People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“What did you call it?”
    “ A leviathan,” Ham said, “a monster of the sea.” Ham scratched at his beard. “We probably ate its eggs. I suggest we drag the Odyssey higher ashore.”
    “ Do you think it will hump onto the beach and destroy our ship?” Nimrod asked.
    “ Why take the chance?” Ham asked.
    Nimrod grinned . “Let’s bait it. The leviathan will be easier to kill while floundering on its belly than if we meet it at sea.”
    “ Even better,” Ham said, “is if we avoid it altogether.”
    The others agreed.
    Once the boat was secure, they spent the rest of the day watching the sea. Neither that day nor the next did the leviathan reappear.
    “ We should risk launching for home,” Ham said. “If it takes as long returning as it did getting here, we’ll have been gone a month. More than that, and your mothers will start getting worried.”
    “ Let’s watch one more day,” a nervous Enlil said. “Just to make certain it’s safe.”
    “ And make ourselves even sicker with fear?” Ham asked. “No. We should leave now.”
    Nimrod agreed.
    So the wary crew loaded up, pushed the boat into the cool waters and scanned the deeps as they rowed past the surf. Nimrod stood with Ham on the deck between the outriggers. Both held bows, with arrows notched, scanning the placid waters.
    “ Just like old times,” Nimrod whispered, “when we faced the dragon.”
    The sea remained calm as they hoisted sail.
    “Rest oars,” Ham said.
    The sail billowed with a snap and they glided, the twin hulls thumping across the water. Everyone gripped javelins or bows, silent, waiting, terrified. A quarter of a league from shore and there was still no sign of the leviathan.
    “ It must have left the area,” Uruk said.
    The crew began to relax . Later, on the mainland shore, the men whooped as they drew onto a lonely beach.
    “ We made it,” Anu said.
    “ Thank the angel Bel,” Nimrod said.
    Ham frowned . “It’s Jehovah I thank.”
    The next day , spirits improved, although the wind blew the wrong way. By oar-power alone, they crawled along the ocher shore.
    “ At this rate it may take more than two weeks to get back to Babel,” Ham told Nimrod.
    They floated several leagues away from a stony beach. The rowers rested, exhausted.
    Anu was at the prow, opening a watertight compartment, taking out a clay jar . Ham turned that way, and his eyes grew wide as he began to tremble.
    Out of the sea appeared that wicked, wedge-shaped head with teeth like a dragon . The water-dripping head rose higher and higher. Attached to the head was a long, sinuous neck. Ham tried to work his frozen mouth.
    As the shadow fell across him, Anu looked up.
    A man bellowed, “Leviathan!”
    The creature hissed.
    “Duck, Anu!” Ham roared.
    Teeth, numberless teeth swung down and bit onto Anu ’s shoulder with a sickening crunch. Anu screamed and thrashed. The leviathan lifted him off the boat.
    “ Shoot it! It has Anu!”
    An arrow sank into the beast ’s rubbery side.
    Ham swiveled his head as if in slow motion . Nimrod stood in the other dugout, drawing a second arrow out of his case. While everyone else stood frozen, the Mighty Hunter fitted the arrow to the string. The leviathan hissed with its teeth yet clamped to Anu’s shoulder. The youth flailed for his dagger. Another arrow flashed, this one sinking into the monster’s long neck. The leviathan recoiled and dove with Anu still clenched between its teeth. The massive main body followed. The waters stirred and then grew strangely calm.
    Others now picked up their bows and shouted Anu ’s name.
    Ham rushed to the side and peered into the murky depths.
    They never saw Anu again, nor did the leviathan return. Weeks later, they docked at Babel, bearing a sad tale.
    Nimrod ’s fame, however, grew.
    And Gilgamesh, alone at last, drew the pouch from under his tunic, opening the sinews and pulling out the cloth . This he unfolded carefully, revealing three ordinary and worthless