Blood for the Blood God

2

It took Dorgo three days to hike out of the vastness of the Crumbling Hills. He survived off the small vermin that lived beneath the rocks, slaking his thirst with the juice of the thorny bushes that had replaced the ancient gardens. He fashioned a crude spear from a shard of flint and the leg bone from a partially eaten elk carcass, the abandoned kill of a hill tiger. At night he wedged himself between the decaying walls of the old forts, trying to hide from the predators that prowled the desolation. He awoke many times to hear the scuttling of stalk spiders crawling across the rocks, but the immense arachnids passed him by without investigating the lone Tsavag who intruded upon their domain.

More inquisitive was the beady-eyed rock wolf that watched him for the better part of a day before deciding that the man was still too hale to make easy prey.

Most of the injuries he had suffered when he had been thrown from the mammoth had started to heal, even the pain in his leg had ceased to vex him as it had on the first day of his escape. The wound in his arm, however, continued to pulse with pain. Dorgo had gathered maggots from the elk carcass, setting them on his arm to clean away the dead flesh and stave off infection. The Tsavag had long since come to ignore the crawling sensation against his skin, the oily feel of the worms against his flesh. He had seen too many warriors with swollen, noxious wounds, green with disease and corruption. Most of them became cripples if they survived at all. It was a sorry fate for any warrior. Better to feed the tiny children of Onogal than entice one of the Grandfather’s more grisly gifts.

Beyond the Crumbling Hills, Dorgo would need to cross the Prowling Lands, a great expanse of flatland where, in winter, the hardy snowgrass would defy the elements and the feeble sun to carpet the plain in pallid stalks and leafy blades. The Tsavag would descend upon the Prowling Lands when the first snows came, letting their mammoths glut themselves upon the winter grass, but the gods had not yet unleashed that season upon the domain. For now, the Prowling Lands were deserted, populated only by sickly clumps of thin-trunked trees and yellowed stands of fungus.

The Prowling Lands took their name from the treacherous landscape, where the land shuddered frequently, splitting apart to form deep gullies and jagged ravines. The threat of sink holes was constant. Too small to threaten a mammoth, the holes could easily swallow a man, closing over him and leaving no hint of his doom. Predators too lurked in the Prowling Lands. In the summer, the gullies were home to zhagas, giant lizards covered in a carapace of thorns and capable of swallowing a child in a single bite. In the winter, ice lions called the Prowling Lands home, enormous beasts capable of taking down a small mammoth and possessed of a cruel intelligence that was more than natural for a simple beast.

It was neither sink hole nor lizard nor lion that made Dorgo cautious as he crossed the Prowling Lands. He was wary of a different kind of threat. The Prowling Lands bordered upon the Grey, the twisted, fog-shrouded forest where the Warherd of Kug made their lair. Driven into the Grey by the human tribes of the domain, the beastmen waged perpetual war against Hung, Kurgan and Tong alike. Years of dwelling within the perpetual darkness of the Grey had made the beastmen almost blind, but the monsters had developed other powers to compensate for their lost sight. In the dark of night, they would raid the encampments of men, taking only one kind of plunder back with them into the darkness of the Grey: man-flesh for their cooking pots.

There was little risk of encountering them by day, but Dorgo knew the beastkin sometimes foraged in the darkness of the gullies. They would not chance an encounter with a strong group of men, but a lone warrior, a wounded one at that, would excite their bloodlust if they caught his scent.

Dorgo stared forlornly at his feeble spear of bone and flint. It would be poor protection against any but the smallest beastkin, much less some of the hulking brutes the warherd sometimes produced. He would need to brave the gullies, only in the deep shadows of the fissures was any water to be found in the Prowling Lands. It was a five day march to cross the flatlands, to reach the valleys where the Tsavag made their summer encampment. He might be able to endure without food, but not water. Despite the danger of reptiles and half-men, he couldn’t keep entirely to the high ground. Thirst must eventually drive him down into the darkness.

For the best part of two days, Dorgo managed to press on, chewing on the pulp from a thorn bush to deceive the clawing thirst that tormented him. Several times, the ground had shuddered around him. Twice he had nearly fallen into sink holes that yawned open at his approach. The deep fissures and gullies were almost invisible until the warrior was right on top of them, forcing Dorgo to adopt a slow, cautious pace.

When his thirst at last refused to be put off by the badly gnawed pulp, Dorgo selected a winding gully that sported a thick clump of ugly green toadstools along its edge. It seemed a likely enough prospect to conceal a small spring.

The Tsavag crept to the edge of the depression, peering down into its gloom. Before he could react, the lip of the gully broke away beneath him. Dorgo flailed his arms to catch himself, but the searing jolt of pain that shot through him as his wounded arm caught at the crumbling ground caused his entire body to grow numb. With the grace of a boulder, he crashed to the bottom of the gully, the clatter of his violent descent echoing all around him.

Dorgo was still, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom, not wishing to betray his presence by making more noise. The beastkin were almost blind, relying upon sound to stalk their prey. Dorgo was determined to see them before they heard him. At least the clammy chill that filled the gloom of the gully boded well. There had to be water nearby to imbue the air with such dankness. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Dorgo saw something sparkling in the fitful light. He had found not merely a spring, but a pool.

The hunter took a scrambling lunge towards the water, and then froze. A gruesome shape was reflected in the surface of the water. Slowly, Dorgo lifted his eyes to stare at the creature that cast its image over the water. Sprawled across a big rock, knifelike scales running across its back and sides, was a huge zhaga. The lizard regarded him coldly with an amber-hued eye, its forked tongue licking at the air. Dorgo locked his fist around the crude spear he had fashioned, bracing himself for the reptile’s attack.

The zhaga seemed wary rather than aggressive, more interested in savouring the patch of sunlight it had found than lunging for the warrior. Dorgo could see its long, thick tail, bloated with stored fat. A quick glance showed him that bones were strewn all around the pool. Clearly, the lizard had fed well off those who thought to visit its pool, perhaps well enough that it was no longer hungry?

Keeping his eyes locked on the sunning lizard, Dorgo scooped water from the pool into his mouth. It was bitter, foul with minerals, but to the hunter it was like a gift from the gods. Soon, he forgot the menace of the zhaga, his body revelling in the long-denied succour of water. It was with an effort that he finally pulled himself away from the pool, leaving it to the indolent zhaga. He had few delusions about his good fortune as he struggled out of the shadows of the gully and back onto the plain. When thirst next drove him down into the gullies, he could hardly expect to be so lucky again.

On his third day in the Prowling Lands, Dorgo found himself again driven to brave the fissures. He took greater care lowering himself into the depression this time. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he found he was in a shallow ravine, scraggly clumps of weed poking out of its earthern walls. No pool of free-standing water greeted him this time. He only hoped he would be spared the presence of another zhaga, one without a fattened tail. The hunter walked to the nearest clutch of weeds. He knew that the vegetation was his best guide to the presence of water.

Working his spear, he began to dig at the weeds, cutting through the earth to expose the pasty roots. He smiled when he felt the moisture clinging to the weeds. Abandoning the spear, he pawed at the wall with his hands. Soon his efforts were rewarded with a thin trickle of water, the boon of some underground spring. Dorgo scooped out a patch of wall, using his hands to strain the liquid as he drank, trying to force more water than mud into his mouth.

So lost was he in his labours, that the Tsavag almost failed to hear the distant crash of some large creature moving across the plain above. The ponderous boom was repeated, the walls of the gully shaking as the thing stalked closer. Dorgo gathered his spear, ready to scurry down the gully before whatever was tramping across the plain should find him. There were tales of giants living in the Grey, stories that they did not keep to the forest like the beastkin, but roved abroad to meet their ferocious appetites. The thought chilled the warrior. Fear of the giants had kept the tribes from exterminating the beastkin long ago, for no man dared match himself against creatures that were said to be almost godlike.

Still, the hunter’s curiosity had been awakened. Moreover, he knew he should learn in which direction the hulk was travelling so that he might avoid it. Dorgo lifted his head above the rim of the gully, peering across the flatlands even as the ground shook once more. Distant, but distinct, he saw the immense creature that made the earth tremble so. The hunter laughed, springing from the trench with a strength he had not felt in days. His spear raised above his head, he yelled and shouted at the distant colossus. Slowly, the beast turned, moving towards him in long, plodding steps.

By the merest chance, Dorgo had found another of the Tsavags’ war mammoths returning from its hunt. There was no need to brave another night exposed upon the Prowling Lands. Tonight he would sleep in the mammoth-hide yurts of his tribe.

The encampment of the Tong tribe was situated across the muddy floor of a wide valley. Jagged mountains loomed over the expanse, great spires of rock like the broken teeth of a fallen god. Great mouths dotted the jumbled confusion of the mountains, constantly gurgling with hot volcanic mud that would ooze down the slopes to add to the mire of the valley.

A vast array of grasses and shrubs thrived upon the mineral-rich mud, though trees found it impossible to drive roots into the porous mush. It was not the most hospitable environment for men either and the Tsavag yurts were built on stilts of mammoth bone to keep them well-above the quagmire. The mammoths gorged upon the abundant grasses and their muscles were improved by the daily exertion of lumbering through the morass.

The only predators that menaced the valley were the black condors that nested in the mountains, but, while large enough to carry off a full-grown man in their talons, they were too small to threaten the mammoths.

The encampment was alive with smells and noises when Dorgo at last emerged from the hide-walled yurt of Unegen, the tribe’s witch doctor. The scarred old healer had tended the hunter’s arm, rubbing a pasty unguent into the wound after cutting away the stump of the ivory shard with a rune knife. Dorgo’s arm was wrapped tightly in a binding of zhaga skin soaked in mammoth urine.

The witch doctor had warned him to make prayers to Onogal to placate the pestilential god lest his injury become infected despite the healer’s precautions. He also advised making an offering to great Chen, that the Lord of Fate might oppose any ill-sending from the King of Flies.

Dorgo climbed down from the witch-doctor’s dwelling, sloshing into the muddy ground. His wound tended, he had to see another of his tribesmen before he could rest. He had been summoned to a meeting with his father, to explain to the khagan what had befallen his fellow hunters and their mammoth. A feeling of shame rose within him as he recalled the ease with which the Muhak had ambushed them, tinged with guilt as he considered the reason Lok had ordered the attack. More than that, he was afraid as he recalled the strange warrior who had butchered his way through the Muhak and cut the head from their zar’s shoulders.

That memory brought a quickness into Dorgo’s step. He was not sure why, but he felt a terrible foreboding as he recalled the sinister warrior, a sense of lurking menace that would not relent. A new danger had entered the domain, something clothed in the shape of a man, something that was powerful enough to butcher its way through a score of Muhak killers and still have strength to slaughter Lok as though the chieftain were a feeble old greybeard.

If the stranger stayed in the Crumbling Hills or contented itself with killing Muhak, that would be one thing, but Dorgo could not shake the feeling that it would not remain in the Crumbling Hills for long.

As he walked down the path, which writhed its way between the raised yurts, Dorgo felt his mood darken. He watched the young boys practising with their throwing spears, the blunted weapons springing back from targets of mammoth-skin stretched tight across ivory frames. He saw little girls weaving baskets from marsh reeds, or carefully mending fur vestments with bone needles and sinewy thread. The grown women, their cheeks scarred with the marks of their households, were gathered together on the massive wooden platform where the old mammoths were slaughtered after their time was past. A great old cow mammoth, her tusks curled back upon themselves until they resembled the horns of a ram, had finally been killed by Qotagir, the wiry mammoth master who tended the beasts upon which the tribe depended so greatly. The women were busy carving steaks from the cow’s flanks while others carefully cleaned the animal’s thick skin, readying it for tanning in one of the sweltering smoke huts that stood at either end of the encampment.

Qotagir, with several of his burly assistants, was carrying the carcasses of several antelope to the rocky ground where the mammoths had their pen. The animals would be butchered, ground into miniscule portions and then mixed into the pebbly feed the Tsavag used to supplement the mammoths’ diet of grass and roots.

The beasts would not touch feed that had been mixed with the flesh of their own, but they accepted the meat of antelope and elk readily enough. The meat helped to sharpen the minds of the brutes and increase their aggression in battle, or at least so Qotagir’s forefathers had taught him. Next to the khagan and Yorool, the high shaman, Qotagir was the most important man in the tribe and even the brashest warrior was careful to show him respect.

Beyond the pens, in the place of honour closest to the great mammoths, stood the khagan’s yurt, its walls of hide daubed with the marks of the Tsavag households he commanded, its ivory supports festooned with dangling trophies taken by the tribe in the hunt and in battle. Dorgo saw the iron helms of Vaan warriors, the sharp horns of beastkin, the ragged tatters of Hung banners, even the immense clubs of Muhak marauders and, in a place of honour, the petrified head of a basilisk. The trophies were a display for the benefit of the warriors who waited upon their chief, a reminder that there had always been great warriors among the Tsavag, a humbling lesson for men grown arrogant in their own accomplishments.

The humbling display was not lost upon Dorgo as he climbed the ladder up to the platform of his father’s hut. He looked at the prayer flags waving in the wind above the ivory crown of the yurt, one for each of the hunters who had been killed by the Muhak. Normally, the bodies would have been left for the condors, the great messengers of Chen, to bear up into the afterworld, but they still lay far away in the Crumbling Hills. Instead, Yorool would paint their names upon large prayer flags, that the birds might see them as they flew above the valley and inform Mighty Chen of the lost souls that would seek entrance into the Realm of the Gods.

His rescuers in the Prowling Lands had questioned Dorgo carefully, making certain that he had indeed seen his comrades killed. It was no small thing to paint the mark of a living man upon a prayer flag. Chen might seek out his soul and tear it from his body while he still lived if the god felt that he had been deceived.

The floor of the yurt was covered with furs, the hides of bear and sabretusk warring with those of yhetee and tiger for space. The walls were clothed in murals painted upon the skins of zhagas, each painting representing some great event from the time of their ancestors. Dorgo felt his eyes drawn to the ancient mural that showed Teiyogtei, the king, uniting the tribes of the domain into his mighty horde.

A little pride found its way into the warrior’s heart, despite his fears and shame. The eight tribes of the domain all claimed to be the heirs of Teiyogtei’s power, but only the Tsavag were his true sons. They were of the Tong, the same great people that had unleashed Teiyogtei upon the world, the same blood as that of the king flowed through their veins. Theirs was the true legacy, beside which the claims of Hung, Kurgan and gor were nothing more than envious jests.

“Approach, shamed one,” a voice called from the gloom of the chamber, crushing the small ember of pride that had started to show upon Dorgo’s face.

The warrior turned at the sound of the voice, turned to face the throne of Hutga Khagan, chief of all the Tsavag, lord of the war mammoths, wielder of the iron moon: Hutga Khagan, his father.

The Tsavag chieftain was a massive, powerfully built man, despite his many years. Streaks of iron stained the black sprawl of his beard and wrinkles burrowed across his face from the corners of his frost-coloured eyes. The khagan’s hair was shaved into a trio of woven braids that fell well past his broad shoulders.

Nodules of steel peppered Hutga’s skin, like metal fungi pushing up from within his flesh.

Some among the tribe said the growth was the curse of a Sul sorcerer whose wicked knife had injured Hutga in his youth, others held that it was a mark of favour from the gods. There was a lesson in the whispered stories, Dorgo felt. With the Dark Gods, it was difficult to tell blessing from curse.

Hutga gestured with a steel hand, motioning for his son to approach. Dorgo stepped towards the thronelike seat of ivory and fur, bowing before the chieftain. Hutga stirred within the mass of mammoth hide that swaddled him, shifting from a slumped, comfortable posture to one of dominance and command. The warrior felt a twinge of sympathy for his father. Because of the metal growths, Hutga found it hard to keep warm, the heat of his body draining out of him into the steel nodules. Indeed, he was surprised not to find several of the chieftain’s wives squirming around him, trying to warm his clammy flesh.

Instead of the nimble Tsavag girls, Dorgo found his father’s throne flanked by grim-faced men. Togmol, the khagan’s champion and the greatest warrior of the tribe stood on Hutga’s left, his crescent-bladed ji cradled in his brawny arms. The champion stood a head taller than Dorgo, his beard plaited into elaborate rings, his cheeks deeply scarred with the tally of his deeds. Togmol’s forehead was pitted with bony stubble, like a crazed field of fledgling horns. Another of the capricious marks of the gods.

Beside Togmol stood Ulagan, the wiry hunter who had led the party that found Dorgo in the Prowling Lands. He was dwarfed by the hulking warrior, like a fox beside a wolf.

Ulagan’s scalp was shaved bare, even his topknot cut away. He was in mourning for his wife, who had been claimed by the gods while giving him a son the previous spring. The hunter had been deeply devoted to the woman, one of Togmol’s daughters, and showed no hint of growing out of his sorrow. The flabby, worm-like tentacle that served Ulagan for an arm was coiled tightly around an amulet he wore around his neck, a lock of his dead woman’s hair. The hunter’s other arm, its normalcy jarring after the spectacle of its opposite, gripped the ivory length of an iron-tipped spear.

To the right of the throne, crouched against the arm of the khagan’s seat, was the withered shape of Yorool, the shaman’s scrawny body nearly hidden beneath his leathery robe and cowl of mammoth hide. A pinched face with sharp, fang-like teeth, grinned from the shadow of the hood, grey whiskers sprouting in unsightly patches from the wrinkled folds that had consumed the left half of the shaman’s face. A little ivory rod was pressed between the folds, struggling to keep them from flopping over Yorool’s left eye.

The eyes of the shaman were mismatched, one the colour of amber, the other a little pit of jade fire. Yorool’s expression, such as the right half of his face could muster, was grave and solemn.

“This one,” Hutga’s booming voice growled, his thick hand pointing at Ulagan, “tells me that only you returned from the Crumbling Hills.” The chiefs statement brought colour into Ulagan’s face and the hunter could not meet Dorgo’s gaze. “You were attacked by Muhak, he says. You were attacked by Zar Lok. This dog says that all the hunters with you, even the war mammoth, were killed by Lok and his cringing jackals.”

Dorgo felt each word like a lash against his skin, the scorn in his father’s voice a fiery welt against his dignity. As each word cut him, he felt his anger grow. Hands clenched into fists, he glared back into Hutga’s contemptuous eyes. “I cannot help what Ulagan has told you, any more than I can help it if you will not listen to truth when you hear it!” he spat. The warrior’s tone brought venom into the khagan’s eyes. Hutga’s muscles tensed, his face quivering with restrained rage. A moment passed and the thin veneer of control was swept away. Hutga lunged to his feet, spilling the heavy hides onto the floor. He thrust his finger at Dorgo as though it were a blade.

“It is enough that my son shows himself as coward!” the khagan roared. “That he is a liar as well is more shame than I will accept!”

Dorgo bristled at the accusation, scowling at Ulagan, before returning his attention to the furious chieftain. “If you have been told the story as it was told to the men who found me in the Prowling Lands, then there is no lie in it!”

Hutga snorted in disgust at the remark, sinking back into his chair. “There is spine in you after all, to dare insist upon lies while you stand in your khagan’s hall! Too bad your courage did not show itself when your kinsmen were being butchered by the Muhak!”

Dorgo took a step towards the throne, shaking with rage. “They were already dead when I made my escape,” he snarled. “There was nothing more I could do for them. I was cheated of even the chance to avenge them.”

“Yes!” roared Hutga, “by a nameless warrior who came from nowhere to strike down the Muhak!” The khagan’s stare bored into Dorgo’s eyes. “You dare to repeat this nonsense to me? One man against a score of Muhak! You dare to tell me this is what you saw?”

“I can only tell you what happened,” Dorgo snapped back.

Hutga shook his head in disgust. “Your lies are overbold, pup! You have the audacity to claim this stranger, this warrior in crimson armour, fought Lok and killed him! Not even another of the eight warlords of the domain could have killed Lok in battle, and you have the belly to tell me some lone stranger killed him and took his head?”

Dorgo was silent in his rage, feeling his father’s ire feeding his anger. He felt the wound in his arm start to bleed as the tension in his muscles tore at the witch doctor’s dressing.

“Take this dog from my sight,” Hutga hissed at Togmol. “Bind him in the smoke lodge until he feels like telling me what really happened!” He turned his face from Dorgo, glaring instead at Ulagan. “Gather the best scouts among the Tsavag,” he told the hunter. “Take them to the territory of the Muhak and bring one of them back with you. If the truth will not shape itself to fit this dog’s crooked tongue, then perhaps a Kurgan will speak it for him!”

Dorgo shook Togmol’s arm from his shoulder as the warrior started to lead him away. He cast one last, hateful look at his father, but Hutga had already turned away from him. The khagan was in conference with Yorool, his head leaning close to the shaman’s hooded face. Whatever emotion might have been on Yorool’s grisly countenance, Dorgo could not see, but there was no mistaking the expression that had supplanted rage on the powerful face of Hutga.

For the first time he could remember, Dorgo saw fear in his father’s eyes.