III
In the valley’s early-morning mist, it looked like something that had escaped from a nightmare world of behemoths: a monster to make one’s blood run cold.
As it drew closer, its shape was reminiscent of a horse, though it was thrice as big as the mightiest stallion – and then, emerging slowly into the light, the beast showed its true nature, more formidable than any imagined terror.
Half of it was made of wood and metal: planks and beams jointed with thick nails and bolts, pulleys and chains; that most of these materials were rotten or rusty, rubbish salvaged from the valley’s heaps of refuse, made the whole construction even more imposing, as did the fact that those who had conceived of it and put it together were considered savages. Yet despair can make the dimmest mind ingenious.
Ingenious as the giant creature’s other half, which consisted of human beings, strong men chained together shoulder-to-shoulder to form the horse’s legs, dividing thus its great weight and lending to its movements the fluidity of an actual, living animal.
Last, like all horses, this too served as a beast of burden and transport, and it unthinkingly obeyed the will of its rider, who sat upon its creaky wooden back, reining its trot with thick harnesses of rough leather tied around the human forelegs and correcting or hastening its pace with a bullwhip that cracked like thunder.
And the reason for all this inventiveness and backbreaking toil was the fact that the rider was the exalted leader of his people, his eminence apparent not only in their blind, frantic wish to please him and do his every bid, but also in the rider’s girth – a veritable mound of human flesh that no garment could stop from bursting out of the seams and overspilling in thick, long folds of grimy fat – which rendered walking impossible. Moreover, this extreme obesity, far from being viewed as monstrous, was in fact regarded as proof of the man’s sacredness – for whereas most of his loyal subjects were bags of bones who often succumbed to a ravaging hunger, the rider grew heavier by the day, as though amassing the wasted strength and volume of the dead.
The secret that had granted him these superhuman qualities had been revealed to him in a dream, from one of his forefathers who had been a King when the valley was still a vibrant, fruitful land. To escape this new pestilence that made dead meat useless – said the King to his distant heir – he had to feed on flesh while it still throbbed with life.
The revelation had proven miraculous: within a matter of months, he had grown from a skeletal wretch into a man of monumental proportions, revered by every single man, woman and child of his nomadic tribe and believed to be able to confer protection from death by the mere touch of his massive, kiss-anointed hands.
Thus now the sonorous rumble of his stomach made both the horse and the procession in its wake stop dead, as if his insides had issued a roaring command.
And no sooner had he extended his hand than a ragged waif stood on his toes and pressed into it a scraggy hen that writhed and clucked madly, trying to claw at the rider’s face – till he, gripping the bird’s neck in his fist, sunk his teeth in its belly, spat out a bloody mass of skin and feather, and then dug in, sloppily devouring the hen’s innards while it still gave a weakening, losing struggle.
Then the rider let out a thunderous belch, flung away the carcass (which was instantly beset and fought over by a dozen skinny women), and with a violent thwack he brought down the whip on the two men fastened to the horse’s left foreleg.
But after the horse had taken a few staggering steps, one of these men gave a piercing howl as his backbone was shattered by the weight and he collapsed, squirming and screaming with pain, forcing his partner and the bearers of the right leg to kneel as well, lest the horse’s balance be upset and its glorious rider tip over.
At once, with awesome speed and competence, a group of men rushed to the side of the injured bearer, cut him loose from his straps, and while one of them hurried to take his place, the other two held the useless invalid down and a third, without a moment’s hesitation, plunged his knife into the man’s abdomen, ripped him open (all along oblivious to his shrieks), and with a few expert thrusts of the blade removed the dying man’s liver – and then, with a quick bow, he held it up to the rider, glistening with fresh blood and still pulsing.
Velius the Vast, he called himself; the rightful King of Feerien.