Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Seeing that I was conscious, he grabbed me by the collar together with another man and forced me upright. I saw that my clothes were covered all over with blood from my head wound. I was very weak and couldn’t even stand up, but I didn’t need to. The iron men tied me to a tree and the ropes kept me from falling.

Now I could look at my surroundings. We were on the seashore — at about the place where my sea journey with Hiie once began, which took me to Grandfather’s island. Back then, the shore had been full of angry wolves, and somewhere in the waves the malevolent Tambet had stood yelling curses at us. Now instead there were iron men. There were many of them and they were all looking toward me conversing among themselves and seemed to be waiting for something.

“Boy, how are you doing?” asked a hoarse voice. I turned my head as far as the cords allowed and saw Grandfather. He was also tied to a tree, standing upright for the first time since he lost his legs. His clothes were bloody. The broken end of the arrow still stuck out of his shoulder and one of his eyes was poked out.

“Now they’re going to make an end of us,” said Grandfather. “Shitty maggots they are! I got badly bashed when I fell, and when I came around, these badgers had already tied me up. I still managed to bite some of them, so they died on the spot. Then they poked one of my eyes out and bludgeoned me in the mouth to make my fangs fall out — but they have strong roots. Finally they called some fat man with big tongs to pull out my teeth, but I stung him in the hand, and they didn’t approach me anymore. Now I’m going to die with my fangs, as I’ve lived with them. Boy, you and I have had fun. We got properly stuck into these shitbags. A pity that I got this stupid arrow in my shoulder, otherwise we could’ve given them even more pain.”

“Never mind, Grandfather,” I consoled him. “It all had to end some time anyway.”

“I didn’t get to see your sister,” he continued. “That’s a real pity. There are so few of us left and, well, not even those few can get together.”

He was silent for a while, stared at the iron men and hissed loudly. Farther off, some horses tethered to trees started whinnying and trying to tear themselves free.

“No use in Snakish words either,” said Grandfather. “The horses might bolt, but these shitbags won’t sit in the saddle.”

Drums started to roll. Two men came up to us. They had in their hands a leather strap, with which they tied Grandfather’s mouth shut, probably so that Grandfather couldn’t use his fearful fangs. Grandfather whined bitterly. The men untied him from the tree, and without legs Grandfather collapsed onto his stomach. The iron men laughed and hooted with pleasure.

“Hold out, Grandfather!” I said. “You know I’m very proud of you. If there were more men like you, the Frog of the North would be flying in the sky by now and would gobble up these grinning idiots like a swallow eating a gnat.”

Grandfather looked at me and winked his only eye. Then he was dragged away.

On a little mound had been built something like a wooden floor. That was where Grandfather was taken. His clothes were ripped off him and he was shoved onto his stomach. Then his hands were chained to the edge of the floor and one man sat on his stumps, to keep his lower body in place.

Then one of the men took a large knife and cut through Grandfather’s back, starting at the neck and ending at his buttocks.

Grandfather snorted with pain and wriggled.

The man with the knife put his hands inside the wound and rummaged there. Grandfather’s eyes turned inside out, but he did not lose consciousness. Blood flowed across the wooden floor and dripped down onto the sand.

The man on his back had found his ribs. He took a small ax and started smashing them up.

Then he grabbed hold of them and pressed them outward, so that the ribs bristled out of Grandfather’s back like birds’ wings.

The iron men on the shore fell to whinnying approvingly and shouted something, flailing their arms as if trying to take flight.

Grandfather was still alive; he hit his head against the floor. Suddenly the strap holding his mouth shut broke. Grandfather roared and sank his teeth into his tormentor’s leg, which he had inadvertently left in front of his face.

The man shrieked in a strangely shrill voice and collapsed beside Grandfather. The others rushed to his aid, but after several rapid convulsions the bitten man fell silent. He was dead.

At the same time Grandfather hissed frantically, lashing out with his jaws in all directions and spitting dark blood.

One of the iron men leapt up angrily, grabbed a sword, and chopped Grandfather’s head off. It rolled down off the wooden floor and, since it was wet and viscous with blood all over, it was quickly covered with sand, so that it might simply be seen as a large sandy rock.

Grandfather’s trunk was lying contorted in a pool of blood. The body lacked legs and bony wings grew out of the ripped back. These were human bones, and therefore quite suitable for flying; they lacked only a windbag.

But of course there was no longer anywhere to get that from.

Then it was my turn. The men came and untied me from the tree. I was still very weak and started reeling, but they wouldn’t let me fall and dragged me quickly from the tree to the torture rack. One of the men slipped on the large puddle of blood covering it and my wounded head collided with his shoulder. I could not hold back a scream.

The men laughed and said something in their own language, which I didn’t understand, but I assumed they were saying something like: “That was nothing, just a joke. The real pain is still coming!”

I didn’t doubt that, because quite clearly it was going to be horrifically unpleasant to have your back cut open and your ribs bent out. But there was nothing to be done; Snakish would not help here.

They bound me up exactly as they had done with Grandfather and one of the men took up a knife. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lips, anticipating the first flash of pain on the back of the neck and everything that must follow it.

But the jab didn’t come. Nobody touched me, and the strange noises coming from the iron men enticed me to open my eyes again.

They were all still standing just as before — on a wide stretch of the shore, where they could best follow the bloody scene being played out. They were no longer laughing or craning their necks at the murder rack. Their heads were cocked toward the sea, and their necks seemed to have become unexpectedly heavy. There was something uncertain in their stance, giving the impression that their heads threatened to roll off their shoulders, and to prevent that and preserve their balance, they had to take a step toward the sea. And then another. But that didn’t help. Their necks would not straighten up; their heads drew them willy-nilly toward the sea, and though the iron men even tried with their hands to point their own heads in a different direction, they did not succeed and they were forced on the path their heads had chosen.

I looked at them from behind. Even those men whose task was to torture me to death no longer stood on the killing floor, but staggered like the other iron men step by step toward the sea, for that was where their imperious heads were tugging them. Their faces reflected extreme alarm and fear; they didn’t understand what was going on here with their willful skulls and where they were being drawn to. They squealed and clutched their own throats, but an unknown force that at this moment controlled their heads was stronger than they were.

I was still bound up, and couldn’t pull my hands and feet free of my fetters, although I tried with all my might. Here was an excellent opportunity to escape. I could not know how long such a miracle would last, and I struggled for all I was worth. But the fetters were strong, and there was nothing for me to do but lie and hope that this bizarre event would take the iron men as far as possible from me.