Army of God

by Dennis Bailey

  “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. Your mother and your wives have pampered me like a newborn. How much of the ark is there left to pitch?”

  “We’re finished with the inside,” Shem said. “And we probably have about a third of the outside remaining.”

  “Splendid,” Noah said. “Sounds as if you’ve made excellent progress without me.” Japheth shuffled his feet. “All right. No solemn faces. You three still have a lot of work to do. I’ll be back to work before you know it.” None of them looked up. “Get going now.”

  Shem and Ham walked out, but their brother stayed behind and kneeled next to the bed.

  “Father, I—I—” Japheth had trouble swallowing. “I don’t have the words to say how sorry I am.”

  Noah put a hand on his son’s knee. “Don’t you think I know that? It was an accident.”

  “Yes, but my fighting with Shem wasn’t. I shouldn’t have said what I did to rile him.”

  “Perhaps. But it’s over now.”

  “What happened between Shem and I may be over, but the consequences aren’t. You can’t walk.”

  “I can’t walk because I’m injured. When the injury heals, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “What if it doesn’t?”

  “If that’s YAH’s will for me, then when the ark is ready, you and your brothers can carry me onboard like one of the lambs.”

  Japheth tried to force a smile.

  “Go on. Your brothers are waiting.”

  Noah had put on his best face for them, even though the way he felt now could mean he would never walk again. But even being a cripple wasn’t the foremost thing on his mind. It was the implication of Shem’s revelation concerning Ariel. Could she survive being trapped inside the ark for an indefinite period? She had escaped the fear of the cave, but only by fleeing from it. If she couldn’t adapt to life inside the ark, there would be no place for her to run.

  Chapter 52

  “Ah, come in, Commander,” Malluch said when Shechem entered the great hall, clasping him on the shoulder. “How are the preparations going?”

  “Very well, my lord. My captains and I met for over six hours yesterday discussing strategies.”

  “Good, good. I wish there was a way to share with you my excitement. After 120 years.”

  “It’s written on your face.”

  Bohar entered the room, eating an overripe banana. “Good morning, my lord. Commander. Did you hear a man was found drowned last night in one of the eastern winepress vats? If I had to drown, that’d be my beverage of choice.”

  Shechem shook his head, not in answer to Bohar’s question, but in pity for the dead man.

  “By the way, Commander,” Malluch said. “Do you remember that story we heard some years ago, something about a man building a boat in the desert?”

  “More than a boat. The story was this farmer and his three sons were building this massive ark on the plain. Somewhere in the south, wasn’t it, Bohar?”

  He laughed. “Yes. He said some great flood was coming to cover the earth.”

  “How long ago was that?” Malluch said.

  “It’s got to be close to a hundred years now.” Shechem said. “Why?”

  “Well, my wife said she overheard some of the women servants talking about it just yesterday. They’d heard it from some merchants who’d come from the south.”

  “Old news,” Bohar said.

  “Do you think there could be anything to it?” Malluch said.

  “Anything to what? If there was a flood coming, it would have been here by now.”

  What a strange coincidence for them to be discussing the flood, especially since Methuselah mentioned it on his death bed only yesterday.

  “Well, there must be something to a rumor that’s lasted a hundred years,” Malluch said.

  “Just a bunch of old palace hens telling tales,” Bohar said.

  “Look into it, will you, Commander?”

  Shechem and Bohar exchanged identical looks of surprise, but Malluch’s stoic expression told them he was serious. “Very well, my lord. I’ll take care of it as soon as we get back from the expedition to the garden.”

  “I would like you to leave today.”

  “Today?” Bohar said. “But what about our plans for the campaign?”

  “I’m postponing the campaign until the commander completes this assignment.”

  “What—”

  “That will be all, my friends.”

  Bohar, jaw hanging, clenched a fist but before he could say another word, Shechem grabbed him by the upper arm and pulled him toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  The commander maintained a grip on the door handle after they exited the great hall, watching Bohar storm up the hallway toward his quarters. When he’d rounded the corner, Shechem re-entered the hall and approached the governor, who had his back to him. The two men stood in silence for what seemed a long time.

  “My friend,” Malluch said.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “How typical of you to return, even to defy my order dismissing you, because you perceive I am troubled.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I suppose it’s why you’ve remained my closest confidant all these years. Sometimes I don’t even think my wife knows me as well.” He paused. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Bohar, but they’ve come back again.”

  “The nightmares?”

  “Yes. Of my father and brother. And the fire. They were gone for the longest time. Sixty years. But in the past few months they’ve returned.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord.”

  “More than anyone else, you know what I’ve been through. You were there. You watched them die too.” He paused again. “And now, you must be wondering what this has to do with a one hundred-year-old rumor.”

  “I was curious.”

  Malluch placed his finger on the table and scratched the wood with his fingernail. “It was a mistake to let him go, Commander.”

  “Let who go?”

  “The Preacher.”

  Shechem was taken aback. Malluch hadn’t mentioned the Preacher in decades. “It troubles you after all these years?”

  He nodded without looking up. “I didn’t realize at the time how important it was for me to see him dead.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand. His leaving all but destroyed his father and opened the door for you to take control of Eden.”

  “I know. But eliminating him would have accomplished the same thing, and I might not now be suffering these nightmares.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Don’t I? Did they not disappear for the longest time after the destruction of the traitors? What possible explanation could there be for their return other than that my vengeance is incomplete?”

  “We don’t even know for sure the river didn’t take him that night.”

  “Six people and who knows how many livestock drown in the river and not a single one of them washes ashore? I don’t think so, Commander.”

  “So what’s all this have to do with the man building the ark?”

  “It’s him.”

  “Who?”

  “The Preacher.”

  “It’s just a rumor, my lord.”

  “Is it? The Preacher fled south from Eden nearly a hundred years ago. And this story. Did it not originate in the south a short time following his disappearance?

  “It’s like Bohar said. Superstitious prattle from a flock of old women.”

  “I wonder.”

  “Forget for a moment he’s a mortal enemy. You and I both know he’s not the kind of man to do something crazy like building a ship in the middle of nowhere.”

  The color drained from Malluch’s face. “It’s him, Commander. Don’t ask me how I know. I just feel it.”

  Sensing his conviction, Shechem resigned himself to the inevitable. “What can I do to help?”

  “Find out, Commander. One way or the other.”

  “And if the story is
true and it is him?”

  “I want him alive. Take all the men you need to help deal with his sons, but bring the Preacher back alive.”

  Shechem headed out.

  “A final thought, Commander. I know you think I send you on a fool’s errand. But keep in mind that if you do find him, you’ll find her.”

  Elisheva. Shechem smiled and offered a short bow of gratitude.

  * * *

  Shechem had trouble believing what his eyes were telling him. But there it was—a massive ship built atop a small hill in the middle of a plain. He and his squad of fifteen men had located the gigantic structure in the southern wilderness 1280 furlongs from Eden nine days after their departure. Now, using an adjacent forest for cover, they moved quietly up the wood line for a closer look.

  Hundreds of animals surrounded the ark. Elephants, rhinoceroses, gazelle, wildebeests, and every kind of predator cat imaginable occupied the hill and nearby grassy areas. As did a considerable number of smaller mammals. Above him and his men, the trees teemed with more birds than he would ever have expected in an area of forest this size. So this is where all those pairs of animals journeyed to. Why?

  Malluch’s intuition had been correct. Shechem recognized the Preacher limping down the port side of the ark and a female lion walking several paces behind. Japheth, Shem, and a younger man entered and exited the ark via a ramp that stretched from the ground to the cargo door. Either the Preacher had sired another son since he’d been gone, or hired someone to help with the construction.

  Shechem’s attention shifted to a woman walking up the hill toward the ark, and his heart skipped a beat. If Elisheva had aged in the last century, he couldn’t tell, at least not from this distance. She was just as lovely and shapely as he’d remembered. A sinking feeling swirled in the pit of his gut, the same one he had the first time he held her hand.

  “What are we going to do, Commander?” one soldier said.

  He pointed to where a pair of tigers and two brown bears passed each other going in opposite directions near the bottom of the hill. Closer to the ark, jaguars and hyenas did likewise. “What do you make of that, soldier?”

  “Looks like their walking guard.”

  “I agree. Does anyone have a suggestion?”

  “I have one, Commander,” another soldier said. “Let’s go home. We’re going to need a whole lot more than the fifteen of us.”

  The remaining soldiers all nodded.

  A part of Shechem wanted to stay in hopes he could devise a plan to get close enough to at least speak with Elisheva. But he estimated his chances of being torn to shreds by one or more of those predators were greater than getting anywhere near her.

  Chapter 53

  Striding toward the great hall, Shechem’s thoughts were far away from the news he was about to report to Malluch. Instead, he was lost in a sentimental fog, thinking about his first sight of Elisheva in nearly a hundred years.

  From that moment, he’d regressed to being a lovesick adolescent, unable to keep her out of his mind. All the way back to Eden, he fixated on her. At night, he dreamed about her. For the first time in his life, he even pondered the existence of the supernatural.

  And why not? Finding Elisheva alive was the closest thing to a miracle he’d ever experienced. Someone who’d been dead to him for a hundred years had, in a moment of serendipity, been brought back to life.

  “Good afternoon, Commander,” Malluch said looking up from the long table where he was seated with Bohar. “Did you find him?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “You’re joking,” Bohar said.

  “And was it the Preacher?” Malluch said.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Malluch rose quickly from the table. “Well, where is he? Why haven’t you brought him before me in chains?”

  “We were unable to get close enough to capture him.”

  “Unable? What do you mean?”

  “He was—uh—being protected.”

  “By who? Does he have his own army?”

  “Of sorts.” Shechem hesitated, unsure how to explain the animals.

  “Well?”

  “They’re—they’re beasts.”

  “Beasts?”

  “Yes, my lord. The Preacher, his family, and the ark are surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands, of beasts. Lions, bears, wolves, and every other kind of animal and bird you can think of. Even some I’ve never seen before.”

  “That’s crazy,” Bohar said.

  “Yes, about as crazy as the story of a man building a boat in the desert.”

  “And you couldn’t get near him?” Malluch said.

  “Impossible. The beasts were everywhere. We saw pairs of tigers, jaguars, bears, even hyenas walking the perimeter, as though they were guarding the ark itself. And the Preacher had a lion that followed him wherever he limped.”

  “Limped?” Bohar said.

  “Yes, he was hobbling along like he was eight hundred years old or something. And that lion was two paces behind.”

  Malluch paced the floor. When he stopped, he addressed Shechem directly. “Prepare your army, Commander. You leave for the southern territories tomorrow.”

  “South!” Bohar said. “What about the garden, the guardian, the tree of life?”

  “They will be there waiting for us when you return. Remember what I said about the Preacher, Commander.”

  He nodded. “Alive. What do you want done with the ark?”

  Malluch took a torch from the wall ten cubits from the table and stared into the flames. He grinned broadly before looking back to them. “It’s made of wood, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Noah awoke to a dissonance of noise pouring in through their bedroom window. He rolled over to find Miryam lying on her back, eyes open. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been listening to that for about half an hour now.”

  “I heard it too, but thought it was part of a dream. What happened to the rooster?”

  “I think he called in reinforcements.”

  He rose and walked to the window. In the forest next to them, thousands of birds in an array of colors flitted about the trees, each species singing its own song. In spite of the commotion, he was amazed by this display of beauty and song. God had filled His earth with an immeasurable variety of creatures, and now He was bringing them all together in one place.

  He and Miryam met Ariel and Shiphrah in the main living area.

  Shem studied the birds through the window. “Is it me, or did a whole lot more animals just arrive overnight?”

  At least a half dozen new species of grazing animals fed in the fields and on the surrounding hills visible through the window. They were joined by an assortment of previously unseen small mammals. Even the creeping things appeared well represented, what with dozens of new breeds of serpents and other reptiles crawling along the ground. Animals that would normally prey on one another lay peacefully together only a few cubits apart.

  Japheth walked into the room yawning, followed by Elisheva. “Do you hear the noise out there?” he said.

  “You’d have to be deaf not to,” Shem said.

  “They’re not going to make that racket in the ark, are they? If so, we’ll never get any sleep.”

  “Not too many species sing at night.” Noah said. “Some mockingbirds, whip-poor-wills, and owls. Maybe a few others. The rest should be fairly quiet.”

  Ham burst through the front door. “You should see it out there. They’re everywhere.”

  “So your brother and I were just noticing.”

  “But you should really come take a look at some of these animals. I’ve never seen anything like them. There’s this creature that resembles a spotted deer, only it’s much larger and it has this really long neck. Taller than some of the trees out there.”

  “A giraffe, I think Adam called it.”

  “Then there are these two black and white striped horses.”

  “Zebra.”

  “Oh, and Japheth. Your crocs are he
re.”

  His brother turned to Elisheva. “Don’t you dare,” she said.

  The men laughed.

  “Father.” Shem pointed to where five robins hopped along the ground looking for worms. “I thought there are only supposed to be two of every animal going into the ark.”

  “There are.”

  “Well, in addition to those five, I counted four pidgeons and seven sparrows in the trees out back when I got up this morning.”

  “I can’t explain it, son. Probably just coincidence.”

  “Who cares about the birds?” Ariel said. “What does all these animals showing up overnight mean?”

  “I suspect it means we’re running out of time,” Noah said.

  “What do we do?”

  “We need to start gathering food for the ark. Today.”

  “All right, then,” Japheth said. “Let’s get to it.” He opened the door and started to walk out.

  “Watch it!” Elisheva said.

  Japheth froze in mid-stride before his right foot came down on a pair of sand lizards crawling just outside the door.

  “Careful, son,” his father said. “From now on, we’ll all need to watch where we step.”

  While Noah followed him out the door, questions about the sudden influx of animals danced in his head. When would the floodwaters come? This week? The next? If they came without warning, would there be time enough to get all the animals and his family on board the ark?

  What if they came tonight?

  Chapter 54

  Shechem led his army to within a furlong of the ark, raising a hand to signal his captains of the command to halt. Fifty voices echoed across the plain, bringing to a stop five thousand foot soldiers and another three hundred men on horseback. Some of the men carried lighted torches.

  He scanned the area, which seemed strangely quiet and devoid of all but a few grazing animals on the hill near the ark. Gone were the patrolling animals he’d seen only two weeks before. To the right of the ark, at the bottom of the hill, stood a large, yet modestly built stone house. Shechem faced his men. “Destroy the ark. Kill anyone or anything that tries to stop you. But bring the Preacher and the women to me alive.”

  Bohar’s head snapped around. “Malluch didn’t say anything about sparing the women, only the Preacher.”