Godborn

  GODBORN

  Gods of Bronze

  Book 1

  Herkuhlos and

  Leuhon of Nemiyeh

  Dan Davis

  Copyright © 2020 Dan Davis

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  1. The Koryos

  2. Demon Clan

  3. Outsider

  4. Homeland

  5. Kinsmen Die

  6. The Raid

  7. Captive

  8. Alkmene

  9. Wolves of Kolnos

  10. The Wolf God

  11. Defiance

  12. The Lion

  13. Dog Warriors

  14. Kreuhesh the Bloodletter

  15. Wodra

  16. Pelhbriya

  17. The Denipa

  18. A Taste of Power

  19. The Dead

  20. Kounos

  21. A Mighty Gift

  22. The Seeress

  23. Dehnu

  24. Unbowed

  25. Nemiyeh

  26. The Fall

  27. Chaos

  28. Lord of Pelhbriya

  29. Fire

  30. Immortality

  31. Challenge

  32. Darkness

  33. Slayer of Yotunan

  34. Days of the Spear

  35. All Things Die

  36. Undying Glory

  37. Return

  38. Godborn

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  BOOKS BY DAN DAVIS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1. The Koryos

  Darkness would soon fall and in the night they would raid the clan. It was bitterly cold and the wind howled across the plain behind them.

  Holkis followed his spear-brothers to the crest of the ridge, remembering to keep his spear low so the warriors of the clan in the valley beyond would not see it. Their cattle would be fat and if they could separate one or two and drive them away they would see his brothers through to the winter rite. Some of them claimed they would take women in the raid also but he doubted they would have such courage. Taking cattle from their grazing was dangerous enough, let alone attacking tents, killing men grown and taking their wives and daughters. One day they would do so but they were not yet men themselves.

  “Holkis,” his brother Belolukos said, turning to whisper from in front. “Hurry.”

  Bowing his head, he trotted faster in a crouch and dropped to his belly and crawled through his crouching spear-brothers to Belolukos’ side.

  They were twelve in all. Boys on the cusp of manhood. Surviving half the year ranging beyond the homeland of their clan was their final test and they had almost completed it. After running across the plains and raiding and hunting to survive they had just one more moon and they would return to take their place as men in their clan.

  “I think they will have mead,” Holkis said, his voice low. “There is a woodland beside their camp, is there not, Dhomyos?”

  Dhomyos turned his big head and nodded once. “There is.”

  Holkis grinned. “They will have mead brewing for the midwinter rite.”

  “Do not go near them, Holkis, just count the cattle and return,” Belolukos said, nodding his head at the top of the ridge. The grass there was short and the soil thin, stripped by the winds coming up the valley. “And remain unseen.”

  I shall creep in close and search one of the tents if I can, Holkis thought. “I will, koryonos,” he replied, suppressing a smile.

  With his spear pushed before him, he crawled on his belly through the grasses and sedge to the top of the ridge. Before the peak he slowed to a stop, turning to look over his shoulder at his spear-brothers behind him. His koryos. All twelve wore wolf skins over their woollen tunics and trousers, their faces looking out of the open jaws of the wolf. Each brother of the koryos was sworn to serve the wolf god Kolnos and to obey their leader, the koryonos. Belolukos was his true brother, born on the same day to the same mother.

  Obey your brother in all things, their mother had said to him before they were sworn in the rite. He will need you if he is to be clan chief when you are grown.

  “Go!” Belolukos hissed.

  Holkis turned and crawled to the brow of the hill where the icy wind cut into his face and made his eyes water. The clan they were to raid was known to them. The koryos was returning to their home range and was in familiar territory. The clan wintering in the valley beyond was a strong one with at least a hundred cattle and thrice as many sheep. If they could not get a cow then driving away a few sheep would see them to midwinter. Failure would mean, at best, days of hunger as they ran for the winter pasture of the next clan up the valley or across the plain and into another valley many days away. At worst, one or more of them might be caught, wounded, or killed. The clan in the valley had more than thirty warriors, at least twice as many boys and women, and they would defend their people, their cattle, and their horses with all their strength.

  On Holkis crawled through the undergrowth, pushing aside the cold, damp, long grasses until he could see down into the valley. The river frothed and bubbled from the east and flowed west. The vale was wide with pasture on both sides with plenty of trees. A good land for a clan to winter in, just as his own was doing further downstream.

  Something is wrong.

  The feeling came first and it was a moment before he understood it. There was no woodsmoke on the wind and instead there was a whiff of blood and death. The stockades were broken here and there, the ground churned up everywhere. Dead animals lay with stiff legs. Cattle, sheep, dogs eviscerated. A naked human body, or part of one, lay trampled in the mud by the distant riverbank. Shadows cast by the low sun stretched from the woodland across to the shattered tents of the broken camp. The only movement was the thrashing of yellow grasses and clattering of bare branches.

  The clan was destroyed.

  He slipped back on his belly and hurried down to the koryos. They were busy blacking their faces with oiled ashes in preparation for their raid.

  “What is it?” Belolukos asked, scowling, his face smeared with ashes. “Did they see you? I told you to stay hidden, Holkis.”

  Holkis stared. “They are raided.”

  All of them muttered until his brother silenced them with a look.

  “How many cattle remain?”

  “None.”

  This time they crawled to the ridge together and they looked down as one.

  “By Kolnos,” Belolukos muttered. “What has happened here?”

  “We should flee,” Wedhris said. “Strong clan did this. Might find us.”

  None of them disagreed but there was no sign of anyone along the valley or on the other side of the river.

  “This is old work,” Kasos said. “No life. No fire. They burned the god’s house. See? The timbers are blackened on this side. Yet no smoke rises. Old work.”

  “No,” Dhomyos said, furrowing his brow. “We scouted four days past. All was well.”

  “It happened three days ago, then,” Kasos said. “There is no clan here now.”

  “And no wolves,” Holkis said. “And where are the crows?”

  That silenced them. They each made the signs to ward against evil.

  “We go, then,” Belolukos said. “East. To the next clan.”

  “I cannot go many days longer without food, koryonos,” Dhomyos said, scowling. He was the broadest of them all and lived in perpetual hunger.

  Kasos agreed, glancing at the sky. He was small for a warrior and had delicate features but there was little that his pale eyes missed. “Snow coming.”

  Wedhris elbowed Kasos. “We do as the koryonos commands.”

  “Of course,” Kasos said. “But the truth is the truth.”

  “Let us go down here, Bel,” Holkis said to his brothe
r. “They left so many animals dead. They may have left more.”

  Belolukos frowned, looking left and right. “

  “Evil was done here,” Sentos said. “We should not approach.”

  “Not even for meat?” Holkis asked.

  Kasos made the sign against evil again. “Wolves should not eat carrion if they mean to become men.”

  Holkis turned to him. “Wolves should do anything to survive. We will be men when we return home.”

  “You will bring the curse onto us by eating rotten flesh,” Kasos said. “We must raid and hunt only. That is the lore.”

  “Our oath was to survive,” Holkis said. “And so we will do whatever is necessary to see it done.”

  “Let us flee, koryonos,” Sentos said. He was tall and broad-shouldered and everyone knew that he would become a fine warrior for their clan.

  They all looked to the koryonos. Belolukos turned his face from them and nodded at the ruined camp. “You go first, Holkis. If anyone can avoid a curse, it is you.”

  The eyes of his spear-brothers met his own for a long moment before Holkis climbed to his feet, the wind cutting into him even through his woollen clothes and wolf skin, and descended the long hill into the wide river valley. Upriver the woodland, black shadow beneath the pine trees, took his attention. How many warriors might hide in those shadow? Fifty? A hundred?

  The ground all around the tents and the god’s house had been churned to mud before freezing again and he stepped carefully around deep puddles crusted with ice. A cow lay on its side with its legs out straight, the belly cut open and the guts pulled out. Its head was severed, lying nearby with its tongue and eyes gone.

  The crows have been, then, he thought. But where did they go?

  Closer to the trampled tents and huts, he found three dogs that had been cut to pieces. What kind of men would tear dogs to shreds rather than skin them?

  Holkis slowed to a stop at the sight of a body lying frozen in the churned mud ahead of him. It was the upper part of an elder in a torn and blood-stained tunic, the grey hair of his chest and beard visible, though his face had been caved in. The legs were nowhere to be seen and the rent across his abdomen trailed shredded guts, frozen hard. It was a terrible sight but the horror of it was not what made him halt, nor what made his heart pound.

  There was a sprig of fresh meadowwort on the dead man’s beard.

  He looked left and right but there was no sound in the ruined camp other than the gusting wind.

  Holding his spear tightly, Holkis advanced into the settlement. Structures still stood, though all were damaged. Tents were broken and crushed. Leather and felt folded and trampled, poles and beams snapped like twigs. It was as though there had been a terrible winter storm, and a stampede of cows, and a raid, one after the other.

  He bent and looked closer at the ground. It was hard to discern tracks when the earth was such a mess but he fancied he could see something, perhaps, leading away. Looking up, he saw the chief’s house ahead. Built in wood with a reed thatch roof it was the largest house and the only permanent one in the settlement and was occupied always, even when the herds were taken onto the plains for summer grazing. Holkis had been raised in just such a house until the age of seven when he and Belolukos had taken their first steps toward manhood.

  The chief’s house before him was intact but one wall had been burned black and the thatch above singed by the fire. But it was otherwise sound and the sturdy door was closed against the wind.

  Glancing left and right at the ruined tents all around he crossed to the door and held his breath to listen. The wind was too loud and all he could hear other than that was his blood beating in his ears. The shadows had lengthened since he had crossed to the camp.

  Shortening his grip on his spear, he yanked open the door. It creaked and banged back against the wall, bouncing into stillness.

  It was black within.

  A human stench came out of the darkness, one of urine and blood and rotting food. After a moment, he could see shapes inside. A central hearth with no flame. Benches.

  His mouth dry, Holkis swallowed. “Come out,” he said in a hoarse cry. Clearing his throat he raised his voice. “Come out of there!”

  The wind rustled the thatch over the doorway.

  He stepped inside, his spear held before him.

  A cry of anger at his side and a figure rushed from the shadow, thrusting at his guts. Flinching, he knocked the knife aside with his spear shaft and swung the butt of it into the face of the attacker.

  She fell, clutching her face and scrambled back.

  “Do not move,” Holkis said, flipping over his spear and holding the flint point before her face.

  She glared at him, spat a curse and threw herself across the floor for the knife she had dropped. Snatching it up, she came at him again in animal fury while he backed away deeper into the darkness with his spear shaft across his body ready to block another attack.

  Movement in the doorway and Belolukos was there, grabbing the woman while she tried to twist from his grasp to slash at him. He thrust her away, hard, and she tripped over the hearth backwards and cracked her head loudly on the floor and lay still.

  “I saved you from a woman,” Belolukos said and Holkis could hear his smile even if he could not see it. “A woman! Perhaps you are not so special after all, Holkis.”

  “You killed her,” Holkis said, taking two steps toward her before she moaned and moved her head. Her furs had fallen open to reveal a dirty white robe, the skirts ridden up to the top of her thighs from her fall.

  “It was the right choice to come down here after all,” Belolukos said, also moving closer to her and looking down. “She is young.”

  “Do not,” Holkis said, kneeling beside her. “She wears white, brother. I think she is a seeress.”

  “Stand aside,” Belolukos commanded, his ash-coated face grim. “You may have found her but I am koryonos. Besides, I defeated her in battle.” He smirked at his jest.

  “Look at her. She is no older than us. She wears white. And look where she is.”

  “So?”

  “She is a seeress, I am sure of it. The keeper of the hearth fire for her clan,” Holkis said, looking up at his brother. “To defile her is to bring destruction upon yourself.”

  His brother scoffed. “Raiders have taken her. She is already defiled. Even if she was the keeper of the hearth she has no power now she has been made a woman.”

  “That does not take away her power,” Holkis replied. “She is sacred. While she keeps the hearth and before she is married she is to remain untouched. The gods and the ancestors of her clan will curse you if you take her.”

  “Nonsense,” his brother replied, though without conviction. “That law is only for girls in our own clan not those we raid.”

  Holkis shook his head. “Ordinary girls, perhaps. But look at her robe, it is white. She is a seeress and if you touch her the gods will curse your manhood.”

  His brother halted unfastening his two leather belts. “I never heard that.”

  “Do it, then,” Holkis said, gesturing at the dazed girl. “But when you father no children or your manhood shrivels and rots off, remember this moment, and remember that I warned you. I am only trying to help you, brother.”

  Belolukos spat as he pulled his furs around him and fastened both belts tightly. “You have her, then. What is a curse to the likes of you?” At that, his brother stamped out and called to the rest of the koryos to search the camp. Their voices answered from the dusk outside as they spread out through the tents and animals.

  Sighing, Holkis pulled the girl’s skirts down, covering her bare legs. When he looked up at her face he found that she was staring at him, unmoving and wary.

  “I will not do you harm,” he said, speaking softly as if to a frightened whelp and spreading his hands.

  Keeping her eyes on him, she sat up and pulled her legs under her. Her face was dirty and wisps of curling dark hair had escaped her long braids. For
all that he could tell she had a good face with high cheeks and a wide mouth.

  She sniffed. “You are a koryos.”

  “Yes.”

  She frowned, looking him up and down. “Where is your mask?”

  A koryos was never supposed to be seen by anyone. They had passed beyond the ordinary world and were outside of order and control. They wore the skins of wolves and blackened their faces in all raids so that their faces could not be seen. Holkis’ face was not covered.

  He shrugged. “Your clan was destroyed and I thought none would be alive to see me. It does not matter now.”

  She held herself still. “You mean to take me?”

  “Take you?” Holkis looked at the open door and back to her. “Tell me, are you the keeper of the hearth?”

  “My mother…” she trailed off, her eyes looking through him before focusing once more. “I am.”

  Holkis glanced around the gloomy interior of the building. “Is this your house?” In answer she nodded and he continued. “So your father is the chief?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is his name?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You think to test me, raider?”

  “You could be anyone. You could say anything.”

  “This is my home. How could I lie? You are the outsider. Raider. Lies are your way, not mine.”

  “Tell me your father’s name.”

  “Hartkos. We are Udros.”

  Holkis nodded for he had suspected as much. “Udros Clan. My chief Gendryon is guest friends with Hartkos, your father.”

  She looked down, nodding. “You are Kweitos Clan.”

  “What happened here?” He spoke softly. “Where are the rest of your people?”

  She turned away and struggled to her feet. He stood with her. She was tall, almost as tall as his brother, but still Holkis was a head taller. She looked up at him, squinting in the darkness. Her eyes shone as if fired from within.

  “You are bigger than the other boy, and you outwitted him with ease,” she said, her voice low and steady. “Why are you not koryonos?”

  He started, shocked that she could see into his heart. See the question that lay within him. But he could not answer her question and so he ignored it. “What happened to your clan?”