Reckoning of Fallen Gods Read online

  Xoconai scholars believed that this mural, and others like it across Tonoloya, depicted the last great war, some sixteen centuries past, when Skath-mi-Zahn led his xoconai to victory over the peoples—the red-capped dwarves, the goblins, the trolls, the humans—of the western deserts. Indeed, the similar murals found in temples throughout the wide basin, from the western foothills of the Teotl Tenamitl to the very westernmost xoconai cities and settlements on the shores of Ilhuicaatl, the Great and One Ocean, were often labeled to that very point.

  Perhaps those other murals did depict that long-ago battle, the old augur considered, and shrugged. For it didn’t change anything regarding this particular mural, the one painted by his great grandsire.

  The scholars had told him that this mural, too, akin to the others, depicted that ancient battlefield.

  But the old augur knew better, knew the truth.

  This mural had been created long before he was born, he knew, for he had spoken to the artist, whom he considered the greatest xoconai augur. Father of his father’s father, the then young xoconai boy had heard the voice but once, beside the old one’s deathbed. There his great grandsire had shared a vision revealed in a great spirit walk, after partaking of the small and round prargaba, the vision cactus. The ancient one’s own blood had painted much of that mural.

  The ancient one had a secret, whispered for the first time in his very last breaths, and into the ear of the child, who would become the temple augur, who was very young and had only been granted the audience at the request of the dying augur.

  The mural did not depict the great xoconai victory of two thousand seasons ago.

  It did not show the western waters of Ilhuicaatl.

  It showed the other side of the Great and One Ocean, the eastern waters, far beyond Teotl Tenamitl.

  The old one had seen and painted the future, not the past.

  And this day, this augur, three generations removed, would read the signs of war, and the sovereigns and augurs of the xoconai would see his prophecy and would cower before Skath-mi-Zahn.

  In what was likely his last, and was surely his greatest, vision, the old augur would be proven right.

  * * *

  Asba, Asef, and Tamilee sat with a half-dozen villagers around the bonfire in the center of Carrachan Shoal. The questions, which had begun as soon as the three had walked into camp, had not abated. How, the villagers wanted to know, had these three hunters slain a great brown mountain bear? The trio were not unskilled and were already gaining a reputation within the tribe, despite their youth. Often had their hunts yielded meat, but usually in the carcasses of the stoats and rabbits that lived in the nearby meadows, and on one occasion, of a deer that strayed too close to the forest’s edge.

  But a bear? There were legends of Carrachan Shoal hunters killing a bear, but none alive in the village had ever seen such a thing. So, of course, the questions began immediately when the hunters returned to the village, townsfolk gathering, faces full of excitement and awe. Without a word to each other, the three young friends had come to a common understanding, expressed initially by Asba when he gave Tamilee credit for the killing blow. The others played along, concocting a heroic battle story, building off the words of each other. Partly, it was to bask in the glory and adulation, but mostly, the three simply understood that it was best not to tell the villagers that they’d poached a kill, very probably from the dangerous Usgar.

  Instead, they improvised and so fabricated a tale of a great struggle, each adding to the heroic battle story, one feat at a time. Asef had shot the beast with an arrow—no, four arrows!—in rapid succession, all centered on its belly! Asba had thrown his skinning knife, a perfect throw, right into the bear’s eye as it charged! That had stopped it in its tracks, but had not killed it. No, the killing blow belonged to Tamilee, who struck with her club, hitting the hilt of Asba’s knife, driving it deep into the bear’s skull!

  As each of them spoke in turn, they made sure to highlight their own skill and bravery in the feat. And, given that they’d hauled the huge beast back to camp—even dressed, it weighed as much as three grown men—none openly questioned their tale, despite some rather obvious inconsistencies. Asef, who also expected that Tamilee would marry Asba, particularly enjoyed that several of the villagers gathered around them were women—including some of the most beautiful young women in the town, not yet claimed in marriage. And they were hanging on his every word.

  Soon after, the tribe’s butchers returned with the first slabs of meat from the great kill. Most would be salted and placed in a natural ice cave not far away, but for such a feat as this, the most important members of Carrachan Shoal would feast this night, along with the three young heroes. The sun had nearly completely set, with stars twinkling up above the eastern edge of the plateau. The very last light of day glowed dimly atop Fireach Speuer.

  Yes, Asba thought, this day could not have gone any better.

  Reflexively, his grin leaving his face, he glanced over at his brother when he heard a sound like the scraping of wood against wood, one which had become familiar throughout Carrachan Shoal these past few years. He looked up and twisted about a bit to see through the gathering, and noted the approach of the one-legged woman atop her dolly, which was just a plank set with wheels. She worked her way through the crowd, her filthy and misshapen hands clawing at the ground and what was remaining of her one leg, which had been twisted and torn below the knee, scraping awkwardly to the side to propel her along.

  “You didn’t kill that,” she said, pointing at the dead bear, half-skinned in the butcher’s stall off to the side of the small clearing.

  “Quiet, deamhan,” Asef spat at her. Several other villagers turned to glower at the man, but he did not shrink back. Unlike most of the younger members of the tribe, his brother and Tamilee included, Asef often called this woman a deamhan, an Usgar, because her head had not been shaped to match the elongated skulls of the villagers. Her skin was darker, too, quite brown. Most of the tribe had fully accepted her, but even now, these years later, Asef could not look upon her with anything but scorn.

  She ignored Asef and spoke directly to Asba. “You claim you killed it with arrow and knife and club, but there’s a hole clean through the beast, and one too big for a spear, never mind an arrow.”

  “We cut that hole after,” Asba stammered.

  “You widened the hole to gut the thing, aye,” said the woman. “After. Like you stabbed the eye. After.”

  Off to the side, Asef gasped, and many others followed.

  “What do you know?” he demanded. “You are not of Carrachan Shoal! You are not…”

  “I know bears,” she retorted, not backing down even though many around her were shifting uncomfortably. “And I know the weapons you three carry. You could not have cut that hole, not all the way through. Not through the thick backbone of an animal that huge.”

  “We used fire, too,” Asba began.

  “No!” the woman cut him off.

  “Why do you shame?” another villager scolded the woman.

  “Not to shame!” the woman insisted loudly, drowning out the murmurs that were beginning to rumble through the gathering. “No, never, and we should all be grateful that Asba and Tamilee and Asef had the courage to carry such a burden back to us in this season when the winds turn cold. But we cannot ignore the truth of the bear’s death, for all our sakes.”

  “What are you about?” another villager called at her.

  “The flashes of lightning from last night,” she said. “Usgar lightning! And not far from here, yes?”

  All the judging eyes turned away from the woman to fall over Asba, and the crowd hushed as one.

  “That was farther than these three went,” one man protested. “The lightning flashed higher on the mountain than any today ventured.”

  “No,” the woman on the cart argued, shaking her head so forcefully that her long dark hair flew side to side. “No, they went up there, where the Usgar had been, and they f
ound a bear. A dead bear.”

  After a few heartbeats, an older woman asked Asba directly, “Is this true?”

  Asba hesitated, then said, honestly, “I do … I do not know.”

  “But the bear was already dead when you found it?” the one-legged woman on the dolly pressed. She turned to the man who had doubted her. “Ask the butchers. They will know a fresh kill from a carrion find.”

  Asba swallowed hard, feeling the weight of those unrelenting stares. Finally, he nodded.

  “To arms!” cried an older man. “We must set a double watch this night!”

  “Triple the eyes!” another demanded, and all villagers were jostling then, trying to get to their families to make sure all preparations for a fast run to the boats were made. If the Usgar came, Carrachan Shoal would flee, all of them, to their boats and out upon the dark waters of Loch Beag.

  Asba glanced over at his brother, to see Asef staring most hatefully at the crippled woman, this dark-skinned foreigner who had dared to shame him.

  Tamilee came up beside Asba then, drawing his attention. Her crestfallen expression matched his own, for they realized then that they had greatly overplayed their hand. Just carrying the bear back would have brought them accolades, particularly when the cold winds blew and food grew scarce. But now, none of that mattered. Now, all that their fellow villagers would recall of this night was that these three young hunters had lied, and had put them all in danger.

  The villagers of Carrachan Shoal quickly set into motion, setting sentries all about, readying racks of weapons (that would be of only minimal value against the power of the Usgar), and of paddles for the boats. Many went down to the water, preparing the boats, packing foodstuffs and blankets in case the tribe wound up out on the cold waters of Loch Beag throughout the night. The Usgar would not venture onto the lake. Never!

  The sentry lines widened out all along the perimeter of the village, not to engage the deamhan Usgar, no, but to call back, then flee for the water.

  The three young hunters didn’t need to be prodded to the outermost guard post, a small watchtower nearer the low trees of the great mountain’s foothills than it was to the nearest houses of Carrachan Shoal.

  “Bah, but better to fatten the crows,” Asef said, fuming, when the three were alone on their perch. “We should’ve left her to die, for her good and our own.”

  “Enough, Asef,” Asba scolded. “’Tis our own fault, and you know it. We should’no’ve weaved a tale of false glory.”

  “Was enough that we brought the treasure of food,” Tamilee agreed with a heavy and regretful sigh.

  “But they’d still be scolding us for stealing the Usgar kill.”

  “Stole it or not, the Usgar are near, or were near,” said Tamilee.

  “Too near,” Asba agreed.

  But Asef grunted and punched the log rail of the watchtower. “She’s a deamhan.”

  “Skin’s too dark,” Tamilee replied. “And less yelling, if you would, aye? With Usgar about.”

  Asef blew another snort, grabbed the rail so tightly that the blood was pressed from his strong hands, and stared out at the mountain night. The minutes stretched to hours, the sun long gone behind the western horizon behind them, across the long loch. The bonfire was no more, the embers glowing like a giant orange eye. The sky above cleared, clouds fast moving to the east, and the waning moon was just past full, giving the watchers a fine view of the surrounding area.

  The quiet area.

  But not too quiet, as if hushed before a predator’s crouch. No, it seemed just another night on the banks of Loch Beag.

  All about, the alarm had died with the fires, the villagers relaxing as one. Asba was the first to sit back. His arms were tired from hauling the bear. His shoulders ached from the press of that pole, and with the excitement ebbing, exhaustion flooded through him. So, he kicked off his muddy boots and settled into a crook in the wall of the watchtower. The midnight hour approached, and behind them, most of the village was asleep.

  “No Usgar coming,” he said quietly when his friends noticed him reclining. “May as well just sleep.”

  Tamilee started to protest, but Asef had already removed his own boots and plopped down beside his brother.

  “Our own fault we’re out here,” Tamilee reminded them. “If we’d just spoken true, they would have sent others and sent us to our beds.”

  She shrugged and plopped down to sit cross-legged, her hands up on the rail, staring out at the tree line.

  Asba wasn’t sure if the woman meant to sleep or to keep watch like that, but he was sure he didn’t care either way. His sighs had become yawns.

  Just as he started drifting off, there came a sharp thud on the wooden watchtower beside him. Asba leapt up, ready to call an alarm, reaching for his bow. But he saw Tamilee shaking her head, and when he joined her at the rail and looked out, he saw not an Usgar raider, but a one-legged woman on a dolly, holding another large rock.

  She threw a second one up at the tower, bouncing it off the wood, then snorted at the couple and began paddling away with those uncannily strong arms.

  This second thud woke Asef from his slumber. He cursed loudly, rolled over, and nearly tumbled out of the watchtower before Asba could grab him.

  “Damned woman,” Asba said. “How might she be knowing that we weren’t watching?”

  “I was watching,” Tamilee said, unconvincingly.

  “My brother and me, then,” said Asba. “How could she know?”

  “She always knows, that one,” said Tamilee.

  “Because she’s a deamhan,” said Asef, and this time no one bothered correcting him. They just watched her paddle and scrape slowly back toward the village, then resumed their watch.

  “Should’ve left her to die when she washed onto our beach,” Asef grumbled again.

  * * *

  The beam of sunlight climbed along the eastern wall of the augur’s temple, tracing across his great grandsire’s mural. It was late in the day now, just a couple of hours left before sunset, and the beam of the westering sun approached the image of the sun on the wall, just below and to the right.

  The old augur purred with satisfaction, running his tongue across what remained of his lower teeth.

  The sunbeam would move more to the left in the next couple of days, to align perfectly with the image on the wall—the image where Skath-mi-Zahn’s dragon was eating the day itself!

  His fingers trembling, the old augur lit the censers at the four corners of his altar, then reached into his belt pouch and brought forth his shaped chips fashioned of the bones of the great condors that flew about the mountains to the east. He closed his eyes and chanted a prayer to Skath-mi-Zahn for guidance.

  “Grant my vision true,” he finished, and he opened his eyes for just an instant, to glance at the thrown bones.

  In his mind’s eye, through the power of Skath-mi-Zahn, the old augur drew mental lines between the bones, this way and that, discerning every shape they could form, drawing pictures from those lines in his mind.

  Everything he saw confirmed his understanding and his private prediction.

  Skath-mi-Zahn was with him, he knew. The Glorious Gold spoke to him now, and he understood.

  The old augur breathed deep of the scented smoke filling his little temple. He opened his eyes and stared at the bones.

  “Yes,” he whispered softly, collecting them. He smiled his wide toothy grin, wondering how many other augurs would be casting bones this night. Not many, he figured, with Xelihui still a few days away, and itself not a common day of augury.

  “Thank you, my ancestor,” he said, looking to the mural with great appreciation. His great grandsire had left all of the clues right there, leading him to this momentous prediction, one that would restore honor to his family and his temple. For so many decades, centuries even, this temple, his family, had been mostly ignored, even ridiculed, even scorned. For the old augur’s grandfather had misread the clues of his divinely inspired sire and had n
ot heard the whisper of Skath-mi-Zahn clearly.

  The old augur’s grandfather had recklessly offered his prophecy anyway, and with confidence and demand, and the misreading of the signs had led to ruin for two entire tribes, and the burning of a fair-sized xoconai city.

  The memories of the xoconai were long, generational even, and they had not forgotten, and so most had forsaken the old augur’s bloodline and their temple. Only a group of young adults had come to follow him of late, men and women as frustrated as he with the softness of the xoconai world. The xoconai were the light, and thus the envy of all, and the light had to be protected, and protection came from strength.

  “No more,” the old augur, the last of his family, declared. While his grandsire had not passed along any of the information to the old augur’s father before his execution, the oldest one, his great grandsire, had given him this gift. His family name would die with him, but not with shame, and this temple would become a shrine to the augur’s family line.

  He would go to the greatest city of Indondo, to the great temple, and he would tell them. They would spit at him. The peasants would laugh at him and jostle him in the crowded streets.

  They would not believe him.

  But the Xelihui would come, and Kithkukulikhan, the dragon of Skath-mi-Zahn, would eat the daylight, and they would be humbled.

  The old augur closed his eyes and envisioned the march of the xoconai, hundreds of thousands, endless lines stretching from the splashing shores of Ilhuicaatl to the passes through the towering peaks of Teotl Tenamitl.

  To the east, ever the east, so that the sun would both rise from and set into the waters surrounding the vast kingdom of the xoconai.

  PART 1

  WHEN THE DRAGON ATE THE SUN