NUMA 7 - The Navigator

NUMA 7 - The Navigator

NUMA 7 - The Navigator

NUMA 7 - The Navigator

Prologue

A FAR-OFF LAND, ABOUT 900 B.C.

THE MONSTER EMERGED FROM the morning mists in the pearly light of dawn. The massive head, with its long snout and flaring nostrils, advanced toward shore where the hunter knelt, bowstring taut to his cheek, eyes focused on a deer grazing in the marsh. A rippling sound caught the hunter’s ear and he glanced out at the water. He uttered a fearful moan, threw the bow aside, and leaped to his feet. The startled deer disappeared into the woods with the terrified hunter close on its tail.

The tendrils of fog parted to reveal a giant sailing ship. Curtains of seaweed fringed the vessel’s two-hundred-foot-long wooden hull of reddish brown. A man stood on the ship’s upswept stem behind the carved figurehead of a snorting stallion. He had been gazing into a small wooden box. As the ghostly shoreline materialized, the man raised his head and pointed to the left.

The helmsmen at the twin steering oars brought the ship around in a graceful turn that sent it on a new course parallel to the densely wooded shoreline. Deckhands expertly adjusted the vertically striped red-and-white square sail to compensate for the change in direction.

The captain was in his midtwenties, but the serious expression on his handsome face added years to his appearance. His strong nose was curved slightly at the bridge. His thick black beard was arranged in rows around a full mouth and square jaw. Sun and sea had tanned his skin to a mahogany hue. The unfathomable eyes that scanned the shoreline were a deep brown that was so dark the pupils were almost invisible.

The captain’s high station in life entitled him to wear a purple robe dyed with the valuable extract from the murex snail. He preferred to go bare-chested, and wore the cotton kilt of an ordinary crewman. A floppy, conical knit cap covered the close-cropped, wavy black hair.

The briny smell of the sea had faded as the ship left the open ocean and entered the wide bay. The captain filled his lungs with air that was redolent with the scent of flowers and green growing things. He savored the prospect of freshwater and ached to set foot on dry land.

Although the voyage was long, it had gone well, thanks to the handpicked Phoenician crew, all seasoned deepwater mariners. The crew included a scattering of Egyptians and Libyans, and others from the countries bordering the Mediterranean. A contingent of Scythian marines provided security.