King of the Bastards (16 page)

Rogan looked at the top of the mountain, wreathed in an emerald
glow at regular intervals and nodded. “You are right, dammit. It is as if he
captures the sun and uses it at night.”

§

It took another full day and a few more attacks by the
hirsute creatures before they reached the highest point of the mountain. Rogan
could see the cresting off point and in the distance in the daybreak, a
circular lodge made of red material.

Pointing back, Rogan noted, “I see the word Croatoan marked in
these trees as well.”

Javan nodded but kept his eyes forward. “Yes, sire.”

“Always from this direction,” Rogan said. “As if it were coming
from this way.”

Javan sighed and then frowned. “This is true.”

“Why have we met no greater resistance?” Rogan snorted as Javan
made sure the braves took up defensive poses. “A few of those six fingered,
hairy big footed beasts, but that’s all.”

Akibeel shook his head as they journeyed farther into the area
full of tiny tents. There was no sign of life. When they stood at the edge of
the community, they could see the mouth of a cave behind the red lodge and
bodies strewn all over.

“Dozens of them,” Javan said, but no one went forward.

A gravelly, high pitched roar echoed from the edges of the
clearing and everyone took up defensive positions. Javan saw Rogan grip the
spear the old king used as a cane, thinking another of the hairy giants was
about to attack. Out of the bushes leapt two large feline creatures, striped
and bearing enormous fangs.

Rogan and Javan dived to one side as one of the beasts was on one
of the Kennebeck savages, ripping into the belly of the man in an instant with
his saber-like teeth. Before even Javan could draw an arrow, the savages
themselves brandished their new weapons with steel tips and filled this tiger
full of arrows. Rogan tried to get at the other one who was ravishing another
small native, but the spears forged by he and Javan filled this giant cat as
well.

“Damn, Javan, these savages fight well after all. Our training
had some effect. I half expected them to run away. Perhaps their real colors
come out when personally threatened, eh?”

The shaman took a few shaky steps, knelt by the body of the first
big cat and took the knife Javan made for him to the beast’s mouth. “The
Kennebeck will fight, Rogan. They are simple folks, but this is their world and
their land.”

Akibeel worked hard and Rogan could see what he was after. The
barbarian knelt and helped the thin shaman extract the sabers from the mouth of
the fallen tiger. Akibeel gouged with a knife and Rogan gripped the long sabers.
His great arms flexed large and he ripped the teeth loose.

Javan stared at the mountain top, pulsing green every so often,
and then turned his attention back to the distant cave opening. Akibeel and
Rogan removed the other set of sabers from the second dead tiger, never taking
their eyes off the red lodge.

“This other wizard, this shaman, Amazarak?” Rogan questioned.
“He’s within the lodge?”

Akibeel sighed, looked at a large tree that faced the red lodge
and dropped his buckskin tunic. He offered Rogan the four long sabers taken
from the tigers and said, “Crucify me, King.”

“What say you? Are you mad?” Rogan snapped.

Akibeel lay flat on the tree facing the lodge and put out his
arms. “Hurry, my Lord. The game is almost ready in the dawning light. Look! My
nemesis is at his power already! Hurry!”

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 the
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.