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Chapter 10

Fort Peterbilt


The Peterbilt


September 18, 1005 CE


Hamadi and several of his men had built a scale model of what they had in mind. What they wanted to do was greatly expand the perimeter of the settlement, enclosed by a palisade, the end result of which would be a huge increase in the area it covered. That would be enough to absorb the entire population of Jabir and leave room for a few hundred more people. That was if you packed everyone in, though. As always, communication was difficult because of the language barrier, but several of the young men—especially Achanu—had become adept enough to do a fair translation. The lingua franca that was starting to emerge, at least for the ones who were best at it, was moving from a pidgin to a mostly English-based creole. The end result was a cumbersome form of communication, but it was far better than the pure sign language they’d started with.

The first thing that became clear to Michael, to his relief, was that the way Hamadi saw the transformed settlement around the Peterbilt was analogous to a medieval keep. Most of the people would continue to live and work in Jabir except in the event of an enemy attack, at which point they could retreat into the settlement which was designed for defense.

The new settlement would now occupy both banks of the creek and would expand upstream to incorporate the pool. Even if the creek flow was cut off or diverted, the pool was big enough to provide drinking water for several months, even in midwinter.

The palisade wouldn’t simply be a wall of logs erected by sinking them into the soil. It was designed to be a wooden version of a medieval curtain wall. At periodic intervals, bastions would provide fighting platforms for the defenders. Michael could see one big problem with the design, though. There was no provision made for incorporating the Peterbilt into the defense. The only entrance and exit to the settlement would be through a narrow gate located not far from the creek. There would be no way to bring the truck into action except by ramming the palisade and knocking it down, or laboriously removing a part of the wall to use as a bridge.

That problem, however, Michael ascribed to simple ignorance on the part of the natives. They had never yet seen the Peterbilt in any but its slowest gears, moving at barely more than a walk. That was because while they had used the Peterbilt to help build the road between the camp and the village, they had more often used the pickup truck. The Peterbilt was saved for pulling big rocks out of the ground and that sort of thing. They knew it was strong, but they had no idea how fast it could move if it was provided with a reasonably level and unobstructed surface. Leaving aside a very small number of top sprinters, the average human male—even ones in good condition—typically ran between eight and twelve miles per hour. Even going fifteen miles an hour, the truck would outpace them, and with a prepared surface—it didn’t have to be a paved road, just a wide enough pathway with the big rocks, logs and stumps removed—the Peterbilt could easily move at twice that speed. Any enemy would be faced with a ten-ton monster capable of moving as fast as a grizzly bear or a pack of wolves.

That problem would be easy to solve. It would require quite a bit of labor to do it properly, true, but nothing beyond the resources of several hundred people. Especially when you added in the use of a pickup truck pulling locally made devices to break up and move the dirt, and the Peterbilt to move heavy stuff.

He rose to his feet and gestured for Hamadi and Achanu to accompany him. The chief would have to agree to Michael’s proposal and he needed Achanu to translate for him. Semi-translate, at least. Of the six Americans who had come through the Ring of Fire, Michael’s language-learning skill was the worst. His daughter Shane, who was very good at it, liked to tease him on the subject.

* * *

Hamadi and Achanu returned to the hut which served the chief as his headquarters about an hour later. Michael was no longer with him.

“You can come out now,” he said. Three people emerged from a well-disguised side room. It was cramped in there, since the room was only three feet wide, but unless someone knew what to look for—or did a careful comparison of measurements of the hut’s exterior to its interior—they’d never realize the hut contained more than a single, central room.

Two of the people were men in late middle age. The third was a young girl, just on the edge of her teenage years.

With the addition of three more people, the hut’s central room became a little crowded, since it was already occupied by Hamadi, Achanu, their wife and mother Etaka, Kasni from the women’s council, and the young shaman Aegluniket.

“What did he want?” asked one of the men. His name was Lomhar and he was one of the major chiefs of the Kadlo. He’d come here from Hocha and had arrived this morning, just before daybreak. That arrival time had been deliberate. Neither he nor the two people who’d come with him could afford to be seen. The priests had an extensive network of spies. There were bound to be some in Jabir, at least one of whom was likely by now to have gotten himself or herself into the new settlement.

“He wants us to create a new gate through which the demon can pass, and then smooth out a pathway that will allow it to reach Jabir and the river.”

“So in case a battle happens, he would set loose the demon?”

Hamadi nodded. “Yes. He said as much.”

Lomhar made a face. “Now that I’ve seen the monster”—he’d been able to get a look from the open doorway to the hut, which faced it—“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Can he really control the demon, once he sets it loose?”

The other man in late middle age shook his head. “That is not a demon, Great Chief. Now that I’ve finally been able to see it”—he nodded toward Aegluniket—“and question him, I realized that it is not anything like a demon.”

Everyone in the room except the young shaman looked surprised by that announcement, but no one thought to scoff at it. This man was Fazel, accepted by most Kadlo as their wisest shaman.

“What is it, then?” asked Kasni.

Fazel was dressed in the traditional garb of a shaman. That was not too dissimilar from the clothing worn by all adult male Kadlo, but it included an elaborately wound turban on his head and a kilt-like leather apron to which various implements were attached. Except for a small obsidian-bladed knife, the implements were all . . . peculiar.

Perhaps the most peculiar was an intricately carved wooden staff whose shaft appeared to be a coiled snake but which ended in the head of a bear. Tufts of some sort of animal fur formed a sort of collar below the bear head.

A modern archaeologist would have recognized it as a type of caduceus, although not one which had ever appeared in ancient times in the eastern hemisphere. The Kadlo themselves called it a burlin.

Fazel detached the burlin from his apron and held it up high enough so all could see. “This is what it is.”

“A burlin?” asked Lomhar. His tone was simply one of surprise, though, with not a trace of derision. A shaman took great time and care designing, carving and shaping his burlin. It was his culture’s analog to a wizard’s wand, and only a fool took such a thing lightly.

Fazel nodded. “Far greater and more powerful than mine—or a burlin made by any shaman of our world. But that should not surprise us.”

He turned toward Achanu. “You have spoken the most to the Amrikanz, yes?”

Achanu hesitated. “Well, except for my cousin Oaka. She has the best command of Inglizh of any of us.”

Fazel looked to Hamadi. “Can she be trusted?”

Before the chief could answer, both Kasni and Etaka answered simultaneously: “Yes.”

Etaka added a somewhat peeved, “Of course she can. She is my niece. Well, my mate’s niece, but her mother is like a sister to me.”

Fazel glanced at Lomhar. The great chief nodded, but added: “She will have to remain with us in this hut until we leave, though.”

“Go get Oaka,” commanded the shaman. His younger counterpart Aegluniket rose and left the hut.

After he left, Lomhar asked Fazel what he meant by likening the demon to his burlin.

“A demon is a creature—call it a monster, if you wish—that has a life of its own and a mind and will of its own. I’ve listened carefully to every account of the behavior of”—he nodded toward the door—“that giant out there and one thing that became as clear as lake water to me is that no one has ever seen it do anything except when one of the Amrikanz was inside it. That is the behavior of a creation, not a creature. The Amrikanz made that thing for their own purposes, just as I”—again, he held up his burlin—“made this for my own purposes.”

He shrugged. “And why should that be surprising?” He looked at Achanu. “You told me the Amrikanz themselves deny that they have any magical origin or powers. They say that what seems to be such powers are simply the result of the knowledge they have because they come from the far future. A thousand years in the future, they said, am I right?”

The teenage boy nodded. “Yes, that’s what they told me. I didn’t believe them, though. That just seems . . . impossible.”

The shaman looked around the hut, catching everyone with his gaze. “From now on, believe them. Have they ever lied to you?”

Now everyone in the hut looked at each other.

“Not so far as I know,” said Hamadi.

“Do you have any reason to distrust them?”

Again, that collective mutual gaze.

“No,” said Kasni firmly.

“Then don’t,” said Fazel. “That would not just be wrong, it would be stupid. These people can be an enormous help to us, if we behave properly toward them.” With his chin, he pointed toward the door. “Anyone who can make a burlin like that one is powerful.

He looked at Hamadi. “So to answer your original question, I think the only horror involved in setting the giant loose is one that will fall upon our enemies. Not us.”

Hamadi took a deep breath. Then, smiled very crookedly. “And a horror it is likely to be. They were terrifying in the battle. Between us of Jabir”—he twirled his finger, indicating the entire settlement—“we killed one of the warriors who came at us and wounded three others, only one of them seriously. The other two escaped. The Amrikanz—one man and one woman, that’s all—slaughtered sixteen of them. None were wounded except one, whom Pavak finished off, but he would have died from the wound anyway.”

“They did it with those weird-looking clubs of theirs,” said Achanu. He barked a laugh. “And we thought they were just ceremonial staffs!”

Fazel smiled. “Some people make the mistake of thinking that of my burlin also. Those killing clubs of theirs are burlins. Next time you see them, ask them how the clubs work. If I’m right about them, they will simply give you a truthful answer.”

* * *

Aegluniket and Oaka returned then. The girl was obviously nervous at being in the presence of the two men from Hocha.

As to the girl, Oaka gave her no more than a glance.

“We are told that you can speak with the Amrikanz better than anyone in Jabir,” said Lomhar. “We wish to ask you some questions.”

“That’s all,” said Fazel. He smiled at her. “You don’t need to be worried.”

Oaka nodded. Lomhar gestured at Fazel, inviting him to be the one to question the girl.

“Do the Amrikanz have a name for their . . . giant? The one they live in.”

“They call it Pidrebild. Or sometimes the Pidrebild.”

“Have you ever been inside it?”

Oaka shook her head.

“Have you seen the inside of Pidrebild.”

“Some of him.”

“Why do you call it ‘him’?”

Oaka looked at him as if he were a bit addled. “A thing that fierce is not likely to be a woman.”

“Why do you think the Pidrebild is fierce? From what I’ve been told, it has never done very much except scare some of you who were spying on it—and then, only using very bright fires and loud noises.”

Oaka got a stubborn look on her face. “I’ve heard the way the Amrikanz talk about him sometimes. They think he’s fierce. Or can be, anyway.”

Fazel nodded. “That, I don’t doubt at all. What did Pidrebild look like on its—his—inside?”

Now, Oaka’s expression became uncertain. “It’s very hard to describe. The way I think the palace of the Paramount Priest must look in Hocha.” Her hands made vague gestures. “Very . . . splendid.”

Lomhar got a sour expression on his face. Clearly, his opinion of the Paramount Priest of Hocha was not . . . splendid.

Fazel nodded. “Now tell me of their creed. The god they worship. The god of the cross.”

Oaka seemed on surer ground now. “They are not priests themselves. They make that very clear. And they say they only have with them some parts of their beliefs. What they call ‘books,’ often. From what I can tell, their faith—that’s the word they often use—is based on their god who sacrificed himself to save his people.”

“Save them from what?”

“They call it ‘damnation.’ It means punishment—punishment that never ends—for doing evil.”

“What do they consider evil?”

“Murder. Adultery. Lying. Theft. Worshiping false gods. Disrespecting your ancestors. Those seem to be the evils they are most concerned with.”

“What do they think of human sacrifice?”

“They consider it what they call an ‘abomination.’ A very great evil that is unforgivable.”

Silence came to the hut for a few seconds. Then a sort of sigh moved through the room as if they’d all been holding their breath.

Lomhar now spoke. “So the god of the cross sacrificed himself for the benefit of his people. And the gods of Hocha priests demand that people must be sacrificed—children, sometimes, one of whom was my own daughter—to feed their bloodlust.”

By the time he finished speaking, his face was like a stone mask.

“Not a difficult choice to make, is it?” said Fazel.

“No, it is not,” Lomhar agreed, then went on: “Except for the crops and other disasters that the priests insist are only prevented by the sacrifices.”

“Alyssa says that we just need fertilizer and crop rotation to keep the crops healthy,” Oaka said. She’d watched Jesus Christ Superstar quite a lot and she knew that the Pharisees had wanted to have Jesus sacrificed, but they’d already given up the practice so they needed Pilate to order it. She wasn’t sure how much she believed of the religion of the cross, but after a summer spent in close association with the Peterbilt people, she was sure that she didn’t believe in the gods of Hocha anymore. She’d been to the place where the god had brought the Peterbilt to this world, and that was more than the gods of Hocha had ever done.


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