Гарри Тертлдав - The First Heroes

"Husband?"

Hupasiya turned at the sudden voice. Even now, as always, he felt a smile curve his lips at the sight of Zaliya. Still lovely, so lovely, even after having borne them a daughter and a son. Lovely even with her hair in a simple braid and dressed in a simple gown of undyed wool. Once she'd worn more elegant clothes, and gleamed with gold as befitted an officer's wife . . .

Then Hupasiya saw the worry in her dark eyes, and the smile faded. "Nothing," he told her reluctantly. "Just like the day before, and the day before that. Nothing but this dry, endless cold." Zaliya shivered. Hupasiya held open a fold of his mantle, and she gladly huddled against him, letting him wrap the wool about them both. "It's never stayed so chilly this late in the spring," she murmured. "If the crops don't sprout soon . . . "

He shrugged helplessly.

"Hupasiya . . . you don't suppose . . ."

"What?"

"The gods—"

"Are angry with us?" Hupasiya snorted. "Then they are angry with all who live near or in Ziggaratta. We all suffer the same weather." He looked sideways at her, suddenly anxious. "Zaliya . . . are you regretting this?" His sweep of an arm took in their farm. "I mean, you had a fine life as an officer's wife—"

"I had a terrible life!"

"What—"

"You'd go off to war against the Akkadians or the Egyptians or the gods only know who else, and me, I'd be left back in Ziggaratta with the other wives, wondering if a living husband would return to me, a husband with arms and legs and—"

"And all the necessary parts. Hey!"

Zaliya had pulled a hand free to smack him on the arm. "You do not show the proper respect." But she was smiling. "Papa?" a sleepy voice asked from within the sturdy farmhouse. A second voice added quaveringly, "Mamma?"

"Hush, loves," Zaliya called back. "Nothing's wrong. Papa and I are just talking."

"That's why I left," Hupasiya murmured, gesturing with his head back into the house. "Not just for us. So that they could have a normal, happy life." And if it demeans me to be a farmer instead of a warrior, so be it.

But Zaliya's eyes were still worried. "And what's to happen to them if the crop fails? We don't have enough from last year's harvest to tide us over." Yes, his mind chided, and at least in the army you drew steady wages. And a pension for your wife were you slain.

Oh, and there was cold comfort for Zaliya and the children.

I am a husband and father, not some fool of a hero with his gleaming bronze sword—

"It's too early to worry," Hupasiya said.

I will protect them. Even if I must sell what may be left of honor. I will protect them.

The mountaintop was slick with ice and chill with bitter wind, and not quite in the mortal world. She who paced angrily back and forth, never slipping on the icy footing, never risking a fall, was Inaras, daughter of the Storm-God and Goddess of the Wild Beasts. Beautiful as a wild thing in her long-fringed robes, she was all sleekness and peril, with dark hair glinting with hints of light and eyes the ever-changing colors of her father's stormy skies.

"We cannot let this be!"

The other gods would not meet her angry glare.

"Hebat, wife of my father! You know we cannot suffer this! My father cannot be defeated yet again!"

The Storm-God's wife, all matronly curves and fullness, suddenly became very busy combing knots out of the mane of the sacred lion that lolled at her feet.

Inaras let out her breath in an angry sigh, and turned sharply to another deity. "You, Telepinus, you know what happens when the proper order is overturned!"

Green-robed and handsome, he was Lord of Agriculture, and Inaras's brother. And yes, Inaras thought, he certainly did know. Once, when he was angry, he had hidden from the world. The crops had suffered, and the human people with them, until Telepinus had guiltily returned.

"What is there to be done?" he muttered. "The Dragon has already defeated our father once." And that is why Father does not even dare to show his face at his meet-ingl Inaras thought. "That is because we thought to fight Illuyankas as though he were one of us. He is not!" Kamrusepas frowned. "What are you proposing?" Goddess of Healing though she was, there was a hint of warrior anger in her voice. "There are none of us who are not divine."

Inaras turned sharply to her. "And that was where we made our first mistake. This time the Dragon will be slain—because this time I will bring us the aid of a mortal. Yes, yes, I know, it has never been done. Mortals are fallible, mortals are unpredictable—that uncertainty is exactly what will make this man so valuable!"

Kamrusepas raised one elegantly curved eyebrow. "What's this? Have you already chosen your hero?" Hebat made a soft, disapproving tsk. "This does not surprise me. When has Inaras not chosen herself a mortal man?"

"A hero!" Inaras corrected angrily. "I chose only heroes!"

"If that's what you wish to call them." "Listen to me, all of you! Do you not see what has happened to the mortal world since the Dragon came to power? There is no spring, no ripening crops, nothing for the beasts of earth to eat! Telepinus—"

"You are right," he agreed reluctantly. "I say yes, let it be done. Bring us your mortal hero and see what he can do for us."

Hupasiya bent over the frozen furrow, trying to see if maybe, maybe, that tiny speck of green was actually something he'd planted starting to grow. He straightened with a grunt, working a knot out of his back with one hand, and—

Found himself without warning facing a woman who had appeared without a sound. She was tall and eerily beautiful, high and wide of cheekbone, full and lush of figure, the woman of whom any man might dream. No . . . a chill ran up his spine as he realized that this was never a woman. Never a human one, Hupasiya corrected uneasily.

She was simply too alive for any mere mortality, fairly radiating a force that was sheer Life. It crackled in the ringlets of her long, blue-black hair and in her gleaming dark eyes. The curves of her body, clearly outlined under the folds of her lightweight robes, were all that was woman yet more perfect than any human woman could ever boast. In that moment of awareness, in that sudden state of nearly helpless awe and lust, Hupasiya threw up his hands in a ritual gesture of respect. It seemed the safest thing to do.

"Hail, Divine One!" he gasped, since not trying for a name that might be wrong seemed safest, too. "Yes, indeed, I am divine," she said impatiently, as though the fact of his worship and blazing desire were hardly important. "I am Inaras, you are my hero, and let us be away from here." She gestured, and the world dazed him with a sudden flare of light. Hupasiya blinked—

—blinked again.

And let out his breath in a slow gasp of wonder, all lust dashed from him by the suddenness of change. A moment ago, he had been standing amid his fields, yet now he was . . . wherever this was. A mountain peak . . . yes, with sharp rocks and ice all around him, and gusts of wind sending snow whirling up in little spirals, but he wasn't cold, only . . .

Only scared out of my senses. Scared as I never was in the heart of battle. This is a god, a goddess, the Goddess Inaras—what does she— "What do you want of me?" he burst out before he could control himself. And then, heart pounding, waited to be destroyed for his impertinence.

But Inaras said only, "Illuyankas threatens."

"Your pardon, but I don't—"

"Have you mortals no wisdom at all? Learn!"

She seized him in her arms. Her lips met his in a savage, sensual, demanding kiss, and in that instant Hupasiya saw, knew—

It was Illuyankas the Dragon. Mighty being, terrible being, all strength, all hunger for power mortal and divine. Illuyankas, who had defeated the Storm-God himself, and with that defeat of the normal order of Nature had caused both the immense insult to the gods and the unnaturally long chill of winter.