Robert Adams - The Witch Goddess

Bowley was not short by any means, compared to most of the Ganiks—who all seemed too have been subjected to malnutrition and serious protein deficiency almost from birth. He was a sizable man, though some thirty centimeters shorter than the towering Horseface and correspondingly lighter. Erica reckoned his age to be mid-thirtyish, and there was as yet no trace of gray in his dark reddish-brown hair and full beard. When she had first come among them, his speech patterns had been identical to the slurred, vulgar, much-debased dialect spoken by all of the Ganiks, but soon thereafter, she had noted that he was beginning to ape her own speech. Now, after her months with the main bunch, Bowley was much more easily comprehensible to her than even the faithful—but not really too bright—brothers, Lee-Roy and Abner.

Bowley’s aide, Owl-eyes Hewlitt, was a younger version of his senior. His sinister killer aura was there, if not yet as pronounced as Bowley’s, and his mind was easily the equal of Bowley’s. He was a bit taller, though not as broad and big-boned, and his hair and beard—once he’d taken to swimming frequently, he and Bowley having been the first two to request instruction in the esoteric rite—were of a glossy blue-black, although his eyes were a piercing dark blue. Like Bowley, whom he clearly much admired and aped in many ways, Hewlitt had taken to copying certain of Erica’s speech patterns and pronunciations.

Another bully who really stood out in Erica’s mind was Counter Trimain, short, broad, incredibly powerful, but always jolly. There was never a time when Counter was not laughing and joking… even while he was engaged in his specialty, protracted and bestially insensitive torture. He had impressed Erica with his deep knowledge of anatomy; this knowledge enabled him to keep the spark of life in his most unfortunate victims even while maintaining them in indescribable agony. Counter was also the closest thing to a surgeon or physician the bullies had had, prior to the coming of Erica.

The common run of Ganiks received no medical help or treatment of any nature. If they became seriously ill, badly wounded or incapacitated with age, their fellows quickly killed and butchered them for the ever-ready stew pots.

Bullies sometimes went that same merciless route, but the ones valued for some reason by the senior bully or the leader could usually depend upon at least a modicum of treatment at the skilled—if bloody—hands of Counter. In the two or three procedures Erica had undertaken since arriving in the main camp, Counter Trimain had proved himself to be an exceptional, if very unorthodox, assistant.

One early evening, as Erica and some score of the most important bullies sat or hunkered in the torch-lit foyer with their drinking vessels and yet another barrel of the late Buhbuh’s tipple—this a sweet honey wine of amazing potency—Erica said, “Merle, where did your people, the Ganiks, come from? As I recall, Horseface said that you had been in this area for only a short while before the folk of Kuhmbuhluhn arrived from the north.”

“Wai, Ehrkah,” he replied, “I’ll tell you jest whut-all wuz tole to me, back whin I ’uz a younker, afore I jined up with a bunch, atall. You’s free to b’lieve whut of it you wawnts to, heahnh? It’s a whole lot of it I don’ b’lieve, no way! But enyhaow…

“Away, way, waaay back, it wuz folks a-livin’ awl ovuh, could do thangs cain’ nobody do no more. They awl had waguns what din’t need no oxes or ponies fer to pull ’em, and they had waguns whut could fly , if you kin b’lieve it, fly like birds. Whole passels of them folks lived close to each othuh, all ovuh the place, and they dirtied up the rivuhs and lakes and all so much all the fish come to die out’n ‘ em, and a man’d git real sick or die wuz he to take nary a sip.

“And evul demons had put them folks awl up to puttin’ pizens in the dirt they growed their corn and beans and awl in, then a-pourin’ more, diffrunt pizens awn ’em, too. Thet’s whin the firstest Ganik farmers come along, Ehrkah, they wouldn’ use no pizens in the dirt, nor none enyplacet elst And thet flat pisted them pizen folks awf! They commincted a-persuhcutin’ them pore, raht-thinkin’ Ganik farmers sumthin awful, a-robbin’ ’em of their land or a-tryin’ to make ’em a-pizen too, lahk the rest wuz a-doin’.

“So them ole Ganik farmers, they tuk awl their wifes and their younkers and they lef and went to places din’t none of the pizen fanners wawnt fer to live in. And thet be why, whin the pizen folks started a-fightin’ and a-killin’ eacht othuh, wan’t none of the Ganik farmers wher they could be easy got at.

“Fer a whole lowng tahm aftuh them pizen folks had done mostly kilt each othuh awf, the ole Ganiks farmed raht and lived raht and done raht by the land and the gods. But then the get of the get of them pizen folks whut had lived th’ough the killin’ and awl started a-movin’ in awn the ole Ganik farmers, and they din’t see nuthin’ wrawng with it.

“‘Cept, them new folks, they wouldn’ live raht. They awl dirtied water, won’ no kinda animal they wouldn’ kill and eat, they evun was a-tearin’ up the land, a-diggin’ up some kinda black rock whut they say will burn, lahk wood. And whin them ole Ganik farmers they tried to tell ’em whut-awl they wuz a-doin’ wrowng by the land, the demons got ’em so riled up they commincted a-beatin and evun a-killin’ them pore ole Ganiks. And sinct it wuz more demon-lovuhs then it was Ganiks, it won’t nuthin fer to do but fer to move awn to find new lands whut din’t have no get of pizen folks awn ’em.

“But seemed lahk everwher us Ganiks settles us, ‘long comes mo’ demon-lovers, lahk them Kuhmbuhluhn fuckuhs, afore lowng. And naow them Kuhmbuhluhners has done took to a-diggin’ up them black rocks, up nawth, I hear tell, too.”

“But, Merle,” asked Erica, “what is wrong with digging and burning coal? That’s what these black rocks of yours are properly called, you know.”

Soberly, Bowley replied, “First, Ehrkah, it be a crime ‘ginst the great god, Kahlohdjee, to dig enythang ‘ceptin’ food and wawtuh outn’ the land. And secun’, the black rocks wuz one of the pizens of the ole demon folks; burnin’ them rocks pizens the air and, then, folkses innards and they dies.”

Having within her ancient mind clear recollections of the various fringe-element movements—organic farming, ecology, the pollution fanatics, vegetarians, back-to-nature types—Erica dug more deeply into the singular practices, beliefs, customs of the Ganiks on subsequent evenings and soon came to the conclusion that the Kuhmbuhluhners were doing the only thing that any halfway sane and reasonable group of normal humans could do with the Ganik ilk—drive them out or kill every one of them.

Though she had decided on the ride north that rather than starve or seriously endanger her health she would partake of human flesh, she had quickly found that such a drastic step was unnecessary in the main camp. Not only was the lake full of fish and large frogs, with abundant crayfish in the feeder streams, but the bullies were always hunting, bringing back their kills by night, so as not to cause conflicts with the religious fanatics.

In any single week, Erica and the bullies might feast on venison, wild pig, the flesh of feral cattle and sheep and goats, hare, raccoon, opossum and a variety of fowl. The quantities and selection of plant foods—fruits, berries, roots, tubers, leaves, sprouts and seeds—was to her impressive. The Ganiks apparently knew every edible thing that grew in these mountains, and utilized most of them in their diet. Grain and beans for both man and beast came from raids upon the farmer Ganiks, and there were vast stores of these in the caves, the presence of which kept the resident stoat colony busy and well fed on marauding rodents.