by Brian Braden
His mother’s rebuke this morning still rung in his ears. “Must I sleep with the Commander, too? Even I cannot wield enough influence to compensate for your failures!”
Like the thickening clouds to the south, Bal-eeb’s foul mood grew darker. He slammed his fist down on the parapet.
His sentries shuffled farther away without looking too obvious.
The final blow came last night, when the Commander summoned his captains, and informed them the campaign against the Scythians was on indefinite hold. Instead of grinding the nomads of the steppe under their heels, the legion fought to keep the city under control. The army would dip into its invasion stores to survive the winter.
Leaving the garrison barracks last night, he thought it couldn’t get any worse. This morning, it did.
At dawn a terrible fireball cleaved the sky in two. Now thin clouds veiled the heavens. Sheets of falling stars streaked out of the southern sky in broad daylight. The city roiled in full-fledge panic. Inside, thousands pressed to escape the cursed city. Outside, throngs of field slaves and stump farmers pressed to get inside, fleeing the rising Hur River. Dozens on both sides were being crushed to death, but he didn’t care.
The market descended into chaos. What was left in the fields could not be harvested. The Commander deployed the city guard to the last man; half the garrison manned the walls while the other half barely kept order in the streets. Bal-eeb knew by next week the market would be bare and the granaries empty. Then the real riots would begin.
He wasn’t concerned about starving. The army would always be the priority for food, the King and nobles wisely saw to that. He wasn’t even concerned about the looming riots. The Commander made it clear, if things got out of hand they would slaughter slaves and civilians until things were back under control.
Deep inside the city, the priests of Ba’al prayed under the statue of the Black Dragon, beseeching the dark god to bring back the animals, tame the river, and quiet the earth. After the fireball appeared, huge crowds gathered outside the temple and waited for the priests to emerge.
Bal-eeb only wanted to silence the screams.
On the city-side of the wall, a small detachment of soldiers armed with whips and spears cut a bloody channel through the mob. They bore the red waist wraps of the Royal Guard.
Hecktar’s men. Bal-eeb ordered several warriors off the wall to open a channel through the crowd. As the Royal Guard approached, Bal-eeb recognized the man at the head of the column.
Cuts and bruises covered the small, well groomed son of the First Prince.
“Bal-eeb...,” Hecktar panted, trying to catch his breath. “The city has gone mad. We almost didn’t make it here. Water... please.”
“You’ll get water after you do you duty. What news do you bring?” Bal-eeb sneered.
Hecktar’s expression hardened at Bal-eeb’s offense. “It is the Narim. Shellbaz...the High Priest...emerged from the temple. He said the Narim are the cause of our ill fortune. They have offended Ba’al and have cursed us. That is why they are leaving the city. Shellbaz says we must march on the Black Fortress and burn the rest of them out.”
Bal-eeb didn’t care what the priests said, as long as it helped get everyone off the streets.
“What does the King say?”
“We cannot reach the King. The mob cut us off from the palace.”
Bal-eeb laughed. “The King is isolated and defenseless, and the Captain of the Royal Guard stands here, on my wall?”
Hecktar reached for his hilt. “The Commander summoned me, or I would be at the palace. I, unlike some captains, trust my lieutenants. The King is safe and I come bearing a message from the Commander himself.”
“Ah, I see.” Bal-eeb nodded. “A message. So tell me, messenger boy, what does the Commander require of me?”
Hecktar’s grip tightened. Bal-eeb grinned, pleased he could so easily rattle his rival.
Hecktar spoke slowly, words seething. “The Commander demands each captain send twenty men to ensure any gold or food found in the Black Fortress is secured for the crown. Otherwise, we are not to interfere with the mob.”
Bal-eeb grinned. Even deranged sheep can be useful. It’s about time we cleaned out the Narim. If the men of Havilah can find their own gold, so can the Hur-po.
Bal-eeb quickly issued orders to his lieutenant. “Summon twenty men, ten off the north and south walls, and follow this messenger.” He absolutely delighted in speaking that word. If his men were present at the sacking of the Black Fortress, he would share in the glory and booty. He knew that fact must chaff Hecktar to no end.
In a few minutes Bal-eeb watched Hecktar’s squad, bolstered with the new swords and whips, cut a fresh path through the mob and vanish into the city’s belly.
Bal-eeb felt better. He hoped a substantial number of the rioters would perish in the attack on the Black Fortress.
The fewer mouths to feed, the better.
A cry went out from the lookout on the parapet tower. “Dust cloud to the southwest! A caravan approaches from across the river!”
Bal-eeb shielded his eyes and peered to the southwest. An enormous cloud of yellow dust turned the entire western horizon tan. It all looked surreal under the shooting stars streaking across the noon sky.
His blood ran cold. “That’s no caravan. Only an army can create a dust cloud like that.”
And only the Scythians can summon an army.
“Sound the siege horn!” Bal-eeb shouted.
***
Noah knew no ordinary army created the dust cloud Bal-eeb saw from his vantage far below.
He stood on the walkway atop the Black Wall overlooking the vast Hur Valley. Shem and Japheth manned the wheels, ready to open the outer and inner gates at their father’s command. The women waited deep inside the Ark.
Noah intently studied the western ridge, the long line of high hills separating the Hur Valley from the steppe. What he saw made his ancient heart beat faster. An inky sea dotted with hundreds of tiny islands covered what was once an endless, rolling prairie. The western ridge acted as a tenuous dam, protecting the thin strip of dry land remaining between the ridge and the bloated Hur River. The Kupar Bridge clung like a thread, straining to hold the two banks together.
Noah shivered as the dust cloud approached the bridge’s western ramp. Awed by his God’s power, alternating waves of gratitude and guilt washed over him.
This is only the beginning.
He lifted his eyes to the heavens swarming with shooting stars. “I have tried to walk in Your ways,” Noah whispered. “I’ve struggled my whole life to find favor in Your eyes, but why us, Oh Lord? Is the world truly so wicked, to deserve this?”
“I have prayed that prayer every day since the Lord touched you,” a voice startled him from behind.
He turned to see Emzara staring beyond the wall. “I prayed to Him when you and our sons raised the Kupar Bridge. You built it without question. And I served. And I waited; even though I saw in that bridge a terrible purpose.
“I prayed to Him when you built the Black Gate and we walled ourselves into exile. I served and I waited, even as our cold prison rose around us.
“I prayed until my knees bled when you built the Ark. Each time the Lord was silent. I served. I waited. I prayed, but He saved his revelations for your ears. For me, He is mute.”
Noah reached out to tenderly stroke her cheek. “The Lord speaks to us all in His own way. Do not fear, wife. He has promised us safe passage.”
She pulled away, unexpected anger flared in her grey eyes reflecting the shooting stars above. “I am not afraid! Have you listened to God’s voice so long, my husband, you are deaf to all else, including your own wife?” She marched to the wall’s edge and jabbed her finger at the city below. “Listen! Do you not hear it?”
He paused and listened. There, just above the wind, rose the faint cries of the terrified throngs far below.
“I hear them,” he said flatly, unable to look her in the eyes.
“I am sad because I know there is still goodness down there!” She began to tremble. “There are children and babies in Hur-ar...” she swept an exasperated hand across the horizon, “...and beyond who are blameless. Their only transgression was being born into a fallen world. I can hear them crying! Tell me husband, does God?”
Noah lowered his head to his chest.
“Look at me!” she shouted.
“What if it were us? What if those were our babies about to die?” She placed her hands over her ears and began to cry. “I cannot reconcile the love I feel for my God and the suffering about to befall the innocent. Oh, curse my long life, I will hear their screams to the end of my days!”
Noah didn’t know how to answer her. In all their long life together, she had never once raised her voice to him until now.
“I...” Noah choked back the emotion.
Emzara’s eyes softened in pity. “Do not be cross with me, Noah. I will not curse God, but I am angry with Him. I must be angry with Him, because you will not.”
Emzara drew near and lightly touched Noah’s broad chest, “I am afraid, but I will serve. I will wait. I will trust.” Her fingers found their way under his bearded chin. She lifted his head until their teary eyes met. “I will love.”
The wind whipped her graying hair and made the crow’s feet around her eyes more vivid. For the first time in many years Noah saw his wife as she was.
Emotions so long suppressed by the weight of tireless duty threatened to break through. He breathed deeply, vigorously rubbing and considering his hands.
He hesitated, stumbling to find his words, not his God’s. “I wore callouses upon my flesh from building His Ark. I never stopped to consider those you carried upon you heart as you built our family.”
“Do not apologize for following the word of God.” She looked over his shoulder at the Ark. “We are about to exchange one set of walls for another. One cold, dark place for another. But, together we will wait. We will serve. We will trust and know the sun awaits us at the end of our journey.”
Emzara smiled up at her husband, and in her half-moon eyes he saw the maiden he loved all those years ago when the world was young and the Garden lived fresh in his people’s hearts and minds.
Emzara took him arm-in-arm and led him down off the parapet, but not before she took one more glance over her shoulder at the hell unleashed beyond the Black Wall.
“Did Aizarg tell you his wife’s name?” she whispered.
“Atamoda. Why do you ask?”
“It will make it easier to pray for her.”
3. Heaven’s Onslaught
The realm of angels lies along the boundary of light and mist, of dreams and death, of twilight and dawn. Their power is the whisper planted within the soul. The earthly plane is a mystery they can influence, but never fully comprehend...except for the Nephilim.
More than divine messengers, the Ten Guardians of Creation transcend spirit and flesh; creatures of two worlds and neither. Mother told me she drifted into our world like a snowflake from Heaven, settling gently upon the earthly plane the Nephilim called the Water. The Nephilim were never created to remain one with the Water, but destined by Grace to transform again into spiritual beings, once their early tasks were complete.
Like snowflakes, they melted into the Water and lost their way.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
The world turned her emerald face to the east and pulled a milky veil over her gaping wound. The spirit felt the earth shudder under Heaven’s onslaught. The beautiful blue jewel suffered for her children’s sins.
Her macabre duties did not command her presence here, but this hellish womb gave birth to the Cataclysm.
It begins here. I must bear witness to this, even if I am only spirit.
The Angel of Death plunged into the maelstrom, flitting and twisting downward in the form that pleased her most - a golden, wingless spirit dragon. She passed through the loam of existence as a mote of dust transcends light and shadow.
But Nuwa’s memories carried substance, physical power almost too heavy for her spirit to bear. She knew what the black clouds should look like, what the sea should smell like, what thunder should sound like. She also knew what truly transpired in the human heart, and that knowledge carried a high price. The afterglow of a thousand earthly lives carried staggering emotional power; memories so raw they filled her with intense longing.
More than anything else, she wanted to see her sons again, especially Fu Xi, and hold him once more.
No sunlight penetrated the enormous mushroom cloud’s boiling cauldron. From its hellish belly, it spawned countless storms that piled one on top of another, until they flattened into anvils against the vault of the sky, casting shadows over the emerald ocean. The storms fed off of one another and began to swell outward in all directions. By nightfall the entire southern ocean would be covered, and then the storms would march against three of the seven continents. In a matter of days they would engulf the world.
Even through the storm clouds, Nuwa sensed the turbulent ocean below. It tumbled in over itself as it rushed to cover the scar in the earth’s crust. She broke out of the clouds only a few hundred feet above the hole in the ocean. Though she could not smell it, she knew the air reeked of sulfur and fire.
Swaths of exposed magma at the bottom of what was once miles-deep ocean, painted the storm’s underbelly a ruddy orange. The bedrock instantly melted to lava where a heavenly body the size of a mountain hurtled from the void and slammed into the ocean. The impact vaporized countless billions of tons of seawater, which quickly formed storms, now spreading across the blue sphere. As the ocean raced back over raw lava, more vapor erupted into the sky to engorge the malignant storms.
She skimmed inches over the boiling lava, pursued by a wall of water two miles high roaring toward the center of the crater. Cool water smothered superheated rock and released megatons of energy in a continuous wave of explosions, rumbling for thousands of miles.
The Golden Dragon plunged into the lava without so much as a ripple in the fire rock. She wanted the searing heat to burn away the memories. Instead, she felt nothing, and emerged into the shimmering hell at the crater’s center. She coiled up like a snake as titanic walls of water converged from all sides and collided; sealing for eternity all evidence of where heaven and earth touched for a brief, terrible instant.
The Golden Dragon rode the explosion of steam high into the heavens, until she emerged from the cauldron and hovered at the edge of cold, silent space. Curtains of boiling white slowly concealed earth’s gentle blue curve as tens of thousands of lightning bolts illuminated the clouds from within.
She peered beyond the expanding line of clouds, to where the ocean still basked under the sun. There, a shock wave rippled through the deep water at almost the speed of sound. Fated to circle the globe several times before it died, the mega-tsunami would scour the world’s coasts clean of all hints of mankind. This was only a taste of the destruction to come.
Fu Xi dwells down there, condemned to suffer for my sins.
Heaviness tugged at her, sapping her strength. Much work remained before she could lay down her burdens.
Nuwa sank back below the clouds and raced ahead of the rising tidal wave as the illusion of her dragon form melted away. She willed herself north, beyond the ocean and the continents, toward the top of the world. There, she would break the seals on damnation’s pit and unleash a new scourge.
4. The Fall of Hur-ar Part II
Haughty, foolish Hur-po! You stack your bricks a few feet higher above the dusty ground than other peoples, and think yourselves gods. – Scythian Proverb
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Only a few farmers remained west of the Hur River working the hardscrabble soil amongst the stumps and irrigation ditches. These diehard few took their chances against the strange omens. The stink and confinement of the city held no sanctuary for them. They chose to fight the enemy the
y knew and understood...hunger. Winter loomed, and grain remained to be gleaned among the stumps. They kept their eyes downcast on their work, afraid to look up at the shooting stars. Whatever doom the gods had in store, these peasants chose to meet it with full bellies.
They paused swinging their scythes as the earth began to tremble. At first they thought the deep, bass rumble only another earthquake. The stump farmers and their slaves shielded their eyes and gazed over the western ridgeline, the gateway to the steppe. That’s when they saw the dust cloud building in the late morning sun.
They knew this sound, though never with this intensity. It was the thunder of hooves, the dust stirred by a horde.
“Scythians”! They screamed and dropped their tools, fleeing to the bridge.
Unknown to them, the Scythians tribes also fled, but to the west and without their horses, trying to outrun the icy waters invading the steppe.
***
For the first time since the ancient days when the Narim walked among them, the great bronze horn rang out from the southern watch tower, signaling enemies approached. A hush settled over the refugees outside the gate and the mob within.
“Thank Ba’al almighty, something has shut these people up!” Bal-eeb shouted as he drew his sword. He turned and addressed the masses inside packed against the gate and extending down the central avenue.
“The Scythian horde rides this way!” he shouted, so all could hear him. “Go back to your homes. If you stay, you die. Rest assured, if you clog my avenue, I will kill you myself.”
Amidst screams the throng quickly disbanded, scattering into the city’s bowels.
Bal-eeb felt much better, like he could breathe again. He motioned for his lieutenant as he made his way down the parapets toward the southern tower. He pointed the length of the wall. “I want every available archer deployed. Bring up the barrels of oil and tinder. Reinforce the gate as well. Send word to the Commander. I’m sure he heard the horn, and I don’t want him showing up here without knowing what’s going on. ” He stopped and turned, raising his finger to the lieutenant to accentuate his point. “And send a runner to recall those troops I sent with that boy lover, Hecktar. I need every sword and spear on the wall.”
