by Cully Mack
She sucked in the air above deck, disappointed to find its mugginess clinging to her airways. Nate led her beyond his quarters to another cabin. She heard the muffled screams before she entered. Two men pinned a man on a table, one holding his shoulders, the other his legs. Above his elbow, a sharp splinter of bone stuck out of his flesh. As soon as she saw it she knew she was out of her depth.
‘I can’t help with this. The arm can’t be saved.’
‘If I cut it off, can you stop the bleeding?’ Nate asked.
‘But he’ll need it in the next life.’
‘For now, all I care about is this one.’
She thought back to the times she’d helped her Ma. Nothing came close to this. She remembered when a boat maker chopped off his thumb and how her Ma used heated copper from the potter’s kiln to staunch the blood flow.
‘Can you heat something copper so I can sear the wound? And do you have some animal skin and sesame oil?’
Nate gestured to the crewman holding the injured man’s legs. ‘Go, I’ll take over. There’s pigskin maps in my quarters.’
‘We will also need something for binding,’ Mirah said, ‘and clean hot water.’ The man nodded and left.
From illuminated oil lamps, she took in her surroundings. Apart from the man on the table, the cabin was a sparse wooden shell except for a single chair and a mattress laying on a raised timber frame inhabiting a space underneath a porthole. She had little time to think of the cabin’s purpose because the man returned with a pigskin map and a tunic.
‘The copper is being heated,’ he said to Nate. He set to work shredding the tunic into strips.
The shuffle of footsteps and a bucket of hot water being placed on the ground brought her out of her desperate thoughts. She dipped her hands in the water.
‘Before you touch him you’d better wash your hands.’
Nate’s hands and everything else were drenched in blood. His brow creased confirming his confusion.
‘Do as I ask,’ she said, ‘I’m the healer.’
She grabbed a torn strip of tunic and bound it around the man’s arm below his shoulder.
While she waited, she glanced at the pigskin map. Dark ink outlined landmarks, rivers, mountains and forests. In strategic places, someone had marked territories with a seal. She wondered if any of them was Barakel.
The door opened and one of the crew handed over a jar of sesame oil. ‘The copper is ready.’
‘Keep it heated until I yell,’ Nate replied. He released the injured man’s legs and asked the man shredding the tunic to take over.
Mirah set to work soaking the pigskin in sesame oil.
The man on the table shrieked, so high pitched, she almost jumped. He thrashed around and then passed out.
Nate unsheathed a blade. ‘Are you ready?’
She wasn’t ready, not even close. ‘I don’t know if this will kill him.’
‘If we don’t try, he’ll be dead before sunrise.’
He lifted the injured man’s arm away from his body and the man roused. The scream as his spine arched ripped into her soul and she knew she’d never forget it.
‘I need more men,’ Nate yelled.
Two crewmen rushed into the cabin.
‘Hold his shoulders,’ Nate said, ‘and you grab his legs.’
When they were ready, Nate repositioned the arm to the right angle and yelled, ‘Bring the copper.’ He waited until a man entered the room holding a copper bowl in tongs. ‘When I finish cutting, pass the tongs to her.’
The man nodded and came around the table.
Nate lifted his blade. Mirah turned away but she couldn’t escape the sound of crunching bone. When she knew it was over she took the tongs and brought the copper bowl to the man’s fleshy stump. The vicious hiss of sizzling flesh and the stench of burning blood and skin seared into her nostrils. She wrapped the pigskin map around what remained and bound it in place before releasing the ligature.
She stared at the man unconscious on the table, willing him to survive as Nate’s men busied themselves clearing up the blood before making a hasty departure.
Nate dried his wet hands on his thighs. ‘You did well,’ he said studying her.
‘If he dies, will I be in punished?’
‘Of course not.’
She glanced around and spotted a blanket hanging on the back of a chair. Folding it into a pillow she placed it under the unconscious man’s head. As she did so, she kept a close eye on the man, waiting for the moment he might exhale his last breath.
‘Do you mind if I sit with him for a while?’
Nate dragged over the chair, gestured for her to sit and then slipped out of the room.
Her stomach contracted threatening to purge itself of the fish she’d eaten. She could almost smell the fishy odour mixed with the tang of blood. She tried to focus on the motionless man. He was older than most of Nate’s crew. His receding dark hair greying above his ears.
Nate returned with two jars of beer and she gulped the cool liquid washing away the bitterness clogging her throat.
‘You should rest. Use that bed behind you. I’ll watch him.’
Did she look that ill? Did he assume the sight of blood made her nauseous? Out of her depth as she was, once she’d started searing and binding the gruesome wound she’d recalled every piece of advice her Ma had taught her. No, not the blood, not the gore, not even the man’s screams distressed her compared to the thought of what might happen if he perished.
She lay on the hard straw mattress, eyes closed until fish remnants no longer threatened to splatter the decking. When she reopened them, Nate was removing the man’s leather boot.
‘What is his name?’
Nate reached for a remaining piece of ripped tunic and dabbed it across the man’s damp brow. ‘He’s called Jabril.’
‘Are you close?’
‘No. He only joined my ship this year.’
That surprised her. She thought by the way Nate determined to save his life, the man must be a member of his family.
‘If he’s not close, then why do you care?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
She could think of a multitude of reasons, starting with her Ma. Anger rippled inside her and she snapped. ‘I know you only use me to keep the peace.’
‘Girl, I don’t know what you think you’ve heard, but you’re wrong.’
She heard the door click as he left.
❊
With each day the sun blazed, and the climate became warmer. Nate ordered his crew to erect shaded canopies for them. He never mentioned Jabril. She’d considered asking but feared he’d died and didn’t want to know.
They’d been travelling for over a month before they collected the last of the thirty-six tithes. Mirah had never left the borders of Barakel, she’d never witnessed such dark and beautiful skin and gazed in awe at the tithes standing in the smaller boat. They were physically stronger than every female aboard Nate’s vessel and all of them adorned in jewels and gold the likes of which she’d never seen.
Shayla boarded the ship like she owned it followed by her entourage of five. She surveyed the tithes, pausing for a moment on Dara, as though assessing her own competition before fluttering her lashes over flighty brown eyes at Nate.
He was about to begin his speech when she announced, ‘It is an honour to be chosen. When do we arrive?’
Not fazed by her interruption, Nate said, ‘So you’ve known someone selected before. Then I presume you need no introduction,’ and walked away.
The other tithes took little time in gravitating towards Shayla as she sat under the canopy, one of her consorts sliding a comb through her thick glossy dark hair. Fixed in her ears were dazzling pendants like small chunks of ice and Mirah watched on in amazement as they sparkled in the sunlight.
Shayla told them there was nothing to fear and that she, and her companions, had been preparing for this their whole life. As she spoke, her full lips glistened as though covered in moisture
though Mirah never saw her lick them, not even once. Some of the tithes attempted to question her, but she raised her hand to her silky brow and closed her eyes.
After another three days Nate’s ship veered off from his fleet and a few days later they reached a river inlet. The river narrowed at first before opening into a wider expanse.
Along the riverbank, a forest of leaning golden populous trees reflected their honeycomb hues over the water. Intermittent trees with orange shades like carotene and turmeric, rippled across the surface, blending in with the glow of gold. They crossed over the river’s fiery threshold towards Nate’s home.
Mirah watched fishermen sat in long reed canoes, casting nets overboard before dragging them back through the water and knobble knee storks and mole rats foraging on the marsh riverbank. She turned as she heard his familiar footsteps.
‘We’ll arrive at Hermonial soon.’
‘And what then?’
‘You will be presented before my stepfather and the testing will begin.
❊ 4 ❊
The oarsmen rowed for a further two weeks up the river, keeping to the deeper channels with practised ease. Shayla spent most of that time between encouraging her now expanding entourage, telling them they would soon be adored and revered and offering seducing smiles at Nate.
Neviah had threatened to confront her, saying her lies were as deceptive as her demeanour. Fake or not, her charisma was very real. Seeing the tithes’ hopes flicker Mirah asked Neviah to keep her thoughts to herself.
She descended through the hatch earlier that night due to Nate making preparations for their arrival. Two of the tithes had dragged their bedrolls over and were talking with the others.
‘This is Ninsun and Ninkurra,’ Dara said.
‘They don’t like Shayla much either,’ Neviah whispered.
‘We are sisters,’ Ninsun said. ‘I am eighteen and Ninkurra is sixteen.’
As she moved the golden beads woven into her braided hair clinked together on her shoulders. The sound of which blended with the musical twang in her accent. Her sister, Ninkura, leaned into Ninsun, her fluffy spiralled curls pressing against Ninsun’s shoulder. A golden band with a row of tiny dangling raindrop beads sat high on Ninkura’s neck just beneath her hairline.
‘You arrived with Shayla, isn’t that right?’ Mirah asked.
‘We did,’ Ninsun confirmed.
‘Ninkurra has been explaining that Shayla is the granddaughter of their tribal leader and they have been ordered to escort her,’ Dara said.
‘We had our spears taken from us before we boarded the ship,’ Ninkurra moaned.
‘So are you her protectors?’ Mirah asked.
‘We are warriors and have trained all our lives to protect our tribe’s future heir,’ Ninsun said.
Mirah studied them as best she could. In the moonlight their dark, silky skin shone, illuminating their toned muscles, and as they moved golden bracelets jangled on their wrists.
‘Is it true what Shayla says, that being chosen is an honour?’ Mirah asked.
‘I suppose if you have come far from their borders you have much to learn,’ Ninsun said. ‘The ones’ you call giants, to us are known as the Nephilim, the sons of Shemyaza. Shemyaza is worshipped by those around him, it’s an honour to be going into his service.’
‘What’s he like?’ Ayla asked.
‘We have not seen him but we know he has blessed all who bow before him with wealth and unimaginable wisdom,’ Ninsun answered.
Mirah lay on her bedroll and contemplated what she’d learned. No matter how she tried to see things in a positive light she couldn’t shed her sense of trepidation.
❊
As they neared Hermonial, the riverbank marshes receded, and the trees diminished to make way for irrigated fields. She watched a chain of mountain peaks rising in the distance. Towering high into the cloudless sky, one mountain stood above the rest, clothed in a crystalline, sapphire blue. Unlike the others, its summit had no peak but a level plateau.
‘The tallest is Mount Hermonial,’ Nate said, as he came over.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Impressive isn’t it?’ he said glancing at her.
Mirah sighed. The weight of anxiety pressed down on her like waves dragging over beach shingle. ‘Is it true what Shayla is saying, she seems ecstatic about being a tithe.’
‘For most, it is an honour.’
‘Why won’t you tell me what will happen?’
‘Because until the testing begins, I do not know.’
‘What is the test?’
‘That is for my stepfather to decide.’
‘Whatever Shayla says, I am not honoured.’ She searched him for something, anything that would save her but what she found were eyes as lost as her own. ‘I feel betrayed,’ she said and left him to be with the others.
They came to a section on the river bustling with industrious activity. Everywhere, men were in boats rowing to unknown destinations or completing bewildering tasks on the bank of the riverbed.
Bishnor caught a rope thrown to him from a bare chested man standing on a wooden pier. The rope pulled taut as he heaved until Nate’s ship came flush up against the pier with a bump. Without a word, he secured the rope, transferred from the ship and left Nate’s men to moor the vessel.
Nate oversaw the arrangement of the girls back into six groups of six and assigned several of his men to each group. His men led the first five groups off the vessel and disappeared across the pier.
To her relief, she spotted Jabril being assisted off the ship. He never acknowledged her and she presumed he didn’t know she’d been there that night. Mirah and the others, along with a short girl with dark shadows under her eyes waited for Nate to give final orders to his crew.
On the other side of the pier a long boat stacked high with trunks of cedar wood, minus their branches hung low in the water. Men wailed and gestured with their arms as one trunk lifted from the ship and swung in the air.
A small boy running up and down the length of the swinging wood made her uneasy. He appeared to be doing something to the ropes attached to the trunk but she couldn’t fathom why.
Whoever his parents were they should be ashamed, she thought as she watched him drop with both grazed legs wrapping tight around the trunk. He smiled as the trunk swung out over the pier towards the riverbank. Whatever his purpose, success and joy beamed on his confident little face. Still, his parents should know better, she thought.
Nate beckoned them to follow and four of his men escorted them along the pier. The lingering effects of constant motion left her off balance. How much of the nausea was due to land-sickness or the apprehension of what was to come she couldn’t tell.
‘Welcome to Hermonial,’ Nate said, as they stepped from the pier onto firmer ground.
Everything she observed was unfamiliar and a far contrast from her home in the rock shelters of Barakel. Instead of a small beach, the pier led onto a levelled area, busy and thriving with all kinds of industry. Workers, flecked with sticky black bitumen, leaned over waterproofing upturned reed boats by the riverbank.
They reached men and women singing a harmonious chorus whilst tying marsh reeds into bundles and stacking them on carts. The women smiled, and the men dipped their heads at them as they passed.
They then came across a dusty track and on either side rows of clay bricks were drying in the sun. Men wearing nut colour skirts with sweat glistening off bronzing skin occupied themselves tamping straw into clay or pouring the clay into wooden frames.
She hadn’t known what to expect but industry on such a mass scale hadn’t been it. The whole affair sent powdery cloud plumes into the air and Abela started wheezing.
‘I thought this might happen,’ Nate said, tracking back to them. ‘My stepfather is building an empire and with it comes a lot of dust.’
He paced up and down, running his hands through his hair whilst waiting for Abela to recover. Mirah wondered if he cared or was more wor
ried about losing another tithe.
They followed him, pausing now and again for Abela to catch her breath until he stopped outside a grandiose white building.
Painted gold cuneiform symbols covered the high walls. A brass doorway loomed at the entrance and to each side stood two bronze rising serpents, coiled around even higher bronze rods.
‘Wait here,’ he said and shot off inside.
The way the serpents coiled around the buff bronze rods reminded her of the Dagani and she glanced at the short girl, guilt rising. If they hadn’t attempted to escape Huldah would still be alive and the girl wouldn’t be here. The least she could do was to let her know she wasn’t alone.
‘What is your name?’
The girl’s eyes flicked from Nate’s men to the bronze door and then back to her.
‘I’ve tried,’ Neviah said. ‘I assume she doesn’t understand.’
After a few moments, Nate returned with a woman enriched with several coloured jewel amulets tied around her neck. She was slender and wore robes with layered fringes, dyed in varied shades of pastel greens.
Under her eyes, black powdered antimony lines made her face pallid. But most startling of all was her elongated cone-shaped head. From the ridge of her hairline, her skull flattened and tilted backwards, the shape somewhat like a large marrow. She’d fastened braided mahogany coloured hair wound in a spiral around it with a golden pin.
‘This is one of the Azu. She will take care of Abela,’ Nate said.
‘We’re not leaving her here,’ Neviah replied, staring at the Azu’s head without even attempting to hide her revulsion.
‘I’ll stay,’ Ayla offered. ‘If I can?’ She pleaded her case at Nate with silent urgency.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You can stay. But you alone.’
Dara took Abela’s hand. ‘Stay safe and we’ll see you soon,’ she said, trying to encourage Abela and offer some relief against the uneasiness which comes with the unknown.
Turning to the Azu, Nate said, ‘I expect them both returned by this evening.’
The Azu acknowledge his demand and beckoned Abela and Ayla inside with her hand.