King of the Bastards (5 page)

Javan gripped the side of the bireme and shook his head in
disbelief. Another shark brushed by him, but he barely noticed.

Rogan blinked. “You speak madness! I haven’t bedded a black woman
since before I wed Desna, my Queen. That was decades ago.”

“Indeed it was. Yet her son is the rightful heir to your seat.
Even now, Karac moves to assassinate young King Rohain, and to bed your
daughter, and to take what is rightfully his.”

“What’s your name, dog?” Rogan snarled; his forearms flexing as
his grip tightened on his sword handle. “I would know before I feast on your
heart.”

“I am Karac’s younger brother,” the man grinned. “My name is
Karza. I am the one who is about to take your life. I am also a product of your
loins.”

Eyes narrow, Rogan hissed, “You lie.”

“Try me and see…
father
.”

Rogan charged Karza. The warrior fought well, easily deflecting
Rogan’s wild, angered blows. The black man was no simple pirate, but properly
trained in the methods of physical combat. He warded off the old man and then
kicked him in the stomach. Stumbling backward, Rogan crashed to the splintered
deck. His breath whooshed from his lungs. Laughing, Karza thrust at him, but
Rogan lashed out, forcing him back.

As Rogan rose up and charged his opponent again, Javan pushed
himself out of the water and onto the boat. Swords clashed, echoing above the
screams of the sharks’ unfortunate victims.

Javan knew that while his uncle’s fighting ability looked
deadlier than ever, his stamina would eventually wane. Karza obviously
understood this as well, and played the older warrior for time. They locked
together in a dance, stabbing and parrying, thrusting and kicking. Karza’s fist
crashed into the side of Rogan’s head. Rogan spun away, sucking in salty air
and narrowly avoiding the curved blade.

Javan glanced down at the water. The upper half of Captain
Huxira’s lifeless body bobbed on the surface. The old man’s cheek still bulged
with a wad of chewing leaf. Javan reached out and closed Huxira’s eyes. Then he
seized a floating bow. He had three arrows left in his quiver. Removing two, he
snapped them down onto the cord of the bow and drew back.

“Goddess,” he prayed, “guide my hand.”

He loosed the missiles. Both arrows struck Karza in the back,
below his shoulder blades, impaling his lungs—just as General Thyssen had
taught Javan to do.

Staggering forward, Karza raised his sword. Blood spewed from his
mouth as he coughed. Rogan renewed his attack. There was little power behind
the corsair’s defense as Rogan slapped the curved blade down and raised his
weapon again. The heavy broadsword bit into Karza’s shoulder, and both the
curved sword and the arm that held it fell into the water.

Karza screamed.

Rogan laughed. “Some son of mine you are, must’ve been from what
was left on the mattress.”

Javan expected Rogan to hesitate at slaying one of his own
bastard children, but he did not. With a guttural curse, Rogan grasped Karza’s
beaded hair and removed the pirate’s head, sawing through flesh and bone, slow.
Half dead from the arrows, Javan wondered if Karza felt the sawing action meant
to torture him before death. Rogan kicked the corpse into the sea and held the
head aloft, bellowing with rage before flinging it to the sharks as well. There
was a splash, and then Karza’s head rolled upright, bobbing on the surface and
staring at them with glassy eyes.

Panting for breath, Rogan crouched on the floating timbers,
staring at his opponent’s face. Despite the warrior’s black skin, their
profiles were the same.

“He’ll soon sleep in a shark’s belly.” Rogan looked to the
horizon.

“He claimed you were his father,” Javan murmured, sucking wind.

“If he was a product of my loins…” Rogan shrugged, still watching
the horizon. “Every man can have an off night, Javan.”

The great mother vessel sank fast and Javan picked off a pirate
trying to swim to them for salvation. Then he fished arrows out of the water to
re-supply his quiver.  

Two more pirates tried to board them. Rogan kicked both back into
the shark-infested drink. One of Huxira’s men grasped the side, but before
Javan could pull him aboard, a shark pulled the helpless man beneath the
surface.

“When the night swells come up,” Rogan said calmly as a deathly
quiet started to settle in, “we are surely lost on this hulk.”

“Pray, sire.”

Rogan frowned and stared again to the East. “I should have stayed
a pirate myself.”

Yet another hand arose over the side of the smashed hulk.
Casually, Rogan chopped off the fingers and the body fell into the waters with
a muffled cry.

Shielding his eyes from the waning sun, Javan looked west in the
direction of their destination. “Perhaps we will make landfall, Rogan. We can’t
be too far off from shore.”

Rogan’s brooding blue eyes glared at the bloody smears on the
boards. “What if we do, boy? Does it matter? This Karac sent his brother after
us. He wanted me dead so that I couldn’t come back seeking revenge or to
reclaim the crown. So what if we make landfall? Can you row a hundred oars and
return us to the coast of Transalpina or the northern way to our allies in
Thule? Nay. We are lost.”

He paused.

“And if this dog, Karza, spoke true, then our loved ones are lost
as well.”

ROGAN KEPT HIS
eyes closed, listening to the seagulls
shrieking above, feeling the ruined vessel rock gently on the waves. Then he
knew no more, until—

“Uncle,” Javan shouted with exuberance. “We live still!”

Rogan lay adhered to the hull in a dried circle of blood,
seawater, and sweat. The ocean lapped against the shattered craft, and the
prolonged rhythm had lulled him to sleep. Rubbing his eyes and scratching at
his salt-hardened beard, Rogan raised his head and blinked. He licked his
sun-blistered lips and winced, grinning at the pain.

“You’re a brilliant advisor after all, Javan. It’s not a wonder I
brought you along to interpret and counsel me. Of course we still live.”

Javan’s ears turned red. Feeling silly for his comment, he
pointed.

“But look, sire.”

Then he jumped into the blue-green water, which Rogan realized
was free of blood and bodies.

“Javan? What madness has seized you?”

The brash action startled Rogan, and he arose quickly to see what
had inspired his nephew’s folly. Javan hopped in waist deep water, gesturing at
the brown sandy beach nearby.

“We made it, sire.” The boy laughed, splashing playfully. “Wodan
is merciful. Rhiannon is just.”

Rogan chewed salt from his mustache and stared at the shore. He
slid into the cool water, his muscles aching, his wounds burning.

“Wodan is merciful? Mule shit. Wodan is a bitch’s son with a bad
sense of humor, boy. I may pray to your goddess, Rhiannon, before this day is
out, instead.”

Javan splashed again, then sank beneath the waves and emerged,
spraying a mouthful of water.

“Javan, you’re acting like a child. Do you still suckle at your
mother’s tit?”

The younger man ignored Rogan’s sarcastic jab. His happiness to
have survived the ordeal was etched in his expression.

“Sire, I know that you have cheated death many times in your
life. It’s an old cloak for you to discard, slipping out of the shadows of the
afterlife. But this was my first true test. I hope this is the only time I must
dodge such a foe.”

“I’ve never cheated death, lad. I’ve only escaped him for a
time.”

“Still, I hope to never have to do the same again.”

“All men meet death sooner or later, Javan. The trick is to bend
him to your will. That’s what I have always done. Nothing more. But my will is
strong.”

They waded ashore and collapsed in the warm, sun-baked sand. It
stuck to their wounds and their raw skin, scratching and scraping—but neither
had ever felt something more luxuriant. Gulls darted across the beach, their
beaks snapping at small, scuttling crabs. Scrub grass swayed in the breeze and
bleached driftwood dotted the dunes. Further inland, a dense forest walled off
an immense series of mist-enshrouded mountains. The blue sky brushed against
the mountaintops.

Rogan gazed up at the dwarfing spectacle.

Aye, my will is strong,
he thought.
But death only can
be bent over so many times
.
And as I get slower, his pace stays the
same. Eventually, death comes for all.

They sat in silence for a while, each lost in thought. The surf’s
lullaby washed over them.

“It is beautiful, this land,” Javan breathed, spellbound. “The
greenery is like an ocean itself. Look at the shafts of light from the sky, how
they crease the mists wreathing the mountaintops.”

Rogan nodded. “It almost makes one believe in the gods, eh?”

Javan frowned, ignoring his uncle’s blasphemous words. “Look how
far the coast goes on.”

Rogan stretched, his sword dangling over his bare thigh. His blue
eyes looked both ways and then back at the bireme’s carcass.

“I’d kill for even a gelding mount now. Damned trees are probably
full of Troglodytes like in the Pryten wilderness.”

“Oh, I doubt that, sire.”

“At least that cursed bird no longer hangs over us.”

Javan gazed upward, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare.

“Do you really think that thing had some importance to our
plight?”

“Yes,” Rogan spat. “By the ass of the goddess, it was unnatural,
and I felt the darkness in my bones. Think, lad. It was far too easy for them
to find us in the middle of this unexplored and uncharted land. That last
warrior, Karza—”

“The one who claimed to be your son?”

Rogan’s face tightened. “He boasted of aide from the dark lord,
Damballah. By Wodan and Rhiannon, they invoked
Damballah
.”

Javan stood up, brushed the sand from his skin, and walked
farther ashore. Rogan remained on the ground, letting the tide lap at him.

“Sire, I’ve heard of this god of the black peoples and read of
him. I know you encountered their wizards before, when Rohain was abducted
years ago.”

“He ain’t the god ya wanna fuck with.”

“But I’ve never heard of Damballah making an actual appearance,
except in the minds of the dark folk.”

“Or in the nightmares of those in the north.” Rogan took a deep
breath. “I have dreamt of dark Damballah and the evil shade over Albion even
now, on that blood-strewn deck, whilst you kept watch. This Karac, my bastard
son they spoke of, is a true barbarian fighter. This wasn’t the first I’d heard
his name, though it was indeed news that he sprang from my loins. They say he
is far more apt to the ways of war and bloodletting than most men. Perhaps even
more than…” Rogan’s voice faded, never saying the word—
Rohain
.

“My father and many others trained Rohain well, sire. Truly, this
is a fancy story made up by these fools.”

Rogan closed his eyes, lost in a fleeting vision.

“But I saw it in my dreams, how Karac planned it all, how he and
his followers overthrew the palace by posing as slaves and teamsters.” The old
man’s eyes popped open. “Perhaps it’s all a nightmare brought on by my fear,
aye? Let us try and ground her.”

Javan gave him a confused look. “What?”

“That forest that so enthralls you isn’t our most pressing matter,
Javan. We must make camp. When we don’t return, our friends in Olmek-Tikal may
come to our aid. At the very least, they shall send a search party to find news
of their missing loved ones. Let us try and flip this damaged hulk over.
Perhaps we can ground her well and take shelter in her belly for the night.”

This task was easier said than done. Leading the damaged vessel
to shore was a great labor even in the shallow water, but flipping it over
proved impossible, despite Rogan’s strength. They dragged the long ship only a
few feet before the ruined mast pole and other materials underneath sank into
the wet sand.

Out of breath, Rogan fell on the dry part of the beach. As the
breeze washed over them, he said, “The damned sea will take her back with the
tides.”

“Perhaps it will be shoved further ashore by the tides or sink in
deeper, sire.”

“Always looking on the dazzling side, eh, lad?” Rogan grinned.

“Well, Rhiannon is a god of light.”

Rogan waved him off and looked to the mountains. “What manner of
land is this, I wonder? Southern Olmek-Tikal was all full of swamps, marshes,
and alligators when we sailed along its coast last year.”

“Not an enjoyable journey, if my mind is sharp, sire.” Javan’s
voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’ve no desire to repeat it.”

“Since I saved you from quicksand on two different occasions, I
can see why. This northern land looks much like the Corinthian mountains, does
it not?”

“Indeed. It reminded me of them, too, Uncle. Such gigantic pines;
they’d make an artist randy.”