Ursunabi drew his two scimitar swords with the other warriors, and led them at a run to meet the onslaught. Khumi watched, as his smaller force formed, quite unintentionally, into a defensive ring inside the larger, thicker ring of attackers closing in on them.
Ursunabi swung both swords in deadly arcs that eviscerated the men rushing at him, two or more at a time. Ninurta’s new army apparently lacked bowmen, and their bronze swords seemed crude and brittle. Most had maces and spears, which were more than enough to pulverize Khumi’s remaining force. Ursunabi fell back toward his parents as he noticed both his defensive flanks crumbling. The attackers had almost reached Khumi and Tiva, when they fell back from the riverbank, eyes wide with terror.
Tiva cried, “Khumi, ships! It must be the ships of Psydon that U’Sumi told us about!”
Khumi glanced to the river, once he saw that the attackers stayed at bay. Two vessels glided out of the morning mists toward shore, and his heart leapt. Then he looked back at the attackers.
Ursunabi had taken a spear to the chest. Macers busily pummeled his body down beneath them. Behind the death of Khumi’s beloved last son, rode a lone giant on a dappled onager.
Then a voice called from the ships that chilled Khumi’s blood.
“Ahh, Ninurta, my divine husband, vanquishes his foes, and saves two for me to devour on my thirsty sword!”
The rider slowed his approach when he reached where the mace men still pulverized Ursunabi’s motionless body. “Enough!” he roared, and all action instantly ceased around them.
Khumi did not understand how or why, but golden-haired Inana stood at the prow of what should have been Psydon’s rescue ship. While on the other side, Ninurta dismounted, and walked forward to meet them both.
Tiva found her place under the crook of her husband’s arm. They both waited for death to meet them on the bank of the Styx.
Inana, sword in hand leapt from the prow of her ship, and waded against the current toward the bank, her silk tunic clinging to her wet body as she rose from the water. “My husband; let me ravish them with my hungry sword, and we shall have love as never before after so long!”
Ninurta stepped around Khumi and Tiva, raising his hand as if to restrain Inana from slaying them. Suddenly, a tiny, black-haired girl rushed into the water, in front of the giant, shrieking. It took a moment for Khumi to make out her words.
“Dis huzbund mine, yellowed-head bynt! Narnmer be to Neith!”
Ninurta had to jerk the tiny dark woman back by her arm, while Inana waded ashore. He seemed as dumbstruck as Khumi to see her leap from the ship. At least the moment’s awkwardness saved his and Tiva’s life.
Inana seemed not the least bit put out by Neith’s claim. “I am the goddess called ‘Isis’ by the people of this land. Long have I wandered heaven and earth in search for pieces of my divine husband’s epic.” She looked down at Neith, who glowered up at her from beneath ‘Narnmer’s’ restraining arm with hot black eyes.
Isis continued, “If my lover has taken another in my absence, know that I am generous in both love and war. You, little Neith, should be mature enough to know how the cosmos works. You must be about eighteen to twenty-five years old…”
“I am goddess!” the girl spat.
Isis smiled. “Yes, now then; well aren’t we all? Me; I be in years near two hundred old, with no wrinkle or sagging of breast. My hair is pure gold and not of silver. Tell me of your divinity if you be still the same slinky panther-girl, in, say, ‘nother forty years. Then we shall speak! Until then, darling, you are but a hopeful toy.”
Neith shrieked, and pulled away from Ninurta. Yet, instead of attacking Inana, she ran off howling.
Khumi almost felt sorry for her. Then he saw what was left of Ursunabi, and everything darkened.
Inana’s use of the original pronunciation of his name seemed to turn the Giant’s head. “Killing is done for today, unless attacked.”
Now it was Isis’ turn to shriek. “But my sword thirsts for to bathe in their bloodinesses!”
Narnmer glowered at her. “You shall have your love today on a blooded field, but these two may have value as hostages or as a message, when time is come! They would not be here unless Usmu, the Son of Set, Vizier of the two faces, approached on the wings of the wind.”
151
The Monster once known as Pahn had cultivated Asshur as carefully as any other human “demigod” En-Ki had assigned him. That scabrous husk of a man, who ruled the most populous tribal bloc since that of shattered Kush, had outlived all his sons, and even many of his grandsons. His descendants still worshipped him as a living god inside his blue-glazed, baked-brick palace, haunted by besieging wall reliefs of winged lion-men with cruel eyes and merciless swords. They did picture-battles with men and monsters, real and imagined. The Monster made sure Asshur never knew which was which.
Pahn had seen to it that the creative talents in children born to the mad ones of Asshur’s realm flourished. Fueled by a visionary wealth of horror from what remained of the mind of their great father and patron deity; those talents were putty in the Monster’s hands. As Asshur lapsed into senility, Pahn found it necessary to scoot the man’s personality over, and take the reins of his higher functions at times. The state visit from Ur’Nungal, Lugal of Uruk, and personal emissary of the moon god, Suinne, was just such a time—especially with Asshur about to join his army in the field, marching westward alongside that of Uruk.
The Monster, through Asshur’s cloudy eyes, observed that the Lugal of Uruk trembled. It spoke through the mad Saar’s drool-spattered mouth in a voice reserved for terrorizing its listeners; “Hadn’t we better join our armies in the field? Why all the delay?”
Ur’Nungal’s voice quivered. “We already occupy Aram.”
“Aram is not our primary objective.”
“Suinne speaks of a place of the White Rock, beyond the river.”
Pahn marveled that Suinne understood its plans so well. So much the better, as long as the pallid old pervert remained compliant. “Yes, White Rock, the last refuge of the Ancient Enemy. I have a surprise waiting for them in their midst even before your armies arrive there. They will collapse.”
“And then?”
Asshur’s yellowed tongue licked filth-encrusted lips. “Beyond. Then the world is ours. Allies from the south and west shall converge with you there. The roaming savages of Magog and Tukormag infest the ice fields of the north, giving no place for the Enemy to flee to within possible reach.”
Ur’Nungal nodded briskly, and said, “On another matter; divine Suinne travels north, my lord. He wants safe passage to Arrata.”
The Monster said, “Ah, the reason for your delay; the magic Treasure Cave still calls to him, I see. He shall have it. Now we must depart to join our armies and spur them on to further glories. Send a runner to your master, and tell him we shall all go to Arrata together on our return.”
152
U’Sumi watched from a low promontory overlooking the wetlands of the Yordaen Estuary. The last of his army marched from another swampy peninsula’s dead end, up onto the slightly higher ground. Two men had just died, plucked into the mire from the morning mists by the largest long-necked leviathan he had seen since crossing the Great Outer Ocean as a young man, before the Deluge. The monsters, and many of their land-dwelling cousins, seemed to have vanished everywhere else to migrate here.
He had hoped to be much farther south by mid-summer, but the uncharted estuary basin had forced them to meander along irregular coasts, with no nearby elevation from which to get a picture of the lay of the land, until this grassy rise. Arid highlands now rolled in the west, where U’Sumi had gambled on eventually finding a river valley to ease their crossing to the Styx valley with ample water. That hardly seemed the worst of it, now.
A faithful helper stood by him, for whom he daily gave thanks.
“The men say the leviathan attack is another bad omen; that the monsters serve this King Scorpion. Two more deserted last night,�
�� said Malaq, Sun Ship Amirdu’s former oracle mage, who had joined the army at Yerikho, and served as U’Sumi’s second-in-command.
It was but the latest of several mishaps, since the Yordaen River had emptied into the marshes. They began with a petty chieftain’s son dying of a giant scorpion’s sting. The appearance of so many dragons soon after, as if from ancient legend, only fueled a growing superstitious dread among warriors raised by the Maddened Ones.
U’Sumi growled, “Omen or no, E’Yahavah has not abandoned us! Assemble the whole force around me, but on the field opposite this hill, where the marshlands won’t be visible to them.”
Malaq took more than an hour getting the word down to his captains. When the small army knotted together on the grassland in disordered clumps around their chieftains, U’Sumi’s heart sank. The future of civilization rested on the outcome of this campaign—whether E’Yahavah’s vision of life, obedience, and long-term liberty, or En-Ki’s program of slavery to impulse, leading to a savage dark age with no end, would prevail. Right now, the M’El-Ki did not give life and liberty very good odds.
He became conscious of the loaded hand-cannon bulging under his cloak. Primitive conditions had reduced the irreplaceable advanced weapon of another age to a mere talisman of magical power, good for little more than bluffing brutish minds. His disastrous attempt at manufacturing similar weapons of bronze and pig iron had not ended well. They had worked badly, when they functioned at all, and now no man at White Rock would touch them, after one had backfired during a training exercise, killing its user.
U’Sumi had learned the bitter lesson that his knowing the theory behind a technology, did not automatically translate into real ability to apply that knowledge to the real world. Skills, materials, and advanced machinery to put those principles to effective use no longer existed.
Before leaving on the Sun Ships, such weapons had not seemed necessary or desirable. After Bab’Elu, he faced not only logistical problems; but an insurmountable barrier of communication and psychology. Those who would now dare learn the use of such weapons were the very people that should never be trusted with them.
The infantile minds of even his close descendants, and their associates at White Rock, were no exception. Hence, U’Sumi had developed the crude metallurgy and chemistry to maintain himself and Haviri with a supply of ammunition for their two remaining weapons. He lacked the ability to replace all but the most rudimentary of worn-out parts, which must be custom-made from inferior materials.
Whether minds or machines, the new world reduced everything to a parody of what once existed. U’Sumi knew that it had reduced him even further, from loving father and teacher-by-example, to a mostly-benevolent despot who all-too-often had to rule by fear because the alternatives to not ruling were simply too dark to contemplate. He folded his arms, right hand tucked under his cloak, as he stood on a rock to address the troops.
“I hear talk of monsters, defeat, and bad omens among you—that King Scorpion somehow controls the beasts in the marshlands. Such rumors are false! We have had some difficulties, but I’ve fought in big wars before any of you were born, before this world even formed out of water—bigger wars than this one, with bigger hardships! Such talk ends now. There will be no more desertions. You will not survive the journey back to your homes through the Dragon-lands alone or even in small groups. Your wisest course is to remain and fight…”
One of the Khana’Anhu clan chieftains yelled, “War an’ blood, Lotan an’ blood! Death and death! No! I an’ me clan go home!”
U’Sumi pulled out his hand-cannon and fired on the man where he stood. The projectile hit in the forehead, and the chieftain’s skull and brains exploded out the back of his skull, covering those who stood behind him.
U’Sumi continued to hold the smoking weapon in firing position as its rotary mechanism chambered another round. The noise of its thunder seemed to hang in the air for many seconds afterward as the entire army stood with widened eyes glazed by terror.
The M’El-Ki spoke; “No, you won’t. None of you will go home, until this is over. We are at war! You all committed to this campaign, and you know what’s at stake as well as any of you can. Either we must stop the Scorpion, or he will take your homes, your wives, and your daughters. There will be no more desertions. The penalty for mutiny is death. That is all.”
Malaq roared, “Form up by clan!” Then he turned to his commander. “That certainly got their attention. I wasn’t sure you’d really do it when I saw you fold your arms that way. Shall I have his kinsmen bury him?”
U’Sumi looked up into the hazy sky, feeling cold inside despite the day’s sultry heat. “No. Leave him for the vultures. He made me make him into an example, and that is what he shall be. The sad thing is; I rather liked the man. He was good on the pipes around the campfires. It took the edge off a long day’s march. I used to play the pipes, too, once.”
Malaq said, “I did not know. All those years at sea together, and all the decades since—why did you ever stop?”
U’Sumi shrugged sadly. “Mother Pyra sometimes asks me the same thing, late at night. She used to play the lyre, and I the pipes, together, before the Sun Ships. It was nice. Truth is, I don’t really know why I stopped.”
153
The noise inside the barn curdled T’Qinna’s blood. It had started intermittently at first, on the day after Iyapeti’s army had departed south, but more frequent as the weeks went on. Now the feral shrieking and growling never let up, even at night.
Palqui had come at her request, after checking the morning watches.
They opened the barn door—now barred from the outside—together. Enough sunlight made it between the crude wooden slats to illuminate the interior. Stench hit T’Qinna like a festering entity made of living rot.
Qe’Nani squatted by his chain post, his back to them, growling; little more than a skeleton covered by sore-speckled, yellow, and gray hide. He focused on something he held out of their sight, as if eating amid his growls.
A tightening vise of shame compressed T’Qinna’s heart so rapidly that it took all her mental effort to remind herself of the truth. Her eldest grandson always soiled himself mere minutes after anyone bathed him, and never allowed people to tend his sores for the increasing violence of his fits. Food left for him went mostly uneaten, except by the rats and flies that now swarmed inside the barn. Recently, even grown men twice his size had found it difficult, sometimes impossible, to wrestle Qe’Nani into submission, as Palqui had been able to do without too much effort, mere weeks ago.
Something horrible had changed in him; made him the personified despair and terror that somehow compressed all of White Rock. Not even T’Qinna’s miraculous singing, famous for calming dragons and lions on the Boat of a Million Years, affected Qe’Nani anymore.
The skeleton-man rose, and turned on them, spewing a half-devoured rat from his blood-smeared mouth in a howl. Entrails landed on both her and Palqui, from which T’Qinna forced herself not to recoil. How he could eat such things with so many missing teeth in his mouth amazed her, until she realized that it must be the sheer pressure of his bite. Qe’Nani lunged at her to the end of his chain, mouth snapping and foaming like a rabid dog. Yet his cadaverous eyes lacked even a sense of rage, just glazed indifference.
“By the Ten Heavens, Palqui, what is happening to us?” The way she worded the question only occurred to her seconds later; that she had asked what was happening to “us,” rather than to “him,” as if something were not only happening to Qe’Nani, but to all of them.
Palqui kept his eyes locked on the chain, and yelled over the inhuman howling. “Not knowing that, Mother Pyrrha. You should not be in here. Leave him to me! I be bridge!”
“What are you going to do? Even big young men can’t handle him anymore.”
“Old I may be, before my timings, but he was once my Popo. He will not hurt me!”
T’Qinna knew this would not prove true, even as she prayed inside that it would. “
Palqui, my good son, and loyal friend; wherever your Popo is, locked inside the mind of this creature—if mind he still has—your Popo is no longer in control! Please do not feel slighted if I insist on staying.”
Palqui’s wrinkle-sheathed eyes narrowed, but never left the raging abomination that strained to wrap murderous hands on them both. “Slighted is not. Concern of me is only for you, Mother.”
The post that anchored the chain began to lean toward them.
T’Qinna nodded toward the faltering pole. “I think we’d better leave while we can still bar the door.”
Palqui nodded.
As they backed away, Qe’Nani kept lunging at them, each time yanking the post over a little further. Some of the bronze chain links began to bend apart.
Palqui turned, and motioned T’Qinna outside before he would follow her. The post gave way while he had his back to it.
The ravening lunatic bounded at them, diving, to land with his mouth clamped on the back of Palqui’s ankle, all before T’Qinna could pull him free and shut the door.
Palqui fell, and started kicking Qe’Nani’s head with his other foot, as his anklebone crunched under the unnatural pressure from the maniac’s jaws. The transmitted force of his fall knocked T’Qinna backward, out of the barn, except for the one hand that clutched at Palqui’s vest.
Palqui slipped from her grip. She saw him pulled back inside to the shadows, wailing. Blood gushed from above his heel as Qe’Nani’s hands clamped down on both legs of his victim. He began to tear the flesh with his teeth from Palqui’s leg.
T’Qinna saw in the corner of her eye the pile of firewood some distance outside the door. She scrambled to her feet and ran for it, as Palqui’s screeching grew as wild and inhuman as Qe’Nani’s.
She yanked several times at a half-buried log, thin enough for her to use as a club, before she could pull it free from the stack. Then she turned back for the barn, white knuckles gripping the weapon. When she reached the door, she saw Qe’Nani pulling a tendon from Palqui’s leg with yellowed teeth. Palqui had passed out from shock.
Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven Page 48