Gog (Lost Civilizations: 4) (12 page)

Chapter Eleven

Spoor

“Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.”

-- A prayer of Shurite Raiders

The clang of hammers thundered in Vidar’s skull. For hours, he had hidden in a smithy, spying on the rat hunter. As he peered through a crack, he crushed charcoal in his fist. She sat again, tossing pebbles under the bridge.

“That’s the last warning,” growled Vidar.

“Wait,” said Naaman. “Notice those two.”

Vidar squinted through the crack. Two Jogli strode toward the bridge. Scarlet bands held their headgear. Ah, Naaman had spoken about possible disguises. The nomads halted at a piling and adjusted their veils. One hailed Tamar.

Vidar charged through the gloom. His brushing hip overturned an anvil. Coals sprayed. Then, the half-giant exploded out of the smithy. With the bulk of a bear, but with the grace of a leopard, he bounded across the plaza, clawing out his battleblade.

Naaman puffed after, signaling hidden men.

People screamed, scrambling out of Vidar’s path. The nomads glanced at the charging Enforcer. They looked about, perhaps wondering whom he charged. Then, it must have occurred to them that he charged them. One desert warrior threw up his hands, crying, “Peace, peace!” The other swept out his scimitar, a glittering blade.

“FATHER JOTNAR!” roared Vidar. He hewed with his giant blade. The scimitar shattered. With a wrench, Vidar freed his sword from that nomad’s face. Blood dripped from the blade. He whirled, smashing his fist into the second nomad. That man crumpled, choking on broken teeth.

Naaman and his men arrived, wide-eyed and pale.

“There,” said Vidar, “it’s finished.”

Naaman bent over the gasping Jogli and removed the veil, revealing an old man with a bloody beard and smashed nose.

Vidar clapped Naaman on the shoulder. The force of it staggered the smaller man. “You can depend on me to mention your name to Gog. Your skills aided in this capture.”

Naaman pursed his lips. He glanced at his bewildered men. “May I speak with you, Enforcer?”

“Speak, speak,” said Vidar. He was expansive. He smiled as he held onto the mighty battleblade.

“Could we talk on the bridge,” said Naaman.

Vidar noticed the growing crowd. People cautiously crept nearer. All kept a respectful distance from the blade, and no one would meet his gaze. He clumped up the bridge, and began to wipe his gory sword clean. “Well?”

“It isn’t him,” said Naaman.

“Bah.”

“The old Jogli is Ben-Hadad, of Midian Clan, a caravan master. I suspect you slew his son.”

Vidar slammed the giant blade into its scabbard. His eyes were hard. His wide mouth tightened. “It doesn’t matter. This Keros will never escape Shamgar, certainly not into the swamps. He’s as good as dead. So it might as well be him.”

Naaman nodded cautiously. “What about the caravan master?”

Vidar curled the bloody rag and dropped it into the canal. “Bury the bodies in the swamp. Get rid of them.”

“The visiting Jogli might take exception to that. Ben-Hadad is their chief.”

“All the more reason to rid ourselves of him,” said Vidar. “Or do you want them complaining to Gog?”

“Sown lips are silent?” Naaman asked.

Vidar stepped near the small man. Menace oozed from him. “I’m a warrior, with a warrior’s zeal. When something pesters me, I draw my sword and destroy it.”

“I believed I just witnessed that.”

Vidar glowered down at Naaman. “Would you like a second demonstration?”

Naaman snapped his fingers. “Ben-Hadad dies. My men hunt down the other Jogli, and sink their corpses into the swamp. Unfortunately, a new Jogli envoy might arrive and seek answers.”

Vidar sneered. “I’ll kill him, too.”

“A possibility,” agreed Naaman. He minutely shook his head.

An attendant who had stepped onto the bridge turned about and signaled a black-robed man sitting in a dogcart. The dog was huge and sniffed at the downed Jogli. The black-robed man scowled and spit on the paving. He continued waiting.

Naaman told Vidar, “I believe you’ve overlooked one particular.”

Those strange yellow eyes seemed to smolder.

“Gog wished Keros captured alive.”

The feral light in Vidar’s eyes dimmed. “…True,” the half-giant agreed.

“If I may point out another problem…”

“Yes, yes,” said Vidar.

“You were raised in Giant Land, not Shamgar. Gog… because of his ocular powers, Gog eventually learns the truth about everything. It is ill advised to lie to him. We made a mistake. Let’s not compound it.”

“
We
made a mistake?” asked Vidar.

“I would never suggest otherwise,” said Naaman. He took out a handkerchief and blotted his forehead. “Perhaps it would be wisest if we dispersed the crowd and reset the trap.”

Vidar peered at the mass of humanity. They crowded against each other, jostled one another, afraid to approach the dead Jogli too closely, yet drawn to death. None looked up at him. But he felt their scrutiny, their covert glances. They were cattle, a herd, more cunning than the bovine of Giant Land certainly, clever at times, robed in many colors, wearing turbans, tall hats, cloth hair-pieces and more Jogli with their veils. Some of these cattle thought themselves deadly—those were the bulls of the herd. But even the bulls hid within the shifting throng. None dared leave the sanctuary of their compressed anonymity to face him man-to-man.

Vidar turned to Naaman. “What if Keros is in the crowd?”

“He cannot hide long,” said Naaman. “Enforcers comb the rest of the city. An army of attendants question and bribe. We will find his spoor, or in desperation, he will—“

“Tell me later,” growled Vidar.

Tamar approached them with her head lowered and subservient. Vidar noticed she went barefoot. Her feet were slender, pretty and out of place against the dirty cobblestones of the bridge.

“Yes?” Naaman asked her.

“You killed him,” she said. “So if you’ll pay me—”

“No,” said Naaman, “you may not leave.”

The rat hunter licked her lips. “It’s been a long day. I’d like to start home before dusk.”

“What’s wrong with your hearing?” asked Vidar. “You stay.”

“Did you kill the wrong man?” she asked.

Naaman dragged her to the canal stairs, stone steps embedded in the concrete bank. Her boat thumped against the bottom step. The string net in the mermaid idol’s hands shivered each time.

“Rat hunters should be careful what they say,” said Naaman.

Attendants now helped the black-robed man place the two bodies in the dogcart.

“Is that what you’re going to do to Keros?” asked Tamar.

The creak of leather told of Vidar’s approach. “Go back to your boat,” he said. “Hold up a trident. Wait for Keros to approach you.”

“I understand, Enforcer, and I will obey. I’m also wondering when you’re going to let me go home. I hope it’s before dusk.”

“Gog’s priorities supersede your own,” Naaman said.

Tamar hesitated. Her shoulders slumped, and she climbed down the stairs.

An attendant, meanwhile, thrust through the crowd and soon bowed to Vidar. “We’ve found a man tied to his bed, Enforcer. He said a thief climbed through the fourth-story window. He said this thief had strange marks, pinkish, as if he had just been healed.”

“This captive’s name?” snapped Naaman.

“Yeb,” said the attendant.

***

A flake of green paint peeled off her leaky boat and floated in the canal. Tamar knelt on a thwart and bailed, raining the bilge water onto the flake. Her boat needed re-caulking and repainting, and that took coins. But she didn’t want blood money gained through the death of a friend. Oh, why did she have such a soft heart?

Keros had been so pitiful before, and he had mumbled so longingly about the Hills of Paran, its blue skies, steep mountains and the winds kissing his face. He’d also muttered about Elohim, a god of justice. She couldn’t fathom that. Life was vicious, nasty and short. Man knifed man, rat devoured rat, and swamp sharks ate what was left.

Her fingers tightened around the bailing pan. It had many dents. She had let him drink from this very dish. Afterward, he had blessed her in Elohim’s name. Later that day, without fail, she would slay double the rats. But the idea that a cripple’s blessing had power… Keros wasn’t a priest or magician. He had been a warrior, a knife-fighter of Shur. So why had his blessings possessed power?

She stowed the pan, stood and hefted her favorite trident. She was of Shamgar. To save her skin and earn a few coins, she would let that monster beat the Shurite to death. Was that wrong? In this world, the weak appeased the strong.

Tamar swallowed in a dry throat.

She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to see Keros die like that foolish Jogli. Imagine, drawing a scimitar against a brute like the Enforcer. He was half Nephilim. Men couldn’t compete against them. Gog was worse. He was a First Born. If Gog wanted Keros dead, nothing on Earth could save him.

***

“What should I do with him, Enforcer?”

Vidar massaged his blood-speckled knuckles, studying the broken man tied to the chair. The tavern had been emptied for this chore. Several attendants, heavily muscled bullies, huddled at a table, cowed by what they had just witnessed.

“Take this Yeb to the executioner,” said Vidar.

“Stretch him?” asked Naaman.

“Yes. Check his answers. Pain sometimes revives a
gilik’s
memory.”

Naaman lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve used that word before, Enforcer. May I ask you what it means?”

Vidar grinned. “
Gilik
is a term from Giant Land for the human, the one who grovels.”

Naaman bowed his head.

“Make the arrangements, Chief Attendant. Then report to me when you discover something of use.

“What of yourself?” Naaman asked.

Vidar’s grin turned nasty. “I shall…
speak
with the rat hunter before I send her home.”

Chapter Twelve

The Rat Boat

Yea, unto the third generation is given the gift of the
bene elohim
.

-- Archives of the Accursed War

Starlight glittered off the oily waters. On the paving bank, night watchmen clanked by and lit the next octopus-shaped lantern. From the canal-side taverns, sounded drunken laughter and the melody of flutes.

Tamar huddled miserably in her boat, with a thin blanket thrown over her shoulders. A night wind blew in from the swamp. Eddies of the breeze whispered through the canals. Somewhere nearby, a rat splashed into the water. Tamar fumbled with a flint box, clicking sparks and lighting her lantern, hanging it from a pole. The yellow-slotted light illuminated the under-bridge. A swimming rat squealed, submerging. Others hunched under the Goat Bridge, preening themselves with their slender paws. When the light touched them, they glanced up, their eyes shining, and then they dove into the water.

Tamar shivered with disgust. At night, the rats grew braver, more sinister.

“Girl!” shouted a familiar voice.

She spied the huge Enforcer, his silhouette on shore. Against the lights of the taverns, he hulked like some bear. She swept the stern oar, gliding toward the paved bank. Lantern-light danced on his face. It was too wide. The callused cheeks only added to its strangeness. Worst was the tattoo, the trident mark of evil on his forehead.

Tamar didn’t spy the other one, the gray-haired attendant. Nor did anyone pretend to mend nets as before.

A chill swept through her. Was she alone with the half Nephilim? “Where is everyone?”

“Closer, girl, dock here.”

She hesitated. The half Nephilim had evil yellow eyes, a rapist’s grin. “It looks as if the trap failed,” she said.

“Throw out your line,” said Vidar.

“May I leave now? I’m already late.”

“Did you hear me, girl?”

Waves lapped against her boat, gently rocking it. She kept her balance with ease as her thighs flexed. The soles of her bare feet keep their place on the wet wormwood better than any shoes.

“I truly need to leave,” she said. “The rats become bold in the dark.”

“I’m here, fear not.”

“They’re not as bad when the sun first sets. But the longer I wait, the worse they will become.”

“Throw out your line. You can forget about going home.”

Fear clenched her belly. “I’ve done what you asked.” With a stroke of the oar, she shifted the bow of her boat away from him. “I’m sorry for upsetting you earlier, but I really must go.”

Lantern-light flickered over his anger. He shouted, sprinted and leapt. She screamed. His leap carried him farther than a man could jump. It was like a lion springing in the dark. His boots crashed upon the gunwale. Wormwood cracked. The boat shot out from shore, rocking wildly. His concentration, the set of his jaw, was total. He had incredible grace and rode out the seesawing vessel. She flailed and screamed again. She almost pitched overboard. She could feel greedy rat-eyes watching her from the water. Then, his fingers tightened around her wrist. He slammed her against his chest. His doglike breath was overpowering.

“You didn’t obey me,” he whispered.

Hypnotized by terror, she stared up into his beastly, almost glowing eyes.

“Row,” he said. He shoved her. She crumpled by the stern oar.

“Row where?” she whispered.

“Row,” he said, like a lion crouching in the middle of the boat.

She stood, and swayed the stern oar from side to side. The familiar rhythm calmed her as they left the Goat Bridge behind. Foolishly, she felt safer with him in the boat, at least safer from the rats.

“You will take me to your dwelling,” he rumbled.

She almost jumped overboard. Clearly, he meant to rape her there.

He leered. “If you make this difficult I will kill you afterward.”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“I am a warrior. Warriors take because they are strong. Earlier, you thought to pit yourself against me. Now, I will pit myself against you, but in a more comfortable setting.”

She passed men on shore. They stood around a stone trough. Firewood crackled in it as flames danced. Some knelt at the carcass of a goat, cutting bloody slices. Others slid the meat onto metal prongs and placed them over the fire. The men wore loincloths and panther-skin capes. They were Nebo primitives, surviving in this evil city as they did in the swamps.

She dared look Vidar in the eye. “You are a beast,” she said, amazed at her boldness.

“I have the vitality of one,” he said.

“You are a creature that only plays at being human.”

“Bah. What is man? He is a weak thing that bleats like a sheep. He always follows the strongest.”

She swept the oar, feeling the resistance of the water. With the half-giant riding, her boat was sluggish. The gunwales were much nearer the water. A heavy wave would splash in now.

“Gog is the strongest,” she said.

“In Shamgar,” Vidar said.

Tamar cocked her head. She heard arrogance in his tone, arrogance directed
against
Gog. “You serve Gog.” She hesitated, and then blurted, “Does that make you his sheep?”

Menace oozed from him. It was a palpable feeling. “I will be rough.”

She laughed. It was a reckless, frightened sound. “So, you bleat like the rest. You bleat, because Gog is stronger than you.”

“Today he is stronger.”

“Forever!” she cried.

“No.”

The moon peeked over the horizon. Silvery rays shone upon the city. A bat or an owl winged silently above her. How she wished she could fly away, never to return.

“What are you saying?” she asked. “You think to best Gog?”

He spoke proudly: “I am Vidar. I am a warrior.”

“You’re only half-Nephilim. Gog is a First Born.”

He cracked his knuckles. It sounded like rat-bones breaking.

“Gog will always rule over you,” she said.

His yellow eyes narrowed as he stirred.

She swept the oar against a growing current. In a hundred feet, the canal joined a main thoroughfare. Here, old pirate-holds lined both banks. The men in those holds had joined the Captain’s Fleet in rebellion. Therefore, the holds were empty, the area dark, the walkways abandoned. She squinted. Not altogether abandoned. A beggar hobbled along the bank. He dragged a pole, which seemed odd.

“You are no longer amusing,” Vidar told her.

“How can you think to defeat Gog?”

“Defeat?” he asked. “That implies battle. I am not so addled as to pit myself against him.”

“Then you admit he’s stronger?”

“Today he is,” said Vidar.

“How can you
ever
think to defeat him?”

“I am a warrior.”

“He is a god.”

“In Shamgar, he is certainly worshiped as one. But might there be weapons….”

Her eyes widened. The beggar on shore sprinted. He held his pole upright.

Vidar twisted around, the motion rocking the frail boat.

The beggar thrust his pole into the canal. “For Shur!” he shouted. Vidar rose, fumbling for his battleblade. Tamar watched open-mouthed. The beggar vaulted. Tamar marveled at his grace, his exquisite balance. With his boots, the beggar struck the Enforcer in the chest. Vidar toppled like a tree. The boat shot sideways, and the beggar slipped overboard. With a scream, Tamar followed him. Cold, oily water closed over her. She thrashed in the gloom. She kicked her bare feet. Rats! Rats! She feared the rats. With a gasp, she broke the surface.

Vidar roared curses. The beggar swam for the boat. Splashes along shore told of rats diving in to investigate. The Enforcer swam after the beggar. He held his huge sword. “Keros!” he roared.

Keros
? Tamar wondered.
Yes, of course
.

She bobbed closest of all to the boat. With an otter-like motion, she grabbed the gunwale and heaved herself up and into the boat. Slithery like an eel, dripping wet, she stood, grabbed a trident and saw that the Enforcer was almost upon Keros. Three big rats were almost upon him. The Enforcer reached for the Shurite’s ankle. Keros shouted, twisted and slashed a bright blade. Vidar roared with pain and rage, and he let go. Keros shot for the boat.

Tamar heaved. This close she couldn’t miss. But Vidar was a preternatural warrior. He twisted, so instead of his throat being skewered, a single prong gouged his flesh.

Keros’s hands thudded onto the wood. “Tamar!” he shouted. His features were the same, yet completely different. She pulled him in. “Go!” he shouted. She leaped for the stern oar and dug the wooden blade into the water. Her boat responded quicker than before, no longer so sluggishly.

Somehow, Vidar managed to sheath his battleblade, or had he dropped it? He swam as fast as a seal, his big hand almost on the boat. At that moment, a rat squealed in glee and thrust itself atop the Enforcer’s head. It bit down on his cheek, and Vidar went under.

Keros and Tamar exchanged startled glances.

Vidar resurfaced with an explosive oath. He hurled a dying rat from him. He turned and lunged at the next closest rodent, swearing as it sunk yellowed teeth into his wrist.

“Row!” shouted Keros.

Vidar laughed wildly as he tore apart the rat. “Yes, row. For soon, you will both be mine.” When he finished with the rat, he didn’t swim after them, but aimed for the paved bank.

For a time, Tamar simply moved the stern oar. It had all happened so fast. She couldn’t believe she’d escaped the Enforcer. Then, she eyed the handsome Shurite sitting in her boat. The full moon had risen higher. By its slivery light—could this be the same man as the leper she had given a pan of water?

“Do you have a plan?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” he said. “That I do.”

***

Vidar pulled himself onto the pavement bank. Blood oozed from his cheek and neck. He was wet and fuming with inarticulate disbelief. Rats, rats, and a lone man had attacked him. He peered at the disappearing boat, a dark smear on the water. He gnashed his teeth, and shook a fist at them. He saw that his hand was also cut and bleeding.

He took a deep breath, and another and one more. He tried to settle his seething emotions, his shock and outrage, and the shame of being bested by the one-he-tracked. No one could ever know about this. It was unbelievable. The world simply didn’t work this way. Men fell to Nephilim. He would rip out anyone’s tongue that said otherwise. He growled, shaking his head the way a dog might. Then he concentrated on breathing evenly, on calming himself and releasing his rage.

Blood poured from his slashed cheek and from where the trident had ripped his neck. A deep, oozing rat bite made his left wrist nearly useless. Keros’s blade had opened his right hand, cutting tendons.

Calm. Serenity. Deep, even breathing.

Once, long ago, fallen angels had come to Earth. They were the
bene elohim
. They had taken the daughters of men. They had taken the most comely and beautiful. From the union had come the First Born. From the First Born and women were born the Nephilim. And from the Nephilim, came the half-Nephilim. Vidar’s heritage was more than just strength and size. Yea, unto the third generation born of the
bene elohim
was a gift. Some called it a curse. In actuality, it was an ability, it was a supernatural power of singular force. Gog could see the future. Some could run without becoming weary. A legendary giant, by the name of Motsognir Stone Hands, could turn stones into steaming hot bread. It was a gift, a magical power, something unique to each being.

As Vidar stood alone in the dark, with rats squealing as they fought over those he had just slain, the half-giant brought his gift into play. He concentrated. He stilled his breathing, so that he no longer smelled Shamgar’s odors. His closed his sight, so that the stars disappeared, and that too of the dark outlines of an empty pirate fortress. His hearing shut down, so that the rat squeals vanished, along with the chant of a distant priest calling from a tower of Gog. His awareness of things around him evaporated. He delved inward into the core of his being. He sank down, down, down into the spiritual source of Vidar, into the fiery substance of himself. In his mind’s eye, he saw that as a bright flame. It flickered, a warming fire, a familiar heat. He soaked himself in the blaze. He took power, and like a bricklayer with a trowel, he smeared the power into the cut on his cheek, the puncture wound on his neck and wrist, and the cut tendons of his sword-hand. Slowly, magically, his tendons, blood vessels and flesh re-knit.

As he stood in the dark, accompanied by quarreling rats, the wounds on his cheek, neck, wrist and hand closed. They became new-flesh, whole and perfect. He basked in his flame, and then, like a swimmer, who has dove very deep indeed, he shot for the surface.

His eyes flashed open. Light and darkness swirled in confusion, until they settled into familiar patterns, and he saw once more. He dragged down a drought of air. He tasted the dampness around him and the heaviness of split blood. Sounds seemed to tumble in a jumbled riot. Then, he heard rats, and in the distance, the wild chant of evil. He stood on stone, alone, in the dark. Weakness stole over him. He sighed painfully.