Lod the Galley Slave (Lost Civilizations)

by Heppner, Vaughn

  Lod leaned the other way as far as he could. They were in a bay of some sort. He saw a vine-covered seawall and behind that slender towers with pearl-colored turrets.

  “Iribos,” he whispered. So they had made it after all. He furrowed his brow, deciding from the way he felt that he’d had two hours sleep.

  A rowing slave, if he cared to listen, if he had enough desire, heard much from the world above, from the upper deck. Whenever he wasn’t consumed by visions, Lod listened carefully indeed, had been listening for twenty years. He knew all about Iribos.

  Several years ago Yorgash had launched a seaborne invasion of this rocky little island. It housed the finest harbor in all the Gulf of Ammon or any found on the two rivers Hiddekel and Phlegeton, both of which poured into the gulf. The small, strong-walled city whose seawall he now stared at had survived many famous sieges. Iribos’ greatest advantage was that the only effective way onto the island was through its harbor. The rest of the island only showed tall, steep cliffs and jagged boulders. But entering the harbor without permission wasn’t easy, or it hadn’t been in the past. In years gone by the galleys of Iribos never used slave rowers and carried few soldiers, relying instead on their greatly envied seamanship to ram and sink their opponents. Knowing this, Yorgash had slyly preached peace, and to show his good will he had sent grain ships to ease the islanders in a time of famine. Heralds from Eridu had warned them that Yorgash intended deceit. As if to belie the warning, yet more grain ships, seven mighty leviathans, had sailed that day into the harbor. They had been monstrous vessels, and the city elders of Iribos had mocked the heralds of Eridu with the sight of them. That night the grain ships had disgorged hidden soldiery: merciless warriors led by the Gibborim, Yorgash’s dreaded children. Gold had greased the palms of certain gate captains, and into the city had poured the Gibborim, with cold-eyed, bearded warriors clutching axes following close behind.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered a slave, as he bumped against Lod.

  With his reveries broken, Lod straightened, and he turned from the oar port and peered at the man beside him. He was a small fellow with a shock of tawny hair, black circles around his eyes and a bruised face with cuts and awful purple welts. His neck and shoulders also bore the mementos of a beating. His bearing, however, didn’t indicate slavishness. It seemed rather that he had spoken out of politeness, a certain genteel spirit.

  “My name is Zeiros,” said the man, holding out his hand.

  Lod frowned at it. No slave had tried talking to him for… He couldn’t remember how long. It was forbidden for others to speak with him. That this slave hadn’t been warned… Lod’s heart thudded harder.

  “I hope you bear me no ill will,” Zeiros said.

  Lod had to concentrate. He wasn’t used to people addressing him; so-called masters yes, but not…others. He reached out and dwarfed the other’s hand with his crooked talons. They solemnly shook: the grotesquely over-muscled oar slave and Zeiros with a smooth palm and the long slender fingers of a philosopher or a master flutist.

  “My city is Larak,” Zeiros said. “I’m a moneylender there from the House of Commorion.”

  “You’re a usurer?” rumbled Lod.

  Zeiros shrugged, and despite the evil of the hold, the snick of locks all around and the rattling of chains, and archers watching them, the moneylender grinned.

  They hadn’t broken any of his teeth, noticed Lod. Then, because he had forgotten about the finer points concerning the art of conversation and in his growing excitement, he peered once more through the oar port and started counting galleys. He stopped at one hundred and twenty-four, no longer certain that he wasn’t simply recounting some.

  The oar master blew harshly on his whistle. Lod turned back to the happenings in the hold. All the new slaves were in place, the soldiers presently wading through the repacked benches and cutting the leather binding the rowers’ arms. The wretches groaned as they moved numb shoulders and tried to twitch puffy fingers.

  “You pigs listen now! Captain Eglon is going to speak!”

  Eglon brushed the oar master aside and peered at the hold full of slaves. The captain wore his scarlet cloak, his red ruby upon his turban and a scimitar in a silver scabbard hanging from his sash. Over his silk garments he had donned a burnished bronze cuirass with molded images of dancers under a crescent moon that glittered with crushed diamond dust. At such times Captain Eglon usually bellowed and blustered, an evil smile twisting his features. Today he was pale, his eyes haunted, with his cheeks for the first time that Lod had seen him sagging and weighing heavily upon his face.

  “You are here to die for Yorgash,” said Eglon, as if reciting a creed. “Fail in that and your tongue will be torn free and hot pokers shoved in your belly.” It seemed he would say more, as he usually did. Instead, as if his words had brought back nightmarish memories, scenes he could not abide, the captain turned abruptly and fled the hold.

  For a moment no one did or said anything. Lod had the impression the captain’s short speech and even stranger actions had caught his men by surprise.

  The grizzled key officer of last night cleared his throat, stepping forward. “You new boys shouldn’t think that your allies will board us and free you from your chains. Our orders are to grab spears and kill you if it looks like that will happen. Your only worry is to row when I say or if not to expect a knife in the kidneys. One minute you’ll be thinking, ‘He didn’t catch the fact that I’m not obeying.’ The next instant you’ll arch in agony, a dagger planted in your side. So that’s fair warning. I don’t give orders twice. You don’t believe that, ask your mates on the bench. Now grab your oars. I’m going to teach you what to do while we still got time. Don’t worry when your hands start bleeding. Ignore it. Your paws are going to become wet pieces of flesh before you grow proper calluses. And don’t worry about becoming tired, either. I have whip-masters that will lash you more strength than you ever knew you had. Your only concern is to row and row hard.”

  “Sea battle,” whispered Lod, as he took hold of his wooden cleat. That’s why the hold had been refilled with wretches who seemed fresh from the torture chambers. They were leaving Iribos in order to engage in a naval battle. A fierce dread that he couldn’t suppress filled his churning guts.

  -6-

  Feet stamped above. A whistle shrilled. Weary slaves dragged in the looms, the new men slumping over them. The man beside Lod—Zeiros the Usurer—trembled as he crossed his arms over the giant oar and lay down his sweaty head. He carefully held his hands upward, his raw palms bloody and oozing.

  The crack of leather above told of the mainsail catching the breeze. The Serpent of Thep lurched, beefwood complaining. Lod peered out the oar port and caught sight of a shark fin. As the galley rose upon a wave, he saw the outline of the creature and then its dangerous, raspy hide as the top part of its body broke the surface. He had seen sharks before brush up against an overboard man and with its hide tear away great swaths of flesh. He had also heard that carpenters bought cured sharkskin and rubbed it against wood that needed smoothing. The shark pacing them seemed to be at least twenty feet long, one of the smaller varieties. Then the Serpent of Thep thumped down hard upon the waters as the wind drove them onward.

  “Aren’t you tired?” whispered Zeiros.

  It took a moment for Lod to realize that the moneylender meant him. He turned back around, immediately assaulted by the hold’s stench. The three hundred naked slaves had nowhere to urinate but at their bench.

  “Your hands aren’t even bleeding,” Zeiros said.

  Lod peered at his hands: ugly twisted lumps of armored flesh.

  “Do you have a name?”

  Lod considered the question, squeezing his brows. “Lod,” he grunted.

  The smaller man asked, “Of what city?”

  Lod wasn’t a youngling newly born into the world. He was one of the old ones, the long-lived sons of Adam.

  “Caphtor,” he said. “I am Lod of Caphtor.”

  “Strong
-walled Caphtor of the Nine Gates,” Zeiros said. “Were you a soldier there?”

  Once he had been the Captain of the Guard. But that was long, long ago. He no longer spoke about such things.

  “Tell me, Lod of Caphtor, will you die here?”

  “No!”

  Zeiros lifted his eyebrows. “How can you possibly escape this place, my friend? It seems impossible.”

  Lod peered out the oar port. He loved this spot on the bench and hoped they wouldn’t return him to the leader position. A wet hand touched his forearm. He jerked round.

  Zeiros shrank from him. After a moment when nothing happened, the moneylender relaxed, glanced around, then hunched his head and whispered, “I won’t spoil your plan, Lod. I want off too. As I told you before, I’m a moneylender for the House of Commorion. How does a thousand gold shekels sound as way of reward for helping me escape with you?”

  “No.”

  Zeiros looked startled. “You don’t trust me?”

  “You won’t live long enough to escape,” Lod said.

  Zeiros blinked before a snarl touched his lips. “Maybe I’m not a mass of muscle like you, my friend, but don’t doubt my courage.”

  “The oar bench slays all,” rumbled Lod, who had heard a hundred such boasts from men all dead now but for him.

  “Why won’t the oar-bench slay you?” asked Zeiros.

  “Elohim…calls me.”

  Zeiros pursed his lips. His lion-colored hair was disheveled and his face looked as if a giant had stamped it with his boot heel. Still, the shrewd eyes hinted at craft, and spirit yet flickered in his green-colored pupils.

  “Elohim, the god of blood and thunder?” asked Zeiros.

  “The One True God,” Lod said.

  “Of course,” Zeiros said. “I meant no offense.”

  The fire in Lod’s eyes smoldered. He nodded, accepting the apology.

  “You are a prophet, I think,” Zeiros said.

  Lod finally noticed the bloody handprint on his arm where Zeiros had touched him.

  “It must bother you as a prophet that Elohim’s Temple in Larak has seen better days,” Zeiros said. “Neither our king nor his father before him went to the temple. Our king seeks guidance from the stars, from seers and astrologers. It’s said he even sent emissaries to Gog the Oracle.”

  Lod spat upon the creaking wood.

  “An ill deed,” Zeiros said smoothly.

  “First Born are sons of the Accursed.”

  “Quite true, quite true” Zeiros said. “But as I was saying, Elohim’s Temple has fallen into ruin, into disrepute. Free me from the oar bench and bring me to Larak, and I will put a thousand golden shekels into Elohim’s coffers.”

  Lod stared at the usurer, the moneylender. That was a kingly sum. Zeiros was no mere moneylender—unless.

  “You have a glib tongue,” Lod said. “No one but a king’s son could raise such a sum.”

  Zeiros smiled ruefully. “You’re no simpleton, my friend. The truth…” He glanced about and lowered his voice. “I am the House of Commorion.”

  Lod shook his head. “You are too young.”

  “As you are gifted with an extraordinary physique and iron will, so I am able to make money.”

  “By usury?” Lod asked.

  “It takes money to make money, my friend. Yes, by usury, by shrewd deals and through buying and selling.”

  “Yet now you row.”

  Zeiros nodded. “Now I row.”

  The barest of smiles cracked Lod’s lips.

  “The tale is simple enough, my friend. The king of Larak begged the moneylenders to help him against Yorgash. The former king had squandered the royal treasury. So in its hour of need the city coffers were empty. Thus we moneylenders agreed to his plea, and we paid for the fleet’s increase. Even more, in order to augment our army, we hired Jogli charioteers. Too, we lent our king the sums to hire the king of Eridu.”

  “This is bitter news,” Lod said.

  “My capture?” Zeiros said, puzzled.

  “That Eridu’s king sells his sword to the highest bidder.”

  “Ah. Forgive me, Lod. I spoke as a moneylender. The king of Eridu calls his hiring price tribute, but in reality we’re buying his services. Words are cloaks that men wear to hide their actions.”

  “No. Words have meaning. To pay tribute is different from buying a mercenary.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Zeiros said.

  Lod recalled that men who agreed too readily often didn’t agree at all. He nodded for Zeiros to continue.

  “The sums were gathered and the bargains made. Now Larak and Eridu shall join fleets off the coast of the Hiddekel Delta. There they shall sink Yorgash’s Armada. Then charioteers will be unleashed and the Siege of Larak broken. Perhaps the victory will be so grand that trade can be renewed with Northern Vendhya. In any case, with Yorgash’s retreat we moneylenders can recoup our outlays and collect interest.”

  “Usury,” Lod said. “But none of this explains why you row.”

  “With a bank draft I sailed from Larak to Eridu, to personally give the draft to the king’s lenders of the Exchange. Alas, privateers caught us, and brought us to Iribos for booty. Yorgash has offered a man’s weight in silver for any officer or noble of Larak brought before him.” Zeiros shivered. “A Gibborim spoke to us in the dungeons.”

  “One of Yorgash’s children?” Lod asked.

  Zeiros had turned pale and his lips bloodless. “Yes, a Nephilim. They know now that Eridu sends its terrible fire ships. They know now that they have no chance for victory against our combined fleets.”

  “You told them your king’s plan?”

  Zeiros gave him a bitter glance. “Have you ever faced a Gibborim?”

  “Once…in battle…” Lod’s face grew stiff. “I killed it.”

  “That is a bold boast, my friend.”

  Lod shrugged.

  “No man can slay a Gibborim,” Zeiros said. “They are too ferocious, too strong and inhuman. What you say…it is impossible.”

  The fires in Lod’s blue eyes burned and a terrible, secret smile stretched across his lips.

  Zeiros shrank back, and several nearby slaves glanced fearfully at Lod. Perhaps he recognized their terror. For Lod strove to hood his passions, to mask the seething cauldron of his emotions.

  That too made the other slaves uneasy, as if they watched a volcano at war with itself.

  “Gibborim are evil,” rumbled Lod.

  Zeiros hunched his shoulders. “I had to speak to him,” the moneylender whispered, his voice haunted. “I had to speak if I wanted to keep on living. Many of those that now row did similarly. Early this morning they roused us and said we had been given a second chance. They jeered us, mocking our impotence, saying they would only take volunteers. I raised my hand as did everyone else there. I would have done anything to leave that dank dungeon, that wretched pit of misery.” The moneylender peered at his bloody hands.

  “Fire ships of Eridu or not,” Lod said, “we sail to do battle.”

  “We sail to our death, my friend. That is why you and I must escape. No one can face the fire ships and survive.”

  -7-

  Amidst the continuous clanking of leg chains, they rowed north from Iribos and toward glorious Larak, self-styled Queen of the Merchant Cities of Shinar. They rowed watch-and-watch, with half the giant oars pulled in at rest while the other half dipped into the vast green sea. Most of the idle slaves slept half-draped over their unmoving looms. It was impossible to stretch out or lean back because slaves worked the oars behind and in front of them. A few of the idle slaves stared dull-eyed at creaking timbers or peered longingly up through the latticework at clouds. Some used stone splinters to carve bone or wood. They did scrimshaw work, for at harbor most captains allowed them to sell the pieces for dried fruit or to purchase the kiss of a slave girl bobbing in a boat alongside the galley.

  Soon the silver whistles trilled. Those on watch dragged in their giant oars, while those
at rest pushed out theirs and began the stint that would last for hours.

  Zeiros collapsed onto his oar, the muscles in his arms quivering. His face had turned pale and his right hand twitched. Lod had to nudge him when the water boy squeezed down their plank. Zeiros, like all the other slaves, drank his fill, water dribbling down his chin and streaking his grimy chest. Because they had so recently put into port the wooden ladle held sweet water, not the putrid swill it sometimes became in the caskets.

  As the water boy took his bucket to the next bench, Zeiros whispered, “This is bestial drudgery.”

  Lod had no answer for that and peered out the oar hole. The sea was a mere foot away, with waves slapping against the half-rotted lumber. He knew that worms bored through the old wood just as lice crawled from slave to slave and rats prowled the filthy bilge below his feet. Sometimes after a long summer of voyages a galley was emptied, filled with stones and sunk into shallow water in order to drown all the rats, lice and worms. Then divers would roll off the stones, resurface the galley and drag it onto shore to be re-caulked.

  Cold seawater splashed through the oar port and struck Lod’s cheek. The galley rode so low because it was heavy with soldiery, and from the sailors he had overhead earlier this morning heavy with newly placed catapults.

  Lod shifted on the bench, straining to see further ahead. Masses of galleys spread in every direction. They covered the water like an army of aquatic centipedes, some gaudy and huge, some small. Upon a few of the sleek ships sailors heaved filth overboard, and there triangular fins churned the water. On others, catapult arms thwacked against crossbars, hurling rocks into the sea. The men practiced for the coming fight. On one deck he saw sunlight flash off the silvery mask of a pacing beastmaster. High in the sky wheeled pterodactyls, the eyes of Yorgash, his hated pets and spies. The entire fleet beat north across the choppy sea, a great herd of wooden vessels. In the other direction floundering galleys fell farther and farther behind. One wallowed, waves washing upon its pine deck.