“What do you mean turned?”
“Bearhugger came back up to the surface looking for me. He was talking in the OverLord’s voice and said he was going to drag me down here. It was pretty clear he works for the OverLord now.” Van thought back to the terrifying moment, his paralyzing fear. He’d be dead, or at least in the OverLord’s clutches, if Kyle hadn’t stepped in.
“Why’s he collecting titans?”
“He wants to finish the Titan Wars. He told King Thad he’s building an army to take over the Open Nations. So I decided to come down here and talk to him about that.”
The Patriot shook his head. “If King Thad’s involved, it’s probably all just a scheme to win the tournament. He probably paid the OverLord to kidnap us to clear his path to the finals. If we can get out of here in time, maybe we can stop him. I could appeal my loss, maybe have another shot.” The Patriot’s eyes seemed to glow as he pondered another chance at the belt.
Van almost felt bad telling him. “The tournament’s over.”
“Bullshit!” The Patriot cocked his head in surprise. “Who won?”
“I did.”
“Ha! You won the Headlock of Destiny? Your story was more believable up until then. I never even heard of you.”
“I fought for the Uplands.”
“What happened to Owen Grit?”
“He got hurt. I was a last minute sub. Weren’t you watching the brackets?”
“I focus on what’s in front of me.” The Patriot scowled. “Well, if you’re telling the truth,” he dropped the board and pointed a thick finger at Van, “and you better not be lying to the Patriot Jack Hammer, no sir, then at least one of those Open Nations Wrestling Coalition assholes isn’t wearing the belt.” He looked Van up and down. “I’ve been to the Uplands. Nice place. No Peakfall, of course.” He paused. “They must be looking for me something fierce—Peakfall.”
“Of course,” Van replied. He rubbed at his beard as the Patriot stared worriedly off into the distance. “So what’s your story, then? After you got dragged off.”
The Patriot scratched his head. “Been pretty strange. I kept having these dreams. Like, bad ones. And then I’d wake up in that damn coffin. Try to get out. Dreams come back. I’m half scared this is just another one. I couldn’t tell you how long it’s been. Feels like a damn lifetime.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“Like memories, only it’s like I’m reliving them. Except he’s always there. The OverLord, sitting right in the front row of the crowd.”
“The crowd? Are they all wrestling matches?”
“Yep. Basically a parade of career lowlights. The time Lord Bleak ripped out half my hair. When Jobber Skelton got one over me he was never supposed to get. I had a tagteam partner who joined the ONWC and turned on me. That one’s come up a lot. His name was Major Vindict. He threw me in a chokehold and let the Butcher beat me bloody.” He picked up the board again and began idly drawing in the dirt with one end. “And other stuff. The crowd booing Peakfall, saying stuff I couldn’t understand but I knew was bad.”
Van nodded. “I’ve been having similar dreams. Not wrestling, though. At least not yet. Memories from my childhood. The more… unpleasant ones.”
“He’s trying to get into our heads.”
“And doing a good job of it.”
“Maybe.” The Patriot shrugged. He began tapping the end of the heavy board on the ground. “But if he’s coming after the Open Nations, that means he’s coming after Peakfall. And that don’t sit right with the Patriot Jack Hammer.” He shouldered the board. “So maybe all this scheming and head games are nothing more than a hefty down payment on an ass-whipping. It’s hard to take over the Open Nations after the Patriot Jack Hammer caves your head in with a trusty piece of lumber. Which way do we go?”
Van looked at the Patriot for a moment, then he reached a hand out to him. “Together, then?”
“Together,” the Patriot replied as he took Van’s hand. “My friends call me Jack.”
Van nodded. He released Jack’s hand and pointed past the smashed coffin into the distance.
“Good,” Jack replied. He glanced back in the direction Van had come from. “I don’t like the looks of that way. I get the feeling a storm’s coming.”
“That’s what I hear.” Van paused to look at the gathering clouds, dark, angry, and drawing closer every second.
Chapter 6.
The darkness deepened behind Van and the Patriot Jack Hammer as they crossed the rocky ground. Flashes of lightning chased them forward along the coffin trail. A gusty wind picked up, chill and wet. Saint’s advice about seeking shelter loomed large in Van’s mind. But there was no shelter ahead or behind them, just more stone and sand, thin trees with weak roots already half-upturned by the approaching storm.
Jack proved to be a big talker. He provided Van with an endless loop of tales of his greatest victories. He’d won tournament bouts against Rampage, Elephant the Titan, and the Butcher. A parade of Peakfall titans Van had never heard of who’d fallen before his might. Van suspected Jack was washing out the lingering taste of the many failures he’d been forced to relive in the coffin. He also seemed to be borderline paranoid about being forgotten and kept telling Van how everyone in Empire City and Peakfall must be worried about him. The chatter was fine with Van, at least for now. It passed the time and kept his worry about the storm to a minimum.
Saint had fallen silent—maybe in a bad mood, maybe dead. Van hadn’t heard from him since Jack had wacked the barrel with his board. Van decided to check on him when he saw what he suspected was the first animal he’d seen in the Nether. A small lizard ducked its head behind a rock as the titans topped another ridge. Van gave the barrel a shake. “Saint.”
“What do you want, numbskull?” a grumpy voice answered.
“Are there lots of animals down here? Lizards and such?”
Saint didn’t answer for moment. Then he said, “The great lizard Antoratch is the size of Empire City. She feeds on buffalo herds, slakes her thirst on oceans.” The demon grew excited. “Is that what you see?”
“No. Just a little guy. About the size of my hand.”
“Thrilling. I’m going back to sleep.”
“I didn’t think you slept.”
“I don’t. I’m just going back to ignoring you.”
Van spotted another lizard sneaking behind a different rock. Now that he was watching for signs of life, he saw creatures everywhere. Snakes slithered under the rocks on the sides of the trail. Something else, running swiftly on four scaly legs, tracked them from behind a ridge of thorny bushes. Van was about to tell Jack when the other titan grabbed his arm and jerked him to a halt.
“Hold,” Jack said. “I think we’ve got company.”
Van was about to tell Jack that he’d already seen them when he realized Jack was looking at something else entirely. A titan crested the spiny ridge ahead of them just as a bolt of lightning lit the scene. Jaygan the Dragon Reynolds approached, seated atop a massive dragon.
Van had seen Jaygan once before at King Thad’s dinner table. The titan was tall and deeply tanned, bald on top with long hair in the back and a trim mustache. He had struck Van as an oily character with a permanent smirk on his mischievous face. The smirk appeared doubly wide as he rode towards Van and Jack. His eyes had changed, however. They were blank white, the same as Bearhugger’s had been. Jaygan had been turned. He belonged to the OverLord.
More disturbing yet, the dragon’s eyes were also blank. It stood tall enough that Jaygan’s long legs didn’t reach the ground from his seat on its neck. Its body was covered in grey-blue scales and was as long as three titans laid head to toe. It had smallish wings, which looked like they wouldn’t carry its weight, but it moved swiftly over the rugged terrain on its four thick legs. It had a mouth full of teeth as long as Van’s hands.
The storm chose that moment to truly arrive. Thunder crashed and lightning lit the barren landscape as Jaygan pulled the huge beast
to a stop a few yards from Van and Jack. Four white eyes examined the two titans.
Van studied the dragon as well. “That’s your same dragon?” he asked, trying to reconcile what stood before him with the small pet he’d seen at King Thad’s. “Last time I saw it, it was eating a chicken on top of King Thad’s table. The Nether’s been good to it.”
Jaygan chuckled. “She is,” he said softly in a way that drew Van in. “When you give yourself over to the Master, you receive certain gifts.” He patted the dragon’s scaly head. “You should consider it. He’s sent me to fetch you.” Jaygan’s blank gaze slid over the Patriot. “He said nothing about your girlfriend. I’ll feed her to my pet.”
Jack bristled. “If you gave yourself over to anyone down here, then you betrayed the people of Leatherrow, your people, and all the Open Nations. Traitors don’t sit well with me.” He slapped the board against his hand loudly. “You and your little gecko want to eat me, come fucking try it. You might find you don’t like what’s on the menu. I’ll be serving up some hard wood straight to the back of your skull.”
“You’re the Patriot Jack Hammer.” Jaygan’s dead eyes seemed to make his smirk a lot more threatening. “In my old existence, I turned your partner, Major Vindict, against you. It was easy. He hated you.” Jaygan looked at Van. “I’ll tell you a secret, Beer Man. The Master told me to bring you peacefully. But I don’t really think that’s what he wants. I think he wants you dragged in, gasping for your last desperate breath, and dropped at his feet to whimper like a little baby.” The dragon snapped and Van jumped back. “And that’s why he sent me.”
Van stared at the dragon as her tongue snaked out towards him, then glanced up at Jaygan. “Only reason he had you to send in the first place is that the ONWC and King Thad sold you over to him.”
Jaygan looked amused. “Well, to be fair, I was planning on betraying them anyway. And I landed on my feet, like I always do. I’m on the right side of the coming war. The OverLord promised me enough dragons to choke the skies, legions of gators to take the waters, armies of snakes to claim the land. I will be among the most feared of the titans that come for the Open Nations. A true bringer of nightmares and storms. A legend.” The sky had grown so dark that Van could see little more than four white eyes in front of him.
Jack tightened his grip on the board. “This guy talks pretty big for a two-time loser. Lost in the tournament, lost himself down here.” He spat on the stones at his feet. “You ready to stomp some trash, Van?”
Van eyed the powerful dragon and the equally threatening titan perched atop it. At least he wasn’t facing this one alone. He shrugged. “Looks like we don’t have much choice in the matter.”
The air crackled with energy, just as it had in the stadiums of the world above, as the titans committed to the fight. Jack swung his board back and forth to loosen up his shoulders, staring down Jaygan the whole time. Jaygan yawned and stretched his arms, long and lazy. The dragon squatted down to urinate. Everyone seemed more excited about the fight than Van. He walked a few steps away from the coming clash and set down his barrel behind a rocky shelf. “Stay out of the way, Saint,” he said quietly.
“Is he riding a dragon? I smell a dragon.”
“Yep.” Van had no idea how they were going to fight that thing. The stories of titans tangling with dragons usually ended in the titan’s heroic death.
“Just keep me close enough that I can hear it eating you after you lose.”
Van snorted and turned away from the barrel. A few short steps and he was back amongst the gathering tension. Jaygan had gotten off his dragon. He stared past Van and Jack. Lightning flared and bathed his face in yellow light. He turned back to the dragon, leaned into its ear and whispered, “Storm’s coming, honey. You find shelter. I won’t need you for these bedwetters.” He patted her on the neck and she lumbered off.
The dragon retreated to the hill and vanished from sight. Van shared a surprised glance with Jack. The odds had just swung in their favor. Van tried not to smile. Jaygan had been a crafty, tournament-level titan before he became a minion of the OverLord. Who knew what gifts, other than a large reptile, he had since received? Jaygan spread his arms, crouched into a crablike walk, and stepped up to Van and Jack.
The storm was closing fast, and a thick fog began rolling in. Wind swept across the flat, barren patch of land where the titans drew together, bearing a thick white fog which slid among the titans in thick ropes. As the titans prepared to clash lightning again flashed across the desolate rockscape, and thunder crashed over them so loudly Van’s ears rang like a bell.
Jack wasted no time. He swung his board flat and hard at Jaygan’s gut. Jaygan slid smoothly out of range and let the board swing past, then lunged towards Jack. Van pressed in, only to realize it had been a feint. Jaygan slid under him. Van landed a punch on Jaygan’s crouched back before Jaygan tossed him helplessly into the air. Jaygan had already attacked Jack before Van hit the stony ground.
As Van clambered to his feet, Jack held Jaygan at bay with his board, whipping it back and forth in front of Jaygan’s white eyes. Van tried to seize Jaygan in a reverse bear hug, but Jaygan ducked under and out of it. An errant swing of the board by Jack slammed Van in the face, stunning him for a moment. Jaygan took advantage of the blunder by sweeping Van’s legs out from under him. Van crashed to the ground again as lightning flared across the battlefield.
Jaygan feinted at Jack again and raised a foot to stomp on Van’s knee, but Van saw the kick coming and caught Jaygan’s hard, scaly boot. Van twisted, pulling Jaygan off balance and allowing Jack to land a hard blow on Jaygan’s neck with his lumber. As Jack wound up for another whack, Jaygan kicked Van’s grip loose with his free foot, fell to the ground, and quickly rolled away. He popped back up a second later and charged Jack, hair waving in the wind that tore across the landscape.
The wind carried more thick fog into their midst, and though the clashing titans were only a few feet from Van, he barely saw their silhouettes. He ran at them, thunder shaking the ground beneath him, and landed a hammerblow on the back of Jaygan’s neck. The titan roared in pain. Jack slammed Jaygan’s grimacing face with the board, and Van shoved the OverLord’s minion down to the ground. Van looked to Jack and froze. In the depths of the fog behind the Patriot, two giant white eyes were racing towards them.
Van leaped with all his strength, barely clearing Jack’s shoulder, and caught Jaygan’s dragon by the nostrils just before she reached Jack’s back. The dragon whipped her head around and snapped her giant teeth at him. Van swung around like a rodeo cowboy, but finally threw his arms around the dragon’s gaping jaws and squeezed them shut. He held tight as the dragon whirled him into Jack. The Patriot yelled and tumbled to the dirt. Van locked his arms in place around the dragon’s jaws. The dragon continued to lurch and twirl. Van’s feet waved in the air. The dragon tried to roar, but the sound withered in her throat as Van held tight.
He held on for his life as the dragon bucked wildly. He felt like a fool. All he’d heard of Jaygan’s double-dealing and treachery, and he hadn’t batted an eye when Jaygan sent the dragon away, never even suspected she was circling for a blindside attack. The dragon slammed her chin onto the rocky ground—once, twice—smashing Van’s wrists against sharp stone. His forearms bled; his grip faltered. The dragon flung him into the air, end over end into the fog.
Van crashed to the ground, a seam of sharp rock drawing a wicked cut along his side. He sat up in a forest of fog. Thick streamers of white and grey mist raced past him with the roaring wind. Lightning lit the sky and crashed so violently to the ground that it broke the stone into flying shards. Rumbling thunder continued to drown out Van’s thoughts. He had no idea where Jaygan and Jack were.
Two big white eyes burst from the fog. Van dove to the side. Jaws snapped where he’d been seconds before, spraying saliva across the rocks. Van pulled his fist back then drove it into the side of the dragon’s head. He knelt down, ignoring the stab of pain from a sharp rock
into his knee, and swung his other arm out low and strong across his body, driving it hard into the dragon’s firmly planted leg. The dragon lost her footing, stumbled, and fell. Though he thought he might have broken his own arm, Van seized the dragon’s leg, straddled it, wrapped his arms around it, and pulled it back towards him as hard as he could. He was rewarded with a horrific snap and an almost human scream. The dragon thrashed her massive body and Van slid off the broken limb. As she turned away, she lashed out with her thick, muscular tail and caught Van in the chest.
The blow sent Van sailing off into the mists again. His head crashed down hard onto the rock. Everything went black.
Chapter 7.
When Van picked his head up and looked around, he was someplace else entirely. No storm raged around him, no battle clashes fought the thunder and rattled his brain. He was sprawled out on a simple, threadbare rug over a smooth floor of tightly-fitted boards and surrounded by stillness and quiet. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and waited for whichever unpleasant memory the Nether had arranged for him to relive, though he didn’t recall any that included a place exactly like this. “I’ve never been here before,” he said aloud.
“No,” the rumbling voice of the OverLord answered. “Few have.”
Van sat up, alarmed. The rug he lay on was in the middle of some sort of parlor. Framed grey pictures hung on nails driven into old wallpaper. A few wooden chairs stood in front of a low table. On the other side, the OverLord sat on a titan-sized red sofa. The brim of his hat shadowed his face.
Van lunged to his feet and braced for an attack. He’d only been this close to the OverLord once, up on the streets of Empire City. He could smell the death the OverLord wore like a black suit. When the OverLord didn’t move, Van carefully touched the back of his own head, where he’d landed on the stone. His hand came away bloodless.
The Piledriver of Fate (Titan Wars Book 2) Page 5