episode THIRTY-THREE
That
hilltop looked amazingly far away and the harder he chugged and churned his
legs the further his goal seemed to fly away, his lungs fiery and fading, and
possibly, it was all just too much for one man, even if that man was the
legendary Pugilist. The idiots, he snorted, no one seemed to realize that pugilist was pretty much a derogatory
term that just meant boxer, or give a beating. And the fact was, he had
never been that good a boxer. Even his trainer, his main guy, Ernie always said
that Stacey was just too plain nice to get away with punching people and think
he had any business doing such a thing. And this? He could never do this—he had
never been the best distance runner, and now, oh how he had run. Yes, he had
done what might seem impossible, running an entire day, and then an entire
night, without rest, without food, and with water too scarce, but now, when he
had almost achieved his goal, now came the hard part. He was now supposed to
start punching people. Cracking heads. The hard part was not even achieving any
hilltop, but violence, always violence on just the other side. Men would have
their violence, first in Heaven, and then on Earth, and now in High Vale. He
gasped, and strained, and pushed himself harder, but his legs were slowing
down, like machine parts ungreased far too long. He heard metal upon metal, and
screams. Just a little farther! He would never make it. He glanced up and his
vision seemed to waver.
He
must be hallucinating, for there before him, panting, stood a monster of a
wolf. At first he thought it was a horse, because no wolf was that size—no wolf
but one, that he had ever known of, and yes, blinking his eyes, it seemed to be
Wolf the wolf, his companion and friend, except that this vision was distorted,
because Wolf the wolf seemed to be missing half his head, or this was a
nightmare version of his friend, more than half of him glaring skull. And as he
watched, the beast collapsed, seemingly crumbling, going to pieces.
“Hurry,
Master!” the hoarse voice of Wolf the wolf called. “Hurry, my Friend!”
“Hurrying,”
Stacey murmured, and surprisingly, he found himself crawling, crawling up hill,
creeping on hands and knees, with his tongue hanging out. His tongue was
swollen and cracked. To come this far, and then to fail. Oh yes, it was just
like him. Why oh why did uphill have to be just so—well, uphill. It made things rather difficult, climbing eternally upward,
as gravity kept on insisting in dragging you back the other way. And the dust.
The sun. It was all too much. But it was the kind of thing that life had
insisted on throwing at him, for his entire...life. Why should this be any different? His life after his life,
the world after his world.
And
then he was there, with Wolf the wolf. The large animal licked him across the
face as Stacey fell, his head thumping against the giant wolf’s chest—only
things did not seem right, for Wolf the wolf was all skin and bones, almost
literally. Glaring bones stuck up out of glistening muscle, and fur was peeled
away, and Wolf the wolf was a pile of dying tissues and open wounds, blood,
guts. And there was the sweet-spicy stink of rot, and infection, and death.
“Forgive
me. Should not, oh should not have left you, my dear, dear Friend,” Wolf the
wolf whimpered, sounding like a dog with its tail caught in a door. The animal
sounded more out of it than Stacey’s half-dead lethargy. “I do not have much
time, forgive me for apologizing so dimly, but I will be gone in just a moment.”
Head
swimming, Stacey was not sure if he were dreaming all of this. Several times
since coming to High Vale, he had slipped into a Dream Place, a very real
location, except that right now the sun was far too bright for this to be that
place, the Deep Place. The sun was too strong, and it was killing them, but at
least they could die together, they would perish as one, Wolf the wolf, and
Wolf the man, united again.
“The
night of the Dragon Warriors, I sensed them, just outside of the Dulance
Preserve, and I went to investigate, and they captured me, the Men from Mars.
They found a backdoor through the Honey Moon. I slew many, that I swear. But
High Vale has been incorporating them as an NPC type, and spawns them, very
different from the originals, and I sense they are ripe for rebellion. There
are many. Rebellious. Stupid. But...ah, something, Stacey. Something. Find the
highwayman called Dasher. But I fade, Wolf the man, I must now leave you.”
Stacey
stared at his friend. They could go, together, into that Far Country. Or some
representation of it, whatever. Yes, it felt proper.
“Do
not grieve me, Man, for you have no moisture to spare for tears. I feel we
shall meet again, Wolf the man, Stacey. But you must draw closer, Wolf the man,”
Wolf the wolf whimpered, voice so soft now that Stacey could barely hear his
friend above the sounds of battle.
Stacey
struggled. He thrashed. Like a worm, he inched a little closer, trying to stare
into Wolf the wolf’s one good eye. The other eye was a glaring socket of skull.
And yet there was still so much life, so much personality remaining in that
dear face. They had such a short time together, and now that time was ending.
“Fare
thee well, Stacey,” Wolf the wolf said.
“Don’t
leave me,” Wolf the man said, voice cracking. He had given it all, and this
last good-bye was too much, it would finally gather him into the whirlpool of
death, and take him, finally. “I’ll go with you...I’ll go with you.”
“Nay,
Friend. Not this day. Now, thou must fight. I have one last gift for thee,
which I have saved until this moment. Place thy mouth upon my mouth, Friend,
and kiss me.”
Stretching
his neck, Stacey kissed Wolf upon the very end of his snout, and the wolf’s
great fangs pulled Stacey’s jaw down, and Wolf the wolf...breathed.
A
great wind blew across Stacey, forcing his eyes closed, and his lungs filled
with the wind, to near bursting. Stacey hiccupped and coughed, spasming,
trembling, and the light, great and beautiful, shone brighter, the wind
increased like the gale of a storm, and Stacey shook, and was cast back, and he
rolled away from his friend as the wind failed, and died.
Stacey
sat up in the bright, hot sun. Wolf the wolf, his friend, was gone. Only bones,
pelt, and a shell devoid of personality remained.
“I
cannot grieve you now, not yet,” Wolf the man said, reaching and touching one
of the great paws. “But I will remember you. You live on inside me now, my
Friend.”
He
meant that, literally. He could almost feel Wolf running through his chest.
And
he leapt to his feet. He almost giggled, despite the tears flooding his eyes,
for he was full of—life. He nearly
screamed, such was the magnification of soul within him. Life burst from him in
a rainbow halo he could actually see with his eyes. He felt pulled aloft with
invisible wires, and he leapt over the remains of Wolf the wolf, and now he danced up the slope—this easy, easy
incline! What had he been thinking? The hill that had seemed like a great cliff
only moments before now seemed slicker than downhill! He fairly fell up the hill,
his toes barely managing to keep up with his torso, which practically flew
forward to its destiny.
“I
am coming, Lady Maulgraul!” he cried as he crested the hill, and there before
him was a small valley, and there in the wagon ruts was the great carriage
itself, and before it was a large collection of huge men, instantly
recognizable as Viking raiders, and there about them were the slain remains of
the Dragon Warriors. The Dragon Warriors, not too long ago, were his foes, and
he had fought them—but the sight of their hacked bodies filled Stacey with
anger.
His
chest expanded in fury as he came washing down this other side of the hill, and
he raced into the valley, toward his new foe, these Vikings in their horned
helmets. Without thought he spun his shillelagh above his head in his left
fist, the black stick spinning almost with a life all its own.
The
great men about the war carriage—they seemed to be stacking wood beneath the
carriage—so they had not gotten to her yet! Maully was safe, locked inside the
armored vehicle—the huge men turned at Stacey’s charge, and these guys knew
what they were about, they knew surprise, and they formed into a battle wedge—that
quickly—these fierce men lifting axes and swords and spears, even a few archers
were now ranging out, nocking arrows.
Oh
these guys, these men of fierce muscle and violent eyes—oh yes, these men of
wars were his. Yes, oh yes. He was
going to knock some head together, oh yes indeedy do.
Stacey
came down from the hilltop like a marauding Grizzly bear, reared up and
savagely hungry. The first man that swung a sword—Stacey had no time for
fighting one man. He almost lovingly tapped the man, twice, the first time his
shillelagh danced under the sword, lifted it up, and carried through, directly
punching the screaming Viking in the face, the knobbed end of the stick
punching him so hard it lifted him off his feet, and the second tap came just
as Stacey raced past the man, catching him upon the back of the head. The truth
was, Stacey hardly noticed the man as a foe, it was just a little tap-tap
encounter, that was all, Stacey hardly noticed the Viking as he tumbled up off
his feet and spun backward in the air, the momentum of their meeting throwing
the man in a complete backflip, dumping him face-down in the rocky soil.
And
the next two encounters were similar, just a neat little tap-tap in passing—one
guy flew limply to the right, the other tumbled limply to the left.
But
these guys were not shy, you could certainly acknowledge that about them, they
didn’t hang about waiting to deal with him, playing all coy—no, they came
forward as a disciplined wedge.
And
Stacey slammed directly into this wedge, and if anyone lounged about in
bleacher seats, munching popcorn and hotdogs, chugging beer after beer—any such
imaginary spectator would have blinked in confusion as to what they were
actually witnessing—because Stacey charged right up the tip of the wedge, his
boots slamming the lead Viking in devastating strikes, as Stacey ran over him
and leapt upon the horned helmets, his shillelagh flashing down left and right,
blocking spear thrusts, neatly turning aside sword slashes, and in a few
moments he had slammed the knob of his shillelagh into face after face,
crumpling helmets in downward bonging crashes. He dashed over ten men and
flipped to the rear of the wedge, five men turning to face him as his boots touched
upon the ground, but he hardly paused as he leapt forward, punching the men in
their great guts, slamming his shillelagh up under chins, all the while kicking
out and taking man after man behind the knee, but even as he tore into them, a
wolf into a pack of rats, they struck at Stacey, they leapt forward, they swung
ax and sword and they roared as they came at him. Oh they wanted him, that they
did, they lusted to tear him and crush him and sever his limbs.
A
big beautiful guy, the largest brute present (all flowing blond tresses and
intricately wound braids), pushed through the wedge, swinging a war hammer, and
he roared in a delighted smile, crashing through his own men, knocking man
after man aside—pretty much aiding Stacey, at least for the moment. Because he
wanted to smash Stacey down into an accordion of crushed flesh and bones. He
swung the two-hundred pound metal hammer as if he wanted to ring the bell at
the county fair, prove he was the strongest superhero in residence.
Stacey
sidestepped the first hammer strike, and he rapped the humongous man upon the
hand that swung the hammer. The giant Viking ignored the rap upon the knuckles
and swung the hammer down a second time, and Stacey sidestepped and rapped the
man upon the other hand. And the man dropped the hammer, he just let it go, and
he held up his hands to stare at his crushed fingers.
The
bad thing was—the really nasty thing—was that the hammer landed on Stacey’s
foot. With a yelp, Stacey tried to slide his booted foot out from under the
massive chunk of metal, but he was pinned, and fast. So he reached down and
seized the hammer by its jutting metal handle, metal wrapped in leather thongs,
and he lifted the hammer up in his right hand, and swung the war hammer up
above his head—a violent snatch and lift with one hand, two hundred pounds, and
Stacey hardly considered his own feat, as he stood with the hammer above his
head.
The
Vikings stopped. It was almost funny, how quickly they all lurched into
silence, all roars gone, and they stared at him, gawking wide-eyed, mouths
hanging slack.
“Why
are you just standing there!” Stacey roared, shaking the war hammer at the men.
Several of the men, at least four of them, fell in their traces, they just
dropped, slumping left and right, forward and backward. Others began backing away.
They great big blond just gaped.
“Well
come on Thor! What? Do you need your hammer?” Stacey snarled, and he threw the
hammer at the big man. It punched him in the chest and although he attempted to
catch it, he was driven backward and went down, tripping over one of his own
crumpled men.
To
his credit, the big blond was up in an instant. And he wielded the hammer much
more easily than Stacey, he swung it about the way Stacey handled his
shillelagh.
“I
am the Mighty Thor!” the big blond shrieked, his pale face going lividly red.
“Yeah,
yeah, yeah, and I’m the Amazing Spider-Man,” Stacey snarled. He felt enraged
beyond belief.
Stacey
dashed forward and leapt up onto the blond’s chest and snatched his helmet
right off his head, then pushed himself backward in a neat flip. Thor stood blinking.
Then
the big Viking snatched at the helmet in Stacey’s hands. Stacey flung the
helmet up high, over the warrior’s head, and when the big man turned to follow
its flight, Stacey dashed about and behind the man to catch the helmet as it
came down. Another Viking standing there also tried to catch the helmet, but
Stacey punched him in the chest with his shoulder, tumbling the man over.
Stacey
lifted up the helmet.
Thor
and the other Vikings stared at him.
Stacey
shook Thor’s helmet.
“I’ve
got your hat.”
“Give
me mine hat!” Thor shouted, and then blinked. “I mean—give me mine helmet. That’s
mine helmet.”
Stacey
laughed. It really sounded like the big guy was doing a bad impression of the
Swedish Chef, making his demands in a comical sing-song voice. Vikings weren’t Swedish, were they? Come on, all the
best Vikings were Danish, that was
pretty much a rule, wasn’t it? You couldn’t live right above Germany all those
years and not have some of the war rub off on you, I mean that was pretty much
a given! Didn’t the Swedes sell cheese to the Danes?
Thor
snapped out a punch, and he caught Stacey right in the left eye. It was not a
very good punch. The big man did it without thinking, because Stacey had pissed
him off. But even though it was not a proper punch, the guy really was huge,
and the fist nearly took Stacey’s head off. Stacey shook his head, blinking.
Again with his left eye! What the hell was his problem? His eye and half his
head was swelling up already.
Thor
again tried to snatch his helmet out of Stacey’s right hand.
“I
am the Mighty Thor!” the Mighty Thor thundered.
“You’re
going to be mighty sore!” Stacey yelled in his face, and Thor stepped back,
disconcerted.
“Stop
teasing me!” the Mighty Thor thundered.
Stacey
rolled his eyes. These guys deserved this.
He
stepped forward and clunked the big guy in the forehead, squarely, knobbing him
a good one. And the Mighty Thor crumpled backward, like a tree falling. The
ground actually shook, such was his stature and weight. He must be seven feet
tall and almost as broad, all three hundred and fifty pounds of him.
And
then Stacey staggered like a drunk man. What had just happened? Something. He
couldn’t quite put his finger on it, and then he glanced down and observed the
arrow tumbling away from his cloak. Damn it! Someone had just plunked him a
good one, and apparently his serpent cloak was arrow proof, because he was not
pierced. And his foot, his damned foot, feeling was finally swelling back in,
and it hurt, that hammer was heavy! But he staggered around the group of men,
and they just stood watching him. Then he tripped over a rock and almost went
down, but caught himself, and took a few limping steps backward, and then
abruptly vanished from the world.
The
Vikings gasped. The strange man had just suddenly winked out of existence!
“He
vanished!” a Viking sing-songed.
“That
was the Pugilist!” another cried.
“No,
no, I heard him, he said he was the Amazing Spider-Man,” a short Viking
contributed.
“Um,
you know, I think he was being...sarcastic,”
a tall, elder Viking said, who was standing many paces removed from the
crumpled wedge. This tall elder leaned upon his great spear which stood several
feet higher than his own high-up-to-here head.
“No,
no, I’ve heard of Spider-Man, he can supposedly shoot webs out of his mouth!”
“No,
that was definitely the Pugilist! He beat the Mighty Thor!”
“You
better not let the Mighty Thor hear you say that!”
“I
think the Mighty Thor is taking a mighty nap,” someone laughed, and then they
all roared with laughter.
“A
Mighty Beauty Sleep!” another one joked, and the burly men roared again.
And
then the strange man was back among them, knocking heads, right in the middle
of their laughter. He knocked five of them down, hardly striking them, just
little knocks from the flashing black stick—such an insignificant weapon,
against their steel! What were the gods thinking?
“I
beat your best...Sore!” the strange
man shouted, posing on a wide, flat rock. He had his black stick back behind
his head, resting across his shoulders, his arms hanging lazily over the stick.
And
he did something odd. He belched, long and loud. They all knew that distinct
music—a beer burp! Where had the strange man gotten beer, and why wasn’t he
sharing?
“You
sure haven’t done much to impress me with your fighting! What happened, you get
lazy after killing farmers and women, and children?”
“Thou
didst not beat me,” the Mighty Thor roared, pushing himself half off the ground.
“And cease making sport of mine name!”
“You
expect me to accept that...you...are
Thor, the God of Thunder?”
“I
never claimed godhood,” the Mighty Thor said, almost reasonably, pushing
himself off the ground and rising up, swaying in place, half crouched, big
hands on big knees, and then stood, and thrust a mighty arm at the strange man
upon the flat rock, pointing his finger.
“I
am still here! Thou didst not beat me. I am Thor, that is mine name. And I am a
better man than thee!”
“You
want to try Round Two?” the strange man said, swinging the shillelagh in
intricate patterns.
“Come,
if thou are really the Pugilist, face me, hand to hand,” the big blond said, in
his deep but strangely sing-song accent. He lazily tossed aside his massive
hammer. The ground actually quivered.
Stacey
slammed his shillelagh against the rock. It stood straight when he removed his
hand. He stepped down from the rock, and went to stand in front of the Mighty
Thor.
“Thor,”
the elder Viking said. “Look about thee. No man could do this, none other than
our legend of the Pugilist. This man does not lie to us. Come, let us eat meat,
and drink mead, and share tales. Let us eat meat.”
“You
said meat twice,” Stacey said, glancing at the elder Viking, but he kept his
peripheral vision trained on Thor—he absolutely knew the big man would sucker
punch him, and when the punch came, Stacey slipped it easily.
“We
really like meat,” the elder Viking said.
Stacey
shrugged out of his great cloak. He fully expected Thor to attempt a second
sucker-punch, but to his credit the big man waited, almost patiently. He was
pawing the ground with his steel-toed boots.
Vikings
were coming up the slope, some of them almost as large as the Mighty Thor.
Apparently, the bigger men took longer getting up this inclince. In the
distance, several longboats were visible on a wide river.
“I
will fight thee, Pretender,” the Mighty Thor roared, and threw the strongest
punch of his life.
Stacey
neatly sidestepped the punch, and the Mighty Thor produced a beautiful
end-over-end somersault in the air—a thing of beauty. Even a quarter-sized
gymnast would have been impressed. The Mighty Thor lay blinking for several
moments, the wind knocked out of him.
“You
just playing, Thor?” Stacey laugh, and ooh, there it was—damn it all, but he
actually felt sorry for the big guy. What he was doing here wasn’t very nice,
making fun of the big, proud warrior, but still, he was ready when Thor tried
to grab his leg. Wouldn’t do to let the Mighty Thor catch hold of him, he’d rip
Stacey’s leg off like a turkey drumstick.
Many
of the assembling Vikings laughed, these new arrivals assumed this was some
part of the show, Viking games. Or did they call them reindeer games? That was
really cool when the Mighty Thor threw that punch and went end over end in the
air—no one had ever seen anything like it—nor had they ever seen anything or
anyone like the man in the odd clothing. He was a striking figure, and they all
recognized him as the Pugilist, as easily as another people in another world
would instantly recognize George Washington, or Benjamin Franklin, or possibly
Daniel Boone.
The
Mighty Thor lumbered to his feet and roared, bending double, his face going
dark red, working himself into a mighty berserker rage. He roared, putting his
entire soul into the trumpeting wail of fury. He actually ripped out hunks of
his glorious blond hair. And he launched himself snarling at Stacey, swiping
and punching and throwing monster strike after monster strike. But none of the
barrage landed, not a single blow.
“Are
you getting thore, Thor?” Stacey
laughed, unable to resist the continuing taunt. Damn it, but he was going to
have to teach this stupid—mofo—a lesson, and a good one at that.
“Stop
teasing me!” the Mighty Thor roared. He tried to stomp Stacey.
Stacey
kicked him in his big knee while the warrior’s other leg was over-extended, and
the Mighty Thor collapsed, crashing into the rocks.
Okay, come and get me.
Let’s see whatya got, Big Boy. How you like me now.
Thor
got up and came for him and Stacey opened his arms for a big ole hug, and the
Mighty Thor seized Stacey in a bear hug to end all ursine embraces, and the
Mighty Thor was truly a mighty man. Stacey went loose in the wrestling hold,
and then tensed, driving his knees up into Thor’s middle, and rocked back and
head-butted the giant squarely in the face, and when Thor’s arms opened and
Stacey fell the length of that mighty body, he instantly rebounded and released
a few jabs into each of Thor’s eyes, and then produced his very best punch, a
short, chopping blow which he landed like a cruise missile right on the tip of
Thor’s chinny-chin-chin, and Thor toppled. Oh yeah, he was out. Nighty-night
Thor.
Stacey
staggered back to his cloak, dusted it off, and shrugged back into its embrace
(hey, there would be arrows, of that he was certain), and then strolled
casually back to his shillelagh. He jumped onto the rock platform, and finally turned
to face the Vikings. He glanced to where he had tripped through that freaky
portal, where he had that refreshing beer. But he saw no one in that vicinity.
During the fight he had thought he had caught a glimpse or two of one or more
of the men, but now was reassured that the strange men from another world were
not here—because he did not wish them to share in the terrible thing he was
about to do.
“Come
on!” Stacey shouted. “Is this your best?”
The
Vikings came forward, almost rumbling, and those gathered closest, these attacked
first, and Stacey clubbed them over, one by one, and each fell in a tangle of
limbs and weapons. One, two-three, four-five, six and a seven, neat as you
please, like shooting over tin ducks at a carnival. He put down about ten of
them before things changed again.
Because
a strange procession came forward, Vikings whipping prisoners, tugging them
nastily by ropes looped too tightly about scrawny necks. The elder Viking signaled
for a halt in the attack. Stacey peered at the strange men bound with ropes and
leather thongs. There must be twenty of them. Some were wounded. All of them
were bloodied, and battered.
“What
would you have us do with these?” the elder called to Stacey.
Stacey
stared at the prisoners, a very strange lot. They were beaten, and cowed, but
many still glared defiantly about them. They were very small men, especially
compared to the hulking Vikings. But Stacey did not know them, looking from
face to face, although there was certainly something familiar about them. They
were dressed in rough leathers, dark hoods, kind of stereotypical bad guys, but
the thing was, their faces were...bizarre, kind of melted, and whitely pale,
and they had ruffled feathers on their heads, and these did not seem to be
hats, or adornment. The feathers seemed to grow out of their heads like hair.
Some had bright red parrot feathers, others dark hawk feathers, and some were
multicolored—Stacey had to admit it, the whole feather thing, though weird, was
kind of cool.
“Why
are you asking me? I don’t know them,” Stacey said, staring with curiosity at
the prisoners.
“They
claim that they came to seize you, Pugilist,” the elder Viking said. He really
was old in Viking circles, because the next Viking closest in age was probably
thirty years of age, tops. This older guy looked to be in his sixties. “I will
allow you to decide their fate.”
Something
about the feathered men, what was it? Then he remembered, that day, long ago,
in the alley. The strange attackers, yes, these prisoners were similar to
those—not exactly, if Stacey remembered correctly, those guys were dressed like
gymnasts, whereas these guys were Fantasy thief types, all Lincoln green and
browns and blacks.
“Do
you believe in mercy?” Stacey queried, his voice loud so that all the Vikings,
and the prisoners, might hear him, even the Vikings further down the valley
paused to listen.
“No,
we do not,” the elder Viking said, just as loudly. This leader of Vikings knew
how to project his voice.
“Should
I have mercy upon...you?” Stacey
called.
The
Vikings laughed. The nerve of it. One guy, showing mercy—to hundreds? They
liked him, he had balls, he could be one of them—but oh yeah, they were going
to kill him, all the same, and they were going to enjoy the whole exercise.
Because more and more Vikings were gathering, all of them perfectly rested, and
each man eager to spill some blood. They were going to open up this Pugilist
and spread his guts over the ground.
“We
ask no mercy from you—nor desire it. You will die. We will kill you. No mercy.
Never mercy. It’s sort of our motto.”
Stacey
nodded his head and stared at the ground.
“This
is your last chance. If you drop your weapons, I will let you live. Free your
prisoners, and head for your boats, and you will live to pillage and plunder
and rape and burn, another day, far from me and my people. But if you persist,
I will then say two words, and all here will die.”
“Two
words!” a Viking cried, laughing.
“Two
words!” another cried, and then they all took up the chant, even the arriving
Vikings, as more and more gathered, they all shook their weapons and cried: Two words! Two words! Two words!
Stacey
glanced at the elder Viking. The man grinned and shrugged his shoulders, still
in the same posture, leaning against his tall spear, his arms folded around the
spear and across his broad chest.
“I
will say two words, and you will meet your nightmare! Shall it be upon your
heads?” Stacey hollered.
The
Vikings continued their taunting chant: Two
words! Two words! Two words!
“It
is upon our heads!” the elder leader cried.
Stacey
shook his head, and smiled.
The
Vikings quieted. Even the continuing stream of the large men fell quiet,
desiring to hear what two words the Pugilist would utter. And then, oh yes, the
killing, ah yes, the killing!
Stacey
looked out over the many heads, perhaps more than a hundred, and still
streaming up from the boats in clumps of twos and threes and fours. He gave one
last glance to the elder.
The
elder Viking smiled, and nodded his head. Let’s hear it, his expression
taunted.
“Oros!” Stacey shouted, the word exploding
into the air. He looked to the leader. The man was no longer smiling. In fact,
he had gone from pale to gray.
Stacey
shouted the second word: “Borealis!”
For
the moment, all was the same. Nothing changed. The Vikings were silent. A hawk
high in the air cried out, eager to come down and sample some of the meat on
offer. The Vikings stared at him, but their smiles slipped from their faces.
Their jaws dropped low. But the leader, the elder Viking, he was stumbling
backward, quietly, taking quick backward steps. Whoa boy, look at him go, now
he was outright pell-mell scrambling away, casting aside his spear.
Oros
Borealis. Stacey had hoped to never meet the behemoth again. The vast serpent
god of High Vale. The last time they had met, it had been...close. He still had nightmares about
that meeting. And Stacey had sensed then that the titanic nightmare had barely
suppressed its need and habit to gobble Stacey down in one bite and swallow.
Oros Borealis, it’s where the shillelagh and cloak had come from, vomited up
from the belly of the beast, a gift because Stacey had battled the vast serpent
to a draw. These thorny fingerless gloves, these boots, his vest and daggers.
All a gift from the creature that instilled sheer terror with its very presence,
regardless of all the wonderful presents.
The
Vikings began to murmur.
“Run!”
Stacey roared. “Run now and its probably too late, but run!”
“That’s
a lot more than two words,” one of the Vikings joked, but none of his fellows
laughed.
Because
there was a slight tremble in the ground. Several Vikings turned and pell-mell
ran for the hills, others went back the way they came toward their longboats,
and some fell to their knees. Stacey saw the leader of the Vikings now running
full out away, not down the valley toward the river and the boats, but heading
off at an angle—Stacey thought it was a pretty good strategy, but he doubted it
would do much good, not in the end. But sadly, Stacey wished him well. He liked
how the older warrior had entreated the Mighty Thor to set aside their weapons
and to share a feast (although Stacey didn’t doubt that he would have still
died at the end of the feast—hell, he didn’t remember that much about Vikings,
but Stacey could have realistically ended up being the feast, in this world).
The
ground shook. Just a slight trembler, but it was definitely the beginning of
the end.
Many
of the Vikings were now casting their weapons aside and a few of them were
falling to their knees, bowing their heads. Stacey doubted that any of this
fleeing and praying and whining and entreating would do much good for them, for
their fate was sealed. Probation was closed. Judgment Day was even at the gate.
It was inevitable. He knew it when he crested the hill and saw the Vikings, he
knew it with certainty, that every single one of them would be dead, at his
hand. Or at least, upon his two words.
Oros Borealis.
One
guy actually came charging at Stacey, his ax up, but when he saw the grave look
on Stacey’s face he halted dead in his tracks, and for all Stacey knew, the man
might have actually died right then and there, for he fell over to the side,
his eyes rolled up into the top of his head. If that were the case, then he was
a lucky man, this hapless Viking, because it was just about at that moment that
the horror erupted.
The
ground split apart in a savage earthquake and many Vikings flew up into the
sky, hundreds of feet, while many others tumbled immediately into the depths of
the crevasse, but up from those depths came the serpent that was more than one
hundred feet in length, with its great hooded head, its spindly batwings
spread, glittering with the jewel fire of all imaginable colors, Oros Borealis
rose, shimmering with eerie light, and as if answer to the arrival of doom
clouds suddenly spread across the sun, Oros Borealis ascended, taller and
taller, fifty feet above the split ground, with human legs already kicking from
the monster’s mouth. Legs that were quickly slurped down, like a child intent
upon spaghetti.
The
Wyrm Oros Borealis rose from the depths, savagely biting and swallowing men
whole. Stacey was shocked at the sight, for he had never witnessed the powerful
creature in action, not like this—not like this. Men shrieked as the mouth came
down upon them, and they vanished other than their boots, and these too
vanished into the gaping hungry maw of the abyss.
The
Abyss was here, present, and it was angry. And it was ravenous for Vikings. And
it consumed them, one after the other, its vast body uncoiling and roiling upon
the rocks, smashing men in is violently wild undulations of esctasy, the Wyrm
Oros Borealis was freed and rained down terror. The Vikings wailed and wept, a
few bravely stood to fight the monster, casting what looked to be the toys of
children upon the serpent, but they were consumed all the same. Waving swords,
they were swallowed. Throwing spears, they were gulped. Like a fast-food
junkie, the great serpent went for great quantity of meal, not quality. He didn’t
need candlelight or champagne. He desired the super-sized portions, and as many
and as quickly as possible.
And
the Mighty Thor rose to meet the giant that dwarfed his own massive
proportions, and the Mighty Thor, sans helmet, swung his two-hundred pound
hammer, and he actually struck the vast serpent, and then he too—screaming in
terror—was gulped down in three jerking spasms of frenzied gluttony. Stacey
knew that this was not the Norse God consumed by the High Vale god, but merely
a large and brave man named Thor—maybe the Vikings named all their biggest and
brightest with this name, but the terror on Thor’s face as he met his fate in
the face of the Abyss was all too human.
“Never
have I been called to such a feast!” Oros Borealis thundered, and his voice
truly was thunder, shaking the very ground.
Stacey
looked and saw that three of the longboats were pulling out into the middle of
the wide river, perhaps heading for the sea, but he doubted they would make it,
for the vast serpent was already halfway to the river, and all Vikings were
cleared, from here to there, either crushed beneath the undulating coils, or
swallowed whole, and in some instances bitten clean in half, the pieces falling
away from either side of the wyrm’s jaws, limbs still wriggling, eyes rolling.
Even at this distance, the serpent looked like a trick of perspective, or a
child’s playset gone horribly wrong. One severed body crawled desperately away,
but Oros Borealis plucked the dismembered human like a tasty morsel. At one one
point Stacey witnessed three burly Vikings heading down the maw of the Abyss,
simultaneously, devoured in moments.
Stacey
felt ill, through and through. The new energy that Wolf the wolf had gifted
him, it seemed to sour inside him, because couldn’t he have found another way?
Might not he have haggled with the Viking chieftain, wheeled and dealed? Worked
something out for them all? Couldn’t they all have walked away from this,
winners?
Not
in Viking Town. They guys either killed, or got killed. There was no mercy, no
dealing.
Of
course, there were ten dead Dragon Warriors, hacked and bludgeoned beyond
recognition, and the Vikings were preparing to roast the carriage with fire,
when Stacey came doing his ballet shuffle into their midst, twirling his
shillelagh, kicking ass and taking names. No, these were not nice guys. They
deserved—well, perhaps not this, exactly, but still, they really did deserve something
truly horrible, like gout, and a beer gut, and teenage children to mock them
when they bragged about their plundering, their raping, their majestic
pillaging. Yeah, that might have been a better, more compensative end to such braggarts
and blackguards (those two worms rhyme, despite their spelling, Stacey thought,
and grinned). Hell, why not blaggards? He sighed. It worked. Why not.
You
sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, or however that went. These guys were in
the maelstrom now. And Stacey wondered, since this was High Vale, would these
Vikings be reborn, naked, in High Vale—ready Player One? Or would they just
respawn, perhaps tomorrow, hoisting their tankards and seizing wenches by the
waist? Or were they gone, forever, simple NPCs racking up points, ding ding
ding.
But
that Mighty Thor, the guy had an ego on him, that was blatantly obvious,
probably as big as his biceps. Very proud dude. The way he had swung his mighty
hammer against the serpent god, you had to admire that, didn’t you? It was
terrifically majestic, that it was.
Out
there now, one of dragon boats flipped up together like one of those movie
clappers, only the boat then dove into the river, men catapulting, rag-dolling
through the air, and Oros Borealis plucked several of them out of the air
before they ever got close to the water. His body bucked up from beneath
another longboat, cracking it in half. From this distance, it looked like some
silly Japanese movie from the 1960s, and any second Godzilla would come roiling
up out of the water to challenge the wyrm, only not even Godzilla would stand a
chance against this vicious god of High Vale. Well, perhaps if he tiptoed up
and fried the serpent with his fire breath, that might work. But then Stacey witnessed
a very similar gout of flame that he was just imagining, come vomiting up from
the belly of Oros Borealis—Stacey had no idea the serpent had such a trick up
his sleeve.
For
the first time since coming over that hill, Stacey glanced back at the
carriage, only fifty feet away. Was she in there, his Maully? He had lived an
entire life with this woman, from childhood to death, and beyond, as his
beloved wife haunted his tomb—but all of that had happened in one night. What
did they call it, Six and Varra? A soul
mesh. It wasn’t real, was it?
In
every fiber of his being, it certainly seemed real. For every memory he had of
slaving in various jobs in his own reality, he had an equal portion of memories
living here in High Vale, fighting warriors, and gladiators, and making love to
Maully.
It
was why he had come running after her when she fled in the night, after taking
what she required from him. Why had she fled? He never stopped to ask why. He
had merely set off in pursuit, following his beloved. He could not be separated
from her, not by dark forest, descending spider, sexy panther woman, or Viking
horde. He had come all this way, and now she was there, just there, safe in the
armored carriage.
But
what if she wasn’t there?
Stacey
glanced back and saw that Oros Borealis was flying back, high enough in the sky
that his vast body, although trolling just above the ground like a fishing net,
was clearly hundreds of feet up in air. He hadn’t witnessed the serpent in
flight prior to this moment, and it was awesome. It looked as if it could knock
a Boeing 777 out of the air, although the immense beatings of its batwings stretching
out a hundred feet on either side moved the massive creature along very slowly,
like a dirigible.
Then
Stacey noticed the group of prisoners, kneeling, still bound, their captors
gone or dismembered every one. For some reason the serpent had not killed the
robbers and thieves.
Stacey
leapt from his flat rock and strolled to the prisoners.
“Pugilist,”
one of the robbers said, smirking. “Are you going to slit our throats?”
Stacey
twirled his shillelagh near the thug’s face. That’s what was different, these
guys had actual noses, some of them quite large, and all of them bloodied.
Apparently they were no match for the Vikings in the department of fisticuffs.
Oh yeah, and they had lips, and eyebrows (feathers for eyebrows, what an idea).
“Does
the Pugilist slit throats?” Stacey said, speaking casually. These were bad guys
too, maybe not as bad as the Vikings, but he imagined pretty close. These guys
probably mugged solitary travelers, while the Vikings liked to take down a
whole village.
The
man did not bat an eye, but glared at Stacey. He shook his head, grinning.
“No,
Sire, I think yer more likely to bash in me brains with that there stick of
yourn.”
Stacey
blinked, considering the words. The roguish accent was so thick, Stacey was not
sure exactly what the punk had actually said. Something about brains and urine.
A stick of urine? Something must be lost in the translation.
Let’s
see what they do, Stacey mused, not at all reluctant to bonk a few more idiots
on the head. He whipped one of his daggers out from beneath his arm and cut the
thongs binding the first rogue’s hands together, then he went down the line and
loosened them all, slicing through both ropes and thongs. He stepped back as
the little men climbed to their feet, shaking out their arms and legs.
Nope,
not a one of them said a thank you, or even smiled at Stacey. If he sneezed, he
doubted they would bless him, either. They did give him dark looks, and they
muttered to each other, probably wondering if they still might be able to take him,
you know, all against one, and one against all, and all that roguish crap. Indeed,
there were twenty of them, and one of him. But he chuckled, because while they
might look stupid, none of them looked quite that stupid. They had seem him among their betters, taking out
Viking after Viking. He could tip these would-be thugs like dominos, and hardly
need a napkin to wipe the corners of his mouth, they’d be that easy. It might
almost be fun.
“Do
any of you know Dasher?” Stacey asked, he seemed to remember Wolf the wolf
mentioning that name. Dash? Prancer? Comet, Cupid, or Vixen?
They
muttered and one of them looked like he was about to speak.
But
now Oros Borealis was settling down into a pile of massive coils, only ten
yards away. As he remembered, the vast serpent made him feel the size of a
mouse.
“Nice
to see thee again, Pugilist,” Wyrm Oros Borealis hissed.
“Well
met,” Stacey said, remembering to keep his voice and body firm. He always
sensed that you just did not wish to show weakness before the monster.
“Well
summoned, thou dost mean,” Wyrm Oros Borealis hissed, and it almost sounded
like he giggled amidst the hissing.
“Just
speak to me, man to man, Oros Borealis. No need to sound fancy. But I didn’t
summon you. You are not a demon to be summoned,” Stacey said, and noticed that
the twenty thieves were groveling and weeping, grinding their hands against
their ears.
“God
to man,” Oros Borealis hissed. “And
no demon might be summoned. There are no demons in this world—those pathetic
pretenders are in your world, or the world that once was. When your world
shattered like glass, so did the demons. That world is no more, Pugilist. I did
not wish to tell you on the day we met.”
“What
do you know of my world?” Stacey demanded, because he had just spent a few
moments in a world very much like the one in which he used to live, although he
realized even now that both worlds were just simulations, as was this High
Vale. Still, simulated or not, beer was pretty good.
“I
do sense another world, close by,” Wyrm Oros Borealis hissed, and Stacey was
certain he saw the serpent glance to the place where Stacey had tripped through
into another world, a world with beer.
“You
are bleeding, Oros Borealis,” Stacey said, noticing the crack on the serpent’s
lower jaw—that was the Mighty Thor, who struck the serpent with the hammer.
“One
of your little enemies was rather energetic,” Oros Borealis hissed. “I feel him
kicking, even now, in my belly. Kick and clawing and screaming, but alive, each
and every one of them, in my belly.”
“If
I get any sense from the Mighty Thor, he’s going to give you indigestion,”
Stacey said, grinning at the serpent.
“Gas,
more likely, and I do not wish to be near you when that first trumpet blows,”
Oros Borealis hissed, and again there seemed to be a deep chuckle in that hiss.
“If you struck a flint this whole hill valley might disappear in a towering
cloud.”
“What
about these guy?” Stacey queried, nodding to the twenty thieves.
“They
are your friends, perhaps not as yet, they are too stupid to know it, but soon.
Go on, little mice, scurry away before I change my mind,” Wyrm Oros Borealis
hissed like thunder, and the twenty thieves were up and running, and they did
look like little brown mice scurrying away from the serpent.
“Thank
you, Oros Borealis,” Stacey said, bowing deeply.
“It
was nothing. Actually, it was fun. I’m not supposed to ever do it again, but
for you, Pugilist, White Knight, I just might, if you summon me nicely, as you
did today. I suppose now you must go to that woman, your...wife?”
“Yes,
the Lady Maulgraul, my Maully. Do you know her?”
“Oh,
we’ve met. I would be careful around her, Pugilist. As long as you meet her
requirements, she might prove actually quite amusing. But if you stray out of
her intentions, you had best watch your back. If she were a god, she would be
me, and if I were a human, I would be her. So be careful. Never trust her.
Sometimes when the White Knight rescues the Fair Maiden, she gives him a good
one, right in the back, if she can find a sufficient opening in his armor.”
“I’ll
keep that in mind,” Stacey replied, realizing that the great serpent had just
informed Stacey that neither of them was to be trusted, woman or snake.
“Fare
thee well, Pugilist,” hissed Wyrm Oros Borealis, and he slithered almost
quietly back into the crevasse, and again the ground shook, and the rent in the
fabric of the world drew back together, leaving a jagged scar about the land.
Stacey tracked the impression of the scar, which pointed almost exactly to
there the portal was located. At least where he thought it must be located.
He
must remember this place, just in case. Perhaps, one day, he might need to pass
that way again, and snag another bottle of beer.
But
for now, he turned wearily toward the carriage, and headed to meet his wife,
Lady Maulgraul, his beloved Maully.
He
strode to just before the double doors on the side of the carriage, and knocked
with the knob of his shillelagh.
“Maully,”
he called, “it’s me, Stacey. Open the doors!”
And
the doors erupted outward, as if rocketing from springs, and struck him full
on, catching him in the face and chest and groin, driving him backward, and he
tumbled, going end over end, tumbling to the lip of the land, where the valley
snaked down below, and he tumbled down this fall, unconscious, sliding and
rolling and tumbling, bouncing and crashing faster and faster, until he dropped
into a streambed below, and lay unmoving.
“Idiot,”
someone said from inside the carriage.
