Berserker Man
Page 21
By all reports it pleased them to fight a lot in Thorun's hall atop the mountain. There the great god and the more or less deified men, slaughtered heroes of wars and combats past, reslaughtered one another daily for the joy of it and were miraculously healed of their wounds each evening in time to enjoy the perfect meat and drink of Thorun's table, the tale-telling of immortal eloquence shared by the company of the gods, the endless supply of maidens eternally made virgin for their pleasure. (Out in the country, the questioner relaxes with a sigh; there is more here than a simple warrior knows how to argue about. Even if he is not so simple, the questioner sees that he is not going to beat this talking priest at his own game of words.)
Leros on this bright morning was formally spelling out once more what his listeners already knew: "Those of you who fall in the first round of fighting will be the first to feast with Thorun—but eternally around the lowest portion of his table. The next sixteen who perish, in the second round of fighting, will be granted places higher up. In the fighting of the third round eight will die and will be seated higher still—and each of these will have eternally with him four lovely maids of a beauty surpassing any in this world, two of ivory white and two of ebon black, to satisfy his every wish even before it can be spoken aloud.
"After the fourth round has been fought there will be only four warriors left alive, the strongest of the strong. The four who die in the fourth round of fighting will be granted shields and arms lustrous as silver, yet harder and keener than the finest steel, and wine goblets to match, and each will have eight virgin maidens of still greater beauty perpetually in his service. They will be seated very near to Thorun.
"In the fifth round of duels, two more men must fall, and these two will be seated in tall chairs of oak and gold, higher up the table still, and they will be granted gold winecups and shields and arms, and each will be served by sixteen maids of beauty indescribable, and all things will be theirs in fuller measure than any lower men may have. On that day but two of you will remain alive outside the hall where the gods feast.
"The single duel of the sixth round of fighting will be the last and greatest. Who loses it will still be honored beyond any of those that I have mentioned yet. And when it is over, the Tournament will be over, and one man will have won. That man alone shall walk, in the flesh, into the holy place of the god Thorun, and his place for all time to come shall be at Thorun's right hand; and from his high place that man will overtop all of the other sixty-three by as great a measure as they stand above the race of puny, mortal men that crawl about here below."
Leros concluded with a sigh. He believed the promises and they moved him to envy and awe every time he thought about them.
* * *
For some time now one of the warriors, black of skin and huge, had been leaning forward with an expectant look, as if he wished to speak. Now Leros, with an inquiring glance, took notice of him.
The man asked: "Lord Leros, tell me this—"
"Address me no more as Lord. Your status from this day forward is higher than my own."
"Very well. Friend Leros, then. Tell me this: when a man has won this Tournament will he then have all the powers and rights that gods are known to have? I mean not only powers of war, but of the soft and healing arts?"
Leros had to take thought for a moment or two before answering. It had not been one of the usual expectable questions, for instance was Thorun's hall threatened by overcrowding with all the wars, or what kind of sacrificial meat would the god prefer today. At last he spoke. "The gentle goddess of healing will certainly listen to any request that man may make." He let out a light sigh. "The gods listen to one another more than they do to men. But then they still do what they please, unless of course they have bound themselves by formal promise, as Thorun has done regarding this Tournament."
The man nodded soberly. "It is all we can expect," he said, and resumed his place in the circle.
All were silent now. Somewhere in the background a slave was chopping kindling for the first funeral pyre. Leros said: "Then go, all of you, and make what final preparations you will. The first fight will begin shortly."
As soon as the assembly had dispersed a subordinate priest drew Leros aside and when they had reached a place of relative privacy unrolled a small scroll and showed it to him. "Lord Leros, this was found posted on a tree not far away. We have no clue as yet to indicate who put it up."
The lettering on the scroll seemed to have been made with a dull ordinary pencil of charred kettwood. The message read:
Gods and men, place your bets. Who of the 64 will be proven the greatest fighter? That one will be, there is no doubt. Will he then envy those that he has slain, and curse Godsmountain and its lying priests? While your money is out, try to lay a bet on this also: Are the rulers of this mountain fit to rule our world?
The Brotherhood
Leros nodded, tight-lipped, at the signature. "You have sent word of this up the hill?"
"Of course, Lord."
"That is all we can do for the moment. We must make sure the army increases its patrols in the area." But of course the message might have been put up by someone known to be in the area of the Tournament. Perhaps one of the slaves—or even one of the contestants—is not what he pretends to be. "We must keep our eyes open, of course, and let nothing jeopardize the Tournament. To discredit it would be a considerable victory for the Brotherhood." The Brotherhood was a vague league of the disaffected, probably including most of Godsmountain's enemies, who were now scattered and relatively powerless around the rim of the inhabited world. There might be a sharp and dangerous secret organization at its core; it seemed wise to assume there was, and to continually warn the people and the soldiers of it.
The subordinate indicated his agreement and withdrew. Leros pondered briefly: Might the agent who had left the message be a disloyal priest? He did not think it probable. But he could not be completely sure.
The Tournament meanwhile, had to get started. There had been no sign from up the hill that High Priest Andreas or any of his Inner Circle were coming down to watch. A pack train came into view on the lower reaches of the long road that wound its way down the forested slopes from the summit; but when it drew near Leros saw that no men of rank were walking near the animals, it was only a regular supply caravan returning unburdened from the top.
On with it, then. Turning to a waiting herald, he gave the signal for the battle-horn to be blown, to call the contestants all together for the last time in the world of living men. When they were assembled he drew from a pocket of his fine white robe a scroll of new vellum, on which a priest-scribe had set down the names in elegant calligraphy. They appeared in the alphabetical order hallowed by time and military usage:
Arthur of Chesspa Ben Tarras of the Battle-Axe
Big Left Hand Bram the Beardless of Consiglor
Brunn of Bourzoe Byram of the Long Bridges
Chapmut of Rillijax Charles the Upright
Chun He Ping the Strong Col Renba
David the Wolf of Monga's Village Efim Samdeviatoff
Farley of Eikosk Farmer Minamoto
Geno Hammerhand Geoff Symbolor of Symbolorville
Gib the Blacksmith Giles the Treacherous of Endross Swamp
Gladwin Vanucci Gunter Kamurata
Hal Coppersmith Herc Stambler of Birchtown
Homer Garamond of Running Water Ian Offally the Woodcutter
John Spokemaker of the Triple Fork Jud Isaksson of Ardstoy Hill
Kanret Jon of Jonsplace Korl the Legbreaker
LeNos of the Highlands Losson Grish
M'Gamba Mim Muni Podarces
Mesthles of the Windy Vale Mool of Rexbahn
Nikos Darcy of the Long Plain Octans Bukk of Pachuka
Omir Kelsumba One-Eyed Manuel
Otis Kitamura Pal Setoff of Whiteroads
Pern-Paul Hosimba Pernsol Muledriver of Weff's Plain
Phil Cenchrias Polydorus the Foul
Proclus Nan Ling Rafael
Sandoval
Rahim Sosias Rico Kitticatchorn of Tiger's Lair
Rudolph Thadbury Ruen Redaldo
Sensai Hagenderf Shang Ti the Awesome
Siniuju of the Evergreen Slope Tay Corbish Kandry
Thomas the Grabber Thurlow Vultee of the High Crag
Travers Sandakan of Thieves' Road Urumchi
Vann the Nomad Venerable Ming the Butcher
Vladerlin Bain of Sanfa Town Wat Franko of the Deep Wood
Wull Narvaez Zell of Windchastee
When he had done with reading, Leros glanced up at the still-high sun. "There will be time today for much fighting. Let it begin."
He handed the scroll to a subordinate priest, who read in a loud voice: "Arthur of Chesspa—Ben Tarras of the Battle-Axe."
Having both stepped into the ring, and made their holy signs imploring Thorun's favor, the two went at it. Ben Tarras had taken only a dozen more breaths when his battle-axe spun out of his hand to bury itself with a soft sound in the calmly receiving earth, while Arthur's swordblade at the same time sank true and deep in Ben Tarras's flesh. The bare, flattened soil of the fighting ring drank Ben Tarras's blood as if it had been long athirst. A pair of slaves in shabby gray tunics dragged his body from the ring, toward a place nearby where other slaves were readying a pyre. The dry wood was stacked twice taller than a man already, and was not yet enough. Thirty-two men today would join the gods and begin their eternal feast with Thorun.
"Big Left Hand—Bram the Beardless of Consiglor."
This fight went on a little longer; and then both hands of Big Left Hand (they appeared equally big) were stilled as Bram's sword tore his middle open. Again the slaves came to bear a corpse away, but Big Left Hand stirred and kicked feebly as they took him up. His eyes opened and were living, though the terrible wound in his front was plainly mortal. One slave, who limped about his work, pulled from his belt a short but massive leaden maul and broke the head of the dying man with a short methodical swing. Leros for the second time said ritual words to speed a loser's soul to Thorun, nodded to the acolyte who held the scroll.
"Brunn of Bourzoe—Byram of the Long Bridges."
It went on through the afternoon, with little pauses between fights. Some of the fights were long, and one of the winners had lost so much blood that he could hardly stand himself before he managed to still the breath in the loser's throat. As soon as each fight was over the slaves came quickly to stanch the wounds, if any, of the winner, and lead him to food and drink and rest. It was likely to go hard in the second round of fighting with those who had been weakened in the first.
The sun was reddening near the horizon before the last match had been fought. Before retiring, Leros gave orders that the camp should be moved early in the morning. Originally he had planned to wait until midday before beginning the slow intended progress up the mountain, but the smoke of the funeral pyre seemed to lie heavy here in the low air, and amphibious vermin from the river were being drawn to the camp by the blood of heroes in which the earth was soaked.
III
Orion was well in-system now, rapidly matching orbital velocities with Hunters' planet, and in fact not far from entering atmosphere. From his command chair in the small control room at the center of the ship, Schoenberg supervised his autopilot with a computer-presented hologram of the planet drifting before him, the planet as it appeared in gestalt via the multitude of sensing instruments built into the starship's outer hull.
A few days earlier Suomi had obtained a printout on Hunters' planet from the ship's gazetteer, a standard databank carried for navigation, trade, and emergency survival. The Hunterian year was about fifteen times as long as the Earth-standard year; Hunters' planet was therefore much farther from its primary than Earth was from Sol, but Hunters' Star was a blue-white subgiant, so that the total insolation received by both planets was very nearly equal. The radius, mass, and gravity of Hunters' planet were Earthlike, as was the composition of the atmosphere. Hunters' would surely have been colonized from pole to pole had it not been for its extreme axial tilt—more than eighty degrees to the plane of its revolution around Hunters' sun, almost as far as was Uranus in its orbit around Sol.
Spring was now a standard year old in the Hunterian northern hemisphere, which region was therefore emerging from a night that had been virtually total for another Earthly year or so. Near the north pole the night had now lasted for more than five standard years and would endure for a total of seven. Up there the ice-grip of the dark cold was deep indeed, but it would soon be loosened. Seven standard years of continuous sunheat were coming.
According to statements in the gazetteer, which were probably still valid though more than a standard century old, men had never managed to settle permanently much farther than fifteen degrees of latitude in either direction from the Hunterian equator. Dome colonies would have been called for and there had never been sufficient population pressure to make it worthwhile. Indeed, the population had not occupied even the whole equatorial zone of the main continent when the berserkers came. When the killing machines from out of space attacked, the growing technological civilization of Hunters' colonists had been wrecked; the intervention of Karlsen's battle fleet was the only reason that any of the colonists—or the biosphere itself, for that matter—had survived at all. The native life, though none of its forms were intelligent, did manage to endure at all latitudes, surviving the long winters by hibernation of one kind or another, and in many cases getting through the scorching, desiccated summers by an estivation cycle.
Away from the tropics, spring presented the only opportunity for feeding, growth, and reproduction. Because the southern hemisphere was so largely water, the northern spring was the one that counted insofar as land animals were concerned. In the northern springtime beasts of all description emerged from caves and nests and frozen burrows with the melting of the ice. Among them came predators, more terrible, burning with more urgent hunger and ferocity, than any creatures that had ever lived on the old wild lands of Earth. On Hunters' planet now, as every fifteen standard years, the hunting season by which the planet had acquired its name was in full swing.
* * *
"The poaching season, I suppose we should call it," said Carlos Suomi to Athena Poulson. The two of them were standing in the shooting gallery Schoenberg had set up a few weeks earlier in the large cabin directly beneath Orion's lounge. Suomi and Athena were looking over a large gun rack filled with energy rifles; Schoenberg had enjoined everyone aboard to select a weapon and become adept with it before shooting in earnest was required. Schoenberg and De La Torre spent a good deal of time down here, Celeste and Barbara hardly any.
Suomi and Athena were intermediate, he generally showing up whenever she went to practice. They were in mid-session now. Some ten meters from the rifle rack—half the diameter of the spherical ship—a computer-designed hologram showed a handful of Hunterian predators stop-actioned in what looked like a good drawing of their natural habitat. Around and beyond the sketch-like animals in the middle distance what appeared to be several square kilometers of glacier spread to an illusive horizon.
"All right," Athena said in her low voice. "Technically speaking, this trip is outside interstellar law. But it's evident that neither the authorities on Earth or the Interstellar Authority care very much. Oscar is too smart to get into any real trouble over such a thing. Relax and enjoy the trip, Carl, now that you're here. Whyever did you come along if you don't like the idea?"
"You know why I came." Suomi pulled a rifle halfway out of the rack and then slid it back. The end of its muzzle was slightly bulbous, dull gray, pitted all over with tiny and precisely machined cavities. What it projected was sheer physical force, abstracted almost to the point of turning into mathematics. Suomi had already tried out all the rifles in the rack and they all seemed pretty much the same to him, despite their considerable differences in length and shape and weight. They were all loaded now with special target cartridges, projecting only a trickle of powe
r when triggered, enough to operate the target range. Its setup was not different in principle from the target ranges in arcades on Earth or other urbanized planets; only there it was generally toy berserkers that one shot at, black metal goblins of various angular shapes that waved their limbs or flashed their imitation laser beams in menace. "I've always enjoyed these target games," he said. "Why shouldn't these be real enough, instead of going after living animals?"
"Because these are not real," said Athena firmly. "And shooting at them isn't real either." She chose a rifle and turned her back on Suomi to aim it down the range. Somewhere a scanner interpreted her posture as that of the ready hunter, and the scene before her came alive again with deliberate motion. A multimouthed creature bristling with heavy fur stalked toward them at a range of seventy meters. Athena fired, a small click was emitted by the rifle, which remained perfectly steady, and the beast flopped over in a graceful, almost stylized way, now wearing a spot of red light riveted near the middle of what should have been its spine. The indication was for a clean kill.
"Athena, I came along because you were coming, and I wanted to spend time with you, to get some things settled between us. That's why I had you get me invited. Also it was a chance to take a trip on a private space yacht, something I'll probably never be able to do again. If I must hunt, to keep your lord and master upstairs happy, why then I'll do it. Or at least go through the motions of hunting."