[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Both were the same type as the Perkunishans'. There was one difference. He wore two broad red stripes
on his chest.
Then the survivors were through a break in the wall. They fired pointblank at him, but if he was
struck he gave no indica-tion. He reversed his rifle, swung the stock like a club, and felled the closest
man. He disappeared momentarily from Two Hawks' view, then came up with the body of the man he
had struck down held above his head. He hurled the body at the other two and knocked them both
down. What he might have done after that, however, was matter for speculation. He seemed to have the
upper hand all of a sudden, but one of the men who had been shot down came to life. He rose and fired
at the man with the red stripes. The helmet flew off his head, and he dropped.
A minute later, the three survivors had dragged their enemy out onto the ground. The wounded
Perkunishan did not help them but busied himself shedding his coat and tearing off his shirtsleeve. He then
bandaged his upper right arm. The other two hauled the body of the enemy to a place beneath a maple
tree. From somewhere they had gotten a rope, a section of which they used to tie his hands. They
removed the man's boots and bound his feet together.
One end of the rope was tied to the man's wrists and the other thrown over a branch. Two men
hauled on the rope, and the captive was borne upright until his bare feet were about eight inches from the
ground. His position must have been painful, since all the strain of weight was on his arms, tied behind
him, and forced back and up. Despite this, the face of the hanging man was expressionless. He spun
slowly at the end of the rope and did not even open his mouth to protest when the soldiers piled wood
for a fire below his feet.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Two Hawks decided to interfere. He admired the big man's magnificent fight, although this alone
would not have been enough to make him attack the soldiers. He was curious about the reasons for the
fighting between two groups of Perkun-ishans.
He told the others in his party what he wanted to do. They agreed to follow him, especially after
he said he thought the captive might give them valuable information. They spread out, taking some time to
go around the hill and crawl along a de-pression. Entering the woods from the depression, they
cauti-ously approached the Perkunishans. Ten minutes elapsed beforethey were crouching behind trees,
close enough to hear the conversation. Since this was in Perkunishan, Two Hawks did not understand
much of it, but it was obvious they were curs-ing and taunting the hanging man.
By then, the fire was blazing high enough to lick at his bare feet. He had to be suffering intense
agony, yet he said nothing. Two Hawks did not wait any longer for a more advantageous time. He did
not want the captive to be crippled. He drew a bead on the stomach of the soldier nearest him; the others
also sighted in. Two Hawks lifted one hand, held it, then chopped down. An almost simultaneous crash
of gunfire smashed the three Perkunishans backwards. None of them moved again.
Two Hawks rushed out, kicked the burning sticks to one side, and then cut the rope where it
was tied to the tree-trunk. Two Blodlandish lowered the hanging man.
Two Hawks removed his knife from his scabbard, but he did not offer to cut the giant's bonds.
He looked too dangerous. He was at least six feet seven high and three across the shoul-ders. His arms,
chest, and legs were gorilloid in bulk. His face was broad and high-cheekboned; his nose, aquiline; his
hair, straight and black. However, his skin was not especially dark, and his brown eyes had large green
flecks.
One of the Blodlandish, Aelfred Herot, questioned the man in Perkunishan. There was some
rapid conversation, and Herot said, "He's a Kinukkinuk."
Two Hawks nodded. Kinukkinuk was the Algonquian nation which occupied the area of
Czechoslovakia of Earth 1. For over a hundred years, it had been part of Perkunisha.
"He says his name is Kwasind, that is, the Strong One. He was in a Kinukkinuk regiment under
the command of Per-kunishan officers. He and other Kinukkinuk decided to desert and join the
Hotinohsonih. But they were tracked down and cornered in the farmhouse. You saw the rest. I've
explained who we are. He says he would like to throw in with us. He also speaks Hotinohsonih, since his
mother was a slave from that country. He says she was freed by his father before he married her, so
Kwasind is not the son of a slave. The Kinukkinuk are very proud, even if they are treated as sub-human
by the Per-kunishans."
Without a word, Two Hawks cut the ropes from Kwasind. The giant rubbed his wrists while he
walked around to restore his circulation. The skin of his feet was very red but not burned.
He sat down on a corpse to put his boots back on. Two Hawks handed him a rifle and a belt of
ammunition and a knife.
In Hotinohsonih, Kwasind said, "Thank you."
"You can walk all right?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"I can walk. But if you had been ten seconds later. . ."
Two Hawks sent Herot back to bring up Ilmika and her guard. The casualties were checked.
Three Perkunishans were still living, seriously wounded. Kwasind and the Blodlandish put them out of
their pain with knives in the solar plexus. Kwasind took a sword from a dead officer and hacked off the
heads of the Perkunishans. He arranged them in a little pyramid and then stood back a distance to admire
the arrangement.
O'Brien vomited. Two Hawks felt sick.
Herot explained. "By severing the heads of his enemies, he's keeping their souls from going to
Michilimakinak, the Kinuk-kinuk heaven."
"Very interesting," Two Hawks said. "I hope he doesn't have any more customs which will delay
us."
Ilmika and Elhson joined them. Ilmika turned pale on seeing the heads, but she did not say
anything.
Kwasind chanted over the bodies of his fellow countrymen, then opened their jackets and shirts.
The left breast of each was tattooed with a swastika in a circle. These Kwasind re-moved by cutting a
circle around them and stripping off the skin. He restored the fire that Two Hawks had kicked apart and
threw the tattooed skins into the flames.
Herot said, "The tattooed symbols contain the 'souls'. If they're burned, the souls are free to fly
up to Michilimakinak. But if they're taken by enemies, they could be dried or pre-served in alcohol. The
souls would then never get to Michili-makinak."
Two Hawks waited until Kwasind was finished. If the delay had been caused by anything but a
religious custom, he would have insisted on leaving at once. In this case, it was important not to offend.
To strike at a man's religion was to strike at his basic identity.
10
The party walked northwards across the country all that day and the next. The dawn of the third,
they were startled out of their sleep by the roar of many motors. Two Hawks crawled to the edge of the
hollow in which they were hidden and looked down the slope of the hill at the road a quartermile below.
It was crowded with a column of armored cars and trucks pulling cannon on caissons. All the vehicles
were painted scarlet with blue bars. The doors bore the image of a black bear, rampant.
"Itskapintik," Ilmika said behind him. "They must finally be invading Hotinohsonih. We've known
for some time that Perkunisha was trying to persuade the Itskapintik to join them. They've promised half
of Hotinohsonih to them."
Two Hawks watched the stream of men, weapons, supplies, and vehicles roar by. The features
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]