Free Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) by John James Page A

pieces fell out of my time of life, little holes of blackness. My side was a dull glow that fanned into flame every time I moved. There was still some water in the hollow. When I had reached the bottom of the chain’s movement, I allowed myself a mouthful.
    I touched the key once or twice. I hardly believed it was still there. I put the ring on my finger. I opened the lock.
    The chain fell away. I let my spear fall after it. I finished the water in the hollow; now I could walk, crawl, to more. I slid to the ground, my feet touched the earth; then my face.
    When the blackness was over again, I found my spear and leaned it against the tree. I climbed up it, to my knees, to my feet. The men were there, a dozen of them, big men, with shaven heads and long yellow moustaches, dressed in the German fashion but unbelievably shabby. I waited to be killed.
    They stood about ten yards from me. They had no weapons at all. One of them, the oldest, I thought, came forward and said something. I could not understand a word. I said in German:
    ‘Drink … drink …’
    One of them, a boy, brought forward a pot. There is nothing like bitter beer for quenching your thirst. I drained it.
    The older man then said something in German, very thickly accented. At first I thought he was talking about the Old Father Mountain, and I said ‘Yes, Yes’ and pointed. He talked on, and I slowly began to follow. He was calling me Old Father – no, he was calling me Allfather. This was wrong. This was what they called the God in Germany. I said: ‘No, no, Photinus, I am Photinus,’ and the man said,
    ‘Yes, yes, Votan, Votan Allfather. Come, Allfather, come and eat.’
    I was too ill to protest any further. I tried to step forward, but I could not move. Some of the men ran back to the edge of the wood, and returned with a litter made of boughs. They helped me on to it, and carried me away. One of the boys carried my spear erect before me. Another picked up my bag, turned it inside out, and under the horrified gaze of his seniors gobbled up the end of sausage left in it. Before the older men, crimson with rage and shame, could begin to scold, I said, ‘Eat, eat it all!’
    Another man picked up my two water bottles and shook them. There was a swishing sound. One of them still had about a pint of water. Had I, in my delirium, always gone to the same bottle to drink, and always found it empty?
    They carried me some miles along the river edge to where they lived in little huts of boughs. They were a wandering people with neither king nor cities nor any possessions, not even any iron, who lived on what they could gather and catch along the river and in the woods. For their clothes and pots, and even for corn, they traded the furs they caught through the winter.
    ‘We take them,’ said the headman, who said his name was Tawalz, ‘to the Asers, and they give us the good things of life.’
    ‘Who are the Asers?’ I asked him, for this was a name I had not heard before. But all Tawalz would say was, ‘We take you to Asers, you meet Asers, first you heal.’
    In one of the huts, Tawalz and some old women cut and soaked away the shirt from my wound, and – and this shows how poor they were – one of the old women took my shirt away and carefully darned up the tears, and washed it and brought it backto me. First they cared for the scabby weals the chain had made on my chest, and the scratches from the branches and the insect bites. They brought ointment to smear on, but I would not let them use it till I was sure that it was not bear fat.
    Over the great festering wound in my side they were more concerned. Tawalz said:
    ‘It is not deep but it will remain open till we can find the healing stone that is upon the sword and lay it upon the wound.’
    ‘It was no sword,’ I said. ‘It was a spear, and my own spear, that the lad carried into camp.’
    So they brought the spear, and just like any civilised doctor Tawalz put ointment on the head and bound it