People of the Flood (Ark Chronicles 2) (17 page)

17.

Ham slept fitfully, unable to get the idea of him talking about brimstone out of his mind. He drank too much. At least his wife said so. And sometimes he had blackouts. But would he have talked about that deadly substance?

As he lay beside Rahab
, he sensed the approach of dawn. So he rose and fumbled in the dark for his clothes.

“
Ham?” mumbled his wife.

“Go back to sleep,” he said.

“How can I sleep when it sounds as if a bull is crashing about in our bedroom?”

“
Sorry. I’ll be outside as soon as I can find my cursed boots.”

“
They’re on your side of the bed on the floor. Remember? Your feet were too swollen last night. So I tugged your boots off for you.”

H
am muttered his thanks, finding them and plopping onto a stool. Usually he flung his boots near the door.

“
I hope you’re not going to dig again,” Rahab said. “Your back was so tight last night, I nearly wore out my fingers massaging it.”

“
I want to encourage the others. You know I’ve always hated rulers that gave orders but never lifted a finger to help.”

“
If you truly want to help, you should build an altar like your father did and teach our children how to pray.”

He held his first boot ready as he sat on the stool
. “What?”

“
Don’t be cross. It’s just a suggestion.”

“
That I should be more like Shem?”

“
Would it hurt to pray more?” she asked.

“
You know I’m not comfortable making a religious spectacle of myself.”

“
Oh, certainly not,” she said.

“
What’s that supposed to mean?”

“
Nothing. I’m going back to sleep.”

H
am shoved his foot into the boot, fumbled around for the other one and when he had it, he turned again and stared at the bed. “So I should build an altar in the middle of the settlement and camp there on my knees. That’s what you’re suggesting?”

“
I don’t want to talk about it.”

“
Noah liked showing off, Rahab. That’s why he built his altars on tops of mountains. That’s why he made a production of always walking up to it.
Look at me
, he was saying.
I’m the holy man
.”

“
That’s not true.”

“
Shem was no better. Always praying, always talking about Jehovah. Those two were showoffs, peacocks, religious charlatans.”

“
How can you say that? Noah built the Ark at great risk to himself and to his family, at the terrible price of public humiliation.”

“
Rahab, you know how thick-skinned he was. Nothing bothered my father.”

“
You don’t really believe that.”

H
am shoved his other foot into its boot, stood up and stamped them on the floor.

“
All I’m saying is that there’s too much disrespect toward Jehovah among our children,” she said. “Too much flippancy. Somehow, we have to change that.”

“
Don’t you understand, Rahab? Our children have a quiet faith. It’s deep-rooted, not so out in the open, so showy like my brothers’ faith.”

Rahab
sat up, the headboard creaking. “A dragon is loose. It ate four of our grandchildren. Oh, Ham, I have a bad premonition about this. We must turn back to Jehovah before it’s too late.”

“
What do you mean:
Turn back
?”

“
Kush and Canaan don’t believe in Jehovah.”

“
Nonsense.”

“
Have you been listening to them?”

“
Rahab—”

“
Do you believe in Jehovah?”

“
How can you ask that?”

“
I never hear you pray.”

Ham thought about his short prayer when the dragon had chased Geba and Beor
. With a shock, he realized he hadn’t prayed to Jehovah for… for a very long time.

“
Your sons take after you,” she said.

“
I have my faults,” he admitted. “But I entered the Ark, didn’t I? I trusted when a world mocked Jehovah’s warnings. I believed then, and I believe today.”

“
Then build an altar. Teach your sons and grandsons about Jehovah the way Noah taught you.”

“
I… I can’t. Religious spectacles aren’t my way.”

“
But drunken ones are?”

He stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He took a deep breath
. “I have work to do. Like you said, a dragon is loose.”

“
What more can you do now than pray?”

“
Kush has a plan. And he needs my help.” He fled the bedroom lest she say more. Fumbling in the kitchen, he found cheese, bread and a gourd of water, and after a quick breakfast, he strolled outside. He would pray more, he decided. And he would pay closer attention to his sons. But she had no right to say what she had about his drinking. So he was a little boisterous after a glass of wine. He wasn’t dead yet and didn’t plan on acting like a corpse. Men shouted when they drank. He shrugged. Rahab was a good wife. Maybe she had become a little too outspoken… He would overlook that fault and she would simply have to overlook his drinking bouts.

The stars blazed and the cool mountain air whispered past the dark houses
. A dog or two raised its head from where they slept in the doorways. From a small corral bleated sheep.

He saw that Anom the son of Menes was already up
. Clean-shaven Anom held a stick with precisely marked off measurements in one hand and a line and plum-weight in the other. He was in charge of the wall and the trench-dirt dumped against it. The dirt there had already been graded into a ninety-degree angle, so it seemed like a ramp. Anom loved to build, and the bigger something was supposed to be, the better. It was his genius that had made the log walls as stout as they were.

A different man
hurried toward the center of the settlement. Ham came after him.

He was Zidon, the eldest son of Canaan
. He was in his early forties and was slender and engaging like his sire. Zidon had the fast smile, the way with women and the wit. He was unlike his brother Beor, who truthfully was an anomaly in the family. Zidon wore a tunic and a silver-gilt belt and sandals. His dark hair shone in the firelight of the settlement’s main pit. Like many of Canaan’s sons, Zidon was smooth-skinned and beardless.

Ham caught up with him as Zidon eyed the logs collected for the needed machine.

“Ah, Grandfather,” Zidon said. His normally smooth forehead was creased with lines. “I’ve been wondering about the gears you spoke about.”

“
Yes?”

“
Here, I’ll show you.” Zidon held a rolled-up parchment against his leg. He unrolled it, showing Ham the charcoal sketch he’d drawn yesterday. It was of a skeleton-like contraption with gears, windlasses and skeins and a sling-tipped throwing arm. Zidon tapped the gears in the sketch.

“
You said make them out of gopher-wood.”

“
That’s what they did in the Old World,” Ham said.

“
The trouble is, we don’t grow gopher wood here.”

“
Hmm. Oak gears would probably snap under the strain.”

“
My thoughts exactly,” Zidon said.

Ham scratched his cheek
. “Use bronze.”

“
I thought of that too. But whoever carves the casting molds… It will take great skill to match the various gears, and if they don’t match, they’re worthless. My other worry is where to get this bronze, or to find someone to supply their hoarded tin. For if it’s a copper gear or too copper-like…”

“
Right,” Ham said. “If the gears bend under pressure, the entire process will grind to a halt.”

“
Which makes the catapult useless,” Zidon said.

Ham considered that
. “I’ll chisel the molds.”

“
Granted you’re the best bronze-smith,” Zidon said. “But I thought you made brimstone today.”

Ham scowled
. “Does everyone know about it?”

“
Let Kush chisel the molds. While you mix brimstone, I’ll make the catapult.”

Ham continued scowling
. “This particular kind of catapult is called an onager.”

“
A
wild ass
?”

“
If you can make it as I’ve sketched, you’ll see why.”

18.

Ham fingered the leather stacked in sheets. The hides had been scraped down to almost papery thinness as per his request. He worked in a hastily erected tent outside the settlement. Three wooden barrels stood beside three wooden tables. Naphtha, bitumen and pitch were respectively stored in each barrel. He wouldn’t need a quarter of the pitch, but all the naphtha would be used. As a precaution, there was no fire in the tent, no braziers or torches, and the tent stood well outside the settlement in case of spontaneous combustion. He didn’t want to accidentally burn down the settlement and thus do the dragon’s job for it.

One table held the skins, another needles and thread and twisted wicks and
, on the third, he would do the mixing in stone bowls. Carefully, using a wooden spoon, he began to add the first substance. He worked from a memory on the other side of the Flood, and he tried not to breathe too deeply as he handled naphtha.

Later
, he sewed the papery-thin skins together, with the brimstone mixture in each and a wick soaked with bitumen and smeared with pitch sticking out. It was delicate work, exacting and tiring. He didn’t stop for lunch, and when Kush knocked on the tent pole, he told him to go away. He had tied the flaps shut from within and with complex knots. Canaan hailed him several hours later.

“
Not yet!” shouted a hoarse Ham.

He only wanted to do this once, one time
. To foil them in their quest of learning the exact mixture before they knew how hard he would try to stop them. And he wanted them far away when he tried to sneak the unused pitch outside. He would bury it. Not because they would never be able to find pitch again, but to confound them when they studied what amounts he hadn’t used. Once they destroyed the dragon—if it could be—he would burn the remaining brimstone balls. That so they couldn’t take them apart and study the Sheol-making substance.

Kush would rage
. But Ham would be true to the vow he took with Japheth and Shem. The tribe’s existence was at stake, so he felt he had to make the brimstone. But afterward…

“
Father,” Kush said, knocking on the pole. “I’m coming in.”

“
Not yet,” Ham said.

“
You’ve been in there too long, Father. We’re worried about you.”

“
No you’re not. Now go away.”

“
Is everything all right?”

“
Go away, I said.”

“
Or what?” Kush said. “Come now, Father. This foolishness must end.”

“
I have tinder with me,” Ham warned. “If you slice open the tent I’ll burn everything.”

“
And die yourself,” Kush said with a snort. “No, I don’t think so.”

“
Then go ahead and use your knife. Go ahead, and watch what happens.” He was tired and having doubts about this again. He knew he hadn’t told his sons about brimstone. There was absolutely no way. So who had? It deeply troubled him that he couldn’t figure it out.

“
Father—”

“
Go away!”

“
Don’t get angry. I’m going. But please hurry. People are getting anxious.”

Ham tiptoed to the tent flap, listening
. Surely, Kush would post watchmen. So… he nodded after several moments’ thought. He scraped all the bitumen out of its barrel and mixed it with the pitch. Then he put a brimstone ball on top of that barrel. Done, he stacked all the other balls to one side. Next, he wrestled the barrel to the back of the tent, rested until he regained his wind and hopefully let most of the fumes settle.

He took off his leather apron, folded it and hid it under the remaining leathers
. Then he wiped his hands, washing them in a water-basin, even going so far as to scrape any bitumen or pitch from under his fingernails. He examined his clothes, picking off bits of brimstone. Fumes still hung in the tent, no doubt. He couldn’t help that. He made a face as he firmed his resolve and took out his tinder. That hadn’t been an idle threat. He dared now to strike flint against steel until he fired a slow wick. Sweat oozed. This was dangerous work, and he didn’t want to burn to death. But he wasn’t going to make it easy on his boys. He drew a dagger, listened carefully, and then slit an opening in the rear of the tent. He drew it back like a curtain and peered at the woods outside and at the nearby slope. It seemed clear. So he wrestled the barrel outside. No one yelled. No one saw him as he faced the woods. He wrestled and half rolled the barrel further and further away.

He heard a shout
. He turned immediately and retreated to the tent.

Others took up the shout as he stepped back outside, the slow wick in his hands
. Several of his sons ran towards him. After several strides, he touched the glowing wick to the brimstone’s wick, the one soaked with bitumen and pitch. It caught fire, sizzling, hissing, the glow speeding toward the leather-held brimstone. He hurried to the tent, lying down and holding the dagger-made flap shut.

The explosion surprised him
. It was loud like a thunderclap, louder than the dragon’s roar, and it made him jerk in terror. Hot pieces of barrel-wood punched through the tent wall. He stared in dread as a fiery piece landed on a brimstone ball. With a shout, he dove and snatched the glowing wood-chip. He hurled it away, burning the tips of his fingers.

Maybe thirty seconds later Kush, Canaan and Seba, Kush
’s oldest son, rushed through the flap. Pale-faced shock and staring eyes marred their features. Kush roared at the sight of fiery chips of wood sprinkled liberally about the floor. He, Canaan and, seconds later, Seba stamped the wood chips out. In their frenzy, they repeatedly bumped against each other.

Finally,
Kush turned on Ham, who wearily sat on the tent’s only stool. “Are you daft? What do you think you’re doing?”

“
He’s hiding the exact mixture from us,” Canaan said.

“
Just like you said he would,” said Seba.

“
Shut up,” Kush snarled.

Seba bristled, a man built along his father
’s lines, but with duller eyes and a thicker neck. He shut up just the same.

Canaan poked his head out the tent
. “It’s burning nicely, fiercely even.” He drew back and regarded his brother. “At least we know they work.”

Kush made a rude noise.

Canaan grinned at Ham, sitting on the stool and sucking his burnt fingers. “Well done, Father. Thank you.”

Ham nodded, vowing to himself that none of the brimstone balls would survive the dragon.