Thorns of Glory, page 33
Still, I could not liberate my lungs from that former smell of blood and feces, rotting and roasting flesh. We killed and killed and killed because, oh, how we hated them! The Jews, I mean. Their obstinacy. Their exasperating religion. Their ingratitude. Yes, ingratitude! For spurning us, their patrons! Rejecting fealty to the Eagle Standard! How could they fail to see the superiority of the Emperor over their own feeble God, whose name they quavered to utter? For me and every legionary of Vespasian, Titus, and Cerealis, it was not about winning. It was about winning rapidly. The slightest setback made us thirstier for vengeance.
How would Meagan have reacted if she knew all this? Would she still declare my “worthiness” to save Moroni? Not likely. Not at all.
All right, I confess. I’d felt . . . a similar prompting. Funny how the passage of mere minutes and encountering a few briars could disperse such notions. How susceptible was the human mind to marvel and doubt?
Did I even believe in Meagan’s God? Yes, I believed. I’d witnessed too much. Did I not love Him? I didn’t know. I did not love Him as I’d loved Rome. I’d felt as if my symbolic rebirth in the watery font was a kind of fatuous rebound after learning that my prior god was dead, strangled by the fingers of time. As for my “Step”-father of Heaven and His proclamations of mercy, I could not help but feel that His celestial scales were justifiably weighted in a way that demanded my suffering and penance.
I acknowledged miracles too. The jaws of death had snapped so often and missed. However, astride those successes blazed the pyres of failure: Lamanai’s barbarity, Micah’s murder, Meagan’s agony . . . Far too many blazing pyres.
The apex of all cruelties was unfolding this very day on Cumorah, a reality that coalesced into a salivating specter as I emerged from the brush. A commotion was unfolding as I beheld the first of Moroni’s defenders in a ravine at the base of a prominent ridge. This ridge, I discerned, overlooked the mass of Lamanite forces positioned on the west. Towers and traps festooned the length of this broken spine. Children as young as five plodded to and from its summit like worker ants, their backs hunched over with water and supplies. I knew they’d been at it since before dawn. Grizzled or disabled warriors filled the water skins and buckets of these children or stacked a crushing amount of supplies on their tumplines.
I initially thought my appearance had interrupted the established routine, but I was not the cause of disruption. The ground began to vibrate. Every eye turned upward, toward the ridge. I realized the first trigger of Mormon’s machinations had been sprung. An avalanche of boulders and timbers had been sent crashing down the hillsides. This was timed, I presumed, because the enemy had launched its ascent. All along the spine, from tower to tower, signalmen furiously waved banners. Mormon himself had undoubtedly inaugurated this chain reaction.
Soldiers and children sent up a raucous cheer. This was the moment they’d labored toward, longed for, strained to envision for who knew how many months or years? The moment had finally arrived. Even those whose exhaustion was at the breaking point hastened to return to the summit or some other overlook to watch. I heard howls of regret from some who’d missed it; and teeth-gnashing satisfaction from those who felt their lust for revenge had been vindicated. They wanted to witness the horror and relish the screams of astounded Lamanites who couldn’t possibly have fathomed the carnage the Nephite commanders had long planned and finally unleashed. In one glorious instant, it seemed, they were certain the tide of destruction had turned, that their tormenters had become the tormented.
I remained skeptical. I’d heard this kind of cheering before. The fact that so many exultant voices were children seemed apropos. They were cheers of innocence. Of ignorance. The jubilation of the doomed.
I’d heard it from the ramparts of Jotapata during that sweltering forty-seven-day siege in the 809th year since Rome’s founding. Jewish defenders had cackled like hyenas at the slightest Roman mishap: a horse stumbling in a rodent’s burrow, a hurled stone denting a legionary’s helmet.
I suppose not every counteraction was so trivial. Several dozen footmen had been badly scalded after their testudo was drenched with oil that seeped between the shields. Defenders atop the wall had gone berserk with glee.
In another moment of unfathomable serendipity, Vespasian’s foot was scraped by a long-range dart. I doubted the defenders knew they’d actually hit the old muleteer. Their hoots and hollers were ignited by sudden disarray in our lines because an imbecilic aide-de-camp had glimpsed a trickle of blood on the General’s stirrup and prematurely pronounced disaster. The subsequent kerfuffle had caused several injuries, but the only real casualty that day was the aide-de-camp, whose flogging officers, such as me, were compelled to watch in hopes that future impetuous outbursts might be discouraged.
The cheering that now arose from the ravine and climbed to the ridge’s summit exhumed memories of that terrible siege. At Jotapata nothing had really justified cheering. No stratagem of that weasel rebel commander Josephus had incrementally altered the city’s fate. Setbacks were mere irritations. Any pretense of the slightest triumph retrenched our determination to leave Jotapata as salted and lifeless as the soils of Carthage. That’s precisely what we did, slaughtering all but a handful of women and infants and, of course, their obsequious commander. The Lamanites had loudly exclaimed their intent to afflict the environs of Cumorah with a similar curse.
In the Nephites’ excitement, my approach had gone virtually unnoticed. A bramble snapped under my foot that startled a few, including a half dozen children and some elderly warriors—long-in-the-tooth or entirely toothless—arrayed in ragged uniforms from battles long-ago fought and long forgotten. A child of eight or nine dropped a tumpline with a large water bladder that an old veteran had overfilled. The water splashed at the child’s feet, snaked downhill, and leeched into the soil. The child was caked in so much grime I couldn’t tell the gender, but I guessed female. She wasn’t sure who to fear most: me or the toothless veteran whose hand was raised to strike her for spilling the irreplaceable liquid.
I put up my palm in greeting to mollify them. “It’s all right. I’m not an enemy.”
“Who are you, then?” challenged the old Nephite, now armed with an obsidian blade whose tip had snapped and whose edges were nearly as blunt as his gums.
“Don’t you know him?” shouted an alarmed voice a hundred feet down the ravine. “He is one of the outsiders! A servant of the death gods and ‘whays’ that once protected us!”
I groaned inwardly. Had Dootapoo’s delusions reached even the ears of Moroni’s troops?
“Get away!” chuffed the old man, his sword swatting at me as if shooing away a housefly. “You hear me? Off with you!”
I did not change my stance. It was bluster. The veteran kept his distance, but I felt his eyes on my steel blade. My standard-issue Roman gladius was apparently an enchanted thing.
A younger soldier worked his way down the ravine—younger, at least, than the toothless veteran but still twice my own age. Anyway, he outranked the overseer of the rubber-lined cistern where water had been collected.
“Stop your racket, old man,” he bellowed. “What is this nonsense?”
The veteran licked his gums sheepishly, twitching his nose like a rodent, unable to provide an explanation.
The officer studied me head to toe. “What is your name?”
“Apollus Brutus,” I replied. “You?”
He ignored my question, scanning the brush to see if I’d been accompanied. “Where did you come from?”
“I crossed the hill,” I said.
“What do you want?”
He was suspicious, nervous, fidgety. I don’t believe he was possessed of the same irrational bias as the old man, but nor did he treat me with respect. His opinion of me was somewhere betwixt that of Dootapoo and someone of a sober mind.
I set my hand deftly beside the hilt of my sword. “I’m looking for Moroni.”
The request provoked surprise, even amusement. “Are you now? The Eagle Commander himself? Why?”
I gleaned all I needed to know by watching his eyes. They flicked northwest, toward an arm of the ridge I judged to be the division’s right flank.
“I was his companion at Tikal,” I replied.
The officer stuck out his lower lip, blew a timid raspberry like an old mule, and made a decision. “Moroni is over there, at the foot of that spur.”
He directed me southward, exactly opposite of the place his eyes had betrayed. Our gazes remained locked. I sent him a half nod, as if our conversation was at an end. He waited for me to say more. I did not speak, did not move. The next action was his. He would either give assent or demand further explanation. I expended no effort guessing which and continued to stare.
The girl and the old man stood stock-still, the former trembling as if in the first throes of an epileptic fit. Her young and superstitious mind had inclined her to believe whatever delusions the prophetess had disseminated. Finally, I won the stare-down with the officer.
He blustered at Old Toothless. “You heard him! He was the Commander’s companion! He’s Moroni’s guest!” He gave this distinction a distasteful edge. He said further to the old man, nudging his chin toward the summit, “Can’t you hear? We’re attacking! Fill that water skin. Move! Move!”
Old Toothless and the child snapped to obedience. In the interim, another child had tentatively approached with an additional empty water skin. A third was close behind. My appearance was disrupting an essential operation.
The officer forced a grin that revealed his own dental deficiencies. He took several steps in the direction he presumed I would go—a false direction that would force me to backtrack. Then he glanced over his shoulder as an invitation to follow. I humored him. It was either that or kill him. I supposed following him was better, for now.
“I wondered if I might meet one of you,” he said, weakly attempting placation. “You outsiders have caused quite a stir.” He eyed my gladius. “That sword, like Jaredite blades of old. Our Scorpion Commander, Captain Gid, has one like it. Am I right?”
I said nothing. This was not idle banter. My instincts were on high alert. A pity. I sighed inwardly. Had I thought I might depart without bloodshed?
Before the pause in conversation turned painfully awkward, he again indicated my sword. “May I heft it?”
Was he jesting? Heft my blade? Did he think I was a blithering idiot? No comrade—not even a General—would ask a soldier to disarm himself on an active battlefield. It wasn’t done. What army would not follow such etiquette? I might as well point at my throat and say, “Slash here.”
“Worthy,” she’d told me. “You are worthy.”
I realized in all my time as a Christian, seeking to know Meagan’s God, not one instinct within me had changed. I was about to shed blood. The irony was ripe. I was here to defend the Nephites. Yet I would, without hesitation, slay one of their officers. His weapon was equally formidable. He’d judged me to be his inferior. Plainly, he wanted my gladius. There was only one way for this to end. I guess I could have raised my sword and threatened him. No, this would not do. He’d only shout for backup. All hopes of reaching Moroni would be dashed. My only chance was to strike swiftly—so swiftly he’d not utter a sound. No time to vacillate. My forearm tensed.
And untensed.
I heard myself reply, “No. Thank you for your help. Farewell.”
I walked away. Just walked away. What just happened? It almost seemed ethereal. I swear by the generative sun and nourishing earth, hardly a beat had transpired between his four-word request and my oblivious reply.
I left him standing there in stupefaction and ascended the ridge in long strides. Perhaps he wondered if I’d misheard. Perhaps he contemplated rushing me from behind. I’d have heard his approach. This act would have sealed his fate—and mine. Had I killed him, it would not have taken long for able warriors to organize a posse, pursue, and slay me like a boar. My reply had caused indecision. By the time the officer realized he’d been snubbed, I was already several-dozen paces up the path. I cannot say for certain; I never glanced back. Somehow, I knew—just knew—he would not pursue.
Moments later I found myself smiling, even laughing. Eventually, I altered my course toward the place the officer’s eyes had betrayed. I did not look to see if he noticed my course change. Indeed, I never laid eyes on him again.
As to his final fate, I cannot say. Only that I was not its author. And for this, I conceded, finally and thoroughly, I owed my gratitude to God.
* * *
Brock
I couldn’t take it anymore! The heat! Sweaty, sweltering, suffocating heat!
Wasn’t sure how long I lay there, crushed by the weight of two grown men, one dead and the other—I prayed—unconscious. Gid had to be alive. Even through his lumpy, sand-filled chest armor, I swore I could feel Gid’s heartbeat. The Scorpion Commander had got a hefty whomp on the noggin. The blow had cracked his helmet. Still, the old lion wheezed air into his lungs from time to time. It was just . . . well, I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard him draw a breath.
As for me, I couldn’t hardly breathe at all. As the Lamanite hoard rushed past us, I squeezed (squoze?) my hands into fists, held ’em atop my sternum bone, between Gid’s body and mine, so now and again I might draw air in and out. Worked for a while. But with every exhale, the weight got heavier. Not just that, but I was gettin’ soaked. First, I thought it was sweat. No such luck. It was sticky and thick. Blood. It oozed from the body of that dead Knotty. Bled from the wound I’d inflicted, drizzled over Gid’s armor, and drenched my cloak. My hands must’ve looked like somethin’ out of a slaughterhouse.
Sweat stung my eyes. Claustrophobia!
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and lurched upward, rolled hard to my left. It was like I was a lump o’ butter sliding out from between two pancakes. I unfurled my fingers. Uggh! Disgusting!
I lay on my stomach, peering off into the haze. The haze was caused by smoke, thicker now than it was before I’d started playin’ possum. I tried to clear my head. How long had I been hiding? Might’ve guessed half the day. Really, though, only ’bout half an hour.
Terror rippled from my chest down to my toes. Why was I panicking? Well, I’d been safe under those bodies. Now I was exposed. Yet . . . no one pounced. No sword lopped off my head. Was it possible that . . . no one had cared to notice me?
I figured I was facing west, looking down toward the camp of Zenephi. Man! This smoke was like pea soup. Bet I couldn’t see more than thirty feet. Weird. Air was eerily still—not a wisp of wind. Any breeze at all might’ve carried the smoke away. It just hung there. Darker smoke intermixed with gray. The blacker stuff was heavier, forming little fingers that curled toward the ground like claws. Nah, more like suctions, drinking in the souls of the dead and dying. Creepy. Never seen anything creepier. Well, except for those Gadianton Ghosts.
Corpses were tangled across the ground in every direction. The Nephite dead came from every division that’d fought at the cliffs—Scorpions, Hawks, Pumas. Enemy corpses too. Mostly Knotties. A few Reds, meaning Lightning Warriors, from Teotihuacán. Feathers and fancy armor made ’em easy to pick out.
Thing is, some were alive. I saw movement. Arm reaching up, head bobbing. Oh, and moaning. Lots of moaning and crying. Someone behind me prattled on. Nonsense words. Some were singing, I think. Hard to tell the difference between moaning and chanting. Death songs, from dying Lamanites. Chants seemed far away. Maybe the smoke made ’em sound like that. And screams, but those seemed to come from really far away.
There was also a low, crackly sound, like thousands of hands crumplin’ up wax paper. This came from the settlement. Zenephi was burning. All those tents, lean-tos, and shanties. That’s where most of the Lamanite army had gone, down into that bowl, wreaking havoc and death among those too old and too young to defend themselves.
Ahh! That stinging! Sweat, smoke, and tears. Closing my eyes didn’t help. I wiped at ’em with my forearm—only spot not sticky with blood.
Without warning, my emotions . . . sorta gushed out. Don’t know why. I never cried. Tears were for wusses. Stop it! Women and babies cried. Not Brock McConnell. I’d seen things as bad as this. Some that were worse. I was the one who’d found my mom, needle stickin’ out of her arm. What was I? Eleven? Even then . . . I didn’t cry. Just knocked on Kerra’s door. I’d told her the news like it wasn’t news. She’d sobbed as she called 911. I cussed at her. Cussed at my own sister. It wasn’t like we shoulda been surprised. We’d known it was comin’. For weeks. Years!
Crap! I started blubbering even harder. What the freak was wrong with me? Felt like burning coals in my guts, climbin’ my throat, scraping and scarring the whole way up. My hands clung to my face. Didn’t care about the blood. The sting went away—from my eyes, that is. Tears must’ve washed out the sweat and smoke.
