Heroes of the Fallen Page 18

As the high priest approached King Xoltec, the dwarf Tulum announced. “My lord, Chief High Priest Balam-Ek,” spoke the deep-voiced little man.

  Waking from a midday doze, the king looked at the priest and yawned. “Is there any news?”

  “Yea, Rabbanah, there is. Qof-Ayin has just returned, badly wounded. He has requested his son Zelph attend him and his wounds.”

  “That is fine. Zelph you may go to your father,” said Xoltec. “Tell me my priest, what does he say of the Nephites?”

  “Qof-Ayin says that all of the runners and spies have Nephite arrows in their backs and throats slit with copper daggers.”

  “The Gadianton speaks true, eh?”

  “So, it seems. I suspected treachery, but if Qof-Ayin, the only one to return alive, is putting his word to it, it must be so.”

  Across from the palace was a large plaza and complex with several ball courts and arenas. Here the thousands who had gathered could jockey for position to both watch and participate in the games and contests. A small area was afforded for the royal family and guests to watch without being touched by the masses. Within were Prince Almek, Prince Aaron, Princess Sayame, and the Gadianton Grand Master.

  With the game over, consequences were due. The winning team captain, Siyach, addressed Prince Almek. “Your majesty, what is your wish for the losing players’ lives?”

  Two dozen faces looked up at him. The winners knew their place was assured, the losers prayed for the mercy of heartless gods.

  “The losers of Midian must die. They will be sacrificed to appease the gods and to thank them for our greatness,” said Almek.

  “You would slay the losers to thank stone gods for your victory?” asked the Gadianton.

  “What? It is our right,” said Almek.

  “It’s a waste. Those men are strong, and this invasion needs the best men you have. Almost seventy-five thousand men have come here wanting to be in this army. I want only the best twenty-five thousand. Let us now choose the best.”

  “What do you have in mind?” asked Aaron.

  “A game after my own heart,” said the Gadianton as he leapt down onto the arena floor and selected a wooden training sword from a rack of practice weapons. “Who can prove their skill? Who dares show me? I will begin.” The giant robber king stood in the center of the ball court daring all to meet his gaze. Doffing his crimson cloak, he cried aloud for all to hear, “Show me your vaunted skill in battle. Show me!”

  Silence reigned as the audience watched.

  “Are you helpless as fish out of the sea? Are you something a worm could rule over?”

  Angry murmurs rolled over the crowd and those farthest from his gaze shouted mocking threats. “Do you wish to die? Are you calling our king a worm?”

  Laughing, the Gadianton answered, “No, not your king. All of you.”

  The crowd parted for an immense, dark-skinned warrior. “Tazilacatzin,” they murmured.

  “Do you challenge me?” asked the behemoth warrior.

  “Yea, let’s give the people some real sport,” replied the Gadianton Grand Master.

  Tazilacatzin stood a couple feet taller than even the huge Gadianton. His features were hawk like, his eyes like obsidian. Neither man seemed afraid.

  The mountainous Lamanite gestured for a weapon. A servant was about to give him a wooden training sword like the Gadianton’s but Akish-Antum said, “Nay, give him his flint club, I need a challenge.”

  The Lamanite giant growled at this but accepted his obsidian flanged club. He swung it around thrice with each arm to loosen his muscles. The Gadianton stood unmoved by the display before him. Then the giant charged.

  “I hope he kills the Gadianton,” said Almek.

  “Tazilacatzin is at the end of all hope. He will die,” said Aaron.

  Almek turned and frowned at him. “You have been spending far too much time with that Nephite stargazer.”

  “He is not a Nephite, he is the Gadianton Grand Master.”

  “All Nephites are liars and cheats.”

  “Would a liar and a cheat enter into a tournament of death with Tazilacatzin?”

  “Be silent brother, I am immune to his lies and yours.”

  Aaron sat forward on his chair to watch the duel.

  Tazilacatzin, the giant of Mutula, swung devastating blows, unable to connect. He was clearly outmatched and too slow for the panther-like Gadianton. Time and again he experienced the sting of the wooden sword as the Gadianton toyed with him.

  Roaring, Tazilacatzin swung in fury, backing his foe up against a wall. “I have slain more than a hundred men in combat,” he said, sweat dripping in his eyes as the sun glared in his face.

  The Gadianton had the giant right where he wanted him. “I cannot count how many I have killed. You are an amateur when it comes to death.” He leapt up and slammed his wooden blade against the giant’s temple.

  Tazilacatzin dropped to his knees, his body black and blue with bruises on his near naked frame.

  Akish-Antum struck his ribs and thigh hard before asking. “Do you yield?”

  “Never.”

  “Very well.”

  A quick shot to the side of the giant’s neck and he dropped like a stone.

  “Is he dead?” was on everyone’s lips.

  “He is not dead, merely unconscious. He will revive soon, perhaps a little wiser,” said Akish-Antum.

  There was relief in the crowd, for Tazilacatzin was one of their proudest sons.

  The Gadianton threw down his wooden training sword and gestured with his arms outspread. “Your crown prince, Almek, and I are recruiting the best men to go with us and defend your lands from the Nephites. There are many of you here, but you will not all go. Only the most savage and disciplined warriors may accompany us. We go to conquer, we go for honor, we go for glory. Who is strong enough to come with us?”

  The frenzied crowd roared in unison.

  “Then show me,” he shouted as the throng went wild.

  So, the games began. Blood flowed freely on the ball courts, staining them a raw crimson that would not come clean. The crowds loved it.

  The young prince Aaron attended every day, usually beside the Gadianton Grand Master, learning what he could of human anatomy and strategy. He flinched the first few times he saw men die, their life blood draining from them. Soon enough, it did not move him except to excitement.

  During a lull in the fights, he asked the Gadianton, “How did you yourself become such a great warrior?”

  “My inner sword is always drawn to kill nations without pity. Yours needs to be as well.”

  The boy looked up at him with dark eyes trying to take it all in.

  “I will tell you a part of the great secret. In this life, men prosper in accordance with their genius, their strength and cunning. Your people call it the Law of the Jungle. It is the natural way of things.”

  The boy nodded.

  “You will understand more in time, but for now practice as best you can, before the real thing is upon you,” he said.

  By the end of the week, Akish-Antum and Prince Almek had selected almost twenty-five thousand men to be their new model army, the fiercest, most savage men from all the arena battles. Several thousand dead were taken to a huge pit and buried until it was piled high, making the foundation for a new pyramid of death.

  By day and night, Akish-Antum schooled his prodigy further in all matters of strategy, astronomy, history, and the dark arts. He conducted bloody sacrifices to inflame a brutal blood lust within the ranks, and the army began to think of him as their new high priest to dark and bloody gods.

  He told Aaron, “These gods of stone are false. They have no more power than anything you project onto them. Use them to control the people and to manipulate whatever it is you wish to accomplish. Sacrifice to the standards and their weapons will become what they worship.”

  The doctrines of control were ever ingrained into the young boy.

  Zelph stood back from all these things, feeling helpl
ess in the midst of the maelstrom. Bedridden, Qof-Ayin somehow hung on, despite the poison coursing through his veins and eating away at his body.

  “He teaches them false deeds and is building an empire on bloodshed. How much worse can this be?” asked Zelph in despair.

  “When I was young, the old men still spoke fondly of the Golden Age of their fathers. The cities were splendid and beautiful, the children happy and all had plenty to eat. Then came the darkness, when the evils of an earlier age were unbound. The law of the jungle rules over kings and beggars alike. In the Golden Age, there were neither kings nor beggars,” said Qof-Ayin, wincing in pain as he spoke.

  He continued, “I learned many things from the prophet Abinadab. There is a power much greater than ours at work in all of this. Trust in the Great Spirit and his son Jesus Christ. Believe in him with all your heart, might, mind and spirit and he will see you through. You are a good faithful man. I will not much longer be upon this mortal coil.”

  “Don’t say such things, Father. You will recover, and together we can leave this awful place.”

  “It is not to be, I was told to be willing to sacrifice all for my salvation. I welcome it with a glad heart. You must do the same. I want you to pray on your knees, and do not get up until you have an answer one way or the other.”

  “I will.”

  “When the time comes, leave the column when near Tullan.”

  “No, I have overheard that we will not be taking that route. We are instead going near the sea a good portion of the march, then upland past Tullan. There we will meet the army of Apophis.”

  “Fear not, my son, there is a plan for you.” Taking his son’s hand, Qof-Ayin continued, “The wicked have drawn their swords and bent their bows to strike down and slaughter those who live honestly. May their swords pierce themselves and their bows break. Take heart, you have a great purpose.”

  “Why did you not tell King Xoltec of Akish-Antum’s trickery and deceptions?” asked Zelph.

  “On my journey home, I prayed long and hard. It is the will of the Great Spirit that these things come to pass as the Gadianton is orchestrating them. Without realizing it, he is being used to further the Great Spirit’s plan. The Nephites are very wicked at this time and need to be reminded of their God, to repent and return to righteousness. There will be a great round of life. If they do not return to the true God, they will be wiped off the face of the earth. It will be as if they were never here.”

  “The Great Spirit would not do that, would he?”

  “He has and he will again when necessary. Remember the flood, the Jaredites, and countless heathen nations from the land of our fathers.”

  “So many will die.”

  “The Great Spirit will receive his own, and the innocent have a place assured. The wicked will be taught the error of their ways on the other side. That is how you teach your children the danger of fire. Are we not the Great Father’s children?”

  “I understand a little more now. I will go and pray for my own answers. Good night, Father.”

  “Good night, my son.”

  The next morning Akish-Antum gathered the rest of his belongings for the march. Aaron stood with a dozen Lamanite servants, who cringed from the unhallowed room. Reaching into an oaken chest, the Gadianton retrieved a number of artifacts. “Aaron, I am leaving these things with you. These are records liberated from a treasury in Lehi and these from the library of Antionum and these from Zarahemla. Open your mind and learn all you can while I am gone.”

  Waiting until the servants had left, his arms laden with the Gadianton’s belongings, the boy asked, “Master, may I ask why you have such interest in me? I am not blind to your own ambitions. You desire the Nephite kingship for yourself, though you do not say this to my father.”

  “You are a perceptive and sober child, quick to observe. I will tell you.” Holding forth his crystal skull interpreter he said, “This interpreter has shown me your future greatness.”

  “How? I am the least in my father’s house.”

  “Be that as it may, I have seen it and the interpreter does not lie. I know that you, not Almek, will be king someday. You will become the greatest king of the Lamanites. I say this not to flatter you but make you aware of your great destiny. I would help mold you to be that great king. Be wise, be strong, do whatever you must to win these things. If you do nothing, it will negate the prophecy. There is always a struggle between order and chaos, you must make your destiny come to pass. I will teach you more at another time. Until then, drink deep of the fountains of darkness. Don your crown of glory, before all vanishes like smoke. Farewell.”

  Aaron stood in awe as the Gadianton stalked from the room.

  Fierce Uzzsheol accosted his master in the hallway just before the grand entrance leading to the great plaza. “My master, I have slain all the runners and spies save the one who you know returned here.”

  “This Qof-Ayin,” said Akish-Antum.

  “Yes.”

  “He has said my words were true, and the army is about to march within the hour.”

  The mohawked warrior continued, “He was captured by Nephites outside Desolation, I know not how he escaped.”

  “To whom has he spoken since he has returned here?”

  “Only Balam-Ek.”

  “Why did this man support my word?” asked Akish-Antum.

  “I know not. I tracked him in the north, he slew several of my men. He was wounded by a poison knife, and now he dies the slow death. The only person who has since seen him is the son, Zelph,” said Uzzsheol.

  “Are you sure he told Balam-Ek nothing?”

  “I was hidden in a cloak beside them when they spoke. I heard everything, and I do not believe there was any coded message.”

  “No, or the king would not have let the plan progress thus far. Perhaps Qof-Ayin means to blackmail us once we are on the move and out of the king’s ear,” said Akish-Antum. “How bad did you say his wound is?”

  “He should be dead already. It is strange he still lives. I have never known the poison to take so long.”

  “Kill both him and his son with unknown assassins.”

  The lanky, hawk-faced Lamanite bowed and raced off while Akish-Antum pondered. Why would Qof-Ayin not tell Balam-Ek the truth? It must be that he is waiting to use it against us. There could be no other answer. I must be ready. Things could turn very quickly.

  Akish-Antum made his way to the army column that awaited him and Prince Almek at the grand plaza. Dressed in gilded copper armor, a crimson cloak about his shoulders and a blood-soaked lambskin about his loins, he drew his sword. Pointing to the north, he called to the shouting mass of warriors. “We will burn the Nephites with fire and brimstone. The sword will consume their flesh. Woe to that murdering city full of lies. Our prey is never absent. The sound of the whip, the roar of rumbling wheels and galloping hooves will clamor through the night. Rattling chariots, rearing chargers, singing blades, flashing spears. A mass of the slain, a throng of corpses. There will be no end to the bodies of our enemies!”

  His horde cheered, whether shaven-headed Lamanites painted for war or his own corps of Gadianton warriors dressed like himself in copper armor and bloody lambskins. The black and crimson banners were unfurled. Drums and horns beat a dark rhythm of destruction. The somber heavy dirge galvanized the warriors who sang their death song.

  King Xoltec and Prince Aaron watched from atop the tallest pyramid. The king was exuberant and shouted his approval at the spectacle, proud that he still lived to send such a force of counter conquest against his hated enemies. Akish-Antum saluted him from his foremost chariot, gleaming like a burning golden tiger, as the column rode and marched out of the city. Aaron wept that he could not join them.

  The assassins sent by Uzzsheol could not approach Zelph, who was already beside Prince Almek in a chariot leaving the city. Instead they raced to the home of Qof-Ayin. They entered the unbarred door and saw the former great warrior in bed reading a scroll he had received fr
om the prophet Abinadab.

  Looking at the intruders he said, “What took you so long? This poisoned wound is doing your job for you.”

  They approached with daggers drawn.

  “You needn’t fear, for I am ready to die. I have said nothing against your master. His secret design is God’s purpose in the end.” Bowing his head, he began his last prayer waiting for the daggers to fall. The assassins held back a moment as he finished.

  “Now do it, I will fall with your knife,” he said to the foremost dagger man.

  Taken aback the man hesitated.

  Now that they were in range of his bed, Qof-Ayin drew out his sword from beneath his blanket. He swung in a wide, graceful arc, taking some of his murderers with him at the last.

  Remembering Spirits of The Past

  Amaron gazed at the forest, the thick greenery stretching out forever, a sea of trees between his patrol and the first of several destinations. It did not help that the afternoon was so hot and humid. It stuck to the men with an irritating tenacity. Clothing soaked in sweat latched to them like leeches gaining sustenance. The heat made Amaron tired. The drug in his system slowed him down as well. Still, he insisted that they travel overland through the thick woods and swamps, avoiding all roads. Swarms of biting insects tormented them as they moved.

  “Amaron, if we must go to Manti to get Ezra’s cousin why not take the road?” asked Daniel as he swatted a fly on his neck, thick with his own blood.

  “Those Gadianton dogs are watching for us. They watch the roads not the woods. Isn’t that right Ezra?” said Amaron.

  “True, the Order does not have the manpower to watch swamps. We will be noticed as soon as we enter the city, eah,” said Ezra, breathing heavy. He had a curious way of exhaling at the end of every sentence.

  “We do whatever we can do to throw them off our trail,” said Amaron. The men grumbled at their wet boots and bug bites but continued.

  “Tell me Amaron,” Ezra said. “It seemed like that Nubian you slew really hated you.”

  “How could you know that? Were you awake?” asked Amaron.