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.
