The Nameless Slave

by Vitaly Zykov

  – Is there anybody who has?

  – My father. My father probably saw them. He traveled so much. He explored the lands behind the Bone River in all directions…

  – Stop, – interrupted Yaroslav. – But have other Urgs seen them?

  – No, I said that we don't have any trade with them. They live behind Tarks' lands up the Bone River.

  – And so what? As you get to Tarks, you can go up to Gwonks too. What's the problem then?

  – But there is only one ford near Tarks' bank!

  Yaroslav shuddered:

  – What a ford? Aren't you afraid of the Bone?! There are monsters and so on…

  – Ones in a canine it's possible… all creatures disappear somewhere.

  Yaroslav's lips dried up at once.

  – Can you show me where it is?

  – There's not much to tell. Walk along the river bank, and then you face a rock… the ford is in front of it. The water there levels Urg's chest.

  Yaroslav noticed Ghol's hesitation.

  – What rock? – Asked he.

  And saw that green skin of Ghol began acquiring a brownish-green hue, becoming darker and darker with every second. Only some time later Yaroslav realized that that was Urg's «blush».

  – Like a symbol of manhood! That's it!!! – Ghol blurted out in one breath and his face darkened even more.

  – Well, that's clear too. Hey, how do Tarks meet peaceful wayfarers?

  – Not Urgs?

  – Is there any difference, then?

  – Well yes, we have an ancient agreement with them. They always allow us to pass.

  – And you?

  – And we do not go. We have nothing to do far from home… It's better at home!

  – But what about your father?

  Ghol snorted angrily again. Silence delayed. But Yaroslav waited, and finally the Urg answered:

  – Some of our folk go to the other side. – The last sounded like «to the other world». – Looking for better life. But only a few come back. My father returned, but the others did not. He never told me where he had been. Always remained silent…

  – Ok. Let us return to our muttons, that is to say Tarks. So what happens if not an Urg comes upon their land?

  – Oh, nothing special… If the traveler is weak, they stun him by a club and capture. If strong, the whole tribe gathers, beat him with clubs, then stuns and captures. What happens next is unknown… Maybe they will trade him to Gwonks.

  – To the enemies?!

  Ghol popped out his eyes:

  – Well, they have to trade something!

  – Funny farm! – Yaroslav said and fell silent. He had to think, though on the other hand, think for what? In these lands he has absolutely nothing to do, so his way is lying to the land of Tarks now. – Well, let it be Tarks. – He turned to Ghol. – I think we should part here. At this point, our ways have to diverge. – For more importance Yaroslav gave a little cold and steel into his voice. And in order to fix the brightness of impressions, he released for a moment the beast dwelling in the depth of his soul, which was brought up in battles with nightmares of the Death Forest.

  And immediately saw the blood draining from the face of the Urg boy, his eyes popping with realization who was the one standing in front of him! Yaroslav smiled, but the mask of the beast, which had not disappeared yet, turned this smile into a grin. Ghol pressed himself into the rock. Yaroslav patted Ghol's shoulder and ran like a lynx, devouring miles of the road. There, to the north-east, where on the shore of the Bone River, was standing a rock, which forced the little savage to blush.

  CHAPTER 14

  «But the kid was right: the rock has a very specific shape – thought Yaroslav hiding among a group of small bushes with extremely disgusting smell (whether due to its flowers, or because there was a backside of all the local beasts). – Why did not I ask when a day of water without monsters comes?! Do I have to sit here for a month more now?!! Damn you!!!»

  Who was that «you», Yaroslav could not explain with all desire. His soul required action, like a change of scenery, new experiences and impressions. Something like that:

  I shall not die in a bedroom

  With a priest and a lawyer beside me.

  I shall perish in a terrible ravine

  With a mass of wild ivy to hide me.

  I shall not go to a Protestant heaven,

  Open to all in tidy blue skies,

  But to a place where thief and publican

  And harlot will cry: «Friend, arise!»

  If you are destined to live alone, you should live in such way, lest you will not be painfully ashamed of wasted years. Yaroslav understood this famous phrase now as need to see and learn the possible maximum, to walk through all the mountains and foothills, plains and hills, to talk with representatives of different races, which are numerous in local lands. However, scenarios of dialogues with representatives of different races were very likely to take such forms as smashing of alien snouts (or even not only alien). That understanding did not lie on the level of consciousness, but on the level of instincts. The essence of a wanderer became Yaroslav's second nature. As if wind of wandering constantly blew in his back, not letting him stand still for an extra minute. And now the thought of a multi-day waiting for safe passage across the ford, was just unbearable.

  «Ok, the river is full of all sorts of creatures. The trick with camouflage against the background of the river, is unlikely to work out. – The thoughts flowed smoothly, building strategy for further actions. Breaking through without defense would not work either, the magical background would prove too strong. Urgs are now roaming across all the steppe. The kid probably told them everything, so it's even surprising that I have not noticed them near the ford. Although they are probably gathering together to attack at once and just crush me by the quantity. And they are certainly sure that only a maniac with suicidal inclinations will rush into jaws of death. So I should not wait, I must go now».

  So, coming to a definite decision, Yaroslav began to ponder upon the details of his future fording. It seemed that the most appropriate strategy was to put on a protective weaving, peeped in amulets of Ghol, and boldly move across the river, hoping for a lucky chance, especially encouraging was that his magic reserves were fully recovered. Only one thought disturbed him: the weaving of the fiery ball was repeated almost perfectly, but what he had done, obviously was unlike the original. Therefore, he felt some fear: what would happen if he reproduced the defense from vampires and physical contacts? Yaroslav's magic woven in that way could lead to unpredictable consequences…

  – Well, hit or miss. – And Yaroslav set to work.

  The clear lines of the alien weaving emerged in his memory, but he could not bring them to life, something obstructed him all the time, the magic lines raveled out and slipped away.

  – What do I do now?! – Anger began to boil in his blood. – But if I…

  And he began to use his hands. Short strikes of hands, elegant delineation of borders, his fingers plucked threads like strings, and the trace, the green trace remained after the gestures and repeated tracery of his hands' movements with precision. The air around was ringing with Force. Yaroslav decided not to skimp on magic, believing that security was more important than disguise. He finished the weaving. In magical sight he saw every detail of the resulting structure. The magic signs hung in the air for a while, then began to melt and fade away. With each missing line some changes happened around Yaroslav. Some prickling appeared on his skin, goosebumps ran down his body, finally he got a feeling similar to what happens when you get under a giant hood: all the sounds muted, wind disappeared, and he felt some inexplicable pressure on his mind. Yaroslav waved his head:

  – Okay, let's assume, that I have reached some result.

  Yaroslav looked around (perhaps for the last time), made a couple of deep breaths and took careful steps into the water. The fording began.

  The water was very cold. To avoid fits, Yaroslav had to
constantly send hot blood to his muscles. His legs stepped smoothly, carefully dissecting the water. With each step Yaroslav sank deeper, and soon the water almost reached his belt.

  «What do I do if they bite off some vitally important organ?». – Irony was everything, what Yaroslav could afford.

  Walking in the water was quite difficult. The fear of attack from the deep affected him a lot. After a few tens of yards, Yaroslav felt the first touch. Thank God that cocoon-vampire, already familiar from the previous crossing, did not reach his body. One of the weavings had successfully stopped the enemy. Yaroslav continued the crossing, encouraged a little more. Not understanding what had happened, the water vampire was randomly, even frantically groping over the human defense, looking for a slightest loophole. In this illegal activity, it forgot about its own safety and immediately paid for that: it was attacked by a transparent octopus-like monster who was only happy to get such a gift of fate. Yaroslav did not understand what nutrients could be found in the subtle energy net of the vampire. Or, may be, that monster fed on energy? Why would they hunt Yarik the previous time?! That was nonsense! He was not really an energy form!

  With such thoughts Yaroslav passed by the eating monster. The fording was becoming more and more dangerous. The fear, fenced off by the wall of will, was beating like a captive bird, somewhere outside Yaroslav. Some small and large stingrays, shark-like creatures and other forms of monsters, for which it was difficult to find a proper analogue, stupidly strove straight at him. The weaving filled with Force, still kept, reflecting all the attempts of physical contact.

  But then even more powerful monsters appeared. And they were also more stubborn. Particularly noticeable was a bloody-minded two-headed shark, which strove to crash into the human body with its both snouts at high speed and drag him into the depth. Yaroslav could not let that happen. His defense was not absolute, and he could not get out off the depth. At the next attack his hand made an elusively quick movement, and a flash of emerald light split the monster into two halves, bleeding with fetid blood… And once again he continued his movement forward. Yaroslav sometimes thought, that he could fully devote himself to task fulfillment, and only that ability kept him alive.

  He continued the crossing. After the incident with the two-headed shark his movement became significantly easier, but was not completely safe. The far bank was gradually approaching. Suddenly his sense of danger roared like an alarm bell. Baffled, Yaroslav slid aside. Something rapidly rushed very close, fell into the water and then surfaced a little ahead. The river flow caught this elongated object and carried it away from Yaroslav. But he still had time to see the most important thing. It was an arrow, and the arrowhead had highly suspicious magical light. Yaroslav looked around:

  – Wow, when did you come?!

  The shore which he had left recently was literally jam-packed with Urgs. Everyone was focused and sullen. Some of them were holding bows and launching arrows. The one that nearly got into him, was only a wake-up call. The others followed rapidly.

  «What can I do? What to do? – Was pounding in his temples. – They'll make a pincushion out of me now!»

  Without even realizing the last thought, Yaroslav slipped under the water and swam. The arrows rained down like hail, but the water slightly softened their hitting power and the defense coped with the rest… it did, but not with everything. At some point, an especially lucky arrow hit exactly in his right shoulder blade. Certainly, the magical glow on its tip was there for a reason! It was magic, unpleasant magic! Shamans were able to understand the main thing in Ghol's story: Ryrga still knows very little, so he would probably try to copy the magic from amulets, which Urgs could counter.

  «Oh, shit!» – There was no panic. Yaroslav continued to move forward, listening to the dull ache in his shoulder blade, and trying to heal it, or at least improve its condition. The rain of arrows became less dense. Distance turned out to be the most reliable shield against such weapon. Yaroslav was already very close to the shore. Finally he stumbled onto the river bank. A short survey of the wound showed that there was no poison or evil magic and that was very pleasing, for fighting against internal and external enemies at the same time, meant inevitable death.

  – Why have you stopped, you, ungrateful shortarses? – Yaroslav tensed. The Urgs on the other shore stopped all their activity, only five shamans were dancing up near the water. – What are you plotting, I wonder? The man has gone, leave him alone! Your shore is clean now, the monsters from the bloody prophecies no longer trample the ancestral land of Urgs. What else do you want? To nail Ryrga's ears above a fireplace? Go to hell! You have no fireplaces!

  Yaroslav escorted the last words with international gestures having of obscene and even abusive subtext. At first he showed a gesture of native Russian origin, then of American, and in conclusion a combination of the above. The mighty representatives of Urgs' tribes, standing on the opposite bank, became even gloomier. The seasoned warriors instinctively sensed, that they had been dishonored in the most awful way, but could not respond adequately: they had a strict order. The severe Urg warriors were standing, filled with unspent anger. All that was only a guess, but Yaroslav suspected that his guess was absolutely correct. Inasmuch as their behavior mismatched the scandalous nature of Urgs. All his prisoners swore like a fishwife, but now they were suffering silently. So they obeyed someone's orders. And that someone was most likely the shamans.

  As if in answer to his thoughts, the shamans howled something absolutely obscene for hearing. At first Yaroslav did not pay attention to their rite, but now he listened carefully, afraid to miss a single word. Maybe it was a powerful spell, or a mantra driving them into a trance, but essentially it did not matter: Yaroslav had never heard before such a complex and artfully built, never repeating a chain of Urg's swearing.

  – Beautiful! – The feeling of light envy touched the heart of Yaroslav. He thought that only Russians are masters of this art, or old-school sailors. But savages who had never even seen a warm WC… A very long speech about immediate family, ancestors and spirits of some unknown creature, about the relationships of this respectable family with all the diversity of nature and the beasts inhabiting it and worth mentioning only in the list of abominations of the mortal world, and only so that the object could not withstand such filth and crumble into the dust.

  The shamans talked for a long while, constantly twitching like in a disco, and replacing each other. Yaroslav even sat down, in order to fully enjoy the spectacle. But something made him wary. At first he thought it was a part of some outlandish rite, «seeing Ryrga off to foreign lands», for example, but now he doubted that: some incomprehensible magical power had appeared around the shamans.

  Yaroslav awakened his magical vision and saw some golden glow enveloping every dancing figure. Intensity of twitching movements and guttural shouts increased. Then one by one the shamans began to fall to the ground (as it was clear for Yaroslav they were alive, but terribly exhausted), until only one remained on feet. He was the one who was holding a short wand of an obscure, due to the distance, form. And he began to draw some intricate shapes in the air. They hang in the air for a while and then melted before his eyes (in a way that was already familiar to Yaroslav from his own experiments). A wave swept through the row of standing Urgs. They could not see the disappearing magic signs, but their fine savage nature sensed some anxiety. Yaroslav prepared for anything.

  Suddenly, the chief shaman paused, frozen in a ridiculous pose. A bluish glow coming from the river flared up in front of him. And then there rustled a bulging hump of water. A moment… and a three-yards height water column appeared in front of the shaman. The latter croaked something imperative and made a smooth movement with his wand, similar to what a man does inserting a key into a lock and turning it, unlocking a door. Yaroslav sharply regretted that he had lingered near the river. Incomprehensible shaman's magic, definitely, promised him nothing good.

  Sharply, the water column collapsed with noise and
splashes. But not totally! The part of water which was «unnecessary» fell down, released by some unknown force, but the rest formed a giant humanoid figure.

  «He hath passed through many, many lands, worn out dozens of boots, broken dozens staves on muzzles of unseen monsters… in short, this man has walked around the world. And it lasted until he met some eared shorties, who nastily cursed a very important guy with a body made of water, and then told him, that he had been cursed by the man. And so the stranger got a problem. No, he got a very big problem…» – On Earth they said that a joke before a fight uplifts your mood, reduces nervous trembling in your knees, and sometimes even stops knocking of teeth, but it did not work with Yaroslav. The joke could not reduce his tension. He wanted to live very much!

  At this point, the shaman reached consensus with the water demon (or a spirit?!). With a squish, the latter headed towards Yaroslav, serenely paddling directly over the water surface. It was quite spectacular to see how the demon turned toward the man. A moment before Yaroslav saw his nape, but now it was replaced by a grotesque picture of a human face. Almost as in «Terminator 2», but here it was frightening. There was no iron Arnie nearby, and the vat with molten metal was absent too.

  Meanwhile, the summoned creature was inexorably approaching. Yaroslav's brain was feverishly looking for a solution. Escape was rejected as absolutely hopeless. He was only left with an option of fighting, but how to fight with such a creature?! It could not be chopped into pieces, if only into very small ones… Yaroslav had no suitable solutions, so he tried to use the recently learned weaving of green ball, which was supposed to be a fireball. Trying to control his Force, he launched a small ball. A cute little green apple cheerfully rushed towards the enemy. But the water-spirit did not miss: his water hands drew a short sign, then he yelled an inarticulate command, and an octopus-like river beast jumped towards the magical shell. There flashed an emerald burst, and not even ashes were left after the animal kamikaze. The water demon gurgled joyfully. He even stopped for a while! A scum!