Behemoth (Lost Civilizations: 5)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I see her!” one of the reavers shouted.

  “Bring her down!” shouted the leper, the big man with the filthy beard. Tamar knew his name to be Ut.

  The highest reaver grinned as branches creaked under his weight. He had a coil of rope around his chest. He grinned at her as he climbed near and he spoke with a Shamgar accent. “Don’t you move a muscle. I ain’t going to hurt you none. You rest easy just like you are.”

  Tamar nodded, keeping her eyes wide, trying to look terrified.

  “She’s a pretty one,” said the second reaver. “It’s a shame we have to give her to Ut.”

  “Shut your mouth,” snarled the one with rope coiled around his chest.

  Tamar grew tense. These two were better climbers than she was. The one grinning at her was missing his front teeth. They were cunning, these two. They moved away from the trunk, sliding outward along big branches. They weren’t going to grasp branches near her feet and let her stomp on their fingers. That ruined her first plan. Tamar still kept her eyes wide as if she was terrified. She was frightened, but she had survived in the canals as a rat huntress. She would survive now.

  The two reavers grunted with effort, shaking branches and making leaves rustle. One of them leaped up for a branch just above his head.

  Tamar sucked in her breath. The reaver had to be half-monkey. He didn’t miss the branch, but hoisted himself up, causing the branch to shake. Tamar could feel it because she stood on the same branch, although she was closer in beside the mighty tree trunk.

  “Easy now,” the reaver with the coiled rope said. He slid along the branch toward her. “I’m going to help you down, see?”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Tamar said.

  “Course I won’t hurt you,” he said. He slid even nearer, confident now.

  Tamar pressed her hand against her stomach. “I’m so afraid,” she said.

  “Now, now,” he said, but the evil in his tone was unmistakable, as was the lust in his eyes.

  Tamar curled her fingers around the hilt of her knife. Her heart began to thud. If I miss, I’ll fall. If I fall, I’ll break all my bones.

  “Don’t do anything rash,” said the reaver.

  “I won’t,” she whispered.

  The other one climbed up behind her on the other side of the trunk. Oh, they were cunning, these two.

  You must do it now, Tamar told herself. It was hard, because her limbs were sluggish, as if they refused to obey. She realized then that she was too frightened to move. She didn’t want to fall all the way down and break her bones.

  “What’s taking so long?” shouted the soldier from the ground.

  The reaver tilted his head, looking down for just a moment.

  Tamar took a sharp breath and told herself that death was better than being captured by these evil men. She willed her arm to move, trying to ease the dagger from its sheath. But she was too frightened to do it smoothly. She jerked the dagger free. With one hand gripping a branch and the other clutching the dagger, she leaned toward the reaver. She must have leaned too fast or too hard. Maybe he caught the shift of her weight—he stood on the same branch as her.

  The reaver looked up fast, his tongue darting where his missing front teeth used to be, and began to ask, “What—”

  Tamar slashed. He yelped, and he snatched his hand away before she could stab it. He was quick. Worse, at that moment the wind picked up, moving higher branches so they blocked the moonlight. Tamar had to do this now. She had to keep attacking. She slashed wildly, and she felt the tip of her knife cut into the meaty part of his forearm, gashing it even as he pulled his arm away from her. He gasped the way a person does when pricked by a thorn. It gave her courage. Monkey or not, even though he was better at climbing than her, she could hurt him. Tamar dared slide even closer to him. He began cursing, slurring the words. She felt him shift away as her branch trembled. He was going to move out of range. Would he climb above her? She panicked. She let go of the branch and lunged. It was the most foolish thing she had ever done. Tamar plunged her dagger into his side. He screamed, and the scream startled her. Tamar lost her balance and fell. He toppled backward even as he grabbed for a branch. She fell straight down and straddled the branch, sitting down with a painful thump. Branches snapped as the screaming reaver fell, taking her knife with him. He struck leaves, plunging down and gaining speed.

  “Look out!” shouted a soldier on the ground.

  Tamar was stunned as she sat on her branch. I almost killed myself. Her heart raced. She wanted to hug the branch. She had almost used up all her courage.

  The wind kept moving higher branches, keeping it darker here. She looked around, but couldn’t spot the other reaver. It was time to move. She painfully hoisted herself onto her feet. Her butt and inner thighs throbbed with the hurt of her fall, but she was alive, wonderfully and unbelievably alive.

  Where’s the other one?

  A hard thud and the sudden halt of the first reaver’s screams told her that he’d hit the forest floor.

  “Archers!” shouted the leper, the man with the mask where his nose should have been.

  The thought of arrows was like the threat of enraged wasps. Tamar shuffled faster along her branch as she twisted around, searching for the second man. She’d lost her knife. They knew she was up here. And there was another reaver in the tree and he had to be close. She had to act like a squirrel if she was to remain free. Yes, mocair-trees had long branches. Sometimes those branches reached out to lesser trees. She had to risk a leap in the dark or go down and accept capture.

  “We’ll shoot you down!” shouted the leper, Ut.

  Tamar slid out faster along the big branch. It began to dip from her weight. Her fingers clutched the branch beside her that she had been hanging onto for balance.

  “I’ll count to three!” shouted Ut. “One!”

  Stop counting. Leave me alone.

  The branch dipped even lower. Tamar looked over her shoulder. The second reaver grinned in the dark as he shuffled toward her.

  “Two!”

  Tamar kept trying to gain distance. Her branch dipped even lower as it creaked. It took her out of range of the branch she wanted to reach.

  The reaver behind her gave an evil laugh.

  Then Tamar noticed a different branch. It was bigger than the one she’d wanted, but the distance was a bit more. She looked back. In the dark, the reaver seemed magnified.

  “Give it up, girl,” he said.

  “Three!” shouted Ut. “Shoot her down!”

  Tamar’s stomached tightened. The reaver moved even closer, reaching for her.

  Bows twanged. Arrows hissed upward. Most clattered against interfering branches. One sank into flesh, making the second reaver scream.

  Tamar stared at the man. The arrow had hit him in the lower abdomen. He let go of the higher branches and clutched himself there. He blinked several times at her. Then he toppled off the branch, falling.

  Tamar wanted to shout in a wild frenzy of laughter. Her heart raced. She breathed with quick little gasps, and then she leaped. Unfortunately, her branch dipped under the thrust of her legs. As it happened, she knew she should have thought of that. The dipping branch shortened her jump. She quit breathing. Leaves slapped her face. Her arms flailed. Then her arms struck a branch. She clutched it with all her strength, even as it dipped and creaked aloud. She hardly had any strength left. She felt weak from her daring, but she pulled herself up and lay panting on the new branch. She had made it across onto the other tree.

  The second reaver thudded onto the ground far below. And the wind lessened, allowing moonlight to fill the upper branches of the trees. This tree had fewer branches, making it harder to hide here. And she was lower down.

  “You shot the wrong person!” shouted Ut. “Shoot the girl.”

  Tamar crawled backward along her new branch. She forced herself to move ever so slowly, feeling with her feet. If she felt an offshoot, she moved even more slowly so she wouldn’t shake any
leaves and give herself away.

  “Shoot her!” screamed Ut.

  “I don’t see her,” said an archer.

  “She couldn’t have sprouted wings and flown away,” said Ut.

  “There!” shouted a man. “I think I see her. She’s climbed onto a different tree.”

  Tamar looked down. The torches, the hyenas, the soldiers and the archers scurried to her new tree. The scent of tar became stronger again.

  “I see her!” shouted an archer. “There, over there.”

  “Girl!” screamed Ut. “Come down this instant or we’ll skewer you with arrows!”

  Tamar stared down at them. The leap in the dark had stolen what remained of her strength and of her will. It had taken all her courage. Now they had found her again in a sparsely-branched tree.

  “Fire!” Ut screamed.

  “Wait!” Tamar shouted. “Don’t shoot! I’m coming down!”

  -3-

  Lod strained every sense as he raced through the forest. The huge trees towered around him in the moonlight. Two eyes glowed from a hole in one of the trees. Then the eyes vanished. It must have been a squirrel or an owl. In the distance, men shouted back and forth at each other. Hyenas shrieked their wicked cries.

  The muscled cords of Lod’s sword-arm stood up like cables. His nostrils flared. If they harmed Tamar…if they violated her—

  Tamar shouted.

  Lod sprinted toward the sound, crashing through the brush. He ignored scratches, cuts, and the rough bark that scraped his skin. Branches clawed his face, one almost gouging out his right eye, but he ducked his head in time so the branch merely drew a line of blood across his forehead. Throughout his run, mocking hyena laughter grew closer. Voices became distinct. Then a harsh voice awoke Lod to his danger.

  “Grab the beasts! I want her alive!”

  The deepness of the man’s voice and the arrogant authority of it could only belong to one of the blood.

  Lod stalked through the darkness with sinuous grace, twisting around branches and gliding through barb bushes. Then he halted. He was perhaps one hundred paces away from them.

  A crowd surrounded a great tree. Many in the crowd wore leathers and boots and lofted smoky torches. Lod could smell the burning tar. Others leashed excited, jumping beasts. The cave hyenas put their front paws on the trunk of the tree, glaring upward, yipping wildly. Reavers in red leather jerkins, with spiked bucklers and scimitars, joked with one another. The worst was the half-Nephilim, he of the blood, likely of the third or fourth generation. That one was squarely built and yet he was taller than any present. He wore heavy black boots and a mammoth-fur coat that almost reached to the ground. The coat was open, and underneath the man wore what appeared to be the wrappings of a Lemurian mummy. He had a great black beard, and he wore a mask where his nose should have been. It was a flat mask and proved that the wearer had lost his nose.

  Lod knew the half-Nephilim, Ut of the Cave Hyenas.

  A moment later, Tamar lightly landed on the ground. Reavers rushed her. One spun her around while another grabbed her arms, jerking them behind her back. A third reaver bound her wrists. They worked with skill, trained man-stealers who towered over the former rat huntress.

  Lod took it all in as if he was an idol in a crypt, unmoving and grimly foreboding. He branded his memory with each of the reaver’s who dared touch Tamar.

  Then the small triangular leaves of the barb bush that he crouched behind, fingernail-sized leaves with jagged edges, fluttered as the breeze picked up. The breeze whispered against Lod’s neck. He was so absorbed with memorizing faces that he failed to notice the direction of the breeze until a hyena lifted its snout and howled.

  “Great One!” shouted a hyena-handler. “My beast smells someone.”

  “Where?” said Ut.

  The handler pointed in Lod’s direction.

  Ut began shouting orders.

  Lod knew he would have to rescue Tamar later. Quietly, while making terrible vows, he slipped away.

  ***

  In the dark of night, men of Shamgar opened a tent flap and shoved Tamar within. She tripped over a furry body and fell heavily onto her chest. Her wrists were cruelly bound behind her back so she struck her cheek against leather flooring.

  Beasts growled in the tented gloom. Tamar smelled their rancid fur, and she barely kept from screaming in terror. She felt heat rise from the bodies around her and she smelled their rotten-meat breath. With a start, Tamar twisted around and sat up, panting in fright, trying to control her reactions.

  One huge brute leaned near and with its moist nose, touched her neck.

  Tamar groaned, and instinctively, she jerked her shoulders. Her left shoulder accidentally struck the beast on the snout.

  The beast whined angrily. Tamar almost gagged on the foulness of its breath, and goosebumps rose all along her body. As a rat huntress in Shamgar, she used to fear falling among the giant rodents of the canals. She’d had nightmares about it, and long ago, she’d determined to bite and scratch, to fight as long as she could. So even though terror stole her breath in this foul tent, even though she was certain the beasts were about to rise and tear her apart, she swiveled around and faced the angry hyena.

  A fire cackled outside so the flames danced, outlined against the leather wall of the tent. It provided enough light to view the beasts. They lay on their bellies or sat up like giant dogs. She counted fifteen of the beasts. Ominously, they watched her, with a weird glow in their eyes.

  The nearest hyena leaned its snout into her face. Tamar struggled. Her wrists were tied behind her back and her fingers were numb. The beast’s every breath shot out hot saliva, several droplets stinging her cheeks.

  Tamar lunged, and she clicked her teeth together at the beast.

  The hyena jerked back, and a second later, it growled menacingly.

  Tamar scooted backward, bumping against hyenas who whined warningly at her. Then her spine bumped against a tent pole. This tent had two. She pushed against the pole and lifted her rear off the leather matting. Then she slithered her numb, tied hands under her butt. She dropped with a thump and now lifted her legs, sliding her bound hands under them and behind her feet. In a moment, her hands were in front of her body. She shot her hands at the menacing hyena, wriggling her fingers at it.

  The beast hesitated. Tamar bared her teeth as she summoned her courage. To her amazement, the beast lay down, although it watched her closely. All the beasts watched her.

  Why didn’t they rise up and eat her?

  Tamar had no idea. The point was that she was alive. Her inner nature would not allow her to quit. Being with Lod these past weeks had strengthened that part of her. So instead of waiting for something to happen, she began gnawing the binding around her hands. She had strong white teeth, and fear motivated her. Soon, she loosened a stubborn knot, and in moments, she freed her hands. She almost cried out as pin-needle feelings returned to her fingers.

  It was then that all the hyenas rose. Tamar tensed, sick with the knowledge she was about to die, but determined to fight.

  Instead of lunging at her, each huge beast turned toward the entrance. Boots clumped outside as someone big approached. Tamar’s nose twitched. She had been too frightened earlier to notice the scent. Now she smelled it again. It had a fragrant odor, rich and powerful. She grimaced. Underneath the fragrant odor was the smell of death, of rotted flesh. She knew that smell well from handling dead canal rats for years.

  She recalled the strange cloth wound around the one called Ut. The fragrant odor had come from the strips of cloth, and the smell of decay had come from him.

  Determinedly, Tamar wound one end of the binding cord around her left hand. She gripped the other end with her right. If this Ut thought she would lie back and take whatever happened to her, he was about to get a nasty surprise.

  ***

  Ut ducked into the tent as his wonderful brutes sat up like sentinels, watching him with fear and trembling. He loved his perfect subjects, those who
strove to please his every whim. Of course, they had no choice, but that made them even better pets. Ut wished people acted like his beasts. The handlers of his pets came closest to achieving the sort of service he demanded. They did it out of fear, and because he’d bound each handler to him through secret rites and rituals. It was something he’d learned from Lemuria’s god. It also helped that people sneered at his handlers.

  Barely acknowledging the girl, Ut dropped to his knees as he held out his arms. One by one, the cave hyenas approached, crawling across the tent. It had been each beast’s first lesson: how to abase itself to him. At a nod, each beast rose and nuzzled Ut’s mummy-wrapped cheek. Ut then petted his faithful servant and accepted the worship of the next beast. He had taught the cave hyenas to treat him as their god. He now barked at them in a close approximation of their hysterical-laughing cry. No person touched him anymore, no person dared. Only his faithful pets were allowed to come near and touch his leprous skin.

  Ut had lost his nose, three fingers and parts of his thigh. If he had not been of the blood, if he had not been filled with the celestial strength of the bene elohim, he would long ago have driven a knife through his heart. Now Dagon promised him a cure. Dread Dagon, his grandfather, had sought him out and asked if Ut of the Cave Hyenas wished to join the expedition to the Sea of Nur. It would be a dangerous journey. The perils might tax even those of the blood. Yet dread Dagon had assured him that the cure for leprosy lay on an isle in the Sea of Nur.

  Ut had been cheated before. His journey to distant Lemuria had promised much and given him Sheol instead. Then he’d learned that Dagon expected Lod to try to stop them at the Sea of Nur. Ut had joined the expedition then. He seethed with old hatred toward Lod. The Seraph had been the cause of an argument with his father, Chemosh the Shaman. It went back to a crocodile race in the canals of Shamgar many decades ago. The filthy rat bait Lod—who had been a boy then—had outwitted him and survived the swamp crocodile. Huge, powerful Chemosh the Shaman, a wielder of skull magic and able to control a cave bear, had slain the crocodile with a swift and brutal spear strike.