Heroes of the Fallen Page 19

  “I wasn’t at first, but I awoke as the girl was giving the men something to drink. I looked over and saw you kissing Lilith. The Nubian was staring at you both in fury.”

  “For all I know, we may have met before.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “You tell me. How many Nubians have you ever even seen before?”

  “Not very many.”

  “Neither have I, since few of them live in the Promised Land. Most are typically sailors aboard Phoenician vessels that make port in the bigger cities like Zarahemla, Tarshish, and Bountiful. When I was a youth of ten summers, I ran afoul of a gang of Nubian sailors on the south side of Zarahemla, oarsmen and cabin boys of some foreign ship. I could barely understand them, but they made it clear they wanted my fine pony. I kept refusing, so they chased me for it. Their long-limbed bodies were swift and the half dozen of them almost caught me several times. At first, I thrilled at the chase, but as I grew tired of it, I headed home, foolishly thinking it was over.” He shrugged and smiled.

  “Reaching the safety of home, I put the pony in its stall and brushed it down before going inside to get something to eat. The seven Nubian boys followed me in. To my own home!” Amaron spat. His eyes flashed, still angry after all these years.

  “I told them in no uncertain terms to get out and go to hell, but they refused. They said I owed them the pony for making them give chase and run all over the city. They would not leave, so I drew the biggest knife in the kitchen. My threats only made them laugh. Challenging their leader, I advanced, and we struggled with the knife on the floor. With all my heart I wanted to drive the knife into his belly, I was so angry that they had invaded my family’s home. At that age, it seemed to me an unthinkable act,” Amaron said, as they kept up their labored march over the thick shrubbery. Every now and again he would stop and look over their back trail as if expecting to be followed.

  “The others were shouting around me, encouraging their friend. Then silence came as I realized they had all gone except the one I was grappling with. My father and mother came home, and my father ended the struggle and pulled my knife away. The young Nubian got up and ran off. My mother was in hysterics at the whole thing. My father told me never to pull a knife as a threat unless I was wholly committed to the task and meant to use it. I had not the heart to say in front of my mother that I had been so committed. I wanted to kill that boy for trespassing. For all I know, that Taharka was one of those boys from years ago,” mused Amaron.

  “Captain, I have a question for you while we are out here in this muck and grime,” said Daniel.

  “What is it?”

  “If we are going to get paid for our losses in the field, might we be able to claim a full crop rather than just half? I lost almost half my crop of corn and two thirds of my barley to that late frost.”

  “So, you would cheat the food stores and tithes from Onandagus?”

  No one responded to this.

  “Say what you will upon our return. But I warn all of you, blessings will be lost for such an attitude as that.”

  Daniel scoffed, “Ha, blessings in heaven lost over a full storeroom? I will take the lost blessings and full storeroom anytime.”

  “Fool,” said Judah.

  “You despise me and damn yourself for that... fool,” he snapped back. They hit each other in the shoulder and laughed.

  Things were different now, mused Amaron. When he was younger, they all went out into the wilderness to train and learn woodcraft. The spirit of the Lord was with them then, but not now. They complained endlessly and conspired to cheat Onandagus. All except Ezra, who did not complain. A better example of soft city folk, Amaron could not imagine.

  Amaron found it hard to forgive and overlook Ezra for his part in Helam’s death, but then Helam knew his job and accepted it always unflinching. In a way, the weaselly little man with the pathetic facial hair had saved them. Seeing him pray was the one thing that shook some sense into Amaron, enabling him to overcome the drug and slay Taharka before he himself was cloven asunder.

  None of the others acknowledged Ezra’s part in that night’s event. Amaron had put them all in danger for a pretty face and then had saved them just in time, so it balanced out to them.

  Mounting a thick forested hill, they looked across a mighty valley as they reached the summit. The walled city of Manti sat before them, with its walls thrice the height of a man. The city had been captured and endured many sieges in the past. Once the Christ had come and the wars over, the residents still built strong walls and foundations out of tradition.

  Tall thick logs were posted in the ground as a stockade, lashed together and stuccoed over. Towers sat along the wall every hundred paces. A small walkway ran the entire distance of the city’s perimeter, much the same as Zarahemla’s. Year after year the people of Manti had added to the stucco, giving it strength and fireproofing. It was a beautiful sight from atop the hill.

  “I have never seen it from this angle before,” said Ezra.

  Amaron said, “No one comes up here anymore.”

  “Anymore?”

  “It is considered bad luck, this is Manti Hill. It is where Nehor, the blasphemer and murderer, was hung.”

  “Why is that bad luck?” asked Ezra.

  “I am not saying it is. I have been here dozens of times without incident, but others fear the unknown, thinking old Nehor still haunts this hill and these woods.”

  “Why would anyone think that?” asked Ezra, as he looked about nervously.

  “Because he was hung, suspended between heaven and earth.”

  Ezra looked perplexed at Amaron’s answer, so the burly Nephite continued, “His soul was rejected by both heaven and earth. He is in limbo, he cannot move on to the other side so he stays here. It’s what ghosts do, when they can’t move on.”

  “Where was he hung exactly?”

  “That I do not know. After he was dead and the flesh rotted away from his bones, they cut the tree down and burned it somewhere on this hill, along this trail.”

  The thick trees blotted out the sun here and there, shading the forest like tiger stripes as they walked down the hill. Ezra asked, “Do you believe in spirits?”

  “Of course, I do,” said Amaron.

  “Do you fear them then?”

  “No, they are just spirits. I can respect some, but fear them? No, never.”

  Ezra prodded, “So you have never met any?”

  “I have. A few of all types, I would say.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  Amaron scowled at him.

  “I am sorry, eah,” breathed Ezra.

  “I spent the night at the home of some family friends out to the southeast years ago, near Onidah. It was a very fine home. It had been built near the sight of a great battlefield in ages past. I was given my own room to stay in. Now the door and window were shut tight, mind you. I awoke in the night to someone sitting beside me on the bed, up against the small of my back as I lay facing the wall. I felt them get up. I turned over quickly and no one was there,” said Amaron, leading them down a game trail with thick grasses on either side.

  “What did you do then?”

  “I admit it was a little unnerving. Who wants a ghost sitting beside them as they try to sleep? So, I went out into the night to sleep in the wagon. A full moon lit up the courtyard. I lay my bedroll on the floorboards of the wagon and lay down to sleep, when something violently shook the entire wagon. No one was there, and it was not me shaking the thing either. I tried to shake it myself and could not reproduce the effect no matter how hard I tried. Remember the courtyard was clear, and I could see in every direction in the bright moonlight. I even got out and looked underneath the wagon to see if there was some sort of trickster about, but there was no one,” said Amaron.

  Ezra’s eyes were wide with anticipation now. “Then?”

  “I went to sleep,” said Amaron, stepping over a boulder.

  “After that?” asked Ezra.

  �
�Yea, what else was I going to do? I awoke sometime later in the night to a deep sound coming at me swiftly, a mournful groaning. My head was on the pillow on the wagon floor and I had not time to even get up when I felt something intangible moving through the floorboards straight at me. Whatever it was came right up to my face and I felt a gush of wind as if someone had just breathed cold air into my face. Again, I saw no one,” said Amaron.

  Ezra shivered. “What did you do? I would have died of fright, eah.”

  “Nay, I told them to leave me alone and let me sleep.”

  “And?’

  “They did. I stayed there for another week without any further incident. Spirits know how you are feeling. They can read you as easy as any scroll. They knew I was not afraid of them and that their tricks were getting no reaction from me. I felt no fear, no anger. I was no fun to tease or harass, so they quit,” said Amaron.

  Daniel laughed as he chopped a low hanging tree branch out of the way.

  “I couldn’t do that, I’d be too frightened,” said Ezra, still looking over his shoulder.

  “I don’t think they were evil spirits,” Amaron said, “simply those who had not yet moved on. They were like mischievous children. Besides, what is a spirit going to do to you anyway?”

  “They can make you afraid,” suggested Ezra, shielding the sun from his face in a rare spot where it shone through the trees.

  “Only if you let them. Your life is what you choose to make of it. Choose not to be afraid.” Amaron halted the company and pondered silently which way to go through a fork in the game trail. He stared down the hill, sniffing at the non-existent breeze.

  He gestured for the men to take the left fork in the game trail, although the right one went toward Manti.

  “Why go this way?” complained Daniel. “We’re going the wrong way.”

  “Be quiet,” snapped Amaron, as he put his hand on his hilt. Behind the trees, a huge bull mastodon snorted at them and went back to eating the buttercups that grew along the hillside.

  “I knew something was down there. I just wasn’t sure what it was,” said Amaron, continuing down the hill.

  “Tell us why you became a Gadianton, Ezra,” asked Judah.

  “I wanted to be rich. I wanted women to desire me as I desired them. I never had a thought to another way I might get these things, because joining the Order seemed so easy. If I was a part of the Order, I was a part of something bigger than myself. I took the oath and I was rewarded for service, others looked out for me until Amaron found me.”

  “How did Amaron know to get you? That you would talk?” asked Daniel.

  Ezra grimaced. “I don’t know. How did you decide to go after me, out of all the others?”

  “I was told by Onandagus to find you. I still don’t know how he knew, I never asked,” said Amaron. “I was to look for one of the low-ranking common thief types, someone who could tell us of Gadianton plans. We would never get the information from a high ranking Gadianton, they’re too dedicated and have too much protection and twisting of law on their side. Onandagus suggested you. The interpreter stones may have told him about you.”

  They kept a good pace down the hillside, jumping over fallen trees and over a noisy little brook that fed the corn fields below. Ezra kept close behind Amaron and Judah. When they reached level ground, the trees abruptly stopped, and the fields began.

  They cut across the freshly irrigated field until they came to a narrow muddy road. They passed a few farmhouses with noisy children out front who stared at them before running indoors, except for one curious, brave little towheaded boy who brandished a wooden sword at them. They all laughed to see him behave as such, and he laughed back.

  The muddy road soon met another wider road that cut in from up the valley and led straight to the small north gate of Manti. It was called the cemetery gate, near where the townspeople buried their dead. Amaron had not wanted to enter the large eastern gate where traffic to and from Zarahemla would typically come.

  Corn was planted to within thirty paces of the city’s tall walls, and a single guard dozed at the open gate. Amaron frowned. “I have read that in the days of Captain Moroni, a deep ditch surrounded the entire city. It was filled in after the coming of the Christ. Moroni would not have allowed corn to be grown so close to the city walls. It had to be at least a hundred paces away.”

  “Why was that?”

  “So that invaders would have no cover or concealment from the archers along the wall. Good scouts could sneak through this corn and get right up to that dozing guard, slit his throat, and take the city. He ought to be flogged for sleeping on duty.”

  They entered the cemetery gates without the guard so much as stirring. Inside, a boy of perhaps ten in a green shirt was watching the gate as they entered. He ran down the street after he had visibly counted them. They had seen his mouth moving “one thru ten.”

  “He seemed to be watching and waiting for some such as us,” said Judah.

  “Yea he did, didn’t he? Quick, Ezra where does your cousin live?” said Amaron.

  “Right down this avenue.”

  “If the Gadiantons are watching and waiting, should we not return to Zarahemla and tell Onandagus they are wise to us?” suggested Benjamin.

  “If so, how could you expect to cheat him, without us actually performing the mission?” Amaron snapped.

  Benjamin frowned. “I’m here to help.”

  “Yourself.”

  Ezra interrupted, “My cousin’s home is right here, let us hurry. I will speak to him with Amaron alone, the rest should wait here.”

  “Stretch out and wait, boys,” said Amaron.

  “We will meet you at the cemetery gates,” said Judah while Daniel laughed as if thinking of an inside joke.

  The white stuccoed face of the home was old and peeling, revealing the logs beneath. Ezra knocked on the front door. A scraggly, portly man opened the door with a confused look on his face.

  “Uncle,” said Ezra as the man examined him, squinting against the sunlight. Amaron could smell the strong scent of wine. “Uncle Reuben, it’s your nephew Ezra.”

  “Eh Ezra? I don’t know any Ezra,” said the man, his long white hair arcing about his face.

  Looking hard at Ezra, Amaron had a hand on the pommel of his sword.

  Whispering, Ezra explained, “Easy, he has been going senile for a while now.” Louder, he said, “Uncle Reuben it is I, Ezra, son of your sister.”

  A look of recognition washed over the man’s face. “Oh, I am sorry. It has been years since I have seen you or your mother. Four I think,” he said, as he rubbed his hands across his dirty brown tunic.

  “Six, Uncle.”

  “Yes, yes, who is your friend?”

  “I am Amaron, a captain of Zarahemla.”

  “Good for you, but if you think I have anything to do with my nephew’s delinquencies, think better of it. I have not seen him in years, and besides, I am a close personal friend of Chief Judge Onandagus,” said Reuben.

  “No, you’re not,” contended Amaron.

  “I know. But still, I have nothing to do with this one’s crimes.” He tried to shut the door, but Amaron held it.

  “Uncle, this is not about me. I’m reformed, I am helping the law now. We are on a mission from Onandagus himself. We could use a good bowman. Is Sam here?”

  Tears came suddenly to the drunken man’s face. “Is this a sick joke? What a terrible time for you to come inquire of my son. How dare you, of all people, come here. A robber, now coming to ask my son to join you.”

  “Uncle, I am reformed. I am atoning for the things I have done as best I can. I am helping to fight the Gadiantons now.”

  “It’s too late, too late, Sam is gone.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Robbers... robbers murdered him a fortnight ago. Lower class Gadiantons… just scum, killed my boy. Cursed red-caps.”

  “I am sorry, Uncle.”

  “You’re sorry, everyone is sorry. Your damned
brotherhood killed him in cold blood for our corn money. A few lousy senines cost me my son. Go away... go away,” cried Reuben, looking far off. “I need to drink a little more. There is nothing more to be done or said. All is gone, all is done. The torches have faded away.”

  Amaron grabbed Ezra’s shoulder, “Let’s go.”

  Back at the gates, the others had tied the guard’s legs together with a thin twine and were about to let out a loud crash beside him when they saw Amaron and Ezra’s swift approach.

  “What happened?” asked Obadiah.

  “Gadiantons. The cousin is dead. Let us hurry. We need to be on our own route to the northwest of here,” said Amaron. He smirked, observing the sleeping guard with twine about his legs as he leaned asleep against the wall.

  “But we are only nine men and we need to be a solid ten,” said Lehi.

  Nephi nodded. “That’s tradition. It’s bad luck not to be ten under one.”

  “It does not matter. We will have to do without a tenth. It is only tradition anyway,” said Amaron.

  “Humble as a Zoramite, aren’t you,” said Daniel.

  Amaron frowned at the insult. Zoramites were considered the peak of arrogance and false pride.

  “There is tradition for a good reason,” said Judah

  “Which is?”

  Judah shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know it’s tradition and we always get into trouble when we don’t follow it. Think about the other night, you broke tradition.”

  “I know,” snapped Amaron.

  “What will happen to us if we break this one? That’s all I’m saying. Could be real bad,” said Judah.

  “Let’s go, traditions are made to be broken.”

  Some of them mumbled, but they turned and followed Amaron. As they were about to depart out the gate a voice called out, “Stop, stop.” It was Uncle Reuben running toward them with a bow and small pack in hand.

  “You wanted a bowman,” he said. “I am a good bowman, I trained my son.”

  “We have no time for drunkards,” said Amaron.

  “I have only drunk the last few days since my son was killed. I need a chance to right wrongs. I need revenge. Let me go with you.”

  “No.”