Justin Allen

Chap­ter 1

The Hunter

Uruk fled across the wastes.

Desert extended over the entirety of the vis­i­ble earth. Wave after slowly mov­ing wave of glit­ter­ing sand, devoid of life, marched on him from all sides. It flung itself into the air, mixed with wind and sky, and pelted him from every direc­tion. It scorched in the sun and burned his feet. It was the grit in his mouth, ruin­ing his food and mud­dy­ing his water. He tore scraps from his clothes and tied them over his head and feet, but no mat­ter how tightly he tied them, the sand got in.

He had been trav­el­ing east for a week straight. Of that he was cer­tain. His sense of direc­tion was per­fect, and he had plenty of time to count, over and over, the pass­ing of the days. He had come far. The weight of the water-sack hang­ing over his shoul­der told him that he was beyond turn­ing back. Three days beyond by his reck­on­ing. And for those three ago­niz­ing days he had crested every ridge with a sense of hope. The city of Ur, and what­ever trea­sure it held, was wait­ing for him some­where ahead.

Though his sense of direc­tion was per­fect, his map read­ing seemed to be decid­edly the oppo­site. Maps were worth more than gold in those days, and a good traders’ map was pro­tected with life and limb. Maps were the life’s blood of the desert, show­ing canyons and streams, places for liv­ing and places for dying. Uruk had looked over a detailed chart of the land between the Bay of Beenar and Ur just before leav­ing the coastal cities, and it had seemed to him that he should reach Ur in no more than four days.

He’d mea­sured off the dis­tance on his thumbs. It was three thumb lengths between Ur and the coastal cities, and also three from the coastal cities to the Bay of Beenar. Not far. When he was still loot­ing the trea­suries of the Prince of Beenar, Uruk had trav­eled back and forth between the cities and the bay a half dozen times. If he hur­ried he could usu­ally make the trip in two and a half days.

But there was no hur­ry­ing in the high desert. The faster Uruk walked, the more his feet slid in the sand. It took for­ever to climb one short dune, his feet slip­ping back nearly as fast as they pressed ahead. This was no place for human beings. Still, he ought to have trav­eled more than dou­ble the dis­tance to Beenar.

It was a mind­less sort of exis­tence, out there on the sands. He found it dif­fi­cult to focus on any one thought for more than a few moments. Bad habits cropped up with star­tling swift­ness. For a while he’d been lift­ing his water-skin from his shoul­der, feel­ing the weight of the liq­uid slosh­ing back and forth inside, and then drop­ping it back into place. He did this at least ten times an hour. Later, he’d found him­self pick­ing at his fin­ger­nails, peel­ing back the cuti­cles. As soon as he dis­cov­ered these habits, Uruk set his mind to squash­ing them. He believed that a man ought to know exactly what he was doing, and why. Uncon­trolled habits were the surest indi­ca­tion of a lazy mind, which a true hunter could not tol­er­ate. Lately he’d been suck­ing on his front teeth. This had proved the most dif­fi­cult habit to break. But con­quer it, he would.

After a long climb, Uruk crested a medium-sized dune. There was still no sign of Ur — just sand as far as he could see. He coughed and rubbed his eyes. The wind was hit­ting him full in the face and his feet were start­ing to bleed. He needed rest and water. He glanced at the sun. It was almost noon. He let the water-skin fall at his feet and then sat down, turn­ing his back to the wind. His knees were sore, his back throb­bing from the strain of this seem­ingly end­less trudge across the sand. But Uruk wasn’t ready to give up.

He tore the rags off his feet and cast them aside. His blood was thick and sticky and oozed out of cracks in the skin around his toes. The desert was dry­ing him, turn­ing his body flu­ids to pow­der. He pulled the rags away from his mouth and tried to spit. Noth­ing. He tried to whis­tle, but no sound would come.

Uruk tore strips of cloth from the hem­line of his tunic and bound them around his feet. A dust devil swirled over a dune to the west of him. He watched it build strength until whole mounds were lifted from the land­scape. It moved toward him, gain­ing speed as it ran down­hill, its cone tow­er­ing into the sky. Then, just as it reached the base of the dune where he was sit­ting, it was hit by a cross­wind and dis­si­pated. Noth­ing could last in the waste.

From Slaves of the Shinar

The Over­look Press 2007

© Justin Allen