Easy to Be a God, page 14
At the chief’s behest, the supporting straps were cut, and the gift of the Spirits of the Mountains was then carefully laid on the ground covered with a hryll skin. Tore Numa-Reh crouched near the glossy cylindrical object to examine the numerous details. He took his time, but Karan Degard didn’t blame him. He himself had spent a lot of swellings of the membranes in front of the Bor Omot caves, delighting his senses with the view of the Thunder Sower.
“The Spirits of the Mountains have spoken to you,” rumbled finally Tore Numa-Reh, not taking his eyes off the gift. “It must be the work of gods. No Gurd would ever create something so magnificent.”
He slowly straightened his legs. “Do you know how to use this weapon?”
“Yes,” Karan Degard answered truthfully.
“So, let our eyes relish the power of gods!” Tore Numa-Reh ordered.
Fister cowered anxiously, and his tahars began to fidget again.
“You who overtop the tallest Warriors of the Bone,” he started gingerly. “The Spirits of the Mountains cautioned me not to use their gift prematurely …”
The chief of the clan lowered the thicker eyelids on his side eyes, focusing his sight on the fister.
“Are you not allowed to show the power of this weapon, or you simply don’t know how to do it?” he asked.
“I am allowed to do it and I do know how,” the fister assured immediately, fighting once again the temptation to tilt his hubcap. “But before I get down to it, I would like you to listen to the warning given to me by the Spirits of the Mountains.”
“Open your membranes, then!” rumbled Tore Numa-Reh, returning to the shade of the tent.
“This weapon has been stolen from the gods of Suns and Stars, who guard their secrets jealously, and therefore it can be used only once!” Karan Degard started the speech that he had memorized during the long journey back from the mountains. “When we use it, gods will know that we’ve acquired it, and will punish terribly those who committed sacrilege. That’s why I was told to remember that we should keep this gift in secret until the day of the final battle. The Spirits of the Mountains call this weapon ‘Thunder Sower.’”
He pointed to a massive butt.
“Here hides its unimaginable power. So great that the most powerful missiles hurled by Gurds will look as harmless as desiccated sagr seeds next to it.”
A wave of quiet murmurs swept the ranks of warriors, as the weapons of the Bluebloods were famous for their destructive power.
“Thanks to it, we can change the fate of the upcoming war in one swelling of the membranes. This weapon could reach the enemy positioned twenty, or even thirty bowshots away.”
There was another murmur of admiration, this time even louder. That was far beyond the Suhurs’ sight distance.
“Well calibrated—and this is the part designed for this”— Karan Degard quickly put on gloves in order not to soil the gift with his dirty claws, and touched reverently the protrusion at the top of the Thunder Sower—“it will turn into a bloody mess not only the chief of Gurds, but also all the accompanying Quadrupeds, and this in a radius of a dozen spears.”
He pressed a red spot decorated with magical signs, and suddenly a spectral image appeared above the flat-ended protrusion.
Intrigued, Tore Numa-Reh left the shadow again—this time hurriedly, not keeping up appearances. Karan Degard moved a tiny lever, and when two slender supports slid out from the bottom of the weapon, he raised the Thunder Sower off the ground. Kneeling next to it, he pointed the thinner end of the weapon toward the watchtowers guarding the ford, located at a distance of fifteen bowshots. Everyone saw the outlines of tall tree trunks on the horizon, with bone watchtowers placed on them, but even the best observer couldn’t tell whether they were occupied or empty.
The fister closed his side eyes, focusing on the space in front of him. After a moment, he stepped aside.
“On the death of my tahars!” Tore Numa-Reh raised his hands in astonishment.
The mennites shifted uneasily. The mysterious spectral image showed the top of the watchtower and an old warrior, leaning on his spear. Karan Degard turned a small knob, and at the intersection of the two dashed lines appeared a well-known figure of the honbut hunter. Despite his age, Hon Kon-Tamin was still vigilant. A red dot fell on one of his eyes, slightly below the border of the flat helmet.
“The tallest of the tallest, you can see for yourself how wonderful this weapon is,” the fister continued, pleased with the impression his show had made. “Therefore I’m asking you again to accept the warning of the Spirits of the Mountains, and keep the existence of the Thunder Sower secret until the final battle, of whose arrival the tutelary entities warn us.”
Tore Numa-Reh lowered his hands. His palp wound steadily around the rim of the hubcap.
“Why can’t we try the weapon now?” The grunt came from the shaded tent.
In a hoarse voice of the highest priest there was disbelief, and something else that Karan Degard could not identify. Tikren Da-Deradha hadn’t interrupted him until now, even though he felt like it several times.
“The wrath of the gods of Suns and Stars will fall upon the one who will use the Thunder Sower,” the fister reminded hastily, taking a step back from the gift. “We must keep this weapon strictly secret. Thus spoke the Spirits of the Mountains.”
“Not necessarily!” The priest left the pleasant semidarkness of the tent. Tapping the arad rhythmically, he headed toward the chief of the clan and the gift lying in front of him. “Gods gave me a sign today, after the sunrise of the first sun. I offered them six comely Gurds as the sacrifice. The gore ran down the altar grooves evenly, without foaming even once. No viscera were tangled while gutting, despite the fact that I chose the comeliest Quadrupeds recently captured on the plains.”
Karan Degard humbly waited for the priest to finish.
“I’m only repeating what I heard from the Spirits of the Mountains,” he wheezed.
Tikren Da-Deradha moved his blue-painted claws along the cool gleaming body of the Thunder Sower. It was evident that the unusual weapon from the otherworld made a strong impression also on him.
“The border clans’ scouts say that Gurds are building new giant circles over there”—he pointed his arad at the ford—“on the lands we lost many clashes of the suns ago. Among them, they’re erecting stone huts and making wonders with wood and iron. Reportedly, they’ve also possessed the ability to float in the air. They soar across the sky faster than kumaxes.”
Tore Numa-Reh inflated his membranes as if to stop him, but the highest priest silenced the chief with one slight tap of his arad at the cracked ground.
“I did not believe in these stories, like most of you, but today I don’t know anymore whether I was right. The enemy has become insidious. For hundreds of clashes of the suns Gurds have been robbing us of our lands. Only in my lifetime we have lost the Valt Aram plains, full of prey. I came out of the pen there”—he pointed toward the mountains visible on the horizon—“in a hamlet at the foot of the Steep Scree, the same, on top of which we’d offered sacrifices since time immemorial. Many, many hundreds of bowshots from our present-day borders.”
He shifted his claw toward the north. “We have nowhere to retreat anymore. Beyond the settlements of the last clans there are only rocky highlands and cliffs plunging straight into the foamy sea. There used to be more of us than the grains of redhusk in a shieldful; today we wouldn’t fill a helmet, or even a hubcap …”
“What’s your point?” asked Tore Numa-Reh, taking the opportunity of the priest’s silent moment of reflection.
“I have seen enough wiles of the enemy in my life …” Tikren Da-Deradha replied, and fell silent again. “Doesn’t it surprise you that the Spirits of the Mountains speak through a simple fister, instead of us priests?”
Murmurs grew louder. Even the mennites began to gargle among themselves and looked around as if searching for the answer to this question in the eyes of their comrades in arms. In the end their attention, as before, focused on Karan Degard.
“My venerable lord, even to me it seemed strange,” the fister wheezed. “I never asked for this sort of recognition.”
“That’s what I can’t understand. We beg for it every day, but the Spirits of the Mountains spoke to you—”
The chief of the clan took the fister’s side. “The tutelary entities decide for themselves who they speak to.”
“Really?” Tikren Da-Deradha wasn’t going to give up easily. “Do you know of any other case of such grace?”
Tore Numa-Reh went silent for a moment, then denied, humbly folding his palp. Within his own lifetime no one except priests would hear so much as a whistle of the tutelary entities. After all, making contact with them required complex rituals and many offerings.
“I swear on my masticators—” Karan Degard started, but stopped immediately, rebuked by both dignitaries.
“Shut your membranes!” Tikren Da-Deradha ordered.
“Don’t you dare utter even a screech until we allow you,” added the chief, then turned to the priest. “Karan Degard has served me faithfully for six clashes of the suns; I’ve known him since he left the pen.”
“Yes, I know,” Tikren Da-Deradha cut him off. “You have tasted his tahars, as he’s tasted yours. However, this doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth.”
The last words of the priest raised bewilderment. Not only the chief’s, but also the warriors’. Lying and deception had been alien to the clans until Gurds appeared in Suhurta. An exaggeration or understatement could happen to anyone, but a Warrior of the Bone had never been caught in a deliberate lie.
“What do you mean?” Tore Numa-Reh asked, visibly moved.
“It could be another trick of the enemy.”
The chief of the clan and the fister folded their palps as one.
“I’ve burned scores of Gurdian circles, I’ve set out with the clan’s fists as far as the foothills, but nowhere and never have I seen anything like this!” The Supreme Suhur pointed his claw toward the Thunder Sower. “Our enemy couldn’t create something so perfect.”
“You haven’t seen much, the Tallest,” Tikren Da-Deradha stated.
“Do you really think it’s the enemy’s trap?”
The priest did not answer immediately. He slid his palp under the bone robe, fumbled around the hubcap and pulled out a fat, squirming tahar. He immediately slipped its thicker end into the sucker.
“I believe that gods who created the two suns and all the stars wouldn’t lower themselves to speak in the ears of a simple fister,” he wheezed, crushing the tail of the symbiont with the corneous lip to suck its guts into the digestive bladder. “I also believe that the Spirits of the Mountains, who serve them faithfully, wouldn’t offer us anything against the will of their masters. So I think,” he ended the statement according to the custom.
Having absorbed the life-giving flesh of the symbiont, he tossed the empty shell on the ground.
The densha immediately leaned over, picked up the still squirming remains, and hid them in the satchel. What the old priest couldn’t eat would go to the pen even before dusk.
Karan Degard couldn’t defy this reasoning. But he had also heard a whistling sound of the Spirits of the Mountains. He’d heard it as clearly as if the tutelary entities hovered just above his helmet. And according to an earlier promise he had received a gift from the otherworld. Full of hope, he brought it straight to the clan’s seat and laid it at the feet of him who governed all the fists. He believed that the Thunder Sower was the miracle Suhurs had awaited for generations; a weapon that would change the fate of the longtime and, what was worse, doomed war.
Gurds had been pressing on the Warriors of the Bone for more than a thousand clashes of the suns. Since the time their big bulky ships arrived at Suhurta’s coast, far away beyond the horizon, at a distance of hundreds upon hundreds of bowshots from the settlement in which the Thunder Sower appeared. The clans put up a stout resistance. Once they even pushed the enemy toward the sea and forced them to leave the occupied territories. Countless rites praised the heroism of the bravest Warriors of the Bone and great victories in that war. This, however, was all in the past. A few generations later, a new, more powerful fleet of quadrupedal Gurds arrived, consisting of even larger ships. There came new legions of Bluebloods, who turned out to be much smarter, more numerous, and better armed than their ancestors. The outcome of the war had been sealed. Many clashes of the suns later, Gurds launched a final attack on Suhurta and since then pushed forward incessantly. First, they went straight to the east to wedge their armies between the Suhurs, and then, when they managed to separate the brave clans, they planted the poles with Gurdian knots near the cliffs on the opposite side of the continent, built the initial circle there and went to the south, leaving the wilder northern lands in a relative peace. But only temporarily.
Hundreds of clashes of the suns later, on a plateau beyond Seven Pinnacles, the two immense armies faced each other. The serried ranks of the united clans were five bowshots wide and two bowshots deep. At least eight shields of this world’s bravest warriors outfaced Gurds. The enemy was defeated, although they were more numerous and had thunderous sticks. The plains, bathed in a shine of the setting suns, glowed blue. But the victory carried a steep price. Too steep. The plateau and the surrounding mountains were shrouded in smoke billowing up from the pyres, on which the fallen and the mercifully finished off were bidden farewell.
After this battle, the decimated clans had to retreat before the successive waves of the invaders, and flee to the mountains separating them from the northern highlands. The skirmishes lasted a long time, but in the end the Warriors of the Bone were driven out from even this inhospitable ridge. The enemy had not fought fair—whenever they could not win in an open battle, they starved the defenders to death or killed them deceitfully. Last Suhurs left their settlements across the river and their ancient altars during the lifetime of the current highest priest. Now, less than seven hundred bowshots separated them from the steep cliffs of the north and the waters of the ocean.
There was only one thing Tikren Da-Deradha wasn’t right about: the number of the remaining warriors was smaller than the number of sagr seeds fitting in the claws, rather than filling the helmet or the hubcap.
The fister looked at the silvery gift from the Spirits of the Mountains, its rounded shapes and incredible alien ornamentation. It was hard to believe that Gurds were able to produce something so beautiful and complicated. Although …
“Listen to me, everyone!” Tikren Da-Deradha got up, raising the arad high above his head. “There is only one way to find out whether the weapon was actually donated to us by the Spirits of the Mountains.”
He paused as if wondering if he should continue. “We have to try it out! Here and now!”
“But—” Karan Degard opened his membranes once again, but fell silent immediately, before the chief or the priest could react.
Tikren Da-Deradha rolled his palp in a meaningful gesture.
“I don’t think the Spirits of the Mountains had the courage to steal the property of the gods of Suns and Stars.”
“I doubted it, too,” the Supreme Suhur admitted, “but I changed my mind after Karan Degard had brought the Thunder Sower.”
“Am I to believe that the winged favorite of our gods, hitherto not known from any rites”—he searched his memory for the name—“Lut Se-Ifer opposed the will of those who created the suns and then smashed one of them into tiny stars? That he rebelled when he was told that gods, unhappy with Suhurs, doomed them to extinction? That he was exiled and imprisoned under the mountains as a punishment? That despite the harassment, he and his followers intend to fight for us? Not only with Gurds, but also with the almighty Kored, Yabha, and Thub?”
Tore Numa-Reh waited for the highest priest to finish, and then he replied, “If it is a trick of our enemy, why haven’t they chosen someone from the temple?”
“We are harder to deceive than a simple fister.”
“You would succumb if the Spirits of the Mountains whispered in your head,” Tore Numa-Reh insisted.
Though the chief’s logic was unquestionable most often than not, the priest tried to undermine it.
“I’d notice the difference. I’ve talked to the otherworld hundreds of times.”
“So you are suggesting that we disregard the warning of the Spirits of the Mountains, which you think in reality is coming from the enemy, and try the sacred weapon here and now?”
“Yes!” All the eyelids disappeared from the eyes of the priest.
“And what if Kored, Yabha, and Thub have left us in the lurch? What if we waste our last chance to be saved?”
“Use the Thunder Sower. You’ll see for yourself.”
Tore Numa-Reh nodded toward Karan Degard. The fister picked up the weapon dutifully.
“If it’s the enemy’s trick, I’d better move away many spears away from you,” he wheezed.
“Words of wisdom,” Tikren Da-Deradha praised the warrior. “Stand under that parchan tree, and aim at any of the watchtowers.”
“But—”
“An empty one.”
Resigned, Karan Degard withdrew without a screech and set off in the direction of the indicated plant, bending under the weight of the Thunder Sower. Following the instructions of the Spirits of the Mountains, he supported its massive metal body on the twisted branches so that he could aim calmly. When the empty cage of the watchtower appeared at the two lines’ intersection, he pulled a “trigger,” as Lut Se-Ifer called the small sheltered tab, with the tip of his claw. At the same time he said the brief silent prayer, which he’d also learned from the Spirits of the Mountains.
He didn’t hear the roar typical for the thunderous sticks and trunks with which Gurds defended their circles. The silvery weapon jerked slightly in his clutches. The red lines, visible on the spectral image, still intersected at the center of the peaked structure made of bones. Karan Degard felt his membrane swell at an accelerated pace. At the end of the day, he was a fool; he had been tricked. The weapon didn’t work, the tower was still in one pie—
