People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) by Vaughn Heppner

Author:Vaughn Heppner [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-06-10T22:00:00+00:00

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.

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