Thorns of Glory, page 9
My heart thumped wildly. This was madness! Some older men in the crowd stood ready to pounce. I’d anticipated that sooner or later Dootapoo would do something like this, but not while our enemies were launching an assault. The materialization of Meagan and Apollus in the gullet of a dragon had given Dootapoo the pretext she’d been seeking. We were now being blamed for the entire Lamanite invasion! This might have seemed insane to us, but not to them. Not to the warped Nephite souls who sought any available scapegoat rather than confront their own corruption.
“Did you not hear me?” Dootapoo screamed. “By the authority of Itzamna, I condemn these outsiders as servants of evil! Attack them! Attack!”
My mind hadn’t fully kicked in before I realized I was walking right toward her. My arrow was aimed right between her eyes. The crowd was still. There were no warriors in this mob. Just elderly men and women and a few infirm. The warriors of Cumorah, including the able-bodied women, were all on the front lines. A coordinated attack might have overwhelmed us, but they hesitated, held their breaths, to see if I’d really slay the prophetess. My bowstring was taut.
She glowered at me, unflinching. “Don’t pretend you have any power over me, you bloodless she-coyote! I see into your cadaverous soul. Before the sun rises you will serve as a paltry meal for the crunching jaguar Cotzbalam. Your nagual is the viper, whereas mine is the owl. Owls always devour vipers.”
My hands quivered wildly. I couldn’t do it. I could not release the bowstring. Oh, I wanted to. She was an obnoxious old shrew. The people made no move, intimidated by our weapons.
Suddenly, Stoop rushed at Rebecca, his white knife glinting. Becky was in the open! Seconds earlier I’d stood close enough to protect her. Dootapoo’s vitriol had drawn me away. The wizened coward, Stoop, had singled out the weakest, most vulnerable of our company. Becky drew a breath, too stunned to scream.
To my surprise, SaKerra’s voiceless son, Kidd, sprang forward, gripping a knife of his own. Before Stoop could strike, he buried his obsidian blade in the man’s stomach. The boy’s dexterity took Stoop by surprise. As Garth and Harry yanked Becky out of harm’s way, Stoop gaped wide-eyed at the ten-year-old. Kidd wore a fearsome expression, teeth grinding, eyes aflame. Stoop collapsed to his knees. Kidd let his blade slip out of the wound. Dootapoo’s lackey crumpled onto his side, still alive but bleeding out fast. Brock disarmed Stoop of his flint blade, then held it threateningly toward the crowd, daring anyone else to attack. No one did, and Brock slowly backed away.
Apollus stepped in front of Kidd, letting his Roman sword encourage everyone to give us more room. Jacobah urged them back farther with his spear.
In a voice like some great dying bird, Dootapoo started to wail. The sound was mind-numbing. She threw herself onto Stoop’s wounded body. Our company started carefully moving westward. Dootapoo’s profound grief was like that of a terrible actress in a bad soap opera. I’m not saying her feelings weren’t real, but her wails sounded like . . . well, literally, a whale—the screech of an orca from some documentary I remembered. Stoop convulsed in a final death throe. Dootapoo cupped her hand beneath Stoop’s wound, filling it with blood. She arose and aimed her vengeful eyes at young Kidd. He glared back, remorseless. She took a daring step toward him. Apollus’s sword halted her in her tracks.
“No farther,” the Roman snarled.
She snapped her wrist, doused in Stoop’s blood, toward Kidd. Droplets fell on everyone. Flecks spattered my check.
“I curse your soul! All your souls! May the torments of Xibalba eternally sear your minds and blind your eyes with manchineel and rot your flesh with poisonwood!”
Whatever those were.
Emotions remained intense, but no one else mustered the courage to lunge. These Nephites may not have been soldiers, but they weren’t helpless. Dootapoo kept trying to rouse them, but no one seemed willing to lead the charge. The sight of warriors like Apollus, Jacobah, me, and Harry was sufficient to keep them at bay. For now.
Other voices started shouting.
“Leave here!” Another old man waved his arms frantically, as if shooing pigeons. “Leave this place at once!”
Exactly where did they expect us to go? The citizens surrounded us. Mormon’s fortifications were under attack. We continued backing away toward the west. An opening in the crowd began to form.
“You are no longer welcome in Zenephi!” shouted a toothless woman.
“You should have never come!” cried an old war veteran with no right arm or left hand.
Pain seared my hip as someone cast a rock. More rocks were flung. They were hard to see in the dark. A second stone clipped my shoulder. It was fast becoming a biblical-style stoning. Becky whimpered as a stone struck her. Brock raised his arms to protect his face.
“Let’s go!” shouted Uncle Garth, using his body to try to shield his daughter and other women.
All of us—Apollus, Meagan, Harry, Mary, Jacobah, SaKerra, Kidd, Becky, Brock, and I—followed my uncle, abandoning our campsite. We ascended a brushy slope of the western bowl, many of us walking backward, facing our attackers to see if anyone launched arrows or other deadly ordnance. So far they limited their missiles to small rocks and debris. A single fist-sized rock might have killed any of us. Fortunately, their aim was pathetic, but the number of stones being thrown made the situation very dangerous. Some in the mob trailed us for a few more steps. The majority of them were content to hurl insults.
“Never return!”
“This is your fault!”
“You brought this violence upon us!”
“Get out of here!”
We slipped into darkness, thickened by the cloud of burning petroleum. We climbed swiftly until the gloom and stench started to abate. After reaching a certain altitude our view of the area improved dramatically. We paused on a narrow shelf a hundred yards up the western slope to assess our circumstances. Smoke lingered inside the bowl, swirling like dry ice in a Halloween witch’s cauldron. Our sightline was just above the edge of that cauldron, allowing us to see the outer fortification walls.
I didn’t know the hour of the night, but it was late. Mary and Uncle Garth nursed a wound on Becky’s forehead, above her left eye, where a stone had left a mark. It was starting to swell. Others massaged their own bruises.
“Stay awake, sweetheart,” Garth whispered to his daughter. “Open your eyes.”
She was crying. “Let me close them. Just a little.”
Mary shook her, made her sit upright. “No, Rebecca. You must stay awake.”
They feared a concussion. Kerra comforted her son, trying to convince him to put away the bloody knife. He gripped it in his fist like a vise, his mother’s voice hardly registering. Kidd’s expression was blank, distant, partially in shock.
Apollus intervened, grabbing the boy’s wrist and gently disarming him. “You did well, Kidd. You saved Rebecca’s life. You were the only one who could reach her in time.”
Brock piled on the praise. “Yeah, nice job, amigo. You kicked butt. I wish I’d done it.”
Kidd turned to Brock and displayed his first reaction. I’m not sure I’d call it a smile, but Kidd’s face muscles sort of relaxed. He seemed to appreciate Brock’s praise. Then he trembled as his mother held him tighter.
Harry, Jacobah, and I watched the hillside in case some vengeful soul rushed out of the haze. My heart hadn’t stopped racing since Apollus and Meagan emerged from the rift in the carcass of a flying monster. It finally started to slow, replaced by tears on my cheeks.
Our enemies within the fortress had become as savage as those from without. We were friendless. Even if we could have found Mormon or Moroni or Gilgal or some other advocate, their attention was hyper-focused on saving their people, saving themselves. No time for the problems of eleven strangers. No time to defend us from vigilantes as soon as the rising sun revealed our location against the hillside.
I hadn’t forgotten about Jesse. He languished in a hospital near Mormon’s headquarters, an arrow wound to his right shoulder, the same shoulder pierced by a poisoned arrowhead a few weeks earlier. He’d experienced considerable blood loss. I worried the Nephite or Ammonite surgeons wouldn’t know how to properly stitch the wound. Maybe they’d cauterized it, but that might assure that he’d never again have full use of that arm. The alternative was infection and gangrene. Even if he’d recovered enough to walk, he couldn’t possibly defend himself in tomorrow’s fight.
By now that hospital near Mormon’s headquarters must have been thronged by hundreds of wounded men, particularly from Joshua’s Fox Division as he’d penetrated enemy lines to climb the eastern cliffs. Oh, how close we’d come to reuniting with my cousin! He’d have also reunited with his father and sister. The irony tasted bitter; fate had again swept him away. Gidgiddonihah’s description of what had happened sounded like another event that involved a rift—as if Joshua had been captured in another time warp. We had no way to confirm it. All was in God’s hands. We could only endure.
My uncle peered toward the burning ditch. The tar-filled moat ran more than a mile along the southern perimeter of Mormon’s fortifications, diagonally northwest, like a great blazing serpent. It cut through the middle of two additional moats seething with thousands of wooden pikes. Three fortification walls also stretched along the southeastern flank—ten to fourteen feet high, connected by towers and balustrades that allowed Nephite warriors to fire down on the enemy. Uncle Garth seemed to focus just beyond the burning ditch, past the outermost fortification wall, toward the Sacred Deer River. Several wide and narrow wood and rope bridges spanned this river. I was curious why the Nephites hadn’t bothered to destroy them. Until yesterday its northwest bank had been regarded as neutral ground—a kind of no-man’s land. Both sides had generally respected that corridor, using the bridges for diplomatic and practical purposes. Besides, the Nephites felt protected inside their fortifications. This idea struck me as ridiculous. The enemy had over a million men. Those crossings were now clogged with enemy soldiers. No-man’s land had been thoroughly breached. I also distinguished dozens of canoes and rafts. Rafts connected by . . . poles? Even in the blazing starlight, the smoke impaired my ability to verify all that was happening.
But my uncle perceived it. “They’re bringing ladders.”
I squinted, and my heart plummeted. It was true. They were floating ladders across the current and carrying them over the bridges.
“Where did they get so many?” asked Brock.
No one answered. No one knew. Last night we’d set ablaze what had seemed like their entire storage depot of ladders. Granted, we didn’t stick around to confirm that they were all destroyed, but the fire was huge. Now our efforts rang hollow. Had we even dented their ladder supply? It didn’t look like their determination to infiltrate this fortress had been dampened in the least.
We gaped in wonderment as Lamanites from every tribe in the One World prepared for their assault. The swarm appeared to extend for infinity into the darkness—an endless concourse of men—fighting men. These forces weren’t watered down with women, children, and the infirm, like the Nephites. The Lamanite warriors were armed to the teeth, and according to their leaders, Fireborn and Spearthrower Owl, their stated objective was to murder every living, breathing Nephite inside this fortress. Their first obstacle was the outermost moat filled with pikes. Thereafter, the first fortification wall. After that, they had to cross the burning ditch. How long could it burn? All morning? The entire day? The enemy could use their ladders to cross virtually every obstacle, but not that burning moat. It seemed to me they’d taken the initiative to set it ablaze before the Nephites had the chance. Their intent? Obviously to exhaust its fuel more quickly.
Before the attackers even reached that moat, they’d face stiff resistance from Nephites manning the parapets and towers of the first wall. Still, a single breach through these six barriers was all they needed. Then it was game over. All of Mormon’s years of preparation and dedication, overseeing the construction of this ambitious bulwark against the Lamanite army, suddenly seemed a surreal waste of time. The outcome of this day hadn’t been altered in the slightest. It was inevitable. Inescapable.
“We can’t just stay here,” said Mary. “We have to do something—find somewhere to hide. Find a time rift to a place of safety.”
We looked at Kerra for an answer to that. Some glanced at Harry and Becky. These seemed to be the people in our company who possessed the greatest sensitivity in locating hidden vortices. I also glanced at Meagan with her blindfold, wondering if her gifts might surpass them all. Becky still looked dazed by her wound, unable to focus on this problem even if she’d wanted to. I don’t think Harry saw himself in the role of exercising this gift; he seemed a bit surprised that members of our company were looking at him.
SaKerra knew exactly what we expected of her. She’d felt the pressure to find an escape route. Brock had spent a good deal of energy building her up as someone who could practically conjure rifts at will. It probably wasn’t fair, and the guilt SaKerra felt was palpable. Something else was also bothering her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Uncle Garth, our senior company member, took the reins. “Mary’s right. We can’t stay here. Virtually every Nephite, and anyone else who stays in this place, will be dead in a matter of hours. We need to climb. We need to reach the repository where Commander Mormon has hidden the records.”
“Where exactly is that?” asked Apollus.
Garth pointed vaguely toward the northeast, where a shadow of the surrounding heights stood against the night sky. “Up there. You can’t see it from here. That spur—I think they call it Ammon’s Summit—is in the way. I was with Joshua and Marcos at this vault a few days ago, but we came at it from a different direction. At the time, we were attempting to travel incognito. We slipped through a rarely used gate and took a trail that winds around the summit from the opposite side. If we reach that ridge, it should be easy enough to locate the repository from there, even in the dark. From that overlook you can see Zenephi and all the spurs that comprise the Hill Cumorah.”
“You’ve stood on that summit?” asked Apollus.
Garth nodded. “Then I crossed that ridge to get back here. As I say, it was dark. The fog was thick during the first few hours of morning. But it wasn’t the darkness or the fog that distracted me. It was a nagging pain in my shoulder. I dislocated it the day before. I wasn’t paying much attention to the trail. No matter. I’ll remember the way. I just need to see the lay of the land from that summit. We already know that repository leads to caverns. A tunnel that’ll transport us to safety.”
Mary spoke. “I hoped we’d find a passageway—a rift—that was a little closer.”
Apollus turned to Meagan. He hadn’t allowed his fiancée to stray more than a few yards from his side. He gripped her hand. “Meagan, moments ago I watched you invoke a miracle. Because of you—your faith—I leaped into the jaws of a monster. Surely Mary is right. There must be a closer rift.”
Meagan appeared thoughtful. It was hard to read her emotions behind that blindfold. We waited in suspense for her to overturn Uncle Garth’s verdict and inform us of another route. Her voice was muted as she said, “Garth’s plan seems right. Mormon’s vault may be our only escape.”
Apollus appraised her with concern. “The climb will be dreadful.”
Meagan dismissed this. “I’ll be fine.”
Jacobah shook his head fiercely. “I cannot leave Jesse. I must retrieve him from Mormon’s headquarters. I’ll carry him to the summit by myself if necessary.”
Harry asked, “You really think you could carry him to that height by yourself?”
“Well,” said Jacobah more humbly, “I’d hoped it would not be by myself.” He locked eyes with Harry.
Harry ruminated on the matter. Its practicality. He asked Jacobah again, “You want me to help you carry Jesse all the way to that summit? All the way to the repository?”
The Lamanite’s jaw stiffened. “I promised . . . that is, I promised myself I would not abandon Jesse. Just as I promised I would not abandon all of you.”
Harry sighed. “Then, we’ll fetch him together.”
My brother’s love for Jesse was no different from anyone else’s. If he’d balked at Jacobah’s request, it would have shredded his conscience. He turned to Uncle Garth. “Take them to Ammon’s Summit without us. We’ll meet you as soon as possible.”
Mary declared to Harry, “You’ll not go without me. If you’re determined to rescue Jesse, I’m going with you.”
Harry was about to object, but Mary’s expression was unflinching, daring him to try.
SaKerra broke in. “What about Gidgiddonihah?”
We all knew her attachment to Gid was growing. What we didn’t know was if Gid felt the same. His last words to her were harsh. He seemed to brush her off. Call it my feminine intuition, but just that harshness revealed that Gid’s feelings for SaKerra were mutual. Typical male nonsense: Hurt the woman you love to temper her pain just in case the worst should happen. SMOT: Standard Male Operating Tripe.
Apollus understood such malarkey better than anyone. He spoke to SaKerra as if she was a child. “Gid is a soldier. His first loyalty is to the Scorpions. He cannot betray that loyalty.”
She raised everyone’s eyebrows as she belted out a profanity. She added, “I don’t care about any of that. It’s nonsense. It’s garbage. What he’s doing is suicide.”
Those with military experience gaped as if she’d spoken in a foreign tongue. It was chatter on a different wavelength. I never formally served in any army, but I certainly understood the mindset. SaKerra knew it too. She’d been married to a warrior. Suicide or sacrifice—it was part of the same game. What SaKerra meant was something different.
SaKerra turned to Garth, eyes glaring. “Read it to them.”
