Calloused fingers squeezed his shoulder. “Look at the size of you, and with muscles like brass. Who ever heard of bait like you? Gershon was right to fear his bait-boy.” The hunter struck his own chest. “But I know how to handle bait big or small, submissive or defiant. See that fat black bastard preening his claws. It’s surely a double-weight catch, well over one hundred pounds of vicious canal rat.”

  Lod choked down his hatred. “Master,” he said, “I need free hands in order to play dead. My movements now will be too jerky and I will not be convincing.”

  “You’ll play dead or I’ll make you dead, boy.”

  Lod nodded. For years, he had survived the canals, longer than any bait, first as a boy weeping himself to sleep—but with a stubborn core just the same. Then he had become a soulless youth, with every soft emotion beaten out of him. Finally, he had become a legendry animal, a thing of rat hunter lore spoken of in the lowest taverns.

  Until a week ago. A week ago the visions began: dreams with fire, blood and the breaking of teeth. The visions seared him, filling his warped soul until he yearned to howl and gnash his teeth like a slavering beast. On the fourth night, lost words had returned to him, words he had learned at his father’s knee.

  His father had been a seer, although others had named his father a shepherd. Those remembered words taught Lod that…that Elohim sent visions. On the fifth night, with a fevered shine in his blue eyes, Lod had prophesied in the dark, in the locked shed where they penned him: “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!”

  As they drifted in the canal, the hunter bent low, whispering, “I’ve watched you, bait, swimming like an otter, escaping the rats time and again. You trust yourself. Today you’ll have to trust me, and the skill of my cast. Now into the brine with you, boy,” and with his bare foot, the hunter shoved Lod hard.

  Lod tumbled into the sewage-filled waters, the forty-foot leash attached to his collar and the brass ring in the gondola playing out like a fishing line. Water shot up his nostrils as he somersaulted into the depths and kicked, but not too hard. Exploding onto the surface fooled no rat.

  He soon bobbed up with his bloody back and slowly lifted his head, sipping air, watching through narrowed eyes.

  The great black rat, as big as a he-goat, had stopped preening its webbed claws. Its nose quivered and its whiskers twitched.

  From the side of the foggy canal came a splash. Lod knew the sound intimately. A sheep-sized rat had plunged in. Then came two more splashes. The giant black monster on the crates squealed a challenging cry, and then it, too, dove into the water.

  Lod had long ago divined the nature of canal rats: greedy, territorial and savage. They were not like sharks. Rats breathed air and not underwater. Just the same, a rat often submerged and occasionally made an attack from the depths. Most often, a rat surfaced, and if the body was a corpse, it devoured the meat as fast as possible. Against a living foe, though, even the giant canal rats might balk.

  The beasts were used to the weak, the perishing or the securely bound. Lod had learned early that bared teeth and raking fingers—fighting back, in other words—gave him the seconds he needed either to escape, or for the hunter’s trident to make its strike. That was only true against a lone rat. When the beasts swarmed, they became frenzied, not because their courage increased, but because in their greed they feared that others might gain the choicest morsel before they could.

  Four triangular heads arrowed straight for him, ears laid flat and sleek, furry bodies hidden in the waters. Beady rat eyes shone and the oily surface rippled with their passage. The black rat, dwarfing the others, swam that much faster, a champion among the creatures of the canals.

  Normally Lod might have waited, for his timing had become exquisite. Because his wrists had been tied, he turned, kicked his legs and used a crippled dog-paddle-stroke with his arms.

  “No!” the hunter hissed. “Wait for my signal.”

  Lod ignored such madness as he threw a glance over his shoulder. The rats swam faster because he tried to escape, although the wily black rat had submerged.

  “Wait!” hissed the hunter. “They’re slowing down.”

  Thoughts of the black rat in the depths drove Lod’s legs and made his dog-paddle stroke a clumsy splash. The gondola was ten feet away. The hunter crouched low, a trident in his hand, no doubt the cord attached to it around his throwing wrist.

  As the other rats slowed, their noses quivering, Lod felt sharp teeth gash his foot. He shouted. The other rats squealed in rage, and hurried toward him. Pain knifed into Lod’s leg. He kicked hard with his other foot, striking a furry snout. Then he flutter-kicked and dog-paddled with his two wrists tied together.

  The rat hunter rose and hurled a trident, with a cord trailing behind the missile. A rat squealed with pain, and two others turned on it. They were cannibalistic, eagerly ready to devour their own. For those two it was their undoing. The rat hunter flung the lead-weighted net, capturing them with their dying brother.

  The great black rat surfaced, Lod’s blood staining its incisors. If his hands had been free, Lod would have raked the beast with his fingers and snarled like the mighty sabertooth cats of his homeland. Instead, he kicked, reached out and clumsily draped his bound hands over the gunwale. With a grunt, he heaved himself into the boat. The gondola rocked. The hunter cursed, and the trident in his hand splashed into the water.

  Lod huffed and puffed, and he checked the slashes in his foot and leg. They were minor cuts. Under his breath, he thanked Elohim. They might flow with pus later but they shouldn’t infect him too much.

  “Fool!” the hunter shouted.

  Lod regarded the red-faced man.

  “You made me drop my trident, and now the black rat is gone. He was the prize I wanted.”

  “You would have had him if my hands had been free,” Lod said.

  The hunter’s bleary eyes bulged. With a hiss, the gutting knife came out as the hunter crouched. He yanked Lod’s head back and pressed the blade against his throat.

  “You dare speak back? Do you wish me to bind your feet, too?”

  Lod yearned to pummel the hunter to death. Instead, swallowing his rage, he said, “No, master. Forgive me.”

  For a wild instant, Lod was certain the hunter would slash his throat. Then the man shouted furiously, yanked him upright and hurled him over the side.

  “Retrieve my trident, slave.”

  Lod dove into the murky water, kicking deep, and soon he groped in the muck. He touched broken glass, and almost cut his fingers. Then his hand curled around wood. The trident—it felt good in his grip. It was a weapon. He pushed off the bottom and surfaced seconds later with the trident in his hands.

  “Hurry,” the hunter said. “Give it here.”

  The feel of a weapon in his hands intoxicated Lod.

  “Slave!” the hunter snarled, grabbing the gunwale with one hand. He leaned out and held forth his other hand. “Give me the trident. Hurry, give it to me.”

  As he treaded water, Lod thrust the prongs into the hunter’s belly. The man howled, falling, tearing the trident out of Lod’s grasp.

  Lod thrust his wrists upon the gunwale and heaved upward, kicking, wriggling his belly onto the rail as he reached for the hunter’s knife. With a coarse hand, the man grabbed Lod’s wrists. Lod snarled and shoved the dying man’s hand aside. He grabbed the knife’s bone hilt. Then Lod flopped back into the water, taking the knife with him. He madly sawed the eel-skin leash attached to his collar and to the boat. He sawed until the rope parted. Then, with his teeth, he began to tear at the leather binding his wrists, for he could not turn the knife to cut so close to his hands. He yanked and pulled at the leather knot, working feverishly to free himself.

  “You’ll die first,” the hunter whispered.

  From the water Lod stared up, his face a mask.

  The hunter clung to the gunwale, wheezing, with his features ashen. He took a painful gasp and bellowed into the fog for help.

  “…what was that?” a voice asked.

  “Help!” the hunter shouted. “My rat bait has stabbed me.”

  “Hold on!” the hidden man shouted.

  The hunter grimaced at Lod. Then his eyes glazed as he collapsed.

  Lod twisted and dove like an otter, kicking through the murky waters as he gnawed at the impossibly tight knot.

 

 

  Vaughn Heppner, Lod the Warrior (Lost Civilizations: 6)

 

 

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