Lod the Galley Slave (Lost Civilizations) (27 page)

“Just a little farther, Aran,” Lod said. “You can run there. You’re a determined lad.”

I listened to Lod’s voice
. Where did he get his confidence? Putting my head down, I ran. Rain slashed against my face and trees blurred past. Hyaenodons howled behind me. They sounded closer than before. The rough shouts of half-Nephilim and other soldiers of Gog told me they ran almost as fast as their beasts.

“Why are there so many of them?” I panted.

“They guard a treasure,” Lod said.

“Gold?”

He made a sardonic sound. “Nothing so cheap, I’m afraid.”

“I could use gold.” Everyone in
our village was hungry and poor. Gold would have changed our lives.

“Yellow dirt won’t buy you freedom
,” Lod said. “You need courage and skill to gain something so precious.” Lod shook his head and water flew off. “None of you have any skill at arms. But a few of you had courage.”

“What do you mean
, had?”

“Not too many of you left now.”

“What’s the use of stopping to fight then?”

“I
wish I could have thought of another way to do this,” he told me.

I glanced
up at Lod. What was he talking about?

“Gog moves at last,” Lod said
, as if divining my thoughts. “He doesn’t have a behemoth, but he can still win. We need the caravan’s treasure if we’re to thwart Gog. Besides, we owe it to him?”

“We owe Gog?”

“No. Soon you’ll understand.”

I stumbled.

Lod grabbed me by the shoulder before I fell. By main strength he hauled me along. Another pain-filled scream echoed through the forest. How many of us were still alive? This was butchery. Bezel had been right. This was a bad day.

Then Lod and I burst into a clearing. A hard laugh bubbled out of
his throat. “We made it,” he said.

I cast him a hopeless glance.

“Run now, lad. Run as you’ve never run.” He shoved me, and I stumbled but maintained my feet.

After several hurried strides I
glanced back. Hyaenodons burst through the forest, each showing bloody teeth. With a strangled sob, I looked forward again and pumped my arms. Somewhere deep inside me I knew I’d rather have turned and fought. Plain old fear drove me. Picking up my feet, I flew across the wet grass. I heard the pound of Lod’s heavy boots behind me. With ease, I sped ahead of him.

The hyaenodons howled evilly
, racing after us. A second glance over my shoulder showed men of Gog bursting through the tree line. Many of them wore the black leather of Shamgar enforcers, half-Nephilim. They would catch me soon. I knew that, but the fierce desire for life was too strong for me to act heroically.

A groan escaped my throat. Ahead of me waited hidden men, soldiers by the wet flash of armor. This was another trap. The caravan guards had driven us here. So much for having faith.

A wild laugh penetrated my numb mind, sounding like Lod. “Men of Gog!” the white-haired champion roared. “Today you will taste defeat, for the charioteers of Elon are upon you!”

The hidden soldiers in the grass rose to their feet. They wore mail
and leathers and clutched long lances. One of them stood taller and bigger than the rest. He wore fish-scale bronze armor, a scarlet cloak and a bronze helm with a Y-slot for his eyes. A large horsehair crest lay sodden, but it look princely just the same. He bore a heavy short sword at his side, but clutched a lance like the others. His wrists were thicker, and he wore leather guards on each.

The charioteers of Elon gave a loud
hurrah
, and they charged the hyaenodons and the enforcers and men of Gog. I’d never seen anything like it. It bewildered my senses and failed to register fully.

I noticed things, though. First, the enforcers in their black leather
s were bigger than anyone else, larger even than Lod. That made sense. Angel blood, fallen and diluted to be sure, but celestial heritage none the less pumped through the veins of the forehead-tattooed champions. They fought like whirlwinds, their swords buzzes of flashing steel. Each of them severed steel-shod lance-heads, nullifying the reach of the charioteers of Elon.

There were more warriors with horsehair crested helmets
than men of Gog, but they were smaller and I’d wager weaker. Yet those of Elon didn’t act weak. They fought together as a team. Many lost their razor-sharp points. With the flat of their wooden poles they hammered at half-Nephilim faces and chests. While they did, younger, more nimble men launched javelins over their betters. The wobbling shafts found marks, and several of the black-clad champions of Gog went to their knees and then flat onto their backs.

If only the hyaenodons hadn’t been here. The giant dog creatures wreaked bloody havoc. More than one took the steel of a chariot lance and snapped
its long shaft, pouncing upon the charioteer and ripping off the bronze-protected head with a single savage twist of its blunt muzzle.

Lod roared his battle cry, and he leaped upon a hyaenodon. With one sinewy iron arm around the beast’s neck, Lod rode the creature and stabbed it in the side again and again. His sword flashed, and bone and blood gushed or tumbled from the beast.

I shouted, waving my saber, and I dashed to help him. Cutting, stabbing, slashing and dodging, the battle continued in a blur around me. I felt cold teeth in my side, and I found myself lifted bodily from the ground. Raving, I hacked at the beast that had seized me. Then Lod thrust that sword into its neck. The creature sagged onto the wet ground, and then Lod thrust his blade into the dirt and pried with his fingers, opening the dead beast’s jaws.

I lived, with several puncture wounds in my torso, and I began to shiver uncontrollably.

By that time, the battle had turned to butchery. Half the charioteers’ number lay in the grass, dead or dying. The rest circled the last enforcers, and young men heaved javelins into them, killing those of Gog as if they were brute animals.

Finally, the last soldier of Gog thudded onto the ground. Lod and the thick-wristed leader of the charioteers walked over the battlefield. With spears, they slew wounded enforcers and put hyaenodons out of their misery.

“Bloody work,” the champion of the charioteers told Lod.

Lod wiped his face with a rag before flinging it from him. “It isn’t over until we win.”

“Do you think he lives?” the charioteer asked. “Do you think they brought him along?”

Lod indicated the battlefield. “Why would so many of the blood be here otherwise?”

“Did they suspect us, do you think?”

“No,” Lod said.

I staggered forward then. A glimmering of understanding tore the veil from my mind. “You planned this?” I asked Lod.

“To kill sons of Gog, yes,”
he said.

“No,” I said. “You used my friends as bait. You lured the half-Nephilim to their deaths. But it cost everyone I knew.”

Lod stared at me with those cold blue eyes of his. He was a killer, a man with a mission. “Your friends died as free men.”

“Free?” I shouted. “They died in terror, chased down and butchered from behind. You used us. We trusted you, Lod.”

The big man didn’t flinch, but kept on staring at me. “What did you hope to achieve?”

“What?”

“Why did you pick up the sword, Aran?”

“
To live and act as men!” I shouted, “To drive Gog’s killers from us.”

“You did, and so
you shall. You bought your freedom with the blood of your friends.”

“You could have told us
what you planned.”

“No
,” Lod said. “I could not. The prize is too precious. Gog moves at last. He means to conquer the shores around the Suttung Sea. He has gathered allies, as we must. As important, we must reunite the Seraphs. Only they can hope to shield the sons of Adam from Gog’s ocular vision.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, with hot tears of grief streaming down my cheeks.

The charioteer of Elon walked up then. He removed his helm, revealing a noble face with green eyes and red hair. “I am Herrek of Teman Clan,” he said.

I sucked in my breath. I’d heard of the prince of the Elonites, son of fabled Lord Uriah.

“Gog can see our futures,” Herrek explained. “Knowing them, he can thwart us by sending assassins or armies wherever we are weakest. Men do not have Accursed Gifts, nor can we use the blood of the high to block Gog’s sight. Yet some among us burn with passion. Elohim, in His wisdom, has allowed such to shield against Nephilim sorcery. Lod has the ability, as does a man chained in the wagon caravan. We need every Seraph there is if we’re to win this war to the death.”

“And for that you sacrificed my friends?” I asked.

“No,” Lod said. “We aren’t sorcerers. We do not conjure with blood. But we didn’t tell you everything. That is true. If your friends had fought hard like you—”

“Don’t lie to me, Lod,” I said. “You sent us against the wagons knowing enforcers might be lying in wait.”

Finally, the white-haired man turned away. He shook his head and took a deep breath. “War is a dirty game, Aran,” he said, without looking at me. “Sometimes, there are hard choices.”

“Which my friends paid with their lives,” I said. “What have you paid, Lod?”

Herrek stiffened, and he glanced at Lod.

The big man turned and loomed before me. He laughed without a trace of humor.
“I will break bones and smash teeth. I will light a fire to Shamgar to ensure it burns. Lastly, I will hack the bloated bulk of Gog as I kill him. This is my promise, Aran. This is my vision. I will bring fire and blood. I will bring death to the sons of the
bene elohim
. For this I have suffered many a long year, and I agree to willingly suffer more. If I could say sorry to you, lad, I would. But I cannot, for I am not.”

Lod closed his mouth
. Then he brushed past me, and he lumbered for the trees.

-4-

We surprised the remnants in the wagon caravan. Lod led us in a howling attack. We spared none of them. In the center wagon was the prize, the treasure that cost me the lives of Bezel, Jot and the others.

Why did they die? Why did Lod help us?

In the center wagon lay a captive. He wore a bronze mask over his entire head, his hands chained behind his back. Lod helped him down, while Herrek ordered a burly smith to set up an anvil.

Why would the enforcers put a bronze mask over a man? It made no sense.

Now that the battle was over, Lod stood apart with his muscled arms crossed over his chest. He stared off into the distance. Herrek of Teman Clan spoke quietly to the masked man.

That one was slender, and there was something noble about him. Finally, Herrek held him as the captive laid his head and
bronze mask on an anvil.

Several ringing blows were enough to obliterate the lock. The captive stood, and with trembling hands pried off the mask. With an oath, he removed it.

I stood there in awe. The man’s face had a glow, a shine to it. I don’t mean to say it was like the sun. No. It was like the moon in a way, a gossamer shine that radiated from his cheeks, his forehead and even from his eyes.

I’d heard a legend of one named Joash, a young lad captured by the giants, the sons of Jotnar.
Years ago, Joash had walked into the Valley of Dry Bones and found a fiery stone. The giants and Joash had inured themselves to this thing stolen from the Mount of Heaven. The story goes that Joash escaped the giants and beat them to the East Gate of Eden. There, he helped the guardian Cherub defeat the champion of the evil ones.

My friends had died to help free the greatest Seraph of all: Joash. How had the men of Gog captured him? I don’t know.

Herrek cheered, and he hugged Joash. Then the slender man turned and walked to me.

His eyes…I’d never seen eyes like that. Lod had strange orbs with a fiery zeal. These eyes were different, with more compassion,
perhaps even with more knowledge. Joash seemed more like me, a man caught up in great events, who had then done great deeds.

“I’m sorry,” Joash said. “I-I know my words are meaningless.
I’m truly sorry that your friends died today. If I could—”

“No,” I said. “I think I’m beginning to understand. There’s a war coming.”

“Yes, I think so,” Joash said, “a terrible war.”

“And your side needs you.”

“We need you, too,” Joash said. “I want you to join me.”

He didn’t say join
them
. Joash said to join
him
.

My heart hammered in my chest, and I found myself nodding.

“It is settled then,” Joash said. “You’ll come with me. I want you to meet my wife.”

“She’s here?”

“No,” he said. “She’s in Elon with Lord Uriah.” Joash smiled, and he clapped me on the shoulder. “It has started,” he said. “Now we have to make sure that we end it this time for good.”