The Lod Saga (Lost Civilizations: 6) Read online

  Two guards dragged out an older man with welts across his face. The old man’s garments suggested—Lod realized it was the hetman of Lagash. The old man had been beaten. What was going on in this Kishite village?

  “Ah, my spies,” Naram-Sin declared loudly.

  Lod scowled. From behind, Mari cast him a questioning glance.

  The officers wore scarlet tunics, with gold-worked belts. Many wore gold rings or bronze wristlets. The majority of them were stout men, with thick limbs and curly blue-black beards. Like Naram-Sin, they had harsh features and usually the large nose of Assurite nobility. They were a confident group, officers used to giving orders and seeing soldiers rush to obey them. Most had fought several successful campaigns under Naram-Sin. Too many had painful scars, or pieces of missing flesh, or poorly mended bones as mementoes of an enemy’s axe or a whistling arrow that had snaked past an upraised shield. These officers knew how to form a shield wall and stand without flinching.

  Naram-Sin sat straighter than any of them did. His forearms were bulkier, his torso thicker and his manner more imperious. His purple-lined cloak was carelessly strewn over his shoulders, and his many costly rings glittered in the firelight.

  Naram-Sin clapped his hands.

  A stooped, gray-haired man appeared, bowing deeply.

  “Bring me my sack of coins,” Naram-Sin said.

  The stooped man retreated and hurried into another room.

  “I sent these two spies across the Hiddekel,” Naram-Sin told his officers. “By the look of that one’s face, it was rough going. Well, lads, speak up. Do those barbarian swine still leap over their night-fires or have they decided to slink home due to fear of us?”

  “We’re scouts,” Lod said.

  “Eh?” asked Naram-Sin, as he cocked a hairy eyebrow.

  “You called us spies,” said Lod. “We weren’t spies. We’re scouts.”

  Naram-Sin blinked, perhaps in astonishment. Then a scowl creased his heavy features. He glanced at his officers. Several of them gave Lod a speculative look. All had forgotten the mutton and jellied eel so they could listen to the white-haired one reprimand their notoriously touchy warlord.

  “Who is that girl hiding behind you?” Naram-Sin asked.

  “She is Mari, the brother of Amalaric,” said Lod.

  Naram-Sin asked, “Who?”

  “My father was Styr,” Mari said, “the former chieftain of the Dire Wolf Clan of the Zimri. He died this winter, and Jarn Shield-Breaker claimed the sword of Esus. Amalaric should have challenged him, but—”

  “Enough, woman!” Naram-Sin said, with a wave of his hand. “Who is this Amalaric everyone keeps talking about?”

  At Naram-Sin’s angry tone, Mari darted back behind Lod.

  Lod spoke up. “Amalaric was the chieftain’s son. He is likely the chieftain now, as Jarn Shield-Breaker is dead.”

  A cunning smile twisted Naram-Sin’s lips. “Ah, I understand. You purloined the new chieftain’s sister. Yes, that was clever.” He turned to his officers. “I have an eye for choice sell-swords, just as I have an eye for a good stud bull or a fiery chariot horse. Sometimes, it is allowable to give a sell-sword his head so he will apply his native talents. We have the chieftain’s sister, so now we can bargain from a position of strength.” Naram-Sin faced Lod. “You have done well, soldier. Ah.”

  The stooped, gray-haired attendant grunted as he hefted a sack onto the table. It clinked as it came to a rest, and coins pressed against the leather.

  With his thick fingers, Naram-Sin untied it. One-by-one, he extracted double-weight gold coins of Larak and piled them into a stack.

  Officers shifted on the benches. Hul wet his lips, his eyes gleaming as he watched.

  “The woman is mine,” Lod said.

  Naram-Sin looked up from his gold. “What did you say?”

  Several officers winced, maybe understanding the suddenly quiet and deadly way in which the warlord had spoken.

  Hul cast Lod a quick glance, and he stamped his foot, possibly as a signal.

  Lod ignored the officers. He ignored Hul and the menacing way the warlord studied him. “You bid us enter Zimri and discover their mood. The forest warriors wish to fight. Many have traveled far to attend their vile ritual before the evil tree.”

  “Tree?” Naram-Sin asked in a quiet voice.

  “The Zimrians strive among themselves,” Lod said, “each chieftain aspiring for the title of Great Chieftain. Once they settle upon a champion, they will boil across the Hiddekel. With fire and sword they will pillage a wide swath.” Lod turned, closed his hand around Mari’s arm and coaxed her beside him. “Their greatest warrior died in a foul manner. That one was of the blood of Esus, a First Born. So the Zimrians decided to whet the First Born’s appetite by hanging Mari in a so-called Esus Tree.”

  “What changed their mind?” Naram-Sin asked.

  “Elohim detests human sacrifice,” said Lod. “So Hul and I attacked and almost slew her brother Amalaric. We rescued her, racing from the profane tree and—”

  “What?” Naram-Sin shouted, as he banged his fist on the table. “You invaded their holy ground? You stole their sacrifice, and I presume you did all this on the night of the Blood Moon?”

  Tight-lipped, Lod nodded curtly.

  “How do you explain your bruised face?” Naram-Sin asked dangerously.

  Lod scowled, not liking the way the warlord addressed him.

  “He slew a son of Esus,” Hul said.

  “A son of their forest god?” asked Naram-Sin. “Are you mad to entice them to greater rage by such profane acts?”

  “It is not how it sounds,” Hul said. “The son was a beast—”

  “You blind, boorish fool!” Naram-Sin roared at Lod. “I told you to spy out the Zimrians, not to stir them into a frothing rage of religious frenzy.” The warlord was standing, his heavy chair banging against the wooden floor. “They’ll want their sacrifice back. And they’ll surely desire revenge for this slaying of one of the god’s sons. You fool!”

  Lod hunched his shoulders and flexed his hands. “More fool you, Naram-Sin,” he growled low in his throat. “They serve a High Born, giving him blood sacrifices. Such sacrifices entice Esus into working vile spells. Your best hope is to invade Zimri, destroy the evil tree and break any recent enchantments.”

  The warlord of Assur worked his lips in rage.

  Hul sidled away from Lod, while Mari dug her fingers in Lod’s tunic.

  “Guards!” roared the warlord.

  Sword-armed soldiers burst into the room.

  Naram-Sin pointed a trembling finger at Lod. “…Bind him with heavy chains and lock him in the deepest root cellar you can find. I haven’t decided yet how to deal with him. But no slave-born ruffian shall talk to Naram-Sin of Assur in such a manner. As for the woman—send her to Joab the Merchant for now. He has a bevy of slaves and knows how to keep one like her from running free. Make sure Joab understands that no one is to lay hands on her. She is mine, and she is a bargaining chip if it proves necessary.”

  Lod flexed his hands again, and the fire in his eyes—

  “No!” Hul said. He was quicker than Lod and the guards. He gripped Lod’s arm and whispered harshly in his ear, “They’ll kill you if you resist. Bide your time. Something might—”

  Guards shoved Hul so he staggered out of the way. They clamped onto Lod, while others prodded him with spears.

  “This way, dog,” the chief guardsman snarled.

  Struggling to contain his anger, Lod stumbled among them, deciding that Hul was right. He would bide his time.

  -11-

  Throughout the forest on the western edge of the Hiddekel River, axes thudded and Zimrians shouted. Warriors hewed trees. Mighty trunks crashed to the earth, shaking the forest floor. Others hacked off the countless branches, leaving the trunks bare. Men chanted in deep voices, dragging the trunks to the river’s shore. There, cunning warriors lashed the trunks, fashioning mighty rafts that could dare the raging river.


  Amalaric spoke in the deepest shadows with the chieftains. He wore a coat of mail, a horned helmet with a thick nasal guard and a silken scarf around his badly scarred throat. A heavy sword hung at his hip, and a bulky dire wolf cloak clad his shoulders. Stitches had closed the cheek wound and bear grease made it shiny. He longed for his missing teeth, and his tongue kept probing the wound. He longed for his lost sanity and for a halt to the terrible voice that spoke in his mind. Most of all, he desired freedom from the afterganger of Jarn Shield-Breaker.

  It stood at his back, a mobile but lifeless thing of brooding evil. During the day, the afterganger turned sluggish, as it presently was. At night, it moved with a wolf’s swiftness. The thing of cold flesh rested a hand on the hilt of the sword of Esus. It no doubt stared with dead eyes at the cowed chieftains.

  A great bull warrior had dared challenge Amalaric’s right to lead the horde last night. Before the others, the afterganger had silently drawn the famous sword. As a bonfire roared, two hissing strokes had ended the challenge. But not before the great bull warrior had sliced a hunk of dead flesh from the afterganger’s shoulder.

  With inspired wisdom, Amalaric had ordered an old woman of Bones to sew the hunk back onto the afterganger. What had seemed inspired last night caused Amalaric to twist his nose at the rotted stench this morning.

  The re-sewn flesh stank. But Amalaric lacked the courage to rip it off the afterganger. Instead, he endured, as the gathered chieftains endured.

  “There is a host from Assur across the river,” a chieftain said.

  Amalaric had heard many terrible stories about the dreaded spearmen of Assur, how they advanced in an ordered phalanx, a thousand men marching as one. Their bronze-shod feet made the earth shake, and the unified sound shattered a warrior’s courage. The spearmen of Assur always crushed those who opposed them.

  The chieftains watched him, waiting for his answer.

  Amalaric moistened his lips, and he flinched as the afterganger set a hand upon his shoulder. The thing squeezed with unconquerable strength.

  The Assurite host is two days march from the river. The warriors can cross safely.

  Amalaric wondered how the afterganger knew that. Then he spoke quickly, as the afterganger impatiently tightened its painful grip. Amalaric spoke in a strangled voice, his larynx damaged from the ordeal on the Esus Tree several days ago.

  When Amalaric was finished, the same chieftain asked, “You mean cross today?”

  “Yes,” Amalaric said hoarsely.

  “And then?”

  Red ruin through the hovels of the living. Butcher everything. Kill, and devour. Destroy, and shout the name of Esus. Burn the name of the warriors of Zimri like an angry brand into the flesh of human memory.

  “We shall sweep all before us,” Amalaric whispered.

  “These are Esus’s words?”

  “We shall tread them into submission and caress the soft flesh of their daughters and wives,” Amalaric whispered. “Their sons will be our slaves. Their storehouses will glut us with meat and with maddening southern wines.”

  “What about the Assurite spearmen?”

  “Like a wave of the sea,” whispered Amalaric, “we shall swamp them in a howling rush.”

  “It will be that easy?” asked the chieftain, sounding as if he doubted.

  Amalaric hesitated.

  The afterganger’s fingers dug into his shoulder, grinding his bones.

  “Esus has given them into our hands,” Amalaric whispered. “All you must do is don the courage to take the mighty gift.”

  “At last,” breathed the chieftain. “We shall match the exploits of the heroes of old and make for ourselves a name that will blaze throughout eternity. Yes! Let us cross today.”

  The other chieftains muttered agreement, hurrying to tell their warriors.

  Amalaric remained in the deep shadows with the afterganger. How long would this nightmare continue? He touched his throat, remembering the brief time he’d spent dangling from the Esus Tree. Sometimes, he wondered if he had died at the end of that rope. Then the rotting stench of the afterganger’s shoulder reminded him that he was still all too much alive.

  -12-

  With a creak, the large wooden door of the root cellar swung open. Naram-Sin of Assur stood there in his bronze scale-mail and purple-lined cloak. Soldiers behind him bore torches. With a jingle of armor, the stout warlord strode down the earthen ramp and into the underground kingdom of carrots, beets, onions and peas. The vegetables lay in wooden bins, preserved by the chill.

  In the very back of the root cellar, Lod rested against the dirt wall. Heavy chains engulfed him, the ones normally used to tear tree stumps out of the ground. The slightest movement caused the chains to clink.

  The soldiers remained at the top of the ramp, their torchlight providing the only illumination.

  Naram-Sin halted before Lod, gazing down at him.

  Lod had endured captivity of this nature long before this. In his youth as rat bait, his hunter had chained him in a shed each night. The longer he’d remained chained down here in the dark, the more Lod had reverted to his old ways. He’d seldom spoken as rat bait. Instead, he had endured with animal-like stoicism, a thing, a caged beast, waiting for the day his captors made a mistake.

  Enswathed in heavy chains, Lod sat hunched against the dirt wall. He stared through a tangle of white hair, silent, enduring, unable to ask for mercy, seemingly at rest, but coiled with tension, ready to strike if the barest possibility presented itself.

  In the dimness of the cellar, Naram-Sin regarded him. Finally, perhaps unappreciative of Lod’s silence, the warlord kicked dirt onto him.

  “You’re a mulish, stubborn creature. You’re unreasoning and have more in common with a rabid cur than with a man. You snap and snarl, and before my officers, you dared tell me what I should do. I am the warlord. I am the noble of Assur. You’re nothing but a servile thing that never learned its manners.”

  Lod said nothing. He endured. He waited and watched.

  “Bah!” said Naram-Sin, showering more dirt onto Lod’s bent legs. “Because of you, the Zimrians have poured across the Hiddekel. They’re drunk with fury, slaying even the chickens, dogs and lambs of the farms they find, and nailing whatever poor fool falls into their hands to their barn doors.”

  The warlord wrapped his thick hand around his knife. “I should gut you for that. You poked a stick into a hornet’s nest. It’s probably too late to win peace by returning the sacrifice. But I’m taking her with me just the same.”

  There was no signal that Lod understood the warlord’s words. He stared through his tangle of hair, never moving a muscle, never twitching an eyelid or a cheek. But a fierce longing surged through him. He yearned for the warlord to take one step closer. He would kick the man’s feet out from under him and with a roar lift the chains and himself, and drop onto the warlord. Before the soldiers could run down the ramp, he would draw the warlord’s knife and slit Naram-Sin’s throat.

  The warlord released his dagger hilt and held his gauntleted palm toward Lod. “Rage billows from you like heat. It is a palpable thing. Yes, you are cunning. Tell me, what did you hope to achieve by stirring the Zimrians into this madness?”

  Lod remained silent like a statue.

  An angry smile twisted the warlord’s face. “My Kaldu hound me with strange oracles. It’s the only reason you still live. They say a demon has risen from the Earth. This demon leads the Zimrians. And with the rising of this one, a haunted air drifts through the land.” The warlord stroked his curly, blue-black beard. “For a fact, the men of Lagash have grown surly. My soldiers have even been forced to slay a few dozen of them so these ingrates might recall who submitted to whom. I had thought whipping the hetman would solve the trouble—”

  With an oath, Naram-Sin snatched a whip off his belt and began to lash Lod, hitting chains as much as flesh. Finally, the warlord stopped as he breathed heavily. “Foul wretch, you have no sense. I had thought to take you wit
h me. Perhaps you have learned some secret during your time across the river. But now I see that you’re just a dumb ox of a slave.”

  “…Unchain me,” Lod said in a low voice.

  “It speaks,” mocked Naram-Sin.

  “You will need every sword to defeat the Zimrians.”

  “Not by sword, but by cunning,” Naram-Sin boasted. “I will proffer them the chieftain’s sister. As they drag her back, possibly to sacrifice her, then I will unleash my marching wall of spearmen. Then the forest barbarians will learn what terror is.”

  Lod shivered with the desire to wrap his hands around the warlord’s throat. It was wrong to take Mari back to them.

  Naram-Sin nodded. “Maybe my Kaldu speak the truth. Maybe there is a haunting loose upon the land. So I will leave you here, you mad dog. On my return, I will judge your case and likely hang you for your folly. Think on that in the darkness as you hear the rats scurrying around you.”

  “The haunting has touched you,” Lod said. “It has touched your soldiers. You must call upon Elohim—”

  With a shing of steel, Naram-Sin drew his sword. “A chained slave shouldn’t seek to order anyone,” he said, thickly. “A condemned man is even more foolish to try.” The warlord made ready to lunge.

  Lod’s muscles coiled in readiness.

  With a sudden oath, Naram-Sin turned, sheathing his weapon. His cloak swirled, and he marched for the ramp and his waiting soldiers.

  Soon, the heavy wooden door of the root cellar banged shut, and Lod was thrown back into darkness.

  ***

  Lod endured the darkness. He listened to the rats, heard their gnawing incisors as they devoured what little food they fed him. The guards feared the look in his eyes too much to unchain him so he could eat.

  He pondered about what he had learned. A demon had arisen from the cold earth. Was that Esus or another of his beastly sons? No, he didn’t believe it.