He must be doubly wary.
Determined to maintain a precise distance, a margin of safety, between himself and his quarry, Wulv ate as he traveled, satisfying his hunger with strips of dried meat he had brought with him and berries snatched from bushes he passed.
In the middle of the third day of his hunt, the man halted and took a half step off the trail. In his bearskin mantle and untanned leather tunic he blended into the forest background. Turning his face up, he peered through the branches of the giant trees above him until he was able to locate the Great Sky Father. Past High Day it was. Great Sky Father had begun his journey down to the horizon.
Wulv came to a decision: If he had not tracked the boar to its lair by nightfall, he would turn back. Three days was long enough to be wandering through the forest without feeling sun on his head. He was growing bored.
As the afternoon wore on, the temperature fell and what little light penetrated to the forest floor soon vanished. Wulv caught the scent of rain on the air. The hard rain typical of the region could obliterate all traces of the boar, dissolving fresh spoor and washing away its characteristic odor. A less experienced hunter might have tried to close up the space between himself and his quarry so as not to lose the trail, but Wulv had learned caution the hard way.
Unconsciously, he rubbed at the scars on his face.
Borne on a howling wind, the rain swept in from the north. Icy drops as vicious as stones slashed through the canopy of the leaves, driving earthward at an angle. Wulv paused long enough to unsling the leather pack on his back and remove a piece of oiled deerhide, which he carefully wrapped around the head of his spear.
Some of the mountain tribes still used blades of flint or obsidian, but the Teumetes were proud of their metal weapons and intensely protective of them, knowing their worth to be greater than jewels.
With the rain now at his back, the hunter moved even more cautiously. The wind was blowing his scent up the trail; surely the boar had already picked it up. Wulv had heard of a boar turning aside from a track and waiting until its hunter passed by, then lunging out to kill the man with its savage tusks.
One foot set precisely in front of the other, Wulv continued to advance. His wary eyes peered out from beneath his tangled brows; his spear was balanced in his hand, ready for action.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the forest in stark black and white. The God Who Roars boomed an angry response. Wulv halted abruptly and made the Sign of Horns, index and little finger pointing straight out to ward off evil. It was not good to be in the way when the God Who Burns and the God Who Roars stalked the land, warring between themselves. Capricious and deadly, they trampled man underfoot as carelessly as a man trod on ants.
Lightning cracked again. In that instant, Wulv saw the boar. The beast was standing immobile in the track ahead of him, with its body at an angle, its great head bowed, razor tusks gleaming. He saw the boar start to turn … and at that moment the lightning exploded again and the world vanished in white brilliance as the boar began its charge.
The hunter’s eyes were seared by the light. Momentarily blinded, he hurled his spear.
SIX
Some distance to the south, a lone figure was sitting on his haunches in a small cave. He appeared to be human: a slender man somewhat less than middle height, with almond-shaped eyes and swarthy skin as worn and crumpled as old parchment.
Drawing upon inhuman abilities lingering from his Otherworld existence, the siu had reformed the walls of the cave to glassy smoothness. This vitreous substance rendered him invisible from any prying eyes that could see beyond the physical.
Secure within this stronghold, he sat.
In the sky above the cave clouds gathered; thunder rumbled.
On reflection, his earlier actions now dismayed him. But they were not his fault; nothing was ever his fault. The minions of the Ais had hunted him relentlessly until he became so desperate and exhausted he could not think. By the time he escaped from the Otherworld into the Earthworld he was acting on sheer instinct. Encountering the human girl had been … his mouth twisted in an ironic grimace … like a gift from the gods.
An incomplete gift, unfortunately. Eating the still-living heart of a virgin should have been sufficient to restore him to full strength. But a moment’s intense excitement, a loss of control … when he had a warm human female in his hands once more after so long a time, he had been unable to resist the temptation to rape her. The mistake would have been rectified by devouring her heart afterward and thus killing her. But as he was about to tear out the organ, the limping man had come hurrying toward them. Knowing he still lacked the strength for a confrontation, the siu had been forced to abandon the girl and flee.
Leaving a part of himself in her living body.
Mistake, mistake!
In spite of the distance between them, he was physically aware of the child that had been conceived. The call of its unborn spirit drew him like a beacon.
In another age the demon might have allowed his seed to mature to birthing. He would either have been indifferent to the child or taken malicious pleasure in teaching it evil.
But the era when humans and inhabitants of the Otherworld could freely mingle with one another was over. As a result of manipulation by the Ais, the different planes inhabited by sentient beings had boundaries now. A demon could exert influence in the Earthworld, but he, or she, could no longer take a tangible form there. Thus had the gods ruled.
This particular siu had willfully ignored their ruling and made himself part of the Earthworld with a tangible body. The Earthworld he had once walked as a human man himself. The Earthworld for which he still lusted.
Here he could act with impunity, knowing that little could harm him … except the flesh of his own flesh. As a carnate element of the siu, his spawn made the demon vulnerable.
The unborn infant and the woman who carried it must be found and destroyed. As long as the child existed it posed a very real threat, one he could not tolerate.
Closing his eyes, the scarred flesh wrinkling and twisting, the being in the cave concentrated on the faint but distinctive song of the unborn life, tracing it to its source. Occasionally he paused to scratch himself, tiny slivers of skin peeling off beneath his nails. Too many centuries had passed since he was truly a man; now he was vaguely uncomfortable in skin. To the casual glance his looked like human flesh, but with a decidedly greenish cast he could not eradicate. And it was very dry, which annoyed him. Any small failing on his part made him angry.
There! The telltale song of life, a wondrous threnody that never failed to infuriate him.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
He began a low, monotone humming as he expanded his inner sight to encompass territory far beyond the cave. He knew where they were now; it only remained to find a form in which to attack and destroy them.
Lightning flashed again. The final flash blinded not only Wulv but the boar as it charged. In that instant it was slain. By sheerest accident the hunter’s spear entered its left eye and pierced its brain.
Before it could even feel the pain of the fatal blow, the great beast crashed to the ground. Heart stilled, lungs frozen. A gush of bright blood poured from its nostrils. For a few moments there was no sound but the gurgle of organs dying within the carcass.
Slowly Wulv regained his sight, searing monochrome fading to familiar colors. He approached the body one wary step at a time, intending to reclaim his spear and collect his trophies. Sometimes an animal could play dead until the hunter was right on top of it. But not this one. A once-in-a-lifetime throw and the beast had run right onto the spear, driving it deeper. The boar was slain. Wulv was silently exulting as he reached for his spear.
With a shudder, the dead boar staggered to its feet.
Wulv flung himself backward, scrabbling for his knife.
The first tottering steps the boar took were as uncertain as those of a newborn. It lurched, almost fell, gathered itself, and lurched on. The beast�
��s mouth opened but no breath emerged. Its right eye continued to glaze; no lashes batted across the fixed stare. The thing paid no attention to Wulv however.
There was one brief moment when the shadows around the creature suggested a crouching man. Then the image vanished as if absorbed into the beast’s body. Sullen red coals began to glow deep within its undamaged eye. Giving a toss of its mighty head, it slammed its skull against a tree trunk and dislodged the encumbering spear.
Then the slain boar trotted into the forest and disappeared.
For a time Wulv could only stare after the beast. Cold sweat was running down his spine and his legs were trembling. He should turn and walk away, forget what he had seen. But he was no coward … and he was curious. Curiosity had always been a weakness of his.
At last he clenched his jaw, reclaimed his spear, wiped its bloodied head on the leaves, and set off on the boar’s trail.
Repana caught her daughter’s hand and squeezed it as hard as she could, but the girl was unresponsive. Vesi seemed half asleep, unaware of the branches that scratched her skin or the brambles that tore her bare legs. She had already been so injured that she did not feel the lesser wounds. All her concentration was required to put one foot after the other as her mother demanded.
Looking up, Repana tried to judge time through the dense canopy of oak and elm leaves high above the forest floor. The pursuit might already be underway.
The woman narrowed her eyes in thought, considering her situation. The Uni Ati had intended to preside over Vesi’s Dying, cocelebrating the event with the purtan. Normally any of the Rasne would have welcomed such an honor. Nothing in the lives of the Silver People was as important as the end of life itself, a highly formalized ritual circumscribed by rites and observances. Families went to the greatest lengths to ensure that a departing member was committed to the care of the ancestors and welcomed by Veno in the Netherworld. The Netherworld was fraught with hazards. Only the powerful Protectress of the Dead could keep a spirit safe there.
But Repana was not willing to surrender her last surviving child to Veno. Not yet
While pretending to accede to the Uni Ati’s demand, she had secretly given Vesi a draught of oil of poppy, then put clothes on the girl as the narcotic was taking effect. Working swiftly and silently, Repana had gathered a small bundle of food and herbs and the few essentials they would need to make good their escape. When all was in readiness, she had gone to the door of the house and requested a sacrificial knife. She spoke with pride, as befitted a mother preparing to give her child a great gift.
The Uni Ati had replied, “You have my knife already,” in a querulous voice that scratched the air like a sliver of glass.
Repana had bowed her head respectfully. “I return your knife to you, First Mother, and ask that I may have another to use. One which I may keep for myself afterward, as a holy relic of my daughter.”
Such a request could not be refused. Head wobbling atop her thin neck, Uni Ati nodded agreement. “When we bring a child into the world,” she said, “we grant it the gift of life borne of blood. Now you, Repana, have a final gift of blood to give your daughter. Those whose deaths we make beautiful will reward us when our own time comes; they will be waiting with loving arms outstretched to guide us safely to Veno in the Netherworld.
“Give your daughter her Dying as you choose. We support you and commend you. When she has departed, we will sing songs and hold funeral games in her honor. Great will be our joy at imagining the existence awaiting her with Veno in a nightless land of fruit and music.”
The assembled people murmured among themselves. Most of the Rasne and not a few of their slaves had children; all wondered if they would have the courage now being required of Repana.
Without a word, Pepan stepped forward and handed Vesi’s mother a large ebony-handled knife with a curved blade. As her eyes met his he gave a slight but deliberate nod, then silently mouthed the words “glade of stones.”
With an effort, Repana kept her face impassive. Any reaction on her part could arouse suspicion and she did not wish to have Pepan implicated. She was grateful however. The Lord of the Rasne seemed to be the only one who cared what she was feeling and who was willing to take her side.
Carrying his knife, she went back inside the house and closed the door, the only door. She and her child were alone together within the windowless walls. It was to be expected that she would want privacy until the mortal wound was delivered. Then she would summon the others and they would form a triumphal procession to carry Vesi to the templum.
There was no limit on the time allowed for a ritual of Dying. It could take a matter of moments, it could occupy an entire day. There were a hundred ways to make a Dying, from the swift and painless, which was favored for the very old or the very young, to the most ancient rite in which the victim was allowed to bleed to death over a long period of time. This was the way favored by traditionalists, who insisted that only blood could be certain of attracting the favor of Veno.
Repana never intended to find out.
Even if Pepan had not called her attention to the sacred glade deep in the forest, which was famed as a sanctuary, she had already chosen that as her destination. Hers and Vesi’s. But first they must escape the spura.
The rear of Repana’s house was actually the high wall that encircled the Rasne city. The house consisted of three small wings surrounding the courtyard, but its size was a blessing for a widow with only one child. There was another advantage, however, which Repana now appreciated for the first time.
She stood quietly for a moment, looking down at Vesi. From outside came the voices of the crowd raised in supplication to the gods as Caile led them in a wailing singsong that grated on Repana’s nerves. Bending, she wrapped her semiconscious daughter in a cloak, then somehow got the girl to her feet. “It hurts,” Vesi whimpered, but only once. Whimpering was not part of her nature.
Through a combination of cajoling and brute force Repana succeeded in hoisting Vesi through a narrow vertical opening let into the city wall. Intended as a loophole to allow javelin throwers to defend the Rasne spura, the shaft was not meant to accommodate a human body. When Repana followed she found it a very tight squeeze. For a moment she panicked. What if she got stuck and they broke into the house and found her?
Then with one final, desperate wriggle, she was through, emerging in an angle of the wall screened from casual view by a clump of shrubbery. There she found Vesi slumped on the ground, her figure no more than a dark huddle in the darker night. Her mother caught her by the shoulders and dug in her fingernails, hoping to rouse the girl with pain. When Vesi murmured an inarticulate protest, Repana whispered urgently, “Stand up, child. I can’t carry you; you will have to walk … or die. Walk, I tell you. Now! Walk!”
Without a backward look, Repana had led her daughter away from the only home they had ever known, across the fields and into the black maw of the forest. From behind them came the sound of chanting slowly rising toward an inevitable crescendo: the Song of a Dying.
As she made her way into the forest, Repana could not remember the last time anyone had defied a Uni Ati. Such a deed would merit the most dire punishment. Nor could she recall any Etruscan ever exiling themselves from one of their spurae. Immersed in beauty and comfort, they were the god-chosen, the god-blessed, the god-loved. In living memory none of her race had turned their back on such a heritage.
But sometimes slaves attempted to escape. Or thieves. Then the great hunting dogs came into their own. No one escaped the massive hounds with their sensitive noses and long, silken ears. And sharp fangs.
Repana could feel a prickling of the skin on her back as if the hounds were already right behind her. She tried to get Vesi to hurry, but the girl could barely walk. In addition, the footing was treacherous, the forest so dark that each step had to be felt out with a tentative foot. When they had gone far enough that they could no longer hear the chanting, Repana allowed her daughter to stop. While the girl leaned
panting against the bole of a huge tree, her mother scooped out a shallow bed for them between the roots. There they hid until dawn, concealed beneath dead branches.
When the first daylight filtered into their sanctuary they were up again. Vesi’s injuries forced them to travel very slowly; they seemed to be inching through the forest rather than running away. More than once Repana ground her teeth with impatience. When a storm overtook them, thunder and lightning signaling the fury of the gods, she did not dare stop to propitiate the elements. She and Vesi must keep going. Their defection would not be forgiven by the Rasne, whose threat seemed the more immediate.
When the storm abated the two women hardly noticed. But in the silence following the thunder, Repana heard sounds in the distance that convinced her the hounds were on their trail. Holding Pepan’s knife in one sweating hand, she gripped her daughter’s arm with the other and dragged Vesi on. If only they could reach the glade, they might be safe from the hounds.
And if they did not … well, there was no shame in being taken down by the famous hunting dogs of the Rasne. Death would be swift and sure; the animals were well trained. And it would mean Repana did not have to kill her own daughter.
At least, she told herself, they would die together. Without a formal Dying their spirits would wander aimlessly. But they would have each other … and hope. It was common knowledge that those who died together in such circumstances were often rebirthed together, returning to the Earthworld if they found no home in the Netherworld.
The pursuing beasts were getting closer; she could hear them crashing through the undergrowth.
Repana frowned. The hounds of the Rasne were not usually so clumsy.
Etruscans Page 4
