Entreating the God
Gholl walked the length of the village barefoot before dawn. He passed silent houses with dark windows. The women and children had not begun to stir, but the men were beginning to rise, preparing their spears and nets for the hunt. Gholl had woken earliest of all to ready his own weapon. For hours he ground the long, straight knife against the oilstone. Now he was sure it would cut like a razor. The bonfire’s embers in the common area burned low as Gholl passed through its empty span. His knuckles were white as he clutched the rope like a throat he wished to strangle. The rope was tied around the neck of a ram, four summers old, and the proudest of his flock, with the widest shoulders and the most magnificent horns. The path began an upward incline as he came to his destination. The shrine to Amalthea was built upon a hill so as to be the first structure touched by the sunlight as the rays conquered the mountains. Gholl entered the stone hut built around the altar. Here the stubborn ram halted, tossing up his horned head and throwing all his weight to his hindquarters to fight Gholl’s wrenching rope. Gholl bared his teeth and looped the rope around his forearms. The tendons and veins in his arms stood out boldly with the exertion of his strength. Soon the ram stumbled forth into the shadowed shrine, defeated. Gholl led it to the altar. Here, confronted with the stone slab covered in animal skins, the ram froze again. Its mouth hung open as it panted with growing anxiety. Gholl moved behind the ram. The ram took fright as he straddled it, but Gholl lay atop it, and it was crushed to the ground. A bleat of terror rose in the animal’s throat. Gholl pushed the beast’s horns down, forcing it to bare its long woolly neck. He pulled his carefully sharpened knife from his belt. Gholl fixed his gaze on the altar where a horned skull hung imperiously, staring with empty sockets. Daybreak teased at the doorway, casting the altar in twilight. “Amalthea, caretaker, mother, your son offers you his life’s work for your favor!” Gholl rasped in his gravelly voice. He swallowed thickly. “A great evil has been done to me. Your son, Gholl, humbly entreats you. Please, avenge my heart, in exchange for this sacrifice!” Gholl pressed the knife to the ram’s skin and dragged it across the animal’s throat. The beast screamed as the blade sliced through living sinew. Its bellow twisted Gholl’s stomach as the knife sliced the windpipe in two. Blood came bounding forth over his hands. It spilled down the ram’s front in vital scarlet streams and pooled around its prone legs. Gholl stood as the ram lay dying. His own breath heaved with the enormity, and he gazed without seeing at the altar of Amalthea. Below him the ram’s darkening blood soaked the dirt floor, creeping at the edge of the stone altar. The sun broke over the mountains, spilling into the shrine as the blood spilled through the doorway and bathing the altar in sunlight. Gholl closed his eyes and let the dawnlight warm him. A calm settled upon his shoulders as if Amalthea herself had reached into his soul and lifted his worries. His sacrifice would be heard.