Lord Goblin's First Joint: Mere Anarchy

Lord Goblin’s First Joint

Mere Anarchy

By Kit Bradley

Copyright 2016 Kit Bradley

Published by Sword and Lion at Smashwords

Email: swordandlion@gmail.com

Website: http://kitbradley.net/

Discover Other Titles by Kit Bradley

Lord Goblin’s Second Joint: Rough Beast

As editor and contributor: Night War: the Dark Side of Dayton

More coming soon!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

About Kit Bradley

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Chapter 1

In disaster, living prevails. Not just life itself, but the individual acts of being alive. People work, eat, love, hate, fight.

Mixed martial arts at the world’s end: the RXF promotion, the biggest in the Midwest. The Flint Municipal Hockey Stadium was booked for two thousand people but was empty except for a hundred souls: the fighters, families of the fighters, a few hardcore fans, a couple of referees. The families came because of pride and love, the hardcore fans because they were trapped in denial of the end of the world, the referees because it was their job, and even when the world went to hell, they needed the money. The fighters came because fighters fought. They defined their lives through struggle. They imagined that even in chaos they could thrive in their craft.

The fights were unusually intense, the fighters giving everything they had, to spite the world collapsing around them. Between bouts, the audience heard the crack and boom of cannons as the National Guard fought against a foe that no one understood – a foe immune to every weapon in the American arsenal – and this battle, after a year of natural disasters: of earthquakes, floods, sudden panics leading to city-engulfing riots.

Why didn’t the fighters join the fight going on right outside their doors? One of the fighters, Channing Montmorency, would ask himself that very question for the rest of his life. At first, it was his belief that so mighty a country as the United States could ever be threatened. Even as it collapsed around him, the idea that the United States could be threatened seemed abstract. Some of it was that he grappled with his identity as an American: it was hard to be a black man in the United States. Some of it was unfiltered reason: why fight an enemy when none of your weapons even worked on them? What was one more rifle against an enemy that was bulletproof? All of his life, Channing’s reason battled against his desire for violence, how much violence to use, when to use it. He was so good at hurting people that it was a constant temptation, so he trained himself to consider when and how he hurt them. He did not know if this reasoning was cowardice in light of the disaster that befell the United States, even after the point when his life became defined by acts of extraordinary bravery because he knew that people could be brave and cowardly by turns.

Right before Channing went out to fight, he got an email from his mother, two days old since the Internet was staggering under the damage done to it: Channing, give me a call. It’s important. The military is here. They’re talking about plans for the future, what we’ve got to do. Call. Come home.

Channing didn’t answer, didn’t call. He would regret the decision all his life. He fought away thoughts of the hundred thousand dead Americans and his family among them. He fought away fears of monsters in the night and his family alone against them. He focused on the fight because he defined himself as a fighter. He focused on perfecting his craft, evolving it to art, and taking it places no one had ever gone before.

After the fight, he told himself. Just twenty-nine minutes, tops. He was fighting for the RFX Middleweight Championship; the fight was pivotal to his career. A victory would secure him a spot in the biggest shows, against the biggest opponents, for the most money – an ambition that he registered as absurd, given the circumstances, but felt powerless against his drive to win.

His music started up: Clawfinger’s Biggest & the Best. Walk-in music wasn’t meant to be subtle.

In the cage, the fighters were announced – the regular announcer wasn’t there, so the ref did it – the challenger, Channing Loup Garou Montmorency vs. the champion, Maximilian Python Gaviria.

Channing was a big middleweight, six foot two inches tall, broad of shoulder, narrow of waist. He had powerful thighs, and his back was broad enough to use as a landing strip for small aircraft. His arms were long; his legs were long. He was very lean – good luck on the genetic lottery combined with a passion for athletics. He weighed just over two hundred and three pounds at fighting weight. He had a dark complexion, and his facial structure was often considered African, though he thought of himself as biracial. He lived in a world where everyone called him black, regardless of what he felt about the subject. He was good looking with sharp green eyes. His hair was close-cropped, a very dark red, and when it grew out it was kinky and dense, though for the fight he had a buzz cut so close that he was almost bald.

The Python was olive-skinned, and a little shorter than Channing but very broad, very powerful, a dirty fighter well-known for his expertise in bone-crunching submissions and a willingness to cripple fighters. No one would confuse Gaviria for handsome.

In the fight, Channing had no desire or interest in going to the ground with Gaviria. When the bell rang, Channing crossed the cage, quickly, stepping into a spinning heel kick to Gaviria’s ribs before the man had the chance to center himself. The kick hit with a thud; Channing reset and prepared to follow up with strikes at close range when the lights went out.

He stopped fighting, the Python stopped fighting, though Channing could hear the Brazilian’s labored gasps of pain. The ref said, Time! Back to your corners, fighters! If you can find them.

A few people in the audience laughed.

The emergency lights were up, so there was just enough light ringside for them to find their corners. The audience was talking about what was happening, lights from smartphones were coming on, and people were trying to find out more through the foggy Internet or to call people, though there were few connections. People grumbled and cursed and worried.

Over in his corner, Channing’s coach and seconds told him that everything would be okay, the lights would come back on. Channing didn’t believe them.

Cannon fire struck very close, rattling the building. It became impossible to ignore: the fighting was at hand. Everyone had seen the carnage on the news. Some had seen it in person. Every weapon seemed useless against their enemy, and no one could stand against them in close combat. A small band would lay waste to the largest of cities, the cities already made chaotic by natural disasters and strife after months of chaos. It didn’t stop the Michigan National Guard from trying, of course, and the thud and boom of the cannons emphasized how much everyone at the fights lived in denial.

Channing, a hand on the top of the cage, worked to control his breathing. He was scared, and not because of the man across from him. His mind was filled with people talking about the end of the world, about divine judgment, the End of Days. Images of his mother, his father, his sisters strobed through his mind’s eye. Channing didn’t believe it, but in the semi-darkness of the big hall, he was stripped of all his illusions about the possibility of returning to normalcy. He was scared.

The ref talked to the promoter, saying that if the lights didn’t come on in fifteen minutes, they’d have to reschedule the fight. Clearly, the ref and promoter could still cling to the idea that there would be enough tomorrows for sporting events to be rescheduled. Even through the fear of doomsday, Channing didn't want to surrender the sport. In the weeks leading up to the fight, training had been what kept him centered, kept away the fear. He didn't know what he would do without that discipline of routine to order his life. He ordered himself to stop being so foolish. If the fight were canceled, he would focus on his family. He told himself he should have already focused on them.

His thoughts were interrupted by a noise above him. The whole building shuddered. Dust drifted down on everyone; people looked up. The wisest were already leaving. Channing wasn’t yet that wise. He hesitated.

Then, the roof burst open, and something big fell into the ring. It smashed a hole through the canvas and padding to the plywood underneath, making a ragged hole with bits of wood thrust through the heavy cloth of the ring's floor.

Channing got a whiff of blood and sweat, gunpowder and gasoline, and his eyes focused on a troll in the darkness. He could see only an outline, but it was tall, over nine feet, big shoulders but scrawny arms, and enormous hands, caught in the stark relief of shadows from the blue-tinted emergency lights.

The troll laughed, and hot spittle splattered Channing. Then it leaped over to Gaviria’s corner, grabbed the fighter and squeezed. Hands shredded flesh, crushed his bones like they were Popsicle sticks. Then the troll tore, pulled Gaviria in two, blood splattering in hot arcs, pouring out of Gaviria's grotesque wounds, splattering the ground.

Channing was paralyzed for just a moment, just a single, scant moment, but he got his wits about him before Gaviria’s blood hit the floor. Chance alone saved him, he knew it. If the troll had gone his way, he would be dead. Channing grabbed the top of the cage and flipped himself over it, landing awkwardly on the far side. Other people started to stir, but the troll sprang through the cage – tearing the steel mesh like it was thin cloth – and began mashing the people that weren’t fast enough to get out of his path, who didn’t have enough presence of mind to run like hell.

Channing didn’t go to his locker room to get anything. He left behind his seconds, his coach, everyone. Family images strobed across his vision. He just ran from the municipal hockey ring out into a Flint, Michigan, that was on fire. Somewhere along the line, there had been a change of state in the military operations; a threshold had been crossed from harassment to assault, with trolls and goblins hitting hard, hitting everywhere. Flint was a holocaust.

The moment having come where he could no longer continue the pretense of a normal life, he knew he had to go home, and not to Milwaukee where he lived, but to his real home – to Gray County, Indiana. He would feel shame in days to come about how he’d abandoned his team, his coaches, how he’d abandoned everyone to the darkness and monsters, but a threshold had been crossed in his soul, too. He remembered his mother’s letter. He kept seeing the faces of his family in his mind. He was going home. It wasn’t open for discussion or alteration; the ego that had kept him trying to live his life, unchanged, as disaster mounted had crumbled when that troll fell through the roof and into the cage. He had to go home.

He avoided the National Guard units that were fighting everywhere, and he broke into a secondhand shop – there was a pang of conscience at the looting, but he didn’t even have shoes – to find clothing that fit him. The power was out everywhere in the city. Electricity had been buggy for a while, the trolls and disasters doing damage faster than work crews could hope to fix, and since the floods and earthquakes, large parts of the country, and the world, only had partial power or none at all. He checked the break room in back of the store, found some food, and ate it, ate everything he could find that wasn’t spoiled. He found good boots, jeans, a t-shirt, flannel shirt, jacket, and a 24-speed mountain bike.

He rode out of the city, keeping a steady, quick pace – cycling was his primary cardio work, and he competed in triathlons between fights, so he was good at it – except twice when he had to pour on the speed. Once to avoid a band of goblins that chased him, swinging swords, arrows hissing through the air, and a second time when he inadvertently got between a squad of soldiers fighting a troll. The soldiers retreated along Channing's path, but the troll ignored their weapons – rifles and grenades – bursting through a brick wall almost within arm's reach of Channing, almost grabbing him as he rode by, then setting to mock the soldiers as they fought.

As he traveled over the next couple of days, Channing saw how bad the attacks had become. Michigan had been relatively lucky. Further south, Toledo was a nightmare, almost leveled, and the roads were choked with refugees going south. Channing imagined he was a refugee, too, but tossed that idea away. No. He wasn’t looking for a refuge. He had a destination. He was going home.

Most people wouldn’t talk to Channing. They were wary, scared of strangers. The ones who did talk said that there was a big band of trolls that had already laid waste to Chicago, and they were moving across Northern Ohio into Pennsylvania. After trying conventional weapons, poison gas, and chemical weapons, survivors said the military had finally resorted to nuclear weapons outside of Gary. The trolls had just climbed out of the rubble, laughed, and started killing again.

Danger came from all sides. If it wasn’t the trolls and goblins, the threats were human. In Northern Indiana, power had been gone for weeks, food shipments had ceased, and there wasn’t anyone to keep the peace as the people grew hungry, angry, and mean. The veneer of civilization was thin and breaking even with the best people. Without the authority and stability of civilization, some people abandoned law and order – even humanity, itself – as an unnecessary relic. It felt like a new and much worse world. It seemed to Channing like humanity was in some idiotic competition with the trolls to see who could be the most savage, the most bestial. Bandits had already started to take to the streets, setting up toll roads, or just killing and taking the things that pleased them.

Sometimes people shot at him, or towards him, so he put on a burst of speed, pedaling hard and fast until his lungs burned from the effort. All the bullets missed. Gas was scarce, so no one bothered to chase him in a car, and few people were so fit as to be able to follow him when he rode all-out.

In Indiana, there were refugees moving in different directions. Some had heard that California didn’t have trolls or goblins. Some people traveled to find family or were running south ahead of winter and famine. Others had heard that military bases were taking in refugees. The news from the South was all bad and often strange as people tried to put into words things no one had believed possible. Modern humans had no vocabulary to describe the terrors of the supernatural.

Nowhere did Channing find evidence of a meaningful government, anymore. There were no police or soldiers guiding people. If he saw soldiers or police, they were part of the migration, as isolated and alone as everyone else or part of columns of troops moving fast to unknown battlefields. The rumors were that the soldiers were going to Chicago, where the US government was locked in a terrible, final battle.

Still, Channing got the main points. In the Midwest, people had been hit hard by the weather. Flooding had caused the big rivers to overflow their banks – the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were out of control. Cincinnati was all but gone, St. Louis was all but gone. It was worse further south: New Orleans was underwater, Florida was virtually uninhabitable, and millions of people were in refugee camps in Georgia and Alabama. How people got this knowledge, Channing didn’t know, but the rumors verged on consensus.

People described rings of mushrooms, called them fairy rings, which had brought in horrors: the invincible might of trolls and goblins, overall smaller than humans, ugly, and unimaginably cruel.

Somehow, the trolls and goblins knew English. Enough contact occurred that humans knew what to call them, though no one knew what was on the other side of the fairy rings, or why they were here. Most just thought that they were demons spat up from Hell.

Goblins died like people died, in bloody messes, stupidly and sometimes bravely. They were like maggots in meat: after trolls laid waste, the goblins despoiled the rest with a kind of hungry desperation and savagery that was alien to the American experience. It had been a very long time since the United States had been subjected to such barbarity, and few had any idea what to do about it except to run away, even if there was nowhere to go.

The military was unable to contain the situation. Trolls and goblins just appeared from the fairy rings which could be anywhere, and everything was breaking down faster than people imagined. Chaos, once started, could spread faster than could be easily believed, and the United States had been on the absolute verge of chaos for months.

Channing was fortunate. He was physically fit and crafty. He was careful and quiet, he was fast and enduring, and when cornered, he found himself capable of brutality that shocked him. Along the way, he acquired a big Bowie knife and had occasion to use it, because despite all the guns in the United States, getting ammo was already hard. Much of the fighting was done with hand weapons, or no weapons at all.

By the time Channing got to Indianapolis, the city was on fire. In the ruins, castles were being reared by goblin hordes. It was no longer just trolls and goblins; others had arrived in force. Towering jotuns, fifteen feet tall or higher, girded in armor, and bearing weapons that could crush tanks like eggshells, the linnormr, draconic serpents and terrible, their breath acid and poison all at once. The alvar who could command the elements and cast spells of power and subtlety. The world had started to fill with prodigies while space cracked, ripped. Between Indianapolis and Gray County, it wasn’t but sixty miles, but it had turned into more than a hundred. It was like someone had tossed in a range of wooded hills south of the city that had never been there before, with trees like none Channing had ever seen. Black-trunked and high-branched, they were dark green, almost black in the late summer sun. The Interstate had turned into a muddy track that he followed through the forest and hills.

In the hills, Channing ran from a deer that stood twelve feet tall. Wolves hounded him, the size of horses, and barked and laughed as they herded him. He gave them the slip, ditching the bicycle because he found he had the agility to run from branch to branch through the dense woods, finally reaching a cliff that he climbed to avoid the beasts below. The wolves gave up as he ran across the ridgetops. He looked at the misty woods, new vales beneath him, and he felt a chill in his bones.

Later, on the road again, he saw a troop of alvar pass. There were six of them. Five passed him by, their horses shooting by at eighty miles per hour, blurs and a thunder of hooves hitting the ground quickly. He was splattered with the mud as they rode by, his hands up to protect his face. He only caught hints of their silver armor and scarlet plumes, flashing in the shafts of light through the trees. The sixth pulled up, paused, horse rearing as the alv examined him. He couldn’t see anything except a humanoid figure on a horse of silver, armor black and shining like it had been oiled, with gold filigree, gold fittings – gold everywhere, and rubies, too. The alv had a sword and lance, a shield hanging from the horse’s saddle with a broken clock device. The alv laughed like a bell, then flashed on after the others.

The next day, when Channing left the trees and valleys behind him, he heard sounds of a struggle. He ran toward the sounds and saw a linnormr fighting a column of tanks.

The linnormr had a snake-like body and wings that were also clawed feet. Its head was triangular with serpentine eyes a brilliant yellow and a maw filled with giant teeth and forked tongue. The scales of the linnormr were green, black, and gold, and cannon shots rang off them harmlessly. It was the size of a small office building.

Channing hid, the linnormr spat venom, and Channing watched as tank armor boiled away; the soldiers tore at their skin as they dissolved, too. It was short and brutal. The linnormr swiveled its head, side to side, and for a moment Channing thought he’d been caught, but if he had been seen the creature ignored him. It slithered a step and launched itself into the skies with a crack of wings that sounded like artillery.

Channing tried to search the scene of the fight to see if anyone was alive, if anyone needed help. But the fires were too hot and cast off fumes that burned his skin, his eyes, his throat. He was driven back, away from any hope of assistance to anyone inside the inferno the linnormr made.

Then the path led out of the forest; there was the Interstate again. He turned around to see if the hills and trees were still there. They were. He moved on to the county highway that led to the town of Clarent, where his family lived in Gray County.

Turning away from the Interstate to the Old County Highway that was the main road of Gray County, he found a column of American soldiers leading trucks packed with refugees heading back to the Interstate.

A sergeant told Channing, You should come with us. The government is relocating as many citizens as possible to military bases that can handle the people. We’re headed to Miller Air Force Base – there’s a camp set up there.

Channing: Are the bases prepped to handle that many people?

The sergeant shrugged. Normal disaster protocol is to house vulnerable civilians in existing civilian structures, but we have no orders. Cities aren’t safe. The trolls target refugee camps, so they need to be where we can defend them.

Channing’s brow furrowed. But our weapons’ve proven ineffective against the… He searched for something to call them.

Otherworlders. They’re designated as the Otherworlders. We’ve interrogated some of the little guys, the goblins. They’ve gone on and on about how our two worlds are colliding, or merging. I can’t understand it – they talk like ferrets on speed.

Channing had heard that they spoke English here, and other languages in other places. Some humans talked with them, traded with them, even betrayed other humans to them to save their own skins.

Aren’t you worried that, well, none of our weapons work on them? Channing asked.

The look on the sergeant’s face said that he was very worried. He answered, The tech guys say they’ve got something.

Tech guys. Channing remembered reading about World War II, and how when the Nazis were losing there had been constant propaganda about how they were on the cusp of deploying a super-weapon that would sweep their enemies before them. The weapons didn’t exist. The sergeant’s words did not fill Channing with confidence.

Channing deflected: Say, anyone here a Montmorency? Or a Cartwright?

The sergeant checked a notebook. No, no one by that name.

Can I ask around?

Sure. You should come, though. We can’t force you, but it’s the smart thing to do. You look fit to fight.

Channing thanked the sergeant, went up and down the slow-moving column. Trucks were packed with people who couldn’t walk. People who could walk did. Channing thought that the Otherworlders already had them in a rout. It had been less than a month since the first fairy ring had opened, and people looked whipped. Channing was an American. Stories of American invincibility surrounded Channing all his life. A hundred, a thousand stories started with the United States being conquered, and then a band of plucky freedom fighters striking back, winning victory. But the column of people looked broken, the fight kicked out of them. Stories weren’t reality.

Channing wasn’t a fool. He knew military bases could not support the American population. They needed farms and factories to feed everyone, to provide for them. The realization chilled him.

He knew many of the refugees. He asked about his family, his mother, his father, his sisters, and his cousins. Some people said that they were still down in Clarent. Others said that they had already gone ahead to the staging area at the military base. None of his family was there.

He knew that he had to make a choice to either go with the military or go on to Clarent. He tried to figure what his family would do, but no choices materialized. He got a headache trying to imagine what they would think, what they would do. None of them had ever devised a strategy for nuclear war or zombie apocalypses, much less trolls and goblins. His mind cast about for some reason to decide one way or the other, but he caught nothing solid.

Yet he had to make a decision. Channing decided that clumping up with the military wasn’t the way to go. So far, weapons ranging from small arms to nuclear weapons seemed ineffective. He didn’t imagine there were any tech guys on the cusp of coming up with an unstoppable weapon. Channing decided that the smart money was to stay in a place like Clarent, in Gray County, where you could do pretty well with hunting supplies and knowledge of the land, where humans could learn the ways of their enemies without drawing their concentrated ire.

If he was wrong? He would go to Miller Air Force Base, but absent a better reason, Clarent was closer. He hoped that his family saw things the same way, and he moved on, into Gray County.

Chapter 2

That night, Channing slept by the side of the road, wrapped in a stolen blanket under the late summer sky. The next morning there was a heavy fog, and Channing thought he heard and felt things moving in it. He only barely found the road and made poor progress. Directions seemed to go wrong; he often felt turned around, even on the road. He found the weather oppressive, physically and mentally chilling. He had to focus to control his fear.

He found an abandoned house – he didn’t know to whom it belonged since many houses on the highway were seasonal residences, or rentals, not part of the community – and settled in there to wait out the fog. Inside, he felt better and decided to stay until the weather cleared. The house had been ransacked already, the kitchen all but destroyed by people looking for food, but there was a freezer in the basement that had an intact lock on it. The power had been off for a while, but it was cool in the basement. He broke the lock, opened it up, and laughed at his fortune. Everything was still frozen solid. He found some steaks, and cooked them in the fireplace, blackening a stainless steel pan. He hadn’t had meat in days, and it felt great, but also wrong because he knew that people were going hungry. He made a face, hardening himself. Everyone suffered. Emptying his belly, here and now, wouldn’t help anyone else. He realized he was looting, hoped they would understand that he needed the food.

That night, Channing dreamt of fog. He dreamt he stood up, opened the drapes of the house where he squatted, looked out into banks of shifting, roiling white. The moon was a strange, huge disk casting a blue and silver light, even through the fog.

A woman came out of the mist. She was tall, taller than Channing, and beautiful, her cheekbones very high, her eyes larger than seemed normal, wearing a long, high-collared cloak of silver fur with a gold clasp in the shape of a baroque clock. Diamonds and rubies adorned her. Her hair was in ringlets of fire falling down her back and one shoulder. Her eyes were darker than any Channing had ever seen. Behind her, he saw flapping wings and heard them, and the cries of ravens. Channing knew it was a dream, but it didn't feel like his dream.

He stepped outside of the house. The air was still, cool, and heavy, and sucked up sound. He stepped up to the woman. She unzipped his coat, pushed it off, to the ground. She put her hands on his chest.

I am the Lady Aife, so you might know me. I saw you on the road, and I saw the road ahead of you, she said, running her hands across his shirt. You will go places. She laughed, her voice magical.

Channing’s hands brushed open her robe. She wore nothing underneath; her skin was smooth as marble, and as pale, with only a slight honey color to it. He ran a hand up to her breast but looked into her eyes. She purred slightly at his touch.

Is this real? he asked.

What a strange question. Everything that happens is real isn’t it, or else it would not occur?

Channing had moved his lips to her throat. He inhaled her scent. Her skin smelled like a flower he didn’t know. She bared her neck for him to kiss, so he did. Her hands went around to hold his backside, and he squeezed her breast. She sighed.

He tried to pull back. There was something not quite right about all of this. But she held him tight, the wind picked up, one of the wings of her cloak wrapping around him, fluttering.

Channing: You’ve done terrible things to my people.

Hush, she replied, and kissed him, hand against the back of his head, bending him over.

He groaned into her mouth but returned the kiss. Lust charged him; his hands found her hips under her robe – her body slender, strong, her breasts crushed against his chest. To human eyes, she had an idealized figure. It wasn’t quite the body a human could have, but she wasn’t human, he knew. Her legs and arms were longer and held at different angles. Despite her full breasts and hips, she was muscular, strong, her muscles