King of the Bastards

by Brian Keene

  Meeble picked him up by the shoulders and head-butted him clean on the forehead. Once more, Rogan’s head went afire with crazy pictures of the dead in places he’d never seen. The ground, once more, sobered him up.

  “Iron man,” Meeble mused, his voice curious.

  Certain his brains had sloshed to the back of his skull, Rogan’s body felt weary, and didn’t respond right away when he dived between Meeble’s legs, making a vain attempt at the spear.

  Meeble caught his boots, held him up, and opened his mouth to speak again.

  Rogan reached out, grabbed Meeble’s penis, and twisted it like he broke the neck of a snake.

  Meeble let him go.

  Sure that the organ felt serrated in his hands when he touched it, Rogan hit the ground with his shoulders, and ignored the cry of pain from the hulking creature. Boots back on the ground, Rogan arose and ran, trying to avoid Meeble’s oath of a strike, but the big thing held his manhood, groaning. Slipping past the tube in the goo on the floor, Rogan grabbed the spear. A beautiful weapon, near to seven feet in length, a bronze ball weighting it on the end, a sturdy shaft and heron feathers near the joint below the blade, Rogan liked it, a lot.

  Meeble swung around, still hunched over, anger in his almond eyes.

  “Dead man,” he snarled.

  Rogan liked Iron Man better and brought the butt of the spear about, connecting the bronze ball with Meeble’s right eye. By the way the creature jerked back and shook, Rogan hit an area as good as Meeble’s prick. Rogan waded in, dodging each punch or slap from Meeble’s left arm with the ball of the spear higher up. Meeble held his right eye, backing away as Rogan parried him, over and over, alas, swinging the bronze ball up for another groin shot. Though Meeble angled away, he still caught a grazing and hunched over a bit…far enough, Rogan thought.

  When Rogan went for the straight stab into Meeble’s left eye, Meeble dropped to his ass and grabbed Rogan’s legs with both of his hand-like feet. The left hand jabbed at Rogan, who instinctively brought up the spear for defense. The spearhead blade flattened on Rogan’s face, smashed into it by Meeble’s swat. Rogan felt his nose give and blood spewed down his mustache and beard. This didn’t slow down his thinking, as Rogan’s nose had been broken many times before.

  Meeble’s feet tightened, holding Rogan firm.

  Rogan dropped the spear from defense and jabbed ahead, aiming for the eye Meeble at last revealed, blinking it many times. The beast saw the blow and jerked his body away, his grip free of Rogan’s legs. The spearhead found a home, but not in Meeble’s head. The blade, over a foot long, inserted into Meeble’s right shoulder easier than Rogan could’ve dreamed. About ten inches sank in and struck bone. Rogan tried to push harder, but the agonized frenzy of Meeble sent him tumbling again, the feet, though not gripping Rogan, pushed off, knocking him down. The spear shaft, out of his grip, hung out of Meeble’s shoulder, flaccid.

  Boots on the floor again, Rogan glanced at Amazarak, who watched with wide eyes, hardly breathing. Rogan then advanced on Meeble, who still sat on his buttocks, fumbling with the spear. When Meeble grabbed the shaft to pull it free, Rogan leapt into the air, drop kicking the beast’s hand on the shaft. The spear broke off, and the spearhead delved in deeper. Rogan fell over Meeble, who got to his knees, roaring in pain, trying to rise up again.

  Up to his feet again, Rogan’s legs shook. Full of battle crazy, his very being felt a wave of fatigue, but he couldn’t focus on it. He desired another weapon and desperately grabbed one of Amazarak’s glowing boxes, ripped it from the table, and smashed it on Meeble’s rising backside. Still hunkered over, Meeble turned about to receive another shimmering box on the head. Sparks and glass flew from the strange boxes. Rogan started to punch Meeble in the face, over and over, then he stared at the spearhead, the blood bubbling from the shoulder. He read the pain in the manner in which the creature moved and breathed.

  While he appeared tired and certainly hurt, Meeble threw a quick elbow jab to Rogan’s crotch, doubling him over. Rogan tried to put distance between them as the pain sank into his body from the groin strike. On all fours, Rogan’s head turned up to see Meeble staggering, struggling to rise. He then wondered if this thing he fought truly was Meeble, or just a pretender. Rogan figured it didn’t matter much as he’d be really dead if this Meeble crushed his skull. And…so would many more, not just this community in this realm, but his friends to the south, and in time, Albion.

  Rogan stood again, legs shaking, pondering the worshipers of Meeble, and their campaigns of terror. “What a prick you are,” Rogan muttered, thinking of the power and ability this thing possessed, and spent it on murder. Were the tales correct on the Thirteen? Were they from another universe and did Meeble do his bad things just to be an asshole to the Creator God? Why did the Creator God let this fuck do such things? Why wouldn’t he stop him or slow him down?

  In his head, Rogan heard laughter…not evil tones, but those of the Doorkeeper. Suddenly, it dawned on Rogan that while this unknown God didn’t give him any special gift or power, he may have placed him in the right place to get in Meeble’s way.

  “A pawn again, in the game of the gods,” Rogan laughed, angrier than before.

  “Gods?” Meeble grumbled, also trying to get up and set his feet. “God kill my people. God must die.”

  With that statement, Meeble charged him and Rogan slipped away, sliding into the next line of tubes, pushing away two of the containers and letting them bounce and roll. Neither broke. Rogan hopped down, putting a tube between them, as Meeble pursued. He rolled it at the monster, who hopped over it with a crudely graceful gait, but the second tube he didn’t navigate so well. Rogan had hoped he’d break it and more glass would be available to stab him with. The momentum of the tube went too far and Meeble got over it, almost. His left foot caught and Meeble stumbled, tripping over the tube, going flat to the floor.

  As Meeble rolled over, Rogan navigated about him and rolled one of the tubes onto his midsection. Meeble floundered for a moment, grabbing the cylinder and trying to cast it away. Rogan countered, levering the container so Meeble hugged the top end to get a grip to throw it. Rogan leapt in the air, both boots together, and dropped on the end near Meeble’s chest. From his weight and Meeble’s grip, the glass broke and the container started to empty. Rogan landed, skidded in the fluid, but put his head and shoulders under the tube. He shoved it up so Meeble got the full bath in the face from the fluid. He heard Meeble gag and cough. Rogan let go of the tube and ran about the chest of Meeble as he cast off the annoying container. Rogan straddled his chest as the person in the tube flopped onto Meeble’s legs. Rogan looked into Meeble’s face, seeing his mouth open wide, full of the fluid, and his flat tongue poke out. He couldn’t breathe.

  “Drown, you cocksucker,” Rogan roared and clasped his hands over Meeble’s nose, trying to shut off any way he could breathe.

  Meeble convulsed and his body went limp.

  Rogan climbed off, sucking air himself, looking at Amazarak, who sported wide eyes.

  “And you, ya sonofabitch, you brought him here,” Rogan said in-between breaths, praying he had the strength to kill that fuck, too.

  “Meeble broke your sword of steel, iron man of the mountains,” Amazarak taunted him. “He broke a sword made by your father, I bet.”

  Meeble’s body trembled and he coughed, fluid shooting from his nostrils.

  Amazarak giggled, “He’ll break you.”

  “My father didn’t make that sword,” Rogan muttered, looking at the body from the tube that lazily lay across Meeble’s legs. “Somebody else’s dad made it.”

  Meeble vomited, not only the amber fluid down his gullet, but a black substance Rogan had only seen squirting from a child’s ass immediately after birth.

  Eyes on the person from the container, Rogan noted this individual wore a green outfit, almost a uniform, and carried a black weapon, that held a handgrip like a crossbow, but a long tube on it supported by bits of wood. Rogan pick
ed this weapon up by the strap slung on it, and studied it. Rogan gripped the handle that sported a trigger like crossbows made in Shynar, but he saw no arrows to load in the barrel. He squeezed the trigger and nothing happened.

  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 r
ight 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.”