Chapter V - Giants
They had brought her to her personal bedchamber, where her bathing pool was. Rachab told her family to lock the doors and clean up the inn, and they obeyed. Then, when they were done, and darkness came, she sent them away out of the city, to flee into the mountains.
"You should surely leave as well," Rachab told Salmon and his companion, Achan, not Gabri. "I must stay with my father, and the little ones."
"Little ones?" Salmon said. "You have children?"
"My nephews and nieces. I had a child, but he was sacrificed at age three ..."
She choked up, and tears came to her eyes. She had not spoken of this since it had happened years ago.
"I had been told that such a sacrifice was the most worthy of all to the gods. But it was then that my heart grew hard, and I made no more children for them."
Salmon was shocked, for in his world, amongst his people, no one had seen such a thing. They had heard of it, but never seen it.
"Already, the horrors I have seen in this city alone dispenses with any sympathy I may have harbored against my own kind. For surely, we are not so different. But your people have strayed far from reason, and come too full madness."
"It takes no gods at all to know right from wrong," Rachab replied, nodding. "I forsake them all. But your god truly seems real, and powerful, and I fear and tremble at His coming. He is All."
"As you should," Achan said. "And shame on you for seducing us so!"
"Quiet your tongue," Salmon said. "She was trying to save us. That akharu was about to flee to its own kind and report us. But when Rachab let us have her, the creature was distracted, and hesitated to watch, for they lust for what they cannot have themselves. Rachab saved us, for we cannot contend with many of them at once. Immortal, and yet denied the flesh for all eternity, I have pity on them."
This subdued Achan, and Salmon was obviously the stronger of the two, and Rachab was much attracted to Salmon for his intelligence and strength of will.
"But if you should bare my child, Rachab of Yareah, you will not sacrifice it. And you will be my wife, for I have none. Do you have a husband?"
Rachab was ashamed then, and turned her face away.
"My father took me as his wife. Incest is not forbidden here ..."
"Cursed people!" Achan replied in disgust. "Wretched!"
"Then you have no husband," Salmon said, not seeming to care. "For no such marriage is recognized in the least. Though, I may have cause to kill your father."
"He is old and feeble," she begged. "And knows not what he does, as most of us are. But I make no excuse, for we deserve to die, we Kenaanim."
"Yes, you do deserve death," Achan seethed viciously.
"Only the Most High decides such things, not you, Achan, or Rachab, who I will take as my wife once this city falls. So you will show her respect, and her family."
"And what will you do with me as you wife?" she asked with raised eyebrows.
"Ravish you every day," he replied with a sardonic expression. "Until we are both raw. I will fill every part of you with my seed, until it spills from you. We will have many children!"
This pleased her immensely. And her children would live in a new world!
So they hid in the inn, and learned all they could from Rachab, and she told them all she knew of the city, of the guards, their weapons, their strengths, the dire news that none of the city would defy the malik or his adons, or his grotesque Emim or handsome Anakim.
"I know not how you can take this city," Rachab said. "It is a fortress, and they have many archers, and many giants as well as men. And at night, the akharu might go out and kill many that try and besiege this place."
Salmon smiled.
"And you!" Rachab said, suddenly becoming angry, realizing the true danger she was in. "You've brought daggers in a city where all weapons are forbidden to the common people! I could be imprisoned or sacrificed to the desert ants for that! How did you smuggle them in? Did the Emim not have you strip as all newcomers must do?"
Salmon shrugged.
"No one paid any heed to us. We simply walked right through the gate and the archers, and past the stone pillars. Everyone was distracted watching the pillar of fire in the distance."
"Will we be safe here, tonight? Will our slaying of that ancient wraith go unnoticed?"
"It will not go unnoticed," she said sadly.
And they all heard shrieking in the city, as if the wraiths were plotting revenge, and sensed one of their own had fallen.
"Let me go outside, and see. But you must not, for they see everything in the darkness. They fly above the city, always watching."
She went outside, her skirt flowing around her thighs and breasts bouncing as she climbed a ladder to her roof. Salmon watched, but did not follow. Rachab looked around, and saw the akharu perched on walls, on pillars, on the tops of roofs, watching and waiting. And she always saw some take flight, silhouettes of darkness in the moonlit sky, their rags whipping in the wind. They took off towards the distant pillar of fire.
One of the akharu stared at her, and she felt a cold chill, and what sounded like whisperings in her mind. Rachab shivered. She went back inside, and saw Salmon waiting for her. Achan was already snoring. They had already been told what they came to learn by Rachab, and she had told them all she knew, which was more than they had hoped.
"You should leave this night, but they are watchful. I do not think you can escape tonight, not even over the wall as I had planned for you with rope."
"We will sleep here, Rachab," he said.
So they tried to sleep, three in her room, all of them on rugs on the floor. But she could not sleep, and nor could Salmon. She slept naked, and he had taken his clothes off. He could not get his mind off of her, and nor she him. The moon peaked in from the slits, bright and silver, and reflected from her naked body. Salmon touched her stomach, feeling the contours of soft stretch marks. She shuddered under his touch, and rubbed her hand through his hairy chest. He felt her breasts, and nipples, and her neck. She felt his buttocks, and strong thighs, and then cupped his testicles and felt the hardness of his cock. He leaned sideways against the length of his body, and she lay there and trembled as his hands made their way to her vulva, and clitoris.
Even though he had rutted with her, he had not really lied with her. He wanted to feel her, and touch her, and know her better. He rolled on to her and kissed her, and she killed him back and spread her legs for him, as his hips found their way between her legs.
She felt a pang of guilt, for Salmon was a good man, and honorable. She felt like she was causing him to go against his culture. But she could not refuse his caresses, his lips, his penis sliding into her. As his chest pressed against her breasts, she felt more pleasure than she had ever known, more alive than ever before, and gasped in delighted pain as he pierced her, and dug deep into her.
What was this feeling that was coming over her? Love? No, that was a mythical thing.
Salmon filled her with his seed almost at once, but did not stop, and continued to make love to her. His mouth and tongue came over her chest, her tits, and her nipples, bit into her neck, all while he ground himself into her. He even brought her legs up high over them, and drilled into her deeper, harder, with eagerness for more of her.
Then suddenly, there was a clattering of weapons, and a roar of angry voices, and the heavy footfalls of monsters coming near. They heard a great pounding on the door, and the mighty voice of an Emim Jabbur.
"Innkeeper! Come out! Awake! Awake! Answer to your betters, for they call on you!"
Rachab gasped at the powerful voice, and began to panic. Achan woke quickly, and Salmon got dressed.
"They are here! You must hide!" Rachab whispered hoarsely. "On the roof under the flax, but be careful not to be seen by the akharu!"
"Go, and open the door. Are you relatives still here? Will they betray us?"
"I sent them away, to the temples to serve. It is safer for them to be harlots than be here now, and they will not know which temple, for they are numerous."
So Rachab did not bother to dress, but went down stairs, her footfalls loud on the wooden planks, and went to the door and opened it. The eight-foot high Jabbur that greeted her was ugly and eager, his cross-straps over his enormous chest array of weapons hanging from his belt all in order. Naked from the waist down, his long, snake-like cock was a sight to behold. His eyes focused on her breasts, and lust filled his heart and lifted his cock.
"We have heard that you keep spies here, innkeeper!" he growled.
An even taller Anak warrior stood behind them, dressed in full armor, a normal man but for his great height and strength. The Anak held a huge dog that barked and growled and struggled to be free and hunt. Two more Emim Jabbur stood there as well, and ten regular soldiers of the malik's palace, all stared at her. But the giant before her scared her the most, brutal and ugly and gray of skin in the moonlight.
"I keep no spies, but have only guests. This is an inn, is it not?"
"Then let us come in, and see your guests," he demanded.
Their asking was only a formality, an attempt to test her resistance. If you tried to exercise the old just laws of refusal, they would consider it guilt. She stepped aside and let them enter. Their torches illuminated the interior, and she in turn went to light candles for them all to see well.
"Guests of this place, come down and be counted!" the Anakim shouted, his voice authoritative and powerful. "By order of the malik, all must be counted and speak their names and purpose! Palace Guardsmen, stand outside and surround the place, so that none may escape! Azel, Samel, go upstairs and search them out!"
Rachab, the Jabbur, and the Anak remained with her, and looked around the tavern hall. The large dog snarled at her feet, then sniffed between her legs, and growled. The Anak towering above her, having to lower his head to avoid hitting the ceiling, sniffed at her as well. Then with one finger he touched her vagina, and inserted a finger, and then sniffed it, and tasted it.
"You've been with a man?"
"I've been with many men. Two customers earlier used me," she replied. "There were upstairs, last I saw them."
"And who are they? I would know these men that issue such strong seed."
"Edomim, and they called themselves Rammu and Gabri," she replied.
