The Gods of War Read online

  Hugi came to Tyr, where he stood watching the einherjar battle. The raven spoke with the cawing voice of his kind: "Heimdall has heard a commotion at the far end of the world."

  Tyr's blood ran cold, as it always did when news came of Heimdall's hearings. He knew that the voice might be that of a raven, but the words were those of Odin. "Is it the Time?"

  "Nay," said Odin's messenger, "for these are not giants, nor do they approach. Come to my master."

  Relieved, Tyr came.

  "Nay, 'tis not the Ragnorak come upon us," Odin confirmed, when Tyr stood before him by the ash tree.

  "Who are they, then?" the one-handed god asked.

  "They are the yellow people of the Jade Emperor and Kung Fu-Tze."

  Now, Confucius was not called a god, and Tyr knew it well—but he knew also that the sheer power of belief of billions of souls had elevated the sage's ghost till he had become just as much a god as Odin himself . . .

  . . . and no more.

  "What quarrel brews among them?" Tyr demanded.

  "They contend with one another in civil war."

  Tyr relaxed. "What business is it of ours?"

  "They have made themselves a new god—or rather, wrapped an old one in Christian clothes. They have set him against the gods of the Manchus, and strive to conquer China away from those northern invaders. They seek to drag the Emperor off his throne and expel all Manchus from the Middle Kingdom."

  Tyr shook his head. "There is still nothing in here to concern the gods of Northern Europe."

  "But there is—for the descendents of our people seek to trade with these Chinese, and will be sorely oppressed if the school teacher's god triumphs Moreover, if his followers conquer China, the sleeping dragon shall waken, and may threaten even the island fortress of the Angles, the Saxons, and the Danes."

  "And the Normans, though they had forgotten us by the time they conquered!" Tyr s face had set into grim lines, "Can these silly slant-eyes truly threaten the West?"

  "There are very many of them," Odin pointed out, "and they are valiant warriors, if they are given decent leadership. The school teacher has chosen good generals, and his followers have begun to triumph over the forces of the Emperor. Already he holds a third of China in his sway, and has declared that he is the rightful Emperor, that the Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn from the Manchus and has come to him. He calls his reign the Tai-Ping Tien Kwoh—The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace."

  "Is that why he sheds so much blood?" Tyr scowled, gazing off toward the East. "I had thought the Englishman to be right when he said that China was a sleeping dragon."

  "Then the schoolteacher Hung Hsiu-Chuan may waken that dragon—and if he does, let the West beware."

  Tyr locked gazes with Odin again. "There are many dragon-slayers among our brood."

  "Go find one, then," Odin commanded. "Find me a hero who can bind the will of England against these upstarts who would make a god of bits and pieces. There are many in Britain who think these Taipings are good, for they seem to be Christians. Make me a hero who shall see the school teacher for the blasphemer he is, and unite the English to see it, too."

  Tyr shook his head. "Heroes are made as much as they are born. I shall seek a man who is the raw stuff, and made a hero of him."

  And the god of the single hand was soon to be seen, here and there, walking through England again. Those who saw him turned away their eyes, and tried to pretend they had not seen—and certainly spoke of him to no one, for they knew that when Tyr was seen about the land, war would come for England.

  But one man did not turn away.

  Charles George Gordon was off duty, walking the seashore near Pembroke Dock, gazing at the roaring surf that mirrored the tumult in his own soul, but gazing beyond it at the deep rolling swell that showed him the tranquility to which he aspired. He had been wandering for perhaps an hour when he met the one-handed man.

  Gordon had only been graduated from the Royal Military Academy for a year and a half; he was twenty, and waiting for orders to his first assignment, eager for the excitement of the fray. He knew, in a way that was neither remote nor academic, that he might be killed, might even be maimed, might undergo horrible pain—but the thought did not deter him. He was sure that he could endure any pain God saw fit to allot to him—had he not already undergone self-imposed hardships, fasting and long marches? If God saw fit to call him home to heaven before his allotted threescore years and ten—why, he was ready.

  But he was not ready for the encounter with the old mendicant, whose gaze fixed him with an intensity that stabbed through to his very soul.

  He saw the old man sitting on his heels by a small fire, and pity moved his heart, though he was careful not to let it show in his face. Surely the man was in desperate need—all he wore were the skins of animals, and a pair of sandals. Gordon came up to the fire, reaching in his pocket for a shilling, reflecting that he must not seem patronizing—he knew what pride was; who should know better? "Good day to you, my man."

  "Good day to you." The old beggar looked up, raising an arm in greeting—and Gordon thrilled with shock to see that his wrist ended in a metal cup; the hand was gone. He forced himself to look away, to look at the old man's eyes—a mistake, for that glittering gaze held Gordon transfixed; for a moment, he could not have moved if he had found himself staring down the muzzle of a musket.

  Then the old man looked down at the partridge that was roasting over his little fire, and Gordon could move again. A delusion, no doubt—but he thought twice about offering the alms he had intended. He stared at the man, at a loss for words—and the more so because he realized that the furs the old man wore, were clean, almost new, as clean as the man himself. He wore nothing but a jerkin and a kilt, only skins with the fur left on. His long grizzled hair was held back by a headband that shone like burnished gold—or, no, surely it was brass, but darker than brass.

  He did not look like a man in need.

  Oh yes, he was lean, and the bones were prominent in his cheeks—but except for the long moustaches that hung down below his chin, his face was cleanly shaved, and his arms and legs were thick with muscle. He did not look to be a man in need—rather a man in his element, whose life gave him all he needed.

  But that could not be! He had no house, or he would not have been cooking by an open fire; he had no proper clothes. There were no wild men left in England, in Victoria 's reign; what could he be?

  "You are wondering where my hand is."

  Gordon could only nod; had he been so obvious?

  "I left it in the mouth of a wolf. Seat yourself." It was a command as much as an invitation. "Partake of my meal."

  Gordon was revolted, but also strangely attracted. He found himself sitting slowly, and murmuring, "Thank you."

  "It is as you will." The accent was not West Country—nor any other dialect that Gordon recognized. Perhaps a touch of the Prince Consort, perhaps an echo of the German . . .

  "Where are you bound?"

  There was a time when Gordon would have said, "I don't know;" but on his first posting, he had met Captain Drew, the closest thing to a friend he had had in that grim and dingy place—and Drew had taught him a strange thing: Christianity without a church. It had come as a revelation to Gordon, with his New England Puritan mother and three generations of Army Gordons gone before him. Discipline he knew, and always rebelled against it, though he had already begun to insist on it from his subordinates—if there were such a thing as a subordinate to a subaltern. Church he knew, and resented its boredom intensely. But Drew prayed quietly, by himself, and made no great show of his faith; it had been only a chance comment at first, a reference here and there, but long explanations when Gordon asked for them. For Gordon, religion had ceased to be an inconvenience, had become an obsession.

  So now, when the old man asked him where he was bound, he replied, "Where God wills." The words came automatically, as easily as one might say "To Aberdeen" or "To London."

  The unca
nny gaze fixed him again, and the odd guttural voice said, "Are you not bound for glory, young soldier? Do you not yearn for it?"

  "No," Gordon said.

  The old man nodded as though it were no surprise. "There is one thing you do yearn for, though."

  "Yes." Gordon met his gaze. "Heaven."

  The old man nodded. "Do you not mean—death?"

  "Of course," Gordon said impatiently. "Death is the gateway to Heaven."

  The old man's smile was almost lost in his moustaches. "You shall have it—some day. For you must earn it, must seek it as Galahad sought the Grail. But you may begin your quest in the Crimea. Request your posting."

  "I have," Gordon said, feeling irritation begin. "The Army ignores me."

  "Then ask Sir John Burgoyne."

  Gordon could only stare, again feeling the thrill, the chill, of that single-minded gaze. How could the old man have known that the War Office's Inspector-General of Fortifications was an old friend of the Gordon family? "What are you, then?"

  "Your genius, perhaps." The old man rose—perhaps not so old after all, perhaps only in his fifties . . . "Perhaps a messenger, come to tell you that you shall find what you seek in the East."

  But he was going away! "Wait!" Gordon cried. "Your bird!"

  "Take it," the one-handed man told him. "It is not the last of my suppers you shall eat."

  Gordon stared after him, feeling the chill rise up his spine like mercury in a thermometer. Then he shook it off, and looked down at the grouse. When he looked up again, the old man was gone. Disappeared.

  Gordon stared at the place where he had been for several minutes, then looked slowly down at the grouse. Carefully, he took it from the fire, tore loose a leg, and began to eat.

  The Bear roared, its little eyes blazing, huge claws reaching out to rake at Tyr—but the one-handed god batted the huge paw aside with contempt. "I am fated to fight the Fenris Wolf, beast! How pathetic are you compared to that great Foe!"

  "You are all of you only very little men!" the Bear growled. "You could not stand against me, if there were not so many of you!"

  "Then call your own army," Thor rumbled, hefting his hammer. "These men are the grandsons of grandsons' grandsons of those who worshipped me, and I shall strengthen their arms!"

  "I shall craft them wondrous weapons," Wayland the Smith added.

  "Only the three?" The Bear roared in mockery. "Where is the fourth? Where is the trickster, where is Loki?"

  "Loki has his own business," Thor said grimly. He was angry at the Flame-god, but was quite willing to turn that anger on the Bear. "We shall not need him."

  But they did.

  The guns thundered, the horse under him screamed and stumbled. Gordon shouted and leaped clear, proud that even in such extremity he had not cursed nor sworn. But he did call upon his God. "Lord help me now!" he cried, as he sheathed his saber and drew his revolver. He walked straight toward the belching Russian cannon, staring at the Slavic faces behind its breech. Terror surged within him, fought to tear loose and overwhelm him, but he fought it down sternly and went step by step toward the cannon, thinking, If it be thy will, O Lord, then I shall die; if it be thy will! For he knew the Russians were almost as bad as the Papists, with their drinking and treacheries, ignoring the clear, shining doctrines of true Christianity.

  Bullets whistled about him, shells burst to right and left—but not a scrap of lead touched him, not a shard of shrapnel. He came through the smoke unto the breech of the gun, and the gunners looked up, staring in horror out of their broad Slavic faces, as though they were seeing a ghost.

  Gordon raised his pistol, and fired.

  "He is blooded," Tyr told Odin. "The war is done; for fifteen months he has toiled at mapping the borders laid down by the treaty."

  Odin frowned. "How will that aid in making a hero of him?"

  "Because," said Tyr, "it has given him a love for wild, open lands, simple living, and rough people with ways that are new and exciting to him. Never again he will never be content to remain in England for very long."

  Odin nodded thoughtfully. "It is well done. But how shall you confront the Chinese gods? What force of immortals can you assemble, to support your champion?"

  "I will begin with the oldest," said Tyr, "with the war-god whose people are so long gone that we have forgotten their name. Then I will come to the Celts."

  Lugh looked up from the spear he was sharpening and saw the One-Handed stalking toward him out of the mist between their realms. He leaped to his feet, brandishing his spear and shouting, "Can I never be done with you? Begone, invader! Away, or I will slay you again!'

  "Then I would slay you," Tyr returned, irritated by the Celt's bravura, "and we would both be alive again in a second, to continue it all again. Have you not learned, oh Chalk-Hair, that we can only die if humans cease to believe in us?"

  "Then how is it you still live?" Lugh taunted. "The White Christ chased you all out of Britain years ago!"

  "No more than yourself," Tyr returned. "Have the Britions ceased to light fires on Samhain? Have they ceased to dance about the Maypole? Come, you know these things of old, and know that the Island People today are as much your children as mine!"

  "They are that," Lugh growled, "more's the pity."

  Tyr heaved a sigh. "You were ever poor losers, you braggart Celts. Is it of no matter to you that our island people are at war again?"

  "When are they not at war?" Lugh returned. "When they extended their sway around the world, they took up the challenge of constant warfare, somewhere in the world."

  "But now they contend against the Dragon," Tyr said, "or will, soon—and millions of souls shall fuel the power of the god they worship. Come, it will take all of us to defend our folk this time—even the Ancient Ones, in whom the Britons have only shreds of belief. We must bind together now, as surely as we are bound in the blood and bone of these descendants of our worshippers."

  Lugh scowled. "We are so bound, aye. But who shall you find to bind them all to one mind for this war? They are a contentious lot, and are forever arguing as to what course of action to take. Why, they could not even agree to forge an empire—it fell to them almost by accident, and by the commerce of their merchants more than their lust for power!"

  "That is true," Tyr said, "but the army always followed to protect the merchants—and I have found us a soldier who can bind their determination together, whether he will or no."

  "What paragon is this?" Lugh demanded. "Cymri or Celt, Briton or Dane?"

  "Come and see for yourself." Tyr turned on his heel and stalked away.

  Lugh glowered after him, then hefted his spear and followed.

  The campaign was done, its echoes were dying inside his head. He walked by the waters of the Black Sea, already restless again. Orders had come to go to Bessarabia and survey the border with Russia, to be sure it conformed to the Paris treaty—but it was only dull routine, and there was no chance there for fighting, for death.

  So he walked by the sea, its tranquility soothing his soul; the gibbering terrors were laid to rest, and the sight of the sea and the tranquility of its endless beating were healing his soul.

  He saw the one-handed man.

  He stared at the figure sitting by the fire ring—but the coals were dark, there was no meat, and no flame. Then, slowly, Gordon came up to the ashes. But he did not sit; he had not been invited.

  The old man looked up. "Sit."

  Gordon sat.

  "You have won glory." The old man did not ask; he knew.

  Gordon shrugged impatiently. "It means nothing." Nonetheless, he touched the medal on his breast. "I have not found death."

  "Not for yourself, no. But it shall come, it shall come."

  Gordon's eyes glowed. "Soon?"

  The old man shrugged. "How quickly is 'soon'? In three years' time, you shall have another chance."

  Gordon was sorely disappointed. "Three years? For three years I must rot in peace?"

  "There will
be work," the old man assured him. "You will discover new delights; you will not decay." The old man looked down at the roast, then looked up again. "There is much glory to be won for your God, much fame to be gained for His name."

  Gordon felt the cold chill again, the thrill; his heart leaped. "Will there be war?"

  "For England, yes," the one-handed man said. "For you, there will be more hunting."

  The terror screamed to be let out, but Gordon kept it locked in. His eyes shone with gratification. "What quarry?"

  "The Dragon," the old man said.

  Then he rose and turned away. "Eat of my supper."

  "I shall." Gordon lowered his gaze to see that the meat was done; he took the spit from the fire. He did not bother to look up; he knew the one-handed man would be gone.

  "Bow down, and do not even seek to raise your hands against me!" the shining figure proclaimed. "Am I not the God your Englishmen worship? Am I not God the Father?"

  "You are not." Loki gestured, and the flames of glory died, showing only a venerable Chinese sage.

  "You are Shang-Ti, the ancient father-god of China, and have deluded that poor dreamer Hung Hsiu-Chuan into mistaking you for the Father of Christ, and your son of Jesu.'

  "I deluded him?" The sage's mouth tightened. "Say rather that he has trapped me in his delusion—he, and a hundred thousand of his followers!"

  Thor laughed, and the clouds shook with his mirth. "Oh, well done, Loki! Well have you seen through his imposture!"

  "To no purpose, barbarians!" Shang-Ti snapped. "Can your soldiers fight against one who believes he fights for the son of their God? What will the real Son say? What will the Father? What of the God your foreign devils claim to worship? What of Jehovah?"

  "Hush! Do not speak His Name!" Tyr glanced about uneasily. "He is above and beyond this conflict, Ancient One—above and beyond all things. For we are but fabrications of the minds and hearts of human beings, given life by their deepest, most secret yearnings—even as they are of His."

  "Their belief will give me strength to stand against you and all your land!"