Where Gods Fear to Go Page 2

  “Wouldn’t it be more useful for everyone if I spent the time training with Thyri?” Finn asked, for the fifth time.

  “More useful for you, maybe,” Erik replied. “But I am sorry, I need your help.”

  “Why?” Finn whined.

  The way Finn hankered after Thyri Treelegs was pathetic. The girl wasn’t interested and he should have moved on. Even worse, Finn was also in never-to-be-requited love with Paloma Pronghorn, ever since she’d got drunk and made the mistake of kissing him. So whenever he wasn’t embarrassing himself with Thyri, Finn spent his time practically begging for Paloma’s attention.

  Sofi wondered if she should have a chat with the boy, then checked herself.

  She didn’t care about the ways and whims of the Wootah.

  Yoki Choppa, Bodil and the children made lunch. Afterwards, Chogolisa went to sit with Erik and Finn, and they chatted and laughed and continued to make water shoes. Chogolisa’s relationship with Erik was against Owsla rules, and it was going to be a complication when Sofi had to kill the Wootah after their quest. However, the chances of Chogolisa and Erik–of any of them in fact–living to the end of the quest were so slim that she let the big woman have her fun. Erik was Chogolisa’s first and Sofi had never seen her so happy. Maybe it was the lack of rattlesnake in her diet, but she couldn’t bring herself to deny Chogolisa her first taste of love. Not yet, anyway.

  Bodil and Keef sat nearby, looking out over the lake, while Sassa and Wulf paced the shore. Both Bodil’s and Sassa’s growing babies had been conceived at around the same time, judging by the tiny, fast hearts Sofi could hear beating away. But the difference between the couples was striking.

  Sofi and Wulf exuded a proud-parent air, walking in contented silence. Keef and Bodil’s silence seemed awkward, like two Calnian nobles who’ve been taught that one must converse the entire time, but found themselves forced together with simply nothing to converse about. Keef started to sharpen his long-handled axe, Arse Splitter. Bodil sat, mouth open, as if her mind was empty. Sofi sometimes suspected that it might have been, but every now and then Bodil did something useful or said something insightful. None of the Wootah were simple. Even Finn, pathetic with women, had proved himself brave and even impressive in other ways. Controlling the crowd pigeons who’d carried them all away from the Badlands had taken great mental strength and stamina. In the two moons or so since they’d met the Wootah, Finn seemed to have grown up a lot. One might even say he was progressing from boyhood to manhood and –

  She stopped herself. She didn’t care about the Wootah.

  Paloma Pronghorn jogged up faster than others ran, dropped onto the grass next to Sofi, and followed her gaze.

  “I don’t get it,” said Paloma. “Surely Keef knows the baby isn’t his? She told us she was pregnant about three days after she and Keef shagged. Sassa told me Finn and Bodil got it on by the Rock River on the day they killed Sadzi Wolf. It has to be Finn’s child.”

  Sofi remembered the day. Erik the Angry had struck the killing blow. It had been self-defence, but remembering that the Wootah killed one of hers was going to make it easier if she did have to finish them off.

  “That makes sense, timing-wise,” she said.

  “Yes,” continued Paloma, “Keef can’t be so thick that he thinks the baby is his.”

  “And if the baby is Finn’s—”

  “Why isn’t he doing the decent thing and claiming it?”

  Sofi shrugged. She didn’t care.

  “Because,” Paloma continued, “Finn is in love with Thyri Treelegs and would much rather have babies with her.”

  “Or you.”

  Paloma reddened. It wasn’t the first time Paloma had got drunk and kissed someone she regretted, not by any means, but she’d never had to travel in the same group as her mistake day after day immediately afterwards. Sofi almost smiled.

  “Well, maybe, but isn’t everyone a bit in love with me?” Paloma grinned, then leapt up to go and bother someone else.

  Sofi watched the beautiful, vibrant and super-fast woman dance-run away. She’d been joking, but most people probably were at least a little in love with her.

  Sofi walked down to the lakeshore where Yoki Choppa was poking about for insects and plants to add to his alchemical bundle.

  “How can we beat the mind crush?” she asked.

  “Can’t,” he said, without looking up.

  “Do you know how they do it?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not certain, and knowing won’t help.” He carried on poking about.

  “Why did our guide die instantly when the rest of us were knocked out?”

  “Maybe because he was old. Maybe they hated him more.”

  “What do you think the range is?”

  “It would be a guess.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Maybe ten paces.”

  Sofi nodded. The squatch had been about that far away when they’d killed their guide Weeko Fang. “Can you block it, even a little?”

  Yoki Choppa shook his head sadly.

  Sofi walked away, feeling two further new and irksome emotions that had been unleashed by the denial of daily rattlesnake: guilt and compassion. She shouldn’t have asked Yoki Choppa if he could block the squatch mind crush. She’d known he wouldn’t be able to.

  Yoki Choppa could use herbs to enhance nature. His alchemy was powerful. It had created the Owsla, for example, but that had taken years. The warlock’s immediate abilities were far from spectacular. Using people’s hair to track where they were over dozens of miles was the most impressive, and that had its limits.

  Since the Owsla and Yoki Choppa had left Calnian territory, they’d joined up with a small boy who was destined to save the world using powers that none of them could even guess at. Beaver Man and his warlocks had used ancient magic to revive long-dead monsters and create the Empty Children. They’d been trapped by spiders attached to their necks, controlled by the Empty Children. They’d heard that Chippaminka had taken over the minds of the Calnian rulers and made them go to war. They’d seen Finn the Deep guide a millions-strong flock of crowd pigeons. They’d been protected from ghosts in the Black Mountains by Tatinka Buffalo’s strange, deep magic. And now they’d met the squatch who could kill them with a look.

  Yoki Choppa’s alchemy had been unable to compete with any of the abilities of their foes and it had been overshadowed by the magic of their allies.

  He had made a powder which melted the faces of Beaver Man’s Owsla and possibly saved them all by doing so, but that was one small act of alchemy–little more than a clever trick–in the midst of all sorts of more powerful magic, and he’d been too late to save Luby Zephyr. Arguably, the shoes that Erik the Angry had made to allow Paloma to run on water were more impressive than any of Yoki Choppa’s contributions to the quest.

  So Sofi guessed Yoki Choppa must be feeling redundant. He prepared the Owsla’s power animals, true, but they required such small quantities that the batches he’d already made would last for years. After he’d denied them their power animals to let the Wootah escape, then told her the power animal secret, Sofi had insisted that each woman carried her own. So now the warlock didn’t even have the role of slipping their medicine into their food every day.

  She could have gone back to the lakeside and told him that she respected and valued him, that she was grateful for their powers, and that she–and her women–loved him like a father. But she wasn’t going to. She’d have to have a lot more than rattlesnake taken out of her diet before she got that soppy.

  He’d be fine.

  Innowak the swan god had pulled his sun chariot almost to the horizon when Berlaze appeared again. He came alone, striding with a swaying, powerful gait. His confidence rankled. Sofi longed to destroy it.

  I do not want to let you go, thought Berlaze. There is nothing you can do at The Meadows that my squatch cannot do a hundred times better. However, my daughter insists
that you saved her. So I will indulge her. First, you will spend the night by the lake.

  Calnians and Wootah looked at one another. Keef and Sitsi were beaming. Sofi was wary.

  Then, continued Berlaze, tomorrow at sun-up, one of you will fight Krusha the squatch. We drew straws for the pleasure. He won.

  “I’ll fight,” said Wulf.

  Berlaze raised an eyebrow. Not you. Krusha has chosen who he will fight.

  “Who?” Wulf demanded.

  Another question and I will kill you with a thought.

  Wulf kept his mouth shut but held his ground.

  If your warrior wins, I will give you half a day’s head start up the mountain. Then we will hunt you.

  Sofi looked up to the mountains. With two children and the likes of Bodil in tow, half a day was no head start at all.

  If Krusha wins, you will get one thousand of our paces’ head start. Then we will hunt you.

  Wootah and Calnians looked at each other.

  Krusha chose the one of you whose face he liked the least, thought Berlaze with a smile.

  Keef was bouncing with excitement, hoping it might be him.

  Berlaze raised a hairy finger not much smaller than Ottar’s forearm and pointed at the boy. Several people gasped, but the squatch smiled and moved his finger to point at Freydis, then Paloma, then Chogolisa–make it Chogolisa, thought Sofi. But he lowered his finger.

  Actually, can you guess who’s got the most objectionable face? Berlaze asked.

  There was a pause while everybody looked at each other.

  “It’s me, isn’t it,” Finn broke the silence.

  It is! thought Berlaze.

  “Thought so,” said Keef, shaking his head and scowling.

  “Pigfuckers,” said Finn.

  Chapter 3

  Foe Slicer

  Finn the Deep ducked. Krusha’s claws swished overhead. Nice duck! the young Wootah man told himself, but his flash of self-congratulation was cut short by the creature’s follow-up backhand slamming into his midriff. The Wootah man staggered backwards across the boulder-strewn fighting field.

  He tripped on one of the smaller rocks, spun and fell face-first into a large heap of freshly shat elk dung.

  The watching squatch hooted weirdly.

  “Ha ha!” came from Keef the Berserker, who might have been a little more supportive.“No matter how seriously you take yourself or your situation,” said his dead aunt Gunnhild Kristlover in his mind, “there is always the danger that others will find you hilarious.”

  Spitting shit, Finn pushed himself up onto all fours. On the bright side, it was herbivore crap. If you absolutely had to have turds in your mouth, herbivore beat carnivore every day.

  His opponent lumbered towards him, blocking the mountain sun, blocking everything with his hairy bulk. A thin-lipped muzzle twisted into a mock-concerned smile and the beast winked. An inhuman roar would have been a lot less distrubing.

  Finn’s father Erik the Angry had told him that one could learn nothing about fighting from animals because animals were idiots. Bears, for example, had three fighting styles: tooth and claw rip-the-other-fucker-apart raging, tentative ready-to-flee swiping, or fleeing. Given the relative size and power of humans and bears, the best tactic for people who had some ability of persuasion over the animals, like Finn and his father, was to scare the bear into running away.

  Squatch, however, were larger and stronger than bears and at least as intelligent as humans. Finn could not think of any possible move or combination of moves that would see him walking away from this fight, and he couldn’t get into his opponent’s mind.

  Which arm would you like to lose first? The squatch towered above and Finn regretted lying there musing when he should have been leaping to his feet.

  I’m quite attached to both of them, he thought back.

  Not for long, you’re not.

  He’d walked into that one.

  The monster reached down. Finn tried to roll clear, but powerful fingers grabbed his arm and hoicked him off the ground. Finn hurled a handful of elk crap into his attacker’s open-mouthed face. The beast yelped and dropped him.

  Finn landed in a crouch, sprang up and ran.

  FLIGHT IS NOT AN OPTION! Finn felt his thoughts cloud and his head swim. He slowed, stopped, and stooped, hands on his knees, eyes closed and shaking his head. He was well aware that Krusha might be running at him, winding up to take his head off with a punch, but he also knew that he’d pass out if any more light got into his eyes.

  Finally his mind cleared. Krusha was ten paces off, smiling at him, hands on hips. Waiting.

  Finn turned to Chief Berlaze, standing next to his daughter Ayla and a few other squatch at the opposite end of the fighting field to Finn’s gang. “You said mind crushes weren’t allowed!”

  Neither is running away.

  “I was going to loop round and attack him.”

  Then do it.

  Krusha smiled and beckoned. The monster’s arsehole-faced confidence, annoyingly, wasn’t even a tiny bit misplaced. Finn didn’t have a hope.

  “Are you sure I can’t have my sword?” he asked Berlaze. “I’d still have no chance, but you might see a better fight.”

  Nope, the great beast thought back.

  Oh, go on, Father, give him his sword, implored Ayla.

  Why?

  They believe they go to a superior afterlife if they die with a weapon in hand.

  Finn blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked at Krusha, twice his height and, what, five times his weight? Sword or not, he really was about to die. He felt sick.

  Idiots, thought Berlaze.

  I would be dead without them, Ayla beseeched.

  I agreed to let this one fight for their freedom. Nothing more. You told me that he defeated two monstrous serpents with no weapon.

  That was different. They were snakes so he was able to outthink them. These people have done nothing to harm us and –

  Give him the weapon, interrupted Krusha. It won’t make any difference.

  That’s not the point, Berlaze argued. It is the human arrogance that they should be considered above all other animals that is in question here and…

  Finn realised with a start that he shouldn’t have been able to hear the squatch talking to each other. Previously he’d only heard them when they’d directed a thought at him. But now he was eavesdropping while they thought things between themselves.

  He must focus on their words, he told himself as the squatch carried on thinking away at each other. He might learn something life-saving.

  Because Finn was Finn, however, telling himself to focus had exactly the opposite effect and he found himself having a good look at his surroundings.

  The Calnians and Wootah were gathered a little way uphill of the fighting field, guarded by a group of squatch who’d promised to kill them with mind crushes if they tried to intervene in Finn’s fight.

  Wulf nodded manfully, Sassa smiled support and Keef grinned at him. Bodil waved. Erik looked the most fraught, which was nice, but also what one might expect from a father. Paloma Pronghorn could have pretended to be more upset. Still, at least she was looking him in the eye for about the first time since they’d made love back in the Black Mountains. Actually “made love” was probably a bit strong, but they’d certainly kissed and had a serious fumble. Thyri Treelegs, who also hadn’t looked at him much since he’d kissed Paloma, wore a stony-faced scowl. No change there then. Ottar the Moaner was playing with the fur on a surprisingly compliant squatch’s paw as if it was just another humdrum morning.

  All around the mountains menaced, brutes of black rock and snow towering over the inconsequential events below. Finn had thought that the mountains were lovely when he’d first seen them, but now they filled him with bowel-loosening dread. “Even if you defeat Krusha by some miracle,” they seemed to say, “there’s no way you’re getting across us.”

  Focus, focus, Finn told himself, focus on Krusha’s mind.

>   He heard a flash of squatch thoughts, briefly found himself pondering how difficult it was to focus on something when there were so many distractions, and then he was back in.

  Fine, Berlaze was thinking, he can have his little weapon, Krusha is still going to punch him into a greasy spot. As well as his conversational thoughts, Finn could now hear the chief’s private musings. Actually, it was more feel than hear, but he could definitely understand them. He was pondering whether to kill his daughter for challenging him in public again. He’d avoided having to kill her before by arranging for her to be captured by the Badlanders, but the annoying child had escaped.

  Thank you, thought Ayla at her father, telling herself that this was a sign of his goodness that she knew was hidden deep down.

  Yes, thought Finn, hidden so deep that he wants to kill his own daughter because she’s nice.

  He’s giving him the sword! Krusha was thinking. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as that sword and I want it. How did these weak fools make something so wonderful? If I take it off the human and kill him with it in a spectacular way then Berlaze will have to give it to me, won’t he? If I win it and I own it, surely Gabi will finally see that I have more to offer than that smooth-haired dickwad Nairda…

  Finn, who sometimes caught himself seriously thinking that if he did stuff like getting a butterfly to land on his hand then both Thyri and Paloma would finally fall for him, was glad to discover that squatch were as idiotic as humans.

  Come and get your sword, Berlaze thought at Finn. He was meant to hear that one.

  He walked over. So he could hear their private thoughts now, but he hadn’t learned much. Krusha was planning to take the sword off him and use it, rather than clawing, biting or stomping him to death. How could he use that knowledge to defeat the monster? Nothing sprang to mind.

  He looked at Thyri Treelegs, hoping for inspiration from the person who’d taught him all he knew about fighting. She glowered back. How could she still be angry with him? Why was she angry? If she’d ever shown any interest in him, he’d never have kissed Paloma.