Iron

I wrote this for a creative writing class taught by Alex Kuo. Reading back through, I can tell I was trying to impress him. Parts of this are inspired by actual history. Every sentence in italics during the last section is quoted from the actual Assyrian king's records. History is hardcore, but I tried to make the language pretty. Enjoy.

The Pillar’s Growing Shadow

By Joe Sudar

            The earth is rich; red silt, thick as paste before the mortar touches it. Many decanters of water drink greedily into the clay, dozens before a mold can be set.

            The Artisan grins, content in the cool shade. Dust swirls around his hands in the water, droplets of caked mud clotting and sinking to the bottom.

            A scarlet finger points into the sky. Sunset takes its umbra out many times its height, a shadow that dominates the city of Bit-Halupê, new jewel in the new crown of King Assur-Nâsir-Pal. The Artisan’s apprentices leap and bound along the scaffolding, grooming the walls from blank canvas into mural reliefs— sunken, carved tales of the valor of Assyria.

            Never before has The Artisan raised a tower in a single day. Iron cut the red clay from the ground of Surû Valley in minutes, sawed and nailed the scaffolding without a single pause to sharpen tools, spread mortar on the hawk and dug out reliefs as fast as they could be imagined. The King of the Whole Four Quarters of the World commanded it to be, and by the gift of his wisdom and the mighty tools that he bestowed, it is.

            The Artisan draws his hands from the water, clean and fresh. Tonight is one for feast and celebration, to enjoy the prizes from the fall of Bit-Halupê. There is tribute to be had, too much to interest a simple clayworker and his charges, but which would buy food, drink, women, and new iron tools to work easier and quicker. Conquest, will of the almighty Urta, chief of the gods, and right of King Assur-Nâsir-Pal, is profitable indeed.

            Whips snap and shout. The Artisan spins, prepared to bow should the Sun of All Peoples have come to witness the pillar without his herald. It is not the king approaching.

            Soldiers goad the herd with iron points. The godless animals mill, bleat, and push, but cannot break the column for the sharp black teeth that hem them together. The Artisan feels bile bubble, scorching the base of his throat as the herd is driven towards the pillar, into the opening that he was commanded to leave at its base; the nightmare maw leading to the gut of Assyria’s newest jewel.

            The iron spears form a briar wall that keeps the animals from fleeing. Hands reach and scrabble, barbarian voices plead, moan, scream, curse, and bargain with deaf ears that cannot understand their language. The chief soldier, marked by a black iron band upon his head, barks at The Artisan, commanding him to seal the hole.

            The Artisan signals up to a pair of apprentices upon the scaffold who stand, dazed, with iron tools dripping wet red clay to the ground below. Let them close the maw. He has had red enough on his hands today.

*

            The Tanner pours slowly. Thick, hot drops fall, one at a time, cooling as he guides them with steady hands. Silence builds in his right ear and he moves the tallow to his left, pouring again. The world fades, muffled and warped as under water.

            His knife hardly needs the whetstone. This black metal is far superior to bronze. It  holds an edge and makes minutes of an hour’s work. All the same, The Tanner runs grit along each side of the curved edge. Three passes along the right, three along the left.

            Leather, it’s only leather.

            First pass of the knife feels as though it’s cutting wool. Three cuts and the leather falls away in a sheet. Glistening red meat, rippling back muscles marbled with fat, lined by gristle, quiver beneath. The Tanner wipes the curved edge against his apron, left and right. Black metal is strong, but rusts just like any other. Three more passes of the whetstone, each side, to keep the edge honed.

            A single slash strips the haunch. A few more cuts and it is lain bare, another piece for the pile. A dozen passes more, unbroken slashes severing tendon, fascia, blood vessels, as though he were cutting hair. Minutes, and the beast is naked. Soldiers take him down from the rack, leading another immediately after to fill his place. The black metal smacks its chops greedily against the sharpening stone, ready to continue.

            Leather, it’s only leather.

            Muscles rend and tear before the knife, gushing blood in spurts, washing over the Tanner’s hands like water from a fountain. This one is young, plenty of life and strength left, years ahead of him.

            No, just leather.

            One of the rack’s cords snaps and a fist knocks into the Tanner like an angry ram. Soldiers rush forward and tame the ram as the leather worker scrabbles away. Setting his jaw, he picks up the knife and passes it over the whetstone again, three times on the right and three on the left.

            Stopping his ears with wax is helpful, but some of the screams get through all the same.

*

            Unto Urta, the powerful, the almighty, the exalted, the chief of the gods, the valiant, the gigantic, the perfect, whose onslaught in battle cannot be equaled, the firstborn son, the destroyer of opposition, I bend knee and tilt head, your humble servant, for the life that you have given me today.

            The Soldier rises from the idol, backing away with head still bowed. Almighty Urta gifted him victory, unmarked and uninjured today, but the gods are fickle and may choose to take such a boon back.

            At the center of the conquered barracks is a table crowned by the spoils of war: lamb shanks, fresh ground barley bread, wine, honey, beer, all the things that a soldier wishes for in the hours after a battle.

            No one has touched it. Victory sweetens the honey and salts the meat, but the screams from outside the barracks foul it like writhing maggots.

             The Soldier knows screams and the faces that go with them. When a man screams like a lion he snarls and gnashes teeth, sword, and spear. When he cries like an eagle it is because another’s claws have found him. When he sounds like a hyena it is because he has lost his hackles and chooses to flee from death and honor. When a man whimpers, moans, and cries like an orphaned pup suckling at the teat of its dead mother, it is because he has no hope.

            Outside the barracks is a sea of pups, whining and begging for their mother’s love. Bit-Halupê will be dead in only a few hours, soaked so red that the sun’s last light will seem to linger after it has sunk for the day.

            Iron is to bronze as a needle is to cloth. The shepherds conscripted into the golden metal battle lines of this morning may as well have sent their flocks for all the fight that they gave Assyria. Even the walls, thick red clay, fell to adz and hammer as the Soldier and his brothers roared and gnashed as lions. Before the iron points of Assyrian spears the bronze armor that had kept the city’s dominion over this valley for years were as useless as coats of wool, but at least on the field they had the choice to do more than whimper.

*

            Red clay stoppers the hole. As the screams muffle, the Scribe tells himself that the stylus in his hand is shaking from the cold in the tower’s growing shadow and the onset of night, not from a waver in his conviction. The inscriptions on the wet clay tablet jut and snake, twisting the words. A record-keeper of the King Without Equal must make no mistakes. Every sentence needs to be rewritten until it is clear and artful.

            One hundred aND—

            oNe—

            One hundred and fiFFt—

            One     hundred—

            One hundred and fifty men, sealed within the pillar.

            Orders pound off the clay walls. The Scribe looks up from his tablet. Ropes snap and flick from the pillar’s top, stretching out to the eager hands of iron-clad soldiers on the ground and down to the base of the scaffolding. Thousands of stitches strain. Three hundred pieces of hand-cut leather rise, billowing in the wind. The soldiers heave and grunt until it rests at the top, a cloak to show what victory for Assyria means.

            The Scribe forces his eyes onto the tablet. He only needs the numbers, not the sights. His stylus scratches steadily along the face, sure and careful. Red specks float down on the wind. They settle like snow on his tablet, hand, clothes, hair, eyes, tongue, painting the Scribe until he matches the pillar.

            ThreE hundREd SkInNeD—

*

            King Assur-Nâsir-Pal watches the tower breathe, swelling and undulating, framed by the sunset.

            Hammer strikes chisel behind him. Chisel cuts grooves into stone, a new stele to rest at the side of his governor, who would rule Bit-Halupê in the days to come. A herald speaks with the King’s voice to the masons, guiding their hands so that the stone itself will tell the story of the day’s victory to all who look upon it.

            I built a pillar over the city gate, and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins.

            Assyria could not balk. Breaking a lion’s gaze upon the plain is a mistake that is only made once. It is no different among the conquered and the conquering. Men will tell stories of the Assyrian rage that swept over Bit-Halupê, of the way that iron swords cut the city down in the span of a day, but the truth would only echo for as long as the story was told. If a new rumor spread over the land, the truth could change. The pillar could not. Anyone who saw it would know what transpired, and thus it need only transpire once.

            Some, I walled up within the pillar.

            The King had known hunger as his people had. There was a time when gleaming soldiers clad in bronze would descend upon them in the riverlands, taking tribute on merit of strength, leaving mouths empty. Now the men inside the pillar would know the darkness of having no hope. They would know the despair of feeling their bodies waste away for no reason other than another man decreed it so.

            Some, I impaled upon the pillar on stakes.

            When he was just a boy, the King witnessed the discovery a man who had been left nailed to a tree by a bronze spear. His hands had worn down through skin, flesh, until the gleam of bone showed from the effort to free himself. The King saw the man’s widow weep and his son tear at the bladed tip of the spear to free the corpse. For every night that the King had not slept for the thought of the terror that bulged through the dead man’s eyes, he would leave another to suffer the same fate for the same sake; cruelty alone.

            My power and might I established over the land of Bit-Halupê.

            The truth of the words was there. No matter what else was said, no one would doubt the will of Assyria.

            I received tribute from all the kinds of the land of Lakê—silver, gold, lead, copper, vessels of copper, cattle, sheep, garments of brightly colored wool, and garments of linen, and I increased the tribute and taxes imposed them upon them.

            All powerful Urta had willed it to be so when he gave the gift of blessed iron. The land would answer for everything that had befallen the people of Assyria, and mighty King Assur-Nâsir-Pal was the instrument of this will. With iron in his hand, he would lead his people from the flooded valleys and into the shining cities of the men that once trampled them under foot. Upon each victory he would place a pillar and write upon a stele, until the shadow that had stretched over them for so long reached back onto the ones who had cast it.