Berserker Man

by Fred Saberhagen

  "Rudolph Thadbury—Shang Ti the Awesome."

  Thadbury had a military as well as a fighting look. Leros thought this man had something more of the general than of the simple swordsman about him but knew nothing of his background. Most of the contestants were as much strangers to Leros and the other priests as they were to one another.

  Squarely built, with blunt-fingered enormous hands, Rudolph Thadbury exuded strength and confidence. Shang Ti was awesome in truth, having a rather small head set on such a giant's body that the head's smallness was made to look grotesque. Shang Ti's sword was of a size to suit his stature. Rudolph's had a thicker blade than the usual and was just long enough to reach Shang Ti's heart.

  "Siniuju of the Evergreen Slope—Thomas the Grabber."

  Siniuju was almost scrawny, leaner than any other man left alive among the warriors. He carried a two-handed sword that looked too heavy for him—until he demonstrated how quickly he could make it move. Thomas was large and fierce-looking, a Shang Ti slightly less massive and better proportioned. He matched his spear over the long two-handed sword. The spear proved longer still.

  "Travers Sandakan—Vann the Nomad."

  Sandakan came carrying a thin-bladed axe made with a sturdy armored shaft. On his face were the lines of time and trouble and the scars of many fights. Vann the Nomad wore the long shapeless sweater of the high-plains herdsmen and wielded a long sword with demonic energy. Sandakan was no match for the Nomad and when Travers was dead Vann cut off one of his ears, saying: "I will give this back to him in Thorun's hall—if he is man enough to take it from me!" It was a gesture new to Leros, who thought about it and finally gave a hesitant smile of approval. As soon as the latest corpse had been cleared from the ring he formally called out the names for the day's final match.

  "Vladerlin Bain—Wull Narvaez."

  Coiled around Bain's waist was a long whip, whose purpose none had yet considered it politic to ask. In his hands Bain bore a dagger and sword. Narvaez, with a cheerful foolish face and a farmer's pitchfork as his only visible weapon, looked like some peasant fresh from fieldwork. A good harvester, he sent the tines exactly where he wanted them and Vladerlin was dead before he hit the ground, the reason for his coiled whip now never to be known.

  The sun had not yet reached its midday point. The fighting of the second round was over.

  * * *

  The sixteen fighters who remained alive moved off to enjoy the food prepared for them. For the most part they chatted and joked in good fellowship, though a few were silent. Also they took thoughtful notice of each other's wounds, calculating where weakness would be found tomorrow. All of them knew that even the tiniest advantage must be seized. Not one survived among them who was not extremely dangerous—not one survived who could not count killers of superior ability among his victims.

  Resting after their midday meal, they saw the messenger come pelting down the mountain. His news made Leros snap back his head to search the sky. From where they camped beneath the trees it was not possible to see much of it. The warriors were curious, but not very. The Tournament they were engaged in was more important than any distraction they could imagine.

  Later still when a priest of the Inner Circle came down to talk earnestly to Leros the news spread among the warriors that a round, silvery craft had come from beyond the world to visit Godsmountain. Most of them were curious enough to try to catch a glimpse of the ship, barely visible, resting among the trees on a distant height.

  V

  Oscar Schoenberg and Athena Poulson and Gus De La Torre had hunted again, on the day after Suomi's near-fatal confrontation with the glacier-beast, while Barbara Hurtado and Celeste Servetus had gone through the motions of hunting. Suomi had chosen to stay with the ship. Oscar and Athena and Gus, all having had some excitement on their first day's hunt but having returned from it empty handed returned from the second day's effort with their hologram trophies of large predators, safely recorded on little crystal cubes for later reproduction and display.

  Athena, sitting in the lounge, rubbing her tired feet, complained it was going to be difficult to find a place to show off her glacier-beast. "It's all right for you, Oscar, but I have one small apartment. I'll have to move half the furniture to make room for this—if I dare display it at all, that is."

  "Because you got it on an off-limits hunting trip?" Schoenberg laughed. "If anybody bothers you, just tell 'em I gave it to you. Let 'em come see me."

  "I'll have to leave it turned off most of the time, just bring it out for special occasions. I suppose it would scare off most of my usual visitors, anyway." Then she caught herself and started to look apologetically toward Suomi, then hastily looked away.

  Yesterday after everyone had returned to the ship they had all listened with some embarrassment to his account of how he had frozen in panic in the field and how Schoenberg had coolly saved his life. Athena had been more embarrassed, perhaps, than Suomi. De La Torre had seemed inwardly amused, and Barbara had shown some sympathy.

  Suomi wondered if his shipmates—Athena especially—were waiting for him to demand a rifle and a chance to go out and prove himself. If so they were going to have a long wait. All right, he had been terrified. Maybe if he went out again and an animal charged, he wouldn't be terrified. Or maybe he would. He wasn't anxious to find out. He had nothing to prove. While all the others were out hunting on the second day he sat on the ship's extended landing ramp enjoying the air. There was a rifle at hand for emergencies but if anything menacing came in sight he planned to simply go inside and close the hatch.

  Once everyone who wanted a trophy had one Schoenberg dallied in the north no longer. The hunting season would last a long time but the mysterious Tournament was apparently quite brief and he didn't want to miss it. When Suomi mentioned the Tournament to the girls, none of them had any clear idea of what it was. Some sort of physical contest, he supposed.

  Schoenberg evidently knew the way to Godsmountain, though he said he had not been there before. Flying south, he went much slower and lower than on the northward flight, paying close attention to landmarks. He followed a river valley most of the way, first by radar because of ground fog, then visually when the view had cleared. When, after several hours, they reached their destination, there was no mistaking it. Godsmountain stood out immediately from its surroundings, a wooded eminence practically isolated amid a patchwork of surrounding flat farmlands, orchards and pastures. The mountain was broad and quite high, but in general not very steep. On the deforested summit a town-sized complex of white stone walls and buildings stood out as plainly as if it had been constructed as a beacon for aerial navigation.

  After circling the mountain once at a respectful distance, Schoenberg slowed down some more and began to descend toward it. Not to the citadel-city on its top; he was careful not to even fly over that.

  A few hundred meters below the walls of the white city, a truncated pinnacle of rock rose out of the woods something like a dwarfed and naked thumb on the side of the mountain's great mitten-shape. After noticing this pinnacle, Schoenberg approached it slowly, circled it closely, then hovered directly over it for some time, probing delicately at it with the sensing instruments in Orion's hull. It was between twenty and thirty meters tall, and appeared to be just barely climbable. There was no sign that man or beast had ever taken the trouble to reach its flattened top.

  De La Torre, now hanging into the stanchion behind the pilot's chair, offered: "I'd say that top is big enough to hold us, Oscar, even give us a little room to walk around outside the ship."

  Schoenberg grunted. "That was my idea, to put her down there. We might have to cut a few steps or string a line to climb down. But on the other hand no one's going to come visiting unless we invite 'em."

  After making a final close examination of the pinnacle's small mesa from only a few meters' distance, Schoenberg set Orion down on it. The landing struts groped outward, adjusted themselves to keep the ship level. There was indeed enough flat space
on the rocky table to hold the ship securely, with a few square meters left over for leg-stretching. All aboard disembarked for this purpose at once. Even high up the weather at this tropical latitude was quite warm but the girls were fully clothed again, in view of their uncertainty about local morals and customs. Schoenberg had ordered all weapons left inside the ship.

  Direct inspection confirmed that only one side of the mesa was conceivably climbable by human beings. Even on that side there were places where a few pitons or some cut-in steps, and perhaps a rope, would be needed to allow even agile folk to make an ascent or descent in reasonable safety.

  "Where is everybody?" Celeste wondered aloud as she gazed beyond the intervening sea of treetops at the white walls of the city on the summit, slightly above their level.

  De La Torre had binoculars out and was peering in another direction, downslope. "There're thirty or forty men, in some kind of a camp. Over there. I can just make out some of them from time to time, among the trees."

  For a while there was no better answer to Celeste's question, no sign that Orion's arrival or her sore-thumb presence above the landscape had been noticed. Of course the dense forest that covered most of the mountain might conceal a lot of movement. The trees, Suomi noted, looked like close analogues of common Earthly species. Maybe some mutated stocks had been imported by the early colonists. The trunks did seem to be proportionately thicker than those of most trees on Earth, and their branches tended to right-angle bends.

  About half a standard hour had passed since their landing, and the six visitors had all armed themselves with binoculars, when the one visible gate in the city's high wall suddenly opened and a small party of white-robed men emerged, vanishing from sight again almost at once as they plunged into the woods.

  Schoenberg had an infrared device with which he could have followed their progress beneath the canopy of leaves, but he didn't bother. Instead he placed his binoculars back in their case, leaned back and lit a cigar. Some minutes before Suomi had expected their reappearance so near at hand, the delegation from the city emerged from the woods again, this time into the clearing caused by rockfalls from the tower on which Orion rested.

  Schoenberg at once threw down his cigar and moved forward to the mesa's edge and, with lifted arms, saluted the men below. Looking up, they returned the gesture with seeming casualness. There were half a dozen of them. The white robes of two or three were marked with different variations of purple trim.

  The distance being too great for anything but shouted exchanges, the Hunterians came leisurely closer. The tall one in the lead reached the foot of the tower and began to climb. At first he made steady headway without much difficulty. About halfway up, however, a nearly sheer stretch brought him to a halt. He was an old man, his visitors saw now, despite the nimbleness with which he moved.

  He looked up at Schoenberg, who stood open-handed some ten meters above him, and called: "Outworlders, Thorun and the other gods of Hunters' offer you greetings and grant you welcome."

  Schoenberg made a slight bow. "We thank Thorun and the other illustrious gods of Hunters', wishing to put our thanks in such form as may seem to them most courteous. And we thank you too, who approach us as their spokesman."

  "I am Andreas, High Priest of Thorun's kingdom in the world."

  Schoenberg introduced the members of his party, Andreas those with him. After a further exchange of courtesies in which Schoenberg hinted that he would make some gift to Thorun as soon as he found out what was most suitable, he got around to the object of his visit. "As all men know, Hunters' is the planet most renowned in all the universe for the quality of its fighting men. We are told that the finest warriors of the planet are even now gathered here at Godsmountain for a great Tournament."

  "That is true in every word," said Andreas. His speech seemed to outworld ears much less accented than Kestand's had.

  Schoenberg proceeded. "We crave the favor of Thorun in being allowed to witness this Tournament, at least in part."

  Andreas did not look toward his companions waiting calmly below, but rather across the treetops to his city, as if to gather in some message. It was only a brief glance, before he said: "I speak for Thorun. It is his pleasure to grant you your request. The Tournament is already in progress, but the most important rounds of fighting remain yet to be seen. The next is to be fought tomorrow."

  * * *

  Andreas talked a little longer with the outworlders, promising that in the morning he would send a guide to conduct them to the fighting ring in plenty of time to see the day's events there. He promised them also that sometime during their stay they would be invited into the city and entertained in Thorun's temple as befitted distinguished guests. He acknowledged Schoenberg's promise that a gift for Thorun would be forthcoming. And then the priests and the outworlders exchanged polite farewells.

  During the short hike back to the city Andreas was thoughtful and more than usually aloof. His subordinates, walking with him, took careful note of his mood and did not intrude upon him.

  He was an old man by Hunterian standards, scarred by a dozen serious wounds, the survivor of a hundred fights. He was no longer a warrior of great prowess, his muscles now suffering the wastage of time and maltreatment. Nimble climbing cost him much more effort than he allowed to show. The skull looked out from behind his face more plainly with the passage of every sixtieth-of-an-old-man's-life—what the outworlders would call a Standard Year.

  In this progressive change of his facial appearance he found pleasure.

  Though his legs were tired he maintained a brisk pace and it was not long before he had led his party back into the city.

  There he brushed aside subordinates who were waiting to entangle him in a hundred questions and disputes about the visitors. These men, below the level of the Inner Circle, understood nothing. Essentially alone, Andreas strode quickly and still thoughtfully through the network of bright, narrow streets. Servants, artisans, soldiers and aristocrats alike all took themselves out of his way. On the steps before the tall outer doors of the Temple of Thorun a pair of Inner Circle aristocrats in purple-spangled robes broke off their conversation to bow respectfully, a salute that Andreas acknowledged with a scarcely conscious nod. A courtesan alighting from her litter bowed more deeply. She was evidently the woman of some non-celibate priest below the Inner Circle. Andreas acknowledged her not at all.

  In the Outer Temple the light was good, the sun coming in strongly through the hypaethrus in the roof; and here a low-voiced chant of war, to muffled drum, went up from acolytes who knelt before an altar piled with enemy warriors' skulls and captured weapons. An armed guard who stood before the entrance to the Inner Temple saluted Andreas and stepped aside, pulling the great door open for him. Broad stairs went down. The room to which they led was vast, built partially below the level of the sunlit streets outside.

  Here in the Inner Temple the light was indirect and dim, filtered through many small portals. Andreas pushed aside hanging after hanging of chain mail with practiced hands, made his way across the enormous chamber. He passed a place where a single devout worshipper knelt, a fighting man with shield and sword in hand, a priest-general dressed all in white, praying silently before a tall stone statue. The statue, highly stylized, portrayed a man in smooth, tight-fitting outworlder's garb. He wore a round and almost featureless helm and had a grim, beardless face—Karlsen, a demigod of the distant past, a sword in his right hand, a stick-like outworld weapon in his left. Andreas' face was set like stone. But to have the statue removed would cause trouble. Karlsen was still a popular figure with many of the people.

  From this point on the way Andreas took was not open, or even known, to more than a very few. He went behind more chain mail curtains into a corner where an inconspicuous passageway began. Again there were descending stairs, dimmer and much narrower than before. At the bottom a small oil lamp burned in a wall niche, giving enough light to enable a man to walk without groping, no more. Here were the tall and ma
ssive doors that led to Thorun's hall. From behind these doors at times came flaring lights, the sound of harp and drum and horn and booming laughter. At these times novices were allowed to stand wide-eyed at the foot of the stairs and briefly watch and listen, observing from afar the evidences of gods and heroes at feast within.

  Andreas carried one of the two keys that could open the doors of Thorun's hall. Lachaise, Chief Artisan of the Temple and, of course, a member of the Inner Circle, had the other. A door swung open for Andreas now, when he turned his key in the proper secret way, and he quickly stepped through and pulled the door tightly shut again behind him.

  * * *

  The Great Hall of Thorun, carved out of the living rock beneath the Temple, was perhaps five meters long, three wide, three high—certainly modest enough in all conscience for the master of the world. The walls, floor, and ceiling were rough, bare stone; Thorun's hall had never been finished. Quite likely it never would be. Work on it had begun, he supposed, almost twenty Hunterian years ago, five times an old-man's-lifetime. A little work had still been done in the tenure of the previous High Priest. But since then plans had changed. The place was big enough already to fill its only real function; duping novices. There was an air passage above so that bright torches could be burned to cast their light out under and around the doors, there were musical instruments piled in a corner. As for the booming, godlike laughter—either Thorun or Mjollnir could do that.

  Thorun was in his hall, seated at a table that nearly filled the inadequate room. So huge was he that, even though seated, his eyes were on a level with those of the tall priest standing before him. Thorun's head of wild dark hair was bound by a golden band, his fur cloak hung about his mountainous shoulders. His famed sword, so large that no man could wield it, was girdled to his waist. His huge right hand, concealed as always in a leather glove, rested on the table and held a massive goblet. Seen in the dim light, Thorun's face above his full dark beard might have been judged human—except that it was too immobile and too large.