The Forever Man: Betrayal Read online

  Wherever Tad went, men followed. Desperate to fight alongside the Little Big Man. Eager to show him their commitment, their dedication and their bravery. But also they wanted to protect him. Because, as much as he was their leader, he was also their talisman.

  A particularly large Roach made the top of the wall and cut down three defenders, creating a space for the next Annihilator to clamber up after him. Tad rushed to attack, knowing that, if they got another two or three warriors onto the wall, the humans would be hard pressed to clear them off.

  He jabbed his axe at the large Roach and then feinted left, dropped and rolled, springing up next to him and swinging hard, his blade slicing through the enemy’s exoskeleton and severing his leg. Then he raised himself up onto one knee and swung again, bringing the axe down like he was chopping wood. The Roach’s head leapt from his shoulders and bounced from the wall, hitting the ground below with a thud.

  The Little Big Man wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, took a deep breath and then bent down to retrieve his shield. As he did so, something struck him a glancing blow on the back of his head, knocking him to the floor. If he had not been leaning forward the blow would have hit him in the neck and his head would have joined the Roach’s on the ground below.

  As it was, he was in bad shape, his vision faded and he struggled to get to his feet and turn to face the new threat. The Roach whipped one of its bladed arms down at him and Tad brought his shield up. But he knew that he was too late. His muscles were like jelly and his movements slow and uncoordinated. He braced for the strike.

  It never came. Bobby jumped in front of the Roach, swinging his billhook as he did so, shouting his defiance. The Annihilator brushed aside the teenager’s attack with contemptuous ease, grabbing his billhook with one of his appendages and then striking down with another. The blow struck Bobby above his right elbow, severing his arm with one clean cut. The Roach followed up with another strike, slashing deep into Bobby’s torso, ripping through his leather armor and slicing through muscle and ribs.

  Bobby grunted and fell to his knees, desperately clutching at his wound as he did so.

  Behind the Roach, more Annihilators made the top of the ladder and clambered onto the wall, forming a fighting wedge.

  Tad screamed his anguish and attacked, spinning like a Dervish as he did so, his axe a blur of bloodied steel. The Roaches slashed and cut back at him but he moved too fast, his body powered by wrath and a need for vengeance.

  His frenzied attack galvanized the human defenders and with a mighty effort, they cleared the rest of the ladders from the wall and the archers drove the waves of Annihilators back.

  Tad rushed over to Bobby, knelt next to him and took his head in his hands.

  ‘Hey, Little Big Man,’ Bobby whispered.

  ‘Hey, Bobby.’

  ‘I’m hurt bad,’ said the teenager.

  ‘Not so bad,’ lied Tad. ‘Just rest. We’ll get Gogo to take a look at you. Sort you out. Have you back on the wall in no time at all.’

  Bobby smiled. ‘I think that you’re right. I can’t feel any pain. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ He asked.

  ‘Yeah. That’s a good thing.’

  ‘I must have been knocked out for some time,’ murmured Bobby.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Asked Tad.

  ‘Been out for a while,’ continued Bobby. ‘It must be the middle of the night. Can’t even see anything.’

  A tear slid down Tad’s cheek, but he kept his voice strong. Confident. ‘Yeah. It’s dark, Bobby. Don’t worry about it. Rest.’

  Bobby took a deep shuddering breath and then his body went limp.

  Tad held him for a while more and then lay his head gently down, stood up and readied the men for the next attack.

  Chapter 4

  The Forever Man, Marine master sergeant Nathaniel Hogan, King of the Free State, leader of the Picts and Protector of Humanity, turned to Orc sergeant Kob and spoke.

  ‘I miss ice cream,’ he said. ‘Chocolate chip.’

  Kob stared at The Forever Man for a while before he answered. As per usual, the Orc understood most of the individual words that Nathaniel had uttered, but he had no idea what The Forever Man was actually talking about.

  Finally he said something. ‘What is ice cream?’

  ‘It’s basically frozen cream.’

  Kob nodded. ‘I have seen cream freeze. In the winter. What is chocolate?’

  Nathaniel thought for a bit. ‘Not sure,’ he admitted. ‘It’s sweet. Lots of sugar. And coco beans. I think.’

  ‘What is a coco bean?’

  Nathaniel shrugged. ‘It’s brown.’

  ‘I see,’ said Kob. ‘Brown, frozen cream. Sounds delicious...anything else that you miss?’

  ‘Whatever,’ said the marine. ‘I suppose that you had to be there at the time.’ He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and gazed across the valley. ‘They’re walking right into the trap,’ he said. ‘Is everyone ready?’ Enquired Nathaniel, referring to the mix of Orcs and goblins and humans that made up the allied squad. ‘Another ten minutes and we can spring our surprise.’

  Kob grunted his approval and then whispered a command to the Orc next to him. The Orc crept off to spread the word amongst the rest of the allied warriors that lined the narrow valley, waiting in ambush as they had been for over eight hours now.

  Nathaniel had left Tad, Roo and Papa Dante in charge of the wall, trusting them to repel any Annihilator attacks.

  While they did that he had put together a commando group that worked behind enemy lines. A group of one hundred elite troops. A mixture of humans, Orcs and goblins. He had not included Vandals as, even though he would have loved some air support, any flying would certainly give away their position and stealth was their primary goal.

  They struck hard and they struck fast. Cutting enemy supply lines, wiping out patrols and laying false tracks to feed the Roaches bogus information. They were a constant thorn in the enemy’s side.

  Eight hours previously, as the sun rose, twenty of Nathaniel’s commandos had fired at a column of Roaches, causing several casualties. Then they had run, leaving a faint but discernable track.

  The enemy had pursued them but the commandos had avoided capture whilst still remaining in enemy range for most of the day. Now, a few hours before sunset, they were leading the group of six hundred Annihilators into a well laid ambush.

  The commando group consisted of fifty goblin archers, thirty Orcs and twenty humans. Twenty of the goblins had been used to bait the trap. The other thirty lined the narrow valley in defilade, concealed behind rocks and fallen trees.

  The Orcs had been placed at a pinch point in the valley, dug in and covered with brush and heather, invisible even from as close as ten yards. Then Nathaniel had placed the humans in the forest close to the side of the ambush, ready to run down and cut off any escape once the trap had been sprung, encircling the Roaches completely.

  It was a solid plan. A good plan.

  It was also a very dangerous plan because, even after the goblin archers had thinned out the Roach ranks, the commandos would be outnumbered at least seven or eight to one.

  But then, none of the enemy was - The Forever Man.

  The retreating goblins passed the entrance to the ambush and immediately split into two groups, scuttling under cover to join their comrades.

  As they reached them, Nathaniel conjured up a fireball and launched it straight up into the air like a flare.

  That was the signal to spring the trap.

  As one the goblins opened up, firing fast and with deadly accuracy.

  Nathaniel did not like the goblins. He found them to be obtuse, surly and untrustworthy. But he had no trouble admitting that they were superb bowmen. Their over-long arms and massively developed shoulders ensured that they could easily draw their six foot longbows and fire up to ten arrows a minute. The bows were rated at over one hundred and fifty pounds pull-weight and the arrow, when fired, was capable of
penetrating even the thickest armor.

  Thirty Roaches went down under the arrow storm before they had even realized that they were under attack.

  Nathaniel waited until the Annihilators recovered from the initial shock and started to reform, closing their ranks as they prepared to charge up the hill at the archers. Then he raised his axe in the air and brought it chopping down. That was the signal for the Orcs to break out from their concealment and charge the enemy.

  Shouting their traditional war cry as they ran, the Orcs broke cover and sprinted at the Roaches, broadswords raised as they did so.

  ‘Kamateh,’ they shouted. ‘Kamateh! Kill, kill them all.’

  The fighting wedge of the Orcs crashed into the ranks of Roaches, slashing and cutting as they did so. The Annihilators reeled under the onslaught as they struggled to fight on three sides.

  Then Nathaniel threw another fireball into the sky.

  The humans ran out from the cover and charged, smashing into the unsuspecting rear of the Roach formation.

  The marine drew in a little power and used it to enhance his voice, speaking directly to the goblin archers.

  ‘Advance,’ he said. ‘Get in close. Don’t let them rally.’

  The goblins walked slowly down the hill on each side of the melee, firing arrows as they did.

  Nathaniel and Kob watched the battle closely as it progressed. It was going well. The Roaches had been taken completely by surprise and were reeling under the unsuspected onslaught.

  However, they were a well disciplined, battle hardened group and it was only a matter of time before they started to rally and then their superior numbers would start to tell.

  The Forever Man waited another full minute before he turned to Kob with a grin.

  ‘Right, my friend,’ he said. ‘It’s time that you and I entered the fray. Let’s finish this.’

  Kob nodded. Unlike Nathaniel, he did not smile. It takes twelve different sets of muscles to smile and the Orcs were possessed of none of them. But he did bare his fangs in a facsimile of the expression and that was good enough for Nathaniel.

  The marine slapped the Orc on the shoulder.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Kamateh!’ Yelled Kob.

  The two warriors sprinted down the hill and joined the battle.

  Kob fought using a buckler and a broadsword. The small shield was perfect for both protection and attack and the Orc would wield it like a weapon, smashing into his opponents, pushing them off balance and then dispatching them with his massive sword. It was a combat style that combined controlled aggression with power and weight, as opposed to speed and dexterity.

  Nathaniel was a different story. He fought in a fashion that was completely unique. He paid no attention whatsoever to defense. All about attack, he relied solely on his superhuman, gamma ray enhanced speed. His double bladed axe spun and flickered through the air at speed so fast as to defy the eye. Like death on gossamer wings, it danced a graceful ballet. Dipping and rising and slashing and cutting. A silver crescent of light that brought a violent end to all that it came in contact with.

  Such was the effect of these two great warriors it was as if another whole battalion had suddenly entered the fray. The Annihilators screeched and spat as they were driven back by the great Orc and the axe wielding Forever Man. And though the Roach discipline was as strong as steel, even steel has its breaking point. Chains can be pulled apart, sword blades shattered and plate armor riven in twain. It is simply a matter of how much pressure is applied.

  The goblins were now less than fifty yards away and were firing point blank into the massed Roaches. The Orcs were smashing deep into the enemy’s ranks, compacting them together as they surged forward.

  Kob and Nathaniel’s charge was the final weight that tilted the axis of the battle.

  The Annihilators turned and ran. Only to come up against the human warriors who had formed a shield wall. Large wood and steel shields interlocked tight as they charged forward to check the Roach retreat dead in its tracks.

  The rest of the battle was a simple exercise in extermination.

  Blood flowed like water and the shrill shrieks of dying Roaches filled the air.

  By the time the sun went down, not one living Annihilator was left on the field. Nathaniel had seen a few escape, slipping away in the heat of the battle, but he wasn’t that worried. He would let them go as it wasn’t worth the risk involved to track them down.

  Happy with the day’s work, he instructed his warriors to look to their wounded prior to heading for home.

  Chapter 5

  Akimiri Hijit, the undisputed Hatomoto, or Supreme Warrior of the Annihilators, stood on his ceremonial plinth, flanked by his three Busho, high warriors and the chief Yari. In front of him a rank of seven Chugan, standard warriors, lay prostrate on the ground, their faces pressed into the dirt.

  The seven Chugan had arrived mere moments earlier. They were the only survivors of an ambush that had taken place the day before. They had escaped from the clutches of the enemy and had run back to base camp in order to tell the Hatomoto the news.

  They told the story with no embellishment or falsities, neither exaggerating nor playing down what had happened.

  Supreme Commander Hijit ensured that he had complete control of his feelings before he reacted to the Chugan’s story. To show a surfeit of emotion would be unacceptable and would result in serious loss of face.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You are telling me that a mere handful of the enemy managed to defeat an entire Grist of eight hundred warriors?’

  ‘I affirm,’ answered one of the prostrate Chugan.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Their tactics were masterful,’ continued the Chugan. ‘As well as this, they were led by the Lightning Warrior.’

  Hijit took a deep breath. Now it made more sense. The Lightning Warrior, or Forever Man as he was also called, was a warrior of note. Many reports had come back to the commander about the Lightning Warrior’s prowess in battle and it was quite possible that this single man could turn the outcome of a battle. He knew because it was something that he had done many times over.

  ‘Is there anything else that you need to tell me?’

  ‘Yes, supreme commander,’ barked the Chugan. ‘At the Lightning Warrior’s side was the Outstanding One. With the two of them fighting together we were unable to prevail.’

  The Outstanding one. The Orc that was unlike an Orc. The one who stood out from all of the other almost identical ones. Bigger, faster, better. Oh how the supreme commander wanted to meet either of these warriors in single combat. The honor would be immense. The pleasure in beating them, incomparable. In fact, even a loss against such outstanding warriors would be honorable.

  ‘Supreme commander,’ continued the Chugan. ‘May we ask a boon of you?’

  ‘Speak,’ commanded Hijit.

  ‘We have dishonored ourselves by leaving the field of battle,’ said the Chugan. ‘But we felt that you might need the information that we had, regarding the Lightning Warrior and the Outstanding One. However, we now beg your permission to commit ourselves to the blade. Please allow us the rite of Johgaki.’

  Hijit nodded. ‘Let it be so,’ he said as he beckoned to one of his Busho. ‘Ikara, do the honors.’

  The Busho high warrior called Ikara approached the prostrate Chugans and commanded them to raise themselves to their knees. Once the Chugans were all kneeling, Ikara walked to the side of the parade area and scouted about for a while. Eventually he found a patch of small white Daisies. He carefully cut seven of them and then lay one in front of each of the Chugan warriors.

  The flowers represented innocence, virtue and blamelessness. As opposed to guilt.

  He stood above the first Chugan.

  ‘Reach for the flower,’ he instructed. ‘And there you will find your purity.’

  ‘In purity I shall be reborn,’ said the Chugan as he lent forward to touch the flower.

  As his hand touched the bloom Ikara broug
ht his bladed forearm down, severing the Chugan’s head from his torso. The rite of Johgaki had been successful and the Chugan’s spirit was free to enter the realm of his ancestors without shame.

  Ikara took a step forward and instructed the next Chugan to reach for the flower.

  The rite took place seven times and then the bodies were taken away for ritual burning.

  ‘We need to talk,’ said Hijiti when the bodies had been cleared away.

  The Bushos and the chief Yari gathered around the supreme commander and waited for him to speak.

  ‘These humans are proving more difficult to overcome that I first thought,’ he said. ‘When we first came across them I thought them to be weak and undisciplined. We destroyed their villages and their people at will and whim with little opportunity to do proper battle.

  However, it appears that they do have a warrior class after all. This is good as I feared that we would have no chance to gain honor through combat. Now, however, I start to fear the opposite. We have yet to have one decisive victory against the human warrior classes. All that we have achieved thus far is the subjugation of their farmers and peasant classes. They have defeated us at the wall and their strikes against our camps and patrols have resulted in numerous losses for us.

  Although it is true that honor is found in battle, it is hard to find honor in constant loss. I give my permission for you to speak. Why are we not winning?’

  ‘With all respect, supreme commander,’ voiced Ikara. ‘We are not losing.’

  ‘Granted,’ admitted Hijiti. ‘But the lack of losing does not equate to winning.’

  ‘We are having more success against the gray people and their Orcs and goblins,’ said the chief Yari. ‘In fact we have won two or three major battles against them.’

  ‘No we have not,’ countered Hijiti. ‘We have simply caused them to retreat, and they have done so in good order and without major loss of life. Actually, it seems to me as if the gray people are avoiding any major confrontation even though there are a substantial number of them. I would say that they outnumber the humans by a factor of five or six to one.’