King of the Bastards by Brian Keene, Steven L. Shrewsbury Read Free Book Online

bright Albion fall so? It
isn’t as if they could sneak up with legions of troops.” Eyes closed, he saw
the dream images of the black teamsters by the grand palace in Albion and his
joints ached anew.
    Javan took up a bow and a single arrow. “But sire, even if we
turned the bireme back over we could hardly sail back to the port of Argos in
her. She barely floats, after the assault from both the creature and the
corsairs. Such open seas would swamp us. It is a gift from above that we
survived the night swells.”
    Rogan again gazed to the sky. “That’s why we hugged the continent
and rode it out slow to land. Woe as I am to admit it, our foes found us, half
a world away, with the power of Damballah. There’s no other explanation.”
    Javan stooped, smelling a patch of flowers blooming from a dune.
“The bird-thing was an eye in the sky for a wizard?”
    “Perhaps.”
    “You certainly have no love for magic.”
    “Stupid men allow their fears to be made large by wizards, Javan.
Consider our companions from Olmek-Tikal. They took beating hearts out of
living men for their gods.”
    “Until we stopped them,” Javan said, “and taught them another
way.”
    “I think all wizards tend to cavort with minions in darkness
because no woman will have them.”
    Javan laughed at the jest. “That doesn’t make them any less
powerful.”
    “True. But they bleed just like any other man. I wonder about
that bird we saw. It was unnatural—but not an illusion or some parlor trick. It
looked like the stone idols of Damballah I saw as a younger man. And Karza said
it served them.”
    Javan cleared his throat, inspecting the leaves of a squat bush.
A swarm of angry gnats arose from the branches and pestered him. His uncle’s
words weighed heavily on him. Would they be forgotten, abandoned here on this
forsaken beach?
    “I hope the Olmek-Tikalize sailors come after us. If they do not…”
    He choked down the words, not wanting his voice to betray the
fear he felt inside.
    “Welcome home, Javan,” Rogan swept his hand toward the forest. “I
bet that when Thyssen sent you along for maturing, he never dreamed that you’d
be shipwrecked with his old king, eh?”
    Javan shrugged and drew the string of his bow back. With one
shot, he struck a swooping ivory-colored seagull. Squawking, it flopped in the
water, and the young man ran into the surf to retrieve his prize, carefully avoiding
the body parts of their fellow sailors that were beginning to wash ashore.
    “At least you aren’t skittish,” Rogan hollered. “That surf is now
thick with pieces of our foes or friends. Look how the sand is littered with
their limbs, in just the brief time we’ve been ashore. We can’t stay here the
night, this will soon smell worse than ass.”
    Emerging from the water, Javan said, “Sire, I think you
complimented me.”
    Rogan smiled. “Engrave it in stone, boy. It may be my only
testament in such a manner to you.”
    A sudden gust of wind blasted off the ocean. Beyond the trees,
they heard a deep growl. It didn’t sound human. It did sound hungry. Exchanging
glances, both men took to the bushes and hid, waiting.
    Out of the trees lumbered a gigantic black bear. As the sea gave
up the fruits of their awful triumph over the corsairs, the grisly bits of
humanity along the shoreline tempted the animal. It sniffed the air and slowly
padded onto the beach, devouring morsels here and there.
    “What a beast,” Rogan whispered. Javan had to strain to hear him.
“This animal may be just what we need.”
    “What say you, sire?”
    “Look to that mountain range. Such conditions remind me of the
peaks south of Turana, not just Corithina. I would guess the temperature drops
here at night and in the higher elevations.”
    “That is logical.”
    “Of course, it’s damned logical. That bear’s coat is thicker than
the current late summer season in Albion. Perhaps we are farther north than we
thought. He grows it not for a coming winter, but