The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  “I beg to differ,” said Rel.

  “There is a chance,” continued the beetle, “if you can get yourself through the Machineries of Change, that you will activate your dormant talent for magic and you will become as the living weapons of old.”

  “Seriously?” said Rel. “What happens when it doesn’t work?”

  “Then you will die.”

  “How the fuck is that supposed to help me?”

  “It is a small chance. The mageblood in you is weak. There is no guarantee of success. If it works, your body will most likely become unstable. Your life will be shortened. In return you will have access to immeasurable power.”

  “So I will die anyway?”

  “Not immediately. Dying later is always preferable to dying now. It is the tenet by which I have lived my entire life. It has worked for me so far.”

  Rel looked through the bars. The elders showed no sign of stopping their music.

  “All I have to do is to escape from this cage, make my way past ten thousand monsters, avoid their leader, then jump into a magical device that may very well tear me to pieces?”

  “That is about the measure of it, yes.”

  “Fine. I’ve had better odds, but I accept.” He held up his manacled hands. “First, I have to get these off, and get out of the cage.”

  “I cannot help you,” said the beetle.

  “Oh yes you can.” Rel seized the brass god’s device. He gripped it tightly in his hand, ignoring the stabbing of its needled legs as it struggled to get free. He relaxed his grip enough so that it could speak.

  “Do you need to tell me anything else?”

  “Kill Brauctha,” said the beetle. “That is our only chance to avert disaster. You have set in train events that may end the world. Put them right.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Rel wrenched the beetle’s large rear legs off. The damaged machine thumped to the floor and crawled off pathetically. Rel paid it no attention. He had what he needed. He held the limbs up to his eyes, and started to twist the legs into shape.

  REL WAS WORKING at the manacles with his improvised lockpicks when the humming of the elders cut out. Movement rustled throughout the arena. Rel glanced up, afraid he would be noticed, but the doings of a mere human were below the modalmen’s attention. All eyes were on the arena floor.

  Brauctha strode out from the edge of the arena, draped in a cloak of shining feathers. The circle of elders parted to let him through. Rel watched him warily, hiding his tools in his lap, but although Brauctha had put Rel centre stage, he spared no glance for him.

  Brauctha raised his arms and made a barking cry. He began to speak, passionately laying out whatever claim he had against Shkarauthir. He gestured toward Rel’s cage a couple of times, but did not once look at him. Rel backed away until he was in the corner, where he would be most obscured from view. Trying not to rush, he jiggled the picks in the manacle’s lock. The keys had been very simple, long shafts with a blank bit.

  Rel had picked locks before. He was a rich man, so did it for the thrill when he was a boy. The man he had learned it from needed the ability to survive. He had been caught, and expected to be punished. Instead his father had encouraged him. No skill, his father had said, was ever wasted.

  His father had given him an easier time than his siblings. He supposed it was because he was the youngest. He had no predetermined role to fulfil. He was a spare. Their father could afford to be indulgent with him.

  The pick bit. The lock clicked. His manacles were heavy and fell off his hands loudly. Brauctha was still speaking, and the modalmen were staring at only at him.

  Rel looked down the cage. The beetle had gone, leaving the filthy boards empty. The cage’s gate was twenty feet distant, as far as the other side of the world. If he went for it now, he would be spotted and killed.

  He could not make his attempt while Brauctha spoke. That would be seen.

  When he did make his move, he was going to have to unlock the door pretty much instantly. The lock was as simple as that on the manacles. It was possible to get it open, the question was, could he do it quickly enough?

  There was a sudden thunder of stamping feet. Brauctha was holding his arms high, basking in the adulation of his people. For the first time since Rel had been dragged into the arena earlier in the evening, the crowd was not acting in concert. Sections occupied by the men eaters bellowed out approbation, but many others hissed their disapproval.

  Brauctha started to speak again, ending his last pronouncement on a single shouted word.

  “Shkarauthir!” he roared.

  A gong boomed.

  Shkarauthir entered the stadium. He carried his long spear in his right upper hand, a shield in the left. His lower arms carried paired daggers. Two swords hung from his belt. Upon his chest he wore a bronze breastplate, softer than iron, but the modalman’s great strength meant the metal could be thick. Matching greaves and vambraces covered his lower arms and legs. The upper parts of his arms and shoulders were protected by leather spaulders. A helm of iron covered his head, with an iron grille for the visor.

  He strode toward Brauctha. His eyes met Rel’s for a second. Rel hoped Shkarauthir knew he was sorry.

  Brauctha laughed and shouted out a challenge. The words were repeated by the elders. Shkarauthir replied quietly. Rel struggled to pick out words he understood, but Shkarauthir’s agreement to the contest was clear. Rel’s actions had given him no choice.

  Brauctha raised his arms again. His followers roared. Two of his tribesmen came to his side and removed his feathered cloak. He was naked beneath, without armour. A warrior brought him a pair of mail gloves. A second carried out his immense sword. Brauctha stared at Shkarauthir as pulled on the gloves, took the hilt of the sword and drew the blade. He held it vertically before his face. The warrior took away the scabbard.

  The modalmen hooted and trilled their tongues while the elders solemnly pronounced something else Rel did not understand, though it must have been along the lines of honour and death and all the associated pomposity men proclaim when they are serious about killing each other.

  Rel looked at the door again. If Shkarauthir won, then maybe he wouldn’t have to endure a nerve wracking attempt to get it open. His bowels were watery. It was the fear of failure that terrified him now, rather than dying.

  A chorus of vocal booming began the fight.

  Brauctha smirked at Shkarauthir. The king of the Gulu Thek circled his opponent. He held his spear overarm, point aimed at Brauctha’s heart. His shield covered his left side. His lower arms held their daggers loosely. In contrast to the rest of Shkarauthir’s posture, which was totally still, his lower arms were constantly in motion, daggers weaving back and forth like a serpent about to strike.

  “You will die for the little one in the cage,” said Brauctha, surprising Rel with his use of Maceriyan. “You can thank him that the aims of this horde will be decided, and that I shall be its overlord.” He smiled at Rel and licked his lips. “I am going to eat him alive when this is done.”

  Shkarauthir maintained his steady, crosswise pacing, one leg placed over the other, legs bent, spear arm poised. A chant built in the crowd comprised of two main components sung by Brauctha’s and Shkarauthir’s supporters. The two songs met, and intertwined. The modalmen were wild beings of opposing temperaments, but their actions nevertheless ended in accordance. The noise they made together was a shushing, thumping similar to the mechanical pounding of a glimmer engine.

  They are machines, built for war, thought Rel.

  The two modalmen moved out from their starting positions, their feet marking out a spiral in the sand. The manoeuvring looked as if it would never end, until an explosive movement from Shkarauthir opened the duel in earnest.

  Shkarauthir leapt across the space separating him from his opponent, spear darting out an instant before his feet moved. He made no cry, and gave no motion that betrayed his intention. One moment he was stalking his prey, the next he was arrowing across
the sand.

  Brauctha gave a joyous shout. He bent backward, out of the spear’s way. Shkarauthir ran past him, the dagger in his lower arm cutting across Brauctha’s torso. Blood, red as that of any man, spilled onto the sand. Brauctha’s markings flared intensely, and he laughed.

  “A good start, a good cut. It will be your last. I will enjoy your friend’s flesh all the more for the pain.” Again Brauctha spoke in Maceriyan for Rel’s benefit.

  Rel crept into himself in a show of fear. He did not have to act particularly hard.

  Shkarauthir made a lightning-fast feint. He whipped the spearhead back at the last moment, spinning the shaft in his hand, cracking Brauctha across the jaw. The spear whirled about, coming to rest clamped under Shkarauthir’s arm, the head singing as it pointed at his enemy. The king of the Giev En spat blood and laughed. He let the end of his giant sword drop into the sand and pointed at Shkarauthir. The crowd cheered and howled.

  “Now it is my turn.”

  Brauctha’s weapon was not made for speed, but he wielded it quickly, and in a diverse range of movements that took Rel by surprise. He jabbed with the point like a spear. He grasped the blade with his armoured hands and used the length to catch blows, he reversed the weapon, using the quillions as a pick. All the while the serrations and fluting of the sword sang with a shrieking voice that echoed around the arena. Its unearthly calls made it seem possessed of a life of its own. The sound of it quietened the crowd, until the humming screams of Brauctha’s greatsword, the bang of blade on shield, the whisper of Shkarauthir’s spear point and the grunts of the combatants were all that could be heard.

  The pair of them were sweating heavily, their clan marks flashed out sharp, staccato patterns that Rel read as unbridled aggression. Blood dripped from Brauctha’s cut and from his mouth. Shkarauthir had yet to be hit, though his shield was cleaved deeply in three places. The king of the Gulu Thek looked to have the upper hand, but Rel reckoned that to be deceptive. Shkarauthir’s quicker weapons might cut Brauctha many times. It would take only one good blow from Brauctha’s murderous blade to slay Shkarauthir.

  They wheeled and leapt. Brauctha’s weapon was large and heavy. He wore no armour and carried no weapons in his secondary arms to compensate, so although his blows were necessarily slower than Shkarauthir’s, he was capable of acrobatic feats that the other could not match—running and leaping, striking down with his blade as he arched over the head of Shkarauthir. Rel saw his friend’s armour as a mistake. It slowed him, but would not stop a clean strike from so heavy a blade. The threat to his own life receded from his mind as he fixated on the duel. He had no desire to see Shkarauthir die.

  Another charge from Shkarauthir, another swipe from spear, dagger, dagger, and Brauctha was behind his foe. He turned with awesome grace upon the ball of his foot, repositioning his body as Shkarauthir was recovering from his own attack. Brauctha swung his sword at Shkarauthir in a savage, overhand strike that shattered the shaft of Shkarauthir’s spear. Howling madly, Brauctha span around again, his arms fully outstretched with the weight of his sword. Shkarauthir leaned backward, avoiding by a hair’s breadth a blow that would have cut him in half, and swayed aside, turning the move into a roll that brought him to his feet some yards away.

  Panting, the two modalmen circled each other again. Shkarauthir discarded his shield, and cast down the stump of his spear. Brauctha charged again. Shkarauthir drew his paired swords and struck at Brauctha as he came running past. Brauctha executed a deft parry. Sparks fountained from the blades as they scraped together. By the merest twist of his wrists, Brauctha sent the edge of his sword sliding down between Shkarauthir’s weapons, the length and angulation of his sword granting him slightly more leverage. In fencing terms, that was a deadly advantage. Shkarauthir barely recovered. His daggers came up to catch the sword’s tip before it could gut him. It glanced from his armour, and scored a deep groove across his chest above the breastplate, and he grunted with the pain. Shkarauthir shoved the weapon away with all four of his blades. Brauctha let him, used his opponent’s momentum to slip a hooked notch near the end of his blade over one of Shkarauthir’s swords, ran it down to the hilt, and with a savage twist, snapped it.

  Shkarauthir threw the broken blade down. Brauctha taunted him in the modalman language, then shouted at Rel.

  “Your champion is running out of weapons!”

  He used this last utterance as a cover for his attack. Shkarauthir anticipated it, but he was weakening. The cut to his chest, while not deep, was bleeding profusely. His arms were tiring from the repeated parrying of Brauctha’s heavy sword. He deflected high, but did not command the blade as he intended. Brauctha’s sword skidded past the quillions of Shkarauthir’s weapon, and bit deep into his thigh.

  Shkarauthir collapsed to one knee. Thick blood pumped from the wound in his leg, running into the whorls of his tribal marks, drowning their light.

  Brauctha levelled his blade at Shkarauthir’s neck. He spoke a single word. Their language came hard to Rel, a word could have a half dozen meanings according to the pitch applied to its syllables, but the modalmen were above all a warrior race, and Rel knew this one.

  “Yield,” Brauctha said.

  Shkarauthir threw a dagger by way of reply. A blur of steel buried itself in Brauctha’s shoulder. The lord of the Giev En howled in outrage and he swung his great blade with all his might.

  Shkarauthir had provoked this attack purposefully. As Brauctha struck, Shkarauthir’s sword sank into Brauctha’s gut, but the man eater did not fall, and his huge blade sliced through Shkarauthir’s neck as if it were a fruit upon a table struck by an axe.

  The king of the Gulu Thek’s head toppled to the sand. His lifeblood jetted skyward in a crimson fountain. His body followed his head to the ground.

  “Brauctha! Brauctha! Brauctha!” bellowed the crowd. More than half of them shouted out their new lord’s name. Only the Gulu Thek did not. They stood and wailed, clapping their hands repeatedly to their heads in grief.

  Rel searched the crowds for his friends. He found Drauthek, staring at him. He looked to him in apology, but Drauthek turned away in disgust.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Lord of the Modalmen

  THE ELDERS CAME out, and in the prolix manner of all modalmen ritual, proclaimed Brauctha the winner. They spent several minutes singing out streams of information which Rel could not comprehend. At the end of every musical phrase, the modalmen sang a long, wordless note that started so low the earth trembled, and rose to a moderate pitch before dropping back even lower than it had begun.

  A part of the incomprehensible ritual was done. The elders spoke many tribal names. The wailing of the newly subjugated grew louder, as did the cheers of Brauctha’s clan.

  The modalmen were beating their chests and slapping their cheeks with their mouths open, so that a tocking noise underpinned by a slapping rumble took the place of the cheers and cries, a sound similar to heavy rain on a metal roof.

  To this strange, clacking storm, the elders of the Gulu Thek paid homage to Brauctha, kneeling in the blood of their dead king. Other lords among the giants who had been of Shkarauthir’s party came and pledged allegiance thereafter. Those who withheld alliance were few.

  Rel looked at the cage gate. Soon, he would have to make his move.

  Brauctha spoke. He pointed west, he pointed to the captives, he pointed to the Twin. The back and forth debate of the first moot day was gone. Two thirds of the modalmen in the arena got to their feet and shouted out, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  Brauctha looked at Rel triumphantly. “You see that? The vote is made, we march to the Kingdoms as warriors. There will be no peace with the Forgetful.”

  The elders sang another proclamation. Horns blew. Gongs boomed. The stone door at the end of the arena ground open, and from the subterranean space revealed were brought forth a number of strange machines.

  Chief among them was a wide lens floating between a pair of curved brass arms very much like the
horns upon the silver reader. It was mounted on a cart of gold, with golden wheels. A series of nested spheres followed that, and other, smaller devices.

  More readily explicable was a circular table made of curved bars of Morfaan steel, and equipped with chains that corresponded with a man’s throat, wrists and ankles. The machines were arrayed around the arena, the table at the centre.

  Brauctha swaggered toward the cages. His shoulder bled where Shkarauthir’s dagger had pierced him, and his lower left hand was pressed against the wound in his belly. He was in pain but gloated in his triumph.

  Rel hid his open manacles as best as he could.

  Brauctha went to stand before the row of cages to Rel’s left. The modalman called a warrior from the arena floor’s edge. He brought a bloody sack forward, and tipped the contents out where Rel could see them.

  Aramaz’s corpse thudded onto the ground. His legs and arms were curled inward, his tail wrapped round them. His tongue hung out of one side of his mouth. Bloodied like that, he seemed far smaller than he had in life.

  “When you are changed, you will dine on this beast and its master, you will not care,” Brauctha said to the men in the cages. “Rejoice! You will be modalman. You will join me as brothers, and follow me as king.”

  Rel stared at his dead mount. He was unprepared for the sorrow that brought him.

  The new king of the horde nodded at the men in the cages, and limped toward Rel. He pushed his face against the bars, bringing himself as close to Rel as he could get. Brauctha’s solitary, yellow eye peered at him, and he broke into a cruel smile.

  “You watch me change them, you watch them eat your lizard, then you die screaming. Modalmen not make friends with unmen, never again.”

  He hooted through two cupped hands, clapping the others. The door to the first cage was pulled open, and a man hauled out by his ankles.