Chapter I

Year 5 of the reign of empress Lim-Kiririsha, 14th day of the month of Nisanu

It was a busy morning in the city of Mari, in the western part of the Kingdom of Assyria, as the people were quickly gathering in the now so-called industrial district of the city, just north of the old city center. Mari was a relatively large city with almost seventy thousand inhabitants and showing no signs of slowing its growth. It was competing for the second largest one in the kingdom, after the capital Ashur naturally, with Nineveh, though Mari was still a few thousand citizens behind. Yet in previous months more and more people had started moving into this “Jewel of the Euphrates”, as many locals called it, due to the government promising thousands of new high paying job openings.

These positions would come in the form of jobs in the newly built complex of cotton mills, the second such in the world, with the first one having been opened a few months earlier in Ashur. Assyria had already for centuries been an important center for textile production and so in recent years the country, helped by funding from the Elamite empress, managed to assert its dominance even further in the textile market by speeding up the production process by way of various inventions. This included spinning and weaving frames, developed by Assyrian and Babylonian inventors, and the most efficient of them were now being produced on a large scale to be placed together in the new complexes of cotton mills. Cotton itself had recently made its way from the Indus Valley to Elam, and from there to all the other states of the Eastern Coalition, where it soon became one of the most important resources, especially after the eastern states noticed the success of Kushite textiles, made from the cotton grown there. The cotton mills used the power generated by water wheels placed on the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, for the mills in Ashur and Mari respectively.

This was a new development, and the mills’ complex in Mari was supposed to be even larger than the one in Ashur. It was said to house enough machinery to provide work for almost four thousand male and female workers and other personnel, and more similar projects were being proposed for other cities in Assyria. Thus, the opening of this new complex was quite an important event and attracted the attention of many citizens in the city and the surrounding areas. With improvements in agricultural technologies starting to spread as well, thousands of farmers were left without a job and so now were moving into cities, hoping to find work there instead, and so this seemed like a good opportunity for many families.

The complex consisted of five buildings, including the largest central building, also functioning as the administrative center, and four smaller ones, two on each side of the largest one. Each had six floors and each floor was filled with the new machinery. The complex was directly adjacent to the Euphrates and the water mills on it. Thousands of people had gathered around it, hoping to see the opening ceremony, which was to be attended not only by local nobles and business magnates, such as the merchant tycoon Hanodeen Mahiru, but also by the rulers of the country. Ninsina Ishtarhisnu, the queen of Assyria, promised to attend the opening ceremony, just as she did for the one in Ashur, and stay in the city for at least a few days in order to see the greatest inventions in her country at work at such a large scale. Aramina Damqu, the second in command of Ninsina and her right-hand woman – though many in Assyria believe that the two are even closer than that – would not attend this ceremony though, as she was left in charge of the capital while Ninsina was away.

The ceremony officially began at the fifth hour of the day, a couple hours before noon, as Ninsina and her entourage disembarked from her royal ship and made her way to the stage in front of the central building of the complex. The people cheered for her, as Ninsina was indeed popular among the majority of the population, though she had a controversial reputation, as, after all, she was still the first female ruler of the country and had led to the overthrowing of the previous dynasty during the Great Powers’ War. She was still young, just over thirty, and already had implemented many reforms and promised more to come, which made some people hopeful about the future of the country, while others, usually older men, were not so fond of such changes. This new project was no exception to them, as they cited it as yet another pointless waste of the taxpayers’ money, which should instead have gone to the army according to them. Nevertheless, the crowd at the ceremony was enormous and everyone was clamoring to see the queen, who had just climbed up the stage, and, after the event organizers made some short opening statements, began her speech, addressing the citizens and guests of the city in the western dialect of the Akkadian language, which was a mix of the Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, as Mari had a mostly Babylonian population but a significant number of Assyrians as well.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Good morning, everyone!” Ninsina began. “I am glad to see so many of you have gathered here. Today it is truly a momentous occasion for this great city and our entire kingdom as well. Since the founding of Ashur over a millennia ago Assyria has been known by everyone to excel in the textile industry and be the prime producer of it. This industry was one of the most important things which brought us glory and wealth, rivaled by few in the entire world. And despite the changing times, we are not abandoning our roots. We are adapting to this new era with the help of technologies created by the great inventors of our kingdom and those of allied states. Aided by their machines, Assyrian textiles will become even more numerous, and I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that soon everyone will be wearing at least one garment made here in our country.”

The crowd cheered again and clapped for Ninsina. After the people quieted down in a few moments, Ninsina continued her speech.

“This would surely make our country even more prominent on the world stage, and you are the ones who have the chance to participate in this development directly. The efficiency of these machines was proven in Ashur, and so now we have built an even greater complex, one which could satisfy the international demand for our products even better. These cotton mills have over a thousand spinning and weaving machines, able to accommodate almost four thousand workers in a single day, and the complex may be expanded even further in the future. That may indeed be necessary, as I have seen that almost all the positions have been filled already by those of you who have registered. I am very happy to see this level of enthusiasm from you. You should be proud of yourselves, as working here will not only give you a respectable wage, as well as valuable skills, but also will directly elevate the status of our great country internationally, as you, the first generation of highly efficient spinners and weavers, will-”

Suddenly, an explosion erupted on the third floor of one of the western mills.

“Your highness, look out!” one of the queen’s elite guards shouted.

“We need to leave, now!” another guard said, as the group was hastily descending off the stage.

The people were now in complete disarray, many of them screaming and some trying to escape, which proved to be very difficult with thousands of them huddled in this semi-enclosed space. The debris from the burning building also started falling and hitting some bystanders. Some of them were killed immediately, others were gravely injured or began burning as their clothes and hair caught fire. The soldiers were trying to calm the people down and make their evacuation more orderly, while the firefighters hurried to take water from the river in order to extinguish the fire before the other buildings were affected and the situation got even worse.

“Where the fuck are they, we need the firefighters to get here before-” one of the guards said before being cut off by another, even larger, explosion.

This time the other – outermost – western building exploded, with the area of impact being much larger. The whole building collapsed on dozens of people trying to escape, and the first burning building became engulfed in fire even more, starting to collapse itself and trapping more people. As the entrance to it became blocked, the people who had been inside the mill tried to escape by jumping out the windows, yet this mostly led to their deaths, except for those who had managed to jump into the Euphrates.

“My queen, are you alright?” one of the elite guards asked nervously, as he was helping Ninsina get up on her feet.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…” she coughed.

She was somewhat covered in soot, as was everyone around her, and had some bruises and cuts from the fall, but had not received any serious injuries and managed to stand up.

“We need to get you back to your ship, my lady,” the guard said after he steadied himself and was ready to escort her.

“What about the people here? We must help them,” she said and looked back at the scene.

“The soldiers and firefighters will take care of them. But you are our priority right now. We can’t linger here, there may be more explosions.”

The courtyard looked gruesome. The stage had burned up, and there were dozens of dead or seriously injured soldier and civilian bodies around it. Hanodeen was lying on the ground nearby, his leg having suffered some burn damage, and the guards were helping him stand up. Further out, there were even more casualties. The soot-covered people were rushing out of the area, climbing over each other, as well as some dead bodies, many of them now burnt completely. The first building in the west also collapsed completely, crushing some people beneath it. The air filled up with smoke, the smell of blood, and the screams and cries of the victims.

“Why… Why did the gods curse us like this?” Ninsina cried as she was being led away hurriedly by the guards.

As the panic continued, a figure emerged from behind the ruins of the two burning buildings. It was a large man, who took off his hood, climbed onto some debris, and raised his sword to the sky.

“The Assyrian Liberation Army sends its regards. Glory to Ashur!” he shouted.

After that, he quickly proceeded to slash his throat, right before a few arrows released by the soldiers hit him, and his body dropped next to the burning civilian corpses.