Гарри Тертлдав - The First Heroes

The Pit lay beside a small lake, their principal source of fresh water. A great heap of blackened soil, rocks, and ash stood next to it, the remains of decades' worth of meals, according to Grandmother Glin. The Pit itself was huge, and lined with clay and stones, capable of cooking several deer at once, or even enormous chunks of whale. A steady parade of youngsters with buckets began filling the Pit with lake water as the men set to skinning the stags on the flagstone workplace. The women tending the Great Hearth made certain to keep clear of their keen-edged stone knives.

"It's always at this time I think of that trader," said Mebaw. "The one with those metal knives." He sighed, as if longing for a beautiful woman.

"We do well enough with what we have," said Dett. "His price was too high."

"But I'd never seen the like, not before or since!" cried Mebaw.

Uncle Talloc nodded soberly. "Sharp as Klevey's teeth, they were."

"And what do you know of Klevey?" snorted Grandmother Glin.

"Your skill is with boats, not song lore. You are as empty-headed as the Pit, Talloc." Mebaw came to his uncle's defense. "And is the Pit so empty? It is near full of water, and then you women will drop in the heated stones." "I confess to being wrong in that respect, grandson. However, your head is like the Pit: full of rocks." The work continued for a time, then Talloc called out, "This is drudgery. Give us a tale, Grandmother, to entertain us while we labor."

"Willingly," she said. "The younger women can heat the stones for the Pit. I will sit and rest my aching bones." She eased herself on a pile of flagstones near one end of the workplace. From the orderliness of them, Dett suspected they once had been part of a wall, the remains of which were long gone, perhaps used when his ancestors constructed the Great Hearth.

"I shall speak of Klevey," she announced. Dett sorely wished she had chosen differently, but as he had not presented his sighting before the council, he saw no way of stopping her.

"Klevey dwells in the sea, and there is no more monstrous creature to be found under or above the waves," said Grandmother. "He is oath-brother to Lord Father Winter, and sometimes they work together, bringing ruin and devastation to men."

Rarpibb, who had been toting a bucket, asked, "If Klevey lives in the sea, why doesn't the Mother of the Sea control him, as she does the Seafolk?"

"Foolish girl! Does not the Mother have enough to do, battling Lord Father Winter every year?" Grandmother retorted. "How she struggles with him every spring, so fierce you can hear them roaring! How she binds him to the seafloor, and brings back the warm waters for us! How he cunningly breaks free in the autumn, to banish the Mother in turn, and afflict us with storms and plague us with his shrieking wind demons! Until at last, the Mother returns, to confront the chill Master once more and chain him yet again."

Mebaw bent his head over his skinning and suppressed a grin, but Dett saw it and knew the reason for it: Grandmother had just given a short account of one of the clan's most famous songs, "The War Against Winter." Barely three months ago, during the height of the spring gales, Mebaw sang all fifty verses without error. The Mastersinger showered him with praise, and he was puffed with pride for days.

Rarpibb, however, grumbled something about why the Mother couldn't manage things better, and so keep Winter chained . Fortunately, Grandmother's poor hearing caused her to miss this cheeky observation. The old woman continued: "But we do beg the Mother for protection from that dread menace, Klevey, for she alone can keep him satisfied and prevent him from prowling the lands of men. Aye, the Mother, and good, fresh water—those are the only things that Klevey fears."

"What does he look like?" Rarpibb asked.

"His head is gigantic, with a mouth like a whale's, from which the most foul and venomous reek spews forth. When he breathes, any nearby living thing—be it man, beast, or plant—perishes from his poison. He has no—"

In the midst of his carving, Dett came over queer, as if the ground tilted beneath him, or he had eaten something that made him ill. "Enough, Grandmother!" he cried.

She stopped. "What is amiss, Dett?"

He reeled away from the bloody carcass, trying to keep down his nausea. He snatched a bucket from the foreign girl, Gefalal, and dashed cold water on his face. The queasiness receded, but the uneasy feeling did not. It was similar to what he sensed on the cliffs while watching the strange skies, but much, much stronger.

He glanced westward, toward the distant cliffs. Standing there, stark against the gray skies, was the red figure he'd seen before, swaying slightly on its flipperlike legs. "There!" Dett croaked. "Look to the west! Klevey comes! Do you see him?"

The villagers turned to stare, but the gods had granted the sighting to Dett alone. Unable to gaze at the monster any longer, he collapsed, retching. When he managed to look up again, Klevey had gone.

Beside him, Gefalal shivered with fear. He nodded, hoping to reassure her, then turned to the others, who were also staring at him in dismay. Dett was sober, quiet, and not given to displays, unlike his flamboyant brother. They didn't know what to make of his behavior.

"A sighting, nephew?" Uncle Talloc asked in tones clearly hoping for a denial.

"My second," Dett whispered. "I saw the Red Scourge yesterday, at the cliff bottoms. I planned to tell the council of it."

"It is true," Mebaw said. "I spoke with Dett not long after the sighting."

"This was worse. He stood on our land, though he was there but for a moment," said Dett.

Grandmother pursed her wrinkled lips. "Well! This will be a more interesting council meeting than most. Enough so, I suspect, to make me yearn for boredom. Under the circumstances, I shall tell a different tale, for fear my words bring back the Red Scourge."

"But I want to hear—" Rarpibb began, but fell silent at a sharp gesture from her mother.

"I shall speak of the swimming dances of the Seafolk, held in their glittering underwater palaces." As she related the simple story, the others returned to work. Dett listened anxiously as he hacked at the carcasses. It took a long time for the awful wretchedness inside him to abate. By evening, when the chunks of meat had simmered to perfection in the Pit, the families ate well, but Dett had to choke down nearly every bite. The fresh meat tasted foul, as foul as Klevey's breath.

That night, as Dett slept beside his wife and children, Klevey walked through his dreams. At first Dett thought it was just Orrul's wheezy rattle, which had recently worsened. Then he realized his mind's eye was seeing his well-tended fields of barley and wheat, and beyond them, the flower-sprinkled rise that marked the sheep enclosure. His mind's ears heard the sheep calling frantically while that hoarse coughing grew louder. Dream-Dett climbed the rise in the same place he and Mebaw had climbed when they stopped to check on Fummir-rul. He looked down on a scene of horror.

Woolly corpses littered the pen. Klevey, his huge chest heaving as he struggled to breathe air, lumbered after the surviving sheep on his awkward flipper-legs. Not that he needed to go near the animals to cause them harm. Some collapsed from sheer fright. Those close enough to smell the noxious fumes from the monster's mouth died in writhing agony, while others were felled by blows from his clublike fists. He popped an entire lamb in his gaping mouth; his daggerlike teeth shredded it, and blood trickled down onto his torso.

As dream-Dett watched, frozen in terror, he noticed two things that gave him hope: Fummirrul was not in the pen and the new sheep were escaping. As the older animals huddled near the wall, the new beasts, in almost orderly fashion, leaped on their backs and vaulted to safety. Even the ewes and lambs made it out, though it seemed impossible that the little spindly creatures could jump that high. Led by Trouble, the largest ram, the entire flock trotted north along the shoreline and disappeared from sight. Dream-Dett could only hope his son had vanished with them.