Кристофер Банч - The Wolf Worlds

And the warrior was standing there, in an instant of helplessness, gaping at his half spear. Sten tackled him, trying to put all his weight into the fall, and he heard the warrior's breath woosh out, and then Sten was astride the warrior. Knees locked on each shoulder. His knife at his enemy's throat. A long hesitation.

"/Ari!cia!" Sten finally said, pressing knife against skin.

The warrior looked up at him. Panting. And then a long, slow, grin. "/Ari!cia," he gasped. "Clotting hell! You won!"

If the warrior had taken advantage of Sten's amazement, he could have killed him on the spot.

"MY FRIEND, THE gourd is with you."

"Wanna 'nother drink?"

"Clot me! Am I not circumcised? Must I wail like a woman when the elder passes?"

"Gotcha. Ya wan' 'nother drink?"

Ida took a long draw off the gourd, burped, and passed the gourd to Acau/lay. It was a neat trick, since they were sitting across a fire from each other, about a meter and a half apart. But Acau/lay, Sten's former enemy, simply hiccuped. grabbed, and chugged.

Sten had to admire the being. When you are three meters high, you have a helluva drinker's reach, among other advantages. Speaking of reach, Sten plucked the jug from his new old buddy Acau/lay and took a deep swallow, passed it on, and bleared at the scene.

Prior to his present drunkeness, Sten had learned several things. To begin with, his hard-found friends were one of many tribes on this planet. They called themselves the Stra!bo. Which translated into The People of the Lake. Recalling Doc's mocking laughter over that discovery, Sten winced.

The postcombat celebration was being held in the Stra!bo tribal hall, which was a single chamber the size of a warehouse. The circular "building" was made of an enormous bush. As near as Ida could tell, the bush was a single plant, thousands of years old. As generations passed, the outer edge of the bush had expanded to its present enormous size, while the inner area died back, leaving bare ground—one huge bald spot. The Stra!bo had only to put a thatched roof in place to provide themselves a feasting hall.

The place was crowded with partying Stra!bo. Males and females all getting drunk on their thin (but highly alcoholic) grain beer and telling lies about what great warriors they were.

Acau/lay thumped Sten in the ribs and passed him a big foul-smelling pot. Sten took it. raised it to his lips, and smothered a gag. The pot was filled with a grayish-pink matter with large globules of stringy red floating and bubbling about.

"The drink of life," Acau/lay said by way of encouragement.

Sten contemplated his own life and liver, then sipped. The smell and flavor hit him like a missile.

"Thanks." Sten croaked to Acau/lay. and passed the pot to Doc, who looked at him with pleading in his eyes.

For a moment Sten almost sympathized. Then he remembered the mocking laughter and gave Doc a grin. "Delicious." he said.

Doc suppressed a shudder and drank. And a remarkable thing happened: For the first time since they'd met. Sten saw Doc beam. Beam without benefit of tragedy or gore. Doc took another gulp. Nem!i. the Stra!bo chieftain, almost had to rip the pot away to enjoy his own "drink of life."

"What is that stuff?" Sten whispered.

"Blood and milk," Doc said with unseemly satisfaction. Then he smacked his lips.

"You're… smapsolute… I mean… absoluteshly… Clot it. You're right. It's delushhious."

Doc burped and grabbed the pot back from his host, Nem!i. Guzzled the vile mixture down.

Sten was in awe. Doc was drunk. From the blood. Then he understood. As one of evolution's most perfect carnivores. Doc was in butcher's heaven. The blood was hitting him like 200-proof alcohol.

"Sm-watch schmiling at you… foul hu… hu… human?"

Doc glared at Sten and turned to Nem!i. Patted him on the knee with a tiny paw.

"Ya" know." Doc said, "you're not too… uh… bad… for a life-form. Now gimme that pot back."

"Aye, and it must be a lone life y' be livint, lass. Herdin' thae bloody great coos, wi' nae boot the wind in y'r ear ae company."

Alex placed a sympathetic hand on the tawny knee of Di!n. one of the Stra'bo women. She patted his hand back, her palm engulfing even one of Alex's huge meat hooks. She was thanking him for his understanding.

"What is a woman to do?" she asked. "Hour after hour staring at the buttocks of beasts. Once in a doublemoon I get to practice my javelin throwing on a hungry Tsar-cat…"

She drank deeply. Wiped away a tear. She lowered her voice to a soft whisper.

"But I have dreams," she said.

Alex smiled, moved closer.

"You promise you will not laugh if I tell you?"

Alex nodded a solemn promise. Fingers tracing the knee a little higher.

"I dream that somewhere, someplace, there is a strong and handsome enemy. An enemy just for me. Who will love me and I can love in the killing."

She gave Alex a deep soulful look. Alex slowly pulled his hand away.

"Do you think." she began, then: "No. I could never ask. I am still an unblooded warrior. How could a man like you…"

Alex tried to be kind.

"Nae. lass, it cannae be. Ahm beit sorry, but we must be friends noo. Nae more."

Di!n sighed a maidenly sigh of disappointment, belched, and passed the gourd back to Alex to drink.

"Fascinating," Bet said. "Fascinating."

She politely covered a yawn. It wasn't just the beer, although beer had always made Bet sleepy. It was the beer plus her companion. Acau/lay.

The warrior Sten had defeated was the tribe's champion. And as champion, it was also his duty to be the Stra!bo historian. Just then he was giving Bet a thrust-by-parry account of the tribe's beginnings.

The history of Stra!bo was its wars. Normally there was nothing Bet liked better than war stories. But some time ago. the Stra!bo and the other tribes had realized that the millennia of slaughter had to stop. Still, there remained the problem of how young warriors could be blooded, to become adult men and women. Thus the creation of the highly formalized champion-against-champion combat.

The ritual. Bet guessed, had begun about two hundred thousand years ago. And Acau/lay knew the details of each combat. It was a strange kind of a Jacob begat whomever history.

"… And then in the year of the burning grass." Acau/lay droned on. "Meinlers slew Cal/icut and there was a great feasting… In the following year. Chlintu slew the Stra!bo champion, Shhun!te, and there was a great mourning…"

Bet glanced over at Sten for possible help, then cursed to herself. He was pointedly staying out of it. drunkenly babbling to the chief.

"… And in the year of the rains, the Trader's champion…"

Bet came wide awake.

"Traders?" she asked. "What traders? And when?"

Acau/lay was delighted at her sudden display of interest. He had at one point begun to suspect his guest was bored, but on reflection dismissed the thought for the silliness it was.

"Just traders." he said. "Beings like you. It was—perhaps five hundred combats ago. Our champion defeated theirs. We exchanged many presents, and they left.

"Let me see now. I think their champion's name was—"

"Never mind that." Bet broke in. "Do the traders still come?"

"Of course," Acau/lay said with some surprise. "They come very regularly. Are we not friends? Do friends not wish to visit often and exchange gifts?"

"How often do they visit?"

"About every thirty days. In fact, they were here not long ago."

Acau/lay took a slurp from the gourd. "We thought you were their rivals."

Bet jabbed Sten.

"These… traders," Sten asked carefully. "Different, you say." He hiccuped. "Are you sure they aren't just from another part of this world?"