The Batlord

Return of the Kings of Metal: Part III continued...

` ` `Chuckling, I replied "I'm gonna laugh when I beat your fucking ass right after I kill this motherfucking worm."

` ` `With that I walked a short distance toward the worm that had now finished its turn and was accelerating straight toward me. Planting my feet apart and raising Gram over my head clenched in both hands, I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. To put myself into a trance I began to recite the lyrics to Hammerfall's "The Way of the Warrior" as I had so many times before.




` ` `Soon, I was only half-aware of the words and the rest of the world around me, and I felt the Light of True Metal infuse my limbs with a power such as no poseur will ever know. The feeling was like the first time you ever got high, the first time you ever came in a woman, the first time you ever stood over the bruised and battered body of a schoolyard tormentor with blood dripping from your fist. It was all of these.




` ` `And yet they pale in comparison. This...this is something that most will only ever experience the first time they hear Judas Priest.




` ` `The first time they taste blood in the mosh pit.




` ` `The first time they see someone walking down the halls at school wearing an Iced Earth t-shirt and know that they are not alone.

Turn you own deeds to his gracious glory

` ` `This is the Light of True Metal. But a True Metalhead of the Highest Caliber, this is one who can channel the Light at will. To one such as he, all obstacles are as nothing.

And he will make you see

` ` `Dimly I felt the ground beneath me begin to shudder, but it was the earth-shattering vibration of a Gibson Flying V guitar erupting from a Marshall stack.




` ` `I heard the explosion of earth and sand, but it was merely the crushing blast of a riff so powerful that the stars themselves shook with fear.




` ` `I felt the fetid wind swirl around me in all of its foulness, but it was the smell of beer and sweat and piss that runs beneath the cries of supplication and raised fists of five hundred True Metalheads packed tight into a tiny shithole of a club.




` ` `Almost of their own volition, my eyes snapped open, and I was staring into the cavernous gullet of the great worm. For a moment, it was as if Eternal Nightmare had come to life. And then the Light of True Metal reached a crescendo within me and I brought down my sword with all of the power and glory of forty-three years of True Metal history. There was a flash of blinding light and the deafening crack of thunder and almost in slow motion the beast split into two perfect halves.




` ` `I stood motionless, sword lowered at an angle to the ground, seeing-but-not-seeing the remains of the sandworm sail past me to either side, never touching me. In my trance state, the sight of its internal organs, still perfectly held within its perfectly bisected body, filled me with detached loathing and a vague fascination before finally passing beyond my sight.




` ` `Still only semi-aware, I again felt the Earth tremble as the corpse of the creature struck the ground before skidding to a halt in a hail of sand and grit. Finally, drawing a shuddering breath into my now empty lungs, I came back to the world.




` ` `Turning around, I saw that the sandworm lay in a great heap over twenty yards behind me. It looked like it was deflating as its innards oozed out of the two halves of its body to form a repulsive pool of viscera. The hideous stench was already staggering.

` ` `"Holy fucking shit!" I heard off to my right. Looking over, I saw Kerry stagger to his feet and take a few wobbling steps steps toward me, "I'll never call you a fucking poseur ever again! You were literally just glowing with the Light of True Metal! I've never seen anything the fuck like it. At least not from just one dude." The look he gave me when he reached me was one of profound respect and awe. "So, how do you feel?" he asked.

` ` `"I feel like I just nutted in a bitch and now I need a fucking cigarette," and I pulled out my pack of Marlboros and lit up the best god damn cigarette I'd ever had in my life.

` ` `"Hell yeah," he replied with a grin, "Think you can do it again?"

` ` `"What, nut?" I asked, releasing a cloud of gloriously noxious smoke, "Please, I've always got enough to go around."

` ` `"Good," he said, pointing behind me.

` ` `Turning around I saw a deep valley of sand in between the dunes. In the distance, in the center of the valley, were five churning trails of sand approaching at high speed.

` ` `I looked at Kerry. Kerry looked at me. We both smiled.

` ` `"Glory to the brave, Kerry."

` ` `"Glory to the brave, dude."

` ` `Standing side by side, with our heads held high, and our weapons held at the ready, we faced this new threat with the pride of True Metalheads and the Light of True Metal shining upon our brows.

` ` `But as the worms reached the lowest point of the valley, the earth began to shake as it had never before. The savage violence of the tremor threw us to the ground and we watched the valley floor on our hands and knees as the desert itself seemed about to tear itself apart. In horror we saw the sand around the worms, and in the entire valley, begin to empty, as if a great drain in the desert had just been opened. They tried desperately to escape the downward flow, leaping from the sand like salmon hurdling a waterfall, but they soon disappeared into the great avalanche. The heaving of the earth had been steadily increasing the entire time, and now the ground of the valley gave an ear-splitting crack and something began to rise from its depths. At the center of this...thing, was a great emptiness, an emptiness that rose ever higher into the air, surrounded by a curtain of falling sand. The great sandworm was immense beyond all imagining. It could almost have swallowed whole the rock where Oscar and Joey now waited. When it had finished its ascent, it dwarfed the mountainous dunes around it and towered over Kerry and I.
` ` `Having now consumed its diminutive cousins and a great sea of sand besides, the desert leviathan began to close its terrible maw, and even as it shut, the earth trembled. And then it slowly began to descend back into the ground from whence it came. We continued to stare in terrified fascination until the sandworm had fully submerged back into the earth, leaving an immense hole that began to collapse before our very eyes and ever so slowly fill with sand.

` ` `Turning to each other, eyes wide, Kerry tentatively asked, "Run?"

` ` `"Run," I replied, feeling very, very, very small.

` ` `Wasting no more time, we scrambled on our hands and knees before finally managing to make it to our feet and run headlong, tails touching our cocks, for the rocky outcropping and blessed safety as fast as our legs could carry us.

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