“There were five more infantry divisions of Assurim Regulars coming over the river, not to mention the elite Titan’s Guard. I pulled back, and made a sortie closer to the city walls, where they had rounded up some captive women. I hoped at least to free some of them in the confusion.
“We lost over a thousand men in the attempt—more than half of what remained of my army. All of your sons except Arrakan fell there, Nu. We almost broke through, until a company of Titan Elites reinforced the Assurim Regulars who left to guard the captured women.
“It became a rout! I could barely hold my van together for an orderly retreat, and none of my flanking units managed even that much. If the forest cover had been any farther away, none of us would have made it out alive.
“It was during the retreat that I noticed Emzara’s body propped against the city walls with an arrow in her throat—at least she died quickly, Nu. At her feet was your mother, also dead, with three of your married daughters—two were Ziraha and Dolerna, but the third had her face half turned, and I wasn’t sure if it was Khella or Qaransa. I’m sorry, but we couldn’t risk going near enough to the wall to find out, nor to give them a decent burial. The ramparts had fallen, and we were still within bow shot as it was. It was a miracle I even saw them among so many dead.”
Nu was strangely detached now from his grief. He listened to his father’s account as if the family destroyed in it belonged to a stranger. His healer’s training told him distantly that this was merely shock. Yet his mind became disturbingly clear and morbidly fixated on details.
Lumekki continued, “We managed to regroup in the forest after nightfall. From there, we continued to make commando raids for several days afterward on their supply line. But the giants eventually found our main base and wiped out all but about three hundred of my remaining men, who were out on a mission with me at that time. This happened during the night while Arrakan and I—did I tell you, Nu, how bravely he fought?—led a force to try one last time to reach the women.
“For some reason—probably just to provoke us—the giants kept them in pens outside the city like cattle, within sight of the forest edge…” Tears streamed from his eyes, as his voice became a strangled croak. “They would rape them in the open, knowing we watched from the tree line. We could never have hoped to free them if they’d been kept in the city, but that was what they wanted—for us to grow angry enough to try!
“We did try! That night, we smeared ourselves with black mud to blend in with the earth. Swords sheathed, we crawled forward along the decline that parallels the east city wall. We came out to a distance of just fifty paces or so from the nearest pen, where we took out most of the nearest guards silently with our bowmen firing horizontally from the defile. I then gave the hand signal to crawl up and charge in silence.
“We were able to free the fifty or so women kept in the nearest pen before the alarm sounded. Arrakan was just about to take down the guards at the second pen’s gate, but he didn’t make it. Took an arrow in the stomach, he did—though a couple of his men carried him out of there. We made it back to the forest with minimal losses, militarily speaking, of course, thankful we’d been able to free as many women as we had. Arrakan told me he saw two of his sisters in the other pens—the ones we couldn’t get to. I don’t know which two. He died before he could say their names.
“When we found our base camp destroyed, we fell back to the ‘Leviathan’ supply cache we had established many months ago up in the mountains to the north. We picked up a few more stragglers in the woods, including a dozen Girl’s Academy maidens led by my mother, who had left by the north forest gate rather than the east quarter because it was closer to the academy. I suppose there may have been other refugees in the woods, but we could not afford to wait around any longer to gather them.
“After we reached the cache, we packed as much of it as we could carry and took the mountain trail north to Akh’Uzan. There I fortified the ruins of the old monastery, and laid an ambush on both sides of the pass into the Gihunu Valley. Then, leaving most of my men at the monastery, I marched east and established this camp to wait for you.
“News of Iyared’s death had reached us even before the fall of the city, so we surmised that you would take the most direct route from Paru’Ainu rather than risk capture in occupied Seti. I figured you would try to keep as close to the original plan as was still practical and that it would be our best chance of meeting up again. So here I am, for what it is worth.”
A’Nu-Ahki embraced his father. “It’s worth everything to me! I see not failure in you. Even while you were nowhere near, you were used by E’Yahavah to save our lives—mine especially.” He went on to tell Lumekki of the dream on Seti’s Sphinx, and of the slaying of the gryndel. Muhet’Usalaq nodded along, and embellished whatever Nu under-told.
Lumekki placed his arms around both his father and his son. “Come, let us rest around the fires, and drink some tea. Tomorrow we march back to Akh’Uzan for a meeting with some army officers from Sa-utar. There’s another bit of dark news I still have to drop on you.”
“What now?” Muhet’Usalaq said.
“A rider came into camp yesterday with word that Lumekkor and Khavilakki have halted Samyaza’s advance. Sa-utar is joining forces with them to keep Assuri bottled up in the lower Gihunu Valley.”
Nu said, “That could be worse.”
“There’s just one thing,” added his father, hesitating again.
Muhet’Usalaq said, “What is the catch?”
Lumekki scowled. “Tubaal-qayin Dumuzi has offered to let Seti keep its autonomy on condition of treaty sealed by a politically arranged marriage. Otherwise, he’s got forces already in place to make us his vassal.”
“So one of Adiyuri’s sons marries a woman of Qayin—they do that all the time in his house anyway,” Muhet’Usalaq said.
“The Emperor of Lumekkor wants no man from Adiyuri.”
“What are you talking about?”
Lumekki’s eyes reflected the blaze from one of the beast fires. “The Dynasty of Steel wants a union with the Seer Clan—and not just with any young buck. They’ve specified he be a full-aged man of Q’Enukki’s direct lineage with the prophetic gift.”
This is what the men of the generation of the flood used to do—each would take to himself two wives, one for procreation and the other for sexual pleasure. The one for procreation was almost like a widow, though her husband was still alive; while the one for sexual pleasure was made by her husband to swallow a cup of root-drink so that she would not conceive. She sat in his house painted like a harlot… You can readily see that it was so, for even Lemech, the best among that generation, took two wives—Adah, ‘apart from (scorned by) him;’ and Tzillah, ‘who dwelt in his shadow (was inseparable from him).’”
—Rabbi Azariah,
in the name of Rabbi Yehudah bar Shimon
A Midrash in the Jerusalem Talmud
(circa 400 AD)
9
Dynasty
T
he work of Lumekki’s refugees to fortify the old mountainside monastery at Akh’Uzan impressed A’Nu-Ahki, not only in the quick repair of the ramparts, but for the care given to the comforts of life inside. These came though the rescued women under the direction of Muhet’Usalaq’s wife Edina, whom everyone fondly called “Mamu.”
Nu marveled that even a massacre could not change her much. As he passed into the courtyard, he saw the plump pixie of a woman somehow still doing what she always did—pestering some poor minion of her husband’s into taking a break to eat whatever happened to be her confection of the day.
“The trowel can wait ten minutes for you to eat some sweet cakes,” Mamu said, as she yanked the tool from the lad’s hand and threw it away.
“But the Zaqen wants this wall in by tonight!”
“Nonsense, you leave the old tyrant to me. You have been troweling since before dawn—trowel, trowel, trowel—now you need a bite. Now do not make me sit on you and force these cakes down
your throat.”
A’Nu-Ahki laughed for the first time in weeks. “Better listen to her, son; she’s done it to larger men than you.”
“Nu!” Mamu thrust the basket of raisin cakes into the mason’s hand and ran to her grandson with a charging hug.
“I’m so glad they didn’t get you,” he whispered into her embrace.
“Oh better they had gotten me a thousand times than your wife and daughters and all those young girls and children who never had a chance to live. Your grandfather has not even stopped to sleep. When did you arrive?”
“Late—after midnight, I think. I see Pahpi’s already riding the workers. Say, what’s the story on these officers from Sa-utar?”
Mamu shrugged. “Do they ever tell me anything?”
“Since when have they ever had to? You have your ways of wheedling information.”
“So! You think your old Mamu is a sneak?”
“In a good way.”
“You are right!” She cackled. “Sneaky like a Sphinx! And do not forget it. Those two are from the Archon’s Elite Guard—intelligence division, I would guess. They talk nice and polite, as if they want something very badly from us. Watch yourself, Nu. Do not be taken in. Whatever they are up to, it smells of Adiyuri.”
“I think I know what they want, and I may already be caught in the fowler’s snare.” Nu didn’t elaborate on his meaning. What does it matter now? My Sunrise is dark and our children dead or in hopeless captivity! I want to blame Pahpi, but I just don’t have the will or the strength for the rage—or anything else. What does E’Yahavah want from me, anyway?
Mamu said, “They are not even giving you a chance to mourn.” The twinkle in her eye told him she knew more than she let on. “May E’Yahavah watch over you and protect you, then. The men are waiting for you in the hearth hall. Keep your words few, lad. Do not volunteer for anything!”
A’Nu-Ahki patted her on the shoulder. He wished he really had the option of taking her advice. He left her and entered the hall where the two officers waited with his clan elders.
A fire snapped in the great hearth that faced A’Nu-Ahki at the other end of the lodge from the newly refurbished doors. On either side, holding open the heavy timber planks, stood two young infantry regulars in dress kilts of bright maroon and gray.
Army stewards served drinks around the long stone table where the two officers and the three remaining clan elders of Q’Enukki reclined—the Prime Zaqen, Lumekki, and Tarkuni the eldest son of Urugim.
In that same room Muhet’Usalaq had parted from his father for the last time many centuries before, only now the roofing smelled of fresh cut pine instead of moldering thatch—the new Archon had sent carpenters to help with the renovation.
The Prime Zaqen motioned his grandson to a cushion at his left hand by the table’s head. Lumekki reclined at the right, followed by Tarkuni. The army men sat next to Nu.
At a wave from the senior officer, the sentries closed the doors and turned the dead bolt lock. “I am Arch-Straticon Zendros, of the Uvardenic Clan, a Dragon-slayer of the twelfth order. My associate is Sub-Straticon D’Narri, Clan Axernis, ninth order, for those of you who just arrived this morning. My best wishes to all of you, and special honor to the Dragon-slayer, who single-handedly took down that gryndel.” He looked straight at Nu.
“An act of E’Yahavah,” A’Nu-Ahki said in a clipped tone that communicated too firmly that he was tired of hearing about it.
The Arch-Straticon’s eyes fell, as if bewildered at such a negative attitude from a Dragon-slayer, but he let it drop.
Muhet’Usalaq cleared his throat. “We understand the son of Tubaal-qayin wishes a politically arranged wedding between one of his daughters and a son of the Seer. Seti’s autonomy would seem to rest in the balance.”
The Arch-Straticon appeared equally unused to such directness. “Not one of his daughters,” he said. “Tubaal-qayin the Fifth ‘Dumuzi’ has no children. He pledges the very sister of his Patriarch—first of the Tubaal-qayin name. She is a virgin—once betrothed, but never married.”
Lumekki said, “You want to marry one of our boys off to a hag?”
Tarkuni roared. “Unacceptable!”
The officer laughed. “No, no, you misunderstand. Though Princess Na’Amiha is daughter of L’Mekku by the same wife who bore the first son of the Steel Dynasty, she is from her mother’s final cycle—younger than our gryndel killer here. She is the child of L’Mekku’s old age. Her mother died birthing her. Tubaal-qayin the First was the son of their youth.”
Muhet’Usalaq frowned. “Still, L’Mekku has been dead a long time.”
“That is why they request a suitor of full age…”
A’Nu-Ahki said, “Who has the Seer’s Gift.”
“Correct. The wedding is set for after the first of the year.”
Lumekki leaned back into his cushion. “There are less than a handful who qualify and even some of them are questionable. Until recently, all of them were married.”
Arch-Straticon Zendros shrugged. “Even in the court of Sa-utar it is a debated issue as to what constitutes a seer’s gift.”
Muhet’Usalaq said, “Not so here.”
“As you wish; I do not pretend to be an expert in such matters.”
“Well I am,” said the Prime Zaqen. “And the suggestion that a seer of E’Yahavah be married off to some woman of Qayin, who lies before heaven-only-knows-what, is a serious matter indeed!”
“So is our national crisis.”
The second military official, D’Narri, nodded at Lumekki. “And your tribal one, seeing as you are not more than a week’s march north of the current battle lines here.” The man apparently recognized Nu’s father as an ex-army hero who could appreciate the tactical situation.
Muhet’Usalaq flipped the back his hand at D’Narri. “The Archon is under oath to defend this place come what may.”
Zendros spread his palms up on the table. “An oath he has every intention of honoring—but one which he will not be in power to honor if we are forced into thralldom. At least with Adiyuri in charge of an autonomous Sa-utar you will be free from obligated military service and guaranteed military protection for whatever holy work the Fathers have entrusted to you. Under Lumekkor, you have no such assurances and in all probability can count on the taking of this fortress as a fall-back position for Dumuzi’s army. They will send you all packing like beggars without a thought.”
Lumekki said, “Not without a fight.”
“True enough,” agreed Sub-Straticon D’Narri. “You will make them pay dearly for this place, Lumekki. Not only is it defensible, but I know of your war record as First Tacticon at Zhri’Nikkor. For every man you lose, they shall lose ten—even with their superior weapons, most of which they could not bring up the narrow trail from the valley. But for every ten, they have a thousand more! In the end, you will sell yourselves dearly, only to be slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child. I believe you’ve seen enough of that at Regati and Salaam-Surupag to want more of it here.”
A’Nu-Ahki’s father hung his head, apparently unable to dislodge the army officer’s logic twisting its dagger in his vitals.
A pall of silence settled over the hall.
A’Nu-Ahki gazed sullenly down at the table and saw two wheat kernels probably left from some recent meal—two insignificant mites.
The Silence invaded the room like a pressurized fluid that seemed to expand inside to quell the noises of the outer court. A voice whispered two words from somewhere in the stone crack shadows—a tiny breath of wind from nowhere and everywhere gave Nu its sound—two words in the same voice he recognized as having spoken only two words to him once before, up on the Sphinx, where the Kherub had said, “Peace, friend.”
It said, “Two seeds,”
Nu did not need to look up to know that none of the others had spoken. He knew now what E’Yahavah wanted of him. With his life in shambles and nearly everything that had lent convention to his existence destroyed, he did
not hesitate. For a second he almost allowed himself the delusion of feeling noble for what he was about to do. Then he realized the truth and with it came freedom.
He laid his hands, palms up, on the table. “I have walked with E’Yahavah, though not as closely as some. I’ve had visions on the lap of Seti’s Sphinx and seen the face of a Kherub and the light of the Fire-Sphinx’s sword. I can predict where things are going from here. I suppose that qualifies me as a seer by most definitions…”
Muhet’Usalaq shouted, “Nu, shut your mouth!”
“Not this time!”
Lumekki’s eyes pleaded with him. “Son, she’ll take you down! This smells of Avarnon-Set! He’s trying to create a gateway for Uzaaz’El right into our very midst!”
Tarkuni hissed, “You will betray the Work!”
“What is left of the Work to betray? I’ve lost my wife and all my children, with their children! I know what I’m doing and it does not betray the spirit of our labors!”
Tarkuni’s eyes burned, unconvinced, but he retreated behind a wall of silence. He no doubt still smarted from the Prime Zaqen’s warning to his grandson Henumil about A’Nu-Ahki’s office.
Muhet’Usalaq said, “You can find a wife among Seti’s children.”
“Like I’m looking for a wife here? I’d be a real catch as a beggar in a land of slaves! And how does marrying within Seti further the Seer’s Work, anyway? The children of Seti play whore with the Watchers nowadays as easily as Qayin’s daughters do! No! There are two major branches of Atum-Ra’s race and it was the Seer’s original objective to reach them both.”
The two elders over Nu bowed their heads in resignation, knowing this was true, but Tarkuni scowled.
A’Nu-Ahki said, “I will marry this Na’Amiha on one condition.”
Now Zendros interrupted, “We are hardly in position to make demands of the Dynasty of Steel.”
Dawn Apocalypse Rising (The Windows of Heaven Book 1) Page 12