Ben Bova - Orion in the Dying Time

I watched the light in his tawny eyes glimmer and die, leaning on the spear, half-ashamed of myself, half-exultant. I had ended the lion’s life. I had ended his suffering.

But as I looked down on his once-noble carcass I knew that jackals and other scavengers would soon be tearing at his rotting flesh. There is no dignity in death, I told myself grimly. Only the living can have dignity.

So it was that I wore a saber-tooth’s pelt over my head and shoulders when I approached the village of Kraal.

I followed the smoke cloud that stained the otherwise pristine sky, thinking at first that the village must have grown much larger than it had been when I had last seen it. By the second day I began to realize that the drifting gray cloud was too big, too persistent, to be from cooking fires. I began to fear the worst.

By noon I could smell death in the air: the greasy, charred odor of burned flesh. I saw birds circling high in the distance. Not pterosaurs; vultures.

It was midafternoon when I pushed through the thorny underbrush and saw Kraal’s village. It had been burned quite thoroughly, every hut reduced to smoldering ashes, the ground blackened, a heap of charred bodies in the middle of the village burned beyond recognition. The vultures circled above. They had their own kind of patience. They were waiting for the ground to cool and the dead to stop smoking before they landed to begin their feast.

Kneeling, I examined the three-clawed prints of dinosaurs and Shaydanians that were all around the village. They had left a clear trail heading off in the northeasterly direction of Set’s fortress by the Nile. There were human footprints among them. Not everyone in the village had been slaughtered.

I straightened up and turned toward the northeast. So this was the reward Kraal and Reeva had earned for their collaboration with Set. The monster had razed their village and killed most of the inhabitants. Those that had not been slaughtered had been marched off into slavery.

I found myself hoping that Kraal and Reeva were still among the living. I wanted to find them, wanted them to see me. I wanted to see how much they enjoyed dealing with the devil.

As I trekked toward Set’s fortress I wondered what had befallen Chron and Vorn and the other slaves that I had freed. Were they dead or back in slavery?

For the rest of that day and most of the next I followed the broad trail that the dinosaurs had trampled through the underbrush. At first I thought that I might catch up with them and their human captives, but I soon put that idea out of my mind. What good would it do to try to free them? It would merely alert Set to my presence, confirm to him that I had arrived here. I wanted as much surprise on my side as possible; it was just about the only weapon I would have when I finally went against him.

Toward sundown on the second day after the village I noticed a set of human footprints that diverged from the main trail. The dinosaurs had been leading their prisoners directly northeast, toward Set’s fortress; their trail through the forest as straight as a Roman road or the flight of an arrow.

But at least two humans had run off into the underbrush, trying to escape them. I turned off the dinosaur trail and started after them. Less than ten minutes later I saw that a single dinosaur’s tracks joined theirs; whoever was directing the raiders had sent one fighting dragon after the escapees.

The sun was setting behind a range of low hills when I saw them. In a clearing among the trees a man cowered on his knees while a woman holding an infant in her arms trembled behind him. One of Set’s clones stood before them, not much taller than the woman, his scales the salmon pink of a barely adult Shaydanian. Off to the edge of the clearing hunched a two-legged dragon, his fierce head nearly as tall as the young trees, his eyes glittering with hunger.

I saw that the Shaydanian was about to kill the man. He grasped him by the throat, drawing blood with his claws.

I shouted, “Leave him alone!” And raised my spear over my head.

The Shaydanian turned, hissing surprise, as I hurled the spear with all my strength. It struck him in the chest, knocking him over backward. He fell practically on top of the startled little family of humans.

The dragon turned toward me also. I focused on it and for a dizzying instant saw the scene through its slitted eyes: the human male still on his knees, gaping at the dead reptilian; the female looking shocked, clutching the baby to her breast; and the tall broad-shouldered Orion standing a dozen yards away, hands empty, weaponless.

I willed the dragon to go off and rejoin the others. I gave it the mental picture of chasing down goats and cows and even bears. It hissed like a teakettle and raised itself to its full height on its two powerful legs. Its head bobbed back and forth between the little family and me, as if uncertain of what to do. We certainly made an easy meal for it. I concentrated as hard as I could on directing it away from us. Finally it pranced off through the trees.

I let loose a breath I had been holding for what seemed like hours. The man climbed painfully to his feet. I saw that his back was crisscrossed with claw slashes oozing blood. I started toward the trio of humans and the dead Shaydanian to retrieve my spear.

I recognized Kraal and Reeva the same instant they realized who I was.

“Orion!” he gasped, dropping back to his knees.

Reeva’s eyes widened and she clasped the baby even closer to her. I saw that she was pregnant again.

I said nothing as I walked up to the dead reptilian and yanked my spear from its scaled hide.

“Spare her, Orion,” Kraal begged, still kneeling. “Take your revenge on me, but spare Reeva and the boy.”

“Where is my knife?” There was much that I wanted to say to this weak, sniveling traitor. Those were the only words that came out, though.

He fumbled under the filthy pelt that covered his middle and handed me the knife, its sheath and strap, with shaking hands.

“You must be a god,” Kraal said, lowering his face to the ground at my feet. “Only a god could kill those monsters. Only a god could wear the skin of a lion.”

“God or man, you betrayed me.”

“And what have you done for us?” Reeva snapped, her eyes flashing fire. “Since we have known you we’ve had nothing but death and destruction.”

“You were a slave when I first saw you. I made you free.”

“Free to be hunted by Set and his devils! Free to be killed and tortured and see our villages burned to the ground!”

“You decided to serve Set. That is your reward. You betrayed not merely me, you betrayed all of your own people. And Set betrayed you. That is justice.”

“What will you do with us?” Kraal asked, still groveling.

I reached down and yanked him to his feet. “I will do battle with Set. I will try to kill him and all his kind so that you can inherit this land and live in freedom.”

His jaw dropped open. Reeva, suspicious, asked, “Why would you do that for us?”

I made a small smile for her. “I don’t want that little boy to grow up in slavery. I don’t want any human being to be the slave of that inhuman monster.”

I camped with them that night. It was clear that they were afraid of me, thoroughly mystified about my motives in allowing them to live and trying to battle against the seemingly all-powerful Set. The baby’s name, they told me eventually, was Kaan.

As I had feared, Set was methodically, determinedly wiping out every tribe of humans he could find. Shamefaced, stammering, Kraal told me that at first Set’s minions treated them well as he and Reeva helped the demons to round up entire villages of people and march them off into slavery. Chiron, Vora, and all the others I had known had been taken away in that manner.