Lod the Galley Slave (Lost Civilizations)

by Heppner, Vaughn

  “Tell him, Aran.” This time a blunt finger jabbed into my back.

  Without turning around, I said, “You tell him.”

  “Lod don’t listen to me.”

  If I turned around that would shake water from the leather over my head so it drained under my collar. Some of that would trickle down my back and that would make me shiver. So I stayed still, crouched under these foully dripping leaves.

  We endured and waited for the caravan to appear. Then to our left a small section of hill crumpled. It just slid down, mud, leaves and old branches. Water gushed like a waterfall, although it quickly lessened into something a giant might’ve sounded like if he took a piss. The leaves, mud and water slewed into a gully.

  “That’s another omen, ain’t it, Bezel?” one of the others said.

  “Could be,” Bezel said in his old man’s voice.

  The others began muttering. I heard, “We ought to just slip away. Let Lod raid the caravan if he wants. I just want to be warm again.”

  “And find something to eat,” another added.

  I stood abruptly.

  The others looked up at me, some in fear.

  “Nobody’s running away,” I said. “We’re a band. We’re brothers. We all swore on that when Lod offered to help us. We swore in Elohim’s name.”

  “We’re starving. We’re soaked to the skin. Maybe we’ve all been fools.”

  I looked to see who had said that, but each man dropped his gaze, even old Bezel with his gray beard. We were all starting to look similar: beggars with ragged clothes.

  “I’ll talk to Lod,” I said.

  “Just don’t mention any names,” Jot said.

  I scowled. I’d been doing some thinking. “Nobody said this would be easy,” I said. “But we’ve got reason to be here. Tam, Gog’s men butchered your stud bull, remember? Jot, the enforcer whipped you in the village square. Do you remember how they yanked down your pants, Bezel? The enforcer branded your ass before all the women. All of us have reason for taking up weapons. Now which of you wants to go crawling back on his belly to Gog’s men?” Before anyone could answer, I added, “They’ll whip you to the bone now. They’ll kick you in the ribs until they break. They might even nail you to a tree.”

  “We could slip back,” Jot said. “Or fade into Dishon on the coast, become dockworkers there. At least we’d eat our fill.”

  I tore away the oiled cloth and brandished my saber. “Nobody’s running away from his brothers, not unless Lod lets him go.” I looked around. “Which of you wants to fight me?”

  I was the youngest, maybe the third strongest, not counting Lod. He was stronger than any five of us. But I was the fastest, faster even than Lod. Maybe more importantly, I hated with some of the fury that drove Lod.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, “if you promise to wait.”

  “Of course we’ll wait,” Bezel said. “We’re just talking. We’re hungry. Hungry and cold.”

  Several others nodded.

  I opened my jacket, wiped the blade against the driest part and wrapped the oiled cloth back around the sword. Only then did I slip and slide through the mud. This was a miserable day, too gloomy, too filled with bad luck and ill feelings. Couldn’t Lod sense it?

  Our leader stood on a boulder and stared down at the trade road. The rain lashed around him. Of course, he ignored it. He ignored everything that other men complained about. A bull of man, Lod wore a leather jerkin and breeches. He was strong, with misshapen lumps for hands and gnarled fingers. That had come from drawing the slave oar for twenty long years. What truly marked Lod were his features: long white hair and a flowing white beard, with intense blue eyes that burned with the madness of a desert prophet.

  Lod waged a one-man war against the Nephilim, against their father Gog, the First Born who claimed to be a god and now had taken over these lands, the backwoods areas between Dishon and Carthalo on the coast. Before my birth, this had been Nebo Land. They were Stone Age primitives, living a wretched existence. For reasons known only to them, the Nebo had left this region and moved closer to Shamgar, the prime lair of Gog’s expanding kingdom.

  Lod knew more than we did about the Nebo, the politics of the coastal cities and Gog, and I think sometimes he had a particular reason for being here. He was an old soldier who tried to train us. Sometimes I thought he tried to teach sheep how to be wolves. The two successful raids had each been the same. We had burst out of the forest, screaming and waving our weapons. Most of the caravan guards had run away. Lod had killed the tough ones. We others had slain those we could catch. We had been excited to see those who usually tormented us running away for their lives. It had been even better hacking them to death, although I always felt soiled afterward. I’m not sure why.

  I came to stand beside the rock Lod stood on, about to open my mouth.

  “The men are edgy,” Lod said in his heavy voice. He kept looking down the road, searching. Until then, I hadn’t even been sure he knew I was here.

  I nodded, although he probably didn’t see that. “It’s the rain,” I said.

  “The rain is our ally,” he said, “yes, in more ways than one. I think this is the kind of weather they’ll use to move him.”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that. I didn’t really care. But I surprised myself by saying, “Not when you’re cold and hungry the rain isn’t your ally.”

  Lod looked down at me.

  A week ago, his look would have shriveled my tongue. Most of the men stammered when Lod addressed them personally. In a way, he was more like the Nephilim than he was like us. He didn’t have the blood of the high in him, but he was a killer. Where the Nephilim were rabid sabertooths. Lod seemed a savage guard dog. We were the sheep. I’d lost some of my fear of Lod because he’d taught me the sword in the evenings. He barked his instructions and often punctuated them with a blow against my wooden practice blade that numbed my hand.

  “What does being cold and hungry have to do with anything?” he asked.

  According to what he had told us before, Lod had endured twenty long years at the oar. Some of the men didn’t believe it, but I did. Lod didn’t feel pain the way others did. Or if he did feel the aches, the hunger pangs, he submerged them with his blazing hatred of the Nephilim and Gog.

  “Some of the men are thinking about running away,” I said.

  Lod jumped off the rock. Mud squelched at his landing. Some spattered against my breeches. He put a leathery hand on my shoulder and squeezed with his powerful fingers.

  “I’ll tell you a secret, lad. Ten dedicated men can do more than a hundred indifferent scoundrels. One man filled with holy zeal is better than ten dedicated warriors. You have the fire, Aran.”

  “You want the men to run away?” I asked. In that moment I felt he didn’t really care about them. Lod was after something else. That seemed clear to me now. I wonder why I hadn’t seen that before.

  “The men will fight,” he said.

  “Not unless you talk to them.”

  “You’ve already done that.” He clapped my shoulder. “I saw you draw steel on them. By it, you’ve become their captain. Today the band has become dangerous.”

  Did he really believe that? Or was he trying to bolster my courage?

  “Bezel has read more bad omens,” I said.

  “Yes!” Lod said. “This day is bad luck for the caravan traders. I can feel it. They’re finally going to move him toward the coast.”

  What did that mean? Move who to the coast? “What if the traders don’t appear?” I asked.

  “Do you doubt they will?”

  I licked my lips. He had promised us they would show today. Why was it so important to him?

  “I see it!” the lookout shouted.

  I turned, raised my hand against the rain and tried to peer through the curtain of falling water. I saw a smudge on the trade road. Was that a covered wagon, an eight-string team of oxen? It was impossible to tell. But who else would be out in this rain?

  Lo
d swung a bag against my chest. “Divide these loaves. Let the men eat.”

  He’d been hoarding bread? We hadn’t eaten anything but tree bark for three days.

  “Only hunger is keeping them here,” I said.

  Lod laughed strangely. “Eating builds appetite as well as strength. Once they down their portion, they’ll become lions greedy for more. Go. Divide the loaves. Talk about the wine and roasted beef waiting for them in the caravan. Tell them the rain will make the guards careless. We’ll butcher them this time.”

  I clutched the bag against my chest, felt the hard loaves in there. My mouth was already wet with saliva. I had a wild impulse to run away and gobble all the loaves myself. Instead, I slipped and slid back toward our miserable band. I wasn’t sure if the bread would gladden them or make them angry that Lod had been holding out. I hoped Bezel was wrong about our luck. I had a bad feeling about this.

  -2-

  Oxen plodded along the muddy road. Eight beasts pulled each wagon, eight beasts in pairs that rattled yokes and made chains clink. They dragged a covered wagon with outsized wheels. The wheels churned through mud and puddles. The driver on the buckboard hunched miserably, with an oiled slicker and hood shedding the rain.

  What struck me was the lack of scouts. Usually captured nomad boys ran ahead. Or if the merchants had hired them, a chariot or two careened down the road to check conditions. Most caravans lacked chariots, however, as only nobles from Dishon on the coast or Nephilim possessed them.

  The wagons lurched and creaked in slow procession, with axles squealing. There were seven great vehicles, houses on wheels. One by one they trundled past. I glanced at Lod. These were the biggest wagons I’d ever seen. They seemed different than the trader’s vehicles we’d spied before. I doubted big wagons like this tried to thread through the Arkite Mountain passes to the south. So where did they come from?

  We lay in a gully near the road and peered through long grass. Soaked and cold to the bone, I shivered uncontrollably. Teeth chattered around me. Lod kept staring. He lay as if sunning himself on a rock. He clutched a brace of javelins, with his sword in a sheath slung across his back. I glanced a second time. That looked like a new sword or one different from what he usually used. Where had he been hiding it?

  Instead of asking that, I whispered, “What are we waiting for?”

  “Where are the guards?”

  “In the wagons,” I said, “keeping dry like any sane man would do.”

  “That’s no way to run a caravan.” He sounded angry.

  “The rain’s our ally,” I said. “Remember?”

  For some odd reason, that seemed to cheer him, although no smile softened his leathery face. “Which wagon should we hit first?”

  “The way they’re moving, it’s going to be the last one now,” I said.

  “If you’re going to be captain someday, Aran, you need to learn how to think.”

  Think? I was freezing. My hands were going numb. And I had the feeling he was just saying that, as if he played a part with us. Frankly, I wondered if I’d have the courage to get up and charge when Lod gave the word. Something different was going on today, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I didn’t buy Bezel’s omens. Gog could tell the future, they said. He was the oracle, and he was a First Born, son of a fallen angel.

  “We always charge the guards first,” Lod said. “It surprises them, and it lets us see who the fighters are. Now they’re holed in one of the wagons or they’re spread out. If we leap up screaming and attack wagons where they’re not, that will give the guards time to think, to gather their courage. They might charge us. That will make some of our men run.”

  I scowled. I wanted to think as a warrior—no, as a soldier. Lod said warriors fought for glory, soldiers fought to win. But this rain… It pummeled my body with wet cold. It splashed mud in my face. If I could stop shivering for a minute—

  “Listen to me,” Lod said, raising his voice, talking to the men. “We keep silent today until I tell you to yell. We’re going to catch up to the last wagon first.” He pointed. “You five crawl into the back and kill anyone snoring, whoring or dicing. Aran and I will take care of the driver. The rest of you be ready. If nothing bad happens, we’ll regroup and do the same to the second to last wagon. When the guards finally pile out—then we’ll scream like lunatics, charge them and make them run.”

  I wiped water out of my eyes. That was brilliant. Come at them like a thief in a back alley. What kind of tactics was that anyway?

  “Let’s go!” snarled Lod. He scrambled onto the road and began running, splashing mud.

  I stood and looked at the others. “Get up, Jot!” I shouted. “Earn your keep, Bezel!” I slapped the old man’s butt with the flat of my blade. Those two always hung back unless I watched them.

  Lod said we had to fight together. It was the only way that men could defeat Nephilim. Not that we had met any Nephilim since we’d become outlaws. Our outlawry was training, the kernel of a rebellious army that would one day rid our land of the hated enemy. That’s what Lod kept telling us.

  Jot shot me a murderous glance. I showed him my teeth. His fear helped ease mine. He scrambled onto the road, but slid around too much.

  “You’d better not fake a fall into the mud,” I shouted.

  I don’t know why Lod had said to keep quiet. The rain drowned out everything.

  We sprinted after the last wagon, nineteen desperate souls drenched to the skin. Lod had been right about eating a mouthful of bread making everyone hungrier. He dashed out of sight, headed for the driver. The madman simply lacked understanding of fear.

  “Climb into the back! Kill them!”

  Jofe the small one reached the tailgate. He threw his saber into the wagon, leaped, caught hold and began climbing in. A moment later, he flew out backward. Blood jetted from his throat. He hit the mud with his shoulders, somersaulted backward and landed on his belly. Gore kept pumping.

  “Kill them!” I howled. I sprinted faster, passing men.

  Another of ours tried to climb in. A spear sprouted from the back of his head. It was gruesome, sickening. It would take a strong man to do that. Then a huge warrior appeared in the covered wagon. His head was too big, and he had a tattoo of a spear on his forehead. He laughed, showing us square teeth. He brought up a blood-colored shield. Then he heaved his spear into Jot’s chest.

  “Nephilim,” Bezel screamed. “Nephilim are in the wagons!”

  The pit of my stomach shriveled even as my legs kept churning, bringing me closer to the wagon and closer to this monster. A new rage erupted then, part shame and part fury for what they had done to my wife. I also realized something in that calculating part of my mind that never stopped. The tattooed warrior was too small to be a Nephilim. Nephilim were giants. This warrior was big, but—he was a half-Nephilim.

  “Run!” a man roared.

  I blinked rain out of my eyes. That had sounded—

  I skidded to a halt as the wagon slowed. Then Lod sprinted into sight. It had been his shout I’d heard. At the same moment, the tattooed half-Nephilim exploded out of the wagon. He had a sword, a big one. It swept aside a saber and smashed into a man’s chest.

  Lod snarled, and even on the run, he hurled a javelin. It sailed perfectly in the rain and thudded into the half-Nephilim’s neck. No, I take that back. The slashing rain must have deflected the javelin. It gouged skin from the half-Nephilim, tearing out, but it caused the warrior of Gog to trip and fall face-first in the mud. Then Lod flew past, away from the caravan. I heard the thud of his feet.

  Confusion made it impossible to think. The half-Nephilim rose out of the mud as blood poured from his neck. Another appeared at the back of the last wagon. He held a net. I heard a beast snarl as it leapt from the wagon. It was impossibly huge, a monster. There was another one and then more of them piling out. Did they mean to hunt us in the forest?

  “Run!” I shouted, pivoting as I said it.

  It was a trap. The wagon train had been a tr
ap.

  The new half-Nephilim hurled his net. It spun in the rain, landing on old Bezel, ensnaring him and making our seer fall.

  I took off running. Whatever else happened, I had to stay free. If they caught me, if they caught any of us…they would use tongs and pinchers until we sobbed for them to kill us.

  -3-

  Branches flashed before my face. I stumbled, snapped my head back as a twig clawed me and my knee crashed against something. I went flying, thudding against the cold earth as the air whooshed out of my lungs.

  Behind me, beasts bayed. I’d caught a glimpse earlier of one tearing out a man’s throat. These were heavy things with short legs. They looked like dogs but were hyaenodons, with massive crushing jaws and spotted hides. Each creature must have been twice the weight of a man.

  Lod grabbed the scruff of my shirt and hauled me to my feet. The man’s strength was incredible. “Run!” he shouted.

  My legs felt wobbly and I realized Lod kept a hold of me. For all his girth, the man could move.

  “We have to…” I panted, trying to catch my breath. “Fight, we must fight them.”

  Lod grinned down at me. His eyes held madness so I shivered with dread. The feeling of wildness radiated off him. “Soon,” he said.

  “Now,” I said. “We have to do something before we’re all dead.”

  He let go of me, and I almost went down. Fortunately, my rubber legs stiffened. It was then I noticed that I’d managed to keep hold of my saber. That was something, although I didn’t think it made me a soldier, just that someday I might make one—if I lived long enough.

  Then a hopeless, bloodcurdling scream echoed off the trees behind us. A hyaenodon snarled with savage joy. “Help!” a man shrieked. Other beasts snarled and I heard crunching bones.

  “They’re killing my friends,” I sobbed.

  “To me!” Lod shouted. “Run to me!”

  I stared at him, and I almost crashed against a tree because I wasn’t looking.

  “We can’t defeat them,” I said. Hearing those splintering bones had stolen my courage. I didn’t want to turn and fight, but run until I was far away from those things.