Gog (Lost Civilizations: 4) (2 page)

That puzzled Lod. Obviously, it was an eagle. “It spies on us.”

“Put down Uzal’s bow. You have no right to it.”

“…I’m sorry he died. The orn was hunting me.”

“You!” she shouted. “It was hunting you, and it killed Uzal. The beast killed my Uzal, my darling, my beloved. Oh, Uzal, Uzal,” she keened, rocking back and forth, her hands pressed upon the dead man’s cheeks.

Lod frowned as the woman cried. For years, he had heard rat bait keen as this woman did. They had cried at their misfortune. It had never affected him. He had not allowed it to affect him. Day by day, he had built a wall against it. He didn’t understand why the crying should bother him now. He turned from her, took a wide stance, lifted the bow, and drew the string, pulling it past his cheek.

“No!” she said. “Don’t shoot.”

He sighted the bird as he judged its pattern, knowing he would have to lead it, trick it. Just as he willed his fingers to release, a rock struck his head. The bow twanged, and the arrow hissed off its mark.

“What are you doing?” he shouted, with his head ringing.

The woman transferred another rock from her left to right hand, cocking her slender arm. “Put down Uzal’s bow.”

“The eagle is watching us.”

“Of course it’s watching! It’s the totem of my clan. Uzal and I saw it. He noticed how it circled. We came to investigate, because Uzal said it was going to bring us luck. Then I found that feather, and then—” her lower lip trembled and she savagely wiped her nose. “Give me Uzal’s bow. Then go away. Leave. I don’t want you here.”

Lod touched his head and saw blood on his fingertips.

“Leave!” she screamed, and she hurled the rock.

He raised his arm. The stone cracked him in the ribs. The woman jerked out a flint dagger. She screamed, charging.

Lod’s eyes narrowed. She had killed the orn. She had thrust with skill. She could just as easily stick that knife between his ribs. He didn’t want to hurt her, nor did he want to be hit with more stones. She came straight at him, without finesse, without cunning. He liked her courage, admired it. She thrust her dagger with all her weight behind it. She meant to kill him. Lod smacked his sword-hand hard across her knife-hand. The knife went flying, and she half spun, startled by his uncanny speed. He grabbed her wrists. She kneed him, or tried. He blocked with his hip.

“Stop it,” he said.

She kneed him again. He blocked. She bit his forearm. He shouted, and he flung her from him. She should have kept fighting the orn like this. She rolled, and like a wildcat, she scrambled up fast. Lod beat her to the flint dagger, snatching it off the ground. By now she panted, her mane of dark hair in disarray, much of it covering her face as she hunched her shoulders, glaring at him.

He had no idea what to say. He had helped her, and he wished instead of hating him that she would…. Bah. This was foolish. What did it matter how she acted toward him? Let her stay with the dead man if that’s what she wanted. Then it occurred to him that she was Huri, a primitive—a beautiful and brave primitive. His friend had always told him that Huri were unbelievably ignorant.

“Do you know what beastmasters are?” asked Lod.

Her manner remained hostile.

“Have you ever heard of Nephilim?”

“Go away,
hunter of eagles
,” the last said as if it was a curse.

Lod found that annoying. It put an edge to his voice. “Look at the orn’s claws. Someone shod them with iron.”

She glanced at the dead beast before asking, “Where do you come from?”

He almost said, ‘Elon.’ That’s where he had gone after escaping Shamgar. Then he remembered that Elonites and Huri were blood foes. “I escaped from Shamgar,” he said, which was true, even if it had happened two years ago.

She took a step back.

“Have you heard of Shamgar?” he asked.

“Are you a servant of Gog?”

“I hate Gog.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced again at the orn. Her gaze lingered. “It’s your orn, isn’t it?”

“Mine? Why did I warn you if the orn was mine? Why did I help you against it?”

“You’re a slaver, a reaver. You killed Uzal and then killed your bird, lest you lose me. You will never win Blue Flower of Eagle Clan!”

“Look at these rags. Where are my men? Why is my skin sun-scorched? Because I have crossed the Kragehul Steppes on foot. I’m sorry about Uzal. He must have been a brave man to shoot the orn twice.”

At the mention of Uzal, her features crumpled. She moaned. It was an awful sound, and she collapsed upon the flinty ground, weeping.

In the past, he would have turned away from such a prolonged and open display of weakness. Blue Flower would never have survived in the canals. She had struck his head, however. She had charged the orn. She had courage. She must truly miss Uzal. What would it be like if someone felt that way about him?

Lod turned to the eagle. He had slain an Enforcer when he had escaped from Shamgar. Those of Gog, the swamp-city’s god, never forgot such things. He needed to move, to reach the forest. He couldn’t hide from slavers out here in the grasslands.

Should he leave Blue Flower? He scowled. He couldn’t just leave her. They had slain the orn together, and her man had died. She was beautiful, and she had courage. Lod took a step toward her, clearing his throat. She cried, ignoring him or not hearing. Rat bait in the sheds used to console each other with tears. He had never had anything to do with that. Yet it had seemed to comfort the others. He wondered if he should touch her, if that would help or would it just cause her to attack him again? Whatever he did, he had better do it fast. More than likely, beastmasters were coming to try to capture him, and bring him back to Shamgar for slave justice.

Whatever else happened, he must never let those of Gog return him to Shamgar.

Chapter One

Keros

“How can you receive unless you ask?”

-- Naram the Prophet

In Shamgar, the City of Gog, mud-brick huts and shanties clustered around pirate fortresses and marble manses. Around them rippled muddy waters. The city was a maze of isles, canals and walkways. It was a swampland where the treasures of the Suttung Sea entered on predatory galleys and reaver-packed longboats.

An asphalt street ran past taverns and an open-air market. There, hardy farmers were already stacking their produce. In this early morning hour, drunks snored in shadowed crevices and lepers crawled to their choice begging locations.

A particularly young beggar dragged his rotting carcass through the lowlander city. Mists still drifted from the canals. The giant rats that haunted the canals squealed over the night’s bounty. Surprisingly, a few harlots already called from the doors of the stone-built taverns, using their blood-red lips to urge staggering men. The leprous beggar ignored the harlots, as they failed to glance at him. With his elbows, he crawled, because his legs were wasted flesh, diseased baggage that he dragged wherever he went.

The beggar huffed. He’d had a bitter, sleepless night, and he was tired beyond normal. Perhaps it was grim that one so young, who should have known the strength of first manhood, had to crawl like a worm. Such was fate. He no longer complained. He fought life to the best of his ability. And today—

Shadows fell across his path, and the shadows remained stationary. The young beggar knew the game. He began to drag himself around the shadow, and he uttered the words every leper by law must croak, “Unclean, unclean, I am unclean.”

That should have sent the healthy walkers scurrying out of his way. Instead, the bottom of a sandal touched the top of his head.

It hurt the beggar’s neck, he was so tired, but he looked up. Three swaying youths regarded him. They were dirty-faced, one with scabbed features and stained garments. All three had glazed eyes, as brown-speckled spit dribbled from their lips. They were kanda-leaf chewers, and they were presently heavily drugged. Worse, each clutched a stick as if he meant to use it.

The leader was a thief named Scab. Kanda-leaf chewers were the bottom of the line for walkers. They were uniformly surly, stupid and often stubborn about foolish things. Scab had scabs on his face. It would have been better to call him Beauty. But the leper knew better than to tell these three that. It seemed these three wanted to give easy prey a beating.

Scab elbowed his friend. “Know what happened yesterday?”

“Whath?” slurred the other, who was missing front teeth, and dribbled more than the others did.

“This worm cursed me, called down a pox to devour me.”

The beggar called ‘Worm’ squinted. Oh yes, he remembered now. Beauty here had kicked his begging bowl yesterday and stolen his three coppers.

Scab smacked the stick against his grubby palm. “Lepers oughtn’t to curse their betters.”

“No,” said a third. He spat an ugly brown gob onto the street.

The beggar dubbed Worm had no love for life, but he had a perverse loathing for lowlanders, and hated kanda-leaf chewers. And death was so final. Besides, once he had been a warrior. It was his nature to fight. So he crawled for the canals. They crisscrossed the swamp city in a maze. He was certain these three wouldn’t dare jump into the treacherous waters. Giant rats cruised through the canals. Most of the city-bred feared the giant scavengers.

The nimblest youth jumped in the way, poking him in the back. “Eel hunters say it is bad luck killing a nameless man. So tell us what you’re called, eh?”

These vermin touched him. The lowlander scum actually touched him. With a grunt, the one called Worm raised his torso. “Keros,” he said. Then he smashed his begging bowl against the tough’s shinbone. That one howled and danced away. Keros took his opening and slithered for the oily canal.

Scab shouted, and the others scrambled fast. They blocked his path again, and sticks started thumping against him.

Keros curled into a ball as they beat him. It hurt bad. He clutched his head, and blanked out—until a shout brought him around. Stretched out, prone, he peeled open an eye to a blurry sight. His forehead lay on pavement. Blood dripped from his mouth. Keros… he noticed a boot. The kanda-chewing thieves had worn sandals. Keros scraped his cheek against pavement, and he noticed that the boot was attached to a big man.

Keros heard the man’s voice. It sounded like the rumble a bear might have made. It told him the black-booted man was an Enforcer, one of Gog’s minions. The Enforcer must have shouted at the three, and he must have stopped the beating.

“This beggar belongs to the Temple,” said the Enforcer.

“We didn’t know,” whined Scab.

“He wears the Temple mark,” said the Enforcer.

Scab muttered an excuse.

“Do you have coin?” the Enforcer asked.

“Some,” admitted Scab.

The Enforcer’s boots creaked.

Foreign body-heat shocked Keros into the realization that the Enforcer squatted over him. Stiff fingers tested his injuries. Keros groaned in pain.

“You’ve beaten him severely,” said the Enforcer.

“W-We’re sorry,” said Scab.

“What do I care about
that
?” The boots creaked again, as the Enforcer rose. Steel scraped from a scabbard.

“Please! Mercy, Great One.”

“
You
ask for mercy?” the Enforcer laughed.

“No!” said a different thief. “We wish to pay for our privilege.”

“Pay how?” the Enforcer asked.

“With gold!” said Scab.

“Let me see this gold.”

“If you will allow us to go home, and—”

“Now would be a foolish time to lie,” rumbled the Enforcer.

“…We have coppers,” said Scab.

“Stolen from beggars, eh?”

“Does it matter where we’ve… acquired them?” asked a different thief.

There was a pause. “How many coppers?” the Enforcer asked.

From on the pavement Keros heard coins clink, no doubt falling into the Enforcer’s huge palm.

“Barely enough,” the Enforcer said. The sword slid back into its scabbard, and coppers jingled into a pouch.

“Enforcer?” asked Scab, in a meek tone.

There was silence.

“M-May we finish the beating?” asked Scab.

Keros’s heart froze. Distantly, he heard the Enforcer ask, “Do you have silver?”

“Uh… no,” said Scab.

The Enforcer took a deep breath as he ominously cracked his knuckles. “Here is my writ. For the privilege of hurting him, you must pay me three silver shekels.”

“Then?” asked Scab.

“Then feed him to the rats if you wish,” rumbled the Enforcer.

“Thank you, O mighty one. Thank you. May Gog guide your way.”

The Enforcer said no more.

Sandals scuffled as the thieves left. As he lay aching on the pavement, Keros fell into a daze.

“Beggar,” said the Enforcer.

Keros quivered alert—and moaned. He ached all over. It shocked him that the Enforcer still stood there.

“Crawl out of the street,” said the Enforcer, “or I’ll have you pitched into the canal.”

Keros opened his right eye. The left had puffed shut. He had a narrow view of the city: dirty pavement, a lantern pole beyond and then, the oily canal. Across that narrow waterway humped squat buildings. With a stab of pain, Keros propped up onto his elbows and began to crawl. The Enforcer strode elsewhere.

Time had little meaning then, just pain. Keros spat blood and his sores rubbed against the street. He collapsed at the pole, one with an octopus-shaped lantern. Two of the tentacles had been broken off.

The nearby plaza swirled with people. Keros frowned. He couldn’t recall the passage of time, nor had he heard the merchants erect their wooden stalls. Look at them. Stunted Nebo swamp-guides haggled with lean whalers from Pildash. Slavers sold whips. There were priests, rat-hunters and bright-colored pirates. Urchins kept a wary eye on a man in poaching gear. Tall Danites argued with Dishon weavers. Fishmongers hollered their wares. Shrewd merchants sold swamp melons and grilled eel. They sold beer, swords and boots, all the stolen goods of the Suttung Sea. Mules brayed. Cows left piles of steaming filth. Sullen-eyed slaves tramped to the crack of whips. The milling, seething mob shouted, traded and tried to steal whatever they couldn’t buy.

Keros drifted into tortured sleep, and woke up, with something wet touching him. A mongrel licked his sores. The mercy brought tears to his eyes, which only increased his aches. He spat blood. The dog, his breath awful, licked his face. Keros drifted off again, and awoke to stabbing agony. The dog was gone, although the crowd haggled as hard as ever. Putrid smells drifted from the canal.

Keros had no strength or begging-bowl. If his leprosy didn’t kill him, Scab and his friends would, once they stole three silver shekels. Maybe, he should just lay here and die. He scowled. Once he had been a mountain warrior, a Shurite. He would not lie down and die. He whispered, “Elohim, help me, and I promise…” What might the Mighty One possibly want from him? Keros had no idea.

***

A shout startled Keros. Time had jumped again. The sun beat down and the plaza was empty, but for booths, stalls and merchant guards gazing toward the Goat Bridge.

At the arched stone bridge and lining the street before and after it, pirates, merchants, harlots and rat hunters cheered. They threw rose-petals into the air and stamped their feet. The thrum of it through the pavement must have woken him.

Curious, Keros crawled. He panted and slithered toward the jeering mob. His vision blurred, his hearing went and returned. A forest of legs blocked him. He crawled through. Some people looked down. A few stepped on his fingers. More than one shrank away, snarling insults at him. Soon, he crawled over rose petals and emerged at the front of the mob.

Proud soldiers tramped past. They were hard-eyed men, with polished armor that clanked in rhythm to their step. Their round shields gleamed. Their spears clashed a martial beat. Trumpeters blew horns, and battle flags snapped in their midst.

With a groan, Keros sat up. He grew weary after a time, and then alert as a grim, awed hush fell upon the crowd.

Over the stone Goat Bridge staggered a monstrosity. A heavy golden yoke locked the monster man’s neck and wrists. The man lacked fat, and his muscles were stark, like knotted oak roots, like bands of twisted iron. His hands no longer seemed flesh and bone, but were talons, claws of calluses. Keros knew that such claws had been forged in a slave galley. Usually the oar and the lash slaughtered slave-rowers in less than a year, the toughest usually lasted two. According to legend, the brute staggering down the Goat Bridge had rowed twenty long years: twenty years of pestilence, twenty years of whippings, sickness and with slaves around him crying out in agony as they died. The man staggering down the bridge’s cobblestones radiated defiance. A long, white beard fell upon his massive chest. His weather-beaten face held eyes that blazed fury like some desert prophet gone mad. He was Lod, and he had aged many, many years since the incident with the orn and Blue Flower.

Shaven-headed priests in long, red gowns paced behind him. Each bore on his forehead the trident tattoo of Gog. Each held in his gloved hands a white-hot iron. Behind the priests followed neck-chained slaves. They were the beaten captains and their crews who had dared defy Gog. They bore rags, had bloody welts and had eyes of despair. They were being herded to the Temple of Gog, to the Oracle, to the heinous dungeons from which none returned.

The mob howled. They hurled rotten fruit and fish. A tomato smeared Lod’s chest and dripped like blood. Offal stained his hair.

Amidst the howls, the hatred and the catcalls, something grew in Keros. He dropped onto his elbows and crawled onto the street.

Soldiers guarded the lane. One shouted. Keros ignored the call. The soldier snarled, clanked near and kicked him in the ribs. People roared with laughter.

“Move aside, swine.” The second kick cracked a rib.

Keros winced even as he raised his head. Lod staggered near. Keros saw the sweat on his face, the creases and the pain in that fierce gaze. Those hot eyes tracked the soldier. Lod shuffled faster.

The soldier, ignorant of the doom behind him, drew back for a third kick. The golden-yoked captive appeared to stumble. Lod lowered his shoulder, and with the great weight of gold that locked his head and hands, he rammed the bully. With the snap of bones, the soldier catapulted into the crowd. Lod crashed to his knees before Keros. Panting, with sweat dripping from his beard, the huge man stared with awful intensity at Keros.

Laughter rose around them in waves. Those burning eyes— they filled Keros’s world, as if just the two of them existed.

“Do you serve Elohim?” whispered Lod.

Keros gave the barest of nods.

Lod rotated the heavy golden yoke. The heat of the sun radiated off it. The white-haired captive laid a leathery palm onto Keros’s head. “Hear me, O Elohim. Hearken to my plea.” The rough fingers grew warm. “In His Mighty Name, you are healed.”