Small Gods - Terry Pratchett [120]
Simony looked up at the booming darkness.
“What the hell’s happening?” He nudged the body next to him.
It was Argavisti. They stared at one another.
More thunder smashed across the sky. Waves climbed up one another to rip into the fleet. Hull drifted with awful grace into hull, giving the bass line of the thunder a counterpoint of groaning wood.
A broken spar thudded into the sand by Simony’s head.
“We’re dead if we stay here,” he said. “Come on.”
They staggered through the spray and sand, amidst groups of cowering and praying soldiers, fetching up against something hard, half-covered.
They crawled into the calm under the Turtle.
Other people had already had the same idea. Shadowy figures sat or sprawled in the darkness. Urn sat dejectedly on his toolbox. There was a hint of gutted fish.
“The gods are angry,” said Borvorius.
“Bloody furious,” said Argavisti.
“I’m not that happy myself,” said Simony. “Gods? Huh!”
“This is no time for impiety,” said Rham-ap-Efan.
There was a shower of grapes outside.
“Can’t think of a better one,” said Simony.
A piece of cornucopia shrapnel bounced off the roof of the Turtle, which rocked on its spiked wheels.
“But why be angry with us?” said Argavisti. “We’re doing what they want.”
Borvorius tried to smile. “Gods, eh?” he said. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”
Someone nudged Simony, and passed him a soggy cigarette. It was a Tsortean soldier. Despite himself, he took a puff.
“It’s good tobacco,” he said. “The stuff we grow tastes like camel’s droppings.”
He passed it along to the next hunched figure.
THANK YOU.
Borvorius produced a flask from somewhere.
“Will you go to hell if you have a drop of spirit?” he said.
“So it seems,” said Simony, absently. Then he noticed the flask. “Oh, you mean alcohol? Probably. But who cares? I won’t be able to get near the fire for priests. Thanks.”
“Pass it around.”
THANK YOU.
The Turtle rocked to a thunderbolt.
“G’n y’himbe bo?”
They all looked at the pieces of raw fish, and Fasta Benj’s hopeful expression.
“I could rake some of the coals out of the firebox from here,” said Urn, after a while.
Someone tapped Simony on the shoulder, creating a strange tingling sensation.
THANK YOU. I HAVE TO GO.
As he took it he was aware of the rush of air, a sudden breath in the universe. He looked around in time to see a wave lift a ship out of the water and smash it against the dunes.
A distant scream colored the wind.
The soldiers stared.
“There were people under there,” said Argavisti.
Simony dropped the flask.
“Come on,” he said.
And no one, as they hauled on timbers in the teeth of the gale, as Urn applied everything he knew about levers, as they used their helmets as shovels to dig under the wreckage, asked who it was they were digging for, or what kind of uniform they’d been wearing.
Fog rolled in on the wind, hot and flashing with electricity, and still the sea pounded down.
Simony hauled on a spar, and then found the weight lessen as someone grasped the other end. He looked up into Brutha’s eyes.
“Don’t say anything,” said Brutha.
“Gods are doing this to us?”
“Don’t say anything!”
“I’ve got to know!”
“It’s better than us doing this to us, isn’t it?”
“There’s still people who never got off the ships!”
“No one ever said it was going to be nice!”
Simony pulled aside some planking. There was a man there, armor and leathers so stained as to be unrecognizable, but alive.
“Listen,” said Simony, as the wind whipped at him, “I’m not giving in! You’ve haven’t won! I’m not doing this for any sort of god, whether they exist or not! I’m doing it for other people! And stop smiling like that!”
A couple of dice dropped on to the sand. They sparkled and crackled for a while and then evaporated.
The sea calmed. The fog went ragged and curled into nothingness. There was still a haze in the air, but the sun was at least visible again, if only as