Reckoning of Fallen Gods Read online

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  PROLOGUE

  “Heavy one,” Asba grunted. Young and strong, along with his two friends among the most celebrated young fishers and hunters in the village, the proud Asba could not deny the truth of his observation, could not even fake it enough to stand up straight under the weight of the laden pole. His shoulders ached, his arms strained, and his entire body felt compressed. The only thing stopping him from dropping the game pole altogether was a fear that his legs wouldn’t grant him the strength to pick it back up.

  Behind him, sharing the other end of the burden, his two companions laughed.

  “Might even be a bear,” his brother Asef replied. “Ever met a bear, then, brother? Big fat things, they are.”

  “Fat with meat,” added the third of the group, a woman named Tamilee. “And sure, but ’twas the easiest hunt I e’er known.”

  “Aye, but this one’s too big for the pole,” Asba argued, convincingly, for they had dressed their treasure, a giant mountain bear somehow killed only hours before, quite thoroughly, removing anything and everything they could while still preserving the delicious meat. The season was late, with winter coming, and such a prize as this could not be ignored.

  “Too big for us, you mean,” said Tamilee.

  Asef snorted derisively. “I still want the head,” he complained, for Asba and Tamilee had insisted they cut it off and leave it. “And don’t doubt that I’ll be back for it.”

  “We’re breaking the pole now,” Asba reminded him. “It’s for deer, not this. I’m still thinking that we should’ve left it and come back fast with a proper cart. I doubt scavengers will take much ’tween now and our return.”

  “Scavengers?” Asef replied doubtfully. The two were twins, though Asef was lighter and leaner than Asba. Still, they looked very much alike, with the same deep set but piercing blue eyes, their distinctive beards, a rarity in Carrachan Shoal, and singular, elongated humps extending from the backs of their skulls. Many in the village carried the more fashionable double humps, and the joke had long been that Imabab, the mother of the twins, had only had enough skull-wrapping prepared for one baby, so she had to split her work between the two. “No scavengers that I’m expecting, but deamhan magic killed this bear, to be sure, and I’m not thinking that the Usgar meant to be leaving it out to rot.”

  “Oh, aye, and when have the deamhan Usgar ever left a kill out for us folk to find?” asked Tamilee. She was the same height as her male companions, with a strong and sturdy frame and beautiful freckled dimples beneath eyes so blue they made those of the brothers pale in comparison. Like the brothers, Tamilee had an elongated skull, a simple stretch of the bone, backward and upward. Covering it, her hair was long and thick and orange. She usually kept it loose and wild, an apt reflection of her fighting spirit, except when she was hunting or fishing. For then, Tamilee was all business, and wouldn’t let anything akin to vanity get in the way of her performance.

  “We don’t know that it was Usgar,” Asba said, and he regretted it from the moment the words came out of his mouth, even before the snorts came back at him from Asef and from Tamilee, the woman he fancied would one day be his wife. Truly, it was hard to deny the logic behind their claim, for these villagers knew of no creature on the mountainside which could have inflicted such a wound on a giant mountain bear. Other than the great lake monster itself, these giants were considered the most powerful predators known on the entire Ayamharas plateau, even more powerful and deadly than the huge clo’dearche lizards—and they were too far from the water for those particular creatures to have been involved in the kill. The bear carcass had shown just one true wound, but such a wound! A hole had been bored right through the massive predator, belly to back, with everything in between—organs, backbone, guts—completely gone, as if a singular strike had simply blown a hole through the massive torso.

  What could have inflicted such a terrific and terrible wound on a creature such as this, other than a huge spear tipped with powerful Usgar magic?

  “The meat would have rotted,” Asef said, speaking to Asba’s earlier remark.

  “The meat would have left,” Tamilee corrected. “You do’no think they’d come back for their kill?”

  Asba let out a sigh, ready to argue, wanting to argue as the pain in his shoulder became even more acute. But he deferred, knowing that his companions were right about both the killers and their likely intentions to return for the bounty. This bear had a lot of good meat on it, and with winter looming, the addition to Carrachan Shoal’s food stores would prove invaluable.

  The Usgar, who wintered at the top of the great mountain, Fireach Speuer, probably felt the same way.

  That prompted another thought, and before he even mulled it over, Asba picked up his pace and blurted, “Be quicker then! We’re not covering well our trail, and if they mean to return for the bear, they’ll be glad to take a few slaves at the same time.”

  From behind, he felt a tug, and turned to find his brother staring hard at him.

  “We’re low on Fireach Speuer,” Asef said, as if he felt compelled to deny even the thought of such pursuit.

  “The Usgar track better than any man should,” Asba countered. He hoisted the pole and ducked his head, flipping it to the other shoulder. He ignored the pain as the pole crushed down and picked up his pace once more, tugging the others along. Asef and Tamilee didn’t argue, and soon were pushing him on even faster.

  After all, it was getting dark.

  And the Usgar often hunted after dark, their spear tips, aglow with magical fires, leading the way.

  * * *

  The old augur stared into the setting sun, though it hurt his close-set eyes. The red skin of his thick brow, his snout bridge, nose, and lips shone angrily in the light, in stark contrast to the bright blue coloring flanking the marking to either side. And all of that wash of rich color stood out distinctively against the xoconai’s now-gray hair, which still remained thick and long, and the general golden-brown coloring of the rest of his exposed skin.

  The augur weathered the sting of the fiery orb’s brightness and would not look away. He curled his lips back into a smile that seemed more a snarl, his old teeth yellow now, his bottom fangs crooked and poking up over his large lips. These canines never stopped growing throughout the life of a xoconai, and having them protrude, as with the old augur, called for reverence among the people.

  Or used to, the old augur mused, and grimaced.

  The scowl didn’t last. He erased it, reminding himself to stay focused and calm. He could not let either his impatience with the new ways or his giddiness at the coming event overtake him. Yes, this was a glorious moment for t
he old priest, but only if his words proved accurate.

  He had to be certain, to the moment.

  He retreated toward the small chamber atop the dome-capped pyramid, its sides, all four, stepped with ancient and weathered stones. Green with age, the copper sheets up near the pinnacle barely reflected the sun, and as he noted that, the augur couldn’t help but grimace a bit, for he long had considered that patina symbolic of his own aging, and dulling. He lamented the symbolism and the larger loss, musing, and not for the first time, that the younger generations of xoconai did not understand the truth of their god.

  The young ones grew soft with luxury.

  They must never be satisfied!

  He turned back to the mountains in the east, to see the bright reflections of the Teotl Tenamitl, or God’s Parapet, the towering and seemingly endless line of mountains that shielded the lands of the xoconai nation of Tonoloya from the intrusions of the weak humans and the demon goblins. He knew the human name for the range, one that seemed soft, like human skin, and spoke of the mountains as “snow-haired.” Such a pathetic disservice to this great divine barrier, he thought.

  The old augur nodded as he considered the majestic mountain wall rising up east of his humble temple. He had followers, he reminded himself, and had dispatched scouts to the mountains in anticipation of the glorious event. He gave himself leave, then, to take in the magnificent view all around him.

  From this one vantage point, and only this one plateau in the mountain foothills, when the light of the sun shone brightly, all six of the great xoconai cities could be viewed, two before the augur to the east in the mountains, two to the south on the wide coastal plain, and two behind him, near enough to the vast ocean to hear the breath of the waves. The augur slowly turned, basking in the majestic sight, the glorious glowing domes of polished gold and copper and brass of the great xoconai temples.

  Yes, until very recently, the modest, faded nature of his little temple here in the foothills of Teotl Tenamitl had annoyed the augur. But no more. Not with the approach of the day the xoconai called Xelihui, the mid-point of the sun’s journey from south to north. In the human lands east of the mountains, it was called the equinox, and there, too, the augur knew from ancient scrolls, it was, or had been, celebrated—but with feast and talk of bounty. So, too, had such lighthearted banter come to the xoconai, and most of the other augurs thought Xelihui a mostly inconsequential time; the omens were stronger at the Huitlat and Huihuiyac, the short day and the long day, at the end-points of the journey when the sun reached its southernmost or especially its northernmost points. On these days, the magic flowed strong, and the xoconai augurs made their predictions for the coming seasons.

  But not this old augur, nor his father before him, or his father’s father before him, nor his father’s father’s father! On this particular Xelihui, he believed, his great grandsire would at long last be proven right.

  The sun would be eaten, and the augur’s self-imposed exile would end.

  That would be the day of Skath-mi-Zahn, and so, too, Cuowitay, the Day of the Xoconai.

  Smiling his toothy grin, the augur moved through the small door into the entry tunnel of the temple. Inside the small chamber, a ray of sunshine pierced a hole in the domed ceiling. At the moment, it fell on the floor near the west wall. It would track through the room as the sun descended, and at its last light would reach the far eastern wall, tracking the prophetic mural painted there.

  On Xelihui, this coming Xelihui, that ray, while it lasted, would align perfectly.

  The old augur would go and tell them. He had foreseen it.

  He would tell them, and then he would show them.

  They would speak, but mostly, they would listen.

  * * *

  “Did ye hear that, then?” Tamilee asked, as she seemed to be asking every second, staggered, step.

  “Heard not a thing,” Asef started to reply, for the fifteenth time, and, as with the last few, prefacing the words with an increasingly annoyed sigh. This time, though, those words seemed quite out of place, as a sudden rustling of branches behind the three cut his answer short.

  Up in front, Asba grimaced, but held quiet his groan as he eased the shoulder-pole off and down to the ground. He drew a thin, long skinning knife from the sheath on his left hip. He rolled his shoulders to try to loosen up as he stepped toward the sound, for he had been bearing the laden pole for far too long and the side of his neck was nearly locked in pain.

  Following his lead, his companions, too, eased their burden to the ground. Tamilee came up beside him, holding a simple wooden club. Asba looked at it, and then at his own pathetic blade, and nearly laughed aloud at how ridiculously unprepared they were. They hadn’t planned to be out this long, of course, for they had ventured from Carrachan Shoal merely to find some firewood and perhaps a few berries to enhance their dinner. But, as was typical with this band, they had traveled farther than they had intended, following the wind, following their fancy. Happening upon the dead bear, they couldn’t rightly pass up a gift that would feed half the village in a grand feast.

  Now it was growing late, though. The sun had dipped below the mountain to their west, leaving them in a deep and darkening shadow. They were nearly down the last expanse, nearly back to the village, but, given the dangers of Fireach Speuer, including one in particular that was on all of their minds, they were not nearly close enough.

  The twilight deepened and quieted around them.

  Asba went back to the front of the pole, bent low, and hoisted it up to his shoulder. “Come on, then,” he said as he straightened.

  Asef and Tamilee looked at each other doubtfully, then glanced back to the small pines and brush in the general direction of the rustling.

  “If it is the deamhan Usgar, we’ll not get back to the village in any case,” Asba said to them. “The monsters run without tiring, over broken ground as if on a flat and grassy field. If it be the deamhan Usgar come to claim their kill, we are dead already.”

  “Says the fool who dropped the damned bear,” Asef retorted, more anger than sarcasm in his voice. Anger wrought of fear, they all knew.

  Glancing over their shoulders with every small step, Asef and Tamilee moved to the back of the pole. Asef hoisted it alone and set it in place, while Tamilee stood at the ready, her club in hand. She waved it about through some defensive spins and sudden thrusts, finding her fighting stance. Designed for finishing off sorely wounded animals, like a deer downed by a spear, the small club was hardly a weapon that might serve well against an armed opponent, let alone a deamhan Usgar, with his crystal-tipped magic spears!

  “I know I heard something,” Tamilee whispered as she moved back up toward the front of the shoulder pole.

  “I heard it, too,” Asba replied. “Probably a stoat or a giant toad. Not a deamhan.”

  “Are you saying that or hoping that?”

  “Both,” said Asba. “But mostly, I’m saying it.”

  “And how might you know?” asked Tamilee.

  “Because we’re alive and talking.” Asba looked back at his brother. “All speed, it’s getting dark.”

  The brothers picked up the pace, quick-stepping and grunting with every bounce of the heavy load. Tamilee moved about them, flank to flank, club in hand, peering into the gloom. She grabbed the bear suddenly, tugging back, halting the brothers.

  “Here, now,” Asef protested, and Asba was about to do the same, except he saw Tamilee’s face. She tapped her finger over her pursed lips.

  “A rustle,” she whispered.

  Asba looked past her, and it seemed to him that some pine branches were moving too violently for it to be just the evening breeze. He looked ahead on the descending trail. They were almost home. If they could make it just another two hundred strides, they’d be back to the cleared hill south of the village, close enough to shout out for help.

  Asba thought of dropping the prize, that they could sprint to the safety of their home. But with this treasure, so much
good meat, they’d be hailed as heroes in Carrachan Shoal. So he grunted and bent his back and doggedly put one foot in front of the other, verily pulling his brother along the descending trail.

  There came another shake of branches, closer now, and the report of a stick cracked by an errant footfall. Asba picked up the pace, rushing with all speed. Tamilee grabbed the bear and hoisted with all her strength, shoving them all along.

  They would be heroes, or they would be dead.

  * * *

  The xoconai augur approached the wall at the back, the eastern side, of his small temple, the images painted upon it so faded with age that many of the other xoconai, particularly the younger ones, who visited this temple didn’t begin to understand the significance of the mural.

  He paused at the small sacrificial altar before the eastern wall, the sunset, or tyusk, wall, and, still staring at the paintings, absently ran his hand across the flat stone, feeling the grooves for running blood. So many souls had been given here to Skath-mi-Zahn, the Glorious Gold, god of the xoconai. So many chests had been opened by the blade of the old augur.

  Glorious sacrifices. Few of the chosen xoconai had even cried out in protest as the blade began to descend, as the augur pushed it slowly through their flesh, so glad were they to let their god drink of their blood.

  Yes, the old augur had enjoyed many sacrifices at this, his altar, but still, it was the faded mural that held his attention rapt. It was fashioned in a mix of red-brown clay paint, oily black, and red blood, which, magically treated, had not turned brown or black with age. The only thing dulling the blood in the painting was the dust of time, and the augur hoped that he could revitalize the beautiful faces of the depicted xoconai with a good cleaning.

  Not quite yet, though.

  His eye roamed up from the bottom left corner, diagonally just above the center of the piece. He could make out the figures, so many figures, an army of xoconai, standing atop cliffs overlooking the sea with their toothed macana clubs raised in victory. Above them, high in the sky, loomed the Glorious Gold, Skath-mi-Zahn, astride his black dragon. And that beast, the mount of the god, devoured the sun itself.