Read Online People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) by Vaughn Heppner - Free Book Online

ostentation of this most primitive kind. Warriors you are, indeed. Your naked bloodlust proves it.”
    Chin cleared his throat.
    “You wish to challenge my assertion?” Japheth asked.
    “ No, Lord Japheth,” Chin said. “You asked for news of Nimrod. This might intrigue you, I warrant. He drove off a leviathan.”
    Japheth glanced at several of his grandsons . They wore thick woolen garments and hefted red-colored shields. Each had tattooed swirls of blue woad on either his forehead or cheeks and held onto copper or flint-tipped spears. They had red or blond hair tied in ponytails and wore leather caps with earflaps.
    “ You’re right,” Japheth said. “I’m interested. We occasionally sail on Lake Van. But a leviathan…such creatures live in the oceans. Has Nimrod built another Ark?”
    “ I don’t think so,” Chin said. “Ham fashioned a-a—”
    “ Ah-ha!” Japheth cried. “I knew Ham lied to us during the Deluge. He pretended to abhor the waters, when in actuality they fascinated him. I warrant that Ham sailed with Nimrod.”
    “ That is true,” Chin said.
    “ And during the journey, they found this leviathan?” Japheth asked.
    “ Yes,” Chin said.
    “ Did Nimrod slay it?”
    “ No, Lord,” Chin said. “But after it slew a Hunter, Anu the Light-Hearted, I believe, Nimrod wounded the leviathan and drove it off.”
    “ I find that impressive,” Japheth said. “Don’t you also find that impressive, Beor?”
    “ The lad’s a skilled hunter,” Beor said. “I’ve always said so.”
    “ He’s the Dragon Slayer, they say,” Japheth said.
    Beor turned away.
    Japheth winked at Chin, smiled at Hilda and then, with his grandsons, took his leave, heading back to the village in the distance.
    On their return journey to Javan Village, Chin asked Beor, “Do you never wonder about the curse?”
    Hilda drove the four donkeys pulling the chariot . The small beasts blew white mist from their nostrils and occasionally glanced back at her. They plodded through a narrow pass, with high mountain walls on either side of them.
    Beor took his time answering . “It’s in the back of my mind, of course. And, if you’re like me, whenever I speak with Lord Japheth, I think about it more than otherwise. When I first arrived, I thought about it so much that I journeyed to Mount Ararat.”
    “ Only to the range’s northern slopes,” Hilda said. “You never did trek up the mountains to show me the Ark.”
    “ Yes, I stand corrected,” Beor said with a smile. “The point is that I spoke with Noah, and one night I asked him about the curse. I wanted to know if I was in danger, living in Japheth Land.”
    “ What did Noah say?” Chin asked.
    “ Noah said that only Jehovah knows. Yet he said that often the curses of Jehovah are long in coming, with many opportunities for repentance.”
    “ Can the curse be avoided then?” Chin asked.
    “ I wondered the same thing,” Beor said, “and I Noah asked that. The ancient patriarch shook his head.”
    “ Javan won’t enslave us,” Hilda said.
    “ Not outright, anyway,” Beor said.
    “ You don’t trust Javan?” asked Chin.
    “ Out of everyone in Japheth Land,” Beor said, “who bargained with you the most sharply?”
    “ That’s easy,” Chin said. “Javan did.”
    “ Yes,” Beor said. “Javan.”
    For a time they traveled in silence, until Chin glanced sidelong at Beor.
    Hilda caught it, and she waited for the question plain on Chin’s face.
    Chin asked, “Why do you live in Javan Village? It seems there are…nicer people in some of the other villages.”
    Beor shrugged . “One place in Japheth Land is as good as any.”
    As the donkeys plodded through the snow and worked their way down into a pine forest, Hilda pursed her lips. She could have told Chin the reason why. Deep in his heart, almost locked away from himself, her father still loved Semiramis. Hilda knew it from the hidden things he did. There was a copper locket with a long strand