Behemoth (Lost Civilizations: 5)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Behind the bush, Keros held Lod’s dart, the one with a barbed point. The iron dart was a deadly missile weapon at close range. When Keros had been a lad, old One-Eye had forced him to practice many hours with javelins. He liked the heft of Lod’s dart and was certain he could kill one of the two with it.

  The beefy reaver with the scimitar opened his mouth to shout, no doubt to bring others running. Keros crashed through the bush, ignoring the thorns scratching his arms.

  The two reavers reacted fast. The one with the spear crouched behind his shield, jabbing the spear in Keros’s direction. Fortunately for Keros, the reaver was too far for his spear to reach. The scimitar-armed brigand whipped around, staring, bringing his scimitar into a guard position.

  Keros had time to grin fiercely. Then he hurled the iron dart. The barbed point entered the reaver’s mouth and sprouted out of the neck. The reaver staggered backward, making awful choking noises. His heel struck something. Backward, the reaver crashed against vines, flailing spasmodically and then beginning to thrash as he died.

  The lean reaver crouched behind his raised shield, with his spear pointed at Keros. The reaver held the spear for thrusting, not for throwing. He took two quick steps at Keros. Perhaps he meant to break into a run, using his superior armor and shield, and his longer-reaching weapon.

  Keros still held his dagger in his left hand, not yet having time to switch it to his fighting hand. He realized the quickness of the spear-armed reaver even as he realized the man might be too fast for him.

  Then a shadow passed before the reaver’s features. It seemed that the shadow twisted the man’s face, stamping it with evil. Instead of completing the charge, the reaver faltered with his third step. He dragged his foot at the fourth step. Then the brigand shook violently. Foam bubbled from his mouth, and a strange voice spoke out of him.

  The sight and sound transfixed Keros with horror, leaving him motionless and with the dagger in his left hand.

  The reaver crashed onto the soil, twisting and turning. He released his shield and spear, and he began to flop about like a fish. His iron-studded leather and buckles clashed against each other with sound.

  In the distance, a brigand shouted with alarm.

  The natural sound unlocked Keros’s paralysis. He had precious little time to save the situation. He sheathed his blade and lunged at Lod. The brigand continued to flop and speak with the strange voice. Keros grabbed Lod by the armpits and dragged the over-muscled Seraph deeper into the forest.

  Lod groaned, and then several things happened at once.

  “You’re finally going to die, rat bait!” shouted the lean reaver.

  Keros looked up in surprise.

  With spittle on his cheeks, with the haunted eyes of a madman or one possessed, the lean reaver jumped to his feet. He tried to pick up the fallen spear. It slipped from his grasp. He clutched it a second time, straightened and hurled. It was a clumsy throw. The spear wobbled in its short flight, and the tip grazed Lod’s side, cutting cloth and the flesh underneath.

  Keros swore as the spearhead lodged in the damp soil.

  The pain of the cut must have revived Lod. As Keros gripped the big man under the armpits, Lod’s eyes snapped open. They boiled with murder-lust. Then Lod was roaring as he scrambled to his feet.

  “Chemosh!” shouted Lod. He launched himself at the lean reaver. The brigand had picked up his shield and now tried to defend himself. Lod brushed the shield aside. The reaver clawed for the dagger on his belt. Lod locked his fingers around the reaver’s throat. Still roaring crazily, Lod bore the reaver onto the ground, choking the man as he banged the head against the soil.

  The reaver forgot about the dagger as he desperately pried at the iron fingers. Lod snarled as more reavers shouted in the distance, and they clattered with the sound of shields and swords. But that had no effect on Lod. Then, in the distance, a cave bear roared with incredible noise. Lod looked up, the fantastic volume having broken through his rage.

  “We must run!” shouted Keros.

  Lod glanced at the mountain warrior, and some semblance of sanity seeped into his blue eyes. Lod glanced at the reaver. Then he cocked a big fist and smashed the reaver’s face. Teeth went flying. The reaver slumped back against the ground as blood spurted from his broken nose.

  Lod was up and running, crashing through the undergrowth. Keros followed hard on the Seraph’s heels, wondering why these strange things always seemed to happen around Lod.

  ***

  Nyla’s hands dropped onto the hilts of her matching daggers. The knives were curved and razor-sharp. Only nine days ago, she’d thought of them as her claws. That had been before the giant cave bear had slain Sheba. In the glade where she’d found her mangled she-leopard, Dagon had strode near and ordered her to find the cave bear. The Nephilim had ordered her to tame the great killer. Dagon had said they were going to need the beast.

  Nyla was an assassin, not a battle beastmaster. She practiced the slow creep and the sudden spring. The mighty cave bear relied on strength and gargantuan size, barreling onto the battlefield. The beast lacked all subtlety. As she’d tracked the cave bear, Nyla had considered leaving the expedition. Her years as an assassin had taught her when to cut her losses and escape to live another day. Assassins weren’t heroes. Assassins were practical killers using whatever tool would achieve the goal. In the end, Nyla had tracked the cave bear because she’d feared returning to Shamgar without Lod.

  Nine days ago, she’d tracked the bear. She’d found the panicked beast exhausted, quivering as it had panted, with its eyes glazed. She’d gained control of the beast because of the theltocarna. After Chemosh’s heavy-handed beastmastering, her kinder approach had startled the bear. It had treated her with greater kindness than it had ever dealt with Chemosh.

  The immensely huge bear grunted as it burst past trees. Wood splintered as the beast destroyed a sapling in its way. Its claws ripped apart clumps of small ferns.

  The beast ate bushels of nuts every day, barrels of fish, a pot of honey and the haunch of whatever animal had been butchered for the camp’s cooking pots. It out-ate the rest of the beasts combined. The mammoth cave bear could probably slay the rest of the beasts combined.

  The monster bawled in sudden fear now, shrinking back from something.

  “What’s wrong?” whispered a reaver.

  Nyla shook her head, amazed at the sight. In her experience, only Chemosh with his necromantic skull had been able to frighten the creature. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what could scare it now. Carefully, she crept alongside the bear, startled to see it pant, to see droplets of saliva drool from its jaws and sink into loamy soil. The reavers hung back, wisely watching to see what it would do next.

  Dagon, Radek of Orns, the Eagle Master and nearly half the reavers had left the camp this morning to intercept approaching Rovians. The coastal Rovians marched along the shore of the Sea of Nur. Ut was in charge of the camp now. Nyla knew Ut had been given strict orders to defend the camp against any secret Rovian attacks, and Ut was supposed to defend the galley. She wondered if the Rovian warband marching along the shore had been bait for Dagon, and if the real attack was about to occur here.

  Nyla glanced at the bear. Its black eyes stared at a lean reaver lying in the grass. Blood stained the unconscious brigand’s face. Nyla studied the flattened grasses and noticed a dead man with a dart through his mouth.

  She hissed, taking two steps back.

  The monster glanced at her, and it grunted. A puff of bad-smelling breath drifted to her nostrils.

  “What’s wrong?” called a reaver.

  Nyla scanned the dense foliage with its hanging vines and dark shadows. Who had attacked these two? Was it Lod leading more Rovians? Those of Shamgar had been too brutal on the journey here, butchering indiscriminately. Dagon had said before that it intimidated the forest savages. Maybe. It might also have caused blood rage to boil and a gathering of the forest clans.

  Nyla glanced at the bear ag
ain. It had returned to eyeing the downed reaver, the bleeding one. The beast seemed to fear the unconscious man. That was strange, and Nyla didn’t understand it. At such times, caution was wise. She eyed the trees and the dense undergrowth. Anyone could be hiding in there. If Sheba were alive, the she-leopard could have slipped into the foliage and quickly found out if Rovian warriors were near. The bear lacked a leopard’s subtly.

  Why does it fear the bleeding reaver?

  Nyla backed away from the two prone men. She summoned the bear, ordering it to follow her.

  “Bring the two lying there in the grass,” she told others. Then she retreated into the open and toward the galley.

  Nyla was surprised to see reavers carry the bleeding man. By the way the bear had acted, she’d expected something awful to happen. The reavers laid the bleeding man on a mat near two men sharpening shovels. An old bonesetter knelt beside the unconscious man and began to check his face. Nyla soon learned that the unconscious man burned with fever and he kept mumbling odd words.

  Nyla stared at him, and she glanced at the giant bear. The beast lay on the grass, gnawing on a front paw as it watched the bleeder. The beast watched as if afraid, and Nyla couldn’t understand why.

  She ordered the beast to follow her as she made her rounds circling the galley. So told the reavers on guard to remain alert, and she sent a five-man team into the forest to search for Rovian warriors or for sight of white-haired Lod. She also sent word to the fort about what had occurred.

  The giant bear ambled behind her, grunting often. Nyla was still unused to its massive size or to the bad odor spewing from its cavernous mouth. The Rovian captives were petrified of the beast, and they all worked faster now.

  Nyla studied the trees, trying to will knowledge from them about the attackers. She suspected Lod or a small party of Rovians had ambushed those two. The point to remember was that the attackers had fled. If it had been a large warband, they should have already charged the guards here.

  Troubled, Nyla peered at the monstrous galley. Dagon had given strict orders concerning it. He wanted the half-buried vessel intact.

  It seemed impossible that the ship had survived from the time of the bene elohim as Dagon had suggested. Ships left on shores rotted. Bore-worms, a wet climate, fungus and mushrooms—no, the idea was absurd. Yet the ornately carved woodwork was of a type only found in olden ruins. Its sheer elephantine size and the intricate arrow engines they had found on it proved that the galley belonged to a different era. Nyla disliked this forest, and she feared the isle out at sea. But the galley unnerved her for reasons she couldn’t pinpoint.

  Nyla lifted her head sharply. There was a taint on the wind. She turned around and her stomach tightened. Ut! The leper limped toward her, escorted by his remaining hyenas. What did he want now? He was supposed to stay in the stockade.

  Nyla willed the cave bear to lie down. The giant beast instinctually loathed the cave hyenas. It was already moody enough. If she didn’t keep the beast under tight control, it might kill the hyenas and accidentally kill Ut. Nyla hated the beastmaster, but she didn’t want to explain his death to Dagon and certainly not to Gog.

  Even in the heat, Ut wore his mammoth-cur coat. Underneath it, he wrapped himself with spice-laden bandages. Yet the stench of his flesh always seeped through. Nyla had time to wonder what drove him so relentlessly. He was dying and his flesh was rotting. He had these few hyenas left, but he’d lost all his handlers the day the bear had gone berserk. Ut’s last carrion-eaters were his biggest beasts and, she supposed, his cleverest.

  Ut used an iron cane, limping through a clump of vegetation. The shadows caused from his broad-brimmed hat and the black mask that covered the holes where his nose used to be made it difficult to view him well. Despite his leprosy, he was strong. As a son of Chemosh, he was bigger and taller than anyone else was in camp. She knew that none of the reavers could defeat him in combat.

  In greeting, Ut touched the iron cane to his hat. The cane had a sharp and deadly point. His beasts sat around him, each facing outward.

  The reavers on guard pointedly ignored Ut and his beasts. It was more than fear that caused it. Of all the beastmasters here, Ut was the most arrogant, the most diabolical. Everyone knew he ate human flesh, and that he especially dined on those who displeased him.

  “Is there news?” Nyla asked. She wondered if Dagon had reached the Rovian warband. The Nephilim could have sent a message via the Eagle Master’s bird.

  Ut jabbed the pointed end of his cane into the soil. Then he took out a crimson cloth and dabbed at a bloody spot on his forehead. He glanced uneasily at the resting bear and then cast a darting look out to sea.

  Something makes him afraid, Nyla realized.

  “You are an assassin,” Ut said in an odd whisper.

  Nyla nodded.

  “I’m told assassins see what is, not what they wish a thing to be.” Ut peered around again before focusing on her. “I have to speak with someone. You are the only one I think will listen to me. I hope you’ll listen.”

  He’s not just scared, Nyla told herself. He seems terrified.

  Ut appeared to choose his words with care. That was so at odds with his normal manner that it frightened Nyla. Had Dagon run into disaster? Was the entire forest filling up with blood-enraged Rovians?

  “It is no secret that I have long feared my father,” Ut whispered. “Chemosh was a powerful man and he delved deeply into necromancy. He even studied on Poseidonis, under its god’s tutelage. My father sought power.”

  “Everyone of the blood seeks power,” said Nyla.

  Ut leaned on his cane, leaning nearer to her. It took all Nyla’s training to remain rooted and not step away from him.

  “My father sought more than ordinary power. Chemosh sought to raise himself above his station and into something greater than a grandson of Gog.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Nyla said.

  Ut dark eyes peered intently. It was like looking into the eyes of a dead man. With his mummy-bandages, the rotted stench of old meat—Nyla’s shoulders twitched with revulsion.

  “I am gambling that your years among the assassins of Shamgar have sharpened your mind,” Ut whispered.

  “Did the Rovian warband defeat Dagon?” Nyla dared ask.

  Ut scowled, and after a moment, he shook his head. “I speak of something much worse.”

  “Dagon was defeated?” Nyla asked.

  “Forget about Dagon!” Ut said. “I have no news about him.”

  “My pardon,” Nyla said.

  “I want you to listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “No. Listen to me,” Ut said.

  Nyla finally heard the plea in his whisper. What could be so bad that it had broken through his arrogance? Whatever it was, it might be worth knowing.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “Yes, good, finally,” Ut said. He composed himself, a man gathering his thoughts. “I gained startling new perceptions during my stay in Lemuria. That was many years ago.”

  Nyla nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

  “My eyes were opened in Lemuria.” Ut’s lips twitched in what might have been a grimace. “I know that many consider cannibalism as a disgusting habit. That is not so. Every time I devour a person’s heart, I gain a portion of his or her strength, a portion of his or her keenest insight.” The grimace turned into a worried frown. “I believe that my father ultimately sought to dethrone Gog. For that, he needed great power. He had the twisted cave bear. Such a beast…even Gog has learned to fear it.”

  “Then why did our god give Chemosh the bear in the first place?” Nyla asked.

  Ut leaned closer yet. It showed Nyla the decayed state of the snowy skin around his eyes, one of the few places free of the mummy wrapping. “Gog’s ocular power is limited,” Ut whispered. “First, Gog must fix his attention on a subject and then rove through future possibilities. That roving taxes our god. Perhaps Gog never sought out
Chemosh’s future, at least not until the bear was already in my father’s possession.”

  Nyla became uncomfortable. This was a dangerous topic. Gog might listen to it with his ocular sight. Maybe he’d already listened to such a conversation. Nyla determined to say nothing offensive about their god, and she wondered how such things as prophecies actually worked.

  “Why do you think you were sent on this expedition?” Ut asked suddenly. When she didn’t respond, he said, “It isn’t an idle question. Although you are of the blood, you are not of the line of Gog. Consequently, none of the beastmasters here fully trust you. Yet we attempt a dangerous mission together under Gog’s orders. Once the other gods learn of it, they will become enraged.”

  “Why would gaining the Behemoth enrage them?” Nyla asked.”

  “The Behemoth is only part of it,” Ut whispered.

  “Do you mean Lod’s capture?” she asked.

  Ut’s hyena-like eyes seemed to glow. “I believe Gog foresaw my father’s death. Or said more precisely: that one of Chemosh’s futures held death in a forest glade. Gog did nothing to forestall that death. Instead, he sent you to take control of the bear.”

  Nyla almost wanted to say that Gog had given her the theltocarna for the Behemoth. Then she realized that Gog was subtle enough to say it was for the Behemoth, but in reality, he might have given it for her to gain control of the bear. At the very least, it was a possibility. She didn’t know, however, what any of that had to do with Ut of Cave Hyenas.

  “I believe that you were sent because Gog feared to let Chemosh control the bear any longer,” Ut said. “Yet Dagon needs the bear, likely to help corral the Behemoth long enough to attempt its domination.”