Read Online The Broken God by David Zindell - Free Book Online

the pearl grey-snow. Siegfried, with his keen nose, should have been able to sniff out at least a few seal holes. But their luck was bad, and they found no holes that day. Nor the next day, nor the day after that. On the forty-third morning of his journey, Danlo decided that he must sled on, even though now he only had baldo nuts to eat and the dogs had nothing. It was a hard decision. He could stay and hope to find seals by searching the ice to the north. But if he wasted too many days and found no seals, the storms would come and kill him. 'Ahira, Ahira,' he said aloud, to the sky, 'where will I find food?' This time, however, his doffel didn't answer him, not even in silence. He knew that although the snowy owl has the most far-seeing eyes of any animal, his sense of smell is poor. Ahira could not tell him what to do.
    And so Danlo and his dogs began to starve in earnest. Even though he had eaten well all his life, he had heard many stories about starvation. And instinctively, he knew what it is like to starve – all men and animals do. When there is no food, the body itself becomes food. Flesh falls inward. The body's various tissues are burnt like seal blubber inside a sac of loose, collapsing skin, burnt solely to keep the brain fresh and the heart beating a while longer. All animals will flee starvation, and so Danlo sledded due east into another storm, which didn't last as long as the first storm, but lasted long enough. Bodi was the first dog to die, probably from a stroke fighting with Siegfried over some bloody, frozen wrappings he had given them to gnaw on. Danlo cut up Bodi and roasted him over the oilstone. He was surprised at how good he tasted. There was little life in the lean, desiccated meat of one scrawny dog, but it was enough to keep him and the remaining dogs sledding east into other storms. The snows of midwinter spring turned heavier and wet; the thick, clumpy maleesh was hard to pull through because it froze and stuck to the runners of the sled. It froze to the fur inside the dogs' paws. Danlo tied leather socks around their cracked, bleeding paws, but the famished dogs ate them off and ate the scabs as well. Luyu, Noe, and Atal each died from bleeding paws, or rather, from the black rot that sets in when the flesh is too weak to fight infection. In truth, Danlo helped them over with a spear through the throat because they were in pain, whining and yelping terribly. Their meat did not taste as good as Bodi's, and there was less of it. Kono and Siegfried would not eat this tainted meat, probably because they no longer cared if they lived or died. Or perhaps they were ill and could no longer tolerate food. For days the two dogs lay in the snowhut staring listlessly until they were too weak even to stare. That was the way of starvation: after too much of the flesh had fallen off and gone over, the remaining half desired nothing so much as reunion and wholeness on the other side of day.
    'Mi Kono eth mi Siegfried,' Danlo said, praying for the dogs' spirits, 'alasharia-la huzigi anima.' Again, he brought out his seal knife and butchered the dead animals. This time he and Jiro ate many chunks of roasted dog, for they were very hungry, and it is the Alaloi way to gorge whenever fresh meat is at hand. After they had finished their feast, Danlo cut the remaining meat into rations and put it away.
    'Jiro, Jiro,' he said, calling his last dog over to him. With only the two of them left, the little snowhut seemed too big.
    Jiro waddled closer, his belly bulging and distended. He rested his head on Danlo's leg and let him scratch his ears.
    'My friend, we have had forty-six days of sledding and twenty-two days of storm. When will we find the Unreal City?'
    The dog began licking his bleeding paws, licking and whining. Danlo coughed and bent over the oilstone to ladle out some hot dog grease melting in the pot. It was hard for him to move his arms because he was very tired, very weak. He rubbed his chest with the