Read Online Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin - Free Book Online

the true offspring of the bear. When he reached the age of manhood, the bear-boy wreaked vengeance on the Qubal people for the death of his father. Finally Nogai met with him in a great battle fought on the banks of the Onga, where both had died of their wounds.
    But that came much later. The story of Nogai’s bear was a favorite of childhood and only the coincidental symmetry of their ranks would have brought the end of the cycle to mind at all.
    Fortunately, Bekter had his mind on his own version of the song. “Our Prince Tayy killed a smaller bear, of course,” he mused, though it went without saying.
    “Ah, but consider this,” Tayy argued his case, glad to be back on the trail he had meant them to follow from his first mention of Nogai’s bear. “Tales always grow in the telling, right? So the bears in them must also grow. How big do you think this bear of ours will grow by the time we are old men?”
    Bekter needed only a moment to consider. “Very large,” he agreed with a grin. “I think I can guarantee that it will become a very tower among bears.”
    The clans did not build towers, of course. Cities that stayed in one place had once amazed the prince. In their travels to the Cloud Country, however, the army of the khan had seen great walls and towers built of stone or mud or wood that stood much longer than the life of a man, even a king. So they laughed, as they were meant to do, at the notion of a bear as tall as the great Temple of the Moon at the heart of the Golden City.
    “And did I bring down the beast alone with my simple bow? Or did a valiant guardsman come to my aid with a spear carved with a charm for good fortune?” Tayy teased both cousins with the question.
    Bekter picked up his tone, fluttering his fingers across the bent bow, mimicking their travel along the strings of his lute. “The young prince will win the day since that is the true history. And, of course, a singer at court always knows where his pies are coming from. Though the friend and guardsman must get in his blows, since brothers are closer than cousins.”
    “And the rest of his companions? Do they appear as the villains in the piece, or the comic relief?” Jumal rolled his eyes and let his tongue loll out of the corner of his mouth in answer to his own mocking questions.
    “They could be led astray by mischievous spirits,” Bekter thought out loud. Tayy was relieved that he had taken up his prince’s cause to draw his companions out of their dark moods with frivolity. In that vein he offered another end to their tale: “But is it not true that the companions had spread out in the woods, hunting prey and also alert to every danger? Good fortune made the prince a hero, but who would not have bagged the same shaggy prey in his position?”
    “Not I,” Jumal cast a dark and complex look at the cousin who now rode in his place at Tayy’s side. “Qutula had my spear.”
    “I thought I might need one but discovered a flaw in the shaft of my own. I meant to return it to you, or replace it if it took damage.”
    “And a good thing you did,” Bekter asserted with fervor. Tayy thought he meant because it had helped to save his life, but in the true spirit of a singer, Bekter explained, “It gives me a way to add Jumal as another character in the tale.”
    “The fool who left his weapon behind?”
    They passed through the palisade of carts that marked the boundary of the tent city. As they entered the broad avenue that led to the palace of the khan, Bekter waved his hand to dismiss Jumal’s contribution. “That will never work. We must have only heroes in this tale. I think you gave the brave companion Qutula your spear, to replace his damaged one as a token of your regard. And so you are implicated with the prince in saving his life as well.”
    Jumal seemed on the point of objecting to this version of the tale, which caused Tayy to wonder himself at the histories he had taken for truth all his life. Not the giant