Lod the Galley Slave (Lost Civilizations)

by Heppner, Vaughn

  Prickly sweat dotted Kron’s trident tattoo. With the back of his thick wrist, he wiped the beads away.

  How much did Gog fear the otter man?

  Kron let his hands drop to his sides as he opened himself, a distasteful exercise. He cast about with extra senses that only the blood of the high possessed. He explored the seething sea of humanity, the bovine beasts.

  Normally, he lacked interest in the supernatural. It was so finicky and filled with hidden perils. His extra, spiritual senses brushed against the humans. It was an intimate thing, leaving a soiled taste in his soul.

  There was nothing, nothing…then shock struck him. There by the hay-bales stood a beastmaster by the name of Inanna. He knew her. She was Gog’s perennial favorite. An eagle perched on her shoulder, while crouched by a bale was a leopard lashing its tail. Her control of beasts was phenomenal. Could she summon the dreaded cave bears, twisted into monsters that even a Nephilim could fear? He hoped not.

  There were rumors that some beastmasters strove for control of canal rats. The giant rodents had so far proven strangely resistant to their spells.

  Maybe Inanna’s presence here was a coincidence.

  Kron opened himself further, ranging farther. There, the black-hooded man munching a pear, dropping a copper into the fruit-seller’s palm…he was a priest-assassin. Kron amended that. The priest wasn’t just any assassin, but the deadly Black Lotus. The killer bore his customary strangling cord, a blowpipe filled with toxic amaranth and a poisoned needle-knife.

  Kron knew this was no coincidence. Gog left nothing to chance. Kron’s fear of his sire grew, as did his respect. This was the way to use the prophetic gift. To find the trouble and then use the tools needed to exterminate it. Gog was also being subtle, layering his minions with care.

  Kron withheld debate with himself as he used his spiritual power once again. He was certain there must be a third party nearby, and soon he found it. There, the sleek necromancer standing in the shadows of a smithy, he was the third. That one possessed a drop of the blood of the high. It showed in the leanness of the man’s features. The pale lips thinned then, and the man nodded slowly at Kron. Clearly, the necromancer was spellcaster enough to feel a Nephilim’s probing touch.

  With a scowl, Kron turned away from the necromancer. Despite his fear of Gog, Kron realized that their presence here was a gross insult. If he failed, how was it possible that mere cattle could succeed? Perhaps it was merely caution on Gog’s part. Still, the implications angered him. He almost strode through the milling throng to confront each, not to slay, but to enforce his will upon them. Then he reconsidered. He pondered what this meant about Gog, and he decided to watch and learn, and to gain insights into the First Born’s thoughts.

  More importantly, he determined to find this human vermin and kill him, and show his sire that Kron the Enforcer needed no help when it came to slaying madmen.

  -5-

  The melon barge’s drumbeat slowed as the clumsy vessel turned into a canal. Along nearby walkways, fishermen with nets slung over their shoulders trudged home. An upset rat hunter jogged past, shouting at a striding tally-master.

  The barge veered toward one of the largest merchant wharves in Shamgar. Rising above it in the background was the acropolis and the gargantuan Temple, its marble columns bright in the sunlight. Nearer the wooden piers was a plaza filled with stalls, booths and countless, milling people.

  Lod saw stunted Nebo tribesmen shaking their heads as a large nobleman in hunting gear fiercely argued with them. No doubt the tribesmen haggled over their hiring price as swamp guides. Nearby, a bald slaver sold whips. A woman squatted beside a booth, fanning a brazier of sizzling pork as she loudly praised her meaty delicacies.

  At the booths, a hundred items were for sale: wines, cloaks, jewels, beer and swords, fishing hooks, tridents, sandals, melons and silk, all the goods from around the Suttung Sea. A thin merchant argued with Shurites selling axes. Traders from Dishon smiled meekly as a reaver cursed their dishonest scales. The plaza was a mass of noisy sellers and buyers, thieves and sightseers. Despite Gog’s patrolling priests, this was probably the only place where Lod could blend in and slip onto an outbound ship.

  Lod slid even lower into the water as the barge drifted toward a pier. Drovers there caught tossed ropes, hauling the flat-bottomed barge close and tying it down. Gangplanks slid out and slaves began carrying off melons.

  Lod waited, until he took a deep breath and kicked underwater to the oversized steering blade. When the last drover left, he shimmed up the oar and peered over the barge’s railing. Chained slaves breathed heavily. Others slept, with their arms draped on the sweeps before them. They seemed more like oxen than men, with strange, lopsided muscles and shaggy hair.

  Lod crawled onto the deck and stole a sailor’s drying tunic. He wound a silken sash around his throat, hiding the iron collar. He drank his fill at the water barrel and picked up an overlooked melon. With it, he slipped overboard and waded into the shallows under a pier. He gorged himself on the sticky green insides. Afterward, with the eel-rope that had once bound his wrists, he tied the gutting knife to his thigh, pulled on the tunic and dared climb ashore.

  He expected the shout of a rat hunter or an attendant. Instead, no one noticed him other than a crouching slave who looked away. Lod strode into the crowd, uncomfortable with the cloth rubbing his scars, his gut in turmoil. Surely, the silk around his throat deceived no one. A slaver missing his nose gave him an evil glance. Lod dodged behind a pile of crates and turned onto a new lane. He shook his head, rubbing his hair, trying to dry it.

  He actually walked among them. It felt so foreign, so strange. Didn’t they notice he was barefoot? No, no, he told himself. Many rat hunters went barefoot. He must relax and plot with cunning.

  “Buy Shurite iron!” a man roared into his face.

  Lod flinched, and his muscles coiled.

  “Look at those thews,” the trader said, a turbaned man with hair sprouting from his nostrils. “You’re a youngling, aren’t you?”

  Lod nodded.

  “A mighty warrior is what you’ll be. For that, you need weapons. Where are your weapons, lad?”

  Lod opened his mouth, but he noticed a rat boat working toward the pier. The hunter plied his oar much too vigorously.

  The trader glanced in that direction and then gave Lod shrewder scrutiny.

  Lod backed away, stumbled, turned and strode through the throng of humanity. Oh how he hated Shamgar, hated rat hunters, whips and iron collars.

  Bigger, taller, stronger men turned away from his strange blue eyes. Too consumed with his troubles, Lod didn’t notice how others stepped out of his path. His muscles rippled like some jungle beast. His face contorted and changed into grimaces and sneers. The evil of this city, it deserved destruction, obliteration! He wished to gut all the whip-wielders and free all the rat bait, each branded slave bending his back for these vile taskmasters.

  A mad laugh bubbled out of Lod, and he noticed at last how a thief blanched as their eyes crossed. Lod slammed his teeth together, and he struggled to control his rage.

  Then a sight brought home his peril like a spear shoved into his belly. The old rat hunter who had come to his slain owner’s aid spoke urgently with a Nephilim. The two were by the canal. On his knees, the trembling old rat hunter spoke in a rush, while the black-clad Nephilim exuded inhuman menace. He was huge, massively built. On his forehead, the Nephilim bore a trident tattoo the color of spilled blood.

  One of the brown-clad attendants spoke the Nephilim’s name. “Kron, a trader wishes to make a report. He spied a youth wearing a sash around his neck. He thinks it hid a collar.”

  Lod stumbled away and crashed against empty barrels. Heads swiveled toward him as the barrels hit the ground.

  “There!” the rat hunter shouted, pointing. “It’s him. It’s Gershon’s bait.”

  The Nephilim exposed horse-sized teeth. “Come here, boy,” he called, in a voice a bear might have used. It w
as too deep. No man spoke with such authority, with such a chillingly low timbre.

  Lod reeled backward. He had never been this near a Nephilim before, a grandchild of an Accursed. Certainly one had never addressed him before. It was like seeing a perverted angel one moment, leering and evil, and the next witnessing an overman, someone too mighty, too awesome to resist.

  “Boy!” the Nephilim shouted, with a commanding voice that stilled the haggling around him.

  Lod lurched toward the Nephilim, but then tore himself free of the spell, turned and ran. He frantically shoved shrieking people out of the way, slipping past others.

  Shouts followed him. Men gave chase. As Lod passed bystanders, several grabbed at him. Lod punched one in the face, elbowed another in the gut and ducked the sweep of fat arms. Then he broke free of the bazaar and sprinted along a walkway with brick buildings on the right and the canal to the left.

  “Get him!” the Nephilim roared, charging, an avalanche in human guise.

  Lod glanced back. People flung themselves out of the monster-man’s path. One boy tripped and fell, and the Nephilim’s black boot crushed a hand, bones audibly snapping.

  Lod ran faster, soon pivoting hard right onto another walkway, a new canal. Seconds later the Nephilim shouted. Lod glanced back and crashed into a man stepping out of a door.

  “Hold him!” the Nephilim roared.

  Lod slipped the man’s grasp by darting through the door and into darkness. He tripped because steps led down, and he sprawled onto sawdust and empty nutshells.

  Ship lanterns hung from numerous posts, casting dim, flickering light upon a forest of low-built tables. Grinning sailors and drunken reavers surrounded the tables, most sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor. They guzzled from cups, leather jacks and some straight from a clay jug. Many gnawed on pork ribs or slurped spicy soup from a wooden bowl. A nude woman wearing bells writhed in a sand pit in the center of the tavern, clashing small, bronze finger-cymbals in time to the piping flute-player. Other women clad in shimmering silks and ankle bracelets balanced steaming trays of lamb, stew and mashed peas smothered in butter.

  The patrons were a rough lot, many armed with knives or sheathed scimitars. A few had propped shields against the tavern wall or laid their spears there. They largely ignored his sprawling entrance. The din of talk, loud laughter and cups banged in unison created a wave of sound that matched the sweaty odor mingling with cooked meats, ale and trickles of incense.

  As he stood, Lod wiped sawdust from him. He tried to adjust to the gloom, slowly edging away from the curtained entrance.

  “What do you want?” asked a large, sweaty man wearing an apron.

  “Uh…”

  The main curtain tore away, and the Nephilim bulked massively before the entrance. By some alchemy or spell, or perhaps there was something in each human that sensed his otherworldly nature, the tavern grew quiet. It wasn’t instantaneous. Those closest to the door looked up and then nudged their friends or hissed to another table and nodded toward the steps.

  As the Nephilim descended the protesting stairs, the dancer dropped her arms. The flute player halted in mid-note. Sentences died. Half-uttered words perished. A plate of lamb crashed onto a table—the boatswain who acquired the hot meat in his lap made no sound. Every eye took in the Nephilim and the two attendants flanking him.

  “N-Noble One,” stammered the large, sweaty man with the apron.

  The Nephilim ignored the cringing barkeep as his baleful gaze fixed upon Lod. “Come here, boy.”

  Lod backed away, entering the maze of tables.

  The Nephilim frowned. Perhaps he was unused to men ignoring his commands. He lifted a huge hand and crooked a finger.

  Lod bumped against a post. He flinched and his hands flew to it, touching smooth wood. He gulped, unable to tear his gaze from those strangely compelling eyes. The Nephilim motioned with his finger, and it was as if strings pulled at his heart. Lod wanted to obey. His mouth turned dry. Vaguely, he wondered what had happened to his resolve.

  “Boy,” the Nephilim said, in a chilling tone none dare disobey. “Come here. I order it by Gog.”

  Lod swayed, and blinked repeatedly. His vow to fight to the death dissolved as if it was this morning’s mist. Yet…there had been a man once—his father—who long ago had twirled a shepherd’s staff. Later, Lod’s father had lain stretched on a sandy beach as reavers hacked his flesh. As he stood here in the shadows, Lod remembered that day. He recalled, too, rats with shiny eyes, black rats, brown rats, rats with diseased and mottled fur. Giant rats by the thousands had hunted him. He was bait, rat bait, trolled in the oily waters of Shamgar, home to Gog the Oracle.

  “No,” Lod said, into the silence of half a hundred men who held their breaths.

  Those baleful eyes tightened. The finger crooked again as the demonic will radiated with compelling force.

  Lod worked salvia into his mouth, hardly more than could wet his tongue. With it, he defiantly spat onto the sawdust.

  People gasped. Many blinked. A few began to stir.

  The Nephilim swiveled his head, almost as if he noticed the crowd for the first time. “So…” he said. “Gog was right.”

  Lod shivered, but he didn’t cringe. He had faced a thousand rats, and won, and the embers in his eyes, the window to his soul, began to flicker. His hatred of Shamgar, of rat hunters, slavers and reavers and most of all Gog erupted into life.

  “Shamgar is doomed,” Lod said, in a voice strange even to his ears. “I have seen it fall.”

  The brown-clad attendants laughed. So, in several moments, did sailors and reavers chuckle, albeit nervously as they eyed the Nephilim. The huge warrior didn’t laugh, but watched Lod closely instead.

  “You,” Lod pointed at a one-eye man with a cleaver in his fist. “Help me against the Nephilim. Stand with a fellow man against this monster.”

  “Bugger off!” the frightened reaver snarled.

  Again came nervous laughter from around the room.

  Lod looked upon them, hateful people. Then he noticed two men different from the rest. Each of those wore leather wrist bracers and each had long yellow hair swept back over their head. Each wore a scarlet cloak, outlanders clearly. They sat erect, and the younger of them, a warrior surely, watched him.

  “Boy,” the Nephilim said.

  Lod whipped his attention back to the one named Kron.

  “What do you know of otters?” Kron asked. It was a strange question.

  That narrowed Lod’s gaze as he wondered where the trick lay in this. Yet he answered. “Some say I swim like one.”

  “Ah,” Kron said, nodding. “Yes, that silk hides a collar. You are rat bait.”

  “No more.”

  “No?”

  “I am free,” Lod said.

  Many laughed, but not Kron. He dwarfed everyone here. He was massive, utterly menacing. He studied Lod so intently that the laughter soon died.

  “Gog has seen you, rat bait,” Kron said.

  Lod frowned.

  “It was in his prophetic sight,” Kron said. “Apparently you have a gift. You are a madman.” Kron chuckled. “Well…you are a youngling muscled as a pit slave and have the feel of deadliness like a veteran knife-wielder. And you speak of freedom, a strange word for bait. Yet, Gog has seen you, and he has found your future distasteful. Thus, he has sent me to sever your head from your shoulders.”

  “Seraph,” whispered the yellowed-haired outlander, the warrior with the scarlet cloak. He made to rise. His friend—an older man—held him fast.

  Kron raised a sardonic eyebrow as his gaze flickered from the warrior to Lod and back.

  A sailor hissed at the warrior, “Are you mad?”

  The warrior slumped back to his spot at the table.

  Kron shrugged, and he gave his full attention back to Lod. “Gog has sent me for you, if you can believe that. Your future ends here today.”

  Lod bared his teeth, his heart hammering. How he hated them. “Elohim,” he sai
d, “let me die well.”

  Kron’s features contorted with rage and perhaps too with a touch of fear. Those massive shoulders hunched, while the muscles on his neck stood out. “This is Gog’s city!” he thundered. “It is he we worship!”

  “Not me!” shouted the yellow-haired warrior. He was breathing hard, with his right hand twitching. Those nearest him leaped up, backing into shadows.

  The warrior shook off his friend’s restraining hand and leaped to his feet. He had princely features, with green eyes and an aquiline nose. Under his scarlet cloak he wore fish-scaled bronze armor and baggy breeches. At his side hung a short heavy sword.

  “So and so,” Kron said, who had recovered his poise, although his nostrils flared. “It all begins to come together. You’re an Elonite.”

  Many of those who watched shook their heads. Insane valor filled those from the plains of Elon and thereby compelled them to brave deeds.

  “You’re far from home, charioteer,” Kron said.

  “I’m Herrek of Teman Clan,” the Elonite proclaimed.

  “You’re mad!” a sailor cried.

  “Bow to Gog, you fool!” another shouted.

  “Admit you’re drunk,” a woman said, “and you may yet live.”

  “Lad,” the Elonite Herrek said. “Come over here.”

  “Stand aside!” Kron roared with baleful eyes.

  Herrek the Elonite charioteer, swayed, blinking, and it seemed certain he would retreat. Then Herrek looked upon Lod.

  Lod didn’t cringe, didn’t cower. His eyes blazed with wrath, impotent though his anger might be.

  Herrek straightened, and he told the massive Nephilim. “I claim the lad.”

  Amazement marked that too-broad face. Kron peered at Lod anew and it seemed, if just for a moment, doubt flickered across those arrogant features. Then Kron uttered a harsh word. At the signal, the two attendants stepped forward, freeing their hooked swords, flanking the Elonite.

  Herrek also bore a sword, and he shouted, gliding toward the man to his left. He didn’t await death, but tried to deal it. Herrek lunged, slid his blade over the hooked sword and into the attendant’s guts. The man dropped to his knees, clutching his ruined stomach. Herrek spun, his scarlet cloak lifting, and he caught the second henchman’s blade on his own. The ring of steel was loud in the stunned silence. Three times their blades clashed. Then Herrek twisted his leather-protected wrist and the second attendant sank to the floor with a groan.