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around him he heard a catching of breaths. Evidently one did not talk like that to the master of the world,
the High Priest of Thorun. But Thomas would not simply bow his head and be only another man, not
now. He must take and hold the place that he rightfully earned.
Andreas, glaring at him, put steel into his voice. "You are to fight against Thorun himself. Do you mean
that you would prefer to enter his hall with your blood still safe inside your veins, with all your joints still
hung together? I cannot believe it."
The murmuring voices rose up wildly now, in rumor and speculation. What did the High Priest mean?
Could Thorun actually be coming, to duel against a mortal man?
It made no sense to Thomas, and he did not like it in the least. Still, looking at the clever and
experienced Andreas, very much in control, he decided that boldness had its limits. He bowed once
more to the High Priest, and said: "Sir, a word with you alone, if I may."
"No more words, for you or from you," said Andreas softly. He turned his head slightly in a listening
gesture, and smiled again.
Beyond the gateway through which Andreas had come the gravel crunched again, in the rhythm of a
single long-striding pair of feet. Incredibly heavy the tread must be, to make the gravel sound like that.
Above the low wall in that direction the top of a head came into view, a mat of wild dark hair, while the
feet must be moving at ground level three meters lower. No man was that tall. With an unfamiliar
weakness in his knees Thomas believed for a moment that his own cynicism had undone him after all. The
naive pious ones had been right all along. The dead of the Tournament, dismembered and buried and
burnt along the way, would shortly walk before him, laughing as they followed-
The figure now appearing in the gateway before Thomas, bending to pass through.
Thorun.
XIII
His head of wild dark hair was bound up by a golden band. His fur cloak, vast as it was, barely covered
his mountainous shoulders. His marvelous sword, nearly as long as Thomas's spear, was girdled to his
waist. All as the legends had it. His face, though&
Thorun did not seem to be looking at anything. He stared over Andreas's head, and over Thomas's, and
through the still-open outer gate (where the limping maul-slave stood and gaped as if he thought those
eyes were fixed on. him) and brooded with his terrible unblinking eyes upon the world outside. Once he
had come to a halt Thorun did not move, did not shift his position or stir a finger, any more than would a
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statue.
Andreas said nothing more, or, if he did so, Thomas did not hear. Rather the High Priest bowed himself
out of the way, silently and obsequiously, though with some amusement still visible, out of the way of the
mighty figure of the god.
The eyes had moved now, though the head had not, and Thorun was looking at Thomas. The eyes had
literally some kind of glow inside them, like those of an animal seen at nighttime by reflected light. This
glow was red and orange. Glancing quickly around, Thomas saw that the eyes were on him alone, for no
one any longer stood near him. Against one wall of the square he saw Leros prostrate in deep reverence,
as were a number of others on walls and ground.
Scores of men were watching now, men in white robes and gray rags. Those who had been in the
middle of the square were scrambling away, reaching for high perches, getting out of the way. Awe was
in every face. Almost. Only Farley would not interrupt his contemplation of the sky.
Thorun now came stepping forward. Though his movements were limber and seemed natural enough,
even graceful, for some reason the impression of watching a statue persisted. Perhaps it was the face,
which was utterly inhuman, though the form of each individual feature was correct. Neither was the face
godlike-unless gods were less than men, unless they were not, in fact, alive.
But Thorun's strides were very long and purposeful. Thomas, seeing the long sword coming endlessly
out of its scabbard as the god approached, got himself into motion just in time. The man launched himself
backward out of the arc of the sword, and it made a soft and mournful sighing as it passed in a stroke
that would have cut a man in half as readily as a weed. The war god's bearded lips opened at last and
bellowed forth a deafening battle-cry. It was a strange and terrible sound, as inhuman as the glowing,
unblinking eyes and the dead face.
Getting his spear unlimbered just in time, Thomas mechanically held it out to parry Thorun's next stroke.
When the god's sword struck he felt a numbing jolt up both his arms, and his armored spear was nearly
torn out of his grasp. It was like some nightmare of being a child again, and facing a grown warrior in
combat. The watchers cheered. Whoever or whatever Thorun was, his strength was well beyond that of
any man.
Thorun advanced methodically, unhurriedly. Backing and circling, Thomas knew that he must now plan
and fight the finest battle of his life.
Thomas began to fight his finest battle but before long was forced to realize that it was hopeless. His
own most violent attacks were knocked aside with effortless ease, while Thorun's sword strokes came
with such murderous power and precision that he knew he could not parry or avoid them for long.
Already the battering of sword on spear had made his arms grow numb and weary. He was gripping his
spear in both hands like a quarterstaff and retreating steadily, meanwhile trying to discover some
workable strategy, to spy out some weakness in the defense of his monstrous opponent. Whether that
opponent was god or man or something else entirely was a question that did not bother Thomas in the
least just now.
At last, with a good deceptive move followed by a superb thrust, Thomas got his spear-point home into
Thorun's tunic of heavy fur, only to feel it rebound from some hard layer of armor underneath. A moment
of sudden hope burned out as quickly as it had come. Around him the watchers gasped in astonishment
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at his seeming success, then relaxed with a collective sigh as the world, that had tilted for a moment,
settled back. Thorun was unconquerable.
Thomas, however, retained a spark of hope. If he could hit home once with the spear, then he might be
able to hit home again. If the fur-clad chest and belly were invulnerable, where should he try to strike?
How about the face? No. He could stand a little farther off-and it would be less nearly suicidal-if he tried
instead for the legs. Thomas observed that the joints of Thorun's exposed and seemingly unarmored
knees were not covered with unbroken skin like that on human legs, but instead showed fine and
smoothly shifting cracks, as if they were the legs of a well-made puppet. The opening in the knee-joint
presented a very small and moving target, but no more difficult a one than the insects on the wing Thomas
had sometimes hit in practice.
No better plan having suggested itself, Thomas feinted high, low, high again, and then put all his power
and skill into a low thrust. His eyes and arms did not fail him. The sharp point of the spear found the small
opening just as it was narrowing slightly with the straightening of Thorun's leg.
There came a grinding vibration down the spear's shaft, and an audible snap of metal. Thorun lurched
but did not fall. With the slamming of a door, a silence fell over the arena. The tip of Thomas's spearhead
came away bright, where its point had been broken off.
The silence that had fallen when Thorun nearly lost his footing still held; Thorun's knee was now frozen in
a half-bent position. The ruler of the world was wounded, and nothing could be heard but the scraping [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]