Lod the Galley Slave (Lost Civilizations) by Vaughn Heppner Read Free Book Online

the shining ones who made war against them. Many of those powers departed after the end of the Thousand Years War. Some remained and altered the landscape and the animals in them.
    This is a tale of such a beast.
     
     
    -1-
     
    A ponderous great sloth shuffled through the primeval jungle. He had curved claws of such massive size that they forced him to slide his front paws forward on the sides. It was an awkward gait, not made for speed. The great sloth had the shape of a bear and the size of a mastodon. Like a bear, he could stand up on his hind legs. At such times, he hooked his claws around a tree’s branch and often yanked it lower so he could nibble on the choicest leaves. He stood then over twice the height of a two-legs. He had shaggy fur and skin tougher than link-mail. With his heavy molars, he crushed leaves and tender branches. He had also been known to drive leopards off their kill. Then he scavenged the carrion.
    In his passage through the jungle, the great sloth crushed ferns, snapped branches and brushed off bark as his tough hide scraped against trees. He panted, having shuffled for many hours. The pant was a heavy sound, and saliva dripped from his pink tongue. Despite the slowness of his shuffle, he moved fast in great sloth terms.
    He brushed against another giant tree . The tree groaned and bark trickled down like snow. A loud squawk rose from the great sloth’s shoulder. In the shadows of the primeval jungle, it was hard to determine what had caused the noise. The great sloth turned his head and moaned. It almost sounded like an apology. He tried thereafter not to brush against trees, at least not on that side.
    He was not just any great sloth . He was Old Slow, the King of Great Sloths. Distinct from beasts elsewhere on Earth, Old Slow reasoned in a way akin to two-legs. Perhaps as incredibly, he knew that he and his kind were different. All the higher beasts of the jungle within the radius of the celestial isle, within the radius of its otherworldly magic, had this reasoning capacity. The thinking beasts prized their elevated station. Although they had no script like the two-legs, their ancient legends told of the time of the celestials and the war on the isle. It was in the aftermath of the battle that had brought about the great change. The higher animals here also knew that someday evil-workers would attempt to take away their unique gift. The wisest among them had reasoned that only offspring of the celestials would dare try. Those offspring must surely die so that the beasts of the great primeval jungle could continue to reason, lest great sloths, leopards, wolves and others fall again into the brutishness of their kind in the outer world.
    The call had gone out , for the feared and prophesied day of evil had finally arrived.
    Why did it have to be in my lifetime ? Old Slow wanted to know. He didn’t have many years left. He didn’t want this terrible responsibility. Yet he had accepted the mantle of kingship many years ago when he had defeated his father in the mating battle for the queen. Old Slow knew there were younger great sloths eager to fight him for the new queen. Soon one of them might match him in power. Not this year and not the next, but in the year after that he might lose. None of that mattered now because the evil day had arrived.
    Intruders had smashed their way through the jungle. Guardian leopards had died under a hail of spines and barbed darts. Old Slow had snuffled a leopard carcass a day ago. He had sniffed the spines. Worse, the feel of celestial magic had lingered in the air. Old Slow knew then that the messenger had been right. The intruders had brought slave beasts, creatures bound by magic to do the will of the celestial offspring.
    Old Slow burst through a clump of ferns and into a riotous field of gorgeous flowers . The bright colors hurt his eyes. The flowers blazed as if the petals were gold, ruby and sapphire.
    The celestial magic from the isle not only gave