landlost | ONC 2024

five.

FEAR THREATENED TO choke me as I ran behind the men, my qualms about tripping on my kēthanoth and falling flat on my face forgotten.

The screams had come from the crop fields beyond the lazy curve of the river. Stepping stones had been put in place to cross over the banks, but Shem, Japheth and Ham plunged straight through the water. Noah hung back and offered his hand to help me cross, his strong, rough fingers pulling me across the slippery stones.

His eyes were narrowed and expression severe as he caught hold of my bicep. "You should stay back," he said. His face, weathered by the sun and manual labour, was creased with worry. I broke out of his grasp, my breaths coming in short, sharp heaves.

"I will," I said, to reassure him, but I still followed him closely as he twisted and we emerged from the brackish woods. The small, square fields of barley and wheat had been trampled underfoot, and I felt my chest freeze as I saw Ada and Sedeqet in the grasps of strange men, more circling even as Emzara chucked stones their way, begging them to let the other women go.

Shem moved faster than I thought was possible for a man his size. In a moment, he threw a punch at the man who was holding Sedeqet, and the stranger's head snapped back, red spraying through the air.

Sedeqet broke free from her captor's grasp and ran from the fields, and I rushed to catch her just as her feet slipped and she collapsed in a heap at the treeline. I scrambled to her aid, only barely hearing Emzara hysterically shouting above the sound of my heartbeat in my ears and Sedeqet's terrified sobs.

"Let them go," Noah ordered. It was the first time I'd heard him raise his voice, and my head whipped towards him as he outstretched his arms towards the strangers. Ada was still writhing in another man's grip, but Ham was holding Japheth back, speaking furiously into his ear.

"What is it that you want?" Noah asked them. "Do you want our crop? Our valuables? Or just to make trouble?"

Some of the men snickered. There were about a half-dozen of them, and I wrapped my arms tighter around Sedeqet's back as I realised their dark eyes, lit by the torches a few were holding, weren't just dancing with drink. They looked malevolent.

Evil.

"Try and talk your way out of this one, old-timer," the man holding Ada jeered. He clutched hold of her face. "What if I want this?"

"Father!" Japheth snarled. The tall man shoved Ham away, tightening his grip on the mule's whip he held. "Father, do something!"

Noah was silent. Shem took took hold of Emzara, before any of the men could approach her, too. No-one could see Sedeqet and I under the shadows of the trees, and I was relieved for that. The air pulsed with tension that made my skin prickle and my hair stand on end.

Noah stretched out his hand, motioning for Japheth to wait. "You're going to give her to me," Noah said measuredly to the man, "and then you are going to leave my home and never return."

"Hear that, boys?" Another man, closest to Ham, crooned. "That's insanity talking."

"You're not going to be telling us anything that we will or will not do," the man holding Ada replied with a leer. "Otherwise, what we can do is set fire to your fields, or even," he paused as if to think for a moment, "ah, set alight your big glorified woodshed!"

The Ark. My blood felt hot in my veins. My eyes darted to the flames leaping from the torch of the stranger closest to me.

Noah clenched his fists. My hair prickled even more, and then ——

The sky cleaved into two. A white-hot flash cracked across the ground, and a roaring boom followed the whip of light, shaking every bone in my body.

"It's a curse," I heard one of the strangers wail, "I knew coming here was a curse!" And then Ada was thrown to the ground as the dark-eyed men fled, smoke from where the flash had hit the ground following them.