“After I crush you and your army,” John said in a voice that trembled with suppressed rage, “I will amuse myself with your wife and children.”
Michael chuckled nastily. “You already tried that once, John-boy. She kicked your ass.”
“That was a different situation entirely,” John fired back. “With the forces now under my command, I’ll raze your precious Freeholds in a day. I’ll have her and that’s a promise I’ll keep if for no other reason than to annoy your ghost.”
Michael stared up at the gigantic Prince, noting the anger that blazed forth from the man’s eyes. Almost there.
“You’re right John, it was a different situation. Before, she didn’t know who you were or what you wanted. Before, you took her by surprise. Just between the two of us, man, you’d better pray to whatever God you have my wife never lays eyes on you again. Now that she knows you were after our children, she’ll flay the hide off you in one-inch strips, fry ’em up and feed ’em to you. And that’ll just be for starters.”
Michael wiped his palms on his pants. “In any event, speaking of my ghost is putting the cart before the horse. You have to get past me before you can get to her.”
“And don’t think I’m not looking forward to doing just that, you little pipsqueak,” John said with a cold smile that revealed his full array of misaligned, rotting teeth. “I’ll drink your blood and eat your heart.”
“Whew! John,” Michael sniffed and grimaced. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to brush? Or are you trying to kill me with your breath? Your sweetie Ashley must puke every time she has to kiss you.”
John reddened like a brake light. His teeth were a sore point in more ways than one. His father ragged on him about them. Anthony had teased him mercilessly. They were the one feature he was ashamed of. They didn’t fit his image of what a Prince should be. If only he wasn’t deathly afraid of dentists. And now this pint-sized pain in the ass with perfect even teeth was throwing it up to him?
It was the last straw. He didn’t even stop to wonder how Michael knew about Ashley. John pulled out his knives and lunged.
Michael had been tensed for the attack, expecting it and still John’s blinding speed and ferocity nearly caught him off guard. Michael narrowly avoided the rush, twisting aside from one knife and ducking under the other. He straightened and launched a hard left into John’s solar plexus. It was like slugging a rock wall.
A backhand swipe by the Prince cut through Michael’s elk-hide shirt and drew a thin ribbon of blood across his chest. Michael blocked another blow, the force of which almost numbed his arm and kicked at John’s right knee, missing and hitting the shin bone instead. John’s eyes widened in pain.
John slashed wickedly at Michael’s midsection, cleaving air as the Freeholder leapt back out of the way. John closed swiftly.
Michael cart-wheeled away from the man, coming to his feet with a nicely rounded river rock in his right hand. John hesitated slightly and Michael hurled the rock with all the force he could muster. The rock cracked against John’s left wrist, jarring the dagger from the man’s hand and causing him to grunt with pain.
Michael stepped swiftly in to take advantage. John mirrored a beam of sunlight off the broad blade of his Bowie into Michael’s eyes. As Michael instinctively shut his eyes against the glare, John launched a kick into Michael’s side that sent him sprawling with a gasp of pain.
Michael knew he was in trouble the second he hit the ground. Ribs were cracked or broken. They hadn’t properly healed from his duel with Anthony. He rolled away from another vicious kick, hearing for the first time the cheers from the enemy soldiers as they encouraged their Prince. Make it to the flag, Michael thought.
He pushed to his feet with another rock in his hand, staggering slightly from the pain in his side. Ignore the pain or die, he told himself.
This time, when John aimed a kick at Michael’s bad side, Michael dropped under it and dove into John’s other leg, knocking it out from under him. They landed in a tangle. John snapped his legs around Michael and locked his ankles, putting Michael in a scissors hold. Smiling widely, John began to squeeze. He didn’t need the knife. He would crush this little bastard with his enormous strength; pop his eyeballs right out of his head.
Michael swung the rock in his hand like a club, smashing it into John’s right knee, delighting in the Rice Krispie sound of a kneecap crushing. Michael swung the rock against the same knee one more time as he twisted free and came to his feet.
John howled, but still managed to lunge up off the ground and slash Michael’s right leg with his Bowie before the Freeholder could get entirely away. John thrust again, but Michael deflected the knife and kicked the Prince right in his mouthful of rotten teeth, breaking several. John flopped onto his back, then flipped over and pulled himself painfully to his feet as Michael hopped toward the flag, now only a few feet away.
John took a test step and found that his broken knee would bear his weight if he kept the leg perfectly rigid. He hefted the Bowie in his right hand and for an instant debated throwing it at Michael’s back. But the Bowie wasn’t really a throwing knife and no one knew that better than the Prince, who had mastered the art at an early age. Grimacing, spitting out broken teeth, he hobbled after Michael.
Michael’s right leg was weakening, threatening to collapse. The cut was deep and nasty. Blood oozed freely from the wound, though Michael was relieved it welled out rather than fountaining like it would if an artery was severed.
He reached the flagpole, a stiff spruce branch two inches in diameter and almost six feet long. Michael ripped the flag from the pole, wrenched it from the ground and spun around.
John chopped at him with the big knife. The edge of the blade thudded into the wood between Michael’s hands as the staff blocked the blow.
John drew back for another lunge, when the wail of the klaxon split the air, freezing him for an instant.
Michael used John’s surprise at the noise to whack him in the head with the stout pole, stunning John momentarily. His scarlet beret went flying. Michael followed it with quick one-two blows to John’s head and to the man’s right hand, dislodging the Bowie, which clattered to the ground.
The Prince snatched at the pole, grabbing it with his left hand and almost succeeding in wrenching it from Michael’s grasp. So powerful was the Giant that he lifted Michael off the ground. John spun and threw both Michael and the pole several feet.
Michael hit so hard the force of the blow and the pain from his broken ribs jolted the breath from his body. He lay there, gasping, unable to move, as the Giant, who had stooped to retrieve his Bowie, leapt on him like a lion.
At the last instant, Michael swung the pole around and planted one end in the ground. Had the other end been sharpened, John would have impaled himself with the force of his lunge. As it was, the blunt end caught him just below the solar plexus and drove the air from his lungs with a mighty whoosh. The Prince’s weight snapped the pole in two, his eyes bulged and his mouth opened and closed, gulping spastically, like a fish out of water. He thudded down beside Michael with earth-shaking impact.
Michael’s heaving lungs frantically pumped air into his body. He rolled away from the Prince and sat up, discovering he was weaponless, both halves of the pole being pinned under the Giant. John lay face down, gasping feebly, but beginning to stir.
Michael struggled to his feet, glancing around for a weapon. The dagger John had dropped beckoned, but it was a good thirty feet away. They were on a sandy portion of the canyon bottom now, with no decent sized rocks around. He couldn’t let John recover.
Michael kicked him in the head, then threw himself onto the Giant’s back and locked his left arm around the Big Man’s neck in a chokehold. He tried to lock his legs around John’s torso but the man’s chest and arms were simply too big for Michael’s legs to reach around.
John came out of his stupor, grinding his chin down into the arm Michael had around his throat, forcing it away so he could breathe. The
n he pushed his upper body up off the ground far enough to get his right hand, his knife hand, out from under his torso.
Michael released his useless hold on the Giant’s neck, rolled off of John’s back and stomped the man’s knife hand before it could swing off the ground and plunge the blade into him. The adrenaline-driven heel of Michael’s damaged right leg and foot still slammed into John’s right hand hard enough to break his wrist and render the hand useless. Michael stooped for the knife and took a blow across the back and kidneys that knocked him down and nearly paralyzed him. As he rolled away and climbed back to his feet he saw that John was up on his knees. In the man’s left hand was one half of Michael’s flagpole. John’s Bowie was right beside him, but with his broken right wrist he couldn’t pick it up. And he couldn’t put the stick down long enough to grab it.
John swung the three-foot stick menacingly. Even down on his knees he was as tall as Michael.
Michael circled warily to his left, away from the danger and toward the man’s damaged right side.
John couldn’t believe this was happening. He had a broken wrist, a useless knee and a slight concussion. His opponent had broken ribs, John could tell from the way he moved and was losing blood from several shallow cuts in addition to his badly lacerated leg. That leg wound alone should have put him out of the fight. Yet the son of a bitch was still on his feet!
For the first time in his life, Prince John questioned his own invulnerability. No one had ever done him this much damage. It galled John all the worse that he had come armed, while his opponent hadn’t. For the first time since their initial meeting, Prince John’s eyes sought and caught those of his enemy. What he saw in those glowing golden orbs sent a cold shiver through him.
It simply couldn’t end this way. He was Prince John, Big John, the Giant, the Big Man. He knew all the names his troops and his enemies called him by and he reveled in them as proof of the strength of his legend. And that might be part of the problem, he admitted deep within his heart. He was too concerned about how he would look to his men.
He had always worried about appearances. He realized that was what drove him, time and again, to be at the forefront of a battle, while Anthony had often been content to fight from the rear. Even today, he met Whitebear’s challenge more because he didn’t want to appear afraid than because of his desire to personally destroy the man. He should have realized that any man who could evade 800 men, while seeming to toy with them, was at least as formidable as himself. Now he was paying the price for his arrogance.
His body was slippery with sweat. The salty moisture stung his split lips and bloodied mouth. His breathing was labored and he was concerned he had hit that damn pole hard enough to do internal damage, maybe even rupture his diaphragm. Pebbles ground against his hurt knee as he kept turning to face his ever-circling enemy. At least he could be thankful that, in this immediate area, there were no rocks large enough for the bastard to brain him with.
Meanwhile, Michael’s ribs and back stabbed pain through him with every movement. He was lightheaded from loss of blood and fatigue and his right leg kept trying to buckle.
Michael’s eyes scanned the ground, seeking a weapon. He was tempted to quit circling and try to make it to one of the Prince’s knives, but his right leg was so weak that he feared it would give way, allowing John time to get back to his feet.
So long as I’m here he can’t try to get up, Michael thought and I’m gaining on him. He could hobble around the circle slightly faster than John was turning, probably because he was forcing John to pivot on his wounded knee. If he could just get far enough ahead, he could try another attack. Trouble was, he was losing blood so fast he didn’t know if he could last that long. The fight had gone on long enough that the initial rush of adrenaline had worn off.
He tried to work up more anger and adrenaline by recalling that this man wanted to kill Ellen and the children, but he was too spent for even that to work now. If only he had a weapon. His right foot came down on a loose pebble that rolled and that was too much for the weakened leg. It folded, spilling him to the ground.
With a scream of triumph, the Prince exploded into action. As Michael fell, John used the pole as a crutch to get his good leg under him. He dove at Michael, swinging the piece of wood overhand like a samurai sword.
As Michael hit, Mariko’s scalp slid out through a slit in his shirt. Instinctively he grabbed it, realizing it was the answer to his prayers. Without stopping to think, Michael twisted to John’s right, away from the attack he knew was coming. Adrenaline flooded his system now that the threat was immediate.
John’s club slammed into the earth mere inches from Michael’s head. Michael rolled swiftly, narrowly escaping being smashed beneath the huge man as he thudded into the ground. His outstretched right hand, injured as it was, grasped and slipped from Michael’s sweaty and bloody body.
Instantly, Michael was on the Giant’s back. The ends of Mariko’s scalp were wrapped around his hands, forming a crude garrote. Michael crossed his arms, making a noose and looped it over John’s head and around his neck. Michael planted a knee in the middle of the Giant’s back, straightened his arms and heaved back with all his remaining strength.
John’s spine arced like a bow. The hair-garrote tightened horribly around his throat, choking the life from him. He waved the club desperately, feeling it smash into Michael with no effect. He tried to roll and buck, thrashing about frantically, but nothing could dislodge his tormentor.
Michael held on tight, refusing to be overbalanced by the writhing man beneath him, or to be knocked off by the flailing club. It hit him several times, breaking his nose, bruising his biceps and shoulder, smacking into his head. He ground his teeth together and held on. There was nothing in the world but pain. But so long as he held on, he would live. So long as he held on, his dead friends would be avenged. So long as he held on, his wife and family were safe from the beast below him.
The blows from the club got weaker. The struggles of the body beneath him eased. Eventually, through a haze of pain, Michael realized the man beneath him was dead.
Aftershock set in. Michael shook so hard he wept. It was all he could do to twist the broken piece of flagpole free from Prince John’s hand and use it as a crutch to lean against as he climbed wearily to his feet. He stood there for a moment, head down, shoulders bowed, then thrust Mariko’s scalp skyward in a clenched fist.
Thunderous cheers rained down from his friends on the bunker. He limped over toward the flag of truce, stooping to pick up John’s beret and stuff it into his shirt with Mariko’s scalp. He tore a strip from the flag and bound his leg, then started for the bunker. He was too numb to think about what his victory meant, or to realize he might still be in danger. Just putting one foot in front of the other without falling was the universe.
*
In the enemy ranks, dead silence prevailed. It was the sort of stunned hush that comes over a crowd when they see the impossible happen. Prince John had been defeated by an unarmed opponent, the same man who killed Prince Anthony.
In the lower ranks, men wondered to themselves what would happen next. Among the officers, no one wondered. They knew what to do.
General Marsh handed the Prince’s rifle to his best sniper, who rested it against the hood of the APC and centered Michael Whitebear’s back in the scope. It would be a difficult shot because the man lurched and stumbled as he walked over the loose rocks.
The sniper took a deep breath, let half of it out and gently curled his index finger over the trigger, keeping Michael’s back centered in the crosshairs. Part of him hated to shoot this particular man. Neither of the Royal Princes had been especially kind to him. But the thought of how the King would reward him for downing the man who’d killed John and Anthony perked him up. He would have a duchy at least, possibly even be made a baron. He would certainly be knighted. The important thing was that he would become a Royal and as such be forever exempted from common labor. The thought made him grin.
>
The sound of the gun as it fired and the kick of its discharge almost surprised him, but then that’s the way it should be. Through his scope, the sniper watched Michael spin and fall as the bullet tore through his back.
The shooter pulled his eye back from the scope and looked up at the General, his grin widening at the approval he saw there. That was the last thing he saw before the dark hole appeared in his forehead and the back of his head and a good portion of his brains burst outward, showering the ground and the men nearby. His body flowed loosely down the fender of the APC leaving a smear of gore as it flopped onto the ground.
High up on the cliffs above, Dan Osaka brushed tears from his one good eye as he lowered his rifle. Too late, he thought dismally. Just a couple of damned seconds too late. He had spotted the man taking aim, but hadn’t got his own shot off fast enough. He wished Minowayuh was here.
A roar of outrage echoed from the bunker as all along the line men charged over the edge and dashed toward Whitebear’s fallen form. The King’s soldiers surged forward as well, shooting as they ran toward the bunker. The battle erupted, bullets flying everywhere.
The Allies retreated back up the bunker, carrying their wounded with them, but not before one man reached Michael Whitebear. Jim Cantrell leaned down as he ran by and snatched his friend’s body from the ground, throwing him over his shoulder. Jim turned and ran back up the bunker, dancing and darting unscathed through a barrage of bullets. He threw himself and his friend over the top of the embankment, scraping his elbows and knees in an effort to cushion Michael’s fall.
“Oof!” The breath whooshed from Michael’s body.
Jim rolled over in amazement and stared at his friend. Michael’s eyes were open. They briefly had that soft, unfocused look, common to newborns and people regaining consciousness in strange circumstances. Then they sharpened into focus. He pointed to his chest and his lips twitched in a feeble smile as he whispered, “still ticking.”
The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time Page 53