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

gleaned
from the kill ran tough and gamy. Gulls darted over their heads, begging for
scraps. Rogan growled at them, and the shrieking scavengers fled into the
night.
    As they ate, Javan eyed the skeleton of the bireme in the
distance.
    “I was correct, sire. The ship is deeper in the sand now and will
not be sucked out to sea.”
    “If we ever see Albion again,” Rogan said around a mouthful of
half-cooked bear flesh, “I shall have Rohain give you a medal. After we’ve
defeated my bastard son’s plot against him, of course.”
    “We will get back, sire. Some way, some how, we will.”
    Rogan shrugged, sucking the marrow from a bone. “Perhaps my
destiny is to die here.”
    “Banish such thoughts, sire!”
    The fire popped, sending a brief shower of burning embers into
the night sky.
    “If it is my time to die, you get to watch. Your father would say
it is a grand joke of fate, eh?”
    Javan tilted his head to one side. “My father would never give in
to fate.”
    Rogan nodded, thinking on old Thyssen and their adventures as
revolutionaries. His smile was faint. Old ghosts danced in the flickering
firelight. The night of a thousand knives. The whore with three breasts and the
secret she’d told in the dark.
    “True. You are young. You have space in your gut for fighting
fate. My belly has wrestled that demon-whore for eons. She is a tireless bitch
and I grow weary of her.”
    “I am not ready to die.”
    “No man ever is,” Rogan replied. “Yes, you can cheat death, but
you can never be ready for it. Think of Wagnar and Harkon. Or Captain
Huxira—old as he was, I dare say he was not ready to die. When death comes, it
comes. All that you can do is to meet it.”
    The fire crackled again. A second later, a twig snapped in
response. Both men were instantly on their feet. The hair on Javan’s arms stood
up. Rogan tensed, alert and ready for whatever new danger lay in store.
    Javan pointed to the bushes, suddenly alive with creeping
shadows.
    “Uncle—look!”
    The shadows detached themselves from the bushes, and a group of
humans stepped forward, just outside the circle of light. They were slender,
clad in tan loincloths and deerskin cloaks. The strangers carried wooden staffs
with tied stone spearheads, and several sported bows of a style that neither
Rogan nor Javan had ever seen before. The flames flickered off their dense,
ruddy complexions and red-tinged skin. Their obsidian hair shone in the
moonlight as if their flat manes were slick and wet.
    “Javan,” Rogan ordered, “your bow.”
    But the weapon was already in the boy’s hands.
    Silently, the group stepped into the dying firelight. A few of
the natives bore odd deformities; elongated heads, misshapen ears, one limb
longer than another, even bizarre double noses. None made a move to attack.
They seemed docile and curious. None of them spoke.
    Another figure emerged, dressed in the skins of a gray wolf, the
snout and muzzle still intact over his wrinkled forehead. The wolf-man’s eyes
glistened in the darkness, and Rogan surmised that his difference in dress made
him a leader of some sort.
    The odd individual held out his arms, showing the two strangers
what he held: The gray, ropy intestines of the dead bear. Flies buzzed around
them.
    Javan’s nose wrinkled in disgust at the slaughterhouse stench
wafting off the guts. Slowly, he raised his bow, counting their numbers and
wondering about the strength and reach of their spears.
    Rogan drew his broadsword, gripping the handle so tightly that
his sunburned knuckles turned white.
    “Javan?”
    “Yes, sire?”
    “Speak to me again of fate, when we are done here.”
    The moon rose higher, bathing them in its cold light. Another log
popped on the fire, sending more embers spiraling into the air. Nobody moved.
Somewhere in the darkness, a whippoorwill cried out.
    When he was a child, Javan’s nursemaid had told him that when one
heard the song of a whippoorwill, it meant that someone was about to