The tone of Charon’s many-octave voice, for there was no other way to describe it, struck VU with a streak of doubt, ‘He is screaming in a dozen languages at once. How can we defeat these scorpion things and gain our freedom when they have minds so agile?’
The great peeling organ pipes in its neck rang out as the mouth of the thing, presenting a mouth lined with block-like ivory grinding teeth—not the fangs one would expect—channeled some engine within to expel words so loud and clear it transfixed the hearer to a quiver:
“Behold, Our King, Chief of the Gods, Pankhronater!”
Charon held his scepter low and extended his left hand lovingly high to the terrible figure that reclined below the sunset notches. This thing, this king, rose on its four feet, its purple wings flaring out making him as big as a fighter jet turned on its nose.
The Mob was silent.
The various tiers of officials, knights, pinks, grays and pure humans stood gravely at attention.
‘That dam thing is much larger than this one, must be 20 feet tall. Stop worrying about these monsters. We have to beat the Red Team to survive.’
All of the Scorpion Lords flapped their wings, sounding like a scratched chalkboard powered by a nuclear reactor. This ear-ringing sound stopped on a single beat.
Charon’s hand then rose to the twin suns and his scepter tracked along the Red Line, branding the heroes behind that crimson chalk in their turn.
“Behold the Heroes of The Red Gate, Litigants of the Lords of Antares: Champions of the Gods of Scorpio!”
The mob, now awakened, booed low and bitterly with a hissing undercurrent.
A tall, broad, heavily bearded viking, “Harald Hadratta, commander of the Varangian Guard, paramour of the Byzantine Queen, King of Norway, victor of a hundred battles, gathered at the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.”
The viking king merely scanned their line, seeking a victim like a wolf eyeing a pack of sheep.
There was silence except for the quip of Black Beard, “I shall cut ‘is throat, lads.”
The largest man of the red line was nearly seven feet tall and perhaps 350 pounds, a Japanese samurai by his hair, “Saito Musashibo Benkei, gathered in 1189, Japanese Warrior Monk, servant of the Minamoto Clan, died defending the castle bridge for his lord, invincible army of one. For the Red Gate!”
The tier of Asians stood, bowed and sat in silence. The hero glared down at the blue line with the eyes of an angry bear.
“Fawkin ‘ell, Mate,” groused the big Brit hillbilly under his mustache.
Next was a man whose eyes blazed at a level of fury greater than any, a man with high head and trimmed chin beard and mustache, just under 6 feet and about 180 pounds and fit in a hard way, “Killer of 35 men with his own hand, Victor in thirty battles, The General, That Devil, The Wizard of the Saddle, Nathan Bedford Forest.”
That man took offense to the brand on his forehead and steamed silently as the Nordics stood in awed salute.
The ‘for the Red Gate’ declaration had stopped.
‘This Charon is thinking on his feet and dropping ritual protocol. This fiend is working something out. If we get them to overthink…’
A man as tall as the viking, about 6’ 4”, and 220 pounds, muscled like a sprinter with a freckled tan, long thick red hair and bitter green eyes, a beard thick like clotted blood coming to a point before his lantern jaw,
“Swiftest of Men, Rank Breaker, Shield Splitter, Courser of Broken Foes, Achilles!”
The man stepped forward, looked at the still standing form of Pankhronater high above, spat in the sand, which hungrily gobbled the liquid, and stepped back.
All was silence.
Another Japanese samurai, a good six feet and barrel- chested, “Greatest duelist of Earth, victor in sixty death matches, master of twin swords, author of The Book of Five Spheres, Miamoto Musashi.”
‘We are so fucked—every one of these men in their prime, and half of hours old.’
Something deep within rejected his own assessment, ‘No, no! We can do it!!’
Silence reigned as Musashi bowed to Burton with a sublime respect, a bow that was returned with a fantastical flourish, hand rolling down from head as one foot slid out to catch the tumbling hand of respect above the knee.
A rather normal looking military man with the healed bullet hole in his head, who smiled silently as if to himself, “Soldier, Officer, Night Fighter, Trench Fighter, Storm Trooper of The Great War, survivor of that Storm of Steel, Ernst Junger.”
The man was carefree and at ease, the line of Red Heroes looking at him in wonder with turned heads.
A thick built linebacker with black curly hair, a beaked nose that had been broken cross ways, shoulders scared with deep raking downward cuts, “Out of grim, hallowed Antiquity, Blaze the Net Chaser, Gladiator of Rome, Flamma Secutor, crowd favorite of the Great Ludis.”
That man stepped forward and took to one knee, bowing to the Scorpion King high above as the mob booed and hissed.
A man of six feet and 200 pounds, with a smashed in pug nose, big jaw and missing eye brow, “Atlas of the Sword, Master of Defense, First Heavyweight Boxing Champion, James Figg.”
Some hands were clapping among the mob as Black Beard snarled, “Ye owes me a swig, lubber—sold me a right pregnant maid, ye, did!”
This threat was rebroadcast through Charon’s organ pipes blaring from his neck. Black Beard became the Mob favorite then and there. Not to be outdone, Burton stepped to the left and raised the big pirate’s right hand high in his left.
To this Figg grinned across at his natural antagonist.
Burton returned and whispered, “Our youngest big man and handy with sword.”
That too was rebroadcast, marking this as a pro wrestling event or MMA weigh-in, calculated to entrance the mob.
A blond man of six and half feet in late prime and about 230 pounds standing in an arrogant slouch, “Frontier duelist, Mexican rebel, American hero, James ‘Heart String’ Bowie!”
Burton counseled, as some of the mob jeered at Bowie, “Our man Thompson is giving over thirty years.”
Charon pointed his scepter at a small, well, normal size human, dwarfed by the giants of the Red Line, “Trainer for the Red Gate, Chinese Folk Hero, Drunken Master, Hun Gar Master, Chief Medical Officer and Martial Arts Instructor to the Black Flag Army, Wong Fei Hung.”
The Asian tier stood in reverent silence.
“Drink some oh’ dis!” yelled some mop-headed mongrel prole from the mob, standing on the concrete wall and pissing into the arena.
Charon’s scepter pointed and flashed. The pissing prole was outlined in blue fire for an instant. His head then shot high into the sky as his body exploded, covering a hundred of his fellows in a pink mist. The Prince of Morning, another extra large Scorpion warrior, then stood, bending a great brassy bow, and loosed an arrow, an arrow that streaked blackly across the sky, its dark flight observed by all with raised faces, to transfix the offending head where it arced over the sands. That head tumbled like a stone on a feathered stick downward, to thud before Burton and VU, looking up at them as if in accusation, the hungry sand tugging gently at its hair and drinking the blood with a sterile thirst.
Burton then saluted the Prince of Morning and aimlessly rolled the head away with his foot with sage words, “The Lower Orders do provide the boon of entertainment by way of their own well-earned demise.”
Perhaps the smallest man here, other than VU’s own gutter gnome, looking like a teacup hero in that awesome lineup, “Baddest Man on a Storybook Planet, Bruce Lee, chosen by The Lords of Scorpio, Overlords of Antares, as assistant trainer.
The scepter was then pointed at Carl Cestari, who was looking respectably fit in his prime, easily a match for VU’s two attribute-wanting assistants, and was not even named, simply branded, accompanied by the dismissive words, “Second Assistant Trainer—Red Gate.”
There was silence as Charon spread his wings and pointed his scepter at Achilles, burning a brand on his chest through the red tunic, “Red Gate Captain—Achilles, Prince of the Myrmidons!”
The tier of red-headed Aesir above roared and stamped their feet.
Charon then turned to the Blues and whistled, in a comic affectation that was terrible in its insect-like hollowness, “The Blue Gate Team, representing the Mob Faction, must choose a captain by duel, with the sword. The litigants shall be the two men whose soaring hubris affronts even the gods and confronts their own faction’s good will: “Hernan De Soto, Captain General of La Florida, against Sir Richard Francis Burton, Captain of The Rotten Heads in Crimea!”
The Mob went nuts, then settled into a chant, that let VU know that these half million scumbags, slackers, grunts and crooks did not care about them at all, but simply wanted to see them fall:
“Bonus butcher!
Butcher’s block!
Squabbling fookers!
Doomed Captain’s dock!”
VU shouldered Burton, “Sir, with all respect, we need every man—get the disarm. I’m confident you can.”
‘If the Conquistador kills him our team captain won’t speak our majority language.’
Burton spoke calmly as he and Soto eye-fucked one another from down the Blue Line, “Agreed, Sage-at-Arms, agreed.”
