Ark(17)

The day beyond the palace walls was hot and dry, leaching what little strength Japheth had left. The king’s guards had given him a severe beating, pummeling him with fists and spear-butts and kicking him with boots; several ribs were cracked, causing sharp lances of pain with every breath and every step. He shuffled slowly away from the palace clutching his side and wanting to do nothing so much as storm back into palace and take Aresia for himself. Sense won out, however—he knew he wouldn’t get past the gate alive, and that would do Aresia no good.

He had his small room, let to him by a kindly old man and his wife, candle-makers. He went there, step by dragging step, his thoughts on Aresia and her mysterious sacrifice. What had she done, and why? She was attracted to him, that much was obvious, but mere attraction couldn’t explain her actions. She had defied her father for him, had agreed to something she clearly feared more than death itself, all to save him from her father’s wrath; all this, and they barely knew each other.

Japheth had no answers, but the churning in his gut told him he wouldn’t like the answers even if he had them. All he could do now was go home and recover.

He was a warrior, and one of some reknown, even among the Nephilim, yet his life had been saved by a woman. A princess, to be sure, but still; her status was little comfort. Especially galling was the fact that he had no idea what she had agreed to in the name of preserving his life. Something horrible, something she feared down to her marrow. He could have done nothing to stop it, but he felt . . . emasculated. Worthless. His pain seemed a fitting price for his guilt.

His room overlooked the main street, giving him a clear view of traffic entering and exiting the city by the main gate. For three days he sat at the window and stared out, lost in thought, despondent and hurting. His landlord’s wife had brought him several meals he’d forced himself to eat. The food was tasteless to him, ash in his mouth. The wine had gone down much easier—too well. One wineskin had led to two, and after two his despair had seemed insurmountable, an endless river flowing through his heart, drowning him from within. A third skin had lessened the pang of sorrow, and a fourth left him slumped in a kind of drifting peacefulness, which he knew deep inside was false. He didn’t care. The forgetting was his goal, and to that end he continued to drink until he felt nothing at all.



A hand slapped him awake, shook him, jostled him, dragged him from his bed. He cracked an eye and saw a man standing over him, or was it three men? Japheth couldn’t tell and didn’t care. The spinning ceiling made his stomach lurch, and even with one eye closed he couldn’t make out the features of the person above him.

“Get your drunk carcass off the floor, you lazy worm.” The gravelly voice, however, was unmistakable: Zidan, mercenary warrior, and Japheth’s only friend. “You’ve been moping about in here for a month, mooning after that Nephilim princess like a lovesick boy. It’s time to move on. She was never meant for the likes of you.”

Japheth groaned, rubbed his eyes with his palms, struggled to sit up. “Go away, Zidan.”

Zidan’s fist collided with Japheth’s jaw, not a full blow, just enough to hurt. “Be a man, Japheth. You can’t keep feeling sorry for yourself. What’s done is done, and you can’t undo it.” He paused for effect. “Aresia is already in Larsa.”

That got Japheth’s attention. “Larsa? Why is she in Larsa?”

“You don’t know?” Zidan sighed. “Well, I guess you may as well hear it from me rather than another—Aresia was married to Sin-Iddim.”

Japheth reeled and fell back upon his bed. When he could speak again he said, “Sin-Iddim? Gods damn it all. Him? Of all the kings in Sumer, him?”

“Listen,” Zidan began, “I know how you feel about him, but—”

“No! You don’t know!” Japheth exploded, “You can’t know. You weren’t there, Zidan, remember? Gods damn it all! It was as if Ereshkigal himself had arisen from the underworld to devour us all. Sin-Iddim had been there in his chariot, commanding the forces from behind the battle lines. Never once did he get within a bow’s shot of the action but, by all the gods, his men chewed us up like gristle and spat us out. It wasn’t Emmen’s fault, I have to give him that, even much as I hate him, especially now. Our forces in the east were overrun, and suddenly, after hours of fighting, we were flanked—it was a slaughter. I remember the moment the Larsan warriors hit us. I heard the crash when the lines hit—you know the sound. Men meeting men, shield against shield, the screams of arms being crushed and legs getting snapped. Larsans, thousands of them, hitting us on the right flank, our weak side. That first clash took out hundreds, easily.”

Japheth paused, remembering, and accepted a skin of water from Zidan, swigging, swishing, and spitting to clear his mouth of the taste of dust coating his tongue.

“They didn’t kill us outright but captured us instead, at least a thousand of us. They marched us back to Larsa, tied neck to neck. Some they sold as slaves, others they kept and brought to the palace, and I was with the latter group. Sin-Iddim has a taste for torture, even worse than Emmen’s. Unlike our fair king, however, Sin-Iddim has the ability to keep them alive. Emmen gets greedy for the kill, so his victims never last long. Sin-Iddim? He’s patient and careful. And he likes boys as much as girls. He sodomized some of the male prisoners, right there in the throne room, in front of everyone.”