“Sir, are you there?” Sergeant Boynton asked nervously.
The King did not reply.
“Oh, shit,” Sergeant Boynton muttered, glancing at the door. “This stinks.”
“Where is the Dark Lord?” Rikki inquired.
“I am here!” thundered a raspy, low voice. “Behold!”
A pair of fiery red eyes materialized abruptly 20 feet above the floor and ten yards from the Warrior and the Hound.
“Do you see me now?”
“Yes!” Sergeant Boynton exclaimed in undisguised dread. “We see you. Mighty One.”
“Down on your knees, humans!” the Dark Lord bellowed, and the air near the eyes crackled and sparked with vivid flashes of miniature lightning. Huge radiant spheres containing arcing purple and blue rays appeared on both sides of the eyes, with each glowing sphere 30 feet from those blazing orbs.
Sergeant Boynton threw himself on his knees, the HK-33 on the floor next to his bowed forehead. “I hear and obey, Dark Lord!”
Rikki smelled an acrid odor, the aroma of something burning. He tried to determine if the red eyes were gazing at Boynton or him, but the orbs, lacking pupils and never contracting or widening, gave the impression of being fixed on nothing and everything. He could hear a loud humming.
“Both of you—kneel!” the Dark Lord directed.
Sergeant Boynton looked up. “Kneel, you asshole,” he hissed. “On your knees.”
“I kneel to no one,” Rikki declared.
“You will kneel to me,” the Dark Lord stated.
“Never.”
“Resistance is futile. I could slay you where you stand,” the Dark Lord observed. There was a metallic quality to his voice, and the words were clipped and precise.
“I will not kneel,” Rikki vowed.
“Kneel, damn you, before he kills both of us,” Sergeant Boynton snapped.
“Never,” Rikki reiterated.
“That’s what you think,” Sergeant Boynton responded angrily, and before his intent could be gauged, he swept his right leg into the back of the Warrior’s knees.
Taken unawares, Rikki buckled and fell backwards. He felt the noncom grab him and attempt to wrestle him into a kneeling posture, and he lashed out with his left elbow and caught Boynton on the chin.
The sergeant, on his knees but off balance, grunted as he was struck and swayed to the left.
Rikki followed through with another elbow jab to Boynton’s chest, gouging the tip of his elbow into the Hound’s ribs. He cupped his hands and delivered a powerful blow to the noncom’s right cheek, and Boynton went down.
“Cease and desist!”
Sergeant Boynton, about to scramble to his knees, froze.
Rikki was on his left side. He rose slowly to his full height and stood, waiting.
“Why do you fight?” the Dark Lord demanded.
“I wanted him to kneel for you, mighty one,” Sergeant Boynton answered.
“You wanted!’”
“Yes, Dark Lord. I wanted to help you.”
The response was blistering. “And who are you, puny human? Did I request your aid? Do I need you to compel someone to kneel?”
“No, Dark Lord—”
“I am the Dark Lord. I am power personified. I am what I am, and there are none like me.”
“I know, Dark Lord—”
“No one can escape my wrath. Like a specter in the night, I seek out my enemies and make an end of them. My word is law, and my will is my blade of retribution.”
Sergeant Boynton was trembling.
“Except for Aloysius the First, none are my equal.”
Rikki could discern the vague outline of a large, bulky object or objects ten feet below the orbs. What were they?
“Do you doubt me?”
“No, magnificent one!” Sergeant Boynton cried.
“And what about you, swordmaster?”
The word caused Rikki to do a double take, and he stared at the fiery eyes in open-mouthed wonder.
“What about you?” the Dark Lord repeated.
“What about me?”
“Do you believe in my power?”
“True power stems from the Spirit. Where does your power stem from?”
“Observe and learn.”
A raucous cacophony of sound blasted from the Dark Lord, a strident mixture of wailing, screeching tones, some individual notes attaining a crescendo of piercing intensity while others were plummeting to the depths of the auditory scale. The result was a deranged orchestration of deafening volume.
Rikki inadvertently flinched, and he saw Sergeant Boynton cringing on the floor. His ears were ringing terribly. The intensity of the noise was painful to endure, and he wished his hands were free so he could protect his eardrums. The torment grew and grew, making his head pound in anguish. Just when the bizarre concert attained its most torturous level, two surprises occurred simultaneously.
The noise unaccountably ceased.
And the Dark Lord’s chamber went totally dark.
A ringing engulfed Rikki’s ears, the only sound in his universe. He looked for Sergeant Boynton, but the noncom was indistinguishable in the dark chamber. The next moment a hand clutched at his left ankle, catching on the fabric of his baggy pants, tugging fiercely. He started to resist, and as quickly as the tugging began, it stopped, the hand slipping from his clothing. “Boynton?” he said, startled by the faint, muffled quality to his voice.
The Hound did not reply.
“Boynton?”
“Sergeant Boynton is no longer with us,” declared a familiar tenor to his rear.
Rikki turned as the red door was opened, and the influx of bright light made him squint and blink.
Aloysius the First was framed in the doorway. “The Dark Lord elected to give you a demonstration of his power,” he said, nodding to the left.
His abdomen tightening in expectation, Rikki glanced down at the floor near his feet.
Sergeant Boynton’s face was a grisly death mask, his features contorted, his tongue protruding from his mouth, his eyes wide and gaping, his cheeks distended.
Aloysius the First smiled at the Warrior. “Don’t worry, little man. Your hearing will return to normal shortly.”
Rikki stared at the dead Hound. There wasn’t a wound in sight. “This was unnecessary,” he commented.
“To the contrary, swordmaster,” the King responded. “This was essential to your education, to your mature appreciation of your situation.
You’ve been granted a temporary reprieve. You have one hour to change your mind, to agree to tell me everything you know about the Leather Knights and their setup in St. Louis. If you still refuse at the end of the allotted hour…” He paused, smirked, and pointed at the corpse. “Guess who is next?”
Chapter Thirteen
Once they were “man’s best friend.” Once. Before the terrible devastation of World War Three. Before hundreds of thousands were abandoned and forced to forage for their food as their ancestors had done.
Before the limited amount of game put their ever-burgeoning numbers into direct competition with their former masters. Before the primal survival of the fittest became, once again and perhaps for all time, the unwritten law of the land. Once they were cute and cuddly and pampered with prepared food from cans or boxes, and even clothed in attire reflective of their masters’ warped tastes in fashion. Once.