CHAPTER ONE - THE BARREN FIELDS OF VIOLENCE

Twenty men shined with sweat as they carried the brass throne up the hill. Their feet shuffled up the dry dirt and their exposed skin burned scalding red in the light of the summer sun. Seated on the throne was the High-Priestess, dressed in scarlet, her tall body resting against golden wings. 

The carriers moaned and sighed, then with a final effort managed to reach the hilltop.

‘Down.’ Eneduanna commanded, and her throne was placed on withered grass and rough dirt. 

She raised her tall figure from the throne and stepped barefoot on the ground. 

Servants rushed forward, carrying palm leaves and canvas parasols to shield their mistress from the scorching light. 

Even in the shade Eneduanna felt the oppressive rays of the sun, her lengthy gait withering. Her full mouth was pouted in displeasure and sweat pearled on her stern face. Her long dark brown hair was pushed back over her ears, the sweaty strands uneasily sticking to her neck and shoulders. Her eyes were large and almond shaped, now squinted against the bright light and opened only a sliver.

Beautiful they called her. The greatest. The Godess. 

Tall she was, far taller than her attendants that bowed around her.

An occasional servants hand reached up, straining to reach her face, gently wiping the sweat with precious cloth. Too gently, in fact, Eneduanna decided; the fearful, trembling old hand barely touching her skin. So the sweat dripped down her chin and fell to the hot sand below. The serviles watched where the droplets landed while they gently swayed  palm leaves at their mistress. The moment she would leave they would covet the moistened sand - fight amongst themselves for the right to keep the relic of her sweat-infused dirt; Eneduanna expected nothing less. 

From the hilltop she looked over the arid land of Uruk. A dimmed rustle reached her ears; a sigh, like the rolling of the sea far from these barren lands. If the wind blew in her direction she could even call it noise, brought alongside coarse sand and reddish dust. 

Far in the distance, on the flat stretched out plain below the heights she stood on, assembled the disbelievers. She could see them; A violent sea of bronze, the sun dancing on their shining helmets and shields. 

Above the plain fine dust lingered, kicked up by the marching feet of thousands. Eneduanna turned to the small man besides her. She saw his orange wig had shifted, showing the bald head beneath. 

‘Heabani.’ The aged eunuch’s crystal earrings rinkled as he heard his name. His red painted mouth turned into a sweet smile. ‘Most revered one.’ 

‘What was the message their King had sent to me again?’ She had heard the words already, and had the envoy executed, but she was eager to shift her attention from the near unbearable heat. The eunuch also had a fine voice, never truly matured and light like a bird’s feather. 

Heabani closed his eyes and opened his gentle mouth to speak.

‘My men cannot break as long as the sun shines. Utu, God of Sun and Justice, withers you, oh witch of Uruk. Summer is my domain.’ Heabani recited with his fine ethereal voice. 

The sides of her wide mouth curled up faintly. The eunuch’s soft, high-pitched tones had been completely completely ill-suited to convey the threat. 

‘So their King is without fear.’ Eneduanna stated.

‘That seems to be correct…’ Heabani replied, wiping his forehead with a theatrical gesture. 

‘-Should I give the signal to attack?’ Like his mistress, the eunuch was also eager to release himself from the heat, but she waved her slender hand dismissively. ‘Wait just a moment.’ 

‘As you wish, High-priestess.’ Heabani glanced at the sun high above the land. It scorched, burned, wrung out the dry land of its last essence, reigning supreme. Under the sun’s rays a new sound was formed on the plains. Something beyond the distant clamouring, the grinding footsteps, the neighing of beasts. Soft at first, started by a single man. 

Utu, Enedduanna heard. The shining soldiers across the plain took up the call. The voices strengthened and challenged her divine rule. Their many throats were united in one voice. The eunuch shuffled uneasily as the Larsans invoked their own God. 

‘UTU. UTU. UTU.’ The name of their Lord was on the plain.  

Eneduanna grimaced. Larsans, sunworshippers. Sunburnt and unbroken they now moved against her. Their noise and numbers irritated the tall High-priestess, the unease only exacerbated by the oppressive heat.

At the base of the hill hér men awaited, clad in distinctive red cloth, their many banners rising high amongst a forest of spears, noisily dancing on the wind as they depicted the eight pointed star; the star of dusk and dawn, the bright illuminator of Inanna, Queen of heaven, Goddess of Uruk, of war and sex, of desires and lusts; and the means to fulfill them. 

And the stars had aligned, the season of war had come. 

Amongst her warriors priestesses moved, long haired women, desirable and inciting. They sang praise to Inanna and swept up the men of Uruk in anger. They played the flute while they intoxicated the men, carrying drink, powder, scents and aromas. Ingesting, injecting. Pots of beer and hazy smoke. Hymns to Inanna slowly built up pressure in the warlike sons of Uruk, the intoxicated entranced. Their banners were crowned with heads from previous victims, some fresh and beset by flies, others reduced to broken skulls, bone bleached white by the coarse desert sand. 

‘UTU. UTU. UTU.’ The calls of Larsa grew bolder. 

Eneduanna felt her spine hurt. She moved her weight from one leg to the other, her long body not taking well to prolonged standing, especially not in this heat. But until the battle was over she would remain tall on the hill, visible for all, the final seal on the spell of men. 

Eneduanna finally opened her dry mouth. ‘Commence the attack, by the grace of Heaven their blasphemous mouths will be silenced.’ 

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Behind the tall High-Priestess a heavy horn started blowing. She felt its deep tones reverberating through her body. Her large ears shook when more horns added to the call.

The plains below were filled with a low rumble, spurring the red formations into motion. 

Eneduanna groaned silently as an ebb of pain started behind her dehydrated eyes, pulsing up coincidentally every time the Lord of the Sun was invoked across the barren fields. 

‘Have the men sing for me Heabani.’ She rasped. 

A servant reached up to her with a clay jar, eyes somewhat fearful, and Eneduanna eagerly brought the luke-warm water to her lips. Drums started beating, a slow rhythm, and the red warriors of Uruk sang as they marched into battle, greeted only with the incessant invokement of ‘’UTU’’. 

From her high position Enedduanna could see the first charges, the clash of shields and weapons, walls of shining bronze, and then the mixture of men as the order turned into chaos. The dust increased as the first bodies hit the dirt and the dry earth soaked up the blood. 

Eneduanna watched silently for a long time, finding herself in one of those rare moments she was not in control. The heat continued, the enemy would not break. 

Black clouds cast shadows over the battle before angling down and burrowing shafts in the men struggling below. Heads were taken; trophied, thrown. 

With dust in their eyes and mouth, their limbs straining, tiredness arrived. Through their exhaustion the sons of Uruk fought, occasionally glancing back at the hill, where the tall lady stood. Then they would hurl themselves against the enemy once again, like mad beasts, desperate men. 

A flank collapsed, shining Larsa advanced, still repeating the name of their God as they thrust forward their spears. 

‘My lady…’ Heabani whispered cautiously. He looked up at his mistress but she would not meet his eyes; Her gaze remained fixed on the battle. 

‘What, eunuch.’ The High-priestess demanded. 

The small man took a step closer. ‘Perhaps -’

‘Have you no faith, Heabani?’ Eneduanna barked. Now she met his stare, and her brown almond eyes were full of fire. ‘Must you be replaced with another?’

The other attendants stood by silently, involuntarily trembling as they felt the rage of their mistress. 

Heabani fell to his knees. ‘Forgive me.’ His painted hands clutched her feet.   

Eneduanna sighed. ‘Stand up you old fool, and watch. The stars have already promised us victory. I have seen it for myself.’ 

Heabani scrambled up, wiping the dust from his fine robes. Small streams of sweat ran over his temples, washing away his carefully added powders and paints where they went. 

In the simmering heat of the valley the men of Larsa advanced under cover of the sun. Uruk was pushed back step by step, and the clamour of battle moved closer and louder. Eneduanna smiled. ‘They will fight to the death if they have to. Here at the base where I stand. The very soil of this hill will become sacred.’ She chuckled with good mood as more and more of her men fell. One of her long fingers curled up attentively. ‘Now watch, disbeliever.’ 

The intensity of the light changed, the bright sun suddenly dimming. At its shining edge a black disk crept up, and slowly the scorching sun was hidden. The warm light from heaven was gradually pinched off by the sudden occulting. Rippling lines of light and shadow moved over the land - and then there was darkness. Night arrived during the day as the eclipse came; a black sun, surrounded by a hazy faint aura of white light. 

Sounds became subdued as thousands of warriors looked up, feeling a sudden cold shadow fall on their sweaty bodies. A heavy silence came over the land. They halted fighting a moment, men locked in death-grips stopping the deadly struggle for a few heartbeats as they witnessed the reign of the black eclipse. 

Larsa’s ranks stirred. Utu’s aid was no longer with them, their Lord of the sun subdued. 

The red clothed warriors now induced terror. With all their arms they struck Larsa and Larsa finally broke. Their walls of shields and spears shattered. Uruk came hunting in the darkness and Larsa fled.  Under the colourless light-starved watch of the eclipse they were cut down. They lay in the dirt with opened veins, souls forced out into the shadow. 

Suddenly an arrow of sunlight struck the landscape and the plains breathed life again. The black disk transformed into a black crescent and then departed completely. 

The scorching heat returned in all its absoluteness but Larsa was already broken and defeated. Uruk spread over the hazy battlefield unopposed; the Sunburnt, unafraid before, now begging for their lives. They were not spared, but instead slaughtered like the lamb. 

Enedduanna enjoyed the massacre, the plain covered in killings; in the murder of men. 

With surprise her eyes found a host still resisting, surrounded, hopelessly fighting the overflow of red Uruk. Their banner was torn, but a silver moon was still visible. 

‘What men are those?’ She asked with wonder.

Heabani looked up from the slaughter, a wry smile on his mouth. ‘They are Hurrians, my mistress. Mercenaries from the northern mountains. They aid the Larsans.’

‘Foreigners.’ Eneduanna stated. ‘Fighting like lions to die on a land that isn't theirs.’ 

She shook her head sadly. ‘Loyalty for gold; How pitiful.’ 

The circle of Hurrians shrunk as their kin fell to the hands of Uruk, leaving a ring of red clothed corpses around them, but she could not keep her eyes off them. 

‘Heabani?’

‘Yes, mistress?’

‘It is quite a sad display...‘ She stated. ‘What whispers have you heard about them?’

Heabani scratched a light patch of stubble at his flabby powdered throat. 

‘A band of exiled Hurrians I’ve been told. They have a good reputation, loyalty being one of them, as is evident. I can assure you they will fight to the death.’ 

Another bronze warrior went down, and the ring became smaller.

‘I have never seen Hurrians before...’ 

‘Mountain tribes. Strong, tall people. Not as tall as you, mind you. But fierce nonetheless, quite territorial. Sometimes a band of them descend from their hills into the Riverlands, offer themselves up to local Lords. But they chose the wrong war to join and now they are paying for their sins.’ 

Eneduanna pushed back her sweaty hair over her ears, eyes enticed with curiosity as the last of them struggled for survival. 

The line of Uruk parted and a scarlet robed woman came into view over the heads of the Urukian men. Tall she was, towering over her warriors who reached up to her breasts. Like a mother and her many children she was, slender and gracious. Her brown hair reached to her middle, and her olive skinned arms carried circlets of gold. The Uruk soldiers kneeled in the dust before her, ignoring the last Hurrian mercenaries. ‘Enedduanna. Enedduanna. Enedduanna.‘ They repeated in reverence. 

She let them worship her feet, and her brown eyes turned to the mercenaries. 

Just a handful remained, breathing heavily, wounded, their backs pressed against each other. 

With slow, deliberate steps she walked towards them. ‘You have seen the power of Inanna.’ Eneduanna spoke accusingly as she moved closer. Her voice was dark honey. 

‘I am her High-Priestess. I command you to surrender.’

Her eyes moved over the Hurrian men, finding one stare back. His face was covered in blood, but his eyes were pale grey, sharp and aware, with a hint of battle-induced madness. 

Like his face, the long hair that showed under his helmet was reddened by dried blood, but a few strands still showed golden brown. 

Eneduanna moved even closer, wide hips swaying, reaching for his spear.  She took the bronze tip in her fingers and pushed it down gently. Eyes interlocked, the warrior let go and the weapon fell onto the sand. His men did the same. Inanna now decided over their fate. He bowed down before the High-priestess and around them Uruk cheered deafening.