Thorns of Glory, page 40
I shrugged, admitting, “I don’t know why I’m here.”
Moroni looked down and let this sink in. I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or distressed. He looked up suddenly. “No word of my wife and children? Or my father?”
I shook my head.
The son of Mormon wiped sweat and smoke from his eyes. “Well then . . . you’re here to witness our division’s last stand. To witness our destruction.”
“I’m here,” I said pointedly, “to prevent your destruction.”
He cocked his head, finding this statement curious. His attention was drawn away.
“Commander, what are your orders?!” his Tribune demanded.
Moroni glanced down the slope one more time. The nearest Lamanites were a hundred feet from the summit, climbing with renewed vigor, wondering, perhaps, if the reason the Nephites had not sprung their traps was due to some technical malfunction.
“Cut the cords,” Moroni said calmly.
Audible snaps split the air as blades severed tightly strained ropes. The peal of thunder was unleashed.
I am unable to describe much of what occurred as boulders and flaming tree trunks spilled down the slopes. This is not because I wish to spare the squeamish a description of the scene. The avalanche kicked up a dust cloud to mingle with the oily smoke that hugged the hillside. Visibility was already obscured to a quarter mile. The upsurge of dust made it impossible to perceive the full impact on Lamanite climbers. We could hear shrieks and shouts, even above the tumult of destruction. Over a thousand men were being pummeled or crushed.
The horror persisted for over a minute as the debris tumbled to Cumorah’s base. Some boulders had likely gained enough momentum to roll a hundred yards or more out onto the plain, killing additional men. The thunder reached a crescendo and began to subside. Flaming logs settled into tangled heaps all along the lower half of the slope. Even I’d stood expectant, beguiled by the potential magnitude of devastation this avalanche would inflict. And this was only the latest of Mormon’s booby traps! It also looked to be his last. Looking north and south, I saw the Nephites appeared to possess no other pyramids of lumber or heaps of boulders. From here they’d have to rely upon continuing salvoes of arrows and darts.
The smear of smoke and a curve in the ridge hindered my view of whatever carnage had resulted from prior avalanches other divisions had set in motion. I stood with thousands of Moroni’s soldiers, waiting breathlessly for the dust to clear, eager to appraise the extent of the damage.
The first thing I perceived was movement. I also began to see countless Lamanite bodies, dead and maimed. As the dust continued to dissipate, I marveled at the number of warriors still climbing. Had these men somehow dodged the boulders? Had the burning timbers fortuitously bounced over their heads? It was a difficult sight to comprehend.
Most of the Lamanites in the path of the avalanches had, indeed, been swept away. It reminded me of a rake grooming a yard of autumn leaves, but even a rake with tightly threaded tines will miss some detritus. The slope was littered with mangled corpses as well as injured and groaning survivors. Still, the human eye—my eye—being so attuned to movement, initially blinked my disbelief. How could the assault have proven so ineffective? It almost seemed to be an illusion. Later I accepted that it was only math: the booby traps had unleashed as much carnage as anyone might have expected.
Survivors were starting to cluster, many bleeding, tattered, and dragging broken limbs. Yet they ascended, one desperate step after another.
Lamanite officers barked a rallying cry: “Do not pause! Do not halt!”
There was a psychological objective in this. The Lamanites were anxious to show these dull-witted Nephites that all their years of labor, constructing their panoramic defense works, had been for naught, an utter waste of time. If this was their intended message, it was having the desired effect. Most of Moroni’s Eagle Knights could only gape. Some were already muttering about broken promises. They’d felt certain their fiery avalanches would annihilate the enemy to the last man. Like a swarm of locusts, the Lamanites continued to climb, spitting curses and clutching lethal weapons. Beyond the simmering logs and scattered boulders, fresh cohorts of Lamanites were starting their ascent. Among them I perceived a line of Fireborn’s Lightning Warriors.
I recognized their strategy. At the same time that it occurred to me, Moroni said, “Their strongest ranks were held in reserve. The warriors we killed were among their weakest. Also their bravest.”
Moroni’s Tribune barked at the Nephites, “What are you gaping at? Arm yourselves! Keep firing! Keep firing!”
As the barrage of missiles recommenced, it was clear the Eagle Knights were no longer firing aimlessly skyward, hoping their arrows, darts, and stones might find a target. They aimed directly at the hordes who were mere moments from gaining the summit. Farther south I noted an isolated horde of Lamanites about to top the ridge at a place only lightly defended. The situation was growing desperate.
I turned to Moroni. “Come with me.”
“With you?” he repeated incredulously. “Where?”
I pointed. “To Ammon’s Summit. That’s where we’ve predetermined to gather—those of us who traveled here from Tikal and Desolation. It’s also where you might find your family. Your father.”
“Abandon my Knights at this critical moment?” He shook it off as unthinkable.
An orderly called out to him. He stepped away as if I’d never mentioned the idea, shouting to his Tribune that the Lamanites were about to top the ridge farther south and to send reinforcements. All I could do was stay close. A pair of his bodyguards acted put out by my presence.
“Grab a bow and make yourself useful!” one sneered.
I bit my tongue. Why had I come here again? I was beginning to doubt. Extra bows and bowstrings leaned alongside the arrows and other ordnance. I bent one to string it and clutched a fistful of arrows. As I looked up, Moroni was no longer in view. I turned in a circle. How had he slipped away so fast?
“Where is Moroni?” I asked an orderly.
In his hysteria to launch atlatl darts, he’d lost all concern for his commander’s whereabouts. He cursed, told me something like, “Look after yourself,” and kept hurling darts.
South, I muttered inwardly. My best guess was that he’d moved south to personally oversee the deployment of reinforcements to that location.
I set off in that direction. Moroni’s men were so frenetic and desperate that they moved in and out of my vision like insects circling a lantern. In some places, the Lamanites were so close that the Nephites had taken to throwing lances. More than one soldier nicked or injured comrades as he swung these seven-foot weapons into position. Penetrating the throng of Nephites was almost as dangerous as fighting the Lamanites. While maintaining my focus, I caught only brief glimpses of the Lamanites pressing higher and higher, stumbling over the dead and injured and dodging bodies that somersaulted downward.
I’d made it about a hundred yards through the melee—still no sign of Moroni—when I recognized I wasn’t going to make it. I would not reach the place where I’d gauged the commander had been going, before the first wave of Lamanites overran the ridge. A shuddering panic seized me, panic imbued with self-rebuke that I’d allowed Mormon’s son to stray out of my sight. One moment—that was all it took! Why had I come all this way? How could I protect him if I couldn’t even remain by his side? Was this journey an act of futility?
As the first Lamanite arrow zipped past my chin I realized I’d be of no use to anyone if I didn’t start defending myself. I nocked an arrow and faced downslope, firing at the warrior whom I presumed, since his eyes were locked with mine, had fired at me. My arrow struck him in the midriff as he was drawing his bowstring in a second attempt to kill me. The Knotties on either side watched him collapse and tumble backward. Next, their wrathful gazes turned on me. My victim must have been well-liked; a half dozen men seemed to take personal umbrage.
I stepped back from the edge. What in Hades—? Stepping back? From a fight? That wasn’t like me. My first impulse had been to take on all six of those scowling Lamanites before they reached the summit. I still had plenty of arrows. It was as if an unseen hand had grabbed the nape of my neck and drawn me back. I even turned around to make sure I hadn’t been yanked by Moroni, as something inside me whispered that whatever had caused me to withdraw was not a human hand.
I concentrated. God in Heaven, I thought. What is it? What would You have me do?
I began walking south along the ridge, again feeling as if some force was gently nudging me in this direction. In any other circumstance, this wasn’t a safe direction to wander. As the Eagle Knights fired down, Lamanite and Lightning Warriors fired up, many from considerable distances down the slope, their missiles aimed to arch down upon the Nephite defenders. As I walked, propelled by a supernatural “push,” I watched Moroni’s men shriek in pain or collapse as the enemy’s obsidian tips hit their marks. This far south the Lamanites were beginning to top the ridge. I was the only human being moving in this direction. None of my Nephite “comrades” followed. Don’t misunderstand. They were not cowards. They defended the ground where they stood. Well, most of them. Some green conscripts were naturally, unconsciously, drawn toward the north, where the Lamanites were still a considerable distance down the slope and the battle was less intense. Yet, to their credit, no Knights had abandoned their posts and scurried down the eastward side of the ridge. At least, not yet.
If Moroni had gone southward, it must have been several minutes earlier. One minute in a clash like this was an eternity. Time didn’t exist. Moroni’s objective, just as mine would have been, was to rally soldiers to defend the vulnerable left flank. Had he convinced anyone to follow him? Arrows rained around me. Their polished, lethal tips reflected sunrays, causing many to look like slender streaks of lightning. Soldiers had arrows protruding from shoulders, arms, and legs. Still, most of these men continued to fight. They persisted with their barrage of arrows, stones, and darts. For a fleeting instant, as points embedded in the dirt fore and aft, I felt invulnerable, encased in an invisible, impenetrable barricade. The feeling startled me, sobered me; I hastily dismissed it.
After I had walked another twenty yards, Lamanites began pouring onto the ridge. Soldiers abandoned bows, atlatls, and slings. I did the same, tossing such weapons into some brambles to the east. I seized my gladius. The flesh-rending reality of face-to-face combat was swallowing Moroni’s division whole. My urge to continue southward had not fizzled away. I would fight through the maelstrom.
The first combatant who tasted my blade was a man who’d just delivered a mortal wound to a Nephite officer. The Knotty was not convinced the wound he’d inflicted was fatal; he unwisely drew back his sword to strike again. My steel ended this ambition.
I forged southward. To an onlooker I might have appeared oblivious to the carnage. I was not. If an attacker had appeared, I’d have responded. I marched past more than a dozen duels, drawing no attention. My garb may have confused them. I did not wear the accoutrements of an Eagle Knight. Some might have wondered: Was I a Nephite or a Lamanite? A quick inspection would have revealed I had no topknot—a rare thing among Lamanite troopers. But face-to-face combat offered little time for careful scrutiny. I held my sword at the ready, threatening no one in particular, strolling through the violence like a specter. It might have struck some as an extraordinary thing. It was not. I’d witnessed similar marvels during in-close fighting. A warrior adhered to a kind of etiquette even while wildly swinging at an enemy’s vitals. Until a battle wound incapacitated one warrior or the other, few interfered with ongoing duels. Interference might complicate things. Might get his comrade killed, might even cause a comrade to accidentally kill him. I’d watched my general in the 5th, Cerealis, wander amidst a pitched battle in Galilee, sword safely in its sheath, as if taking a springtime stroll. Steel clattered all about, but because he challenged no one, no one challenged him. Admittedly, he wore on his scalp a common Coolus instead of his praetor’s helmet, but other insignia of rank was plainly visible, had anyone taken the time to notice. No one did. I was green and my latest opponent was dead, so I gaped at my commander, fearing he’d lost his senses. His staff eventually caught up. Cerealis chuckled good-heartedly as he was guided, with urgency, to safer ground.
My eyes remained peeled to catch a glimpse of Moroni. The conflict was thickening. Every passing moment was diminishing all hope of setting eyes on the Eagle Commander.
Finally, I was forced to fight. I must have heard—or felt—the Lightning Warrior’s breath on the nape of my neck; instinct told me to turn. I didn’t recognize the tattooed aggressor from Teotihuacán, but his expression was frothing with rage. I sensed he somehow recognized me. He was nearly midswing, attempting with his oversized obsidian sword to slice upward toward my knee or thigh. I blocked the blow but not easily. His weapon was considerably heavier than mine; the swing forced me to dance sideways to let his momentum carry him forward. That same momentum caused my opponent to tip off-balance. From there the contest ended swiftly.
Another Teotihuacáno rushed at me from the right. Two more were closely behind him, wending their way through dozens of other fighters. Fireborn’s soldiers, with their circular tattoos and feathery arm- and legbands, were rare enough on this battlefield. Outnumbered ten to one. Why did they fix their wrath on me?
I killed the next Lightning Warrior with the speed of an adder strike. It was not superior skill; I merely wielded a superior weapon. He was a hulking man and carried a hulking sword. Enemy blades were either short daggers or long macuahuitls. More accurately, a macuahuitl was a club with obsidian teeth. These men hadn’t been trained against a steel blade weighing somewhere in between. I felt like a new recruit, a drill instructor’s shouts rattling my eardrums as I hustled through exercises against straw dummies. The third Lightning Warrior lasted longer than the first two, not because he possessed greater skill. He’d seen how easily I’d dispatched the others and opted to keep a cautious distance, hoping to discern some weakness or catch me in a distracted moment.
He found one. A considerable one. Over his right shoulder, at a distance of twenty paces, I saw a face that caused my blood to boil. I had to squint to verify his identity. It was the devil’s henchman, Prince Eagle-Sky-Jaguar, heir to the throne of Tikal—that is, if his dynasty had still had a throne to inherit. Tikal’s throne was currently occupied by the son of Spearthrower Owl, known as “Curled Snout” behind his back, or Lord Blue Crocodile to his face.
Our one-time ally and friend, Lamanai, looked quite different from the last time I’d set eyes on him at the ruined city of Desolation. He wore the trappings of royalty: a flowering headdress of quetzal feathers. Dazzling jade ornaments, more valuable in this land than gold, festooned much of his body.
His betrayal of us in the wilderness was still a thing of mystery to me. Fireborn himself—Spearthrower Owl’s right-hand commander of this entire operation—had personally murdered Lamanai’s father, Great Jaguar Paw. Yet he wouldn’t be here unless he’d given Fireborn an oath of fealty. He fought alongside his enemies, those who had stripped him of his throne. And for what? The mutually desired destruction of the Nephite nation? He might have made an alliance with the Nephites, driven Teotihuacán from his tribal lands, and recaptured his throne. I wagered taking back Tikal was his plan anyway, but without the help of his ancestral enemies.
Emperors and kings were often labeled as semi-divine. Many emperors dedicated temples to themselves and demanded votive offerings, but worshippers did so out of loyalty to tradition or to the office—or to Rome itself—not to the man. Here, however, they believed it. What was more deranged, the kings themselves believed it. Lamanai—fifteenth in the line of an unbroken dynasty—believed it to his core. I’d watched him fall under the spell of his own “divinity.” His status as a self-appointed god reflected in his countenance as our eyes met and bored into each other. This, I now adduced, explained the sudden onrush of Lightning Warriors. Other Lightning Warriors enveloped Lamanai, serving as his bodyguards. The would-be king had distinguished me amidst thousands of fighting men and sent his cronies to fetch my scalp.
But were they really trying to kill me? The last of three Lightning Warriors lunged while my gaze was locked with the young prince. He raised his obsidian sword and wrenched out a piglike screech that suggested the blow he would aim at me would be infused with every ounce of his fury. I could not help but notice he held the weapon so that its blade was flat. He wasn’t trying to split me like a fire log but crush my cranium. Was it his intent to render me insensible?
It occurred to me, Lamanai might not have been the coward I imagined; he hadn’t sent assassins to do his bidding. That first Teotihuacáno had aimed for my knee rather than a vital part of my body. I gleaned it was Lamanai’s intent to capture me alive.
These thoughts were only flashes. The Lightning Warrior’s angle of attack forced me to duck, simultaneously delivering a backhand slash to his thigh. He went down, clutching his wound. A fatal wound, similar to what had killed poor Micah. The warrior paid me a final hateful glance, then curled into a ball.
I looked up quickly to again connect my eyesight with Lamanai, but he was already gone. I also couldn’t find any member of his bodyguard. Countless Lamanites were sweeping over the western ridge. Any other time, I’d have mercifully ended that fourth Lightning Warrior’s life rather than let him ebb into darkness, but the Eagle Division was being driven to the edge of the eastern side of the ridge by sheer force of mass. We were overwhelmed. The battle was lost. I found myself packed inside a cluster of twenty Nephite soldiers. Knights were being picked off around the edges.
Those behind me seemed to have their feet drop out from under them, tripping into the gully where old men and children had been climbing all day to resupply the division with water and weapons. I glimpsed dozens falling, tumbling, kicking up dust like Mormon’s boulders. The sight surely provoked satisfaction for the Lamayans, having watched so many of their own, just moments earlier, roll end over end down the western slope.
Moroni looked down and let this sink in. I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or distressed. He looked up suddenly. “No word of my wife and children? Or my father?”
I shook my head.
The son of Mormon wiped sweat and smoke from his eyes. “Well then . . . you’re here to witness our division’s last stand. To witness our destruction.”
“I’m here,” I said pointedly, “to prevent your destruction.”
He cocked his head, finding this statement curious. His attention was drawn away.
“Commander, what are your orders?!” his Tribune demanded.
Moroni glanced down the slope one more time. The nearest Lamanites were a hundred feet from the summit, climbing with renewed vigor, wondering, perhaps, if the reason the Nephites had not sprung their traps was due to some technical malfunction.
“Cut the cords,” Moroni said calmly.
Audible snaps split the air as blades severed tightly strained ropes. The peal of thunder was unleashed.
I am unable to describe much of what occurred as boulders and flaming tree trunks spilled down the slopes. This is not because I wish to spare the squeamish a description of the scene. The avalanche kicked up a dust cloud to mingle with the oily smoke that hugged the hillside. Visibility was already obscured to a quarter mile. The upsurge of dust made it impossible to perceive the full impact on Lamanite climbers. We could hear shrieks and shouts, even above the tumult of destruction. Over a thousand men were being pummeled or crushed.
The horror persisted for over a minute as the debris tumbled to Cumorah’s base. Some boulders had likely gained enough momentum to roll a hundred yards or more out onto the plain, killing additional men. The thunder reached a crescendo and began to subside. Flaming logs settled into tangled heaps all along the lower half of the slope. Even I’d stood expectant, beguiled by the potential magnitude of devastation this avalanche would inflict. And this was only the latest of Mormon’s booby traps! It also looked to be his last. Looking north and south, I saw the Nephites appeared to possess no other pyramids of lumber or heaps of boulders. From here they’d have to rely upon continuing salvoes of arrows and darts.
The smear of smoke and a curve in the ridge hindered my view of whatever carnage had resulted from prior avalanches other divisions had set in motion. I stood with thousands of Moroni’s soldiers, waiting breathlessly for the dust to clear, eager to appraise the extent of the damage.
The first thing I perceived was movement. I also began to see countless Lamanite bodies, dead and maimed. As the dust continued to dissipate, I marveled at the number of warriors still climbing. Had these men somehow dodged the boulders? Had the burning timbers fortuitously bounced over their heads? It was a difficult sight to comprehend.
Most of the Lamanites in the path of the avalanches had, indeed, been swept away. It reminded me of a rake grooming a yard of autumn leaves, but even a rake with tightly threaded tines will miss some detritus. The slope was littered with mangled corpses as well as injured and groaning survivors. Still, the human eye—my eye—being so attuned to movement, initially blinked my disbelief. How could the assault have proven so ineffective? It almost seemed to be an illusion. Later I accepted that it was only math: the booby traps had unleashed as much carnage as anyone might have expected.
Survivors were starting to cluster, many bleeding, tattered, and dragging broken limbs. Yet they ascended, one desperate step after another.
Lamanite officers barked a rallying cry: “Do not pause! Do not halt!”
There was a psychological objective in this. The Lamanites were anxious to show these dull-witted Nephites that all their years of labor, constructing their panoramic defense works, had been for naught, an utter waste of time. If this was their intended message, it was having the desired effect. Most of Moroni’s Eagle Knights could only gape. Some were already muttering about broken promises. They’d felt certain their fiery avalanches would annihilate the enemy to the last man. Like a swarm of locusts, the Lamanites continued to climb, spitting curses and clutching lethal weapons. Beyond the simmering logs and scattered boulders, fresh cohorts of Lamanites were starting their ascent. Among them I perceived a line of Fireborn’s Lightning Warriors.
I recognized their strategy. At the same time that it occurred to me, Moroni said, “Their strongest ranks were held in reserve. The warriors we killed were among their weakest. Also their bravest.”
Moroni’s Tribune barked at the Nephites, “What are you gaping at? Arm yourselves! Keep firing! Keep firing!”
As the barrage of missiles recommenced, it was clear the Eagle Knights were no longer firing aimlessly skyward, hoping their arrows, darts, and stones might find a target. They aimed directly at the hordes who were mere moments from gaining the summit. Farther south I noted an isolated horde of Lamanites about to top the ridge at a place only lightly defended. The situation was growing desperate.
I turned to Moroni. “Come with me.”
“With you?” he repeated incredulously. “Where?”
I pointed. “To Ammon’s Summit. That’s where we’ve predetermined to gather—those of us who traveled here from Tikal and Desolation. It’s also where you might find your family. Your father.”
“Abandon my Knights at this critical moment?” He shook it off as unthinkable.
An orderly called out to him. He stepped away as if I’d never mentioned the idea, shouting to his Tribune that the Lamanites were about to top the ridge farther south and to send reinforcements. All I could do was stay close. A pair of his bodyguards acted put out by my presence.
“Grab a bow and make yourself useful!” one sneered.
I bit my tongue. Why had I come here again? I was beginning to doubt. Extra bows and bowstrings leaned alongside the arrows and other ordnance. I bent one to string it and clutched a fistful of arrows. As I looked up, Moroni was no longer in view. I turned in a circle. How had he slipped away so fast?
“Where is Moroni?” I asked an orderly.
In his hysteria to launch atlatl darts, he’d lost all concern for his commander’s whereabouts. He cursed, told me something like, “Look after yourself,” and kept hurling darts.
South, I muttered inwardly. My best guess was that he’d moved south to personally oversee the deployment of reinforcements to that location.
I set off in that direction. Moroni’s men were so frenetic and desperate that they moved in and out of my vision like insects circling a lantern. In some places, the Lamanites were so close that the Nephites had taken to throwing lances. More than one soldier nicked or injured comrades as he swung these seven-foot weapons into position. Penetrating the throng of Nephites was almost as dangerous as fighting the Lamanites. While maintaining my focus, I caught only brief glimpses of the Lamanites pressing higher and higher, stumbling over the dead and injured and dodging bodies that somersaulted downward.
I’d made it about a hundred yards through the melee—still no sign of Moroni—when I recognized I wasn’t going to make it. I would not reach the place where I’d gauged the commander had been going, before the first wave of Lamanites overran the ridge. A shuddering panic seized me, panic imbued with self-rebuke that I’d allowed Mormon’s son to stray out of my sight. One moment—that was all it took! Why had I come all this way? How could I protect him if I couldn’t even remain by his side? Was this journey an act of futility?
As the first Lamanite arrow zipped past my chin I realized I’d be of no use to anyone if I didn’t start defending myself. I nocked an arrow and faced downslope, firing at the warrior whom I presumed, since his eyes were locked with mine, had fired at me. My arrow struck him in the midriff as he was drawing his bowstring in a second attempt to kill me. The Knotties on either side watched him collapse and tumble backward. Next, their wrathful gazes turned on me. My victim must have been well-liked; a half dozen men seemed to take personal umbrage.
I stepped back from the edge. What in Hades—? Stepping back? From a fight? That wasn’t like me. My first impulse had been to take on all six of those scowling Lamanites before they reached the summit. I still had plenty of arrows. It was as if an unseen hand had grabbed the nape of my neck and drawn me back. I even turned around to make sure I hadn’t been yanked by Moroni, as something inside me whispered that whatever had caused me to withdraw was not a human hand.
I concentrated. God in Heaven, I thought. What is it? What would You have me do?
I began walking south along the ridge, again feeling as if some force was gently nudging me in this direction. In any other circumstance, this wasn’t a safe direction to wander. As the Eagle Knights fired down, Lamanite and Lightning Warriors fired up, many from considerable distances down the slope, their missiles aimed to arch down upon the Nephite defenders. As I walked, propelled by a supernatural “push,” I watched Moroni’s men shriek in pain or collapse as the enemy’s obsidian tips hit their marks. This far south the Lamanites were beginning to top the ridge. I was the only human being moving in this direction. None of my Nephite “comrades” followed. Don’t misunderstand. They were not cowards. They defended the ground where they stood. Well, most of them. Some green conscripts were naturally, unconsciously, drawn toward the north, where the Lamanites were still a considerable distance down the slope and the battle was less intense. Yet, to their credit, no Knights had abandoned their posts and scurried down the eastward side of the ridge. At least, not yet.
If Moroni had gone southward, it must have been several minutes earlier. One minute in a clash like this was an eternity. Time didn’t exist. Moroni’s objective, just as mine would have been, was to rally soldiers to defend the vulnerable left flank. Had he convinced anyone to follow him? Arrows rained around me. Their polished, lethal tips reflected sunrays, causing many to look like slender streaks of lightning. Soldiers had arrows protruding from shoulders, arms, and legs. Still, most of these men continued to fight. They persisted with their barrage of arrows, stones, and darts. For a fleeting instant, as points embedded in the dirt fore and aft, I felt invulnerable, encased in an invisible, impenetrable barricade. The feeling startled me, sobered me; I hastily dismissed it.
After I had walked another twenty yards, Lamanites began pouring onto the ridge. Soldiers abandoned bows, atlatls, and slings. I did the same, tossing such weapons into some brambles to the east. I seized my gladius. The flesh-rending reality of face-to-face combat was swallowing Moroni’s division whole. My urge to continue southward had not fizzled away. I would fight through the maelstrom.
The first combatant who tasted my blade was a man who’d just delivered a mortal wound to a Nephite officer. The Knotty was not convinced the wound he’d inflicted was fatal; he unwisely drew back his sword to strike again. My steel ended this ambition.
I forged southward. To an onlooker I might have appeared oblivious to the carnage. I was not. If an attacker had appeared, I’d have responded. I marched past more than a dozen duels, drawing no attention. My garb may have confused them. I did not wear the accoutrements of an Eagle Knight. Some might have wondered: Was I a Nephite or a Lamanite? A quick inspection would have revealed I had no topknot—a rare thing among Lamanite troopers. But face-to-face combat offered little time for careful scrutiny. I held my sword at the ready, threatening no one in particular, strolling through the violence like a specter. It might have struck some as an extraordinary thing. It was not. I’d witnessed similar marvels during in-close fighting. A warrior adhered to a kind of etiquette even while wildly swinging at an enemy’s vitals. Until a battle wound incapacitated one warrior or the other, few interfered with ongoing duels. Interference might complicate things. Might get his comrade killed, might even cause a comrade to accidentally kill him. I’d watched my general in the 5th, Cerealis, wander amidst a pitched battle in Galilee, sword safely in its sheath, as if taking a springtime stroll. Steel clattered all about, but because he challenged no one, no one challenged him. Admittedly, he wore on his scalp a common Coolus instead of his praetor’s helmet, but other insignia of rank was plainly visible, had anyone taken the time to notice. No one did. I was green and my latest opponent was dead, so I gaped at my commander, fearing he’d lost his senses. His staff eventually caught up. Cerealis chuckled good-heartedly as he was guided, with urgency, to safer ground.
My eyes remained peeled to catch a glimpse of Moroni. The conflict was thickening. Every passing moment was diminishing all hope of setting eyes on the Eagle Commander.
Finally, I was forced to fight. I must have heard—or felt—the Lightning Warrior’s breath on the nape of my neck; instinct told me to turn. I didn’t recognize the tattooed aggressor from Teotihuacán, but his expression was frothing with rage. I sensed he somehow recognized me. He was nearly midswing, attempting with his oversized obsidian sword to slice upward toward my knee or thigh. I blocked the blow but not easily. His weapon was considerably heavier than mine; the swing forced me to dance sideways to let his momentum carry him forward. That same momentum caused my opponent to tip off-balance. From there the contest ended swiftly.
Another Teotihuacáno rushed at me from the right. Two more were closely behind him, wending their way through dozens of other fighters. Fireborn’s soldiers, with their circular tattoos and feathery arm- and legbands, were rare enough on this battlefield. Outnumbered ten to one. Why did they fix their wrath on me?
I killed the next Lightning Warrior with the speed of an adder strike. It was not superior skill; I merely wielded a superior weapon. He was a hulking man and carried a hulking sword. Enemy blades were either short daggers or long macuahuitls. More accurately, a macuahuitl was a club with obsidian teeth. These men hadn’t been trained against a steel blade weighing somewhere in between. I felt like a new recruit, a drill instructor’s shouts rattling my eardrums as I hustled through exercises against straw dummies. The third Lightning Warrior lasted longer than the first two, not because he possessed greater skill. He’d seen how easily I’d dispatched the others and opted to keep a cautious distance, hoping to discern some weakness or catch me in a distracted moment.
He found one. A considerable one. Over his right shoulder, at a distance of twenty paces, I saw a face that caused my blood to boil. I had to squint to verify his identity. It was the devil’s henchman, Prince Eagle-Sky-Jaguar, heir to the throne of Tikal—that is, if his dynasty had still had a throne to inherit. Tikal’s throne was currently occupied by the son of Spearthrower Owl, known as “Curled Snout” behind his back, or Lord Blue Crocodile to his face.
Our one-time ally and friend, Lamanai, looked quite different from the last time I’d set eyes on him at the ruined city of Desolation. He wore the trappings of royalty: a flowering headdress of quetzal feathers. Dazzling jade ornaments, more valuable in this land than gold, festooned much of his body.
His betrayal of us in the wilderness was still a thing of mystery to me. Fireborn himself—Spearthrower Owl’s right-hand commander of this entire operation—had personally murdered Lamanai’s father, Great Jaguar Paw. Yet he wouldn’t be here unless he’d given Fireborn an oath of fealty. He fought alongside his enemies, those who had stripped him of his throne. And for what? The mutually desired destruction of the Nephite nation? He might have made an alliance with the Nephites, driven Teotihuacán from his tribal lands, and recaptured his throne. I wagered taking back Tikal was his plan anyway, but without the help of his ancestral enemies.
Emperors and kings were often labeled as semi-divine. Many emperors dedicated temples to themselves and demanded votive offerings, but worshippers did so out of loyalty to tradition or to the office—or to Rome itself—not to the man. Here, however, they believed it. What was more deranged, the kings themselves believed it. Lamanai—fifteenth in the line of an unbroken dynasty—believed it to his core. I’d watched him fall under the spell of his own “divinity.” His status as a self-appointed god reflected in his countenance as our eyes met and bored into each other. This, I now adduced, explained the sudden onrush of Lightning Warriors. Other Lightning Warriors enveloped Lamanai, serving as his bodyguards. The would-be king had distinguished me amidst thousands of fighting men and sent his cronies to fetch my scalp.
But were they really trying to kill me? The last of three Lightning Warriors lunged while my gaze was locked with the young prince. He raised his obsidian sword and wrenched out a piglike screech that suggested the blow he would aim at me would be infused with every ounce of his fury. I could not help but notice he held the weapon so that its blade was flat. He wasn’t trying to split me like a fire log but crush my cranium. Was it his intent to render me insensible?
It occurred to me, Lamanai might not have been the coward I imagined; he hadn’t sent assassins to do his bidding. That first Teotihuacáno had aimed for my knee rather than a vital part of my body. I gleaned it was Lamanai’s intent to capture me alive.
These thoughts were only flashes. The Lightning Warrior’s angle of attack forced me to duck, simultaneously delivering a backhand slash to his thigh. He went down, clutching his wound. A fatal wound, similar to what had killed poor Micah. The warrior paid me a final hateful glance, then curled into a ball.
I looked up quickly to again connect my eyesight with Lamanai, but he was already gone. I also couldn’t find any member of his bodyguard. Countless Lamanites were sweeping over the western ridge. Any other time, I’d have mercifully ended that fourth Lightning Warrior’s life rather than let him ebb into darkness, but the Eagle Division was being driven to the edge of the eastern side of the ridge by sheer force of mass. We were overwhelmed. The battle was lost. I found myself packed inside a cluster of twenty Nephite soldiers. Knights were being picked off around the edges.
Those behind me seemed to have their feet drop out from under them, tripping into the gully where old men and children had been climbing all day to resupply the division with water and weapons. I glimpsed dozens falling, tumbling, kicking up dust like Mormon’s boulders. The sight surely provoked satisfaction for the Lamayans, having watched so many of their own, just moments earlier, roll end over end down the western slope.
