“Well met,” he grunted, and Pehr nodded.
“Josep, please …” Nani began behind him, and the hunter held up his hand to stop her, not turning around.
“I will hear no more,” he said.
Nani’s lips were pressed together in a thin, white line, and there was clearly much more she wanted to say, but she held her tongue. Pehr tried not to look at her. Instead he returned his attention to Josep, matching the hunter’s gaze. He wondered if he had judged the man correctly.
“There is nothing more that I could say either, is there?” Pehr asked Josep, and the hunter raised an eyebrow.
“This is your challenge, not mine,” Josep said. “Turn around, walk away, and take up your duties as one of our people. Do that and I will embrace you as a brother.”
“I cannot,” Pehr said.
“Then there is nothing more to say.”
Josep stepped past him and into the ring. A loud murmur went through the crowd, a noise of anticipation. There was always the possibility that one of the two might back down, but once both contestants had entered the ring, they could not leave until one yielded or died at the other’s hands.
“I await your challenge,” Josep told him from the center of the ring. The crowd had gone completely silent, and Pehr saw that Nani was covering her face with her hands. He forced himself to look away from her, and instead stepped into the circle. This action was greeted with a roar of approval, and Pehr heard two of the other hunters slotting the last spikes into place. He was now committed to this course.
The two fighters stood facing each other at the center of the circle, each taking the measure of the other. Josep was carrying a club of stone and had strapped to his back the large axe that had once belonged to Truff. There was a small bone knife strapped to his right boot by leather bands. Neither man held a shield or wore much in the way of armor, though Josep had strapped extra bands of leather around his upper arms and waist. Pehr was wearing the same clothes in which he had left the plains: breeches and a shirt of soft tral skin, and hard leather boots. He was carrying a bone club in his hand, and strapped to his back was the blade Samhad had given to him.
Josep turned to the crowd and said, “Let it be known that a challenge has been made to the head of hunters. This dispute shall be resolved here, in this circle. Let no man, woman, or child enter the circle lest their lives – and the life of him they seek to aid – be forfeit. Whoever wins this battle will leave from the north, to take his seat at the head of the table of hunters. The loser, if he lives, faces exile. So it is, and so it has always been.”
Not always, Pehr thought, but he said nothing. Josep surprised him by turning and making the hunter’s salute. Pehr mirrored the gesture, and Josep nodded. He shifted his club from left hand to right and assumed a ready stance.
It is time, Pehr thought, and with his eyes never leaving Josep, he knelt slowly down and set his club aside. Standing up, he reached with his right hand over his shoulder, pulling the blade from its sheath. The crowd went silent again, and even Josep seemed slightly unnerved, the smile slipping away from his face.
“Yet more disrespect for our traditions,” the hunter commented. “You throw away your people’s weapon in favor of this strange blade from the plains.”
“The plainsmen are us, and we are them,” Pehr said, pitching his voice loud enough that all could hear. “We both came from Havenmont.”
“You should have stayed with them, then,” Josep snarled. He tossed his own club aside and unhooked the gigantic, double-bladed axe from his back. Like Pehr’s sword, this was a weapon meant for killing. Anything but the slightest blow would prove catastrophic. Pehr had once seen his uncle use the axe to lop the head from a wild dog in a single swipe as the dog ran by him. Its body had kept on running for nearly ten yards before finally collapsing.
Pehr held the blade out before him, tip pointed to the ground in a defensive stance, waiting for Josep to make the first move. There would be only one chance, and if Pehr had misjudged this man who had once been his friend, if Josep proved any less honorable than Pehr believed he was, then their world would end here.
The hunter gave him no further time to consider such things, feinting first to his left and then charging Pehr from the right. Pehr could hear Nani shrieking something, but he forced her from his thoughts. He turned to face Josep and then, still moving with slow, calm deliberation, he knelt. He held the sword out before him, blade down, its tip pressed into the sand, both hands wrapped around its hilt, and he lowered his head. He waited there like that, hearing the hunter’s approaching footsteps, wondering if the blow would come that would cleave his head from his shoulders.
It did not. Josep slowed and then came to a halt, growling, “What is this? Do you yield already?”
“I will not yield to you, Josep,” Pehr said, still making sure his words could be heard by those gathered around the circle.
“Then get up and fight.”
“Neither will I do that.”
“Then I will kill you right here!” Josep roared, and Pehr looked up at him, eyes blazing.
“Cut my head from my shoulders if you must!” he cried. “Do it, Khada’Josep, head of hunters, and be swift about it. Murder an innocent man who would do everything in his power to save you, but know that when you do it, so will you murder every man, woman, and child in this village, and in every village from here to the ends of Uru. You will murder your friends. Your family. Your son. Your wife and the unborn child in her belly … every last one of them will die, as surely as if you had taken their heads along with mine.”
Josep glared down at him, nostrils flaring, eyes wide, jaw clenched. Pehr stared back, and after a moment the hunter lowered his axe and spoke through his teeth.
“You make a mockery of our traditions with this filthy, foreign tool,” Josep hissed. “You have insulted and betrayed the Gods and our ancestors.”
Pehr felt his body tighten, and in that moment he came very close to driving the blade upward through Josep’s torso. Instead, he surged forward, throwing himself at the hunter. Josep was quick and strong, but he had no training against the weapon of the plainsmen and the speed with which it could be deployed. Pehr ran the blade down the haft of Josep’s axe, a trick that Samhad had taught him, and slapped its flat side against the hunter’s fingers. Josep grunted in surprise and dropped the axe to the ground, even as Pehr finished coming to his feet and brought the blade to the man’s neck.
“I could kill you right here with this filthy tool,” Pehr said through clenched teeth. “I could let your blood out on this sand, and could have done so from the moment we began this farce, but it would do nothing for us. Nothing. And so I will not.”
The crowd, which had gone deathly silent, waited with an anticipation so palpable it was like electricity in the air. Pehr waited a moment more, and then he moved the blade away from Josep’s throat and tossed it aside. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered himself again to his knees.
“The blood of Nesagana Mombutabwe runs in my veins,” he said, his voice steady. “I know my ancestors. I know them very well. You wish to talk of our people? Tell me of them, then. Where did we come from? Why did we end up trapped here on this tiny strip of land between the ocean and the jungle? What does the future hold for your children, and your children’s children? Can you answer those questions, Khada’Josep?”
Pehr looked out at the crowd now, meeting the gaze of person after person.
“Can any of you answer those questions?!” he shouted.
They could not, and there was silence. Even Nani had stopped making noise, stopped struggling, and was watching him with a strange combination of terror and hope. Pehr looked back at the hunter.
“The words carved into Nethalanhal, Josep? The symbols of the Gods, do you know what they say? They say ‘Vega Caliza.’ In the language of those who once dwelt here, that means ‘Vega limestone.’ We live at the edge of a quarry, a place where stone was once cut from the face of the rock by men. Th
ose symbols are not of the gods – they are but the name of a place built by man, long ago, before the breaking of our world.”
Pehr glanced around again at the crowd before settling his gaze back on Josep.
“I know my ancestors,” he said again. “It is you, and all those around us, who have forgotten them. I know how they would view this foolish, barbaric ritual. They would recoil in horror and disgust, and they would be right to do so. I will not fight you, Josep, but neither will I yield. You will have to murder me. You will have to damn our whole world yourself.”
“If you would command us, then best me!” Josep said. “Leave me dead here in the dust and take your place at the hunter’s table. That is our way!”
“I will not begin the salvation of our people by murdering a man who should be my friend,” Pehr said. “I will not leave my cousin without a husband or her children without a father, either by death or exile. I will not. Do you hear me? This is not right!”
“This is how it has always been!” Josep exclaimed, his voice almost plaintive.
“No, it is not!” Pehr shouted back. “This is not how it has always been. It was better, once, and it can be better again, but only if you will listen. I'm not here to take your place. I don't want to be lead hunter. This is your village, and I would leave it as such.”
“Then why have you come here to battle with me?” Josep asked, tilting his head.
“To make you understand that I’m not some boy returned from the jungles, spewing wild stories bred by my imagination. I’m a man, and I deserve of your respect and your trust. I would not have done this if it wasn’t urgent, but you must see me as a man. You must listen to me, Josep, or every last one of us will die. Choose, Josep. Listen and live, or kill me and damn us all. Choose!”
Josep looked at him for what seemed a very long time, eyes slit, as if trying to stare through Pehr’s skin and into his soul. At last, the hunter leaned down and picked up his axe. There was a gasp from the crowd, followed by low muttering, and Pehr felt his heart sink. Here, then, was the end. Perhaps he should have stabbed the man after all.
Then Josep shouldered the axe, placing it in his harness, and took two slow steps backward. He met Pehr’s eyes, and he nodded.
“I see you now as a man, Khada’Pehr,” he said. “You are not the boy I once knew, and I was wrong to dismiss you as such. I would hear your story, all of it, for as long as that might take. Come with me to the hunters’ hall and tell me of this Havenmont. Tell me of our ancestors, and of their ways.”
Pehr felt as if an invisible current had been removed from his body. Without its presence, his muscles felt weak and his head throbbed painfully. Still, it was a great relief to have that galvanizing sense of urgency taken away. Behind him, he could hear Nani making choked sounds that sounded like a combination of sobs and laughter, and he thought he understood very well how she felt. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, there was a slight smile on Josep’s face.
“But your story had best be good, Khada’Pehr,” the hunter told him. “Or your head may yet find its way to the sand.”
Chapter 29
“This map is rough, but I believe it’s close,” Pehr said, and he slid the piece of dried kampri skin across the table to Josep.
He had sketched out with a piece of charcoal the rough boundaries of the lowlands, the jungle, the mountains, and the plains. He had also noted significant landmarks such as their village, the circle of bones, and Havenmont. Josep reached and took the map, spinning it as he brought it to himself.
More than five hours had passed since the two hunters had left the circle, and Pehr had spent most of it recounting the past two years for Josep. He was exhausted, but glad to be alive and pleased with this chance to convince the hunter to join with him.
“Havenmont is ten or twelve days’ journey by foot, at hunter speed,” Pehr said. “It will be slower going with a large group, but it’s not so far that it’ll be impossible.”
“Can the plains really be this big?” Josep asked, staring at the map in frank disbelief. The strip of land between the jungle and ocean, where Pehr’s people lived, seemed tiny by comparison.
Pehr nodded. “Our world has always seemed vast and varied to us, but it’s no more than a sliver. The journey from here to Havenmont takes twelve days, but to travel from Havenmont to the southern plains takes many weeks.”
Josep spent some time inspecting the map and then pointed to a patch of jungle that lay northwest of the entrance to Havenmont. “What Lagos remain will be here.”
Pehr nodded. “That is the most likely place. There may be pockets of them elsewhere, but if they remain in any significant numbers, it must be there. Otherwise the hunters in the northern villages would have stumbled upon them by now. Everywhere else is too close to the jungle’s edge.”
“Should we finish the job that these beasts – these tral that you speak of – began?”
“It could be done,” Pehr said. “Not with the hunters we have here, but there’s time to gather numbers. They will not expect an attack. For ten thousand years they have been the aggressors. I don’t think they’ve spent much time considering defense.”
“I did not ask if we could wipe them out, Khada’Pehr. I asked if we should. For my part, I would see them eradicated, destroyed so completely that they are erased even from the stories of old.”
Pehr considered his next words carefully. He was ambivalent; a part of him hated the Lagos, despised them like no other thing in the world – but another part understood that they were living creatures, fully sentient and possessed of a society, however brutal and repugnant it might be. The idea of enacting genocide upon them would never have bothered him before his augmentation, but now … ?
“It will be many years before they could come against us again in force,” he said. “By that time, we will be safe in Havenmont, protected by devices and weapons against which they have been unable to stand for ten thousand years or more. I no longer fear the Lagos, Josep. I pity them, in a strange way. They are cracked and twisted, forsaken by the Gods. They know only hate and rage. They will never trouble us again. It is … not worth our time. Not worth the lives of our men.”
Josep considered this, thinking long and hard, fingers tented and held just before his face, eyes far away. He frowned, opened his mouth, reconsidered, closed it. Continued his contemplation.
Finally he nodded, and the faraway look in his eyes changed to one of clarity. A decision had been made, and being a hunter, Josep needed say no more about it. He reached forward and pointed at a spot Pehr had marked within the Plains of Tassanna. “This is where we will meet the plainsman, Samhad?”
“Yes, or in that area – it will depend on the movement of the tral. He will be watching for us.”
“Why take all of us there? Could you not leave us at the edge of Havenmont, outside the reach of the gardeners?”
“The city is dead, and the circle of bone is poisoned. I don't know how far that poison extends into the surroundings, whether it would be safe to eat the plants or drink the water. I cannot leave you on the other side … the villagers know nothing of surviving on the plains. Even the hunters would have a hard time of it. The small forest at the foot of the mountain won’t support them all. The plainsmen will have tral and other food, and they can find water with ease. It will be better to meet them.”
Josep nodded, seeming satisfied with this answer. The hunter leaned back in his seat and looked at Pehr, appraising him for a lengthy period. Pehr looked back, feeling mildly uncomfortable under this scrutiny but refusing to turn away.
“In all of the years since this catastrophe that you claim drove our people away from the city in the mountains, no man has ever been able to unite our many tribes. You know this, and yet you would try it yourself. Do you wish so much to be King, Pehr?”
“No,” Pehr replied. “Josep, had you asked me not two months ago what I wanted of my life, I would have told you that I wished to return to
this village, become a hunter, marry a good woman, and raise a family. There’s a part of me still that craves that life and always will. I’m only following this other path because there’s no choice.”
“Yet you must know that if you succeed in this thing, you will be looked upon to rule. It may be true that you have no desire for this, but it will happen nonetheless. This is where others have stumbled; they sought the power but couldn't wield it once obtained.”
“Those others did what they did for personal gain,” Pehr replied. “I seek the salvation of all Uru. If a time comes when I can relinquish such power … cede it to others … I will do so.”
The hunter gave him a dark grin. “Be careful what you promise. Once you have been tasked with leading men, it’s a hard thing to give up. I speak from experience.”
“I’m not asking you to cede your control,” Pehr told him, and Josep gave him an unimpressed look.
“You are, and we are sitting here talking now so that I may choose whether to let you or not. You are forcing me to choose, and you said it yourself. Kill you and damn us all, or let you take control and attempt to unite our people. If that happens, you will be King. Call me lead hunter of this tribe if you like … it’s but a name. The fate of this ground and those who dwell upon it will be in your hands.”
Pehr had no reply to this. He knew that Josep spoke the truth, but he hadn't expected to hear it laid out before him in so blunt a manner. Josep smiled at him again, and this time there was more good humor in the expression.
“My wife came to me this morning and begged me not to fight you. You are her cousin, and she feared for your life and for mine, but that is not why she did so. She did it because she believes you. She believes that the danger you have spoken of is real, and that we must listen or perish, and she believes it with all of her heart.”
The Broken God Machine Page 27
