Part III - Sister

Chapter Twenty - Caravan West

Dan Sarpa pulled on the camel’s reigns, the large beast of burden reluctantly moving along his gentle nudging. A heavy load of spice-chests and rolls of woven carpets were fastened around the large hump. Large brown eyes looked back at the sapphire merchant with dissatisfaction, and the camel’s large drooping lips grimaced to show rows of large teeth.

Over the years Sapphire had learned that camels were smarter than they generally seemed. Their memory was surprisingly good, capable of holding decades-long grudges against whomever slighted them. Seeing the camel’s reluctance he knew something had displeased the large beast.

‘Come now, Medif.’ Sapphire patted the long woolly neck of his mount. But Medif stopped in his tracks and behind him the caravan halted. The beast turned his head away and gave a snort.

Medif was not a simple camel; he was lord amongst them. Large, fattened and capricious, with many wives and even more children. This old camel had seen the reaches of the world, crossed the deserts, drank from the saltwater of the seas, battered through icy mountains and journeyed over glittering glass covered sands. No, Medif required respect, and he would go no further until amends were made.

The sapphire merchant nodded in understanding, taking from his pockets a wrinkly apple. The fruit disapeared in the camel’s mouth but Medif remained immobile; the bribe had not been enough. Sapphire continued with a long leek, yet Medif stared back defiantly as he chewed away the fibrous stalks. Finally the merchant presented a cube of sugar, taken from Yayatum’s dining table. Medif’s hairy droopy lips gently moved over the merchant’s hand to take up the treat. With a bow of his large head the camel agreed to continue.

Sapphire glanced backwards, somewhat anxiously, at the line of thirty camels and red the city in the distance behind them.

Hazy in the heat, its walls and towers simmering and dancing, he could see grey clouds amassing over the city, slowly pushing away the blue of summer. Goodbye Uruk, and all I had to do there. Forgive me Yayatum, may your soul be not too mad with me.

And now a return to the sands. He guided a convoy of camels, traders and guards. Normally he would be joyed for the return to freedom, to walk the open dunes and sleep under skies bright with stars. A release from the cramped suffocating confines of cities where the masses roamed. Uruk most of all, possessive with its endless delights and satisfactory promises.

Now he only felt anxious to cross the land as quickly as possible.

‘Mister Sapphire!’ One of the hands called from the back of the convoy. A young lad, head draped in similar turban as his master, though without the prized blue gem. The lookout pointed back at Uruk. Sapphire squinted, groaning as his sight did not discern anything besides vague walls and towers. From his hip he took up his ocular; taken so long ago from a victim of the sands.

Sapphire peered through the lens and his eyes arrived at the gate of Uruk. The doors were open and riders came out. Lances, helmets and the waving scarlet star-banner of Eneduanna. Red robes on black haired horses, twelve of them.

Sapphire cursed softly, adjusting his turban as his mind formed up a plan.

‘Double speed. Arm yourselves!’ He called out.

His men cursed like their master had done moments before. With yells they drove on the camels to greater speed. Sapphire saw his men draw long knives and take up bows from the camel-saddles. They were with twenty: aged experienced men with worn leathery faces, grooved and etched by desert sand.

‘If you look over your shoulders you can see men from Uruk approaching. Some of you know why they have come to pursue us. For those that do not, trust my word when I say they are not coming to exchange sweet words. These men are seeking to kill us. If that is not enough incentive to resist remember that your are contractually obliged to follow my orders. Listen not to their words for they will speak only lies. They want to deliver you to the eunuch so he can torture you and toss your corpse in the canals. My command is simple, protect yourself against these collectors and follow me west.’

He inspected the caravaneers. Silent men, dark eyes calculating, wearing long wide unrevealing robes. Sapphire had picked his followers carefully, initiated them into what was hidden west in the world of nothing. They knew what was expected of them.

***

The red horsemen climbed over the last dune behind the caravan, the hooves of their mounts causing a cascade of sand as they descended. Seeing their approach Sapphire gave the order to halt and form a circle. His men were quick to move, experience from long desert journeys showing.

‘Weapons low.’ He hissed, and Dan Sarpa stepped out to greet the Urukians with one hand raised.

‘Good day brothers!’

The riders slowed their pursuit, trotting the last stretch of distance calmly until halting twenty paces from the Sapphire merchant. Their horses sniffed the dry air and smelled the camels, neighing uneasily.

The foreman of the riders could be identified by amount of ears he possessed, an ungodly amount of disfigured wrinkled lumps of flesh hanging from his neck by a leather lace. The chief had a pair of enormous wide ears that emanated from the side of his head, and the middle of his face was occupied by a large nose that angled down to his upper lip. His bald head was tanned dark and his forehead etched with deep horizontal wrinkles. Tiny black eyes shined out of the Elephantine head. Whatever fineness the Urukian may have been graced with at birth had now been covered by a multitude of scars, some placed ritualistically. The ugly man was called Mysradi; A man about whom hushed rumors were told in back alleys and lower quality brothels, and Sapphire had heard. They were not pleasant stories to soothe the worried mind. Mysradi was a hunter of men. A silencer working for Heabani.

Sitting calmly in the saddle, Msyradi glanced at the convoy’s drawn weapons. A ragged pink scar ran over the dark skin of his throat, showing where his neck had been cut open in the past. A wound so terrible no man should have survived, but Mysradi somehow did. His vocal cords however, had not recovered, and the voice that addressed Sapphire was a primitive guttering, and the voice vibrated like a single worn string still remaining in an old instrument, clicking and ticking with reluctance as the collector opened his mouth.

‘Sapphyr. I would like to ask you... to accompany me back to the city.’

Sapphire felt like he was being addressed by a scorpion. He wondered what age Mysradi was, but the leathery battered face gave no clue of years. Perhaps the hunter was born this way, disfigured and dark like a shriveled plum, or perhaps he had been roaming the barrens for decades in service of the Temple...

Sapphire straightened his turban. ‘What for? Come to collect taxes?’

Msyradi’s thick leathery lips opened in a grin. ‘You left so early. Master Heabani has not had the chance to speak with you, and he’d like a word.’ The words were commanding and unfriendly.

Sapphire nervously fumbled with one of his rings. ‘Afraid I cannot comply. No time, no time at all.’

He took a step back to the caravan. Mysradi followed with his horse, hooves of the beast stamping menacingly after the merchant. Mysradi's great ears twitched, picking up the faintest sounds. ‘Afraid I must insist, Sapphyr.’

The hunter showed a round clay tablet, stamped with the image of a songbird. ‘The seal of Heabani. By the will of Eneduanna -’ The other mounted warriors at his back made quick blessings. ‘- Comply now.’ Msyradi drew a long curved blade, and the other riders fanned out behind him, lowering their spears.

Sapphire bit his tongue as he gathered his courage. Then he screamed a shrill command with all the power of his lungs could muster: ‘Protect the caravan!’

Surprise flashed over Mysradi’s face as a multitude of arrows were spat out towards his pack. The cry of a beast in pain, Horse staggering high with wide eyes not understanding, a pair of arrows sticking out from its flanks. The red riders spurred into action, in the chaos difficult to see who had fallen, and they charged into the caravan.

Sapphire ran back in haste. He heard horse hooves thunder behind him, a quick peek over his shoulder showing Mysradi in fast pursuit.

‘Sin-ner! Trai-tor!’ Mysradi clicked after him, before being blocked off by a riderless horse in panic.

The red men clashed with the caravaneers, and likewise the camels bellowed and snapped with their teeth at the half-tamed Urukian horses, who kicked back in fear.

Vision reduced by thick dust Sapphire threw himself to the ground, camel feet and horse hooves pounding into the yellow sand before his face. Boots stormed past. A man fell down besides him, neck open in a great red gash. Sapphire had to admit: he was a coward in battle. He was no fighter, his small frame not accustomed to physical struggle. So Sapphire hired men to fight for him, while he tried his best to keep still, awaiting until it all would be over, for better or worse.

The clash of violence halted as quickly as it had started and strong hands lifted him from the ground. ‘You’rite master?’ One of his guards.

Sapphire looked around; seven red robed bodies lay scattered over the sand, one of them still groaning after being crushed by his own dead horse. Five riders galloped away in a cloud of dust, returning to darkening Uruk as fast as their mounts would allow. From their own six dead and four wounded; roughly half his men compromised.

‘What to do with the horse-man?’ The guard gestured with bloody sword towards the half-crushed rider, who groaned helplessly in pain.

Sapphire shrugged. ‘Leave him.’

‘Sir?’

‘I said leave him. And we need to move fast now. Killing the High-Priestess' men rarely goes unpunished.’

From the fallen riders Sapphire picked up a partly-torn banner, stripping the fabric from the pole and carefully folding it up and placing it in Medif’s saddlebags. The eight pointed star of Eneduanna.

‘Umal, take a third of the camels and go north for three days, then continue towards our original destination. You know the way.’ The guard nodded sternly. ‘As you wish, master.’

Sapphire continued to another caravaneer, a snub nosed figure busy cleaning his knife in the sand. ‘Arenaten, take a third, go south. You remember the path you must take?’

‘Carved in my heart, master. You will see me again, Godess willing.’

‘Godess willing.’ Sapphire agreed. ‘Now go, all of you. Our lady awaits.’

The caravan split in three, a moment chaotic, last greetings and words exchanged, and with Uruk still looming in the distance, camels were led north, west and south.

***

Crossing the rapidly growing dunes of yellow sand, there appeared a rising ledge of reddish rock that seemed to defy the desert. A figure of Eneduanna stood there, tall and painted identical. She watched to the west into the great sands. Sacrifices and gifts of passing caravaneers and travelers lay at her feet. Pieces of bright fabric were tied around the statue for good luck, and the coloured cloths danced in the dry wind.

As they came upon the statue Sapphire ordered to halt again. He was left with five camels and four armed caravaneers, the smallest group of the three.

‘We are too slow. Release the cargo.’ The merchant spake, feeling his mouth rapidly dry out by the hot desert air. His men hesitated as their hands touched the fine soft fabrics fastened to the camels.

Sapphire shook his head. ‘We need to pick up the pace my friends. We no longer need to worry about coin and debts, forget the marketplace. Drop it all to the sand, everything save food and water. Unfasten the camels and steer south. What I carry with me is worth far more than spices and gems. Being captured by Heabani’s hounds equals failure to our mistress.’

He gestured at Eneduanna-to-the-west, towering over them on her high rocky ledge. ‘Besides, there are worse places to loosen a caravan’s goods. We may worship her sister but she is still powerful. Dedicate those possessions you now discard to the name of Eneduanna. Let us try to not anger her further as we move into the perils of the great desert.’

Begrudgingly the caravaneers dropped heavy laden chests to the ground, the desert floor around the statue soon covered in tapestries, gold, wood carvings, gems and spices.

All their lives they had fought to protect goods such as these, traveled far and wide, protected them from bandits and desert storms while their skin burned and their spit had turned to dry powder. But they now left it behind, mounted the camels and followed the sapphire turban. Their eyes glanced back at the abandoned goods, worth many fortunes and fit to furnish a palace, but their direction remained steady. Ofcourse each of them had filled their pockets with fistfulls of incense and gold.

Sapphire swayed calmly on Medif’s proud back, mind fixed on Semiramis beyond the dunes. Grand and tyrannical, beautiful and divine. He already wondered how she would reward him.