Champions Of The Gods rb-21

by Джеффри Лорд

  If that was the case, she would probably not live until sunset, and all her skill couldn't change that. Each fight would leave her weaker, facing a completely fresh opponent. Sooner or later the end would come.

  She accepted this fact, hoped the end would come quickly, and put the matter out of her mind. There was no fear in her any more. She stared hard at the leader who would be her first opponent. He stared back, his face now completely expressionless. Then he raised his spear high over his head and twirled it.

  «Hai, Stranger! Are you ready for the Rites of Meeting?»

  Katerina's fingers suddenly lost all their strength and her spears thudded to the grass. A desperate effort at self-control kept her from doing anything else. She slowly shook her head, keeping her eyes on the leader as she tried to grapple with what had happened.

  It had happened. She could not doubt that unless she wanted to believe she was going mad. She did not want to believe that. So what had happened was real, however impossible it might seem-except that if it was real, then it wasn't impossible, and-She desperately shut off that line of thinking and tried to tell herself what had happened in a few simple words.

  The leader spoke in his own language, a series of growling guttural sounds. That was what her ears had heard. In her mind they registered as plain, simple Russian words, as clear and understandable as a headline in Pravda. She knew exactly what the leader had said, completely, clearly, and perfectly.

  She might not be going mad. But certainly there was something in her mind that hadn't been there before. Something had happened to her brain when the British hurled her out of the Tower of London and out of the world she knew. Somehow, something-

  Katerina realized that if she was not mad now, she might go mad if she spent much more time speculating on what had happened. She might also make herself an easy prey for one of the spearmen, which would be ridiculous. She would stop trying to comprehend the incomprehensible and live with it as best she could.

  She raised her own spear and called out to the leader, «I am ready. I am of a people always ready to meet their enemies.» The words formed themselves in her mind in Russian, but they came out of her mouth in the guttural growls of the spearmen. She was not surprised any more. In fact, she smiled at the thought of being able to insult her opponents in their own language.

  The leader was surprised at being addressed in his own language. For a moment his face showed it, then smoothed over again. The arm holding the spear went back, then snapped forward. The spear gleamed as it hurtled toward Katerina.

  The spear came fast. Katerina moved faster. She dropped on one knee, ducking her head but keeping her own spears pointing toward the enemy. The leader's spear whistled over her head and stuck quavering in a tree behind her. It was still quivering as Katerina moved in to the attack.

  She didn't know what the rules might be for this sort of combat. She only knew that she had to win each fight as fast as possible, saving her strength and avoiding even the smallest wounds. That meant a quick, deadly attack, taking the initiative and keeping it. Otherwise she had no chance of even lasting very long, let alone surviving.

  She dropped one spear to the grass, raised the other over her head with both hands, and dashed forward. The leader raised his second spear and moved forward to meet her. Katerina went straight in at the man, watched his spearpoint swing toward her, and stopped two feet beyond it. Her arms whipped her own spear up, over, and down in a blindingly swift arc, striking with the butt rather than the point. The butt crashed into the leader's forehead. His spear jerked, then wavered as he sagged forward on his knees. A moment later he was stretched out facedown on the grass. Katerina knelt and felt his wrist. He was unconscious but still alive. Good. She wanted badly to win and live, but she would be happier if she could do it without slaughtering these people right and left!

  She stepped back from the leader and looked at the other nine men. «One of you has met me, and there he lies. What is your custom now?»

  Another warrior stepped forward, brandishing both spears. «The Meeting continues, Stranger, until you or all of us can fight no more. It will be you, for we are still nine Ganthi and you are but one.»

  So it would be as she'd expected. «Do not tell me that you are so good. Come forward and prove it.» If she could make them angry enough to stop thinking clearly, it might help. Otherwise each warrior could calmly watch what happened to his predecessors and learn from it. If they came out in a blind rage, on the other hand-

  Another spear came at her, aimed low. Instead of ducking, she leaped sideways. Again she moved faster than the spear. This one struck the ground, bounced end over end, and vanished into the bushes. The warrior did not give her a chance to attack. Before his spear struck the ground he was coming in after it, seeming to move just as fast. His spearpoint danced in front of him as he closed, making little jabs and feints.

  Katerina stood her ground, holding her spear across her body with both hands, letting the enemy's point drive in at her. At the last possible second she dropped to her knees, shifted her grip, and whirled her spear sideways. The sharp edge of the point slashed into the side of the warrior's knee as his own point darted over her head. It slashed through the leaves of her hat and they fell to either side. The warrior was too busy to notice. His gashed and weakened leg threw him off balance. Before he could recover, Katerina rose to her feet and smashed the shaft of her spear across the side of his head. The man's skull did not shatter, but his cheekbone and jaw did. His eyes went blank and he toppled sideways. Before he struck the ground Katerina was springing back, clearing off the last leaves of her ruined hat.

  She didn't have time to check if her second victim was still alive. Another man was coming at her. He held on to both spears and stopped twenty feet away, holding one low and the other high. The man's comrades seemed to accept his refusal to close in. That wasn't good. If her opponents could play a waiting game, they could force her to use up time and strength she couldn't spare.

  She decided to try a trick of her own. She deliberately turned her back on her opponent. Then with her body screening her movements, she bent down and came up with her second victim's spear in her hands. In one smooth movement she whirled and threw.

  The man tried to leap aside, but he wasn't fast enough. The spear took him in the thigh. He did not cry out, but his face twisted with pain as he drew the spear free. Blood was pouring down his leg as he staggered away toward his comrades.

  Three up, three down, no one dead yet, and not a mark on her. Katerina realized that she was doing better than she'd believed possible. She also realized this couldn't go on indefinitely. There was nothing except perhaps their taboos and rituals to keep the remaining seven men from a mass attack that would certainly bring her down. The scholars said primitive peoples would never go against their taboos. Did the scholars think the taboos would make all seven warriors tamely submit to being knocked down, one by one? These warriors were not fools. Sooner or later her death would become more important to them than their taboos.

  The fourth warrior walked out with his second spear still slung over his back. One hand held a spear, the other held his club. He stopped a good thirty feet away, then raised his spear. He and Katerina threw at almost the same moment.

  The warrior's spear flew wide. Katerina realized, too late, that it was supposed to. By then she'd already thrown her own. As it left her hand, the warrior threw himself down and rolled to one side. Katerina's spear missed as completely as his. Before she could throw another, the warrior bounced to his feet and came at her with his club. It whistled about his head as he came on, bellowing and screaming, seeming to fly across the grass at her.

  Katerina twisted aside enough to keep the club from smashing down on her skull, not enough to miss with her own thrust. Her point drove into the man's body just above the bulge of his stomach. She felt the iron grate against the ribs, then slide through and into the man's vitals.

  The swinging club did not miss entirely. It struck
Katerina a glancing blow on the hip, jarring her painfully and ripping away the lower part of her robe. She suddenly felt air against bare skin. Surprise paralyzed her-only for a few seconds, but that was still too long.

  In spite of the spear rammed deep into him, the warrior still lived, still fought, still struggled to close and kill. With a choking sound, he lurched forward. His club fell to the ground, but his hands rose, reached out, clutched blindly, and tore. Katerina heard bark thongs and leaves ripping apart, felt the man's hands against her skin, and jerked herself back and out of his reach.

  As she jerked back, her shredded robe fell to the ground. She stood stark naked in a half crouch, hands still gripping her spear.

  The dying warrior saw that she was a woman. His eyes flared open, he lurched forward again, and his hands clutched at her again. This time Katerina leaped back in time, letting go of her spear. The effort of that final lunge was too much for the warrior. He gasped, gave a great choking cough that sprayed blood all over Katerina, and fell forward. As he fell, the spear drove the rest of the way through his body and the bloody point burst out through his back.

  As the warrior fell, his comrades at last saw Katerina clearly. Their expressions changed with horrible swiftness. One moment they were spectators to their comrade's death. The next moment they were staring in amazement at the formidable warrior who had suddenly turned into a naked woman. The moment after that raw lust dawned on their faces. All six dashed forward.

  Katerina turned and ran for the trees. That was her one chance now-get deep into the jungle and somehow outrun or evade the warriors chasing her. She was still strong, still not yet winded. She might have a chance.

  But she misjudged her path, by just enough to be fatal. She plunged straight at the nearest gap in the trees, eyes fixed on it. She didn't see the spear sticking out of a tree on one side of the gap, the spear thrown by the fallen leader. She ran straight into it. The hard wood of the shaft slammed her across the ribs, making her gasp with the pain, driving the breath out of her, slowing her just long enough.

  In the clearing behind her one of the warriors pulled a cluster of weighted cords from his belt, raised them in one hand, whirled them around his head. Then his arm straightened with a snap. The cords and weights whirled through the air, straight to their targets. Katerina felt the weights tightening the cords around her legs, bent to claw wildly at them, lost her balance, and fell on her side in the grass. The warriors gave a great shout, six voices sounding like one, and rushed up to her.

  Katerina screamed then, all hope gone and raw fear bubbling up uncontrollably in her. She screamed and went on screaming, while her fingers still struggled to unbind her legs, a last reflex of the fighter she had been. The screams of a frightened woman and the struggles of the fighter both went on until one of the warriors stepped up and kicked her in the stomach. Then she was writhing silently on the ground, arching her body, trying not to choke as her stomach emptied itself. She stopped writhing only when the first of the warriors threw his loincloth aside and fell on her, with all his weight and lust and brutality.

  Her last coherent thought was a wish that she'd killed or crippled one or two more of the warriors. That would shorten the nightmare. Then she gave into the nightmare of pain and pounding bodies, because she couldn't do anything else.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Katerina came slowly back to consciousness. It was a while before she was aware of anything except pain-pain in her head, pain in her stomach and back, pain in her groin and thighs, pain everywhere. The pains burned and stabbed and throbbed. She tried to sit up to vomit again, realized that her hands and feet were tied painfully tight, and turned her head to one side. She retched miserably for a long time, but her stomach was completely empty.

  For a while it seemed that her mind was completely empty too. Then sounds and sights from the world around her gradually sorted themselves out. She was lying under a bush at the edge of the clearing. A look down at herself told her the pains were all real. From her breasts down to her thighs she was a mass of bruises, as though a dozen men had pounded on her with clubs.

  Out in the clearing the leader was sitting on the grass, watching the six undefeated warriors digging in the ground with their spearpoints. The other three-the one Katerina had killed and the two she'd wounded-lay on their backs. All three were dead. Apparently these people killed those wounded who were too badly hurt to travel.

  The leader now noticed that she was conscious. With the help of two warriors he staggered to his feet and walked slowly over to her. Katerina tensed. Was he going to take his turn with her now? She knew that she could not stand it, and that she would have to. She had been afraid and she was still afraid. She would not show it again, and she would not die. Or at least she would not die until she'd killed a few of these sons of bitches!

  The leader stepped away from his two supporters and stood looking down at Katerina, swaying slightly on his feet. He seemed to be appraising her, like a meat-buyer appraising a collective farm's prize steer. When he finally spoke, she was able to listen almost calmly.

  «Woman, you have been met by the Ganthi as are all Strangers who enter our lands. You have been defeated, as are all Strangers. The Ganthi are mighty warriors. If you were a man, you would now be dead, for our land is not for Strangers.

  «But you are a woman. You are a woman who yet has the strength and skill of a warrior. This we have seen, we, the Brothers of the Hunt. We see only that which is true. So you are what you seem, and not what evil spirits may have put before us to make us afraid. I, Stul, an Elder Brother of the Hunt, say this:» The other warriors bowed their heads at these words.

  «You shall be taken to Thessu, and you shall live among the Ganthi as a woman taken in war. You will bear sons who will grow to be warriors and Hunters of the Ganthi, and daughters who will bear more sons. They will be strong, for you are a strong woman. This I say.

  «I also say that you shall be first offered to Geddo, High Chief of the Ganthi. He is a man who needs many women, and takes them whenever he needs them. Those who please him may have great honor when they bear his sons. Think of this. I, Stul, say it.»

  Stul turned away. By now Katerina had prodded and pushed her sluggish wits into thinking up a strategy to improve her position here among the Ganthi. Or at least it would keep her alive a little longer. She pitched her voice to be firm but not too commanding.

  «Stul, I would speak.»

  The Elder Brother stopped and turned, then stared down at her again, trying to read her expression. Katerina kept her face expressionless and waited. Finally Stul nodded. «You may speak.»

  «I am to be offered to your greatest warrior, is that not so?»

  «It is so. Such is the High Chief of the Ganthi.»

  «Can I be given to him, unclean as I am? For you of the Hunters have indeed treated me as a woman, without any rites. You have made me unclean by the laws of my people.»

  «The laws of your people are not the laws of the Ganthi, woman.»

  «They are the laws I obey, Stul. I say this-you Hunters shall not make me unclean again. If you do I shall not be fit in my own eyes to be given to the High Chief. I shall not let myself live to be brought before him. I was a warrior, I know how to bring death upon myself, and none of the Ganthi can stop me if I wish it. If I am made unclean again, I shall wish it.»

  It was a risky bluff, but not a hopeless one. Stul obviously hoped to give her as a gift to the High Chief of the Ganthi. She would be an unusual, even an exotic gift-a warrior woman-and Geddo would presumably be grateful. Stul would not want anything to happen to her between here and Thessu. If she threatened to kill herself if she was raped again, Stul might just possibly decide that he and his men should behave themselves. That would only give her a few extra days to recover her strength. But every little bit would help.

  Stul stood in silence for quite a while, head tilted sideways and one hand stroking his chin. He was either thinking deeply or trying to give that impression.
Finally he nodded.

  «It is understood. You shall be permitted to become clean again according to your own laws. It shall be done before we reach Thessu. I, Stul, say this.»

  «How far is it to Thessu?»

  «Seven days, not less.»

  «That will be as much time as I will need.» She kept her voice level and her face straight. She wanted to smile or even laugh. Seven days to look around her and make plans without fear hanging over her. Seven days she could put to good use-if Stul kept his promise and controlled his Hunters.

  Stul turned out to be a man who kept promises even to woman captives, as well as a leader whose Hunters obeyed him. The week-long trip to Thessu was not exactly a luxury cruise down the Volga for Katerina. But none of her captors touched her again during the whole trip. In fact, they carried her most of the way on an improvised litter. They gave her the best food and water they could find in the jungle, and even let her bathe regularly. She felt her strength and self-confidence returning bit by bit as the pain of her bruises faded.

  Of course she had to continue to appear humbled and submissive every waking minute. That rankled. She also had to carry out some convincing «cleansing» ritual each day. She solved that problem easily. Every evening she sat down in lotus position and recited for half an hour passages from her training manuals or from the Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. She found that by concentrating hard she could still think and speak in Russian, which made her recitations even more mysterious. Stul and the other Hunters were appropriately impressed.

  Katerina was walking almost normally by the time they reached Thessu, on the morning of the eighth day. Something unusual was obviously happening in the town. Several large fires sent smoke clouds up from behind the mud and thorn-bush walls. Scores of cloth banners floated from spears held by warriors standing on top of the walls. Warriors, workers, and slaves were dashing about like ants from an upset hill. Many of the workers were leading animals-large lizards or things that looked like one-horned goats-or carrying heavy baskets of fruits and vegetables toward the gates of Thessu.