Gog (Lost Civilizations: 4) (6 page)

Chapter Five

The Race

“Even a Nephilim’s kindness is like a branding iron, always burning.”

-- Naram the Prophet

Entombed beyond help deep in the Earth, Lod slept as one dead. He was exhausted by his days of battle, by his worries concerning Irad the Arkite. All his fears had now occurred. So he slept, and he dreamed of his bitter memories in Shamgar. He recalled the hideous rats, the Nephilim and the beast that had nearly ended his storied career before it had begun.

Lod dreamed of his youth, when he had been half-animal himself.

***

The bait, with muscles like twisted ropes, crouched in the rat boat. His knees pressed against his chest. His white hair dripped, and his strange, blue eyes smoldered. An iron collar bound his throat, while an eelskin line threaded from the collar, and to a cleat riveted in the bottom of the craft.

His name was Lod, and usually, his mind was blank. Today, he seethed. He schemed. Last night in the shed, he had dreamed. In his vision, he had stalked Shamgar with a bloody sword, hacking his tormenters and gutting Enforcers.

Enforcers often shoved a sharpened stake up a bad slave’s arse, planting the howling unfortunate on the concrete bank of a canal.

This morning, as Lod crouched at the prow, something new stirred in him. For years, he had endured, grown callous to pain. Surviving the giant canal rats had been his all. Usually, when he rode in the boat, he watched nothing and felt nothing. Today, he grew aware of the welts crisscrossing his back. He fingered one of the puckered, poorly healed bites that dotted his flesh. He was the legend of the canals. Rat bait on average lasted three weeks. He had lasted years.

Years, he had floated years in the oily water, luring giant rats for his owner’s net or trident.

The rat boat creaked as his owner stood in back, swaying the oar. Between them, in the narrow craft, lay two dead rats, huge, ninety-pound monsters, their bloody fur wet. The black rat’s rear leg kept twitching. That one had scratched Lod as he had lain like a corpse in the water to lure the foul rodent near enough for his owner.

His owner had been careless. That made Lod angry, made him secretly clench his fists. The vision had shown him another path, with a sword in hand. Why must he be bait? It was a dangerous question for a slave, a question Lod had always shied away from. He should forget the vision. He should stop thinking and drift back into dullness.

His head flicked with unusual quickness. He couldn’t drift back. Today, he noticed the filth bobbing in the water. He smelled smoke drifting from a warped shed on the left bank. Fishermen smoked eels and catfish in it. His stomach rumbled. He devoured everything he could lay his hands on, but his youthful body devoured like a smelting furnace whatever lay in his stomach.

On the other bank, rose a reaver’s stone-built fortress. The weathered wall was ten feet high. A whip cracked. It came from an open gate there. Slaves strained with ropes, dragging a galley out of the canal and into a caulking pen.

Lod bared his teeth. In the vision, he had held a torch. He had burned Shamgar to the swamp city’s foundations. It was a vain vision, but it… it… stirred something new: hope. That hope burned like fire in his eyes. Somehow, someday, he would escape Shamgar. The idea… was more than dangerous. If he attempted escape, and failed, it meant wriggling out his pathetic existence on a stake that slowly worked up through his body, until the point tore through the skin of his neck.

Lod crouched at the prow, as another thought struck him. Who had sent the dream? Was it his own? Or had Elohim sent it? Lod pondered this, as the boat passed towers, taverns and slave barracks. He worried his lower lip as toiling slaves pushed a melon-raft past and as harlots, on the left bank, writhed to the beat of a pimp’s drum.

Lod shrugged as the rat boat neared a Merchant Wharf, a plaza of stalls and open-air shops. He wasn’t a priest or a seer, but bait. Bait took gifts without asking why.

A shout from the nearest pier caused Lod’s owner to quit rowing. Lod didn’t bother looking up, although he sensed his owner’s unease.

Strange yipping, like laughter, caused Lod to shift his head, peering through his tangle of white hair. Spotted, doglike beasts jumped and pranced on the pier. Lod blinked in surprise. A throng of people jammed the pier, staring at him. Had Shamgar’s god, or one of the god’s sons, gained evidence of the vision? Lod imagined that a vision like his would be grim heresy, punishable by death.

Lod concentrated on the beasts. They had heavy shoulders, lower hindquarters and faces like dogs, only there was something vile about the creatures. Ah, they were cave hyenas. Lod didn’t know how he knew, but he had heard about them somewhere in his nebulous past.

A huge, heavily boned man stood among the hyenas. The man wore a thick coat of mammoth fur, the individual hairs long and coarse. The coat hung down to the man’s boots. He had shaggy hair and a bristling beard, with a square face larger than normal. He wasn’t fully human. The eyes gave it away. They were shiny, dark and like shark eyes.

Lod had survived years as bait through toughness as well as cunning. He hooded his newfound hope as the boat scraped against the pier. The welts on his back prickled, however. He didn’t like this, not one bit. The man with the mammoth-fur coat had to be a beastmaster.

Most of those on the pier were rat hunters. Lod could tell, because they wore ragged, filthy clothes, had unkempt hair, and were scrawny from too much kanda-leaf chewing. The worst-off had the shakes. Others had scimitars belted around their waists and wore bright colors, making them reavers. The reavers squared their shoulders and jutted their chins. They were an aggressive bunch. A few were bulky men, with rolling muscles. Most of the reavers came from the Pine Isles, lanky instead of tall and quick more than muscular. A few were women, tough as mountain lions. The female reavers wore long knives instead of scimitars, and had dark tattoos on their arms. Some of the crowd dressed in tight leathers, with whips and chains dangling from broad black belts. That group hovered near the hyenas, as if they were concerned about them.

“Oh great Ut,” whined Lod’s owner, “I’ve been reconsidering—”

The huge man with the mammoth-fur coat—Ut—raised a broad hand with thick fingers. The littlest of those fingers glinted with a massive gold ring.

With growing unease, Lod noticed hissing. It came from a long, low cage in a wagon. Men jumped back from the wagon. Lod lifted his eyebrows as he saw a crocodile. It was a monster, at least fifteen feet long, pent up in the low wooden cage that sat on the wagon-bed. Sometimes, a swamp crocodile appeared in the canals. Reavers usually slew them on sight. Rats ate garbage and helped keep the canals clean of rotting filth. Crocodiles were too dangerous to let swim in the swamp city.

“Is that him?” asked Ut, pointing at Lod.

“Yes, Great Ut,” whined Lod’s owner.

“Prod him up here,” ordered Ut.

“You heard him!” snarled Lod’s owner, transforming in a moment. The owner poked Lod in the back with the handle of his whip. “Jump up there, bait.”

Lod sprang onto the pier, landing before Ut and his ugly beasts. The hyenas jerked back, and then surged forward, their wet eyes shining hungrily.

Lod almost lashed out and struck the nearest on the snout.

“No,” Ut told them.

An eerie sensation set Lod’s teeth on edge.

The cave hyenas cringed and their ears lowered.

The crowd of rat hunters, reavers and tavern sluts muttered to each other. A few laughed nervously. Just like the hyenas, they seemed afraid of Ut.

Ut twined strong fingers in Lod’s hair, jerking back his head. “So, you’re the legend of the canals, eh?” Ut laughed harshly. “Today we test your legend, bait.”

“Great Ut,” began Lod’s owner.

“What?” Ut snapped.

Lod heard his owner swallow. It was a loud, nervous sound.

“The bait has served me well, Great One. I have not needed to purchase any other bait since I bought him. That has saved me coppers, and—”

Ut flung five silver shekels at the owner.

Lod twisted his head, ripping free of Ut’s grasp. The coins winked in the sunlight and clattered in the rat boat. His owner was thin, far gone in kanda-leaf chewing. All his owner’s teeth had turned black from it. With a trembling hand, his owner snatched each coin from the bottom of the boat, tucking them in the sash around his waist.

“If he survives, you’ll have him back,” Ut sneered.

The owner wouldn’t look up at Lod. Instead, the thin rat-hunter nodded.

A cheer went up from the rat hunters on the pier. Men began shouting odds, arguing fiercely. Lod heard snatches of conversations, quick flurries of speech.

“No rat has ever caught him, you fool.”

“We’re talking about a crocodile, oaf.”

“A rat isn’t a predator.”

“Have you ever watched them? The rats are more predatory than a cut-purse.”

“That old croc will probably just sink down into the canal. The sight of so many people will scare him.”

“No, Ut has starved him. He’s a hungry old croc.”

“The bait is clever. He’ll the lead the croc to a rat, and that will be the end of it.”

“Do you think so? No. I’m not that foolish. Ut will make sure the croc chases the bait.”

“With his power, do you mean?”

“Those of the blood don’t like men praising men. I think Ut is jealous ‘cause the bait is legendary.”

“I’m putting my money on the bait.”

“You’re an idiot. Ut will make sure he dies. Did you see the amount the beastmaster is wagering?”

Lod ingested the comments as he gazed sidelong at the fifteen-foot crocodile. It yawned, revealing wicked teeth and a huge pink tongue. Bareback slaves grabbed carrying poles and slid the cage out of the wagon. The crocodile hissed at the slaves, and it lunged in its confined space. The nearest slave let go and leapt back. The wooden cage dipped down and tore out of the other slaves’ startled grasps. The long, low cage slid out of the wagon-bed and struck the stone pier, making wood crack. People shouted fearfully, surging back from the cage, perhaps afraid it would splinter and release the angry crocodile.

“Careful, you louts!” shouted Ut.

The pale, sweating slaves grabbed the carrying poles, and with a grunt, they heaved the cage off the stone, staggering with it toward Ut. Hyenas growled at the huge reptile, although they slunk aside. The crocodile hissed at them, and it lunged again. The wooden bars blocked its long snout.

Ut grabbed Lod’s hair, and he dragged Lod down to stare at the crocodile. “You’re the legend of the canals, eh,” said Ut. “Look at your death, bait. Escaping rats is one thing. How do you think you’ll do against a real predator?”

Lod’s role as bait meant that he floated like a corpse to lure rats near enough for his owner to net. At the last moment, Lod often slashed at rats with stiffened fingers. The tactic baffled the carrion-feeders. It frightened them. It also gave Lod the margin to kick away before his owner’s net or trident took the rat. The hissing crocodile that stared at him with those cold reptilian eyes, with its armored snout, wouldn’t care if he raked it with stiffened fingers. The crocodile would likely snap off his fingers.

“We’re going to see exactly how legendary, stinking bait like you really is,” mocked Ut. “What do you think about that, eh?”

Lod didn’t fight the fingers in his hair. Instead, he studied the crocodile, trying to gauge it. The huge reptile looked at him hungrily. It hissed, and it lunged. Lod didn’t flinch, although his youthful eyes narrowed.

“I asked you a question,” said Ut, shaking Lod’s head. The huge man twisted Lod around, staring down into his eyes.

Lod mutely stared back.

Ut gave a cry of rage, and shoved Lod’s face against the wooden bars. The crocodile lunged, snapping its fangs, spewing its foul breath in Lod’s face. At the last second, Ut jerked Lod’s face away.

“It’s not fair if the bait is too frightened to swim, Great One,” a reaver shouted from the crowd.

Ut dragged Lod upright.

Lod’s heart raced. He had almost lost his nose. He had almost lashed out with his foot to kick Ut. He yearned to twist his head and sink his teeth into Ut’s hand. The yearning made Lod tremble.

“Ha!” shouted Ut. “The legend of the canals shakes with fear.” Ut threw Lod down at his feet. He put a booted foot onto Lod’s back. “The crocodile will squash this legend, just as I could squash him like a beetle.” Ut put pressure on his foot.

It made Lod grunt.

“That’s not fair!” shouted a reaver.

Ut’s eyes narrowed. He stepped down harder.

Lod endured even as he envisioned twisting around, grabbing Ut’s leg, and throwing his weight against it. He could make Ut fall into the canal. The memory of an Enforcer shoving a stake up a slave’s arse stopped him. Lod clenched his teeth as Ut stepped on him. He would beat the crocodile. He would survive, and someday, he would escape and later burn Shamgar to the ground.

Ut laughed, taking his boot off Lod. “The legend dies today.” He pointed at a soldier. “You will start the race at my command. Be ready,” said Ut.

Ut, his hyenas, handlers and most of the rat hunters and reavers climbed into boats, barges and rafts. They worked across the canal to the other side. It was an open area, where industrious hawkers already sold ale, pears and grilled bacon strips. The soldier remained, as did the team of slaves. The slaves lowered the hissing monster and its cage into a boat. The slaves paddled out, aimed the end of the cage at the water and opened a wooden panel. The fifteen-foot crocodile lunged through the opening, sliding into the oily water. Quickly, the slaves paddled away for the opposite bank.