Scourge of God – excerpt
My father was called Csakó. He lived his life as an embittered man. Ever since I can remember he had been forging swords and arrowheads.
I remember him as a corpulent man of clumsy movements. Whenever I recall his figure, every time I see a sweaty-faced giant bending above the anvil from morning till night.
My father had a great flaw.
He hammered probably all the flexibility there was in him into the swords and sabers that left his hands one after another. Maybe this was the reason why he remained unyielding and stubborn until we had met again.
He did not achieve much; he went to battle only once…
You asked me, my old friend, to count the dates from the year when the Crucified had been born as this would make it truly clear to you when the remarkable events had taken place…
Well, my father accompanied high king Balamber to his campaign against the Ostrogoths when he was barely eighteen years old in the 374th year after the birth of the Carpenter’s Son.
They made the horses swam across the Don and entered the Crimean Peninsula through the strait of Kerchi. They won. And not just anyhow. They gained such a glorious victory over the Goths that their king, the proud Ermanaric had the face to fall on his sword. It is said that this in vogue in Rome…
My father reckoned he would return home from the war as a rich man, owner of twenty horses. But the god of the Huns decided that another fate would await him: he made my father lame and sent him back to his homeland in that state – my father could never again straighten his left leg because of an unfortunate spear-thrust.
The Lord of Heavens arranged thus that Csakó, son of Uzgon would remain a master blacksmith forever.
However, all the hope that was taken away from him in the Crimea was returned to him abundantly as a talent in his work at the bellows. My father forged fine swords; half of the world marveled at them.
Also a long-braided Hun girl admired him. She was called Rika.
She was loitering and posing in front of the door of the smithy day by day. She seized every opportunity to engage the handsome man in a chat.
She became my mother.
