The Broken God Machine (8 page)

She felt the Lagos’s fingertips hook into the cloth of her dress, and for a
moment it seemed that it would be the knife after all. Then the thing’s sharp
talons tore through the linen fabric, and Nani was free again. She ran directly
at the rock, before her at last, and leapt, wrapping her head in her arms and
praying for the best. She felt sharp stone scrape her arms and legs, her hips
and belly, and she cried out in pain as she landed within the inky, enveloping
darkness of the cut in the rock. She hadn’t broken anything, but she knew that
if she survived until the morning, she would find cuts and bruises all over her
body. Compared to what the Lagos offered her, this seemed a small price to
pay.

She was drawing in her first haggard, burning breath of relief when the
creature’s clawed hand wrapped around her foot.

The gasp became a shriek of terror, long and wailing, and Nani braced her
arms against the rock walls around her, pulling backward with all her might.
She felt no give; it was as if a rope had been tied around her ankle and was
now being pulled by half a dozen kampri. Soon she would begin to slip, and for
a brief, desperate moment, Nani thought of the knife, and wondered if the time
hadn't come to use it. She couldn't hold out against this strength long enough
for Pehr and Josep to arrive.

But the image of the knife in her mind brought forth another idea. Nani let
go of her holds on the rock and leaned forward with a sudden, sharp motion. She
felt the loose gravel beneath her rump give way, felt herself sliding forward,
forced herself not to panic. She reached down beside her to where the knife had
fallen and grabbed at it with such force that it nearly skittered away from her
hands and out of reach. Securing her grip, muttering curses at herself under
her breath, she lunged forward again and stabbed at the fingers wrapped so
tightly around her ankle, working nearly blind.

The creature howled and, at first, only pulled harder, but she stabbed and
slashed, screaming in rage and terror and hatred. After a moment more, the
Lagos let her go. Nani threw her arms backward, losing her grip on the knife
and hearing it clatter somewhere far behind her. She ignored it, planting her
hands against the rough stone and shoving with her all her might, wedging
herself further and further back. When next the Lagos lunged in to grab at her,
his hand fell nearly two feet short of her foot.

Nani found herself laughing now, calling profanities out at the Lagos,
taunting it. She was filled with a kind of joyous rage; these creatures had
destroyed her village and laid waste to her friends and family, but here at
least was some small victory. She possessed the thing that this monster wanted
above all else, an unspoilt face and body to rend and tear, and she had denied
him his prize. There was a savage thrill to be had there, and Nani enjoyed
hearing the Lagos warrior’s frustrated snarls as it attempted to shove itself
deep enough into the cleft to regain its grip on her.

How long this lasted, Nani could not have guessed. She lost all track of
time, wedged there in the stone, and it might have been minutes or hours that
passed. She would have stayed there for the rest of eternity if it had been
required of her.

It wasn’t. There was a noise that sounded to Nani like emptying the buckets
of fish offal she sometimes gave to their solitary domesticated pig. The Lagos
made a horrible groaning noise and slid slowly out of the crack. There was a
thud as its body hit the ground, and in a moment more a face she knew appeared
dimly, outlined against the sky beyond and dripping with what had to be blood
but recognizable nonetheless.

“What kept you?” Nani asked the man who was to be her husband, and then she
grinned, and laughed, and began to push forward.

Pehr saw Nani scramble out of the rock and throw her arms around Josep. The
hunter grunted, pulling away instinctively, and she gasped as she saw the large
slash running across his chest.

“Oh, my dear, what have they done to you?” she asked, reaching her hands out
as if to fix him with her touch. Josep intercepted her fingers and brought them
instead to his lips.

“People get hurt in battle, Nani,” he told her.

“Like him,” Pehr said, gesturing toward the Lagos warrior that had so nearly
overtaken her. The creature’s guts were lying underneath it in an expanding
pool of blood.

“Yes, like him,” Josep agreed. He touched his forehead and winced, and Nani
made a noise of sympathy.

“Is it bad?” she asked him.

“It is what it is. Pay it no more mind, Nani.”

“If that is your wish, Josep. I … where is my brother?”

“Here,” said Jace’s voice from the dark, and in a few moments more he and
Anna came into view. Thunder rumbled as they walked up, and lightning flashed.
The storm that had begun out over the ocean was moving its way inland, and Pehr
thought he could hear the soft sighing noise of rain hitting the lagoon. Tiny
droplets were beginning to hit his face and shoulders and chest.

“We can’t stay here,” he said, moving away from the Lagos corpse and joining
the rest of them.

“No, we must keep moving,” Josep said. “It’s not safe here.”

“They don't seem to be searching for us,” Anna ventured hopefully, and Josep
shook his head.

“After they make their final move on the village center – which they may
have already – they will send out parties to sweep for survivors. When that
happens, I intend they find only Pehr, and Jace, and myself.”

“I would have Jace take my place in the cave,” Anna said. “Please. I would
spare my children.”

“Mother, I will not,” Jace said. “This is the only test I will live to see,
and I will not flee from it. I'm my father’s son, and I will honor him by dying
as a hunter.”

Anna looked down at the ground, struggling with her emotions, but spoke no
more. Nani was looking at them all with an expression of enormous distaste, but
she held her peace.

“Let’s go,” Josep said, and he strode off again into the night. The others
followed, grouped in a loose bunch with Pehr bringing up the rear.

By the time they reached the ocean, the rain had intensified to a downpour,
falling hard enough that is was difficult to hear Josep’s instructions. They
moved as quickly as they could. Somewhere behind them there were still many
Lagos.

They came eventually to Nethalanhal. The stark grey cliffs, never scaled by
man, towered over them, rising straight up into the darkness. Turning, they
began to move along its edge toward the lagoon.

“The cave is not easy to get to,” Josep told them. “I don’t know if others
have ever found it, but if they did, it must have been long ago. Nani, Mother
Anna, you will have to dive, swim, and hold your breath. Can you do these
things?”

“We can,” Nani said. She was leaning against the cliff wall, looking off to
her left, to the point where the ground sloped, becoming sandy beach, and out
past that, at the far edge of the lagoon. The rain continued to fall, and Pehr
was glad at least that it was the warm season, and that the storm hadn't come
down on them from the cold seas to the north.

“Good,” Josep said. “We will make our way down to the shore, and then climb
out on the nearest rock, staying on the side of the cliff wall. From
there—”

He never finished his instructions. Through the rain there came a rushing
noise, and then a long, curved blade attached to a handle of wood whirled out
of the darkness and embedded itself deep in the meat of his left thigh. Josep
cried out in agony and Nani let loose a piercing shriek. Pehr turned in time to
see one of the Lagos loping in toward the hunter, and then the creature swept
its hands downward, talons fully extended. Josep’s left shoulder was rendered
in an instant to tatters of flesh and skin.

The hunter went to his knees, and Pehr lunged forward to intercept the
Lagos, but thick, powerful arms wrapped themselves around him and hurled him to
the ground. He landed on his side, the wind knocked out of him, and for a
moment he could only lie there, staring out at the scene. A taloned hand
grabbed his club and knife from him and tossed them away.

Josep had pitched forward and was lying on the ground, face down, and Pehr
knew that the hunter was in dire peril. The blood loss alone would kill him if
his wounds were not soon dressed. Nani and Anna had knelt, one on either side
of Josep, and Pehr saw Nani take Josep’s knife from the strap on his leg and
hold it out in defiance. A third Lagos warrior had grabbed Jace and stripped
the boy of his weapons, its massive claw wrapped around his neck.

All this
, Pehr thought,
and we’ve done it for nothing
.

The first Lagos warrior was advancing on Josep’s prone form, holding a knife
of its own and staring at Nani’s face. Pehr shoved up with his hands,
trying to gain his footing, only to feel something heavy and sharply tipped
slam into his back and drive him back to the ground; one of the creatures had
stomped its heavy foot down on top of him.

Before the advancing Lagos could reach Josep or Nani, there came from the
darkness to Pehr’s left a snarling word that Pehr did not understand. The Lagos
warrior glanced back over its shoulder and then, with a nod, turned and ambled
away from Josep’s body. He went to the edge of sight and conferred there in low
tones with whoever had spoken. The two warriors that were holding Pehr and Jace
down also moved away, and both boys moved immediately to join the others. After
a moment, the Lagos warrior involved in the discussion shrugged, and the one
that had given the command came forth.

It was like the other Lagos warriors, only not so large or strong, and was
dressed in many bird feathers and monkey skins. Around its large, yellow-green
eyes were painted great white circles, and its teeth had all been dyed red. It
seemed to be grinning at them, but it neither advanced nor made any threatening
gestures.

The creature growled some words at them – to Pehr they were nothing but
gibberish – followed by some clucking noises and a hand gesture. Pehr and his
family waited in silence, unsure how to respond. The decorated Lagos sneered at
them and slowly stretched out its hand. It pointed in sequence to Nani, Josep,
Anna, and Pehr. After this, it made a dismissive flinging gesture with its
hand, snarling again and looking disinterested. The message was clear: it had
no use for them.

The priest – surely, that must be what this creature was – then leveled its
finger at Jace, grinned, and nodded.

“You cannot have him!” Nani screamed at the thing, and Pehr opened his mouth
to agree with her, but Jace only sighed, making a gesture with his hand to
quiet them.

“Of
course
he can have me,” Jace said. “Wasn’t that the bargain all
along? My life, and Pehr’s, and Josep’s, in exchange for yours and
Mother’s.”

“Jace, no!” Pehr shouted, grabbing his cousin by the wrist. Jace shook him
off.

“Would you not do the same, if they wanted you?” he asked.

“But they don’t want Pehr,” Nani said. “They don’t want Josep, or Mother, or
me. Why you?”

“Does it matter, Nani? If I go now, I can save more lives.”

The Lagos priest snarled at them again and spoke more of its strange
language, its tone making the intention of its words obvious: stop wasting
time.

“It must be a trick!” Nani cried. “Jace, don’t leave us. Don’t let them take
you away.”

“They cannot be trusted” Pehr said. “Jace, don’t do this.”

Jace knelt down next to them and gestured to Josep’s prone form. The wounded
hunter was still breathing, but those breaths were ragged and shallow. Anna was
hurriedly binding his wounds with wet strips of cloth that she had torn from
her own garments.

“Do you want him to live?” he asked his sister.

Nani might have been weeping now – it was hard to tell, with the rain. She
looked back and forth between Jace and her husband-to-be. “Don’t make me
choose!”

“It’s not a choice. They will take me either way, Nani, but if they had
taken me by force they would’ve had to hurt me. They want me unspoiled. I don’t
know why, but I won’t question it. This is a gift from the Gods, and we’re
going to take it.”

Nani had no more words for this, and so she only covered her face. Jace
stood, turned, and looked at Pehr.

“Will you see her to safety, cousin?” he asked.

Pehr clenched his teeth, forced back the rage and hatred that threatened to
overwhelm him, and nodded. “I told you I would.”

“Forget the cave. Find the closest building that still stands. The killing
is done.”

One of the Lagos warriors had collected Pehr’s weapons from the ground and
was now holding them. Jace pointed at it, and then at Pehr. The priest shook
its head and Jace lunged forward, stabbing his finger out again and shouting,
“Give him his weapons or kill me here!”

The priest stared at him for a moment, surprised, then grunted out a
wheezing laugh. It growled something in his beast-language to the warrior,
which also laughed, but then threw Pehr’s club in the general direction of the
group. When Pehr bent to pick it up, the Lagos flicked Pehr’s knife expertly
down into the ground, just in front of Pehr’s hand. Still laughing, the warrior
turned and wandered off.

“Good,” Jace said.

Lightning flashed and thunder roared. The priest seemed unmoved by this
display of nature. It jerked its head toward the jungle, and Jace nodded.

“I’m going,” he said, and when his voice broke on the second word, Pehr was
reminded that this was no hunter. This was a fourteen-year-old boy, someone not
yet a man, no matter how well he sometimes impersonated one. Jace was facing
his very nightmares, and had just now agreed to go with them quietly,
willingly, to some unknown end.

Pehr said his cousin’s name, and the boy turned to look at him, managing a
half smile. He took a deep breath, then turned back and walked toward the
priest. The creature nodded, pointing out into the darkness, and Jace began to
trudge in that direction. Nani wailed his name, and Pehr saw the sound of her
cry hit the boy almost as a physical weight, making his shoulders drop, but he
did not turn around, merely continued to walk. His words came back to them.

“I love you, Sister. I’m glad you are safe.”

“Oh, Jace,” Nani wept, her voice broken and defeated. “Oh, Jace, it’s not
fair.”

It wasn’t, but there was nothing else they could do, and so they watched as
he walked away, the Lagos priest not far behind him, until at last the rain and
the dark swallowed both of them up.

* * *

On the outskirts of the village they found a home that had only been
half-burnt before the rains had come and extinguished the fire, leaving much of
its roof intact, and it was there that they took shelter.

Josep was awake, but confused and near incoherent. Twice he tried to insist
to Pehr that they should make for the ocean, that he could still swim and show
Nani the way to the cave. Pehr tried to explain to him that it was over, that
the fighting was done, but Josep seemed unable to understand. Eventually he
fell into a deep sleep. Pehr was skeptical that the hunter would ever wake, but
when Nani asked him if he thought Josep would live, he told her he was sure of
it.

Four hours passed. They had tended to Josep’s wounds as best they could,
searching the hut for dry clothing and tearing it into strips to make better
bandages. They fashioned a fire from a small supply of wood, augmenting it by
shattering the doors and tearing down part of the roof. It seemed that Josep
slept peacefully, but still Pehr sat with him for some time, thinking.

Pehr had survived this night, survived the worst that the Gods could throw
at him. Was there any question now that he would pass the Test? Was there any
doubt he would be made a man? Why, then, did the prospect feel so empty? Why
did he keep returning to Nani’s words?
Will you promise to help him? Will
you promise to always be there for him
?

At last he left the sleeping hunter and came into the main room of the
dwelling. Anna was in the other room, sitting on the dirt floor, her back
against the wall and her head buried in her arms. Nani was standing at the
front door, staring out into the rain toward the jungle. Pehr came up beside
her and touched her shoulder.

“Josep’s bandages will need to be changed often,” he said, and Nani
nodded.

“As soon as dawn comes, I will make for the village,” she said. “I
will get supplies. Bandages and salves, broth, tea, and … and, oh … oh!”

She turned and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his neck
and weeping. Pehr put his own arms around her and held her, waiting for her
sobbing to lessen. At last he took her at arm’s length, and after several
moments more, she looked up at him.

“Come outside with me,” he said, and Nani glanced out through the door,
confused.

“Out into the rain?”

“Just for a moment.”

“But I … oh, very well.”

When they were outdoors and around the side of the hut, away from where Anna
or Josep might hear them, Pehr stopped and turned to face her again. Nani
looked back, confused and miserable.

“I’m going,” Pehr told her, and Nani’s eyes widened in fear.

“Where? Pehr, why are you leaving us?!”

“I must go after Jace.”

Nani shook her head. “Oh, Pehr, no … please, no. They’ll kill you! They’ll
kill the both of you and I … if Josep … I’ll have no one!”

“Nani, I have to do this.”

“Why?”

Pehr smiled at her. “Because you made me swear to keep him safe.”

“But you’ll never come
back
!” Nani wailed, lunging forward as if to
hit him. Pehr waited for the blow to come, but she seemed to think better of it
and instead wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.