Sigurd chuckled darkly before replying.
‘What you Rebels don’t know, and what the Huntsmen don’t know either, is that I am working for nobody. Nobody but myself, Sigurd Haraldsson. Well now, is that entirely true? Perhaps not. I am a servant, in some ways … a servant of chaos, of anarchy, of mayhem. My plans are greater, more far-reaching and more twisted than you Rebels or the Huntsmen could begin to fathom.’
‘You’re insane.’
Sigurd threw back his head and roared with a booming laughter that was half derision, half genuine amusement. Then, in the blink of an eye, the smile vanished from his face, replaced by a look of monstrous intensity.
‘No. I’m the only sane one in this world of absolute fucking insanity. I’ve seen a thousand years of history through these eyes, Indian. I’ve sailed every ocean, and I’ve warred, killed, raped, enslaved, looted and plundered on every landmass. I’ve seen it all, and everywhere, when you boil it down to its very essence, everywhere human beings exist, it’s all. The. Fucking. Same.
They’re like cockroaches, the lot of them … cockroaches with weapons that can annihilate this planet a thousand times over. And they have spread their cockroach hives all across the surface of the earth, devouring everything, poisoning it, turning everything to shit, and breeding like flies. But there is an alternative to this reign of the roaches, an alternative that you naïve Rebel idiots cannot comprehend: chaos, madness, an anarchy of pure violence, to bring about a final end to it all. This, this, this is the only sanity in a crazed world, a world of institutionalised, ratified, sanctified insanity.’
Lightning Bird felt a sliver of hope stab its sharp, unexpected glass-shard pain into his skin. One of his arms was buried beneath the broken wood and scattered papers of the closet, and with this concealed limb he started to reach subtly into the debris, his trembling fingers desperately seeking an object he knew had been inside the closet. He kept talking to Sigurd to stall and distract him.
‘So, chaos then? Chaos … that’s your pursuit? That’s your great answer to the conundrums this planet faces? You’ve lost your mind, truly. Why do you need Parvati then? Why do you need anyone else at all, if mere anarchy is your goal?’
Sigurd chuckled with pure malice, and that was when Lightning Bird noticed a slick of dark blood trickling from the Norse giant’s lips, staining his platinum beard with a spreading crimson wetness.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ Sigurd smirked, his eyes glinting with malicious intent in the darkness of the room.
‘Oh, I would, believe me. So come on, why don’t you enlighten me, great warrior?’ Lightning Bird sneered in a mocking tone, his hooked mouth curled with contempt and his dark eyes aflame with defiance, despite his grievous wounds.
Sigurd chuckled … and then abruptly coughed and stumbled as a wash of bright blood gushed from his mouth. Now it was Lightning Bird’s turn to laugh, and this he did, slowly and dryly.
‘What’s wrong, mighty Viking? Did those bullets give you a bit of a tickling?’
Sigurd started to stagger towards him on unsteady legs. He glanced down at the M-16 lying on the floor as he stumbled past it, and his ice-blue eyes lit up. His whole beard was dark red now, and his face was becoming deathly pale and sallow.
‘Despite your best efforts, I’m still breathing,’ he growled.
‘The way it looks to me, you might not be breathing for much longer anyway. So much for your grand plans of worldwide chaos.’
‘What does it matter to you anyway, you spineless worm? You have the powers of a god, like me. You can take the form of a fucking grizzly bear! You’ve been alive for seven hundred years! Yet you’ve devoted these awe-inspiring powers you were given to … to these mortals, these pathetic, weak amoebas, who by all rights we should crush beneath our heels.’
‘There are far nobler things in this world than riches, domination and violence, Ice Bear. Although one as steeped in greed, power-lust and wickedness as yourself could hardly see them, I suppose.’
Sigurd lurched to the side, almost losing his footing, but then in a burst of vengeful rage he straightened himself and spat out a slick of blood.
‘Noble? What is noble to you, savage? Trees? Dirt? Insects? You spineless sap, you gutless moron! You spent all these years honing and developing your powers into what? Powers to heal stupid mortals who are going to die anyway? Meaningless communion with the earth and trees? What use are these sideshow tricks in the greater scheme of things? You could have been like me, you short-sighted imbecile! You could have had a fucking empire! Instead, you’ve drifted around this continent like a hobo, watching your powers trickle away as the forests have been cut down and the animals have been slaughtered as the empire of the humans has expanded beyond what anyone could have imagined! There is nothing left of your world anymore, tree-hugger. The old forests will fall; most of them already have. The wild places of the earth will be eradicated completely. Concrete, plastic and steel will dominate; indeed, they already do. The mortals will cover the world over with slow-spreading death in their lust for eternal expansion. Your world has been dead for a long time. You know this. You know this…’
Lightning Bird’s eyes blazed with a flare of defiance.
‘And you would fight for that? Against the very essence of makes us what we are?’
‘I told you,’ Sigurd rasped, ‘I fight for nobody. No, I fight for unbridled chaos, pure anarchy. And that will come, soon. A great storm will be unleashed, greater than anything this world has ever known. And I will be there, in the eye of the hurricane! It will be glorious, too glorious to contemplate … but like I said, an idiot like you could never understand. Now, enough of this banter. Your life is over. I have won. I … have
