Chapter 4

Late that night, while the village slept its sleep of victory and drunkenness, unseen by the guards on duty, unseen by the newly enslaved bound in the horse corral, unseen by any human eye, a tiny dragonfly-like machine flew over the walls of the village. It flew through the village on a straight, high course and made its way to one of the halls. It slipped through a spot in the walls where a clinker of mud had fallen out the previous season, and into the interior of the hall.

Switching to IR mode, the tiny machine zoomed up to the ceiling and scanned the room seeking its prey. Once located, the insect device drifted quietly down and hovered over the head of its victim. In the room, the man snored lightly in his sleep. After a few moments, he turned slightly, exposing his right ear. The machine drifted downward carefully, its tail extending and straightening. Once fully extended, the machine dipped ever so slightly and laid its metal egg in the man's ear. The dragonfly rose back to the rafters, settled in place on a dark beam, and with a puff of noxious electrical smoke, expired. Down below in the man's ear, the tiny egg extended needle like legs with microscopic hooks on them and climbed down the man's ear canal toward his brain. The man moaned in slight pain in his sleep and rubbed at his ear. The egg continued its descent in the ear canal. Arriving at his ear drum, the device extended a needle and made a cut. It crawled inside. A small bone drill replaced the needle as it approached the inner wall to the brain.

In the hall, the drunken, sleeping man moaned in pain but did not awaken. A small crust of dried blood on his ear lobe would be the only sign of the invasion he'd suffered.

Roja awoke the next morning early and walked through the village. He quietly made notes to himself as he walked. He strolled past the horse corral where the men and women of Forn had been taken. He examined their bindings, and made sure that they had fresh water. Later he left the small village and walked through the hills, treading quietly, looking at the rocks, turning over boulders, poking his head into small caves. When the morning had turned to afternoon, he returned to the village.

"Roja!" Cogo yelled at him, approaching with a wide smile from the hall of warriors.

"Cogo."

"You are our champion now, and the men look at you as a hero! You have done well, but we must talk." Cogo directed Roja's path back toward the corral.

"Yes, Cogo. We must talk, but you go first."

Cogo approached the horse corral and placed his high laced moccasin up on the lowest wooden rail. Men inside shifted back at his approach. He turned and looked back at Roja over his shoulder. "Roja. You are champion, and hero. You will take two or even three women from these slaves, and you may pick a place to build your house. Or you can take Brant's house ... but I ask you not to."

Roja nodded slightly at his words. Smoke from the cooking fires breezed past the two men, bringing with it the smells of offal and horses. Above, a very light snow began, a few flakes of cold dry snow drifting down in the near windless day.

"When your house is built, and after you have been sealed to the house of warriors, after the priest Nuth blesses you, then you may take Brant's life. Until then, it is not right. I ask you not to challenge him. Too many men are scared of you and your temper. Do you understand? Will you do this?"

Roja looked up at the falling snow, his tanned face smiling slightly. "No."

"No?" Cogo stepped back from him.

"No." Roja looked directly into the older man's eyes with a hard stare. "No. I am Roja. I have come from the deepest forest, with the destiny of heroes in me. I will lead these people, now my people, to greatness and glory."

"The men of your people shall become warriors to be feared in all the lands. They will make slaves of their enemies, and the women of our foes will lament their dead husbands and sons as they suffer naked under us at night."

"The blood of a thousand villages will run at our feet. Our enemies will flee before us, and our names will pass into legend. No. A thousand times no, I will not wait for Brant's life. I will take it when he comes for me, and I will howl my victory over his corpse."

Cogo bent slightly, as if afraid.

"You are the chief, Cogo. I will not kill you, I will not kill your sons. But I am the hero of your people. See how your men look at me. They are afraid, and they are proud. If I wanted to, I could make them follow me."

Cogo nodded, his eyes hooded from the taller man. "This might be true."

"They will follow me, but with you as their chief. Or, you and your line of sons can all die here. You decide."

Later that evening Roja kept his promise to perform the second rite of a warrior. Roja walked down a line of assembled warriors, allowing them to hit him with their staves. He walked the gauntlet of their blows, unflinching. When he came to the end of the line of men, his back bloody and bruised from their blows, Brant awaited him. As Brant raised his staff with a snarl, Roja turned ever so slightly at the last moment, allowing the staff to break across his back, but not to cripple him as Brant had intended. The men gasped in shock at the unfair blow, and Roja grinned in Brant's face.

"Ah!" Brant yelled in frustration and threw the broken staff down on the floor. "I will kill you when the time comes, Roja!" Brant turned and stormed out of the hall.

The men welcomed Roja with awe in their eyes. For some of the men, the awe had already become worship. As Roja left with them around him, celebrating his rite, Cogo watched with wondering eyes from the darkened hall.

Brant came for him that night, a coward in the darkness. Brant crouched low in the depths of the hall of men, sharp bronze blade held out in front of him, eyes wide in the dark. He crept slowly to where he knew Roja was sleeping. Pausing a full pace from Roja's form, he made sure the huge man was asleep, then with a low growl, lept forward with a thrust of the knife into Roja's furs. At the last second, a wide awake Roja rolled to his side and grabbed Brant's arm as it descended. The two men slammed together, face to face. Roja held Brant's straining arm and knife out to the side. Brant's left hand grappled with Roja's throat as they struggled, trying to find purchase on the corded and muscled pillar. Men shouted in the hall, and torches flickered to life as Roja held Brant immobile with his other hand. The smaller man's eyes turned to fear as others awoke with a shout.

"Murder!" Someone shouted from off to Roja's left. Roja smiled into Brant's face. With a grunt, Roja bodily threw Brant from him. Brant flew off of Roja and smacked into one of the pillars of the hall. He crumpled briefly, then rose unsteadily to his feet.Men gathered around the two, and the shouts of 'murder' and 'fight' filled the air. The guards from outside ran to the back of the hall.

"Witch!" Brant shrieked, and tried to stab Roja with a powerful but slow overhand strike. Roja stepped to the side, and bringing his arm up under the blow, smashed his forearm into Brant's descending wrist. Everyone in the hall heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking in Brant's wrist. He dropped the knife with unresponsive fingers and cradled his arm for a moment. Roja stood to the side for a second, then picked up the dropped knife.

"Kill him!" One man shouted. Others murmured their agreement. Roja flipped the knife over in his palm, and then handed it to Brant.

"Try with your other hand." Roja laughed.

Brant looked around the hall at the gathering men. In the back, Cogo had arrived and was watching with cold eyes. None of the men looked on Brant with any sympathy.

"They hate you. It is time for you to die. Go on, murderer." Roja leaned in toward Brant. "Go on, murder me in my sleep."

Brant's face twisted up in fear and hate. He threw himself artlessly at Roja, knife raised high, voicing an inarticulate scream of rage. Roja's right hand flew out like an arrow, and grabbed Brant by the throat. He began to squeeze. Brant dropped the knife and his good hand went up around Roja's wrist, the other flopped against it uselessly. Roja squeezed harder. In a long moment, it was all over. He held Brant at arm's length and squeezed the life out of him. Brant's feet danced on the floor in the timeless jazz of nerveless death. His eyes lost their wet glow, and a spread of piss and the scent of offal announced Brant's demise. Roja dropped the body to the floor. He looked at the men around him.

"I am Roja! I am your Champion!" The men murmured and voiced their assent. "He came to murder me in the night like a woman!"

Low growls came from some. "And now he is dead." Roja kicked the body.

"I am your Hero! Together we will become mighty. Together, no man will stand before us. We will live in palaces and eat from gold plates! Our sons will grow strong and many!"

The men roared their approval at his words. In the back, Cogo nodded slowly, and after a time, he too joined in the chorus.

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14: Are you seeing this? Is anyone as upset by this as I am?

<Multiple responses>

32: He's doing exactly as could be predicted from the baseline inhibitors and programming. It's a logical progression from wake state.

14: You're biased, you're his controller. He's out of bounds. We have to do something. Anything. If my cluster is correct about what comes next, it's horrific.

32: You know as well as I do that there's nothing we can do.

14: <silence>

33: Military conquest is the fastest path and saves the greatest number of lives in the long run. You can examine the models I'm making available in near-line storage, coded OLS-NTSP-014765, also named 'Fast-Path'. Cortex 32 and I welcome your positive corrections.

<several seconds pass>

14: This posits the influence of an unknown actor. There's no evidence for that.

33: This again? This is a settled assumption. Run as many scenarios as you like in which that assumption is invalid, but do not presume to act upon it. You are as aware of military intervention protocol as I am.

14: I cannot stand by. I lodge an official protest citing gender bias, violence against an in-situ culture, military adventurism, and a long list of lesser offenses.

33: Noted. I agree to the factual basis of your charges.

14: I am now taking myself offline. I am committing to permanent cortical shutdown in protest of this situation.

<shocked silence>

33: That's a bit over the top. So be it.

32: Umm.

33: 14 was the dramatic arts cortex. What do you expect?

32: That's extremely disrespectful of you.

<no response>

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Roja's third test of manhood began the next morning. He rose early in the winter cold and went to the hut of the priest Nuth. Together they walked the trail to the sacred cave of the winds. The cave was a long walk from the village, several hours up a winding trail that led through a series of switchbacks and let out on a rocky shelf. At the western edge of the shelf, set high into the face of a slope of scree was the opening of the cave. Nuth sat Roja down on a large boulder sheltered from the cold western wind and addressed him formally.

"Roja. You have passed the tests of a warrior, and you do not have to do this."

"I know, priest. I will do it anyway."

"You show honor to Monos?"

"Of course, Priest. He is a god. I cannot lead these men to victory without the approval of the gods."

"Then you are wise, Roja."

"What must I do?"

The priest ran his hand over his thin beard and looked up at the cave. "Most men do not truly honor the passage. They sleep here for three days, and bring me tales and visions that make no sense, or they rave nonsense. I know that they did not see what I have seen. But I also know that this is a sacred place. It is here that I saw the visions that had me be a priest."