Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Stop!” Chimolitha shouted as she rumbled up beside him.

Thug was busily goring a supply wagon. He’d already consumed its contents, including the unfortunate driver. At first he pretended not to understand. “What?”

“Stop!” Chimolitha repeated.

Thug looked around, surveying all the wonderful people and wagons remaining to be demolished.

“Why?” he whined.

This was a question Chimolitha had not yet faced. She turned to look at Bronwynn, who stood in her stirrups watching this confrontation with wide eyes. “Why?” Chimolitha asked the young queen.

“Why! Because it’s so dreadfully wrong! It’s senseless slaughter! It’s…” she paused, searching for the proper words. “It’s bad!” Bronwynn blurted, and left it at that.

The tugolith brightened, and turned back to Thuganlitha. “It’s bad,” Chimolitha explained.

Thuganlitha frowned. Then a wicked little smile curled the corners of his leathery lips. “I like bad.”

That shocked Chimolitha. “What?” she demanded, and the recalcitrant tug repeated more forcefully, “I like bad!”

“No!” Chimolitha growled.

“Yes!” Thug roared back.

“No!” Chim bellowed.

“Yes!” Thuganlitha thundered. To emphasize his point, he rammed his horn through the heavy wagon and flipped it over as effortlessly as if it had been a dried leaf.

Chimolitha lowered her head and stabbed. The sharp tip of her horn pierced deeply into Thuganlitha’s hindquarters.

Thug screamed and bolted forward, crashing through the remains of the wagon and dashing onward another fifty feet before turning back to face his nemesis. His giant eyes were bloody with rage, and his voice tore the sky like a trumpet as he shouted at Chimolitha, “I’ll kill you!” Evidently, however, he wasn’t ready to do that immediately. He wheeled around and shot off across the field, heading for the road up the cliff face. He would go back up to the top of the mountain. There, he remembered, were men who would let him play.

Chimolitha looked back at Bronwynn. “He’s going up,” she explained.

Bronwynn seized the opportunity. “I want to go up, too. Will you lead me there?”

With a curt nod of assent Chimolitha started off across the field, and Bronwynn swiftly followed her.

Joss turned back at last toward his fleeing army, scanning the retreating line in search of a trumpeter.

Moments later he’d found one, and the horns of Chaomonous echoed across the bloodstained, trampled snow.

“I’m safe!” Pezi cried aloud as he reached the foot of Down Road. There he fell on his face in the snow and thanked whatever powers had given him the strength to waddle across that vast field of battle. He’d not believed he would make it, what with tugoliths whizzing here and there around him and bodies and equipment tripping him up. His whole life had passed before him—several times, in fact, for it took Pezi a lot longer to cover that wasteland of half-eaten carcasses than it might have a man who was in shape. But he’d made it! His tugoliths were busy doing their nasty work, but there were still plenty of warriors left out on the plain to eat, so they would not finish up until long after he was back inside the High Fortress. Then he could sit back, enjoy a well-deserved victory feast, and start planning how he would rule his new kingdom.

As he got to his feet and started his climb, he wore a smile almost as broad as his belly. He’d come a long way from his days as a petty merchant in Chaomonous. Yes, sir, there was still room at the top for the tough few who were willing to work to make their dreams come true.

He heard a rumble behind him. He couldn’t believe it. He jerked around in astonishment and froze in place. Thuganlitha! It was Thuganlitha! And he had nowhere to run!

Thug was still snorting with rage when he turned up the road. When he saw Pezi standing there waiting for him, Thug, too, froze in astonishment. This was incredibly good fortune! Thuganlitha smiled and started slowly toward the tubby little merchant.

“Chimolitha?” Pezi croaked, but his voice had been stolen away by terror. “Help?” he whispered again.

He finally got his legs to move and started backing away up the road. Although his voice was gone, his mind remained quite active. It had been right here that Queen Bronwynn had talked Chimolitha out of attacking her. If she could do it, perhaps he could do the same! He summoned his courage, found his voice, and shouted, “You’d better not eat me!”

Thuganlitha stopped moving and frowned. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because I’d be dead!” Pezi explained crossly.

“You would?” Thug replied and he puzzled over that a moment. He knew about eating and he knew about dead, but he’d really not connected those two things in his mind.

“That’s right,” Pezi went on, gaining confidence. “And that would be most unpleasant.”

Thuganlitha looked at him. “Unplea…”

“Unpleasant,” Pezi reiterated.

“What’s that?” the tugolith demanded belligerently.

“Unpleasant? Why, you know. Terrible! Horrible! Bad!”

“Bad?” said Thuganlitha, perking up. “Yes,”

Pezi affirmed. “Bad”

Pezi had said the wrong word. Thuganlitha’s naughty smile returned. “I like bad,” he said, and he started toward Pezi, his great jaws sagging open.

“You—” Pezi choked “—you what?”

“I like to do bad!” Thuganlitha smiled wickedly.

“Wait!” Pezi cried, backing away earnestly. “Let me figure this out! You—you like to do bad things, so if eating me is bad then you—” Pezi suddenly stood his ground and announced, “You cannot eat me!” His new confidence made Thuganlitha pause.

“Why not?” the tugolith snorted.

“Because! I am a bad man. To eat me would be a good act. Therefore, since you like to do bad, you don’t want to eat me, because that would be good! It’s a moral issue, you see.”

Thuganlitha was confused. “I don’t understand,” he complained, and Pezi’s spirits brightened.

“Ah, yes, but you don’t want to understand. Understanding is good, and since you want to do bad, then understanding is not for you at all.” As he said this Pezi casually resumed backing away. It was impractical, he knew, to expect that he could hold the beast in check until he could back all the way up the road. His only hope rested on so confusing the tugolith that it would be forced to sit down and think.

Then he could escape—or so he hoped!

Thuganlitha plodded up the hill after Pezi, his huge forehead furrowed in thought. “I can’t eat you…” he said.

“That’s right!” Pezi prompted.

“…because you are bad.”

“I am!” Pezi agreed enthusiastically. “Yes, indeed, I am!”

“I’m confused!” Thuganlitha bellowed.

“Good!” Pezi called, looking over his shoulder.

“Confused is good?” Thuganlitha grinned, his sharp teeth gleaming. He gazed at Pezi hungrily. “You confuse me!”

Something in the monster’s tone made Pezi turn around and face the beast again. Thuganlitha was salivating, and Pezi’s anxiety level shot up. “Yes?” he whined.

“So you’re good!” the tugolith trumpeted happily and he went on merrily, “I can eat you!”

“No…!” the fat merchant whined plaintively, but it was too late. He suddenly visualized what his own mouth had looked like to his fork all these years—

Then he was gone. Thuganlitha ate Pezi in two huge bites. The merchant who’d devoted a lifetime to gobbling goodies had become a goody himself—and got gobbled. Lord Syth heard the horns of Chaomonous and swung his charger around. He couldn’t imagine what had happened, but he spent no time pondering it. He gave a quick order and Mari trumpets answered those of their southern counterparts. The army of the north wheeled and galloped for the High Plateau.