“Never mind, Grandfather,” I consoled him. “It all had to end some time anyway.”
“I didn’t get to see your sister,” he continued. “That’s a real pity. There are so few of us left and, well, not even those few can get together.”
He was silent for a while, stared at the iron men and hissed loudly. Farther off, some horses tethered to trees started whinnying and trying to tear themselves free.
“No use in Snakish words either,” said Grandfather. “The horses might bolt, but these shitbags won’t sit in the saddle.”
Drums started to roll. Two men came up to us. They had in their hands a leather strap, with which they tied Grandfather’s mouth shut, probably so that Grandfather couldn’t use his fearful fangs. Grandfather whined bitterly. The men untied him from the tree, and without legs Grandfather collapsed onto his stomach. The iron men laughed and hooted with pleasure.
“Hold out, Grandfather!” I said. “You know I’m very proud of you. If there were more men like you, the Frog of the North would be flying in the sky by now and would gobble up these grinning idiots like a swallow eating a gnat.”
Grandfather looked at me and winked his only eye. Then he was dragged away.
On a little mound had been built something like a wooden floor. That was where Grandfather was taken. His clothes were ripped off him and he was shoved onto his stomach. Then his hands were chained to the edge of the floor and one man sat on his stumps, to keep his lower body in place.
Then one of the men took a large knife and cut through Grandfather’s back, starting at the neck and ending at his buttocks.
Grandfather snorted with pain and wriggled.
The man with the knife put his hands inside the wound and rummaged there. Grandfather’s eyes turned inside out, but he did not lose consciousness. Blood flowed across the wooden floor and dripped down onto the sand.
The man on his back had found his ribs. He took a small ax and started smashing them up.
Then he grabbed hold of them and pressed them outward, so that the ribs bristled out of Grandfather’s back like birds’ wings.
The iron men on the shore fell to whinnying approvingly and shouted something, flailing their arms as if trying to take flight.
Grandfather was still alive; he hit his head against the floor. Suddenly the strap holding his mouth shut broke. Grandfather roared and sank his teeth into his tormentor’s leg, which he had inadvertently left in front of his face.
The man shrieked in a strangely shrill voice and collapsed beside Grandfather. The others rushed to his aid, but after several rapid convulsions the bitten man fell silent. He was dead.
At the same time Grandfather hissed frantically, lashing out with his jaws in all directions and spitting dark blood.
One of the iron men leapt up angrily, grabbed a sword, and chopped Grandfather’s head off. It rolled down off the wooden floor and, since it was wet and viscous with blood all over, it was quickly covered with sand, so that it might simply be seen as a large sandy rock.
Grandfather’s trunk was lying contorted in a pool of blood. The body lacked legs and bony wings grew out of the ripped back. These were human bones, and therefore quite suitable for flying; they lacked only a windbag.
But of course there was no longer anywhere to get that from.
Then it was my turn. The men came and untied me from the tree. I was still very weak and started reeling, but they wouldn’t let me fall and dragged me quickly from the tree to the torture rack. One of the men slipped on the large puddle of blood covering it and my wounded head collided with his shoulder. I could not hold back a scream.
The men laughed and said something in their own language, which I didn’t understand, but I assumed they were saying something like: “That was nothing, just a joke. The real pain is still coming!”
I didn’t doubt that, because quite clearly it was going to be horrifically unpleasant to have your back cut open and your ribs bent out. But there was nothing to be done; Snakish would not help here.
They bound me up exactly as they had done with Grandfather and one of the men took up a knife. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lips, anticipating the first flash of pain on the back of the neck and everything that must follow it.
But the jab didn’t come. Nobody touched me, and the strange noises coming from the iron men enticed me to open my eyes again.
They were all still standing just as before — on a wide stretch of the shore, where they could best follow the bloody scene being played out. They were no longer laughing or craning their necks at the murder rack. Their heads were cocked toward the sea, and their necks seemed to have become unexpectedly heavy. There was something uncertain in their stance, giving the impression that their heads threatened to roll off their shoulders, and to prevent that and preserve their balance, they had to take a step toward the sea. And then another. But that didn’t help. Their necks would not straighten up; their heads drew them willy-nilly toward the sea, and though the iron men even tried with their hands to point their own heads in a different direction, they did not succeed and they were forced on the path their heads had chosen.
I looked at them from behind. Even those men whose task was to torture me to death no longer stood on the killing floor, but staggered like the other iron men step by step toward the sea, for that was where their imperious heads were tugging them. Their faces reflected extreme alarm and fear; they didn’t understand what was going on here with their willful skulls and where they were being drawn to. They squealed and clutched their own throats, but an unknown force that at this moment controlled their heads was stronger than they were.
I was still bound up, and couldn’t pull my hands and feet free of my fetters, although I tried with all my might. Here was an excellent opportunity to escape. I could not know how long such a miracle would last, and I struggled for all I was worth. But the fetters were strong, and there was nothing for me to do but lie and hope that this bizarre event would take the iron men as far as possible from me.
Their heads led them farther and farther toward the sea; the first iron men were already standing with their feet in the water and kept having to step ever farther. Now they were screaming in mortal fear. Ever farther into the sea their heads directed them, and they stumbled on like tethered sheep. They struggled to resist, but kept walking, for they had no strength to resist. One iron man of short build had now got so far into the sea that the water was up to his neck: he screamed like a madman but couldn’t stop, and the next moment the water rushed into his mouth. He disappeared into the waves.
Now the iron men all fully understood what kind of end awaited them; they howled and yelped, and one man took a knife from his belt and slit his own throat with it, to rid himself of his own murderous head. Thus he was saved from drowning, but not from death, and his body collapsed into the sea and colored the water red.
The other iron men were not so resolute. They screamed and yelled, waved their arms to heaven, and begged for help from their God, whom they obviously imagined to be lounging up there beyond the clouds, wondering at this peculiar scene. Nothing helped them. One by one they vanished into the sea, and when the waves had taken the last iron man’s head, an unexpected silence fell on the shore.
I took a deep breath. I was alive. I had been saved, though I didn’t understand how. What force had driven these men into the water, to voluntarily drown themselves? I didn’t know, and for the moment that wasn’t my greatest problem. I had to get free of my fetters and get out of this pool of blood into which the iron men had forced me, facedown. I wriggled like a snake, but the fetters would not give way.