The Flood by Jordy Martin

Author:Jordy Martin [Martin, Jordy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781735048260
Published: 2020-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

The Gaolers

“Whut you think wrongs wit dat one?” Hifru said pointing to their silent prisoner. “He hasn’t muttered a fuckin’ word since we crossed the Moon.”

“He might be fuckin’ dead,” chimed his twin Tifru.

“Nah,” Hifru took his macuahuitl and pressed the volcanic glass slightly into the prisoner’s chest, “He’s still bleedin,” he swatted through an incoming swarm of mosquitoes, “still breathin.”

“El Elyion must’ve cut his tongue out than.” Tifru said bumping the skiff into a waterlogged dock.

Hifru shuffled passed the rows of hooded prisoners securing the open skiff to a wooden cleat. Without cabin for shelter and not so much as a Bimini top to shield them from the near star, the joke of a boat was designed to make its inhabitants feel nature’s punishment.

“Let’s have a look at ‘em shall we,” Hifru snatched the hood off the prisoner’s head, “see what’s keeping his pussy licker so quiet.”

Arminius winced in the starlight.

His two jailors were the grunts of the Aztlántean navy, middle-aged goons who had never risen in rank.

Simpleminded fools, but dangerous nonetheless. Arminius could see that much, and he would’ve said so if it wasn’t for the gag tickling the back of his throat.

“El Elyion didn’t want dis one talkin’ that’s for sure. What’d you do, fuck one of Poseidon’s dolphins?” Tifru spilled over in laughter.

“Good one Tifru!”

“Thanks Hifru! I thought so too.”

“Why have you two moppets stopped us?” A thick voice like the trunk of an oak came muffled from under his maize sack.

Tifru balanced across the deck whacking the big oaf with the blunt edge of his blade so hard it nearly broke the chain plate tethering the prisoner to the deck. “I wish they’d have put a gag in this one’s mouth, eh, you big fucking ox! Speak out again and I’ll slide this blade down your big fucking throat.”

The spear fisherman glanced around seeing the heads of at least twenty convicts sheathed, chained, and sky-clad. The skiff was tied up to a sinking slab of what once had been a dock to a massive harbor. He recognized a bleached sign from a hitching post carved with an ancient name.

Tamoanchan. Arminius recalled it had been the founding city of Aztlán’s forefathers. Constructed at the base of the ever-eroding delta of the River of Fish, it was clear as the featureless blue sky that two thousand years of rising seas and warming weather had drastically changed the coastal plain. The leftover ruins of the once thriving bank were now a ghostly memory of the Age of Ice.

Arminius tested the shackles binding his wrists and ankles. He went wild, and a whip cracked above him.

“This one will make a good miner,” reckoned Hifru. “Strong willed, now that he’s woken up.”

I won’t! Arminius grunted. I’d rather die than go back to being; he couldn’t bring himself to think the word.

“Cover ‘em up, eh?” Hifru said to Tifru. “They wear hoods for a reason, and I don’t wanna piss the El off.”

“Right,” Tifru shoved the fisherman back into blindness. “Last thing I need is to have ‘em sending me to Beringia.

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