People of the Ark (Ark Chronicles 1) (11 page)

19.

With his heart beating wildly, Ham fixed his gaze on Naamah. He recalled their moments by the river. He remembered how she had kissed him, how she had pleaded for him to return.

His father regarded him with disbelief
. “You must not do this,” Noah said.

“
She is to be my wife.” Ham couldn’t dissemble—he could hardly think. There was a roaring in his ears; a drumbeat that he vaguely understood was this thumping heart.

“
Are you mad?” Japheth hissed, clutching him by the elbow.

Ham tore his arm free, and he ripped his eyes from Naamah
. Ymir blinked with surprise. Ham grinned. He had suspected that much of Ymir’s power was simply his size, that if a person could muster the courage he’d find the giant sluggish and dimwitted.

“
My darling,” Naamah cried, clapping her hands, looking on him with rapture. “I feared never to see you again.”

Ham laughed recklessly, lifting his javelin
. “Last time we had to cut our moment short. From this night on you shall never leave me.”

“
You would fight for me?” Naamah asked.

“
You shall no longer be a slave,” Ham said. “I shall make you my wife!”

“
Ham,” hissed Japheth. “Can’t you see she’s no slave? She’s their leader.”

Ham shook his head.

“She’s using you, Brother. She’s a witch, an old woman of bones. One of the first to have consorted with demons, I suspect.”

“
Stand back, Japheth! Lie to me no longer.”

Naamah touched Ymir
’s wrist. The blinking giant frowned, and he crouched so she could whisper in his ear.

“
I challenge you, Ymir!” Ham shook his javelin. “Face me if you dare.”

“
Think, Ham,” Japheth said, clutching his shoulder.

Ham whirled around and backhanded his brother
. Japheth reeled away with blood on his lips. “I’m fighting for my wife. Naamah, will you be my wife?”

“
Yes,” she said.

“
Stand back, Father,” Ham warned.

“
No, my son,” Noah said. “You must reconsider.”

“
You can’t stop it, old man,” Naamah said. “Perhaps you could have stopped Ymir from firing the Ark. But you cannot stop this fight. Your son has walked out of your protection on his own free will.”

“
Let us fight,” Ymir said, drawing his sword.

Despite his courage, Ham trembled
. Ymir no longer seemed half-witted.

“
Fight for me,” Naamah said. “Let us spend endless nights entwined in love.”

“
Ymir!” Ham screamed.

The giant moved into position, his shield held slantwise under his chin, his massive sword ready for a sweeping blow.

Noah, Gaea and Japheth scrambled out of the way, Lamech limping after them. The Slayers outside the gate edged closer.

Ymir bellowed and Ham almost froze and lost right there
. At the last moment he leapt, Ymir’s sword sweeping under him. As his feet retouched the ground, Ham heaved. His javelin flew at the giant’s face. With a deft twist, Ymir deflected it with the shield.

They circled one another
. Ymir moved nimbly and the sword struck like lightning. But Ham was faster, barely. Dodging, rolling and leaping he avoided death, and soon he gasped for breath. If just once the sword connected, he would be hewn in two. He looked for openings, launching his javelins one by one, each either missing, or deflected by Ymir’s armor and shield. Soon Ham held his last javelin. His lungs burned. Sweat stung his eyes.

“
You will never feel her caress, little man, though I thank you for the fight.”

Ham watched the awful sword and twisted as the giant swung
. What a fool he’d been to challenge a Nephilim. Had Naamah tricked him in some way?

“
You are dead,” Ymir said.

Ham ducked
—the sword
swished
a finger’s width from his ear. Ham flung his last javelin so it quivered in the bronze-lined shield.

For a moment no one moved
. Then Ymir laughed.

“
First beat him with your fists,” Naamah said. “Break his bones.”

Ymir set aside his sword and shrugged off his shield
. Ham dove for a javelin. Ymir sprang and pinned Ham to the ground before lifting him. Ham’s stomach lurched as he viewed the construction yard upside down, fifteen feet from the ground. He was about to die.

“
No!” Ham wrenched his arm free. He stabbed with the spike of the target shield, the one yet strapped to his arm. The point sank into Ymir’s right eye so gore spurted.

Howling, Ymir raised Ham higher and hurled him down
. Bones snapped. Muscles tore. Agony ripped through Ham.

Stumbling, Ymir clutched his gory face
. Then he fumbled on the ground for his sword. He rose, with his good eye riveted on Noah kneeling by his son.

“
Kill them both!” Naamah screamed.

“
Yes, Mother,” Ymir said.

“
Do you renounce her?” Noah whispered.

“
Oh, Father,” Ham said, blood staining his teeth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“
Do you renounce her?”

“
I do,” whispered Ham.

Noah rose as Ymir towered before him like a mountain
. “Back, spawn of a demon, withdraw, I command you!”

Noah’s words had effect.
Ymir groaned before he lifted his gory face to the stars. “Father! Help me! Come to me, your son, that I may slay this man of Jehovah!”

Ham didn
’t understand. Everything was blurry. He blinked, with pain fogging his thoughts. He groaned. A bright warrior stood behind Noah. The being had white hair like wool and flaming eyes. He wore shining linen and a belt of gold and his feet were like burnished bronze. In his hand gleamed a brilliant sword, drawn and held crossways over his body.

“
Azel, help me!” Ymir shouted.

A roaring sounded
. The stars blotted out. To Ham came a chill like the grave. A dark shape, an evil being with a black sword and red eyes like coals, funneled like smoke into Ymir.

“
Now,” Ymir said. “Now.” He turned to Noah.

The bright warrior
—an angel of heaven, Ham realized—stepped in front of Noah as his father raised his gopher-wood staff.

Ham wondered why no one shouted at seeing such a
strange spectacle. He gurgled, desperately trying to speak. Everyone watched Noah and Ymir, as if they couldn’t see the other two, as if they were invisible to everyone else.

The bright
being glanced at Ham, then moved toward Ymir. The dark being leaped out of the Nephilim. He lunged at the bright warrior. Together they grappled.

Noah and Ymir stared eye to eye, while Naamah chanted.

The bright warrior tore his sword-hand free. He hewed at his dark opponent. The dark being—a
bene elohim
, Ham realized, perhaps Azel himself—threw his smoky head back and howled like a thousand screeching bats.

Ham winced, wondering why no one seemed to hear them.

The bright sword sliced smoky darkness. The dark one jumped skyward and flew away, escaping his terrible foe. The angel of heaven didn’t pursue. Instead, like a thought, he stood before Ymir, his shining sword held at the giant’s throat.

“
Leave while you can,” Noah said, “never to return.”

Ymir turned to Naamah, to the one he had called mother.

She hissed and looked upon Noah with hatred.

“
You have seconds to decide,” Noah said.

“
Come, my child,” Naamah said. “I weary of this game. Let us go elsewhere for amusement.” She sneered at Noah. “A pity about your son, he was a fine boy.”

Steely-eyed,
Noah stared at her, making no reply.

Ham gurgled and his eyes fluttered
. He wondered if he was going to die.

The Menagerie

1.

“
Will he live?”

“
If he does he may never walk again.” That sounded like Gaea—like his mother. No one knew more about healing than she did. “He’ll need a nurse, someone to watch him, perhaps day and night.”

“
We don’t dare trust one of the servants. Naamah might buy their loyalty and then…”

“
With poison or a dagger they’ll finish the deed. One of us will have to nurse him back to health.”

“
What about Europa’s sisters?” Noah asked. “They seem to delight in our son. Perhaps one of them will sit in vigil.”

“
I have someone else in mind,” Gaea said.

“
Who?”

Ham’s
thought drifted as the voices faded.

Later,
Ham’s eyes flew open. There was pain and searing, stabbing agony. His mouth yawned wide but he couldn’t draw air. His eyes goggled and sweat oozed.

Then blinding light engulfed him and there was a rush of feet
. “Oh my,” was spoken with such tenderness that he wanted to weep for the beauty of it. Something soft brushed his cheek. He couldn’t understand how the agony in him could allow him to sense such a touch.

“
Ham, you must listen to me.”

A terrible croak was his only reply.

“You must relax, Ham. You must let every muscle go limp. Oh, be still, my darling. Be still.”

He didn’t know w
hether it was the touch, the gentleness of her words or the uttered “my darling” that broke through. But he slowly relaxed. Every muscle loosened its terrible tension and he lay still. The agony subsided and he trickled air into his lungs. O blessed breath of life.

“
You mustn’t move, Ham. You must lie perfectly still. Do you understand?”

A blurry vision swam before him, a shape
. He was certain he knew the voice. Then he understood—he remembered. They had tied splints to his broken limbs and a tight wrap around his shattered ribs. Anyone could kill him now, although Ymir hadn’t been able to.

H
am groaned. Ymir and, and—Naamah. He’d survived the giant, and at some point after that, his father had prayed. Ham thought he might have seen another angel. He couldn’t remember now, although he remembered the pain and spitting up blood.

“
You must eat or you’re going to whither away into nothing.”

A damp
cloth pressed against his forehead. His vision began to focus.

Rahab
hovered there. She was so different from Naamah. The giant’s mother had been exotically white-skinned, while Rahab was swarthy like him, perhaps even a shade darker. Rahab smiled shyly. She had small white teeth. A shawl hid her hair and she had such a tender touch, so kind and caring. She had had liquid eyes like a deer.

“
Thank you,” he whispered.

Rahab br
ightened as she looked into his eyes. Then she looked away, much like a startled deer might.

Rahab
was the opposite of Naamah, the laughing, shameless beauty who had stolen his reason.

“
You should eat,” Rahab said, not as if ordering him, but with concern, with compassion.

His raw throat hurt
, but he forced himself to say, “What do you have?”

“
Soup. Broth.”

H
am tried to nod, and that sent pain shooting through his tortured muscles.

“
Oh, don’t try to move,” she pleaded. “You must lie still and heal.”

She spoon-fed him
slowly, as if she would like to be nowhere else but feeding the cripple. He appreciated it, and he knew it was the opposite of how he would have acted if they had reversed roles.

Then a
great weariness stole upon him and his eyelids grew heavy.

***

The days merged into one an other, alternating between bouts of blazing pain and Rahab’s comforting presence.

A long time later Japheth sat beside him
. They hadn’t spoken since that night, since he had backhanded Japheth across the mouth.

The shutters were open and Rahab had put a red-winged blackbird outside the window
. It whistled from its cage, fluttered to its perch and then to its tiny feed dish. Ham loved the bright scarlet of its distinctive shoulder markings, and he was amazed how Rahab could put her finger through the slats so the little bird sat there, whistling at her.

“
Thank you for coming,” Ham said. He still couldn’t get up, couldn’t move, and he hated speaking while helpless.

Japheth nodded, with his features closed, withdrawn.

“Listen,” Ham said, “I, ah…”

Japheth lifted blond eyebrows.

Ham gritted his teeth. Couldn’t Japheth see how hard this was for him? He had made a donkey of himself in front of everyone and now he had to pay for it, never knowing if he would be able to walk again.

“
I hope you get better,” Japheth said, in a mechanical way. “So does Europa. We need you so we can finish the Ark in time.”

“
Too much work for the three of you, eh?”

Japheth shrugged, not looking at him
. He fidgeted. “Well, we really are busy. So I’d better be going.” He rose and took several strides for the door.

“
Japheth.”

His older brother stopped, although he kept his back to him.

Ham hated that Japheth had been right and he had been wrong. Everyone in his family was always right. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I-I never should have hit you.”

Japheth shrugged.

“No,” Ham said. “It… I was under her spell.”

“
The witch’s?” Japheth asked.

Ham frowned
. Had she really been a witch? “I never would have struck you if I’d been myself.”

“
I suppose not.”

“
Will… Will you forgive me?”

“
Consider yourself forgiven,” Japheth said.

Ham blew out his cheeks
. The cramp in his stomach eased. “Japheth—”

“
I’m sorry,” Japheth said, with his back to him. “But I really must return to the Ark. It’s been good talking to you again. Bye.”

“
Bye,” Ham said, to the closing door.

Rahab soon entered with a tray of sliced pears, asking if he was hungry, smiling
and looking him in the eye. Time and close proximity and the duties of a nurse had drawn her out. She had been so obviously pleased when he’d told her he was thinking about apologizing to Japheth that it had firmed his resolve into action. She was good for him.

“
I’m starving,” he said.

She sat on the vacated stool, and one by one
, she popped the slices into his mouth. She chattered about Europa and Ruth, how hard they wove wattle cages that were to go into the Ark. Then she became grave as she told him about Grandfather Lamech’s worsening condition.

“
I think he’s dying,” she said.

That saddened Ham, and that set him to wondering about Methuselah
. When the ancient patriarch passed away, “it” would happen. How much longer did they have left?

“
Do you know what I think?” Rahab said, leaning closer.

He wondered if her eyes had always been so lovely, and he wondered why his stomach suddenly
fluttered.

“
The Flood is near,” she said. “Soon we will all have to enter the Ark.”

It dawned on him that father and mother would enter the Ark, and Japheth and Europa and Shem and Ruth… and he and Rahab
. He studied her eyes and saw how truly liquid brown they were. He noticed how smooth her skin seemed and how her lips were parted.

“
Rahab.”

“
What is it, Ham?”

“
Come closer.”

She moved her face nearer
so he could smell her breath.

“
No, closer,” he said.

“
Like this?” She peered into his eyes. And he lifted his head, his lips brushing hers. Her eyelids flickered. Then her eyes flew open and she jerked back, the stool scraping across the wooden floor. She leaped to her feet.

“
Didn’t you like that?” he asked.

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide.

“Please, Rahab, don’t go.”

She fled.

And for the next week she resumed being shy. Oh, she came just as often, but she didn’t laugh and tell him all the things that she had before. She talked about the Ark and the latest people Noah had preached to. He felt guilty having upset her. She was delicate, he realized. And there came upon him a protectiveness, a fierce desire never to hurt her and never to let anyone else hurt her.

One day while she opened the shutters
, she winced.

“
Does your hand hurt?” He loved to watch her, especially when she didn’t know it.

“
It’s nothing,” she said, although she didn’t whistle to the little blackbird, nor did she poke her finger into its cage. As he watched her going about the room, tidying, he noticed that she indeed used her left hand gingerly.

“
How did you hurt it?” he asked. “Or are you just faking so you can tell my mother that it’s too much work taking care of me?”

She gave him a cross look as she settled onto the bedside stool
. “We’ve been working much harder lately, making small animal hutches. My fingers are a little sore from it, that’s all.”

“
Does my mother know?”

“
Please, don’t say anything.”

“
Why not? If you’ve hurt your hand you need to rest it—and that will give you some free time.”

“
Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“
Rahab. You must think about yourself sometimes. You’re not a slave.”

She picked up a damp cloth and dabbed his forehead
. He suspected it was an excuse to touch him. “I can never repay the kindness your family has shown me. Maybe you don’t realize how wonderful your parents are. I-I’ve seen the other side. I know that what you have is rare.”

She had seldom spoken about how she
’d become an orphan. Even mother had learned only bits and pieces. For Rahab to open up even this much… Ham knew that he must never misuse this trust.

“
Your father seldom drinks even a cup of wine, and I have never seen him drunk. Oh, Ham, when a father comes home drunk...” She bit her lower lip, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “When a father’s pupils are glassy and he bumps into the furniture and breaks vases and clay cups and makes awful curses over it…When he strikes his wife, knocking her down and kicking her in the stomach as she shrieks, and then when he turns and stares at you and…” Rahab wiped the tears welling in her eyes. “I can never work too hard. I can never repay the kindness your family has showered on me. I thank Jehovah every night for His mercy in letting me find this place.”

“
Oh, Rahab,” Ham said, understanding perhaps for the first time that sin costs, that sin lashes out and strikes even the innocent.

Their days together merged into weeks and the weeks
into months. He was young and strong and Rahab was an excellent nurse. His ligaments knit and his bones fused back together. At first, it was a joy just to sit up again. There was plenty of pain, especially around his ribs, but he endured it as he exercised by simply breathing deeply. Then he became anxious to get the splints off, to walk again. It seemed to take forever. But those days came and he gritted his teeth as he relearned to bend his elbows and knees. Rahab helped him as he started walking. He put his arm around her shoulder and as she wrapped her arm around his waist. Together like that they shuffled around the room.

Noah brought him a cane and he began to limp about the
Keep. He soon took up chores feeding the hounds and the cattle and bit by bit, his muscles swelled with renewed strength.

He pondered what he had seen that fateful night
—the angel and Azel—and what that meant about his father. One thing he became certain of, Jehovah was real. For if Noah could command Ymir and keep the giant from slaying him—what other explanation was there than the angel driving away Azel and then threatening Ymir with his bright sword? So any thought of traveling to Eden, no, if angels protected his father and thus protected all of them, that meant Jehovah had truly spoken to his father and that the Flood was really coming.

The time came when he could walk without the cane
. Unfortunately, his left hip never quite healed properly. At first, it hurt all the time when he walked. But through practice, he strengthened and could walk for longer. Yet whenever he overdid it, the pain began. Some days it was worse, and he would slip away with a bottle of Noah’s medicinal wine and drink until the pain subsided. Oh, that was such sweet relief.