The Children of the Company Read Online Free PDF Page A

cheering multitudes.

    The Preserve of Enlil lay two miles from the city, fenced with high palings and wire specially hooked up to deliver a blast of Enlil’s wrath to would-be poachers. Was there a faint whiff of charred flesh on the air, as the chariots bore Atrahasis with Enna-aru the king to that place? But no corpses in view, at least.
    Security Technical Rulon opened the gate, bowing low, and admitted them. They rode in and Atrahasis watched for the king’s reaction.
    “Is this not fair, o king?” he demanded. “Look! A green paradise. You will see no scars here from plow or mattock, no ditches to stink, no trees hacked for firewood. No mortal intrusion at all. And see the wild cattle, there at the watering place? The water they drink is pure, untainted by anything men might do. They have never been hunted. Have I not done well, to set this place apart?”
    “It is a beautiful park,” agreed Enna-aru.
    “I have not been such a bad lord, you know,” said Atrahasis. “I have kept my distance from my subjects, but you will never hear that I was unfair. I never favored any man over another, even when they tried to buy my favor with offerings of gold. I never debauched their wives or daughters, either—” He saw Security Technical Rulon turn a shocked face to him, and caught the fleeting transmission: What are you trying to prove to this monkey?
    Atrahasis flushed with humiliation that became rage. What the hell do you know about strategy, you oaf? Mind your own business!
    He drew a spear from its case and struck his charioteer on the shoulder. “Drive! Let us hunt the wild bulls!”
    So they rode forth into his acreage. Atrahasis seized the reins from his charioteer and drove with reckless speed, splashing through the streams, scattering the herds where they drank. He wheeled among the frightened and disoriented cattle, singling out the biggest bull at last. Enna-aru the king followed warily. The bull galloped off some distance, and they pursued; but when he turned at bay, pawing the ground, then Atrahasis vaulted out on the chariot-tongue. There he clung a moment, before leaping to balance upright on the back of the left-hand horse in his team. From that high vantage he sent his black spear down, with such force it pierced straight through the bull’s broad neck and into its immense heart.
    It dropped without a moan. Atrahasis sprang down beside it, wrenching out his spear. The blood ran and smoked on the earth. It pleased him nearly as much as though it were mortal blood. Why haven’t I done this before? He
looked up, eager to see if Enna-aru had been watching. The king, indeed, watched with narrowed eyes.
    “You have excellent skill in the hunt,” was all he said.
    “Butcher my bull, and build a fire,” said Atrahasis to his charioteer, with some asperity. “My brother king and I would feast.”
    They killed twice more that day. Atrahasis took down another bull, this time leaping from the chariot onto the bull’s very back, felling it with a stroke that drove through and penetrated its lungs. Enna-aru the king cornered his own bull, circling and turning in the chariot, until the baffled animal charged and got a spear through the eye into its brain. Atrahasis thought that he might have been watching himself in a mirror, so shapely was Enna-aru, so powerful.
    “Is this not fine sport, my brother?” he asked as they washed in the stream.
    “You have succeeded in impressing me,” said the king. “Very male, all this, isn’t it? I daresay not one of the laborers who till your fields would be brave enough to leap on a bull’s back. Nor light-footed enough, after a lifetime of following the plow. Still, I have seen acrobats do as much.”
    Atrahasis was silent a moment.
    “How wise you are, mortal man,” he said at last.
    He watched the king as they rode slowly back through the city, followed by surly Security Technicals bearing massive sides of beef. At one point Enna-aru bid the chariots halt in