Heroes of the Fallen Read online

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, he did. Says you are the best salesgirl he ever had with so little experience. You know, I am taking my caravan south to Desolation and Teancum, perhaps even Tullan if news is good. I would not mind having you come along.”

  “Thank you, but no. I have given my word to Rezon,” she blushed.

  “Loyalty is good, and Rezon is a friend of mine. That is half the reason I am making you this offer.”

  “If you are his friend, then why would you try and take me away from him?” Irritated, she stood to leave.

  “Miss, your new tejate,” said the serving girl, placing it on the table.

  “I don’t want it,” snapped Bethia.

  “Bethia, calm yourself. I am not trying to upset you, but Rezon is not the man you think he is.”

  She frowned at him and left, returning to the wagon to sulk underneath the canopy. Why was the world against her happiness? Why did strangers have to try and separate her from the man of her dreams? Gazelem must want her for himself, the pig. If she saw him again, she would give him a tongue thrashing such as her father gave the city council whenever they displeased him. If father could do it to a council of the fifty most powerful men in Zarahemla, she could do it to some lying caravan master.

  “There you are,” said Keturah. “Come along, it's prepared. We are meeting in Rezon’s tent because it has a hole in the peak to let smoke escape and I need a small fire.”

  “A hole in it?”

  “Yes, like a Lemuelite tent. Come on.”

  “Is Rezon going to be there?”

  “Of course, he says he really wants to know some things, too.”

  “Is Gazelem going to be there?”

  “No, just you and Rezon. Why?”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s wonderful,” beamed Bethia.

  The tent was circular just like Bethia had heard the Lemuelites made theirs, but this one was made with a patchwork of many fine cloths rather than the skins of animals. A thin wisp of smoke exited the conical top, and Bethia hoped it was Rezon’s sweet smelling pipe. Keturah opened the tent flap and Bethia saw instead that it was a tiny fire set smoldering and flickering in a brazier.

  Just as she was about to enter, Bethia heard Rezon’s voice, and she turned to look for him. He was speaking to Peter, the caravan’s blacksmith.

  “What do you mean you can’t find any steel?” asked Rezon heatedly.

  “I am telling you there is none to be found in the city, none. Everyone tells me that a strange man came through three weeks ago. He bought every piece of exalted copper that could be had, money was no object. And then two weeks ago, a different man came and bought all the steel and iron available, again price and quantity was no object,” said Peter. “You know there has been an awful lot of coin floating around, and it isn’t fake. Someone is paying a lot of money.”

  Rezon kicked at the ground.

  “Folk say that is half the reason we have had such a good couple of days here, is because everyone sold their metals,” Peter continued. “Even swords and spears were sold. Crazy as it sounds, we have so much silver now, it would be cheaper to make horseshoes of silver than buy me the ingots of iron I need.”

  “If only we could make horseshoes of silver. Someone is having a laugh at us,” lamented Rezon.

  “I feel responsible, I heard there were buyers of iron in Zarahemla last week and I gave it no thought. There is probably no iron to be had in Zarahemla by now.”

  “It is not your fault, my friend. I was so excited at how well we have been doing that I did not notice that someone is preparing to rule the market. I’d wager my life now that all the ore mines are owned by a select group of individuals.”

  “The Brotherhood?” whispered Peter.

  Rezon nodded. “I thought Gazelem was letting the fear run away with him, but perhaps there is something on the wind.” He turned and looked toward Bethia and beyond. “Something sweet, like honey.” He gave a lopsided grin, and her heart melted. “Tell Keturah, I will be there in a minute,” Rezon told her, as another man came from behind the tent with a sack of silver.

  “I will,” she blushed again and went into the tent to relay the message.

  Keturah grunted in reply as she looked through an open box with powders, elixirs, and mushrooms. Bethia looked about the insides of Rezon’s tent, wondering if someday she might call it their tent. There was a bundle of blankets kicked off to the side and a pair of boots exactly like Rezon was wearing now. A dulcimer sat off to the side, lacking a couple strings, and a half eaten joint of mutton just behind. Rezon surely needed a woman’s help.

  “What will you do to talk to the spirits and soothsay?” asked Bethia.

  “I will pour special ingredients into the pot, and we will hold hands and call upon the spirits to come to us and tell us our fortunes. We will be granted visions of the future and be told who our spirit friends are.”

  “We will hold hands?”

  “Yes, that’s how it is done.”

  Bethia’s heart leaped. She would get to hold hands with Rezon for as long as it lasted, and he would sense her passion. Tonight, he would know they were meant to be together. There would be no denying it.

  Keturah began sprinkling in pungent brown powders and chanting in a low voice.

  “Ladies,” said Rezon, popping his head through. “I, uh, can’t make it tonight. I am sorry. I just got word about a possible sale of iron for horseshoes on the far side of the city and I must go. Feel free to stay as long as you want. See you in the morning.”

  Keturah glanced at Bethia, now shrunken and frowning, and asked, “So do you still want to speak to the spirits?”

  “No.”

  What Happened in Hagoth’s Landing

  Miriam’s cries were more than Samson could bear. It had been days now since Bethia had disappeared, and still her mother showed no signs of letting up the tears or self-recriminations. Onandagus was upset, but you would never know it, the chief judge was made of a harder stone than Samson was, of that he was sure.

  Samson had been at peace with letting Bethia go, but she wasn’t his daughter. True, it was her choice, but then he went and lied to her father and said he found no trace of her. He was the worst of men, a great villain masquerading as a good stalwart champion of righteousness, all the while a hypocritical liar. He began to loathe himself, and it grew worse every time he heard Miriam weep.

  He went to the decayed side of Zarahemla to a tavern in the Bowl called Hagoth’s Landing. It was named after an explorer who sailed away and had never been heard from again. The place had a low-key atmosphere he liked, and he often came here to overhear gossip and news that came from back channels and unclean sources. He drank himself into many burgundy bottles of wine, trying to forget and not feel anything anymore. But the sound of Miriam’s tears still came as if they were the ocean hitting the pitiless stones of the distant shore.

  “Here now, look at this. It’s the chief judge’s bodyguard drinking hi’self stoopid,” slurred a buck-toothed man. Others gathered about and laughed.

  “You guys mind? It’s kind of personal,” responded Samson over his shoulder.

  “No, we don’t mind, we don’t mind at all, do we fellers?” The men laughed again.

  “Thanks.” Samson took another draught of wine.

  “But first I got something to say to you.”

  Samson turned around, his hand still upon his wine bottle.

  “Well the way I sees it, you owe us one,” continued the lead man for the half dozen laughing men. They were desperate-looking thugs, the bottom feeders of Zarahemla’s underground. “Near all of us have been thrown into prison for a spell, courtesy of your precious judge.”

  “That so?” Samson’s eye twitched.

  “Yea, that’s so. Now we got you here all by your lonesome, drunk as a Lemuelite,” said the man, patting a makeshift club. The others had various weapons as well, knives and mallets.

  Samson smiled and took one last draught of hi
s wine.

  “Turn around and face me. Or are you a coward?” snarled the buck-toothed man.

  The red rage hit, and instinct took over. Samson smashed the wine bottle into the man’s face and swung what little was left of it into another man. He then kicked, punched, bit, and stomped until no one was standing but him. Almost a dozen men sprawled on the floor.

  City guardsmen crowded inside, led by Lehonti, the commander. “What happened? There’s blood everywhere.”

  “Someone bled.” Samson shrugged.

  He went back to his apartment near the judgment hall and changed clothes. He grabbed a light coat and hat and sent a boy to fetch his favorite horse. Then he went to Onandagus and said, “I need to go.”

  “For how long?” asked Onandagus. “As you know, most of my trusted men are gone.”

  “Don’t know exactly, a week maybe.”

  “And you must do this now?”

  “Yea.”

  “Be careful,” warned Onandagus, watching the big man leave.

  Samson knew approximately where he was going but no more than that. If anything happened to the girl, he would never forgive himself. He rode out of the city’s gloomy stink and into the refreshing countryside surrounding Zarahemla covered with acre upon acre of farmland. Down the southbound road he cut through a long steep wooded channel. It always made him wary because it seemed like an ideal place for robbers. Through it and on to the narrow bridge across the River Melek he watched where it fed the larger River Sidon and then he looked up into the wheeling stars. A cool breeze slapped him in the face, and he didn’t feel quite so loathsome anymore. He would make things right.

  An Axe for The King

  Zelph, hero of the war with Madoni, came to the burned mass of ruins that used to be the temple of Shagreel. He stepped over broken pottery and smashed furniture, blackened from the previous night’s fire. Curious instruments of torture and pain were scattered about, giving him eerie sensations like spiders running up his back when he looked upon them. The ruins felt alive and malevolent. If he had ever stood upon unhallowed ground, this was such a place.

  Zelph had to stoop and go sideways to enter the vestige of a doorway not made for someone nearly eight feet tall. Strong as any man alive, he was the pinnacle of what the Lamanites considered a warrior’s perfection.

  “Ah, Zelph, you are early. Good,” said Balam-Ek, looking him up and down. “You are a big man, perhaps the biggest in all of Mutula next to Tazilacatzin. Once he leaves, you will be the giant of Mutula.”

  “What do you mean once he leaves, if I may ask?” Zelph arched his eyebrows.

  “Me? Yes, go ahead and ask, but the king or prince... never ask them anything. Truly you are your father’s son. Never speak to the king or prince unless spoken to. Your father’s unruly ways have corrupted you. A great warrior, yes, but too stiff-necked to be a great servant of the king,” said Balam-Ek. “There was a time when men heeded their king’s every wish, before the bright god came to our lands from across the sea and polluted the traditions of Father Laman.”

  Zelph shrugged. He knew all the stories and kept his opinions to himself.

  “The Gadianton Grand Master has come bearing news of an imminent war with the Nephites. I have dispatched all my best spies to be sure he speaks the truth. I trust not that viper’s word. King Xoltec puts too much credit in what the Gadianton says. I don’t know why I am telling you all this, but my disdain for Akish-Antum is no secret, and I know I can trust you. Even though I don’t like your father, I respect him. He is a man of honor, and I am sure you are as well,” Balam-Ek said to the towering warrior.

  “Yet we have never spoken before,” wondered Zelph.

  “No, we have not. You are a phenomenal warrior. I do not like your lack of devotion to Baal, but you are the best man for the job. The Gadiantons could never corrupt you. These traits make you the best bodyguard a king could ask for, like your father, who will be sent north with the rest of Almek’s army.”

  “I had not heard this news yet.”

  “Of course not. Soldiers are not privileged to hear court proceedings. You ask too many questions, never do so with the king or prince. It would go badly for you.”

  Zelph nodded, despairing inside at the news that he would be separated from his father. He would remain in the court of a vile king, while his father might die far to the north in Nephite lands.

  “Come, Zelph, to the king... to take your sacred oath and be presented your royal axe.” They left the ruinous temple and walked across a wide plaza toward the king’s hall. “You know the importance and honor of your sacred oath, don’t you? I trust that in this matter, your father has not failed to instruct you.”

  “Yes, I understand the honor and obligation of an oath to the king. And my father has not failed me in anything.”

  Balam-Ek turned and looked at him while still walking, a wicked grin upon his face. “Of course, I meant no disrespect. It’s my nature to poke and pry, to stick my fingers in a wound to see why it hurts.”

  “Maybe the wound hurts because your finger is in there.”

  Balam-Ek smiled. “Never thought of that. Next time I will have to try two fingers.”

  The king’s hall was long and wider than any room Zelph had ever been in before. It smelled of strange, exotic incense and tobacco. Brilliant murals mixed with jaguar and crocodile skins decorated the walls. Magnificent multi-colored birds strutted on the outskirts, giving way to lesser courtiers.

  “Everyone has a designated area to be seated. Higher nobles toward the front, lesser ones in the middle, and servants and slaves in the back,” said Balam-Ek. Despite the order, many nobles thronged closer, arguing and jockeying for position above and beyond their designated stations. “You will make that bickering stop, once you are sworn in.”

  A very small man with an abnormally large head sat near the king, writing down whatever was said. “An Alux, a dwarf, the king’s scribe. They have been good luck for generations, or so I have been told. His name is Tulum, but you need never speak to him. He is a slave,” said Balam-Ek. “It is rude to keep staring though, so stop it.” The priest smacked Zelph across the chest.

  A slave girl played softly upon a stringed instrument, while another tapped lightly on a strange instrument covered with many tiny pieces of metal, each giving distinct pleasant tones. Zelph thought it was the most beautiful, elegant music he had ever heard. King Xoltec seemed not to hear. He was completely oblivious to the music, perhaps from hearing the same tune many times.

  The king sat with his hand on his chin, sleepily listening to a nobleman ramble on about robbers who had stolen his crops and kidnapped his daughter. The nobleman demanded justice and a posse to hunt them down. As soon as Xoltec saw Balam-Ek and Zelph, his eyes brightened, and he dismissed the man with a flick of his wrist. The nobleman, in his feathered headdress, bowed and stepped away.

  Prince Almek, seated beside the king, noticed Zelph for the first time and frowned at him.

  “Balam-Ek, you have brought my new bodyguard captain. Excellent. It is Zelph, correct?” King Xoltec said in a jovial mood. “The slayer of Madoni. I am well-pleased. Now Zelph, tell me where your umbilicus is buried and how old you are?”

  Confused at being asked this once again by the king, Zelph paused before replying, “I am eighteen sun cycles and my umbilicus is here in Mutula, under my father’s hearthstone.”

  “Good, a local man who will know of our urgent need,” said Xoltec, as he walked to his chambers behind the dais.

  Zelph began to ask a question, but was cut off by Balam-Ek, who shook his head and gave him a silencing gesture with his long, red-nailed finger. “He is going senile, and he often asks you questions more than once. That does not mean you can ask him anything. Be silent,” muttered the priest.

  “What is this need he speaks of?”

  Xoltec heard him and stopped suddenly. “Has our situation been explained to the new captain? Do not write any of this down, Tulum,” he said harshly to the
dwarf, who looked up with sad eyes. A strange little man.

  “Somewhat, your majesty,” said Zelph, looking to Balam-Ek for support, who now ignored him.

  “To my chambers then. Crown Prince Almek, see to the rest of the day’s courts.”

  “But Father, the games,” he whined like a child.

  Zelph smirked. Almek saw and glared hard at the big man.

  “They will wait! You wish to be king someday? Act like one today,” thundered the king. He led Zelph and Balam-Ek into his private chambers, shutting the door in the face of Tulum the dwarf.

  Balam-Ek said, “Zelph, as captain of bodyguards, you are to be near the king at all times, until relieved. Because we know your worth and character, you will even sleep in the palace near the king. Times are strange since Akish-Antum has arrived in Mutula. Murders and robberies have more than doubled within the city. It is no coincidence that a dark spirit follows him like a plague.”

  “He is still a man we can use, but he is not to be fully trusted,” said the king, as he lounged upon a fur-covered chair.

  The high priest continued his instructions to Zelph. “Never allow the Gadianton and the king to be alone together. Be eternally vigilant. Your very life and honor are at stake. Do not forget that, in centuries past, the traitorous Nephite usurper Amalikiah slew noble King Lamoni and blamed it on his servants. They were in turn slain or chased to the ends of the earth. He took the queen for his own and attempted to supplant our divine right more wickedly than any one man since the days of father Laman and cursed Nephi.”

  The king nodded but said nothing more.

  “Your valor in the battle of Lamanihah is not forgotten. You will be given gold and honor. In time, you will be given a woman from the slaves’ quarters. You will also be supplied room and board for the rest of your days. You are never allowed any wine. A servant of mine says you do not drink, in any case,” said the high priest, as he scrutinized Zelph’s reaction.

  Zelph nodded. He fought to remain silent, unhappy about this sudden development. At every turn, things sounded worse. How could he live here and remain a pure man?