Berserker Man

by Fred Saberhagen

  Thorun did not move. Neither did the demigod Mjollnir, seated at another side of the table, head bound in a silver band, wrapped in his dark cloak. Of nearly equal size with the god of war and the hunt, Mjollnir shared Thorun's foodless and drinkless feast in gloomy comradeship.

  After entering the room Andreas had waited for a little while, standing motionless, watching—making sure neither of them was going to be triggered into movement by his entry. Sometimes they were. One had to be careful. Satisfied, he walked around the high table and passed behind the chair of Thorun. There in the wall was set a small and secret door for which no key was necessary. Andreas opened this door by pressure in the proper place. Behind it another narrow stone stair wound down.

  The descent was longer this time. At the bottom of the final stair Andreas turned first to his left. After three or four strides in that direction he emerged from a narrow tunnel to stand on the bottom of an enormous pit dug out of the rock beside the Temple. The excavation of this pit had consumed in labor the lifetimes of many slaves, having been started during the tenure of the fifth High Priest to hold office before Andreas; so farseeing and magnificent were the plans, now coming to fruition, of the true god! At its top the pit was surrounded by white stone walls and covered by a roof, so that it looked from the outside merely like one more building in the Temple complex, in no way remarkable amid the maze of structures that all looked more or less alike.

  Andreas went back into the tunnel and followed it back in the direction that led right from the foot of the stair. Before entering the doorless chamber to which this passage brought him, he paused and closed his eyes in reverent imitation of Death, murmured a brief private prayer. Certainly not to Thorun. Thorun was a thing, a tool, part of a necessary deception practiced on the masses, a deception that Andreas had left behind him in the Temple. What now lay ahead was, for him, the ultimate—the only—reality.

  The chamber Andreas now entered was as old as anything made by man on Hunters' planet. Dim daylight lit it now, filtering indirectly down through an overhead shaft open at some high place to the sunlight and barred by heavy grills at many places along its length. It was a little larger than Thorun's hall above. A hundred people might have squeezed themselves into this room but never had. Fewer than ten people now even knew of its existence.

  Against the wall opposite the single doorway stood a low wooden table bearing a half dozen boxes of bright metal. Each box was of a different shape, and each rested in a depression or socket carved to its shape in the dark panels of the tabletop. The outer surfaces of the boxes were precisely machined and shaped, products of a finer technology than any sword-making smithy. Tubes and cables of smooth gray and black ran among the boxes in a maze of interconnections.

  On second look the wooden frame supporting the boxes was not really a table, but something more like a litter or sedan chair, though not made to accommodate the human form. From opposite ends of the litter extended pairs of sturdy carrying arms with carven grips, so six or eight humans could bear the whole assembly. The carrying handles were worn with long usage, but the litter, like the rest of the chamber, was very clean.

  The pale stone of the floor shone faintly in the dim light. Only the low stone altar in the center of the room was darkened by old and ineradicable stains, rust from the inset iron rings to which victims' limbs were sometimes bound, rust-colored old blood at the places over which the victims' organs were removed. Before the litter, like fruit, the skulls of babies filled a bowl. Offerings of flowers lay scattered in small heaps, never in vases. Nearly all of the flowers were dead.

  After he entered the room Andreas lowered himself to his knees, then down and fully prostrate on the floor, head and outstretched arms pointing toward the altar and beyond it to the litter with its metallic burden.

  * * *

  "Arise, Andreas," said a steady, inhuman voice. It came from among the metal boxes, where a small wooden frame stood on its side holding a stretching drumskin. In the center of the drumskin a small gleam of metal showed. The voice produced by the drumskin was seldom loud, though a similar device had been put inside Thorun to let him bellow and laugh. This, the quiet voice of Death, was more like a drum-sound than anything else Andreas had ever heard—and yet it was not very like a drum.

  Andreas arose and came around the altar, approached the litter, once more made obeisance to the boxes on it, this time only on one knee. "Oh, Death," he said in a soft and reverent voice, "it is truly a starship, and its pilot chose to land on the rock where you in your wisdom foresaw that such a ship might land. I am going shortly to prepare Mjollnir for his task, and to choose soldiers to go with him. I have already carried out your other orders in every particular."

  The drum-voice asked: "How many outworlders came with the ship?"

  "I have seen six, and there is no evidence that others are aboard. Wonderful is your wisdom, oh, Death, who could predict that such men would be lured across the sky to watch our Tournament. Wonderful and—"

  "Was there any mention of the man, the badlife, named Johann Karlsen?"

  "No, Death." Andreas was a little puzzled. Surely the man Karlsen must be long since dead. But the god Death was wise beyond mere human understanding; Andreas had long since been convinced of that. He waited worshipfully for another question.

  After a brief silence it came. "And they are private hunters? Poachers by their own laws?"

  "Yes, Lord Death, their spokesman said they had been hunting. No one in their outworld government will know that they are here."

  Prompted by occasional further questions Andreas spoke on, telling in some detail all that he had so far managed to learn about the visitors and their spacecraft.

  He was certain it would not be too big to fit into the pit beside the Temple.

  VI

  On the day after Orion's landing, Leros led the sixteen Tournament contenders who were still alive up the mountain to a new and higher camp. There, when routine matters had been gotten out of the way, he read the pairings for the third round of the Tournament:

  Bram the Beardless of Consiglor Charles the Upright

  Col Renba Farley of Eikosk

  Giles the Treacherous Hal Coppersmith

  Jud Isaksson LeNos of the Highlands

  Mesthles of the Windy Vale Omir Kelsumba

  Polydorus the Foul Rahim Sosias

  Rudolph Thadbury Thomas the Grabber

  Vann the Nomad Wull Narvaez

  The priest of the Inner Circle who had come down from the city yesterday had informed Leros and the warriors that they could expect a group of outworlders to appear today. The Tournament was to go on almost as usual, and the utmost courtesy was to be shown the outworlders. If they behave strangely, ignore it. There will probably even be women among them; pay no attention to that, either. Leros was also instructed to call frequent recesses in the fighting for prayer and ceremony.

  The warriors had little thought to spare for anything that did not directly concern their own survival in the Tournament, and the arrival of the visitors and their guide when Leros was halfway through reading the lists caused no interruption. Four visitors came, and two of them were women but, Leros noted with some relief, modestly dressed. He had heard some tall tales of outworld ways. He was not pleased to have such onlookers—but perhaps Thorun was, for some obscure and godly reason. In any event, orders were orders, and Leros had endured harder ones than this.

  This day's fighting ring had been stamped out at the head of a gentle slope in an area where the trees were thin. From the ring the outworlders' ship was readily visible a few hundred meters away on its truncated pinnacle of rock. The massive ball of bright metal that carried folk out among the stars showed a single open doorway in its otherwise featureless surface. Two more outworlders were sometimes visible, tiny figures sitting or standing on the little lip of rock before the ship.

  * * *

  Athena, standing at ringside beside Schoenberg and waiting somewhat nervously for the action to begin,
whispered to him: "Are you sure this is going to be fighting for keeps?"

  "That's what our guide tells us. I expect he knows what's going on." Schoenberg was watching the preparations with keen interest, not looking at her when he answered, low-voiced.

  "But if what he told us is true, each of these men has already been through two duels in this tournament. And look—there's hardly a mark on any of them."

  "I can see a few bandages," Schoenberg whispered back. "But you may have a point." He considered the matter. "It could well be this: fighting from an animal's back apparently isn't done here. Therefore men have to move around strictly on their own muscle power, and can't wear a lot of heavy body armor. So a clean hit from any type of weapon is going to leave a serious wound, not just a minor gash or bruise. Most wounds are serious, and the first man to be disabled by a serious wound is almost certainly the loser. Ergo, winners don't show up for the next round with serious wounds."

  They fell silent then, since Leros was looking in their direction and perhaps was ready to get the action started. Two men with weapons ready were facing each other from opposite sides of the ring. De La Torre and Celeste also became utterly attentive.

  Leros cleared his throat. "Bram the Beardless—Charles the Upright."

  * * *

  Suomi, standing atop the mesa beside Barbara Hurtado and looking toward the ring from there, was too far away to hear Leros call the names, but through his binoculars he saw two men with raised weapons start toward each other across the fighting ring. He put the binoculars down then and turned away, wondering how in the universe he had managed to get himself involved in this sickening business. For hunting animals one could find or fabricate some reason or excuse, but not for this—and there was Athena, over at ringside, an avid observer.

  "Someone should do an anthropological study," she had explained to him just a little while ago, while getting ready to leave the ship. "If they're really fighting each other to the death over there." Their guide-to-be, a tall, white-robed youth, had just been explaining the Tournament to them in some detail.

  "You're not an anthropologist."

  "There isn't a professional one here. Still, it's a job that should be done." She went on getting ready, clipping a small audiovideo recorder to her belt, next to the hologram camera.

  "Is Schoenberg here to do an anthropological study too?"

  "Ask him. Carl, if you hate Oscar so much and can't stand to look at life in the raw—why did you come along on this trip? Why did you get me to ask Oscar to invite you?"

  He drew a deep breath. "We've been through that."

  "Tell me again. I would really like to know."

  "All right. I came because of you. You are the most desirable woman I have ever known. I mean more than sex. Sex included, of course—but I want the part of you that Schoenberg has."

  "He doesn't have me, as you put it. I've worked for Oscar five years now, and he has my admiration—"

  "Why your admiration?"

  "Because he's strong. There's a kind of strength in you too, Carl, a different kind, that I've admired also. Oscar has my admiration and often my companionship—because I enjoy his company. He and I have had sex together a few times, and that, too, has been enjoyable. But he doesn't have me. No one does. No one will."

  "When you come of yourself as a free gift, then someone will."

  "No one."

  * * *

  Bram and Charles were sparring cautiously in the day's first duel, neither of them having yet decided on an all-out rush. Though they were of a height Charles the Upright was much leaner, his back so straight that the reason for his name was obvious. He wore a loose jacket of fine leather and had a darkly handsome face.

  Athena thought he showed incredible poise, waiting with his long, sharp-looking sword lifted in one hand, aimed at his opponent. Surely, she thought, this was not life-and-death after all. No matter how seriously they took it, it must be some play, some game, with a symbolic loser stepping aside . . . and yet all the time she was telling herself this she knew better.

  "Come," Charles was murmuring, sounding like a man urging on some animal. "Come. Now. Now."

  And beardless Bram, all youth and freakish strength, came on, first one step, then two, then in an awesome rush, his sword first raised then slashing down. The sharp blades rang together, the two men grunted. Incoherent cries of excitement went up around the watching circle. Charles, fending off blow after blow, was giving way now. He seemed to lose his footing momentarily in a slip, then lashed out with a counterstroke that brought a hoarse noise of appreciation from the warriors who stood watching with knowledgeable eyes. Bram avoided the blow and was unhurt but his rushing attack had been brought to a standstill. Athena for the first time began to realize that fine skill must reign here on the same throne with brutality.

  Bram stood quietly for a moment, frowning as if at the unexpected resistance of some inanimate object. Then suddenly he charged again, more violently if possible than before. The long swords blurred and sang together, sprang apart, blurred and sang again. Athena began now to see and understand the timing and strategy of the strokes. She was forgetting herself, her eyes and mind opening more fully for perception. Then all at once, somehow—for all her concentration she had not seen how—Charles's sword was no longer in his hand. Instead it sprouted between Bram's ribs, the hilt firmly affixed before Bram's breastbone, half a meter of blade protruding gory and grotesque from his broad back.

  Bram shook his head, one, two, three times, in what seemed utter disbelief. Athena saw it all with great clarity and it all seemed very slow. Bram was still waving his own sword, but now he seemed unable to locate his newly disarmed opponent, standing in plain sight in front of him. Suddenly, awkwardly, Bram sat, dropped his weapon and raised a hand to his face, brushing at it as if struck by the thought that now his beard would never grow. The hand fell limp and Bram slumped farther, his head tilting forward on his chest. The pose looked incredibly uncomfortable, but he bore it without complaint. Only when a gray-clad slave limped forward to drag the body to one side did Athena fully understand that the man—the boy—had died before her eyes.

  Charles the Upright extracted his sword with a strong pull and held it out to another slave for cleaning—while yet another spilled sand over the place where Bram had spilled his life. In the background someone was digging. The world had changed in the space of a few moments, or rather Athena had been changed. Never again would she be the same.

  "Col Renba—Farley of Eikosk."

  The man who started forward at the name of Col Renba was big, brown, and shaggy. He stood near the center of the arena whirling a mace, a spike-studded ball on the end of a short chain, and waited for Farley to come after him.

  Oscar was saying something to her, but there was no time to listen or think, no time for anything but watching. No time for Oscar, even.

  Farley of Eikosk, fair and freckled, tall and well made if not exactly handsome, came treading catlike in fine leather boots. His other garments were simple, but of rich sturdy cloth. He squinted in the sun that shone on the fine polished steel of his sword and knife. Holding a weapon in either hand, he feinted an advance to within striking range of the mace, and nodded as if with satisfaction when he saw how rapidly the spiked weight on its taut chain arched out at him and back again.

  Now Farley began to circle, moving around Col Renba first one way and then the other. The mace came out after him, faster than before, faster than had seemed possible to Athena, and she cried out, unaware that she did so. Again she cried out, in relief this time, when she saw that the spikes had missed Farley's fine, fair skin.

  Momentarily both men were still, and then again there came a rapid passage of arms, too fast for Athena to judge. She thought the flurry was over, when suddenly the tip of one of the mace's spikes touched Farley on the hand, and his dagger flew lightly but awkwardly away. In almost the same moment Farley's long sword bit back, and now Col Renba backed away, keeping the mace twirli
ng with his right hand, his left arm curled up as if trying to protect itself from further damage while its sleeve rapidly drenched red.

  Each man's left arm was bleeding now, and Farley's at least appeared no longer usable. Along the back of his hand there showed the white of splintered bone. The bright blade of his long dagger lay buried in the dust.

  When the mace-spinner saw the extent of the damage he had inflicted, and found that his own left arm could at least be held up out of the way, he stopped backing off and began to advance once again. He kept the ugly weight of death moving around him in a smooth ellipse. As Col stepped closer, Farley began to retreat, but only began. As the mace sighed past him his long speed-thrust to the throat caught Col stepping in. Col Renba died, the mace flying wide from his hand in a great arc, spinning over the shouting, dodging ring of watchers.

  A long moment after the other watchers' outcries had died away, Athena was still shouting. She realized this and shut up and let go of Schoenberg, whose arm and shoulder had somehow come into her spasmodic two-handed grip. Oscar was looking at her strangely, and so was De La Torre, who stood with his arm around a bored-looking Celeste a little distance off.

  But Athena forgot about them. Already men were getting ready to fight again.

  * * *

  "Giles the Treacherous—Hal Coppersmith."

  Coppersmith was the leaner of this pair, and much the taller. He was content to begin on the defensive, holding his long sword like the sensing organ of some giant insect. Giles the Treacherous had sandy hair, an air of earnest perseverance, and (like the most successful traitors, thought Athena) an open trustworthiness in his face. He was not big, and did not appear to be exceptionally strong, but still maneuvered his own long blade with an assured economy of effort. Now it was high, now low, without Athena being aware that it had started to move. Hal Coppersmith had similar difficulties, it seemed. His elbow was gashed, and then his knee, and then the great muscle in his tattooed upper arm was cut nearly through. Then nothing remained but butchery. Giles stepped back with an expression of distaste. A slave limped forward to swing a maul and end Hal's silent, thrashing agony.