Riverworld Short Stories

  Suddenly, the starlight was thinly veiled by light clouds. These became darker quickly. Davis could no longer see Ivar or, in fact, any human beings. And now the sound of distant thunder and the first zigzag of lightning appeared to the north.

  Soon, the raging rain and the electrical violence that often appeared around midnight would be upon the kingdoms of Ivar and Arpad. Like the wolf on the fold, Davis thought. And Ivar and his army would be like the ancient Assyrians sweeping down from the hills on the Hebrews as that poet—what was his name?—wrote.

  But who was Ivar going to assault?

  7

  The wind spat raindrops through the window into Davis’s face. Another layer of darkness slid in and cut off his view of the men. Thunder rolled closer like a threatening bully. A lightning streak, brief probing of God’s lantern beam (looking for an honest man?), noisily lit up the scene. He glimpsed Ivar’s group running over the top of the nearest hill to the River. He also saw other dark masses, like giant amoebae, flowing onto the plains from the hills. These were warriors hastening to join Ivar. The larger body of plains dwellers waiting for the king was, as it were, the mother amoeba.

  Another blazing and crashing streak, closer this time, revealed a great number of boats in slips that had been empty for a long time. These had to have come in recently from upstream. Just off the bank many vessels: rowboats, dugouts, catamarans, dragonships, and the wide-beamed merchant boats called dromonds. Their sails were furled, and all bristled with spears.

  Under cover of the night, Ivar’s warriors from every part of the kingdom had slipped down here. Of course, there would be other parties who would attack the opposite bank, Arpad’s domain, up-River. The attack had to be against the Magyar’s kingdom. Davis did nor know why he had wondered what the king was up to. However, Ivar was unpredictable, and it was chancy to bet on any of his next moves.

  The secrecy with which the operation had been carried out impressed Davis. He had had no inkling of it, yet he was often in the king’s company. This operation, though it involved thousands of men who had somehow not revealed the plans to their female hutmates, had been exceedingly efficient.

  But the lightning was going to display the invaders to Arpad’s sentinels. Unless, that is, some of Ivar’s men had crossed the River earlier and killed the guards.

  After a while, the heart of the storm raged over the area within his sight. Now the warriors were grouped on the bank and embarking. So frequent and vivid were the bolts, he could see the invaders moving. They were many-legged clumps the individuals of which were not visible from this distance in the rainy veil.

  He gasped. A fleer was putting out from the opposite bank.

  A few seconds later, more groups began to gather behind Ivar’s forces on the bank. He groaned, and he muttered, “Arpad has pulled a sneak play!” His force had come ashore farther up the River and sneaked along the banks to come up on the Ivarians’ flank. And now the Arpadians were charging it. The surprises had been surprised; the fox had been outfoxed. The Magyar was going to grind his former ally between two forces. But that was easier planned than done. Ivar’s men on shore, though taken by surprise, had not fled. They were fighting fiercely, and their shore force outnumbered the enemy’s. Soon, Ivar’s warriors in the boars would join those on the bank. As quickly as the oars could drive the boats, they were driving toward the slips and the open bank. Though the boatmen could not get back to the bank to disembark swiftly, they should be able to get all ashore before the enemy’s second force arrived front the opposite bank. And they would overwhelm the ambushers—if Ivar had anything to do with it. He was a very cool and quick thinker. His men, veterans of many battles, did not panic easily.

  Meanwhile, Arpad’s fleet was about a quarter of a mile from their destination. Its commander, whom Davis assumed was Arpad, not one to hang back behind his army, would be considering two choices. He could order the boats back to his shore and there await the inevitable assault from Ivar’s forces. Or Arpad could keep on going straight ahead, hoping that the ambushers would keep Ivar’s men entangled long enough for him to land his army.

  The rain thickened. Davis saw the conflict now as if through distorted spectacles. And then, five or six minutes later, the downfall began to thin. The worst of the storm had passed over, but thunder and lightning still harried the land. Intermittently, starlight between masses of clouds revealed that a third force had entered the fray. It was a large fleet that must recently have come around the River’s bend a half-mile to the north. Davis could not identify who its sailors were. But the only ones liable to come from the north were the men of Thorfinn the Skull-Splitter.

  Thorfinn had been on Earth the earl of Orkney Islands and part of northern Scotland. Though a mighty warrior, as his nickname testified, he had died in A.D. 963 in bed. The “straw death,” as the Norse called it, was not the fare he wanted. Only men who were killed in battle went to Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain, where the heroes fought each other during the day and those killed were resurrected to fight the next day, where the mead and the food was better than anything on Earth, and where, at night, Odin’s Valkyries screwed the drunken heroes’ brains out.

  But Thorfinn had awakened in the Rivervalley along with everyone else: the brave and the cowardly, the monarchs and the slaves, the honored and the despised, the honest and the crooked, the devout and the hypocrite, the learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, and the lucky and the unlucky.

  However, the Riverworld was, in many respects, like Valhalla. The dead rose the next day, though seldom in the place where they had died; the drink and the food were marvelous; nonfatal wounds healed quickly; a chopped-off foot or a gouged-out eye grew back again; women with the sexual drive of a Valkyrie abounded. Of course, Valkyries never complained or nagged, but they were mythical, not real.

  And what was he, Andrew Paxton Davis, a pacifist, a Christian, and a virtual slave, doing standing here and watching the battle among the heathens? Now, now, now was the time to escape.

  He quickly stuffed his few possessions in a fish-skin bag and grabbed the handle of his grail. Like the Arab in the night, I steal away, he thought. Except that I don’t have to take the time to fold my tent. He walked out of his room swiftly and sped down the narrow winding steps. He met no one until he got to the courtyard. Then he saw a dark figure ahead of him. He stopped, his heart beating harder than his running accounted for. But a lightning bolt revealed the face of the person who had struck such fear into him.

  “Doctor Faustroll!”

  The Frenchman tried to bow but had to grip the side of the table to keep from falling on his face.

  “Doctor Davis, I presume?” he mumbled.

  The American was going to hurry past him bur was restrained by a charitable impulse. He said, “There’s uproar in Acheron, my good fellow. Now is the time to gain our freedom. Ivar was going to make a sneak attack on Arpad, but Arpad had the same idea about him. There’s the devil to pay, and Thorfinn, Ivar’s ally, has just shown up. Chaos will reign. We have an excellent chance of getting away during all the commotion.”

  Faustroll put a hand on his forehead and groaned. Then he said, “Up the River? Our quests for the probably nonexistent?”

  “Think, man! Do you want to remain a slave? Now’s the time, the only chance we may ever have!”

  Faustroll bent to pick up his grail and fishing pole. He groaned again and said, “La merde primitive! The devil is using our head as an anvil.”

  “I’m going.” Davis said. “You may come with me or not, as you please.”

  “Your concern for us is touching,” the Frenchman said. “But we really don’t have to run. Though we’ve been in lifelong bondage, we have never been a slave. Unlike the billions of the conventional and the swine-minded, we have been free.”

  A distant flash faintly illumined Faustroll. His eyes were rolling as if he were trying to see something elusive.

  “Stay here, then, and be free in your miserable bonds!” Davis sh
outed. “I felt it was my duty to tell you what is going on!”

  “If it had been love compelling you, it would be different.”

  “You’re the most exasperating man I’ve ever met!”

  “The gadfly has its uses, especially if it is equipped nor only with a fore sting but an aft sting.”

  Davis snorted and walked away. But, by the time he had starred down the hill from the tower, he heard Faustroll call out to him.

  “Wait for us, my friend, if, indeed, you are that!”

  Davis halted. He could not say that he liked the grotesque fellow. But…something in the absurd Frenchman appealed to him. Perhaps, Davis thought, it’s the physician in me. The man’s mad, and I should take care of him. I might be able to cure him someday.

  More likely, it’s just that I don’t want to be alone. Crazed company is better than none. Sometimes.

  The thunder and lightning had rolled on down the Valley. In a few minutes, the bright zigzags and the vast bowling-pin noises would be out of sight and out of ear. Then, as almost always, the downpour would stop as if a valve had been shut. The clouds would disappear within thirty minutes or so after that. And the star-filled sky would shed its pale fire on the pale weapons of the warriors and their dark blood. It would also make it easier for Faustroll and him to be seen.

  Now he could faintly hear the frightening sounds of the clash. Shrill screams, deep cries, swords clanging, drums beating, and, now and then, the bellowing of a black gunpowder bomb as it destroyed itself in a burst of light. He also became aware that the tower, in which he had thought was no living soul, was as busy as a disturbed anthill. He turned to look back. Faustroll, panting, was just about to catch up with him. He was silhouetted by the many torches of the many people streaming from the tower.

  Among them was Ann Pullen. She had put a heavy towel over her shoulders and a long one around her waist. But her white face and streaming blond hair were vivid under the flaming brand she held high.

  And there was Sharkko walking as fast as his dragging leg would permit him. He carried a grail in one hand, a sword in the other, and a large bag was strapped, to his back.

  The others passed Davis on their way down the hill. Apparently, they were going either to join Ivar in the battle or to find a place where they could more closely observe it. The latter, more likely. If they thought that things were going against Ivar, they would be running, too.

  Davis grabbed a torch from a slave woman as she passed him. She protested but did not light him. He held it up and pointed up-River.

  “Let’s go!”

  Easier said than done. Just as they reached the edge of the plain, they were forced to stop. A large body of men, many of them holding torches, jogged by. Davis looked at the round, wooden, leather-covered helmets, the broad dark faces, and the eyes with prominent epicanthic folds. He groaned. Then he said, “More of Arpad’s men! They must be a second flanking force!”

  These were not Magyars but soldiers from Arpad’s ancient Siberian citizens, forming ten percent of the kingdom’s population. They looked much more like the American Indians than Eskimos or Chuk-chuks. A group of six or seven men broke off from the mass and trotted toward them. Davis yelled, “Run!” and he fled back up the hill. Behind came the sound of bare feet on the wet grass and wet mud under it. Bur it was Faustroll.

  When he was halfway up the hill, Davis looked behind him. The invaders were no longer in pursuit. Finding that they could not kill the two men easily, they had rejoined the army.

  After a while, he and Faustroll quit climbing along the sides of the hill and went down to the edge of the plain. Within ten minutes the starblaze was undimmed by clouds.

  “Time to look for a boat,” Davis said.

  They went slowly and stealthily among the huts. Now and then, they had to go around corpses. Most of these were women, hut some had managed to kill invaders before they had been cut down. “The never-ending story,” Davis said. “When will they learn to stop killing and raping and looting? Can’t they see that it does nothing to advance them? Can’t…”

  “They didn’t see on Earth, why should they here?” Faustroll said. “But perhaps it’s a weeding-out process here. We get not just a second chance but many chances. Then, one day, poof! The evil ones and the petty, the malicious, and the hypocritical are gone! Let’s hope that that docs not mean that nobody is left here. Or, perhaps, that’s the way it’s going to work out.”

  He stopped, pointed, and said, “Eureka!”

  There were many boats along here, beached or riding at anchor a few feet from the short. They chose a dugout canoe with a small mast. But, just as they were pushing it off the grass into the water, they were startled by a yell behind them.

  “Wait! For God’s sake, wait! I want to go with you!”

  They turned and saw Sharkko hobbling toward them. He was dragging another bag, a large one, behind him. No doubt, Davis thought, it was filled with loot Sharkko had picked up on the way. Despite his fear, his predatory nature had kept the upper hand.

  Davis said, “There’s not enough room for three.”

  Panting, Sharkko stopped a few feet from them. “We can take a larger boat.”

  Then he turned quickly to look down-River. The distant clamor had suddenly become closer. The starlight tell over a dark and indistinct mass advancing from the south. Shouts and clanging of bronze on bronze swelled from it. It stopped moving toward Davis for several minutes. Then the sounds ceased, and the group moved again, more swiftly now.

  Whoever the men chasing after those who fled were, they had been killed. But another hue and cry rose from behind the survivors. The men coming toward Davis began to run.

  “Get in one of the boats!” Sharkko squalled. “They’ll grab them, and we won’t have any!”

  Davis thought that that was good advice, but he did not intend to take the fellow with him. He resumed helping the Frenchman push the canoe. It slid into the water. But Sharkko had splashed to it, thrown his grail and bags into it, and started to climb in. Davis grabbed the bags and threw them into the water. Sharkko screamed with fury. His fist struck Davis’s chin. Stunned, Davis staggered back and fell into the water. When he rose, sputtering, he saw that Sharkko was going after the bags. He got to the boat and threw Sharkko’s grail after him. That made the man scream more loudly. Without the grail, Sharkko would either starve to death or have to live from the food he could beg or the fish he could catch.

  Faustroll, still standing in the water, was doubled over with laughter.

  Davis’s anger ebbed and was replaced by a disgust he felt for himself. He hated Sharkko, yet despised himself for hating him and for losing his temper. It was hard to act like a Christian when dealing with such a “sleazebag” (a word he had learned from a late-twentieth-centurian).

  But he now had no time to dwell on his own failings. The running men had stopped near him. They seemed out of breath, though that was not the only reason they had halted. They were Ivar and about fifty of his Norse and Frankish warriors and a dozen women. Ann Pullen was one of them. Ivar was bloody though not badly wounded, and the bronze war-ax he waved about dripped red. He seemed to be in favor of making a stand of it against the pursuers. Some of his men were arguing against it. Davis did not know what had happened at first. By listening to them while he was getting into the canoe, he pieced out their situation.

  Apparently, the rear attack had caught Ivar by surprise.

  But he had rallied his men, and Arpad’s had been routed. No sooner was this done than Arpad, leading his fleet, had stormed the shore. In the mêlée, Ivar had killed Arpad.

  “I hewed off his sword arm!” Ivar shouted. “And his forces lost heart and fled. We slaughtered them!”

  8

  But Thorfinn the Skull-Splitter had his own plans. He had sent a part of his army to overrun the west bank. While they were doing that, he had attacked the rear of Arpad’s fleet. That was partly responsible for the panic among Arpad’s men on the east bank.


  Thorfinn had decided then, or perhaps he had long ago decided, to betray Ivar. Thus, he would become master not only of his own kingdom but of Arpad’s and Ivar’s.

  Ivar and his soldiers had not expected betrayal, but they had rallied quickly and had fought furiously. Bud they had been forced to run, and Thorfinn’s hounds were baying close to their heels.

  Ivar yelled in Norse, “The traitor! The traitor! No faith, no faith! Thorfinn swore by Odin on the oath-ring that we would be as brothers!”

  Davis, even in the midst of his anxiety, could not help smiling. From what he knew about Norse kings and their brothers, he was sure that there was nothing unusual about their trying to kill each other. That, in fact, had been typical of most medieval royal kin, whatever their nationality.

  Oh, he was among barbarians, and he had been just about to be free of them when the Norris decreed that they should catch up with him. No, he thought, it’s not the Norns, the three female Fates of the ancient Scandinavian religion. It’s God who’s destined this. I’ve been among the Vikings so long, I’m beginning to think like them.

  By now, Ivar had quit raving. In one of the sudden switches of mood that distinguished him, he was laughing at himself.

  “After all, Thorfinn only did what I might have done, given the circumstances. Seize the chance turn of events! Get the power! The power!”

  Faustroll, now sitting in the canoe, called out, “Your Majesty, true descendant of the great King Ubu! We believe that Power is what motivates almost all of humanity, and Power is responsible for more rationalizations and false justifyings than Religion is, though the two are by no means unconnected! You are a true son of Adam, not to mention of Eve, and perhaps of a fallen angel who saw that the daughters of men were fair and went unto them and lay with them! Go, go, go, our son! Consider Power, worship it, obey its ten thousand commandments! But we are a voice crying in the wilderness! Crying in the jungle fertilized by the never-ending flow of desire for Power in its ten thousand manifestations, the true shit of the true universe!