People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) Read online

  “I’ve caught you red-handed,” the massive son of Canaan growled.

  Gilgamesh whipped out his dagger—something hard and heavy struck the back of his head. He crumpled to the floor and his dagger went clattering. He crawled for it, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw motion, a boot. The boot struck him in the head, and Gilgamesh sank with a groan, everything turning black.

  13.

  “Do you see anyone?” Thebes asked, a burly youth with a thick red mustache hiding his lips. He had a fleshly face and crocodile-like green eyes, unblinking and cruel. Like the others on the steep slope, in this small hollow, he crouched behind a half-buried, mossy boulder. His deerskin garments blended with the pine trees and the needles lying everywhere. Below him, thirty yards down, ran a path, a dirt track, which Beor, they had learned, often used to negotiate to the next valley.

  Minos glanced halfway up a tree at Obed, who balanced on a swaying branch. The Hunter had one hand on the trunk as he peered into the distance. Obed shook his grotesque head.

  “Beor’s not coming,” Thebes said. “Your plan failed.”

  Minos shifted uncomfortably. It was cold in the shadows of these tall firs, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Beor should have shown by now. Minos chewed the inside of his cheek. Gilgamesh and Enlil should have joined them.

  Beside him, Olympus blew into his cupped hands and stamped his feet, while Zimri, a lean man, sat cross-legged against a boulder, as he rubbed fat into a spare bowstring.

  “You ruined our one chance,” Thebes said. “You failed.”

  “Me?” Minos asked. “At least I had a plan.”

  Thebes blew through his mustache. “What are you saying? I had a plan. My plan was to fall on Beor in the village at night. Stick him in the back and let him bleed to death.”

  “That’s a stupid plan,” Minos said. “The reason no one agreed to it. One shout from Beor and everyone comes running.”

  “Let them run,” Thebes said. “I told you that. I’d be gone by then, with a dagger planted in Beor’s kidney.”

  “And if you didn’t stab his kidneys? If you missed and just cut blubber?”

  Thebes sneered. “That’s the point, isn’t it? You make sure your first blow counts.”

  “Which is a poor bet against Beor,” Minos said. “It’s like saying: Oh, just stroll next to a cave bear and stab him in the back. A plan like that only enrages, it doesn’t kill.”

  “Why don’t you admit it?” Thebes said. “You lack the guts to place everything on one roll of fate. One thrust of the blade. Maybe that’s because your knees knock whenever Beor glances at you. You see him as your father, come to beat you for being bad. So you wet yourself.”

  “That’s fine poetry from you,” Minos said. “You, who ran as hard as I did that day by the boulder. In fact, you ran even harder than I did, the reason it was I who took the javelin in my thigh and not you.”

  Thebes’s unblinking eyes hardened as he slid his dagger out, rising from his crouch.

  Minos scrambled to his feet, leveling his spear. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Lean-limbed Zimri cleared his throat once and then twice. The cousins glanced at him. “Maybe you two never heard of Nimrod’s first rule of Hunters.”

  “What is it?” Minos said.

  “Patience,” Zimri said.

  Thebes scowled. “Are you saying Beor’s coming?”

  “No,” Zimri said.

  Thebes laughed at Minos, before asking Zimri, “You don’t think Beor’s coming either, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Zimri said. “That’s what we’re waiting for.”

  “So you think he is coming?” Minos asked.

  Zimri stared at Minos. “I said I don’t know. That’s what we’re waiting for.”

  At that moment, a rock rattled from farther up the mountainside. It struck boulders, bounced off trees and sailed past them to strike the path below.

  Zimri strung his bow, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the tall pines upslope. Minos and Thebes whirled around, frozen in a crouch, also staring upslope.

  “What caused that?” whispered Minos.

  Thebes glanced at Zimri, who continued to watch and then told Minos, “Probably a squirrel or a fox. It’s nothing to get jittery about.”

  Obed whistled, and when he had their attention, he motioned down the trail, before beginning to climb down the tree.

  “Beor comes,” Minos said, with a nervous grin.

  “Perfect,” said Olympus, picking up a bundle of flint-tipped javelins, positioning behind a boulder.

  Minos strung a bow. “I told you he’d come,” he told Thebes, who crouched beside him. Thebes pointed with his chin at Zimri. The lean Hunter still watched upslope. “What do you see?” Minos whispered.

  Zimri said nothing. He crouched motionlessly, like a preying mantis waiting for a fly to move.

  “All the Hunters are a bit strange,” Thebes whispered to Minos. “They’ve made a cult out of this woodcraft.”

  “Maybe,” whispered Minos. “Or maybe he knows something.”

  “Don’t let him make you nervous,” Thebes said. “He’s just trying to show off, show us how patient he is.”

  Obed slid beside them into the hollow, the small hideaway on the mountainside. He held a spear.

  “Did you see Beor?” Minos whispered, letting his gaze slide off Obed’s ugly features.

  “Bouncing in his chariot,” Obed said, his left eye open far too wide because of a scar and his lip pulled up in a permanent sneer that showed his teeth.

  “Alone?” Minos asked.

  “With a driver, a Scout,” Obed said.

  “Someone’s up there,” Zimri hissed over his shoulder.

  The four of them crouching behind the boulder over the trail glanced at Zimri, who crouched at the upper edge of the hollow, facing upslope. All they saw was trees. Tall firs pointed straight at the sky, even though they grew at a sharp angle on this steep, pine needle littered slope. Packed tight trees as far as the eye could rove. The top of the mountain wasn’t visible from here.

  “People?” whispered Thebes. “Do you see people?”

  “I sense them,” Zimri said. “They’re waiting.”

  “You mean you don’t see anyone,” Thebes said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  Zimri didn’t answer. He kept focused upslope, watching, ready to shoot.

  “Do you think Scyth gave us away?” Thebes asked Minos.

  “Impossible,” Minos said. “He salivated every time I showed him the ruby. He’s crazy for it.”

  “Here he comes,” Obed said, his hands tightening around his spear.

  Thebes glanced over his shoulder at Zimri. “I don’t like this. Something is wrong. Zimri is right.”

  Minos laughed. “Now it’s you who are getting nervous. Maybe you’re afraid Beor might hump up the slope with his peg leg and kill you.”

  Thebes glared at his cousin.

  “Get ready,” whispered Obed.

  Minos peered past closely grown pines and down slope. He glimpsed a chariot. Through the many trees, he saw it; it disappeared, it showed up again past other trees. Beor and the Scout stood in the car. They moved at a slow pace. Then the Scout drew rein.

  “What’s he doing?” Minos whispered, craning up to see better. “Why is he stopping?”

  “Get down,” hissed Thebes, pulling him back behind the boulder.

  “Ambush!” shouted Zimri. “It’s an ambush!” He rose and his bow twanged.

  Minos whirled around as his bowels threatened to unloose. An arrow thudded into Zimri’s shoulder, spinning him, knocking him back, to trip, tumble and strike his head against a rock. Hidden men upslope yelled. They shouted abuse and sent whistling arrows.

  “Ambush!” screamed Olympus. He jumped up and sprinted out of the hollow, staggering along the slope and parallel with the trail. Arrows whizzed past him. One sank into his leg. Olympus screamed, tumbling head over heels.

  “This way,”
Obed hissed, running bent-over and zigzagging the other way.

  With terror clutching his belly, Minos ran after him. Arrows hissed and thudded into trees as his feet slipped and slued. He fell, and he scrambled on his hands and knees. Then he leaped up. In a burst of speed, Minos ran past a slipping Obed. He panted as tears poured down his cheeks. Time disappeared. There was just motion. There were trees, needles, slipping, falling and crashing full into a pine. He lay stunned. Mouths moved in front of him, but he heard nothing. Stinging slaps snapped his head, first one way and then another. Obed hauled him upright, and Minos now heard roaring.

  “That way,” Obed seemed to say from far away.

  Minos’s thighs burned and his lungs ached. After a time, he realized Thebes ran beside him, but not Olympus and not Zimri.

  Later, he didn’t know how much later, they stopped. Sweat poured off him and he wheezed like a dying ancient.

  “We lost them,” Obed said, who squatted against a tree.

  Thebes grunted. He lay sprawled on the pine needles.

  “We’ve got to keep moving,” Obed said. “They might track us.”

  Minos’s thoughts reeled. He’d never be able to move again.

  “Where are your weapons?” Obed asked.

  Minos’s teeth rattled as someone shook him.

  “I said, ‘Where are your weapons?’”

  “He must have dropped them,” Thebes said.

  Minos realized they were talking about him, talking to him. He flexed his hands. Empty. They were devoid of dagger, spear or bow. Then he groaned as they pulled him upright, and they continued to trek out of Magog’s wretched valley.

  14.

  The weeks passed. In Babel, the last of the pine rafts that floated down from the north were broken apart. Half of them were chopped into pieces, fired in clay domes and baked into charcoal. The rest were bartered for sheep, pigs, leather, beer, barley and such. The Hunters and the twenty young men who had joined them pitched in to strengthen the canals, dams and levees. Then the spring flood arrived, and the Euphrates rose dangerously fast.

  No word had come from the seven, from Gilgamesh, Enlil, Zimri and Obed and from Minos, Thebes and Olympus.

  “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation why they’ve been delayed,” Rahab told Opis. They had paused in Babel’s main thoroughfare, a long street that led to the wharves on one end and the beginning of the Tower on the other. Between the two extremes stood mud-brick houses, some of them one story and square, a few two stories and rectangular and many of them small huts. The huts held smithies, or were grain storage buildings or held leather goods. A few had been built extra thick for storing vegetables, beer and wine.

  Small Opis had wound a rag on top of her pretty head and balanced a jar of river water. Rahab had taken several great-great grandchildren for a walk. They surrounded her, with the two youngest holding her hands.

  “I’m worried,” admitted Opis. “I’m sick with the thought of Gilgamesh lying dead on some strange plain. Oh, Great Grandmother, I lie awake at nights wondering what could have happened to him.”

  “Child,” Rahab said. “You mustn’t let your imagination run away with you. Nimrod isn’t worried. ‘What can happen to seven Hunters?’ he said.”

  “What about a dragon?” Opis whispered.

  “They’re all young men,” Rahab said. “All fleet of foot.”

  “Yes,” Opis said, “but would they flee from a dragon or try to slay it and die trying?”

  Rahab shook her head. “You’re upsetting yourself with these useless speculations. They’re seven skilled Hunters. I suspect they simply chopped down too many trees and the rising river caught them by surprise. Now they’re waiting for the Euphrates to quit raging, as it is will in several weeks, and then they’ll float to us in another armada of rafts.”

  With the tall water jar on her head, balanced by her perfect posture and a small white hand on the left side of it, Opis asked, “What if they tried to ride the floodwaters and they all drowned?”

  “Opis, that’s a terrible thought. My advice to you is to engage yourself with your chores and have patience. These speculations are fruitless, a waste of your time.”

  “Yes, Great Grandmother.”

  “And pray. That always helps me.”

  Opis had to steady the water jar, for it seemed she tried to shake her head. Once she had the jar balanced again, she said, “I don’t like praying to the angel.”

  Rahab glanced about and then lowered her voice, the two small girls holding her hands leaning forward with her. “If you want the truth, my dear, neither do I. But I didn’t mean for you to pray to him. Pray to Jehovah.”

  A weak smile crept upon Opis’s lips. “Yes. Thank you, Great Grandmother. That’s good advice.” And with her perfect posture, small, dark-haired Opis hurried home.

  15.

  With the flood season in full swing, work on the Tower ceased as everyone labored to keep the canal system intact. The river kept rising: three feet from topping the bank, two feet and then one. Downstream from Babel, portions of the plain were submerged. Ten leagues upstream, the Euphrates ran riot, once again creating shallow seas and reed-fringed lagoons. Yet the levees, dams and canals in and around Babel held and controlled the local flooding.

  Then a new disaster struck. Unsuspecting, unforeseen and forbidding, it rocked the city and plunged many into despair. As surprising as lightning falling from a cloudless sky, one, two, three homes fell victim to a new and strange disease. A man died, as did his wife and daughter. Panic threatened as some people said the city had been cursed. Jehovah surely disapproved of the Tower. No, said others. The angel is angered because work has halted on the Tower. We must appease him. Then a baby died.

  In their fear, some of the people rushed to Kush. “You must pray for us,” they cried. “Sacrifice whatever you have to. Appease the angel. Just don’t let us die.”

  Kush privately told Deborah, “I don’t think the angel did this.”

  “Does that matter?” Deborah asked.

  “Of course it matters,” Kush said. “Why would he curse us?”

  “You’re missing the point. The people have rushed to you because you pray to the angel. You’re the spiritual leader of Babel. What’s more, you marshal the teams that repair the canals. If you can check this sickness by praying to the angel, then no one will ever be able to challenge your authority.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Kush asked. “I don’t think the angel plagued us. So how I can a pray to him and have him lift something he didn’t do?”

  Deborah explained it patiently. “It doesn’t matter if he plagued us. It matters what the people think. If you pray and the sickness leaves, they’ll attribute it to your priesthood. That’s providing, of course, you make a great enough show of it.”

  Kush scowled. “The angel isn’t a fraud.”

  “Of course not.”

  “So it seems unwise to build the people’s trust with a lie.”

  Deborah laughed. “Husband, is this angel really a messenger from Jehovah?”

  He scowled.

  “Pray to the angel,” she said. “Make a spectacle of piety.”

  “And if the sickness doesn’t leave?”

  “Then pray harder. Say that not all of us have abased ourselves properly. A good priest always has a ready answer.”

  Kush deliberated with himself, and the next day, with Nimrod’s help, he rounded up cattle, sheep and pigs from the various families.

  Meanwhile, Ham prowled the city’s shadowed lanes, pondering, thinking and then observing the stages of the sickness.

  The man that had died, Seth, an older cousin of Opis, had simply complained one morning of a severe headache and had redness of the eyes. The following days he had inflammation of the tongue and pharynx, accompanied by sneezing, hoarseness and a cough. Soon thereafter, stomach cramps preceded vomiting, diarrhea and excessive thirst. Finally, delirium had caused him to rave. On the seventh day of the sickness, Seth had
perished. His wife had died on the ninth day. Others who contracted the disease and survived the acute stages suffered from extreme weakness and continued diarrhea that yielded to no treatment. At the height of the fever, Ham noted, the body became covered with reddish spots, some of which ulcerated. It was a wretched, disgusting and bad-smelling sickness.

  Ham also noticed a vast increase in the number of rats. The vermin stole stored wheat and barley and multiplied at an astonishing rate. He pondered the implications of that. With a cloth over his mouth, he opened the guestroom door of his house.

  “Do you remember our initial plagues?” he asked his wife.

  Rahab wore a headband and had her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She soaked a cloth in a clay basin, squeezing it with her old, wrinkled fingers, using the cloth to bathe the sweaty, pimpled face of young Abel, a seven-year-old orphan, his parents already slaughtered by this dreadful spotted fever.

  Even with the cloth over his mouth, Ham was afraid to enter where Rahab sat on a stool. He feared breathing the exhalation of the moaning, feverish lad. He feared contracting the dreaded sickness, and he marveled at his wife’s compassion.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “The fifth or seventh year after the Flood,” he said, his voice muffled by the cloth. “Remember when rats, mice and rabbits exploded onto our fields.”

  “I remember,” she said, mopping the boy’s pained features, his eyes glazed as if he didn’t know where he was. He kept whispering for his dead mother.

  “We have rats in Babel, and in the same numbers as back then,” Ham said.

  Rahab paused, before taking the cloth and soaking it in the basin. “I have noticed an increase in vermin. Is it important?”

  “Remember years ago. Oh, ten years before the Flood?” Ham asked. “It happened in Thule, they said.”

  “Thule?”

  “An island city in the Commorion Sea.”