“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.”
Lod shoved Keros, and with a grunt, the wild-eyed madman struggled to
his feet. The mob brayed as Keros fell onto his back.
A priest rushed Lod. The priest touched the captive with a heated brand. The stink of burning flesh nauseated Keros. The crowd roared its delight.
As Lod shuffled off, gauntlet-clad hands grabbed Keros. Soldiers carried him through the crowd. Like a sack of dung, they pitched him so he flopped onto pavement and scraped his chin, almost chipping teeth.
Keros blinked and blinked again. Healed? Lod had healed him in Elohim’s name. Why didn’t he feel any different then? Keros crawled from the jeering throng, and away from the brutal guards.
Keros slithered toward a maze of hidden lanes. With his elbows, he crawled over gritty pavement. Dog filth lay in a smelly heap before him. He crawled around it. He dragged himself over a pear core. A cheer rose behind him. The clank of iron-shod boots told of armed men marching across the Goat Bridge. Keros neared the opening of a dark alleyway. The brick buildings on either side were black with age.
Keros’s stomach churned. Sweat dripped from his face. His vision blurred, and he thought to see men with clubs waiting for him in the dark alley. He paused, spat up phlegm. Spasms now raced through him. Searing agony coursed down his legs. His feet throbbed. Long ago in Shur, in his youth, he had camped on an anthill and awoken in the morning with ants biting him. So it felt now. Keros dragged himself faster. His throat itched. His belly growled. Heat poured off him. He dropped to his stomach, panted and raised his torso with his hands. He used his hands to crawl with instead of his elbows.
Keros stopped, and examined his arms. He hadn’t been able to crawl with his hands for over two months! The leprous sores… they had scabbed closed. Keros frowned. A scab dropped off even as he watched. It left pink skin underneath. He… he must be delirious. He must be sicker than he realized.
Keros drew up his knees, his useless legs, and crawled like a baby. He headed into the alley, into the maze behind the taverns and packing sheds. He crawled past comatose drunks, past shivering youths, who shrank from his sight. Broken crates, shattered glass, stained garments and blankets littered his path. He came to an old, empty barrel and threw himself within. Several heartbeats later, he crawled out. A raging thirst tormented him. A lust to devour roast lamb made his mouth water. He shivered. His filthy rags disgusted him. He flexed his biceps.
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