The Lod Saga (Lost Civilizations: 6)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “It had something to do with a frail boy,” Gymir said with a frown.

  “You slew my friend.”

  “Did I?”

  “You spat on his corpse.”

  Remembrance flickered in the giant’s eyes. “I told him to lie down, to surrender. He defied me and called me a demon. Yes, I slew him, and his blood jetted onto my new Shinar cloak. He ruined its perfection.” Gymir cocked his head. “But I still don’t fully remember you.”

  “I attacked you out of the hut where I’d been sick.”

  “Did you?” The giant shook his head.

  “You hit me with the flat of your axe,” Lod said through gritted teeth.

  Gymir’s nostrils flared. “You were a gnat. I swatted and easily defeated you then. But today… there is fire in your heart, O man. And there is something more.”

  Gymir gazed skyward, looked for a time to the right and then to the left. He grunted, regarded Lod anew.

  Lod breathed deeply, trying to divine a plan, a way to defeat the monstrous giant.

  Gymir gripped his spear and warily took several giant steps nearer.

  Lod’s stomach knotted. His shield would not give him protection if the spear struck squarely. The razor-sharp, bronze head, backed by Gymir’s incredible weight and strength, would either punch through his shield and skewer him or hurl him viciously hard against the inner stadium wall. Even a glancing blow might obliterate the shield. There would be no shield bashing this fight. He could not stand toe-to-toe with the giant as he had against Barkos.

  Lod glanced at his puny sword. He would have to strike with all his strength to drive the blade through the giant’s hardened leather armor. And to do that, he had to be very close to the giant.

  Gymir shuffled nearer.

  Lod backed away. Eglon had once told him to always charge. That backing up stole a man’s spirit. Lod indeed felt his courage drain away.

  Maybe Gymir sensed this. The giant grinned. It was an awful thing.

  “A warrior should not calculate the odds too carefully,” Gymir said. “Your bellows before… they seemed to show a wild heart. You fought well against the pit slave. You tricked the half-Nephilim, certainly. Still, that was a true cast, done under pressure. Now, however, your courage is exhausted. Now you will soon run howling in terror around the stadium. You will be yet another man who misjudged the true strength of a Nephilim.”

  Gymir stopped, straightened and his longish features became wreathed with thought. Once more, his nostrils flared. Then he shook his head and chuckled dryly.

  “Do you know, O man, that I almost considered tossing aside my spear? I wanted to encourage you, to see that wild spark one last time. Yet that is foolish. There truly is something more at work here today.” The giant grinned hideously and the calculating eyes became grim.

  Lod’s eyes widened then, and with a great effort of will, he kept his gaze fixed on Gymir.

  “What?” the giant said. “Hope has entered you. Tell me the reason.”

  Lod swallowed in a dry throat. Hope indeed beat in his heart. Elohim aided him again. Argus’s killer had mocked him long enough, had lived on this world far too long.

  “Men don’t have to cower to the Nephilim!” Lod shouted. “Men can unite, stand against them and win! We’re more than animals, more than beasts!”

  “Do you hope to stir the crowd?” Gymir asked, a line in his forehead indicating puzzlement.

  Lod pointed his sword at the giant. Maybe it was a small weapon, but he would use it with all his ability. “I defy you, giant, in the power and name of Elohim!”

  Nephilim and half-Nephilim booed and catcalled. Moloch watched grimly.

  “This day you will be given into my hands, Gymir the Sly!” Lod took a step toward the giant, and his courage blazed anew.

  Gymir watched Lod closely, with the huge spear ready. Thus, the giant didn’t see Barkos heave himself onto his feet. Everyone had forgotten the downed and dying pit slave.

  Lod, however, had seen Barkos shift his head toward him. Lod had seen Barkos’s shining eyes and he had understood.

  Now Barkos stood swaying behind the giant. Blood covered the pit slave. Blood covered his torso, legs, arms and hands. Yet Barkos clutched his sword, even though his arm trembled violently.

  Nephilim and half-Nephilim shouted a warning from the tiers.

  Gymir frowned in greater puzzlement, and at the last moment, he seemed to understand. He jerked his head around and kicked out a leg. But it was the wrong leg.

  Barkos the Pit Slave drove his sword into Gymir’s calf muscle. The dying slave stabbed deep, twisted the blade and heaved himself hard against Gymir.

  The giant bellowed. He toppled, let go of his spear and swatted at Barkos. The pit slave yanked out his sword and slashed at the meaty hand. It was the last thing Barkos ever did. The huge cut hand connected and hurled Barkos. A broken thing, the pit slave tumbled disjointedly across the sand.

  Lod sprinted while all this occurred. He slipped his arm loose from the shield straps. The giant fell back onto the sands. Lod dropped his shield and grabbed his sword with two hands. He stabbed the blade into Gymir’s neck. The giant bolted upright with a roar. Lod scrambled fast as a leopard and clung to Gymir’s neck. Like a child on his father’s back, Lod pulled out the puny sword and ran the edge across the Nephilim’s throat. Then Lod slithered free and dropped as the Nephilim convulsively reached for him.

  Blood gushed from the awful wound. The giant tried to speak. Failing, he lifted his gaze to Moloch on his throne. The bloody lips moved again. Gymir struggled to raise an arm. Then he slumped back. His horrible, wet wheezes were heard throughout the hushed stadium.

  -2-

  Guards held Lod by his blood-slicked arms. Other guards held their spears ready to slay him at the First Born’s command. They stood assembled before Moloch’s box.

  Lod looked up, unbowed, with madness in his eyes. He’d beaten Nephilim today. He’d avenged small Argus. He was ready to die. He inhaled, expanded his chest and gave the First Born a slight nod to get it over with already.

  With half-lidded eyes, Moloch watched Lod. Whatever fury might have been there before was now lizard-like stoicism. At last, Moloch spoke to the herald. The herald glanced at Moloch in surprise. Moloch stared into the herald’s eyes.

  Stumbling, suddenly white with terror, the herald rushed to the dais. He glanced once at Lod and then shouted out to those waiting in the stadium.

  “Today Gymir the Sly dared challenge me! Gymir died. He died by the seeming hand of this fierce slave. Appearances can deceive! I rule in Uruk. My will is supreme.” The herald took a deep breath and boomed, “I deemed that Gymir the Unwise should die for his arrogance! Because the fierce slave acted as my hand, the slave shall live.”

  The giants watched in silence, many brooding. The ordinary humans in the highest tiers nodded and began to murmur to one another.

  The herald glanced at Moloch.

  The First Born lounged on his throne in apparent boredom.

  “I am merciful to those I use,” the herald cried, “even to those too dull to understand from where their help came.” The herald regarded Lod. “Speak, slave, and admit that it was I who aided you.”

  Lod glanced at Moloch on his throne. The First Born still appeared disinterested, but Lod knew better. His chest hurt suddenly. He believed he understood. Say that the First Born had aided him instead of Elohim and he could likely become a pit slave and live in relative ease. Refuse to lie… and face the First Born’s wrath.

  Lod gathered saliva in his bone-dry mouth, and he spat on the sand.

  The First Born’s eyes imperceptibly narrowed. He flicked a finger.

  The watching herald nodded, and he faced the crowd. “Because the slave was my tool, he shall live. Because he is an ungrateful beast, he shall toil in the mines of Tartarus. The beast is condemned to a living death. Such is the will of Divine Moloch.”

  Lod stumbled as guards shoved him from behind. The First Born was
cunning. He tried to quash the idea that Elohim had aided him. And by letting him live, the First Born kept any legends from forming by his unjust death. Would Moloch allow him life in the mines?

  Lod glanced a last time at the First Born on his throne. A grim chill swept through Lod. He understood that Moloch meant to have him murdered in the mines.

  Lod stopped, and he fully turned toward the exalted throne. For a moment, he dared stare the First Born in the eye. And he saw something completely unexpected, a hint of fear.

  Lod squared his shoulders, threw back his head and marched for the exit. A hint of fear in the First Born’s eyes—it meant to Lod that Elohim was not yet finished with him.

  -3-

  Despite Lod’s wounds, the next morning cruel guards chained him to other wretches destined for the mines of Tartarus. In a shuffling throng and with clinking metal, the neck-manacled slaves left the barracks.

  They wound their way through the endlessly narrow streets that seethed with barefoot beggars, dusty-skinned drovers and Nephilim in leather armor. Buildings towered six stories high, plunging the busy lanes into shadow.

  The route took them past the harbor, a bustling madhouse, with ships from many ports. Almodad tribesmen piled linen bales higher than a mammoth. Others climbed the stacks like baboons and pitched the bales to waiting carters. Nabu axe-men guarded ivory tusks or stacks of ox-skin-shaped ingots of copper. Long-robed merchants inspected cargos as their secretaries pressed styluses into wax slates. Donkeys brayed. Foremen shouted. The smell of cinnamon from the eastern shores mingled with hewn pines from the Hanun Mountains. Leather hides from Shamgar were slapped into a hold.

  Lod and the others shuffled away from the harbor and back into the shadows of mighty Uruk, the megalopolis of Moloch of Flames. Here swarmed the peoples of the land of Nod: tall black warriors who sneered at the slaves. Three Jogli nomads held aloft bone-white talismans of the grasslands, trying to sell them. Almodad peasants groaned under impossible loads, staggering to unknown destinations. Half-breeds abounded, swathed in robes and wearing gilded slippers. They shouted bargains better than a merchant of Further Trash could and knew twice as many languages. There were olive-skinned men of Larak, Shamgar pirates and women of Ir displayed at an auction block. In Uruk, gold could purchase anything, be it desire or item.

  Soon enough, Lod passed the massive city gate with its reinforcing iron bars. The slave caravan headed south along the trade road, destined for the dreaded silver mines of Tartarus.

  Guard and slaves alike walked. Lod and the others went barefoot and shouldered immense burdens. Like pack mules, they carried jugs of water and wine, pressed dates, salted fish, crusty old bread and mining supplies such as gads, stone hammers, torches, lamp oil and salt.

  The guards wore sandals, belted tunics and carried whips, snapping them at the weary. If a slave succumbed to exhaustion and crashed to his knees or even keeled onto his side, sneering guards cracked their whips. Filings of iron and cast-off bronze were imbedded in the leather lashes. Thus, the whips parted skin so blood ran freely. Most wretches groaned or screamed, struggling back onto their feet and shuffling for another few miles.

  Several guards with strange tattoos on their cheeks and with vile, sadistic gleams in their eyes led half-domesticated, cave hyenas. The largest of the abominable beasts outweighed any man. The cave hyenas had spike-studded collars and heavy jaws. They followed the shuffling slaves, stopping to snarl and yip at each as they lapped blood on the trail from bleeding feet.

  The cave hyenas took up a weird, laughing bark whenever a guard whipped a downed slave. The carrion animals become frenzied at the sight of violence and the smell of blood. And once, with an old man and at a command from the chief of the tattooed guards, the huge beasts rushed in. They tore the prone and bleeding slave apart, chewing his stomach open and yanking out his blue-colored intestines.

  Lod stood swaying on the road. An iron collar had been welded to his neck. A heavy chain linked him with the slaves before and behind him. Leather bound his wrists behind his back and ninety pounds of supplies pressed down on his shoulders.

  Shuddering, the other slaves turned from the grisly sight. From beneath his tangled hair, Lod watched. He noted the tattooed guards as they laughed, marking them for future death. The sound of crunched bones was horrible. The dying shrieks of the mangled slave dwindled, but still the old man tried to defend himself.

  At last, Lod turned away. He shivered with hatred against the guards and against the wretched beasts that feasted on a man. Someday, if Elohim granted him freedom, he would slay such as these. For now, however, he had to endure, and he had to survive the long trek to Tartarus.

  It took seven days to traverse Moloch’s territory and another six through the dependant lands. The Almodad tribesmen in the dependant lands cultivated wheat, barley and dates and lived in mud-walled villages. Every morning, they drove out herds of bleating sheep. After the sixth day among the Almodad, Lod and the others left the plowed lands, climbing into Jogli territory with its arid plains.

  During the past years, Moloch’s sons had fought the Jogli, laying tribute on some tribes and levying their best charioteers for Moloch’s army. Other Jogli had migrated toward the wastelands, keeping their vaunted freedom.

  A circuitous route, with a three-day stop at a sacred shrine of Azel, brought the slave caravan to Theveste of the Hundred Gates. It was the oldest of the two nomad cities. Theveste had great stone walls, raised according to legend, before the descending of the bene elohim. Jogli meant nomad, and as such, most Jogli lived. They had goat-hide tents, light chariots and cast javelins farther than any civilized man.

  Leaving the last boundary stones, the slave caravan filed deeper into the desolation and into the true wilds. During the next nine days, Lod saw hungry bears that had ambled down from the pine-haunted mountains. He saw a leopard that studied them from a rock as the beast licked its paw. The cave hyenas warily watched the big cat, and the beasts snapped more often at the slaves. At night, lions roared, hidden by the smothering darkness.

  The slave caravan threaded through a mountain pass, climbed into cold heights and then descended three days later into a granite-strewn wasteland.

  According to the guards, horrid curses abounded here, the legendary reason for its bleakness. Ancient tales told of battles between the shining ones from above and rebellious bene elohim. During the grim war, each side had unleashed terrible plagues and brought down strange fires. Ruins dotted these hills, together with proud graves. In the oddest places stood crumbling stone sphinxes and weathered idols of bearded bull-men.

  The caravan halted one evening underneath the largest sphinx. It had jagged scars, as if lighting bolts had blasted it from the heavens. Huge stone chunks were strewn about its granite paws, and gravel crunched underfoot.

  Lod shed his heavy burden and sat around a dung fire with the other slaves. As the stars began to appear, slavers walked behind them and undid the leather-bindings around their wrists.

  Lod flexed his numbed fingers, and he picked up the dried crusts thrown them. He chewed methodically. By now, the wounds won in the Stadium of Swords had turned into scars. He had lost weight. They all had. He was gaunt, his muscles stark, and he seldom whispered to the other slaves. He brooded. Moloch meant him to die in Tartarus. He must live in order to pay back the First Born and Nephilim in the coin they had give him. Fire and blood, the lash and the sword, he would bring ruin to them one day.

  The meaty stench of a cave hyena warned Lod. Then the blunt, wet nose of one of the beasts touched the back of his neck.

  In revulsion, Lod twisted around. He struck the cave hyena, clouting it across the snout.

  The huge beast whined, drawing back. The chief of the tattooed guards—Jehu—held the creature’s leash. Jehu shouted angrily. Standing above the seated Lod, Jehu struck with his coiled whip, slapping Lod across the face.

  Lod surged to his feet before conscious thought could warn him to be cautious. Jehu sneered. Lod
drove an iron-hard fist into the guard’s belly. With a surprised look of shock and pain, Jehu groaned and crumpled at Lod’s feet. Other guards at different fires shouted in alarm.

  The giant cave hyena should have launched itself at Lod to protect its master. Instead, it snarled in its high-pitched way. It crouched as if it would launch, and it exposed its heavy teeth.

  Sanity returned to Lod before he charged the beast. Guards with drawn scimitars advanced. Red firelight reflected off their shiny, razor-sharp blades. The slaves behind Lod cowered, babbling, pleading for mercy.

  “Lie on your belly, slave,” a guard said.

  The iron collar still chaffed at Lod’s neck. Chains linked him to other collared slaves.

  “Lie on your belly!” the guard shouted.

  The fire inside Lod surged into life. He laughed wildly and flexed his hands, deciding to die on his feet.

  The guard tightened his grip, and he took a step toward Lod.

  “Wait,” Jehu wheezed from the ground. The lean chief guard had evil tattoos on his cheeks, made more sinister by the firelight and by the sphinx’s nearness. The tattoos were of strangely crooked swirls. Similar swirls adorned the stone sphinx that silently witnessed the deadly confrontation.

  Jehu heaved himself onto his feet, and he snatched his coiled whip from where he’d dropped it. The guards with cave hyenas now surrounded Lod. Other guards stood ready with their drawn swords.

  “Don’t kill him,” Jehu said. Squinting, he regarded Lod. “I want this one to meet Kulik. Yes, Kulik will know how to break a stubborn fool like this.” Jehu stepped nearer, and he spat into Lod’s face. With his coiled whip, he struck Lod another blow across the face, drawing blood.

  No doubt sensing their masters’ rage, the cave hyenas yipped and barked, eager to rush in. The huge brutes strained to escape their spiked collars and the leashes in their masters’ hands.