is everything all right?”
Rogan frowned and looked to the sky.
“Just thinking, boy. Just thinking.”
DAWN ALMOST BROKE upon them by the time they drew near the village. The forest was lit with the gray-blue hues that exist just before the sunrise. The leaves swayed in the slight, cooling breeze. Birds sang out to one another from the treetops, squirrels ran along the branches, and a deer leaped across the trail in front of them, its antlers still covered with velvet. As they walked, the Kennebeck picked berries from bushes along the trail. Neither Rogan nor Javan had ever seen the fruit in their native lands and each eagerly tried one. Javan relished the flavor on his tongue. Rogan pronounced them not worth the effort, and instead, drained the last Kennebeck wineskin of its contents.
They walked single file along an old, rutted footpath. Akibeel took the lead and Rogan brought up the rear. A Kennebeck warrior lagged far behind, to guard their flank, while Zenata took point, running along ahead of the procession. The group moved silently, and even Javan remained quiet, his eyes drooping from weariness. Asenka walked between him and Rogan.
“How came you here, Rogan the bloody bastard with a stiff cock?” she asked.
“I was joking about the name.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the bloody bastard part.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“How did you come to be here?”
Rogan yawned. “We took a wrong turn while heading to a famed Assyrian whorehouse and the gods dropped us here instead.”
Asenka frowned. “You jest.”
“Yes,” Rogan nodded. “In truth, we were too weary from the whorehouse and could no longer pilot our vessel. So we made camp on yonder beach. Those whores will wear a man out.”
Rogan’s laughter boomed through the forest, sending a flock of birds screeching from their perches. A squirrel chattered angrily at him from the branches overhead. A barrage of nuts fell from the tree.
Asenka’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You still desire such action at your age?”
“I’m not dead yet.�
�� Rogan smirked, halting at the crest of a ridge that overlooked a lush valley. “Javan, tell this lass the story of Rogan’s desire.”
“Sire, you know it better than I.”
“But I like to hear you tell it,” Rogan insisted, cracking his knuckles.
Javan yawned and cleared his throat. “The bards sing a tune of how Rogan’s father cut him from his mother’s womb. The theory is that since Rogan never passed naturally from a female opening, he will go down to his death trying to replicate the experience in reverse.”
“How droll.” Asenka rolled her eyes.
Rogan shrugged. “It was a good line in the taverns of Luxor.”
Some time passed before Asenka spoke again. She looked Rogan up and down, and her tone was tart. “So you are the legendary savage who made himself king? You are the man who carved his way to the throne of Albion and took the crown from Silex’s head?”
“What if I am?”
“Are you not stunned that I know of you?”
Rogan’s head began to throb, fatigue finally betraying him.
“I don’t stun easily…” His voice faded.
“Sire?” Javan stepped closer.
Though his eyes were open, Rogan no longer beheld the forest. He reached out and grasped a tree branch for support. His breath came in short gasps, and his muscles trembled. His ears rang, and the strength vanished from his limbs.
Zenata had returned from her position at point, replaced by a Kennebeck warrior, and she joined her sister and Javan as they clustered around Rogan in concern.
“What ails the old one?” the young girl asked.
“We do not know,” Asenka whispered. “He suddenly became as weak as a newborn foal.”
Javan held on to Rogan’s arm, so that he would not fall. “Lean on me, sire.” Abruptly, Rogan stabilized. Pushing the youth aside, he stomped his feet and took a deep breath. “I’m fine, boy. But—Volstag is dead.”
“What?”
“I can’t explain it, Javan, but I saw it as if I were there. I beheld it as clearly as I’m seeing you. Volstag is gone.”
