People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4) Read Free

dragged it all the way onto the island. Releasing it, they stumbled into a small hut, one woven from reeds. Gilgamesh was laughing and crying all at once. He picked up an ivory comb, a chip in it that he recognized.
    “ Where is she?” Ramses shouted.
    Terrible fear, like a spear into the guts, chilled Gilgamesh with the realization that she wasn ’t here. The hut was empty. Had the crocodile eaten her? “Opis!” Gilgamesh screamed. “Opis, Opis, Opis!”
    Ramses grabbed him . “She’s all right. She’s all right.”
    “ Where is she?”
    “ We’ll wait for her,” Ramses shouted. “We’ll wait until the storm passes. It’s madness to go on.”
    So they crouched, waiting, the wind , rain and thunder hammering the hut as they wondered what had happened to Opis.
     

4.
     
    Hilda noticed that the closer they came to the northern slopes of Ararat, the better Noah became. Her father, on the other hand, worsened.
    At every stop , Beor sat as sweat beaded his face. She saw him massaging his stump. When she asked him if it hurt, he denied it, as if the question was ridiculous.
    She wondered what it must have been like being the tribe ’s greatest hunter, a strong, proud, tough man, and then becoming hideously maimed. No one would have blamed Beor if had taken up a stationary role, that of a bronze smith or a tanner. He was a bronze smith, of course; perhaps the world’s best. Who else had armor like her father? But he only worked in the smithy to make weapons, tools and armor for his warrior tasks. It seemed insane for a peg-legged man to hope to be a great warrior. To attempt it took an unwavering will. That he had become a master archer was incredible. That men feared to face him weapon to weapon was a marvel, and that with his chariot he traveled over broader distances than hunters with two legs was almost a paradox. Yet…was an inflamed stump a symptom? Had his will received a blow that not even her father could endure?
    Silence became his fortress . He refused to ask anyone for help.
    Noah grew more powerful as they neared Ararat. Once they reached his farm, the difference became dramatic. A few weeks of culling snow-damaged vines, checking up on his flocks and re-training his hounds cured Noah’s cough. It saw the end of his fever and the return of his vigor. The patriarch of humanity, nearly seven hundred years old now, worked like a man of thirty. It baffled Hilda, and that bafflement replaced her grief.
    She no longer slept all the time or aimlessly wandered through snowy fields, weeping. She helped around the house, made candles, churned butter, dusted, carded and spun wool and crushed flowers, soaking the perfume into animal fat and then making it into ointment. Her father also helped Noah. Despite the inflammation of his stump, Beor worked tirelessly in the smithy. He chopped down trees, spitting them into rails. Then he dug postholes, crisscrossing the wooden rails between posts to make a fence or he hammered rocks, building small corrals for sheep.
    The weeks passed . Yorba and two others, with their wives and young ones, arrived with several oxcarts. They were all that was left of the Scouts. They too worked on Noah’s farm. They too seemed to be in limbo like her father.
    One day , Hilda took a break. She thought about the amber necklace. It had become a locus for so much evil, but she couldn’t quite bear to throw it away. She showed it to Noah.
    They sat on the porch, on rocking chairs with blankets covering their knees . On the steps, several bundled children played with kittens. The icy mountains of Ararat provided background.
    Noah turned the necklace over in his big hands. The fly caught in the middle bead seemed to capture his attention. His blue eyes took on a faraway look and he handed the necklace back.
    “ Ham outdid himself,” Noah said. “It’s marvelous.”
    Hilda remembered the day that Chin , the son of Zidon, had given her the package.
    “ Put it on,” Noah