Lawyers in Hell Read Online Free Page B

boy’s head.  A great cloud of sulphur rolled down the mountainside toward them; the ground trembled beneath his feet.
    Finally Erra looked away, to his right, where the first of the Seven waited, attentive; and behind him, to the others of the Seven, ready for war.  Then Erra looked back at Kur and said, “Your generosity overwhelms us, Almighty Kur.  The friendship of the tribe of Ki-gal is highly prized by all of us from the heavens.  We thank thee, and accept thine offered bounty.”
    Close enough to a battle to taste it, he and Erra both step back.
    “Now, if it pleases you, godly Erra:  get your plates before the food grows cold.”
    So they went to the feast-boards together and heaped their plates with Ki-gal’s bounty of meat and grain and toothsome fruits and wine.  And they ate together, as friends together, sitting amid the circle of Kigali together:  two wary lords of inconsonant domains.  Erra sat shoulder to shoulder with Kur, with the first of his Seven on his right.  On Kur’s left sat Eshi, staring about, eyes as wide as the sky, and on his left sat the second of the Seven.
    “You haven’t touched your food, Eshi,” said the molten-eyed weapon.  “Is it not pleasing?”
    “I wanted the tail of one of those,” Eshi said boldly, pointing to the sulphur cloud above in which a bevy of red-tailed flying lizards hovered, chirping loudly.  “There were none left on the feast-boards. Kigali love the taste of red-tail best of all; but they know we want to eat them, so they’re hard to catch.”
    “Are they?  Hard to catch?”  Those eyes like the inside of the mountain weighed the boy, then caught Kur’s:  “With your permission, Almighty Kur, we will get the boy his lizard treat.”
    “Go you, then, but be warned:  red-tails are canny quarry, fast and tricky.”
    The second of the Seven and Eshi got up together, and left the circle together, while Kur watched uneasily as this most beautiful weapon led Kur’s precious one away.  Perhaps this was a good thing, he told himself.  Kur knew why Eshi couldn’t eat, and it wasn’t because of any lack of food:  Eshi was still full of the events of this day.  Even Kur had lost his appetite, but ate because he must.
    When Eshi and the second of the Seven stopped under the thickest billows of sulphur, the tall weapon spoke softly to him.  Eshi stretched out his wings, and his arms, and pointed.  Then the second of the Seven raised his sword.  Lightning spat from its tip into the cloud and the bevy.
    There was a snapping sound, then a squawk, then a screech, and Eshi nearly took wing.  But before the boy could leave the ground, down plummeted two fat red-tails.  The second of the Seven caught them both before they struck the earth, so fast was he.
    Erra’s molten-eyed destroyer bent down on one knee and, with teeth bared, solemnly presented Eshi with the two fresh kills.  Eshi took them both, then made a gesture worthy of a lord:  he gave one red-tail back to the weapon of the god.  The pair of them squatted down there, Kigali boy and son of heaven and earth, and ate their lizard tails raw, together, tearing off the wings, cracking the spines, and letting the blood dribble down their chins.
    At this Erra said, “Good.  Your boy and my bringer of lightning will be allies.”
    “Good,” Kur agreed, not sure that this was so, but proud of Eshi:  there was a leader growing in this child of Ki-gal.
    When the two returned to sit once more in the circle, Kur took the boy under his arm and told him so:  “You are brave and you are clever, Eshi.  You have made a friend.”
    Then Eshi and the second of the Seven presented Kur with both pairs of chewy wings in front of everyone, and the tribe began to call and chirp and sing, once the gift to their leader was bestowed.
    *
    In New Hell, there was but one Hall of Injustice, where the gravest cases were tried.  Overnight the primordial sea, Tiamat, had flooded city streets knee-high;