A GLORIOUS DAY TO DIE

The Hu-mans call us a Nation of Goblyns, Gooks, and Greenies, as if these three words are the greatest insult ever uttered by the tongues of a living mìjatus. We call ourselves Hanitoou Mfaguwa. Translated into the Hu-mans’ tongue, ‘Glish, “Blessed of the Great Spirit”.

The ‘Glish word Nation is a word of strength. It means “a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a way of life peculiarly its own”. It is one of the few ‘Glish words that holds any significance to my people. We have claimed it as our own.

We call the Hu-mans Nehmôhôwôk Hakimi, “shit” of the tiny, insignificant Wôk bug. Like a Wôk, Hu-mans shit where they eat and sleep. A disgusting habit. They call us the uncivilized, ignorant brutes. People of the Nation travel a goodly distance to void themselves of bodily waste.

I am Drogg, son of Drugg and Mahaama, grandson of Chjaho Long Tusks, and descendant of the mighty warrior Metakanhêôk Echenô, “He Kills Many Enemy”. It has been said by many that he hung more than 10,000 wiiwjkhon----- what the Hu-mans call scalps----- on his weeqwam.

We did not ask Hu-mans to swarm onto our lands like whahwée, devouring everything in their path----- every blade of grass and even the bark from trees. They breed like pawiikakisit, dropping a cub every three seasons. It has been said of Hu-man kwe that some birth a litter of two, three, four, or more. It takes kwe of the Nation a full four seasons to birth one tatanna.

In the days of our Grandfathers, one had to travel many, many Moons to come upon Hu-mans in their walled mikuwon to trade animal pelts and bits of yellow wápitek, silvery aú’nímpis, and sparkling

gyschuch for the many wondrous anitoowok they offered. Hu-mans were fine at a distance. Beyond our eyes, not troubling our thoughts.

It was as if it happened overnight. The number of bosk were noticeably few and fewer. The Great Woods stretching from the foothills of Our Holy of Holies began to thin. Rivers bringing fresh, clear water to our lands now fouled with filth. When scouts went to find the cause of all this madness, they returned in less than a Nineday with incredulous tales of giant metal Gantu wexwemek pounding their long tongues into the ground and sucking Mother Kawaho’s dark, rich blood to the surface. Two days' journey beyond this field of monsters, Hu-man huttéwas stretching to the horizon. Hu-man nhawaen were out and about, racing here and there like a pack of wild wahganuk. When they spotted our scouts, they laughed and began throwing sticks, stones, and dried hakami at them. Then the kuhkuhkna came with their thundersticks to chase our scouts away-----

Every huHheunin of the Smoke Mountain Nation is gathered about the wetu of our War-ganxugon Gryffax the Impatient. If I could count past 10,000, I’d note how many strong arms that we gather here in the foothills of our most sacred Holy of Holies, where Naneek Kàhkek hurled herself into the maw of Smoke Mountain to appease the fire-demon living within the fiery volcun. More than three fists of 10,000. There are 3,600 in my mah’hock going into battle against the despised Hu-mans tomorrow.

Many of them unblooded. The kōn-khseh among our ranks will show them how the killing is done, setting a bloody good example come the dawn.

Now, it’s not the time to think about battle, but to fill our bellies with grilled kumos and swill spiced Skxupéekaak until we moshkîk. Then, start all over pounding back tankards of the fermented blood mixed with cold, clear mountain water and hetawēsin to tap into our rage and turn us Mu’hhk’ssuekx. What the Hu-mans call berserkers. I feel it beginning to boil my green Hanitoou Mfaguwa blood.

Looking around at my kindred, I see fights breaking out. Those not battling are slaking the hot thirst of their loins like rutting chegonuhk. Others were occupying their minds and time casting bones and wagering bits of wápitek, silvery aú’nímpis, and sparkling gyschuch. Some widow or widower could come into a small fortune after tomorrow.

As hHeakun Wejyu----- Historian and Lorekeeper----- it’s my sacred duty----- Hanitu muh’wahwahk----- to record some of the happenings the night before battle. I gazed with gruff fondness at the young, unblooded warriors of my mamtawo. We were the néhsiens ne nekónewok of Legendary He Kills Many Enemy, Muchkte niqua! Ten generations since he strode the world, crushing the enemy beneath his callused feet? Would there be one among his children’s children’s many children to rival his kills in battle? I chuckled at the fleeting thought. A delightful possibility, but looking over my kindred, doubt pushes that thought aside. I would be happy with a thousand crushed Hu-man skulls, hundreds of hacked off limbs, and several dozens of disembowelments before I fell on the bloods-drench field of carnage! I will wear Hu-man entrails like a badge of honor!

I am twice bloodied, having fought in the Great War of the Three Moons, three generations back when I was sixteen Summers, and the border skirmish, Battle of the Five Rivers, twenty-two Winters agone. In both events, the Nation responded to violations of Hu-man encroachment on our Treatyed Lands.

Hu-mans possess many, many thundersticks and belching tubes called cannons. They attempt to ride us down with their awaésak, a beast of burden called hawors. To their sorrow, we do not go down so easily in life as in battle.

It takes four seasons for a kweto birth a könhok. Twenty Seasons must pass before a könhok reaches his or her Machache. All of the Nation fight: maschapeu, kew, and even young könhok. Hu-mans send only their maschapeu into battle, leaving their kwe and könhok unprotected. Our Wise Ones----- Neshkunasék----- view this nitousitma as a definite weakness in their character. From the age of ten Seasons, all könhok are instructed in the use of weapons. Should Hu-mans attack a Nation manehan, they do not find weak and helpless old ones, kwe, and little ones. To their utter astonishment, Hu-mans discover an ably armed encampment; for every one of the Nation slain, five of theirs perish. The minds of Hu-mans mystify us because we do not chop down every tree to build wooden wetu in which to dwell; we are half-naked savages in their eyes. We did not invite them to come to our lands, hunting wild game into half-forgotten memory. Fell our forests. Pollute our rivers and lakes. Spread their sicknesses and hatreds across our lands. We did not bid Hu-mans to rut like mad nuh’hkumuk and Ts'o'osk, creating numbers so vast that more and more land is required for them just to survive. To spare the Nation from becoming something fading into Dream-Time and forgotten, Hu-man numbers must be culled.

A gathering at the Sacred Mountain of the Five Moons, where all the Neshkunasé voiced their mind after much debate, a decision was reached. It was realized that Hu-man numbers had to be severely culled and their encroachment pushed back to the Little Snake River. A war council was called to the base of Sayawah Hunami (Sacred Smokey), and word got back to the Hu-mans that many Goblyns were massing for an attack against their settlements to the east across the Big Snake River.

A small hand touched me on the left shoulder, and I looked up to see the beaming face of my sister’s daughter’s grand niece, lovely Numahatta Dahx of the Long Tusks. I noticed with great admiration that her tips are polished and sharpened to a fine razor’s point. She will be ripping open the bellies of war- hawors of armored Hu-mans, bringing them low, so others could hammer their plates flat, crushing their supposed invincible flesh inside. “Mihtha,” she speaks in a low grumble, “I beg your permission to fight at your side as your Shield meskka on the morrow.”

“I would be humbly honored, K’chini!” I roar with familial approval.

“I am not so little anymore!” She takes offense at my endearment.

“You will always be my little one,” I say, pulling her into a rib-crushing embrace. “No matter how tall you sprout or long you endure!” I release her from my arms, and she steps back.

“Mihtha, try and bounce me on your knee right now!” She challenges me, directing her amber gaze up into my dead-gray eyes. The thought tantalizes me for the merest of a moment. I know better. To enter into the bloody fray tomorrow with bruises and pains caused by an angry kwe----- a condition I can do without. There will be many opportunities for those on the morrow. I kick a stoppered jug of thirty-year-old Skxupéekaak at her. She snags it on the fly without looking. My chest swells bigger with pride at the deftness of her reflexes. She pops the stopper out with her left hand tusk, spilling a liberal amount of the dark crimson firewater onto the ground to honor our ancestors who journeyed into Th’kanìhkàn upuas to prepare a place for us at the Eternal Feast.

As she’s about to pass me the jug, the butt-ugly maw of Kesukwesx, Gryffax the Impatient’s chief advisor and haruspex, looms below Numahatta Dahx’s left elbow. “Hish mightiknesh bfids ewe scum!” he snaps those five words in his atrocious Black Rock dialect, as if he’s speaking through a mouthful of shit, and spins on crusty heels, quick-marching back to the War-ganxugon’s wetu.

I stand there watching the stooped back of Gryffax’s messenger swiftly recede. Numahatta Dahx looks at me with a puzzled expression. “Well, aren’t you going to see my brother?” I shrugged my shoulders in answer. “In Lord Kjeesus ’ Good Time.” I say, “I want to finish this short passage while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

“Mihtha,” she says with a curiosity tinting her tone, “why do you make ‘Glish marks in your journal, rather than Hëntu?”

I stop writing, looking directly at her. “ ’Glish letters taught to me by the Jesuits are more concise and efficient than Hëntu pictograms. Besides, I make my apprentices transcribe my journal into Hëntu later on.” I return to my journal.

She stares at the top of my head. Her amber eyes burning a hole through my skull. “Stop that!” I roar.

“Stop what, Mihtha?”

“What you’re doing now!”

“What am I doing, Mihtha?”

“Show some respect to your commander and elder.”

“Haven’t I always shown the proper amount of respect and homage to you, Mihtha?”

“No,” I say, looking up. Numahatta Dahx has her eyes crossed and her tongue hanging out of her mouth. “I hope you face freezes just like it is now. It’ll be a marked improvement!”

“Says your mother!”

Her next expression caused me to wince. “ Will you finish and go see my brother! You know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He has no patience----- worse when we were cubs!”

I snatch the jug of Skxupéekaak from her hands, taking a long pull that empties it to a third. The spiced firewater coursed down my throat, creating a fiery reservoir in my belly. I shot K’chini a long, deep, satisfied burp. Hand her the jug, and walk toward the wetu as slow as my callused feet will carry me.

At the entrance of the wetu towers, Halflings, Huhkèken, whose begetter is a High Cragogre or ogress and the other of the Nation. Mshkeek Niiwyaan is their hagomos, and he towers over me by at least a hand, but he’s shorter than his brothers. “You ackhus bringing your appetites tomorrow? There’s gonna be a feast of Hu-man flesh to gorge your bellies!” I chided them. Not one of them spoke. All twelve looked at me with gluttony sparkling in their deep-set eyes. Three of them drool a viscid waterfall of saliva, as the anticipation of all the freshly slain Hu-mans activates their taste buds. “You can eat my share,” I joke. “I find Hu-man flesh too gamy for my palate!”

The hagomos stares down at me as if I am something foul he has just scraped from his heel. “Gryffax sent for me. If you keep me standing out here, I’m gonna lay the blame at your feet, ackhus!”

Twelve Evil-eyes attempt to burn holes through my flesh. Saying not one world, the towering Huhkèken part, allowing me entrance into the wetu. I push the entry flap aside and enter. A wall of scented heat slams into and up my nose. I stifle a sneeze that has the potential to throw my back out of alignment. The interior, besides being sweltering, is dimly lit. I wait until my eyes adjust to the gloom.

In the center sprawls Gryffax the Impatient, Hereditary War-ganxugon of the Nation, nestled among his purdah. “ Mihtha!” he shouts. “Enter! My wetu is your wetu. Drink, eat! Rut with one of my purdah. Hell’s balls, hump them all!” Gryffax is ten cups under the cushions.

“You are most generous, my nooch w’kheen!” My many great-great-great-nephew is in an unusual, jovial, expansive mood. It isn’t often that he offers the pleasures of his purdah. Upon other occasions, Gryffax had put many a warrior to death for a lingering gaze upon the attributes of his bound females.

As I squeeze next to Gryffax, avoiding stepping on any naked females, I ask, “Nooch, you summoned me for a reason other than feasting and rutting?”

“Oh, right; quite right!” His attention is centered on the ample breast of a Hobgoblŷn kwe.

“Kesukwesx has cast a very favorable augury for tomorrow’s battle! Our Grim Gods are with us! We will be stacking Hu-mans like cord wood! Our bloody offerings will be pleasing to their many eyes! Our campaign will be glorious in reducing the runaway Hu-man population, halting their encroachment on our lands for the next three hundred Turnings!”

I nod at Gryffax’s unbridled enthusiasm, while I tear into a roasted haunch of kumos, savoring the hot juices as they slide past my tongue down my gullet.

“Kesukwesx,” Gryffax throws a sweet meat at the slowly drooping bald pate of his chief advisor and haruspex. The frog-faced mystic jerks awake, whipping his head about this way and that, looking for his attacker. “Tell my kindred about the augury you cast especially for him!”

The advisor and haruspex sputtered and sprayed everybody near with copious drool. The kwe closest to him squealed in disgust and pelted him with bits of her own food, gristle, and bone. He struggles to his feet, standing as tall as his ancient body allows him. Taking a dynamic pose, he pontificates, “Your death will be glorious! You will slay three legions or more! You will be welcomed into the Great Feasting Hall atTh’kanìhkàn upuas and be seated at a place of honor on the left hand of Lord Kjeesusk’x for All Eternity!”

Finished, Kesukwesx farts a loud and drawn-out, wet-sounding anal exhalation; tooling forward, he lands with his hawk-like beak pressed into the naked loins of a blue-skinned Fae. Gryffax finds this to be so hilarious that he laughs himself unconscious. I did not find this amusing, but rather pathetic.

I remain in the wetu, drinking and supping, while conversing with several of my nooch w’kheen’spurdah. I find their conversation in no way vacuous. Many of them are well informed about the inner workings of their master’s government. Gryffax begins to snore quite loudly. I find myself shouting in order for the kwe to hear me, and they, me.

The night limps on. I don’t know when I doze off, but I’m rudely awakened by the clarion call to arms in the early morning as the sun rises above the rim of the world.

I leap up and dash from the wetu, making for my own quarters, while narrowly avoiding collisions with other rushing fools. I make it into the sanctity of my yurt, where my people pounce upon me to gird me in my chain mail and armor. Long sword, short sword, shield, and three javelins at the ready, I step out into a chaos of thousands lining up by Fist and sept.

Shortly, every warrior is arrayed by the many, many 10,000. A hush of anticipation sweeps over the assembled horde. All eyes look to the War-ganxugon’s wetu. His Blood Guard forms up, six on either side of the entrance. Gryffax bursts from his wetu into the camp, resplendent in his jet-and-silver armor, four massive war-hammers grasped in his gauntleted hands. He strides to the front of the first 10,000.

“Alright, you sorry bastards!” he bellows; his deep, gravely voice carrying to the last Fist a quarter of a mile away. “Today is a very good day to die! Do you want to live forever?”

Many, many tens of thousands of voices ring out: “No!”

“DO YOU SORRY BASTARDS WANT TO LIVE FOREVER!” His voice vibrates like rolling thunder.

A second thunderous wave of sound crashes against the bright cloudless sky. Thousands of birds take to the air.

“NO WE DON’T WANT TO LIVE FOREVER!”

“FORWARD!” Gryffax indicates an easterly course with one of his war-hammers.

“Mihtha! Take the lead!” he commands.

I look to my Fist as we maneuver into the front. Many fists bang against 3,600 shields, setting the cadence for our march. My chest swells with pride and honor as we step out. Fourteen groups of 10,000 take an hour to march past the point where my Fist stepped forward.

Suddenly, I begin feeling sorry for the Hu-mans we’re marching to kill. I believe Hu-mans call this feeling compassion—something drilled into me by the Jesuits long, long ago, from my temporary conversion to Christianity.

Blue cloudless skies. A cooling breeze out of the east. Perhaps it will last until evening. Killing is a hot, sweaty enterprise!

Yes! Spirits of our Grandfathers, a Glorious Good Day to Die!