People of the Ark (Ark Chronicles 1) Page 7

  “I’ll help you slip outside unseen,” Methuselah said. “Then you must run to Noah and warn him.”

  “We’ll still need help against Ymir.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But I can promise nothing.”

  “But you’re the patriarch. The others have to listen to you.”

  “If you haven’t noticed by now, Ham, most people only do what they want to. Disobedience to parents and authority has become rampant.”

  “Then Noah and the Ark are doomed,” Ham said.

  “If you think that, you don’t know your father.”

  That was just it. Ham wasn’t thinking about Noah. He wanted Naamah for a wife. And he had no idea how he could slay the Nephilim in order to get her.

  8.

  From the Methuselah Clan Compound to Noah’s Keep rolling hills and wide swaths of oats, millet and barley fields sloped gently, imperceptibly toward the south. A long way north and out of sight, a chain of low mountains cut the rich plain from the great northern cities. Forests rimmed the horizon to the east, while south and far from view meandered the slow Sacar River. It was the same river where Ham had met Naamah, although by then the river already angled southeast.

  As Ham trudged along the red brick road, he passed countless stone and wooden fences separating fields. His father owned everything in sight. Some of the enclosures were pastures where sheep grazed. In others, cattle lowed or donkeys brayed. Orchards also dotted the landscape, apple, pear, apricot and plum. Soon the Ark and then the Keep with its wooden palisade and bronze-hinged gate crept onto the horizon and then dominated the view.

  Ham’s stomach churned as he approached the gate. Although the walls had been built from thick trees, they lacked the sheer power and strength of the Methuselah Clan Compound’s walls, which had been raised long ago out of blocks of stone. Fewer people lived here than there, with fewer armed men.

  Were they enough to stop a giant?

  Noah and Japheth had trained huge shaggy hounds to help make up for the lack of armed guards. One of those now poked its snout through the open gate and barked at Ham.

  It surprised Ham the gate was open, if only barely. He hadn’t noticed until now. He scanned the top of the wall, where the set-in trees had their tops lopped into crude points. Parapets had been built—walkways for guards.

  Why didn’t anyone patrol them?

  Two new hounds followed the first. Stiff-legged, with raised hackles and bared fangs they challenged him, a formidable trio. Ham whistled, calling the dogs by name. The big brutes rushed him, wagging their tails, pressing their blunt heads against his legs. As he petted them, Ham continued to study the wall. The commotion should have alerted those on watch. Frowning, ordering the hounds to heel, he picked up a rock and slipped through the gate.

  Milk cows lowed from one of the barns, there were three such, long, low-built sheds. Sheep bleated from pens, sounding hungry and eager to pasture. He clutched his rock, and the hounds, perhaps sensing his mood, became alert, poised.

  Why did no one scurry about doing chores? Why was the yard empty?

  The house, a two-story fortress with a foundation of stone and dark, gopher-wood walls, dominated the inner area. Smoke curled from the chimney and everything looked peaceful.

  The front door opened. His mother stepped onto the porch. She wore a shawl and apron, wiping her hands. Her iron-colored eyes widened. “Ham!” In six long strides, she crushed him in a hug. Behind followed little Rahab, an undersized orphan girl of fourteen. As usual, Rahab only darted a glance at him and then looked down at her feet.

  “Where have you been?” Gaea asked.

  Ham mumbled a lame excuse as she led him into the house. Rahab smiled shyly and said she was glad he was safe. When he smiled tiredly at that she blushed and refused to look up again.

  They sat at the kitchen table, his mother fussing over him, asking if he was hungry, setting buttered bread before him. She turned to Rahab. “Run, child, tell Noah Ham is back. Take two of the hounds and a torch.”

  Hiking up her skirt, Rahab hurried from the kitchen.

  Gaea’s mouth straightened and she put a firm hand on Ham. He wilted under her scrutiny.

  “Your father, brothers and all the farmhands are scouring the countryside for you.”

  Ham blurted out the story of Ymir. Faster than Methuselah had, his mother wanted to know how he had possibly become privy to a giant’s plans. He told her about Naamah.

  “I see,” she said, looking more knowledgeable than he liked.

  So he shut his mouth, soon mumbling that it had been a trying day and that he was weary.

  She eyed him before nodding. “We’ll talk about this later. Go. Get some sleep.”

  9.

  Rahab ran lithely through the fields. She held a torch, which crackled and danced on the ball of hardened resin. Beside her loped two brutish hounds. She kept her eyes peeled in the darkness. It seemed she had been running her entire life.

  With one nut-brown hand she held up her skirt, to keep her thin legs free. She panted and shouted Noah’s name. Oh where could he be? She looked around with dread. The night was a terrible place.

  Run, Rahab, run. She hated the dark. She feared running. Lions, dire wolves and impossibly fast orns reacted to fleeing prey. They bayed at your heels. They screeched moments before leaping onto your back and bearing you to the ground. She had never told anyone the truth, why she was an orphan. All that the household of Noah knew was that one day she had appeared before the Keep, wary, dirty-faced and starving, a ten-year-old wanderer. Gaea had fed her and insisted she stay. Rahab hadn’t intended staying.

  Oh no.

  Never stay long in one place had become her creed. Friendliness, she had learned, only hid lurking, wretched passions, terrible crimes foisted upon the weak. Her father had been a brutal man, made worse by drink. He had beaten her, beaten her mother and he had beaten the in-laws where he lived. One night father had roared most foully, kicking open the door, staggering in with the stench of wine. For no apparent reason he had begun to pummel his wife, Rahab’s poor mother. Her mother’s father had rushed in, shouting, wielding a cudgel.

  Even as Rahab ran through a wheat field, with Noah’s hounds beside her, she shivered at the awful memory.

  Her drunken father had laughed, exposing horse-sized teeth. He had snatched the cudgel out of her grandfather’s palsied grip and in three swift blows had ended her grandfather’s life forever. Then he had beaten his wife to death and whirled, turning blazing eyes of wickedness upon her.

  Rahab had fled. Rahab had run out the house and with her father on her heels, she had fled the village. Into the night she had raced—a thin eight-year-old with tears streaming down her cheeks. She had joined a caravan later, a wandering band of singers, poets and actors. They had all laughed, joked and seemed as carefree as the birds of the air. What a sham, what a façade that had been.

  Evil, lonely, frightened people, the poets, singers and actors had hidden monstrous desires and sick passions. She had witnessed much in the dark, having learned from her father to creep into hiding each night, not to let anyone find her. What she had seen bewildered her and it had at last caused her to flee the night of the raid. Terrible men with swords had fallen upon the caravan. Into the night she had run, lucky enough to have escaped the perversions and the raiders, but unfortunate in that she had no water, food or even a shekel.

  Rahab had slunk through the land like a mouse, slithering up fruit trees to eat and darting near streams to lap water like a frightened deer. Months passed. A frail girl to start with, she had become gaunt. Until one day, she had risen from the grasses and walked to Noah’s wooden Keep. Her stomach had been sucked against her spine. She had been dizzy, disoriented and sick of it all. Too many nights she had seen lions feasting upon the unlucky. Shrieking hyenas nearly paralyzed her.

  Get up, go there, eat, drink, rest and then escape later.

  Only Gaea and Noah, Japheth and Europa, Shem and Ruth and… Ham… Rahab ha
d never met people like them. Others talked about the gods. These people followed a good god.

  Some nights Rahab cried herself to sleep, unable to believe such generosity.

  “Noah!” she shouted, running through the fields, remembering all too easily other nights, ones without protecting hounds loping beside her. She had surprised herself this evening, finally speaking directly with Ham.

  He had smiled at her.

  Rahab swallowed in a constricted throat. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize herself amongst them. If they really knew what kind of person she was, what her background had been like… they would shove her out the gate in disgust. But Ham… He was incredibly strong and handsome. She knew he was moody, that sometimes he acted impulsively. Yet there was something about him, something she could relate too. Only… her tongue twisted whenever he glanced at her. She was a fool to think a strong man like Ham, a son of righteous Noah, could ever look at her with anything approaching…

  Rahab shook her head. No, she wouldn’t even think it, even as she knew that a wise woman found herself a strong man. In some manner, she had to make Ham notice her, even if she was unworthy of him.

  One of the hounds barked. Rahab looked up in alarm. Torches bobbed in the distance. She ran toward the light. It had to be Noah. She hoped it was Noah. What if it wasn’t?

  It took only a moment’s thought. She thrust the torch into the dirt, killing it. Then she slowed, peering intently. There was no sense taking chances.

  A while later she heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Noah,” she shouted.

  The big man with the long white beard looked up, squinting into the darkness. Rahab ran into the torchlight and breathlessly gave him her message.

  10.

  Ham was startled out of sleep as his door banged open. In strode his father with a chair. Noah sat down while scratching his beard.

  “I shouldn’t have left,” Ham said, sitting up. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

  Noah starting speaking about obedience, how Jehovah blessed it and brought misery to those who rebelled. Then he spoke about the end of the world. Now wasn’t the time to lose faith. Soon the Ark would be finished and those who trusted Jehovah would be saved. Everyone else would perish.

  Ham apologized again and gave his father an edited version of Ymir, Naamah and their link with Kedorlaomer. “They’re coming to kill us, Father!”

  Noah pursed his lips, with his eyes taking on a far-away, dreamy look. He patted Ham on the shoulder. “You leave the giant to me, son. Your task will be to work hard on the Ark for the next seven years.”

  Ham swallowed a lump from his throat. “Don’t you think I’ll need a wife?”

  Noah smiled. “Of course.”

  Ham lifted his eyebrows.

  “Jehovah will provide,” his father said, rising, picking up the chair and leaving.

  Ham wondered if that was true. Then a wave of exhaustion swept over him. He lay back and drifted to sleep, dreaming about Naamah.

  1 1.

  Noah and Japheth left the next day on a tour for allies. Gaea ordered the gate barred and doubled the patrols on the walls. Europa’s sister arrived a day later and seemed dismayed when told the reason for all the militant activity.

  Ham escorted her around the Keep—Europa insisted and Gaea was unable to send him away with Rahab to the clan compound. The folk there grumbled against Ham, now that they knew the consequences of his laziness concerning ropes, cranes and Jubal’s death. Gaea’s suspicion concerning Ham and this river naiad were confirmed when Europa complained about his disinterest, his almost surly treatment of her sister.

  “He broods,” Europa said.

  They spoke on the veranda, Gaea snipping, pruning vines wound heavy around the posts supporting the porch’s wooden roof. She dropped the cuttings into a pot. Rahab, she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, swung a broom nearby, pretending not to eavesdrop on their conversation.

  Europa fanned herself, shooing flies, her gaze darting occasionally to the field hands on the parapets. Her sister slept within, while Ham led men in a sweep through the pastures, checking livestock. Europa had taken to wearing a dagger with a silver handle, matching her white dress and the white netting that bound her hair. She had related earlier stories about her father’s demise, how several of her brothers had cut their way to freedom, saving her at the cost to two of them. Because they had been armed at the time of the invasion they had staved off certain tragedy for her, the reason for her dagger today. It made her seem even more like an amazon, a queen of warrior women.

  Gaea dropped another cutting, sifting around the post, searching the thick vine, her pruning sheers in her left hand.

  “I understand his remorse,” Europa said, concerning Ham. “Yet…”

  Gaea paused, glancing at her daughter-in-law.

  “He made some strange remarks to my sister.”

  “Oh?” Gaea asked.

  Europa’s fan flicked faster. “She spoke to him of the future—I think your warning concerning the world’s fate penetrated my sister’s normal absorption with matrimony. It’s so hard to make any of my sisters or brothers understand their peril.”

  Gaea understood that Europa also found it difficult to believe that doom indescribable awaited them. Yet because she was Japheth’s wife and the daughter-in-law of ‘mad’ Noah, she felt honor-bound to uphold the family commitment.

  “What did Ham say?” Gaea asked.

  “My sister made a few oblique comments concerning…well, marriage.”

  “Ah,” Gaea said. She marveled how obedient each of her siblings was to Europa. Gaea knew that each time before Europa had coached her sisters on how to ‘approach’ Ham, how to hint and dally and try to captivate him.

  “‘His eyes lit like fire,’ my sister said. And he asked her for advice.”

  “What kind of advice?” Gaea asked.

  “How to keep your heart from exploding. How to wait for the right opportunity when all you want to do is grab a sword and win your wife through force of arms.”

  Gaea noticed that Rahab had stopped sweeping. That the small dear bit her lower lip and eased nearer.

  “Perhaps he jested with your sister,” Gaea said.

  Europa folded her fan, with her beautiful features filled with thoughtful musing. “My sister is astute for one so young. She said he spoke from passion, from an inner heat.” The fan snapped out again as Europa swished at a fly. “Now, Mother, you know that I never stick my nose into other people’s affairs.”

  Gaea raised her eyebrows.

  “But I think something peculiar has occurred to Ham. He has taken some flight of fancy, some strange fixation on a woman he barely knows, that he met when he ran away.”

  “I think you’re right,” Gaea said.

  “Perhaps you should have a word with him,” Europa said. “Here is a golden opportunity for a fine young woman and he misses it because of a passing flirtation.”

  “Do you think your sister is the right woman for him?”

  “Who else?” Europa asked.

  A look Gaea hadn’t seen before crossed little Rahab’s face. It caught her eye, caused her to glance at the young girl. It wasn’t stubbornness, although it might have been related to it. Perhaps it was resolve, or a decision to attempt something no matter the odds or the opposition. It so surprised Gaea that she stared, bemused, glad to see something in Rahab other than mere fright.

  Europa turned. The fan stilled. She frowned. Understanding narrowed her blue eyes. She glanced sharply at Gaea.

  Gaea blinked, and she smiled, insincerely, she was certain.

  Europa turned to regard Rahab again, who now swept vigorously, with surer strokes than earlier.

  “Humph,” Europa said, looking most amazon-like, as a warrior-woman about to engage in combat.

  The moment passed and the masks went back up. Europa smiled, all sweetness. Rahab swept busily, a maid absorbed with work, and Gaea looked on as a determined matron in charge of a fortr
ess on the eve of destruction.

  12.

  Clan Methuselah refused Noah any aid. The clan elders, the sons of Methuselah, voted down their father. One vindictive great-aunt told Noah, “This is the risk you took when you left the compound.” The city officials of Arad said Noah’s Keep was beyond their king’s jurisdiction, unless he wanted to bend the knee and incorporate his extensive holdings into the kingdom. Noah declined. Other nearby clans laughed when Noah laid down his plea. Several said Noah had brought this on himself by his lunacy.

  “We’re on our own,” Japheth said on their return.

  “No,” Noah said. “I realize now that safety in man is futile. In a moment of weakness, I have sought aid in swords and horses rather than in the living Jehovah. It is time to pray.”

  As they waited for Ymir’s appearance, Noah ordered them back to work. They cut logs with axes, planed them into boards, lifted them with the crane and hammered more partitions into the Ark. Each day Ham debated slipping away and finding how close Ymir had come. Did Naamah lie awake at night thinking about him the way he did about her?

  Then passing merchants told horrid tales of a fierce Nephilim giant who carved a path of death and destruction through the riverside clans. The giant sailed in a fleet of flat-bottomed barges, docking at various clan wharves and disgorging a strange brew of warriors. They called themselves “the Choosers of the Slain” or “Slayers.” Big men with shaggy pants and hairy, barrel bodies, each wore a thick golden collar to signify that he had sold himself to Ymir, had become the Nephilim’s battle-slave. They fought under the Raven Banner, a black flag said to possess grim, supernatural powers. Before battle, they drained strong draughts of ale or mead and tied thick flaxen cords around their arms and legs. Wild warrior-maidens chanted to them, and a terrible frenzy overcame the Slayers. The men howled like beasts and in the skins of bears or wolves, they fell upon their foes. The frenzy was said to deliver them from wounds, and indeed when sword-cut or spear-stabbed they ignored it. The merchants said more than once a limb had been lopped off and yet the warriors continued fighting. The cleverness of the tightly wound cords then became evident, for with one tightening pull, they stanched the flow of blood so the man didn’t bleed to death. After battle and after the madness had left a warrior, the maidens tended to his wounds and hoped-for recovery.