King of the Bastards

by Brian Keene

  Rogan held the spikes and looked at the red lodge. A great light appeared within and they all could see the shadow of a figure hanging by the pectorals in a ceremony much like Akibeel performed earlier in the week.

  “Don’t wait, crucify me!” Akibeel implored Rogan as the barbarian’s eyes widened…for the corpses surrounding the red lodge began to move…stand up, rotten flesh and all, and brandish their weapons of steel. Many of these beings sported extra limbs.

  “Surely this Amazarak sold his brothers out?” Rogan muttered, trying to comprehend what he saw.

  Javan looked at these warriors keenly, as they brandished daggers and other knives in the extra limbs sprouting from just beneath their armpits. “These extra limbs seem full grown, like those from another person.”

  Rogan swore and stared at Javan. “You mean to say this Croatoan stuck extra arms on these men like a doll-maker?”

  The line of four-armed warriors waved their weapons and Javan simply nodded.

  The Kennebeck planted a wall of spears behind them, blocking their exit. The tips of the fence of spears gleamed in a ring.

  Rogan sized up their enemies as the small army of zombies took up position around the lodge. Their thin frames turned dark every so often as the lodge oozed scarlet light at regular intervals.

  He looked at Akibeel, spreading himself on the trunk of a tree—like a filthy whore on a bed, he thought. Rogan rolled the spiked sabers from the maw of the tiger in his palms and frowned.

  “Javan, assemble the Kennebeck bowmen in a half-circle and cover the clearing.” He leered at Asenka and Zenata. The women held the short swords awkwardly. True, they were used to fighting with their knives and bows, but not a longer weapon. The four-armed warriors truly inspired fear, he understood. Rogan instructed Javan and the women, “If any of our heroes run from the sight, shoot them yourself.”

  Javan watched Rogan place an ivory saber over the wrist of Akibeel. Rogan hesitated, seeing a wound already there, as it’d happened before. Javan urged him on with a hearty shout of, “Aye, my king!”

  As Javan directed the savage bowmen to aim their metal tipped arrows at the small force of risen dead, Rogan looked into the eyes of the shaman. Still, he didn’t stab the saber down.

  Akibeel begged him, “Crucify me!”

  “This is foolish talk, old one. What is to stop me from cutting those dead ones apart, entering the lodge, and ripping Amazarak’s heart out?”

  “You will never touch him without me, Rogan. I will take the fight to Amazarak in the spirit realm! This is where I will be at your side!”

  “You mean I can’t just cut his heart out?” Rogan asked, flummoxed, still hesitating with the handle of his sword over the saber. His blue eyes stared at the force of freakish men who stood, waiting, not attacking.

  “There is a great force about his presence in the lodge, I am sure of it. You will never touch him without my help. He has stolen the souls of these men for a greater purpose.” The strained cords of the ancient man were emphatic. “Amazarak uses the souls for greater magic within the lodge. Whatever that form is, destroy it before the shaman himself. His tricks to the eyes will mean naught in the end. Destroy his means of power and he will fall! Crucify me! Let us go to war!”

  With a grunt, Rogan drove the saber through the wrist of Akibeel. The shaman’s dark eyes flared and froze in that manner. Very little blood emerged and that did surprise him. Rogan glanced at the red lodge and saw the aura increase. He took another saber and savagely stabbed it through Akibeel’s other wrist. The shaman groaned almost in ecstasy. That disturbed Rogan a tad as he knelt and nailed Akibeel’s feet into the tree as well. Akibeel chanted and hissed, his eyes rolling back in his skull.

  When Rogan joined the large force of Kennebeck braves, he looked at Javan. The young man surveyed the area and gestured his bow at the undead around the lodge. “Why do they not attack?” Javan wondered.

  Rogan’s eyes squinted as he drew his heavy sword. “They are a defensive force or they would be on us already. Surely, they will fall for their lord.” He gave the cave mouth a glance before saying, “Perhaps something else will fight on offensive for them?” He then looked down the lines of the savages that traveled up the mountain with them. “Their hearts aren’t in it. Hell, their hearts aren’t beating, but getting ready to fall out their asses. Their resolve certainly isn’t steel.”

  Asenka’s knuckles were white around her short sword hilt. “My will cannot break.”

  Rogan raised an eyebrow. “Never did I doubt it. Still, I wonder more after what is in the yonder cave leaking green light.”

  All of them jumped a bit as the thud of drums resounded in their ears. Javan glanced around and then pointed. “It is from behind the lodge.” They could hear the beating of these hollow drums and the echo of bestial chants. Two of the Kennebeck savages dropped their bows and ran, only to be cut down by Javan’s arrows.

  Rogan watched the dying men as their legs twitched and muttered, “I sense a mass desertion.”

  Akibeel howled, “Be strong my brothers and attack!”

  “To hell with waiting. Fire!” Rogan barked and pointed with his broadsword.

  The savages released their new arrows and instantly, the army of walking dead became pocked with many shafts. Several arrows found the mark in the heads of the undead, as directed by Javan. The waving arms of the undead warriors deflected many arrows as well. The young man implored them to reload and fire again. The Kennebeck braves did so quickly. Many dropped to a knee and fired at a different angle. Wavering, but not dropping, the dead men held their ground.

  “Why do they not die?” Javan said, his fist striking his thigh.

  “Look at their heads,” Rogan pointed. “All of their scalps are gone and it is as if a maid stitched them back together. Perhaps this Croatoan has made them vessels that need no minds. They won’t fall unless we cut their fucking legs off.”

  When several of the tall, hairy beasts stumbled out from the yawning cave, Rogan directed the troops to fire on these large creatures. The savages sporting long bows did as they were commanded. Several arching projectiles flew at the new targets. The hairy beasts, who did nothing to evade the missiles, jerked frantically, as if brawling with invisible men as they walked. The steel tips drove in deep and several of them dropped, wounded or dead. Rogan felt good to see that they could die.

  Almost singing, a deep chanting voice emerged from the lodge in greater volume. The drums and chants of the beasts grew louder. Akibeel answered with his shrieking chants and his voice grew deeper as his trance world widened.

  Rogan burst through the lines and shouted, “To my back, you bastards! Use your axes and let’s have at these sons of bitches!” He didn’t look back and expected to be obeyed when he commanded, “Form the wedge like we practiced. Hit ’em low.”

  With Rogan as the point, Javan to his right, Asenka at his left and the other warrior women and braves forming a wedge, they drew close together and advanced.

  Swinging his heavy broadsword and cutting the knees from one of the undead, Rogan led the wedge through the line of dead sentinels. These graying men refused to leave their tight knit pattern around the red lodge at the first strikes. Wondering where the boundary for their movement lay, Rogan moved them in closer, as did the rest, swinging their new tomahawks tipped in steel. Javan, the women, and the braves chopped into those in their way, who did move to fight, but their sluggish tries were parried and met with savage blows to the legs. The multi-armed undead wobbled on their ruined legs and fought, bit, and swung, but the wedge drove through their numbers, splitting them apart easily.

  Just as Rogan drew back to swing his broadsword, he saw the wide depression in the ground behind the lodge…and those making the drums sing. In a circle sat a dozen of the hairy giants with large feet, pounding the drums, facing the cave.

  He swung at the nearest dead man left, slicing the right arm off and then driving the blade clean through the calf. Swiftly, he slashed th
e opposite direction at another one, going back for the skull. Dodging the other three arms was a new form of combat Rogan adapted to quickly. The head split like a melon, but in a scant moment, Rogan swore that no brains slopped out of the head.

  Asenka and Zenata showed no fear as they used the shorter swords from the bireme to attack the dead men. They tended to work together, hitting high or low in unison as the wedge closed to a circle, their backs together. The circle then fanned out and they all sliced into their opposition.

  Rogan heard a sound to make his barbarian blood turn to ice. Over the chants of Akibeel, Amazarak, and the hairy giants, he heard a hallow whoop from deep in the cave. Banishing that fear for the moment, Rogan sliced into more of the dead men. He was glad to see Javan at his side, slashing and stabbing with his short sword at the dull-eyed dead men. Javan bounced off one of the Kennebeck braves and his sword dislodged. One of the dead savages grabbed Javan by the hair and raised his right hand. Just before the fist sporting a bone-knife fell, Rogan sliced off the arm at the shoulder. Zenata threw a shoulder block into the zombie. He stumbled and ran into Asenka, who drove her sword into his cranium.

  It gratified Rogan that the savages found their courage to attack as well, splitting the skulls of the dead army with ease. Since the Kennebeck greatly outnumbered these freakish zombies, the enemy was dispatched fast. Several of the Kennebeck fell, but for the most part, they fought on well. However, none of the braves dared go near the lodge.

  Several of the hairy beasts from the cave reached the edge of the clearing. With wild abandoned they attacked, almost apish in their gait.

  “Reform,” Rogan shouted and the wedge came back, pointing into the crazed oncoming attack.

  Going to their knees, many of the Kennebeck threw their tomahawks. Javan never had to train them for this exercise. With the steel insurance on the axe heads, the weapons stuck in the towering creatures. Many were of great girth and shambled forward in pain, somewhat confused that something struck a vital part, heart or head, and caused their bodies to disobey their minds. A few took blows to their thick skulls and fell, writhing. These creatures quickly took on many arrows by the Kennebeck, who grew in bloodlust as the battle went on.

  Almost on cue, the dead hairy beasts sprang to life and swung their arms, braining a few braves that got greedy and went in to strike close. Rogan snarled as he directed the wedge to sweep across this bizarre force of hairy ape men. They killed that which was already dead, beheading a few, sure that a headless beast cannot fight. Soon, Rogan learned he had to extract the legs to insure this, as they kept going even with their brains disconnected.

  Many Kennebeck warriors perished, but the attack and addition of the outlanders proved more numbers than the zombies could take.

  Rogan peered around the side of the lodge, seeing mounds of bleached skulls by the drums and told Javan. “Arm them with arrows again. Take them from the bodies. Have them dispatch these damned giants down there. Fill them with arrows. They seem fixed on the caves.”

  Javan instructed the Kennebeck savages and then said, “Hear that terrible sound in the cave, sire? What is it?”

  Rogan shook his mane of graying hair. “I know not, Javan. It sounds like steel on steel or the grinding of great millstones.”

  Zenata held her ears and said, “It is the teeth of the gods!”

  Rogan frowned. “I hope not, but too much for me to think on, for sure. The giants on the drums will be easy pickings if they are so devoted to calling…whatever is in the cave. Lead these savages at them with axes after the arrows, Javan. I must go in the lodge.” He hoped Akibeel would back him up as he promised.

  Javan did as instructed. He led a new wedge, flanked by the women. They released a volley of arrows and started forward beyond the lodge.

  WITH A GREAT effort, Rogan pulled the heavy flap of the lodge open, and scarlet smoke filtered out. Out of the corner of his left eye, Rogan saw the mouth of the cave disturbed in the distance. A terrible, red colored, shambling horror appeared in the distance. It was not human in shape or gait. Deciding to let Javan and the savages have at this new arrival, he pressed on to his task at hand.

  Rogan ducked and entered the lodge, ready to cut down the shaman Amazarak from his hanging pose. Indeed, the shaman hung suspended from the ceiling, pectoral muscles impaled through with bony spikes. Amazarak looked nearly to be a twin of Akibeel, only a great deal younger. A deep, throaty roar came from the shaman as a glowing, disembodied head rose from his face. It was as if a helmet overshadowed the wizard’s head and had come to life. Rogan almost swung his sword and then looked down. All around the perimeter of the lodge stood tiny jars of clay. So many that Rogan froze, astonished at their number.

  He moved forward and bounced back, as if a rubbery barrier unseen threw him back. Again, Rogan tried to attack and once more got repelled. He cursed the shaman and sliced with his sword, as if that could break it. To no avail, he couldn’t go further.

  Suddenly, in his mind, Rogan could feel the flood of a fire he feared so much. He felt the presence of magic and his barbarian nature bristled. The voice was not that of Amazarak, but Akibeel.

  “I am in your mind, King of Albion! Destroy the jars. They contain the souls of those stolen. They are how he controls the hairy beasts and feeds the power beyond.”

  When he tried to raise a boot or move toward the jars, he found them behind the barrier he couldn’t cross. Rogan cursed and tried again, then cussed himself for being foolish.

  From outside the lodge, Rogan could hear panicked voices of the Kennebeck people. Perhaps Javan and the new warriors could not easily best the giants or the horror they called from the cave. He stepped forward, feeling the invisible push of Amazarak and the evil he played host to, but found himself almost paralyzed. Knowing the consequences if he failed, Rogan drew back his sword and prepared to attack the jars again. With a sizzling blanket at his back, he felt his body crushing into the invisible barrier to his front. However, the rubbery wall gave a little, bending, but not much.

  Amazarak hissed from inside the disembodied face, “Look, lost King of Albion!”

  Rogan stared at Amazarak, and on the shaman’s belly appeared a glowing orb of green light. In this orb, he saw a vision like a moving drawing of what looked like fair Albion. He could see a bloody altar and a dark skinned, bony wizard chanting over the grisly bits of an infant.

  Eyes shut tight, Rogan growled, “Begone, swine!”

  “That is your grandchild, a boy, I would guess,” Amazarak cooed, his voice sounding as if it were doubled in tempo. “I ate his soul up, barbarian, a soul fresh from the melting pot of the mountain all of you barbarians look to—Zenghaus! I ate him and shat him in a jar.”

  “Shut up,” Rogan hissed, struggling, sandwiched between the invisible walls.

  “Now, he is my slave, serving me with his power to help bring chaos to his realm.”

  Rogan’s heart raged, wondering if this image was a deception, or if the shaman had really absorbed his grandson’s life-force as Wodan imparted it with the spirit to fight. He waited too long and hesitated, thinking of the sacred mountain Zenghaus beyond Thule, Wodan’s home. Rogan’s body froze and he couldn’t fight against it any more.

  Akibeel shouted in Rogan’s mind. “Your son Rohain still lives, barbarian! Rohain escaped the sacrifice, but your grandson did not.”

  Rogan felt the dour sadness of loss, a pull on the heart that made him want to drink and fight badly. He felt it seldom, only when a loved one perished, but the sensation returned now. He swallowed hard and even that took effort, still imprisoned in the forces about him.

  Akibeel shouted, “Fight on! There is always hope. Reach out with your mind into the mind of Amazarak! Join with your grandson!”

  “How?” Rogan groaned, confused by the words in his head.

  Another voice hissed in his brain, “WITH ME!”

  Though he closed his eyes, Rogan saw the speaker in his mind, a tall, wise figure, with features like a sta
tue formed in the sands near Shynar. Imperious and arrogant, clothed in a cloak made of a single, seamless sheet, Rogan understood he saw the one who called himself the Doorkeeper earlier.

  His mouth didn’t move, but Rogan’s mind wondered, What are you doing in my head?

  Just here, waiting for you.

  Can you destroy this magic force?

  This isn’t magic. Pissing into the wind and not getting wet, that’s magic. This is just energy, like warmth from the sun yet stronger, malleable and thick.

  Rogan thought, Can we pray for moonlight?

  We? You can pray all you like, but use your brains, not your back for once.

  I’ll use anything to crush this bastard.

  That’s the spirit, no pun intended. Now then, each time you move, you fail, correct?

  Fucking brilliant, Doorkeeper.

  Yet, your sword falls ahead, but doesn’t bounce back and hit you.

  The Doorkeeper’s words rang true. However, he couldn’t strike out now, and the force had kept him from striking the wizard in the first place. Angry at the thought of him once able to throw his sword and be done with it all, Rogan thought, Why do you aide me with words and not actions?

  You know the riddles of iron and steel, don’t you? It is deeper than the weapon. Besides, once you finish here, I need you as a weapon inside the cave.

  Rogan struggled but could not move his arms or legs. He cursed himself, for the wizard Amazarak used Rogan’s passion and instincts to distract him, to trap him thus. Outside, he could hear the inhuman squeal of a horror unnamable.

  Then, Rogan’s eyes opened and he glanced down. He pondered the tales of iron and steel and grinned. Rogan relaxed and opened his hand. His heavy broadsword fell. As the mind of Akibeel burned around the skull of Rogan, he heard the Doorkeeper give out sarcastic applause. The mighty sword tumbled and crashed into the clay jars.

  Amazarak stopped laughing as several of the jars broke. The rage of the evil shaman exploded in a howl that sent a wind around the interior of the lodge. As this wind traveled, the covering of the lodge peeled away. Rogan took a single step, froze again, unable to proceed, but saw several of the hairy beasts scattered about dead.