People of the Flood (Ark Chronicles 2) (27 page)

13.

Gilgamesh swaggered with his friends down a lane
. For days, he had been cooped up in his grandfather’s house. Now that Canaan had agreed to Kush’s terms, he felt free again to show his face. His neck was swathed in bandages where an assassin’s arrow had almost killed him. He wore a belt with a copper buckle—it had been his father’s—and on the belt was a thin dagger he kept razor sharp.

Gilgamesh and his friends
strutted, throwing their chests out and laughing. They threaded past the log houses and various sheds, smithies and wooden corrals where sheep or goats milled. Dogs barked at them, children scampered here and there and girls looked up from their yards as they fed ducks or threw out scraps to squealing piglets.

The chilly weather didn
’t dampen their spirits, for they agreed among themselves that their presence had intimidated the sons of Canaan. Each of them was a Hunter and intended on joining Nimrod in his exile.

“
It’s as heroes we will march to the new land,” Enlil said, a gangly youth known for his quick enthusiasms.

“
Mighty men, Nimrod calls us,” Gilgamesh said.

“
I bet we win lots of treasure,” Uruk said.

“
Treasure?” Enlil asked. “What kind of treasure?”

Uruk
’s sly grin broadened, making his brutish features seem even uglier. Adding to his image was a strange stone axe. Most people worked hard to fashion their stone axes to ape copper or bronze axes—but not Uruk. Most people used reddish colored stone because copper was red, and they polished the stone to make it look as if it had seams like a metal axe. Some even went so far as to counterfeit the ridges caused in a bronze axe by an imperfect fit of the two halves of a mold. Uruk’s axe, however, had what seemed a purposely-blunted edge, making it more a hammer than an axe. The head was of volcanic rock and chipped in the old manner. To give it a smooth finish, Uruk had used a grindstone, rubbing stone against stone, much as a carpenter sharpened a blade. Then he had bored a hole in the center of the stone. He’d used a hollow bone, sand, water and a bore drill. The trick, of course, was that anything sand could scratch it could, over time, cut. The process was to throw down sand, spin the hollow bone with a bore drill and thus grind into the volcanic rock, wetting the sand with water from time to time. After patient, tedious work, he had a hole and thrust the wooden haft into it. Some of the carpenters had similar hammers, used for driving wooden wedges into logs.

Uruk rested his hand on his hammer and led them to an oxcart several strides from the settlement
’s west gate.

Across the lane was a small bazaar where people traded and gossiped about the latest news
. Most of the sellers had thrown down reed mats and sold vegetables in baskets or grain or beer in clay containers. In one basket, a litter of puppies squirmed.

“
You never answered my question about treasure,” Enlil said as he leaned against the oxcart.

“
Yes, what kind of treasure?” Obed asked.

“
And what do we need it for?”

Uruk snorted
. “Treasure buys you a wife.”

“
A wife?” asked Obed.

Uruk pushed off the oxcart
. “Look. There’s my future bride.” He grinned at them, at Gilgamesh especially, and he lumbered toward a blanket covered by clay pots and cups.

“
Say, Gilgamesh, isn’t that Lud he’s heading to?”

Mouth agape, Gilgamesh lurched upright.

Uruk shook hands with Lud.

“
I thought Opis hated Uruk,” Enlil said.

“
You didn’t hear?” Obed asked, grinning. He was a close friend of Uruk’s. “Uruk and his father went out to see Lud yesterday.”

At that moment
, Gilgamesh saw Opis crouch by the basket of puppies. They licked her fingers, squirming over one another to be near her.

Gilgamesh moved like a sleepwalker, his heart beating hard and his mouth dry
. He had never forgotten the day Uruk pushed her down and then kissed her, the day he’d drawn an arrow against Uruk. He often thought of Opis. She was beautiful, and she had her hair in pigtails. As he lurched toward her, people seemed to fade. Then, as he wondered how to find a way to talk with her—he cursed his fate that he was so shy—he tripped, stumbling to one knee beside her.

Her eyes widened
. “Gilgamesh?”

She remembered him
! He tried to say something, but coughed instead.

The pups in the basket squirmed and licked her fingers more furiously than ever
. She giggled, and he reached for them, petting them, sidling closer to her. When their hands bumped, a tingle shot through his arm. They both tried to speak at the same instant.

“
Go ahead,” he said, smiling.

“
No, no,” she said, smiling back, “you first.”

“
Oh, Opis, I’ve thought so much about that terrible day. I’m so very sorry I didn’t speak up when your brother came. Uruk was awful, a swine like Ramses said.”

“
You stopped him, though,” Opis said. “That was very brave of you.”

Gilgamesh found his grin hurting his lips
, it was so wide. “I should have drilled him. I would if he did it again.”

Her gaze darted to the bandage on his neck
. “Does that hurt?”

“
It’s a scratch, nothing more.”

“
What a wicked thing it was to ambush you.”

He shrugged.

“Aren’t you banished because of it?”

Pain flared in his heart
. “Aren’t you moving to Shinar?”

“
My father hasn’t decided.”

“
But you must,” he said.

She looked at him closely
. “Why must he, Gilgamesh?”

He was unable to speak.

She dropped her gaze, whispering, “Uruk’s father bargained with my father?”

He grabbed her hand
. “No! Don’t marry him.”

She studied his eyes
. “What choice do I have?”

“
You can say no.”

“
My father would whip me until I said yes.”

“
Then I’d kill him,” Gilgamesh hissed.

“
Ramses would kill you then, and that would be a terrible shame.”

He squeezed her hand
. “You can’t marry Uruk.”

“
Can you match the price?”

Gilgamesh swallowed hard
. His father was dead, eaten by the dragon. Most of his wealth had gone to his mother, the rest parceled out among his brothers and sisters. He owned very little except the belt he wore. “I can’t match it. But Opis, I—”

“
Hey! Let go of my betrothed.”

A heavy hand grasped Gilgamesh by the back of his tunic and threw him onto the ground
. Suspecting a kick—he knew and hated that voice—Gilgamesh dove, rolled and leaped upright, with a dagger in his fist.

“
Look at that,” rumbled Uruk. “Ready to draw blood on the instant. Just like he did to Beor with his arrow.”

Lud and his wife stood b
eside Uruk. Others also looked on.

Gilgamesh
’s face burned as he lowered his arm. He began coughing and couldn’t stop.

“
Opis, come here,” her mother said.

Opis rose obediently, with her head down.

“She can’t marry Uruk,” Gilgamesh said between coughs.

“
Will you try to murder us if we dare?” Lud asked, with an angry scowl.

Gilgamesh sheathed his blade
. “Don’t you know what he did to her?”

“
High-spirits,” Lud said. “Isn’t that right, Ramses?”

Ramses turned,
walking away.

“
You must keep away from this ruffian, Opis,” Lud said.

“
She’s my betrothed,” added Uruk.

“
When you get back, she is,” Lud corrected.

“
Don’t worry about that,” Uruk said. He grinned at Opis, even as she shrank from him.

14.

The banished Hunters left the settlement and soon threaded out of the Zagros Mountains. In the foothills of the Tigris River—so named by Nimrod—they found a country of steep valleys and wide uplands, and they discovered a pack of dire wolves.

“
Pack against pack,” Nimrod said.

The dire wolves proved worthy foes, cunning and huge, falling at last to them, all but a lone she-wolf that seemed impossible to track
. In the end,
she
tracked
them
, slipping into their camp, past several low fires, to pounce on the Hunter who had wriggled into her dirt den and pulled out her puppies. Obed awoke screaming, his head in the she-wolf’s jaws. He fought savagely, holding her jaws open long enough for Nimrod and Gilgamesh to snatch spears. Unfortunately, one of their thrusts took Obed in the chest. Gently as possible, Nimrod sewed the flaps of torn skin on his face, scalp and chest. For three nights, Obed lay in fever. During that time, Zimri, who had fallen asleep on guard duty, prayed fervently for his healing—for Nimrod decreed that Zimri be buried up to his neck and watch Obed as he lay in fever.

“
He couldn’t watch before it happened,” Nimrod said, “so let Zimri watch now.” Zimri prayed or he raved, it was difficult to determine which. But at last Obed’s fever broke and Zimri was dug out of the earth a new man. Obed, however, lost his right eye and two of the fingers of his right hand.

They entered the alluvial plain, a sea of rich mud covered by swaying grasses and bountiful herds of antelopes, elephants and wild asses
. Savage dogs prowled the outskirts of the various herds along with hyenas and lions. Jackals also thrived, together with eagles, vultures and hawks. Spadework discovered few rocks, no metallic ores of any kind and, if dug long enough, seeping water. By smell, they found slime pits, dangerous places of sinkholes and bitumen. Brush and softwoods grew in certain places, but no hard woods.

One night under the stars, as Nimrod and Semiramis lay on a blanket away from the others, she rolled onto her side, whispering,
“What was that?”

Before he could answer, a loud roar erupted in the darkness, near and to their left
. The roar promised death by mutilation or bone crushing.

Semiramis rolled behind him, handing Nimrod his spear
. The roar sounded again, closer. It was between them and camp. In the distance, the Hunters cried out, ram’s horns blew and dogs barked.

Nimrod crouched, scanning the darkness
. A cool breeze blew, waving the grass. Stars twinkled, and the moon was hidden behind a cloud.

Then Nimrod saw a shadowy shape less than fifty feet distant
. His eyes widened. The beast was practically the size of an auroch bull, the biggest lion he’d ever seen, with a dark mane of kingly bearing. It was a cave lion of the dawn era, fully as ferocious as the sabertooth cat, perhaps mightier and deadlier. The Hunters had stayed clear of these lions, a pride of magnificent beasts that had crossed their path only twice before. Cave bears and dragons were solitary creatures. Dire wolves had proven dangerous, and they, too, were pack animals, but these cave lions—Nimrod thought digging pits and luring them to their deaths one by one might be the wisest course. He, along with the others, had seen these lions pull down a fully-grown elephant, a titanic battle that the Hunters had talked about for weeks. The black-maned male, the pride master, which Nimrod was certain this was, led the others intelligently and had been the chief factor in bringing down the elephant. His lionesses would each be the equal of Beor’s great sloth. Their intelligence, vast size and unity made these cave lions the most dangerous beasts Nimrod and his Hunters had yet come upon.

“
Rise up and slay him,” Semiramis whispered.

The shadowy beast, the cave lion, halted abruptly.

Nimrod’s chest clenched, and he gripped his spear with numbing strength. Oh, to meet this monster during daylight, surrounded by his Hunters. Then to dart in and grab Black Mane’s tail, that would be a feat. He was certain one or more of the Hunters would die during the battle, for surely the other lions would join the fray. That was another reason he favored using pits to rid himself of these predators. He needed all his Hunters alive. To lose even one…yet, eventually, he had to kill Black Mane. To let such a terrifying monster survive and winnow the herds once the tribe of Ham came would wreck his position as the mighty hunter.

Black Mane roared
. It was a deep and deadly sound, and it went all the way to Nimrod’s toes. For a moment, he couldn’t move. Then a goat bleated. The massive lion sprang. The goat cried out once, and then the cave lion trotted away in the darkness, the milk-goat dangling from his massive jaws.

“
That’s the second of our goats they’ve slain,” Semiramis whispered.

“
Gather the blanket,” he said. “Then stick close behind me. There may be more of them lurking near.”