Gods and Warriors
Authors: Michelle Paver
GODS
AND
WARRIORS
GODS
AND
WARRIORS
MICHELLE PAVER
BOOK
Dial Books for Young Readers
an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group
Published by The Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.
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First published in the United States
by Dial Books for Young Readers
Published in Great Britain
by Penguin Books Ltd
Text Copyright © 2012 by Michelle Paver
Map illustration by Fred van Deelan copyright © 2012 by Puffin Books
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Designed by Nancy R. Leo-Kelly
Text set in ITC Galliard Std
Printed in the U.S.A.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paver, Michelle.
Gods and warriors. Book one / by Michelle Paver.
p. cm.
Summary: In the turbulent world of the Mediterranean Bronze Age,
Hylas, a lowly twelve-year-old goatherd, thief, and outsider, journeys from the Greek mountains to Crete and Egypt, making allies with animals, battling tyranny, and withstanding the elemental powers of the gods of land and sea.
ISBN: 978-1-101-59197-0
[1. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 2. Prehistoric peoples—Fiction. 3. Human-animal communication—Fiction. 4. Gods—Fiction. 5. Bronze Age—Fiction. 6. Mediterranean Region—History—To 476—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P2853Go 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2012002987
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
T
he shaft of the arrow was black and fletched with crow feathers, but Hylas couldn’t see the head because it was buried in his arm.
Clutching it to stop it wobbling, he scrambled down the slope. No time to pull it out. The black warriors could be anywhere.
He was ragingly thirsty and so tired he couldn’t think straight. The Sun beat down on him and the thorn scrub gave no cover; he felt horribly exposed. But even worse was the worry over Issi, and the aching disbelief about Scram.
He found the trail that led down the Mountain and halted, gasping for breath. The rasp of the crickets was loud in his ears. The cry of a falcon echoed through the gorge. No sound of pursuit. Had he really shaken them off?
He still couldn’t take it in. Last night he and Issi had made camp in a cave below the western peak. Now his sister was missing, his dog was dead, and he was running for his life: a skinny boy with no clothes and no knife; all he had was a grimy little amulet on a thong around his neck.
His arm hurt savagely. Holding the arrow shaft steady, he staggered to the edge of the trail. Pebbles rattled down to the river, dizzyingly far below. The gorge was so steep that his toes were level with the heads of pine trees. Before him the Lykonian mountains marched off into the distance, and behind him loomed the mightiest of them all: Mount Lykas, its peaks ablaze with snow.
He thought of the village farther down the gorge, and of his friend Telamon, in the Chieftain’s stronghold on the other side of the Mountain. Had the black warriors burned the village and attacked Lapithos? But then why couldn’t he see smoke, or hear the rams’ horns sounding the alarm? Why weren’t the Chieftain and his men fighting back?
The pain in his arm was all-consuming. He couldn’t put it off any longer. He picked a handful of thyme, then snapped off a furry gray leaf of giant mullein for a bandage. The leaf was as thick and soft as a dog’s ears. He scowled.
Don’t
think about Scram.
They’d been together just before the attack. Scram had leaned against him, his shaggy coat matted with burrs. Hylas had picked out a couple, then pushed Scram’s muzzle aside and told him to watch the goats. Scram had ambled off, swinging his tail and glancing back at him as if to say,
I know what to do. I’m a goathound, that’s what I’m for.
Don’t think about him, Hylas told himself fiercely.
Setting his teeth, he gripped the arrow shaft. He sucked in his breath. He pulled.
The pain was so bad he nearly passed out. Biting his lips, he rocked back and forth, fighting the sickening red waves. Scram, where are you? Why can’t you come and lick it better?
Grimacing, he crushed the thyme and clamped it to the wound. It was a struggle to bandage it with the mullein leaf one-handed, but at last he managed, tying it in place with a twist of grass that he tightened with his teeth.
The arrowhead lay in the dust where he’d dropped it. It was shaped like a poplar leaf, with a vicious, tapered point. He’d never seen one like it. In the mountains, people made arrowheads of flint—or if they were rich, of bronze. This was different. It was shiny black obsidian. Hylas only recognized it because the village wisewoman possessed a shard. She said it was the blood of the Mother, spewed from the earth’s fiery guts and turned to stone. She said it came from islands far across the Sea.
Who
were
the black warriors? Why were they after him? He hadn’t done anything.
And had they found Issi?
Behind him, rock doves exploded into the sky with a whirring of wings.
He spun around.
From where he stood, the trail descended steeply, then disappeared around a spur. Behind the spur, a cloud of red dust was rising. Hylas caught the thud of many feet and the rattle of arrows in quivers. His belly turned over.
They were back.
