by Wilbur Smith
The force of Huy’s charge carried him half across the room, but in the wrong direction. He swung towards her, and at that moment she stooped and snuffed the lamp flame. The room was plunged into darkness, and Huy’s charge ended against the wall. He gathered himself quickly, he was sobering fast now, and he crouched beside the wall listening.
He heard the rustle of cloth, and he pounced. His fingers closed on a hem of the cloak. There was a muted shriek of surprise, and the fold of material was plucked from his fingers. He swore bitterly, and with arms widespread groped like a blind man about the room.
He sensed movements near him, the lightest breathing, the softest stirring in the darkness. He reached out quickly, and his fingers brushed against smooth skin. He recognized the shape of a nude back, and the plump warm bulge of a buttock. A soft chuckle and it was gone again. Huy froze with his heart hammering at his ribs, and his physical arousal making him momentarily dizzy.
Whoever she was, she had discarded the cloak. He was alone with a woman who was elusive as a darting lake pike, and as naked as a newborn babe. Like a stalking leopard he went alter her, stripping his own tunic and breech clout as he went, dropping them carelessly on the floor, until, except for the gold rings in his ears, he was as bare as his own passion.
She was panicky in the darkness now, unable to control the gasps and nervous giggles. And Huy hunted her by ear, closing in on her, driving her into the corner beside the bed.
She nearly escaped again, ducking under his searching hands but one of his long arms whipped around her waist and he lifted her easily. She squealed now, kicking like a captive animal, her fists beating against his face and chest.
He carried her to the thick pile of furs that made up his bed.
Huy woke with a sense of peace, a feeling of deep happiness.
His body seemed softened and enervated, but his mind was clear and sharply focused. The soft pinks of dawn suffused his chamber and the cry of the winging lake birds carried clearly to him.
He raised himself on one elbow and looked down at the girl who slept beside him in the storm-tossed bed. She had cast aside her covering in the warm spring night. Her hair was moist at the temples, and a fine sheen of moisture shone on her softly pouting upper lip. Her eyes were closed, and she slept so lightly that her breathing barely stirred the mass of soft dark hair which lay upon her cheeks.
One arm was thrown over her head, pulling the surprisingly large breasts out of shape. Her breasts were big and full and round for the long slim length of her body, and the tips were still flushed dark red from the loving of the night. Her skin was smooth and pale creamy olive, with violent puffs of black silky hair in her armpits and at the base of her belly.
Huy saw all of this in his first startled glance, before his eyes fastened on her calm and sleeping face.
Incredulously Huy stared at her, all sound locked away in his throat. He felt horror, and awe, and superstitious terror.
The girl opened her eyes, and saw him and smiled.
‘Baal’s blessings on you, Holy Father,’ she said softly,
‘Tanith!’ gasped Huy.
‘Yes, my lord.’ She was still smiling.
‘This is sacrilege, Huy whispered. ’This is an offence against the goddess.‘
‘To deny my love for you would have been an offence against all nature.’ Tanith sat up on the bed, and kissed him without remorse, without the least sign of guilt.
‘Love?’ Huy asked, his misgivings temporarily forgotten.
‘Yes, my lord,’ Tanith nodded, and kissed him again.
‘But—’ Huy stuttered, and his cheeks turned bright as bush fires. ‘You cannot - how can you love me?’
‘How can I not, my lord?’
‘But my body - my back.’
‘Your back I love because it is part of you, part of your goodness and kindness and wisdom.’
He stared at her for many seconds, then clumsily he took her in his arms and buried his face in the fragrant dark cloud of her hair.
‘Oh, Tanith,’ he whispered. ‘What are we going to do?’
Huy stood on the hilltop in the dawn and waited for his god. Below him the camp stirred. The cooking fires paled in the growing light of day. Small sounds carried up to him, the sounds of 6,000 men preparing for the hunt. The 6,000 warriors of Huy’s legion, and the king’s train, and the slaves and the women and the elephants and the baggage train. Small wonder that the camp filled the entire valley on both sides of the small river that flowed down the escarpment of the hills. Thirty miles away to the north lay the sluggish green ribbon of the great river, sweltering in its hot and inhospitable valley. One of Lannon’s legions was camped there already, and for days now they had been harassing the elephant herds that were feeding along the river. They had attacked them with archers, and javelin-throwers and war elephants.
Under this harassment the herds would leave the valley, taking to their ancient roads out over the escarpment. Lannon was encamped now astride these well-blazed trails, and scouts from the valley had reported the previous evening that the herds were already on the move. They were massing and moving in towards the escarpment wall, and in the next few days they would come pouring up out of the valley in long majestic files, as the old bulls led them to sanctuary from the persistent hunters who plagued them.
Huy Ben-Amon pondered this as he stood in the dawn. He wore light hunting armour and running sandals, and he leaned comfortably on the shaft of the vulture axe. The splendid blade was covered with a soft leather sheath to protect the finely honed edge and the delicate engravings. It seemed to Huy that the gods had so arranged circumstances as to provide him with this opportunity.
For two weeks, ever since that last night of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth, Huy had spent most of his waking moments pondering his dilemma. He had spent hours poring over the sacred books, examining the roles of priest and priestess, their duties and relationship to the gods, and to each other. He thought that from all this research he had built up a case for his behaviour. He could not bring himself to call it sacrilege. He had come now to plead his case, and to receive judgement.
The sun shot its first golden lance against the crest of the hill, and Huy sang the praise chant with all the beauty at his command. Then he made his plea. It was complicated dialectic, based on the concept of earthly representation, and amounting to a line of reasoning which supposed that what was good behaviour between Baal and his mate Astarte would be equally justifiable between their earthly representatives -although, of course, not between a priestess and any other person than the High Priest of Baal. Huy glossed over the more evidently weak spots in his case.
He ended, ‘It may be, however, great Baal and heavenly Astarte, that I am mistaken in my reasoning. It may well be that I have sinned. If this is the case then I deserve your full wrath and, despite my life of service and faithful duty, I deserve the most dire punishment! ’
Huy paused tor effect. ‘I go now to hunt the elephant. I swear on my life that wherever the chase is hottest, there I shall be. Wherever the danger is deadliest, there I shall be.
‘It I have sinned - then let the tusked beasts strike me down. If I have not sinned then let me live and return to the bosom of your priestess. If you grant me life and love - I swear my duty and service will last to the end of my days, and no man nor woman will ever know of the dispensation you have granted me.’ He was quiet a while longer then he spoke again, ‘You who have loved, take pity on one who loves also.’
Huy came down the hill well satisfied with his bargain. He would give the gods full measure. He would not hang back in distaste from the slaughter today, the gods would have every opportunity to demonstrate their outrage. In any event, Huy was well aware that only death could keep him out of Tanith’s arms. The taste of that fruit had been too sweet for him ever to deny it.
‘Huy,’ Lannon shouted as Huy entered the camp. ‘Where have you been?’ He was armed and striding impatiently back and forth outside his tent. He c
ame towards Huy quickly. ‘The day wastes away,’ he cried. ‘Already from the hills our lookouts have seen the approach of the herds.’
The war elephants were ready, drivers sitting on their necks and the tall castles on their backs. Lannon’s hunting party was assembled about the tent. Among them Huy noticed some of the king’s most renowned huntmasters: Mursil, with his purple boozy face, the lean and saturnine Zadal, Huya the celebrated bowman, and the diminutive yellow Xhai whose fame as a tracker had grown apace in the last few years. Beyond them amongst the horde of body slaves towered the colossal black bulk of Timon. Huy smiled at him, and then he hurried beside Lannon to the elephant lines.
Lannon told him, ‘You will ride with me, Sunbird.’ And Huy replied, ‘I am honoured, my lord.
Mursil handed Huy one of the elephant bows. Few men could draw these massive weapons. Carved from solid baulks of wild ebony, they were as thick at the centre as a man’s wrist and strung with twisted strands of lion gut. It required immense strength in the arms and chest to draw one of the five-foot arrows that were armed with a heavy steel head and flighted with wild duck feathers. However, once drawn to the limit and loosed, they could fly 100 paces and bury the arrow up to its feathers in the living flesh of an elephant. They could reach the mighty heart in its castle of ribs, they could cut deep into the massive pink lungs, or loosed with skill they could cut through the ear-hole in the great bony skull and find the brain.
‘I know you prefer the bow to the spear, Holy Father,’ Mursil murmured respectfully. ‘As for me, my old arm can no longer draw.’
‘Thank you, huntmaster.’
‘The quivers are full. I have tested and selected each of the arrows,’ Mursil assured him, and Huy followed Lannon to where his war elephant knelt. It was a rangy old cow, more steady than the bull in the heat of battle, more reliable and even-tempered than the bull in the hunt.
Huy followed Lannon up into the castle. There was room for three men in the wooden box. The arrow quivers were fitted to the outside, but with the arrow-heads standing up ready to the hand. The javelins were racked on the front of the castle and Lannon selected one and tested it thoughtfully.
‘A nice balance,’ he judged it, and then looked down to where his huntmasters waited anxiously, each of them eager for the honour of riding with the Gry-Lion. Lannon glanced over them, but his eye stopped on Xhai. He nodded, and with pathetic gratitude the pygmy scrambled up the elephant’s side.
With a heavy lurch that threw Huy against the edge of the castle, the elephant came up on its feet. They looked down from the majestic height of nearly eighteen feet, and the driver goaded the old cow into a stately swaying walk. They took the trail down towards the escarpment of the valley.
‘I have selected a good place for it,’ Lannon told Huy. ‘Where the steep path comes out suddenly into a small flat bowl. We will wait for them there.’
Huy looked back and saw the other war elephants following them. Twenty of them in single file, ears flapping, trunks swinging they trundled sedately along. The huntsmen in the castles were checking and testing their weapons, and chattering excitedly.
‘For what do we hunt, my lord?’ Huy asked. ‘Calves or ivory?’
‘Calves first. The elephant trainers have asked for two dozen youngsters between five and ten years old. We will capture those this morning, for it will be the breeding herds that come up out of the valley first. Then later we will hunt for ivory. The scouts report many fine bulls scattered along the great river.’
The saucer which Lannon had selected was hemmed in with steep broken ground. It was circular in shape, perhaps 500 paces across. The elephant road came into it through a narrow rocky pass, crossed the saucer and climbed out of it up a steep pitch to the high ground above. The saucer was thickly wooded, and Lannon placed his war elephants in ambush, concealing them about the perimeter of the bowl in the good cover. The war elephants were forced to kneel for better concealment, and while they waited Huy and Lannon breakfasted on cold corn cakes, cheese and roast salt beef washed down with red wine. It was a hunter’s meal, taken in cover with the mounting excitement of the chase sharpening their appetites, and as they ate they kept glancing up at the lookouts on the high ground above the saucer whose task it was to watch for and to signal the approach of the herds.
The dew was still on the grass when a figure waved frantically from the skyline above them, and Lannon grunted with satisfaction and wiped the grease from his fingers and lips.
‘Come, my Sunbird,’ he said, and they mounted the kneeling elephant once more.
It was a long wait that stretched and tightened their nerves, then suddenly little Xhai stirred expectantly beside Huy and bis dark amber eyes snapped.
‘They are here,’ he whispered, and almost immediately a single wild elephant came out through the rocky portals of the pass and paused on the lip of the saucer. It was an old cow, grey and lean and tuskless. Suspiciously she looked about the saucer, lifting her trunk to sample the air and then blowing the sample into her mouth against the olfactory glands in her upper lip. The breeze was behind her, a soft dry movement of air that carried the smell of waiting men away from her, and she lowered her trunk and moved forward.
From the pass behind her poured an avalanche of great grey bodies.
‘Breeding herd,’ murmured Lannon, and Huy saw the calves at heel. They ranged in size from almost full grown to not much bigger than a large pig. The smaller they were the more noisy and mischievous, squealing and frolicking and chasing between the legs of their mothers. Huy smiled at the attempts of one to suckle from his moving mother, groping for the teats between her front legs with his miniature trunk until in exasperation the mother picked up a fallen branch and swatted him mercilessly across the rump. The calf squealed and fell in at her heels again, demure and chastened.
The saucer was full of wild elephants now, their grey humped backs showing above the thick bush as they streamed along the ancient road to safety.
Lannon leaned forward and touched the driver on the shoulder, and the war elephant rose beneath them lifting them high so that they could look down from their castle upon the quarry. All around the saucer, the war elephants rose from cover with the armed men upon their backs. They closed in on the herd quietly, the squealing and uproar from the calves blanketing their approach until they were right in amongst the herd.
Lannon selected a young cow with a half-grown calf and leaning out from the castle he hurled his javelin into her neck, aiming for the great arteries there. The cow squealed in pain and alarm, and bright red arterial blood blew in a cloud from the tip of her trunk. She reeled backwards, mortally wounded, and from the other castles a torrent of missiles flew into the herd. Hundreds of huge bodies burst into flight and the forest shook and rang with their trumpeting and their frantic efforts at escape.
Despite his promise to the gods, Huy did not raise his bow, but watched in awful fascination the slaughter of the terrified beasts. He saw an old cow, bristling with arrows and javelins charge one of the war elephants and knock it down on its knees; the men were hurled from the castle to fall beneath stampeding hooves, and the old cow tottered away to fall and die, still in her battle rage. He saw a calf, hit in error, trying to tear the arrow from its own flank and squealing pitifully as the barbs clung stubbornly in the flesh. He saw another calf attempting vainly to rouse its dead mother, tugging at her with its little trunk.
Lannon was shouting with excitement, hurling his javelins into the neck and spine with that deadly accuracy that dropped the great grey bodies in profusion about them.
One of the herd mothers charged them from the side; a bad-tempered old queen as big and as strong as their mount, she bore down on them. Lannon swung to face her, braced himself and threw, but the old queen lifted her trunk and the javelin struck it squarely, biting deep into that pulpy sensitive member just below the level of her eyes. She squealed in agony but never faltered in her run, and regretfully Huy lifted his bow. He knew she would charge
home, and that only death would stop her.
The old queen lifted her head and trunk high, bracing herself for the impact of her charge. Her mouth was wide open, with the pointed lower lip dangling, and Huy drew and loosed his shaft into the back of her throat. All five feet of the arrow disappeared into her gaping mouth, and he knew the point had found the brain for she reeled back onto her haunches, shuddering and quivering, a strangled gurgling cry bubbling from her throat. The lids of her eyes twitched violently and she fell forward and was still.
They killed forty-one cows, thirty of them with calf. However, nine of the calves were adjudged by the trainers too young for survival as orphans and they were put down with a single merciful arrow. The others were cut out and rounded up by specially trained nursing cows and led away from the mountainous bleeding carcasses of their mothers. By noon the work was done, and the slaves could busy themselves in butchering the carcasses and carrying the meat away to the smoking racks. The saucer was a reeking charnel-house, and the vultures turned overhead in a dark cloud that almost obscured the sun.
Lannon ate the midday meal with his nobles and hunt-masters. Fresh grilled elephant tripe seasoned with hot pepper sauce, broiled elephant heart stuffed with wild rice and olives, platters of golden corn cakes and the inevitable earthen amphorae of Zeng wine made it a meal fit for a hunter’s appetite.
Lannon was in a high good humour, striding amongst his men, laughing and jesting with them, picking out one or another for a special commendation. He was still wrought up by the excitement of the chase, and when he paused beside Huy he meant to chaff him when he said:
‘My poor Sunbird, you loosed but one arrow during the whole hunt.’ And Huy was about to answer lightly that one arrow for one elephant was as good a score as any, when suddenly Zadal the huntmaster from the middle kingdom laughed.
‘Was the bow too strong for you, Holiness, or the game too fierce?’
