by Brian Keene
Rogan jumped down and moved behind one of the tubes, surprised the floor no longer stung.
Sounding amused, Amazarak said, “You would be an interesting study, barbarian. I wonder how you would fair against others in my collection, or at an even earlier time when the ante-humans roamed the plains? You are such a fool though, to think that I wear just a suit of armor, when it’s just a means to study lower forms of life. Still, it protects me from a beast like you.” He glanced at the glowing thumbprint in the air. “He’s coming, you know.”
“Who?”
“Croatoan…Meeble…the fulfillment of my bargain. He will destroy and rip apart this realm.”
“But if you are from the future, won’t he stop history and change it all?”
“There are other worlds than these, different stripes and flavors, you cur. Perhaps in another time line, you and Javan are not from Albion, but men from Transalpina or long lived mercs from Shynar? Maybe in another time Karac is your son, but you love each other? Who can say?”
He had one chance as Amazarak moved forward. Rogan threw himself against one of the glass tubes. A female body sloshed about and the tube went over. It bounced on the floor and rolled. When Rogan slashed his sword down, the heavy blade made a crack in the clear material. The blade bounced up and came near to striking Rogan’s chest. Suddenly, the tube shattered on the floor, spilling a yellowy fluid all over. This action made Amazarak stop in his motions. Rogan then went mad, toppling more and more of the tubes, staying ahead of the steel beast and the pinchers it waved at him.
He shoved a container with some thing that looked like a human full of budding plant fibers at Amazarak. The shaman inadvertently embraced the tube with his pinchers, crushing the clear walls and bursting the fluid all over its steel self.
“Worm.” Amazarak raged and jerked in his movements. “You are a rat in my maze and there is no escape.”
Rogan charged Amazarak as he tried to shrug off the container pieces. He slid forward on the slick fluid, looking for a gap in the armor to insert his blade. The metal right hand swatted Rogan and he flew back. Though he rolled with the swipe, he thought his jaw dislocated. Truly, strains of his long hair hung up in the blade tips on the gauntlet.
Flailing on the table of lights, Rogan struggled to hold the jar and the handle of his weapon. Suddenly, his mind flared, the fingers of Akibeel pushing him. Looking at a gleaming red button, Rogan put his hip on the table, thus distancing himself from the floor, and slapped the button.
The floor sizzled as the force Amazarak once employed on Rogan swept the room again. The fluid bubbled and smoked on the floor. The shaman twisted, his armor jerked and sparks flew from the back of it.
Not defeated, Amazarak took wide strides toward the table. The hinges snapped forward as the pinchers came full on. However, he then used them as a bludgeon and swung down at Rogan.
With no worry for his safety on the hot floor, Rogan leapt out of the way. His boots indeed felt the stabbing of icy daggers from the floor, but it was short lived. The metal claw smashed at the boxy table, destroying the controls and inadvertently stopping the bizarre effect.
Again, Rogan attacked. Just before he stabbed upwards with the sword, he felt the power of Akibeel guide his arm and say, “No, this way,” and direct the blade away from the groin of the suit and into the backpack of the armor. Fire and sparks burst out of the armor, but Amazarak swung a claw toward him. Rogan dropped before the blow fell and rolled away from Amazarak. The armor stumbled and Rogan arose, throwing a shoulder into his enemy, barely making Amazarak stagger a little inside his armor. The shaman took a few steps and jerked in his motions, knocking over another one of the tubes. This container fell and shattered, further saturating the floor with amber fluid.
Abruptly, Amazarak was afire from the backpack and more sparks flew. Rogan stabbed at the back part of the armor again and Amazarak fell. The armor split from the front and the man inside popped out.
“Fool! This mountain is full of my power and that of the coming Meeble! Disturb it in the slightest, you savage, and we will all explode! The leak in radia…”
Rogan’s howling rage cut the man off and Akibeel hummed a song in the barbarian’s head. Rogan raged, saying, “The secrets of metals and of life come from Wodan, not Amazarak! This is but a demon pretending to be a god!”
Rogan dropped his blade and set down the jar. The shaman snatched up the jar and that made Rogan swear anew. He reached out and caught the shaman at last. He snapped Amazarak’s wrist and then took the soul jar up again. Rogan held the jar as if it were a delicate newborn.
His heart was heavy as the words came to his mind from Akibeel, “Your grandson is dead, Rogan. His soul has no flesh to return to.”
Wincing in agony at his new injury, Amazarak went to one knee. “It is too late, savage!”
Rogan twisted the broken wrist back further and a noise not unlike reeds breaking echoed briefly. “That is not important, wizard. Dying is all that really matters.” He held up the jar. “His death, and now yours…”
Yanking his mangled wrist from Rogan, Amazarak scrambled away, moving like a spider toward the back corner of the room. The creature was up on its spindly legs, sucking for air, coughing.
“This is your day to die, damn you!” Rogan promised as he stood tall.
Amazarak pulled a handgrip down a notch and hissed in the mind of Rogan, “Someday I may have to die, but not at the hands of one such as you.” He slipped into the closet and a clear door sealed him in tight. “Besides, you are going to die in a minute, fool. Look, Croatoan comes!”
The floating swirl grew larger and Rogan’s ears popped. He drew back as far as he could to the edge of the room as the swirl increased, near to ten feet across. Rogan saw a shape forming in the glow and he felt pressure on his bladder. Having seen monsters before, he stood, set down the jar with his grandson’s soul in it, and took a piss as Meeble started to become solid in the glow. Since he doubted Meeble wanted to be his friend, Rogan figured he’d rather piss before fighting his final battle.
When Meeble stepped out of the swirling glow, Rogan was glad he went, as he wanted to piss again.
FAR MORE IMPRESSIVE than the towering, big-footed beasts outside that clearly worshiped him, Meeble stood near to nine feet tall. That came as a guess, as Rogan stood near to six and a half feet himself. Unlike those skinny, wormy creatures, Meeble had a thick, hulking body, much broader across, like a bull gorilla in the middle and thighs, but his arms hung thinner, longer, like an orangutan, looking somewhat out of proportion with the rest of him.
White fur covered his form, save for a bare portion on his chest and belly, and there the skin held a bluish tint. Rogan noted the feet of the beast held a simian touch, as they were near to hands, down to an opposable thumb. However, the hands were not unlike human ones: hairy, palms blue and clean, and yet they held a curled in dew nail, like a feline or dog. The feline features didn’t stop there, for Rogan expected the face to be an apish monstrosity, but Meeble’s eyes, green and striped down the middle, were set into his boxy head like a cat, drawn up in an almond shape even. Down between his eyes, an almost dainty nasal cavity snaked, and drew up like a lion’s snout. The mouth wasn’t jutting or catlike at all, more flat and across, akin to a cave covered by falling water, no definition.
When the head turned a little and the eyes blinked, Rogan’s heart beat faster. The sides of Meeble’s head sported ears, slanted and pointy, extending out from his head like a feline, and even twitching a bit. Meeble turned some, slowly, and took note of Amazarak in the booth. Some move not unlike a nod emerged from Meeble and he faced Rogan. Legs apart, he shuffled his feet a little and stood firm, stretching his limbs, not ashamed that his furry penis and balls swung from his crotch.
The thumbs on Meeble’s feet tapped the floor, almost like a nervous twitch, but the rest of him didn’t appear shook up at all.
As the swirling circle behind Meeble reduced to the size of a tiny foot-wide dis
k, Amazarak’s voice cut the tension, shouting out to Rogan, “You better run, barbarian. As they say where I came from, you don’t know who you’re fucking with.”
Rogan looked up into the face of Meeble and recalled the Nephilum, Lambach, and how big he stood. At age thirty, Rogan’s army of rogues had destroyed the half breed angel’s breeding domain at Baalbek, and Lambach himself…but there had been two hundred of them and one of him. Now, these odds sucked ass.
Hands gripped to fists, Rogan still leered at Meeble as he said to Amazarak, “He doesn’t know who he’s fucking with.”
The cat eyes focused on Rogan, nostrils expanded, and one eye seemed to quiver, perhaps an expression. Meeble may have had an idea of what stood before him, perhaps even who if Amazarak fed him information, but he didn’t give a damn. His mouth opened, the lips parted, and two words fell out.
“Show me.”
The voice dropped like rolling boulders, raw, deep but rough and phlegmy.
Rogan showed no fear, even if he fought it down into the top of his gullet. He eyed the beast, but didn’t draw his weapon. He looked for a point to strike at. The strange, curling flopping penis held an obvious point of assault for Rogan’s mind.
Meeble looked about the room, perhaps taking note of the ruined tube and the armor of Amazarak on the floor. He then looked past Rogan, beyond this great cavernous room into the next.
“My way,” Meeble grunted, hands flexing.
Rogan’s eyes narrowed, not understanding.
“My way,” Meeble repeated, hands together, almost wringing them, thumbs on his feet tapping louder.
Rogan saw the path of Meeble’s look and glanced behind him at the exit. Rogan faced him anew and nodded. “I am in your way, aren’t I?” he reached back and drew his broadsword. “That I am.”
Meeble’s mouth drew at the corners, became broader, and Rogan thought he heard a chuckle. “I am,” he said, chuckled again. “I am…I am…”
When the member of the Thirteen started to move forward, Rogan reared back, came up low, and stabbed for Meeble’s gut. The long arms moved fast, the hands slapping on either side of the blade, stopping Rogan’s thrust mere inches from the exposed belly. Meeble’s arms flexed and Rogan dropped his weight, trying to avoid the coming pull that would’ve ripped the weapon from his grip. Rogan’s body fell between Meeble’s legs and the sword slipped from the hands. A chopping shot fell toward him from the right hand of Meeble, but Rogan shifted, right into a chop of the left, but his blade pushed off on that shot, the flat of the sword helping to mute the strike. Meeble’s hand didn’t slap his face but bounced off his shoulder. Rogan felt like a stone block had bounced off him.
Boots up together, Rogan kicked at Meeble’s balls. Though Meeble had lowered himself to strike, Rogan had failed to estimate his distance right and missed the testicles, but his boots did strike the end of the swinging prick. Meeble reacted, stepping back from him and standing up straighter. Rogan rolled and got to his knees. He could’ve sworn he saw the member protrude spikes for a moment then return to normal.
I grazed his manhood and he reacted, Rogan thought. That’s good news. I’ll have to tell the priests back home to put that in their books.
He started to rise and Meeble moved on him, arms up, preparing to drop a crushing blow. Rogan, still on his haunches, sprang, a shoulder block to Meeble’s gut, the sword across him, jabbing at Meeble’s thigh. The long arms went over Rogan, who didn’t wait to see if his gut tackle had any effect, for Meeble stood and adjusted his strikes. Rogan hugged his right leg low, curled about him, and swung the sword down. While his right hand drove the blade at the top of Meeble’s foot, his left forearm came up between the being’s legs.
Rogan’s father, Jarek, had always said there was no such thing as a fair fight. The shot to Meeble’s testicles proved effective and the huge being reacted immediately, just like any man hit in such a place. He hunched over, hands to his groin, face full of pain and eyes with anger.
Though his blow to the foot hadn’t landed properly, Rogan had it all planned…he rolled between Meeble’s legs and would come up swinging, nailing the throat with his sword for the kill shot. Rogan did just that, somersaulting between his legs and pulling back for the deathblow. Meeble, though, let go of his nuts and boxed Rogan’s ears. Feeling right away dizzy, and amazed his head didn’t pop apart, Rogan found himself airborne, then slung across the room like a disk at a gaming show. Crashing into a table, Rogan took out a few of the glowing boxes and rectangular tablets with odd symbols on them. He rolled to the floor again and got up fast.
Rogan had Meeble’s attention. He’d turned to block the way out, focused on Rogan alone.
As Meeble turned to face him, he sprinted to one of the tubes holding a body, wedged his sword against the wall, and pried it loose from the moorings. He threw himself against the glass, and it toppled, set to crash on the floor before Meeble. The tube hit the floor and didn’t break. It rolled over and Meeble stopped it with his handish foot.
“Shit,” Rogan muttered, and noted the figure inside the tube had long hair, a thick waist-belt concealing dirk handles, and a long spear at his side. The gleam of the spear made Rogan randy as he made his move.
A foot on the tube, Rogan leapt up, swinging the sword, eye level with Meeble. The strike would’ve been impressive had it landed. As the blade swung and Rogan flew in the air, Meeble tilted back and swiped out, backhanded. Amazed the big thing was lucky enough to slap the flat of his sword…hard enough to knock it from his grip, Rogan flew into Meeble, unarmed. Knee up, instinctually ready for the impact, he didn’t strike Meeble. The right hand of the monster grabbed his left arm and the left hand drew across his body and bitch slapped him. Hard. Rogan’s weight proved tough to hold with one hand and Meeble dropped him. As he fell and rolled on the floor, Rogan felt the left side of his face crinkle as if parchment had been wadded up. Tongue over his teeth, not finding any empty slots, Rogan felt the onslaught of the pain arrive and spider clawed away on the floor. Meeble’s hands fell at where Rogan landed, and the being spoke again.
“Killer.”
Scurrying about the fallen tube like a rat, Rogan searched for his fallen sword, and looked hungry at the spear inside the glass tube. Eyes on Meeble, the creature glared back at him.
“Not coward.” Meeble breathed and might have grinned as he declared, “Killer.”
Rogan thought to spout a boast, like there were plenty more like him back home, but dived for his blade.
Meeble anticipated this move and lurched toward that direction, causing Rogan to not kneel as he’d have been exposed to a punch. Though he stopped, and turned, Meeble chopped at him again. Rogan tilted his body, avoided the blow and the follow up that intended to knock his head askew. Bent, Rogan spun, did a three-sixty, and tried to dodge again, but slipped in the amber goop on the floor. Desperate, Rogan took a knee, scooped up the wet goo in his hands and threw it into Meeble’s oncoming charge. The wet splashes struck Meeble’s face and his arms failed to hit Rogan. He shook his head like a dog clearing water. Pleased with himself, Rogan reached and grabbed up the hilt of his sword.
With a step, Meeble bridged the gap between them and they both stood by the wall. Meeble’s left foot slapped on the flat of the sword tip, and his right hand covered Rogan’s on the pommel. With a fast move, Meeble yanked and the great broadsword snapped in half. Rogan let it go and squatted fast, exiting between Meeble’s legs. Before he could even get clear, Meeble turned and slapped him between his shoulder blades, sending him staggering and impacting on another of the tall glass tubes. Rogan hugged the tube, this one containing a seaweed thing. He sucked air, trying to get his wind back and quickly peeled himself free of the tube, knowing Meeble stalked him close.
Meeble swatted with both arms, smashing the glass tube asunder and Rogan moved about him, swinging a fist, punching Meeble where his kidneys should be. As the great glass beaker broke open and splashed all over Meeble, Rogan avoided the back swing of the
creature’s arm, and grabbed into the oncoming muck. He pulled whatever spewed in the tube out faster, slamming it into Meeble, who back pedaled, somewhat confused by the rush of fluid and the seaweed thing inside. Rogan grabbed a hold of Meeble’s elbow and swung himself up, kicking the being in the face hard as he backed up. Rogan let go and fell into the debris, hands and boots up like a crab, watching Meeble stumble and then near to fall over the other tube. Meeble stood over the tube, both hands on it, shaking his face free.
Hardly a moment lapsed as Rogan grabbed up a hunk of the broken glass like material and ran at Meeble. Though Meeble moved, Rogan’s swipe found a home, stabbing the jagged edges of the glass into the creature’s buttocks. Meeble roared and something darker than blood sprang out in the white fur.
Rogan moved about the prone tube, grinning, so glad to see Meeble bleed. He took the hunk and crashed it down, breaking open the tube between them. He grabbed the spear at the side of the man in the tube and the figure in the beaker held onto it. A moment of terror grabbed Rogan, afraid this person would arise from sleep and fight him, too. However, it was a reflex and the grip of the soldier from another time dropped.
The moment was all Meeble needed to turn, grab a handful of Rogan’s hair and swat him in the belly. Though he tensed up his guts, the shot hurt terribly. Rogan couldn’t count the punches to his stomach he’d taken, but few as strong as that. As a youth, he prided his gut as a cast iron place almost invulnerable. Still, this strike nearly made him puke on Meeble.
He dropped the spear, still dangling from the grip of the monster, and flailed as Meeble struck him again, same spot. Again, Rogan took the shot, but the hurt made him ache all over.
“Strong man,” Meeble grunted, dropping the barbarian as he reared back and aimed at Rogan’s face. Rogan rolled away, pushing off with his boots on Meeble’s chest, but the fist still connected with his jaw. In the air again, Rogan’s eyes lit with a million stars and his head filled with craziness, confusing images of slaughtered people and burning villages in realms made of steel and glass. All of that went away as he impacted on the floor. For a moment, all went black, but his mind resisted and he turned, again hearing the voice of Meeble. “Hard man.”