Lod the Galley Slave (Lost Civilizations) (16 page)

Lod
’s skin crawled.

Above them, on the
Serpent of Thep
, the Gibborim’s chant lifted several octaves.

Lod shuddered in supernatural horror. In the murk, the hell-spawned fog, it seemed as if dead men had risen to walk the planking above. The necromancer
employed forbidden arts. He used knowledge brought to Earth by the fallen angels.

Lod swallowed painfully, coughing, spitting into the bilge water.

Heavy slaps struck the nearby waters. Lod peered out the oar hole. He tried to pierce the fog that drifted all around them. Across the choppy waves wood exploded and men shrieked. A terrible, subsonic cry grated upon Lod’s being. Within the conjured fog, something destroyed a galley. Yorgash must have found an answer to the dread ships of Eridu.

Then a breeze stirred and the
Serpent of Thep
slid from out of the thickest part of the gloom. Lod saw farther than before: perhaps a hundred feet.

“
Out oars!” cried the oar master.

Lod
’s eyes widened. A lean galley, a yellow-painted bireme of Larak, swung its bronzed beak toward them. On the enemy deck archers pointed and shouted in rage.

Above deck Vendhyan sailors cried:
“Enemy galley to starboard!”

The bireme of Larak leaped ahead. Its oars dug in perfect unison and flutes piped and cymbals clashed.

“Out oars!” shouted the oar master.

Scourges whipped naked flesh. Rowers cried out in pain.

“We’re going to be rammed!” screamed a slave peering out his oar hole.

“
Larak’s Admiral must have sent galleys into the fog to help the fire ships,” shouted Zeiros.

“
Out oars, you dogs!” roared the oar master. “Out oars or we’ll be rammed.”

Steel slid from a scabbard as a whip-master bent on one knee and
pricked a hesitant slave in the kidneys. “Row or die!” the whip-master screamed, his face a livid mask of terror.

Wood scraped as slaves hurried to obey.

Lod watched, frozen to the view. The enemy galley aimed at them and seemed monstrously huge. Archers stood on the enemy foredeck, humming arrows. Several thudded murderously near his oar hole. Above,
Serpent of Thep
bowstrings twanged in return. A Larak archer screamed, an arrow sticking in his shoulder. He toppled overboard, his own galley sliding over him, forcing him deeper into the sea.

The hiss of seawater, the groaning of enemy planks and the galley filled Lod
’s vision. He jerked back from the oar port and threw his arms over his head. Slaves screamed all around him and chains clinked wildly. A thunderous crash drowned all other noises. Rotten wood splintered and exploded as a bronze ram smashed through the side of the
Serpent of Thep
. Fist-sized wooden chunks rained upon howling oar slaves. The ram crumpled a shrieking slave, his blood oiling the bronze beak’s progress.

A flying chunk
of wood struck Lod on the head. He slid, dazed, under a bench. Cold sea water flooded past the ram as the Gulf of Ammon demanded entrance to the galley. It splashed Lod in the face, waking him from his stupor. He gazed out the jagged hole and at the enemy galley and then out beyond at the gloomy sea.

Steel
rang above. Grapnels thudded upon wood. Gangplanks were hastily shoved out and laid down. Soldiers shouted war cries and armor jangled and feet pounded upon decking. In the hold, bronze groaned upon rotted wood.

The sound of piping and cymbals on the enemy galley changed in pitch and intensity. Men shouted and screamed and blades clashed.

Lod shook his head. Through the hole he saw Captain Eglon lead soldiers over the gangplanks and onto the enemy ship. A blur, a fantastic leap could only have been the Gibborim. But even as the soldiery attempted to capture the Larak galley, the ram began to ease backward. All the enemy rowers moved their oars in unison.

Lod
’s eyes widened. He felt a mighty tug on his ankle. The fetter around his swollen leg was connected to the ram-slain slave. That slave’s chain had lodged upon a metal splinter on the ram.

Above, the few ropes attached to grapnels parted with great popping sounds. Gangplanks fell away and soldiers of Yorgash dropped screaming into the sea. They splashed, and those in heavy armor sank out of sight. One soldier grabbed a fallen gangplank. He shouted for help. An enemy archer leaned over his railing and drilled an arrow into the man
’s neck. The soldier slid into the depths.

In the hold, the ram inexorably drew out of the maimed
Serpent of Thep
. It dragged Lod and those slaves attached to him. He and Zeiros and others frantically grabbed at the rowing bench. They clutched with manic strength. Relentlessly the chain pulled at his ankle. With a cry of despair Lod let go, bumping across wood. He hit and struck whatever lay in his path. In that brief instant he understood how a worm felt plucked from its hole by a bird.

He tucked, rolled and managed to land on his feet. He grabbed the rusted chain with his twisted talons. He braced his feet against a rib of the galley. The enemy ram slid and then cleared the
Serpent of Thep
. Lod jerked the chain and cried out, “Elohim, save me!”

A spasm shuddered through his bulging shoulders. Each muscle seemed to leap up from his skin
: stark, straining, warring against the power of the Larak galley, against two hundred straining rowers.

The rusted chain grew taut. It shivered, and with a scream of metal the weakest link snapped apart.

Lod catapulted backward, smashing into Zeiros.

Seawater meanwhile poured into the jagged hole.

The Larak galley backed away even as Captain Eglon and Lord Lamassu led
Serpent of Thep
soldiers upon its forward deck.

Lod bounded upright.
“Praise Elohim!” he roared. He threaded the torn chain through his manacle, freeing himself for the first time in twenty years.

“
Back to your post, slave!” shouted a whip-master.

With a snarl Lod spun around. He leaped the distance, took the startled soldier of Yorgash in his arms and broke him.

“The day of judgment is at hand!” Lod roared. “The wrath of Elohim shall shatter your bones!”

-16-

There was little nicety to Eglon’s sword play. Not for him the swift parrying of steel, the cut and thrust of a skilled swordsman. He used a heavy shield and bashed his opponent. He smashed the shield against an enemy, knocking him, pushing and shoving the man off balance. Then he swung the scimitar, one specially weighted with a thicker tip than normal. It wasn’t a scimitar for a sword master, for a skilled artist. It was more akin to a headsman’s blade, an executioner’s weapon. For all his gross bulk Eglon was nimble on his feet. He rushed in quicker than a foe expected and when necessary backpedaled out of danger.

Captain Eglon led the boarding party. He swore, he cursed and he blasphemed. He shouted abuse at his foes. He spit in men
’s faces. If an opponent covered his body too well, Eglon slashed at the foot or leg, crippling the fool and then stamping on his face or hacking his neck. He fought as he had wrestled, brutally, with exhibitions of strength.

The Larak galley carried fewer soldiers than the
Serpent of Thep
. Excellent seamanship, cunning use of the ram was their prized tactic. Thus the handful of swordsmen that had stormed aboard fought an even battle against the enemy soldiers, archers and sailors.

Lord Lamassu tipped the odds. The Gibborim was inhuman, quicker than a wasp. A sword jabbed at him and he wasn
’t there. His parries weren’t masterful, they were impossible.

He wore no armor but his leathers. His sword was long and thin. It darted past shields, past blades. The razor tip threaded through armor, poking out eyes and puncturing throats. With lizard speed he struck. An archer drilled an arrow from three feet away. A flick of the sword sent the
shaft caroming off into the distance. Then the archer’s head tumbled to the sandy deck.

Blood gushed from the
man’s neck and Lord Lamassu darted from the spray. One droplet landed on his shoulder. With a hiss he leaped back. The Gibborim’s godlike beauty twisted into a demonic mask. He knelt, tore a strip from a fallen man’s cloak and fastidiously wiped the blood from him. He curled the rag into a ball and flung it away, and then shuddered.

A spearman who had broken through Eglon
’s clump of swordsmen rushed Lord Lamassu. With a wild scream the man bore down upon the kneeling Gibborim.

Lord Lamassu stood, his stark white face once more a mask of serenity. The spearman thrust. Lord Lamassu stepped aside, twitched a fraction more so the human didn
’t touch him and then reached a helping hand and pushed the man’s shoulder. With a bellow of surprise the spearman stumbled faster, hit the railing with his knees and pitched out of sight.

“
Surrender!” roared Eglon. Blood dripped from his scimitar and his bloated face flushed crimson from the exertion. As he panted and sweat rolled down his cheeks, he noted the way the last enemy handful gripped their swords, the way they bit their lips and glanced a final time at the world. They had retreated to the tiller, a stubborn knot surely wondering why it had to be this way.

Below in the hold slave rowers quit their task and shouted for release, for freedom.

Eglon felt the enemy wavering. It was his gift to be able to sense such a thing. “Surrender!” he roared, “and your lives will be spared.”

One sailor of Larak set down his cudgel.

Lord Lamassu strode forward.

“
W-We surrender,” said the sailor. Others around him set down their swords and spears.

The black fog held the ship in gloom. The sounds of the galley-destroying kraken were no longer heard.

“We ask for quarter,” said the sailor, a skinny lad.

“
I hear only the bleating of sheep,” whispered Lord Lamassu, and in a bound, a flurry of thrusts and sudden sweeps he laid their twitching corpses to sleep.

The Gibborim spun around.
“Get this ship back to ours, unless you wish for the kraken to find us.”

“
L-Lord?” stammered Eglon.

Lord Lamassu strode near and pricked Eglon
’s fleshy chin, keeping the blade in place. “The kraken hunts and he is enraged. I have poked and prodded him, forcing him to do my bidding. Do not beasts hate such treatment, hmm? Do they not yearn to rend and destroy those who have done such work? I must leash him again and finish my task. Now hurry, you fat swine, and bring me back to the brazier.”

-17-

Wet murder swept the
Serpent of Thep’
s hold. Water gushed through the jagged rent and sloshed over the middle aisle. Half the slaves shrieked for release, the other half howled as archers fired point blank shafts from the latticework above. Those free rushed the stairs, snarling at jabbing spears and the wall of shields. Every charge was sent reeling back.

“
Slay them all!” shouted the commander of archers.

“
Mercy!” screamed chained slaves, their hands held up in the age-old imploring sign. “Have mercy on us, masters!”

“
We’re running out of arrows!” shouted an archer.

From the stairs, the commander of guards shouted,
“Get down in the hold, you dogs. Kill them before they all get free, before they organize.”

Armored spearmen advanced at a walk down the stairs and into a howling sea of desperate, hate-maddened men.

From out of the darkness a spear flashed, impaling a soldier. The man tumbled down the stairs. Slaves howled, charging anew, grabbing ankles and yanking the enemy off-balance. Those unlucky few fell into a forest of iron arms and savage snarls.

“
Back up! Back up!” screamed a spearman.

Slaves picked up fallen spears and shields and charged up the stairs.

Arrows shot through the latticework drilled some in the back. Others faced the armored reserve at the hatch and a short, vicious battle took place, slaves jabbing upward and soldiers thrusting down. Soon the last slave on the stairs thumped to the boards, dead or dying.

“
Flee out the hole in the side!” bellowed Lod. He had hurled the spear. “Then crawl up the sides of the ship!” He and Zeiros stood in the shadows. Lod held keys and had from time to time dodged to the aisle, unlocking yet another bench of slaves as Zeiros held a shield over him.

“
Save us! Save us!” shrieked chained slaves. Seawater lapped upon them. A cruel death by drowning awaited them.

Freed slaves fought against the torrent of water gushing into the
Serpent of Thep
. A man was swept off his feet and smashed against a bench, lying with his head at an odd ankle. Three men held hands, coming from the side, water sloshing above their knees. The first man grasped the jagged edge of the hole and drew the other two beside him. Then he grasped the edge with both hands and struggled and fought through the torrent and onto the other side.