Justin Allen

The army of Kan-Puram crossed the Tiger River before sun­rise, and swept into the With­ered Hills beyond. They made their way up a wide val­ley, just as the Niphilim had a month before, and within an hour had reached the base of a long slope. Doran never even paused to catch his breath.

It was a strange army that climbed the hill that day. Every man, with­out excep­tion, was wet to the top of his thighs, and muddy at least to his knees. But Doran didn’t sup­pose they needed to be clean or dry to win a bat­tle. Accord­ing to Ander, they out­num­bered the enemy at least a hun­dred to one. Doran was sur­prised that the Niphilim women – so far as he could deter­mine, there were no men among the sol­diers wait­ing at the top of the slope — hadn’t already fled. They had no prospects for vic­tory, and no hope of rein­force­ments. Fate was so clearly against them that day.

Then, as though they’d heard his thoughts, the Niphilim did just that. With­out even draw­ing their swords, they turned and dis­ap­peared over the crest of the hill.

Doran was aston­ished. For a moment, he had no clear idea as to what he should do. He was in a state of bliss­ful shock. Only sheer habit kept his feet mov­ing at all, and even that threat­ened to stop at any moment.

Unfor­tu­nately, the men around him were not so eas­ily staggered.

The moment the Niphilim women dis­ap­peared, the whole front por­tion of the col­umn dashed after them. Bet­ter than a thou­sand men went rac­ing up the slope, like dogs chas­ing a hare. Doran didn’t try to stop them. In fact, once his bewil­der­ment had passed, he was filled with a joy that bor­dered on rap­ture. With luck, he imag­ined, they’d be able to over­take the Niphilim and drive them to their graves. And even if they failed at that, they’d still be among the first to see Akshur. It sent chills up his spine.

But all hopes of glory faded as Doran came over the crest of the hill and found the Niphilim, lined up and ready.

Beyond them, the build­ings and gar­dens that had once been the town of Akshur waited. For a brief moment, Doran had a clear pic­ture of thatched roofs, mud walls, and the bent and splin­tered posts that had once out­lined goat-pens. There were no peo­ple vis­i­ble amidst the lit­tle houses and shops, but he could imag­ine them. Young men with pitch­forks and shepherd’s crooks, going to their work in the fields. Moth­ers with babies pressed to their bosoms. The old and frail sit­ting in their door­ways, watch­ing life do its magic. It was right there — just a few hun­dred strides across a field of sun-scorched grass. But Doran would never reach it. He, and the bet­ter part of his men, had raced into a trap.

Doran had seen a device like this once before, while on a mis­sion to Ur with some of his brethren from the tem­ple. The farm­ers that worked the lands south of Kan-Puram used a sim­i­lar trap for hunt­ing deer and ante­lope. Just over the top of the hill, where none of them could see it, the Niphilim had con­structed a bar­rier. It con­sisted of noth­ing more than sharp­ened staves, dri­ven into the earth at an angle designed to catch a man between his navel and upper thigh. Nor­mally, this kind of fence would be erected along a path where herd ani­mals were known to migrate. Accord­ing to the farm­ers Doran had spo­ken with, get­ting the beasts to stam­pede into it was no more dif­fi­cult than start­ing a few small fires – noth­ing that couldn’t be extin­guished when the time came — and let­ting the smoke drift with the breeze. As the sol­diers of Kan-Puram were learn­ing, the same thing could be done to peo­ple, and with sim­i­lar results. The worst part was, even those who saw the bar­rier in time, like Doran him­self, weren’t able to stop. Their friends and com­rades, still rac­ing up the hill, bliss­fully unaware of the dan­ger, shoved them onto the spikes.

There was only one gap in the bar­rier, right at the cen­ter, and that’s where the Niphilim were posi­tioned. The few indi­vid­u­als lucky enough to avoid the spikes were quickly forced onto their swords. Doran saw that he’d be one of them, and began shout­ing and wav­ing his arms wildly. It did no good. No one could hear him over the screams of the wounded and dying.

From Slaves of the Shinar

The Over­look Press 2007

© Justin Allen