by Dan Davis
“To create order,” he said. “That is why the rite has to be followed with precision and no deviation. The sacrifices must be witnessed so the people can see the virtue of the chief reflected in the order of his actions. The rites have been performed in the same way since the first rite was performed by the first chief.”
“The chief performing the rite is the first chief and every rite is the first rite. Only one who is sufficiently virtuous may be successful and to fail invites destruction.”
That is what I did, he realised, when I failed the rite of the oxen. No wonder the people were so terrified after that. From now on I must embody good fortune and weave together the strands into one structure to create order from the chaos.
“I have been a poor chief,” he said, feeling as though he had taken a blow to the belly. “It is no wonder so few followed me. I was not worthy.”
The words of Thrima the Roarer came back to him as though he heard them spoken aloud in this room.
You are not worthy.
“He was right,” Herkuhlos muttered.
“You know now what must be done, Herkuhlos?”
He shook his head, frustrated. “I can almost hear the wisdom but it will not come.”
The goddess stood and touched him on his shoulder. “These are all mere words. Words have power but they are not knowledge or wisdom. Sit beside Kerdheros and calm your spirit, little brother.”
Following her instructions, he sat with legs crossed on the platform beside the massive dog who looked up at him and then lay his head back down once more.
“There are two things that you need to make you whole,” Nehalennia said looking down at him. “Sustenance for your body and for your spirit. Rest now and soon you I will send to you what you need to heal.”
He watched her feet walking lightly away, her robe swishing as she walked and then once more he was alone with the dog.
“Aren’t you supposed to guard her?” he asked, jerking a thumb at the door. Without looking at him, Kerdheros wagged his heavy tail and it thumped on the boards of the platform beneath them.
There were women in robes in the next room, he caught glimpses of them as they moved back and forth and soon there came the smell of a fire burning and then something savoury bubbling. Food, he thought, finally.
Herkuhlos closed his eyes and sat, listening to the breathing of the dog and the crackle and occasional hiss of the lamps burning nearby and the quiet talking of the initiates and the goddess in the next room as they prepared a meal or whatever it was they were doing.
He thought about the chiefs he had met amongst the Furun, the Heryos and the Seal People. They had a common foe in Torkos and if they could be harnessed, if the strands could be pulled together, there might be a force strong enough to face Torkos and his warriors. But it would take a leader of immense personal authority to bring order to the chaos. Torkos was like a stone thrown into a still pond or a furrow dragged the wrong way through a field or a wild boar scattering a herd of cattle with his wild madness.
And Herkuhlos saw suddenly that he had been the same. Ever since coming from the east he had done nothing but charge headlong like a destroyer in to the existing chaos and only making it more chaotic, feeding the chaos and helping it to devour the peoples and the land.
Herkuhlos would have to repair whatever damage he had caused.
At the sound of the dog’s tail wagging furiously and banging on the platform, he opened his eyes and found Sif sitting before him with a bowl of broth in her hands.
“I know what I must do,” he said. Reaching out he took the broth, put in on the floor, and took her warm hands in his. “But I can’t do it alone. Sif, will you help me?”
She looked at his hands and then up at his face. For a moment he did not know whether she understood his words.
“I will help you,” she said. And her smile was like the light of the sun.
31. Return
The Furun village had suffered greatly from the raid where their chief Amron had been killed but in the moons since then the burned houses had been pulled down and one longhouse had already been rebuilt. Even so, it was a smaller and quieter place than Herkuhlos remembered.
Eron, son of Amron, had done all that a chief could to help his people. He had called in help from his kinsmen and friends from the surrounding villages and had traded even farther afield for what they could not provide for him. Trading away pasture and woodland at the edges of his land to those bordering it had been a difficult decision but they had lost the men and oxen needed to farm them effectively and so by high summer he had gained the sheep, goat, and pig he needed to see his surviving people through the coming winter.
“The gods have granted us good fortune and we pray now for a good harvest so that we all might live to see the next cycle of the sun,” Eron said, touching the large amber pendant hanging from his necklace as he spoke. “But if the Heryos raid us before then we will be cursed with death and with destruction.”
They sat around the hearth fire in the longhouse which had once belonged to Amron and now belonged to Eron. Old Amron was rotting in the open tomb in the centre of the village but some of his sons and daughters lived on, though for how long none of them knew. Herkuhlos sat alone on one side of the fire and the men of the village and most of the married women sat or stood on the other side. While Herkuhlos sat on the bare earth, Eron sat upon the chief’s stool and his honoured men, his brothers and the elders, sat on furs at his side. They were angry with him and meant to slight him by this and they did not allow his followers into the longhouse with him, forcing them to stay outside with the children and unmarried women. Neither had they fed him or offered him water or beer despite the heat of summer making them all sweat. Herkuhlos had accepted all their impositions without concern.
In answer to Eron’s accusatory observations, Herkuhlos nodded. “Torkos will send his warriors raiding here again soon though it may not be this winter. He is searching in the north and his warriors are there and I hear some are even in the west conquering more villages.”
“This winter or next or even before the Heryos will come again.”
“Yes,” admitted Herkuhlos. “Sooner or later you will all be killed or taken as slaves and your people will be ended. None will be left to honour your ancestors and neither will you have descendants to honour you.”
Eron’s brother translated to the others, most of whom did not understand the tongue of the Heryos. They exclaimed and muttered amongst themselves, some angry and others frightened, but they all knew that he spoke the truth for they had been saying much the same to each other since their village was attacked early in the spring.
“You took many of our people with you when you left us,” Eron said. “Good men. The cursed Mardoc.” His face clouded. “My sister Amra. Where are they now?”
Herkuhlos looked him the eyes. “They are dead.”
“Because of you.”
There was still a voice inside Herkuhlos’ head that wished to protest that it had not been his fault that they had died and a dozen excuses presented themselves. He especially wished to protest that Amra had followed him without his permission but that would have been a lie. He was responsible for their deaths for he had led them all to that fate by his rashness.
“Yes,” he replied. “I am sorry for it. None of your people deserved the deaths that I led them to.”
“So why have you come here?” Eron demanded. “You wish to take more of us off to our deaths?”
“Yes,” Herkuhlos replied.
When this was translated there was outrage at his temerity.
“You are a mighty warrior and you did as my father asked when you slayed Thrima the Roarer. But already you have killed the best people of my village and so I find that you are no better than Ghebol or Torkos himself.” Though he was angry, Eron was also afraid as he spoke, expecting Herkuhlos to explode in fury at this grave insult, but still he had said what was in his heart.
Herkuhlos looked at Eron and
nodded in agreement. “In many ways I am the same as Ghebol and Torkos. I am a great warrior. When other men fall in battle, I go on because of the strength in my flesh and because of the strength of my will. When I fight, I kill the enemy but though I may be wounded I do not die as other men would die. The strength of the gods is in my veins and I carry a part of my divine father within me.” He touched his chest and looked at them in turn as his words were translated but finally looked again at young Eron. “Like them, death surrounds me but it does not take me.” He smiled. “Not yet, at least.” He waved an arm at the daylight streaming in from the open doorway. “I am taking my people and I am going to face Torkos and all the Heryos that follow him and I mean to win victory. Not only that, I mean to bring order to the land once more. But I cannot win victory without you.”
When his words were translated they looked at him, astonished by his admission.
“You need me?” Eron was entirely unconvinced. “You need us to die for you?”
“Many of us will die, I have no doubt about that. Perhaps you and perhaps me but if we do not join together we will not have the warriors necessary to beat the warband of Torkos the Devourer.”
Eron gestured at his people. “We are farmers, not warriors.”
“You fight well,” Herkuhlos said. “I have seen you with these eyes fight a Heryos warband and drive them off. You are stronger than you think you are.”
Eron was dismayed. “Even so we are so few and Torkos has so many. The warband of Ghebol will kill us with ease. We would need ten of my men to beat five of theirs and only then if they had the courage to stand and fight as we did that day here so many moons ago when my father died.” Eron touched his amber pendant.
Herkuhlos lifted a finger and smiled. “You have spoken truth, Eron. Your men are courageous and they are skilled with the bow and if they are led by a wise chief such as you then they will fight well. But we here in this longhouse are too few to win victory. That is why you must bring your kinsmen with you.”
“My kinsmen? They are here.”
“The kin you spoke of amongst the other Furun villages. I have passed some of them coming here from the north and I have heard of many more. Each one ruled by a chief with at least a dozen men that follow him. Your father’s brothers rule in the south and the east. The brothers and fathers of Amron’s wives are chiefs of other villages. There were many who brought sacrifices to Thrima and there are many more still who are subjugated by Torkos and by Gehbol.”
“You want my uncles’ villages to join you?”
“I want all the villages to join us, Eron.”
“To fight the Heryos? We cannot fight them.”
“Not alone, no. But you will have me. And we will have the Seal People and I hope some of the Heryos will join us against Torkos and his followers.”
Eron stared. “You hope for this? Hope?”
“If the gods are with us we will be victorious.”
“I think you must have gone mad to think this.”
“No. I was mad before to think that I could do it alone but now I see clearly what must be done. And it cannot be done without you, Eron.”
“Me?” He fingered his amber pendant.
“I would have you speak for me as we go from chief to chief and ask them to join us in our uprising against Torkos.”
Eron almost laughed in disbelief as the scale of the task dawned on him. “They will not join you.”
“Perhaps,” Herkuhlos admitted. “But I must ask them all the same.”
“What if they all say no?” He narrowed his eyes. “What if I say no?”
“Then I will be greatly disappointed for it is likely then that the rest of us will fail. But I hope that some of them at least will join with us and that they will be enough.” Herkuhlos spread his arms. “Will you help me, Eron?”
The young chief looked up at the roof of his longhouse and then out through the door toward the tomb of his ancestors. “If you are not victorious then how long I wonder will my people go on without Heryos masters? To face death is nothing. To see the death of your children is a terrible thing. But the death of a people is the worst thing of all. The worst thing that there ever can be. To imagine that the songs of people will no longer be sung and the names of my fathers will no longer be spoken is almost more than I can bear. Yet this is what we face. We face it during the span of my life and while I am chief. Perhaps this means that the gods are displeased with us but certainly it means that I have failed as a chief to protect my people. Is it worse to die now and with honour or to die later after seeing my people become slaves?”
He seemed to expect a reply and Herkuhlos smiled sadly. “I know what is my choice, Eron.”
They spoke further and finally food and drink were brought and Herkuhlos drank greedily for his thirst was great but he declined the offered stool and furs and stayed seated upon the dry, hard earth beside the hearth. When he emerged later, blinking in the afternoon sunlight, he found his people had likewise been fed and were sitting on one side of the village tomb while the people of the village sat on the other, both sides watching the other.
“What do they say?” Sif asked as they met between the longhouse and the tomb.
He bent to kiss her softly on the lips. “The chief says he must discuss it with his people before he decides.”
“Is he weak?” she asked. “Or wise?”
Herkuhlos looked between the Seal People and the Furun and shook his head. “We shall see.”
32. Destroyer
The sun had burned him pink and his skin had blistered and peeled and he was half mad with thirst here beneath the midday sky. Torkos dragged the man up by his neck and looked at his naked, shivering body. He was weak of body and mind and his loins stank where he had fouled himself repeatedly in his captivity.
“Your slaves grow ever more disgusting,” he growled.
Leaning casually against a standing stone on the other side of the circle, Hrungna shrugged. “Your appetite can hardly be sated, Torkos. These are all that I have left.”
Throwing the slave down beside the others on the hard, baked ground, Torkos strode forward through the captives. They cringed away from his heavy footsteps lest they be crushed beneath him and he paid them no mind as he closed on Hrungna who stood upright and held up an apologetic hand.
“Silence,” Torkos said in a low voice. “Once more you blame me for your own failures, Hrungna.” He stopped before him and leaned his face close. “I think you want me to kill you.”
Hrungna looked up, defiantly. “You would not dare it.”
Torkos snorted. “But I will.”
“No one has ever broken the Covenant. All would turn against you.”
In disgust, Torkos began to walk away. “It is already broken.”
“Never, not in a—”
Torkos turned on him. “Kolnos has broken it, you witless fool, don’t you see?”
“When?” Hrungna’s fat face screwed up in confusion. His sweating face was bright red and his breath was so foul that Torkos could not stand to be so near to him and he turned away again.
“Kolnos broke the Covenant when he sent that boy after me.”
Hrungna was unconcerned. “The slayer of Leuhon fled from your warriors by the sea, he is no more. You need not fear him, brother.”
“Fear?” Torkos whirled around and grabbed Hrungna by the shoulders and shouted the word in his face again. “Fear? You call me a coward, Hrungna? I may not bite through your throat but I will take your eyes and I will take your fingers, is that what you want?”
Hrungna looked startled and afraid and when he answered his voice was flat and tight. “No.”
“And do not call me brother,” Torkos said, suddenly bored, his anger leaking out of him. Hrungna was too easily broken and the difference between them was too great to sustain Torkos’ anger. “We are kinsmen but you are no brother of mine. I was already ancient when you were born.”
“I know that, Torkos, I meant only to assure y
ou that the Usurper’s half-breed is gone. If you brought some of your warriors back here they could stop looking for him and for Nehalennia and then we could eat better.” He gestured at the naked slaves lying listless and stinking in the hot sun. “There are lands far to the west where we could send them. There is an island there, a great island, with slaves beyond counting ready for the taking.”
“No, not there.”
“Your men can use boats just as they are doing in the north, there is no reason why they cannot cross also to—”
“I said no,” Torkos snapped, thinking of his brother who had claimed that land across the sea to the west for himself. Between the twelve of them they had divided up the world and decided which of them would rule what area. Each of them would conquer what was there and they would subjugate the immortals ruling over the mortals and they would grow their strength until their collective power could rival the gods of Tartaros and drag them from the Sacred Mountain with their hands bound while they begged for mercy. The thought of the Usurper bound at his feet aroused an intense lust in him as he imagined biting into his flesh while he screamed.
“You say no,” Hrungna said, his eyes narrowing. “And I know why.”
“Oh?”
“Your brother is there.”
Torkos waved that away. “My brothers are everywhere.”
“Yes,” Hrungir said mildly, “because you mean to start another war against the Usurper.”
“Another war?” Torkos roared. “The war never ended!”
He took control of his rage. “It is not for you to know, Hrungna. Know only that the great isles to the west are not my land. There are uncounted mortals here but you are simply too lazy to bring them to me. If only Thrima still lived.” He snorted. “You will bring me better slaves next time or I will take one of your eyes, Hrungna.”