《At the Skirt of Paradise》


 CH 01; Demonic Winds.

    As wilder fowls, they''ve wandered through the town, peregrines on the road¡ªa band of former cavaliers, now traveling on foot in search of merchants to assay their loot. From battlefields, they''ve pilfered wrecked armors stripped off soldiers moribund, filling their rubric rags with cuirasses unlaced from bloated corpses and coats of mail girt with bands of febrile iron.


    They''ve slit the dun throats of their Augean horses, using th''unhallowed blood as gloaming Kohl. Roaming away, freed from earthly masters, the scraps of honor clang a dulcet tole in heavy bags, masked by the recusants'' shrill laughter. Rawhide of primal skin; half man, half Taurus¡ªtheir chieftain''s lathered frame reached the ethers. Affianced to the asters of the night, he donned a Horus-feathered coat, fur grease enswathed.


    The beastly chieftain walked with galling gestures, for he''s to barter with an old acquaintance. Scalding lech dilated th''innards of his festered heart. Anticipation wrought, his hankering flesh to undulations yielded. They were set to meet the slave erstwhile, a woman from the Libyan heath, which broke from bondage.


    While entering the Inn, him and his guards witnessed conflict brewing. Three burly men, sweat-soaked and maudlin, encircled the bar maiden. With dull-eyed stares and open palms, they grasp at board protrusions lest they stagger. Acting upon lewd dares, they spout sour-honeyed words, flirtatious gambits.


    Amurru''s men reached for their sheathed swords; the giant barred their way, prescient of his friend''s cunning. She whispered words to privy ears whilst leaning uncouthly towards the vexed clients, her fingers tapping in a mellifluous spree, face hidden by their broad and rugged shoulders.


    Then turned the troublous swiggers, pale of mien and pacified, revealing sordid features of the hostess. Amurru screamed, "A servant hither!" Ninkasi answered, "yet a slave to no one." A swarthy woman donning lustrous clothes, the truculent bawd, raised up her sinewy arms to fix the kerchief on her sweltered front, while prying intently with a cautious charm, the fast-approaching of the arrant band.


    Ears sensitive to the metallic chime behind their backs, she glowered at her friend with eyes austere, in a sudden shift of clime that he responded, "Which act so offending did trigger such an overbearing glare" Poise as a scorpion, stretched and set to sting.


    She answered, "Sirrah, lower thy blaring voice, tintinnabulary clings attract unwanted guests; thy presence''s parlous. Public rows invite a baleful end. My serious objurgating is on par with threats assertable and not mere reprimand of thievish ways."


    Then Yudh, his right-hand man, grabbed sternly unto her furbelowed wrist and wrung her arm for the covert to pan. He said, "The sultry primadonna lisps when speaking lies and counters convoluted. What spunk her soul to whip a tongue mordacious? Her scale was tipped towards the law as bruited, amalgamation with the state!"


    She swung her arm towards her ruddled chest, sequined with specie cast of foreign coinage. "Bringeth charge ''gainst me, a knight that lost his equine? When he belongeth inside an iron cage. The honorless findeth edge to impute frail accusations gathered from hearsay. Stare not at me with bandying gander, esclatz of a horseman; but thine own self upbraid."


    He feigned a smile, dismaying the wardress of the Inn then said, "Betraying a feeble king is just, yet if you doubt so fatuously the fasces carriers, ye hence unbind the bundle''s ring and merit scourging with its seething rod." Yet, she responded with a calming temper, passing a hand across his ruffled chest. "It seems thou art the leader. Bear not slander to arouse the crimson of thy zest. Keep rage at bay when dealing with a gentlewoman."


    He interrupted, "Then pay due with haste." "Gag not my voice, intruder! For I shan''t bend my will to gasconading blusters. Shed the hooded threatening of the cobra, for thou art formidable indeed, good sire. Unstrain thyself, release the noxious care. Once sober, I''ll reward thee with all ye desire."


    Frenzied, the old giant hurdled t''wards his partner. With promises proclaimed, the resiled dame batted her eyes, derision overtaken. Galvanizing Amurru into action against his charmed subordinate; and pinning him to th'' frame of pillars wooden, murderously roared, "Ye sliver of a man, upmarked whoreson, vim of rascal borne, the foulest element. D''or! thou changest hands more than flat-fonted coins ''tis thus that lively witsnappers are won? With basest instincts?! wink and a brief touch. Think not of treachery for transient, wanton pleasures.


    A starved wolf, with no recourse, snatches meat bloodied from th''aggressing Alpha, swilling rabid. Erase the mutinous grin from thine oppugnant mien or I''ll drub the pride from out of ye." No wager from the second man was uttered, instead the right-hand man displayed his loyalty. "I am officious in my duties, steadfast in serving thee, Amurru. For I am only thine."


    "Nay, thou art offenseful in thine acts." "Methinks not so, our thoughts are confluent. The head doth ponder and th'' right hand responds, reacting to what''s eyed, I''ve wrung what is pursued. Do bash my hood away, but thy brutal sally served but to disarm thy right-hand man and panned the weaponries which we''ve accrued, littering the filthy bottom of the hostelry with rusty troves." "Not yet with corpses still."


    "Am''rru!" Erupted Ninkasi whilst scrubbing a vessel''s edge betwixt her nimble fingers. "Are the large antlers of an elder stag meant but to ram the scantling of my Inn? Let not deciduous horns be blood imbrued, lest thou be stuck with yet a second face. A pruned head, transpierced upon thy prongs to graze the laund with thee, hung decollated. Be not mistaken, though it faintly ruminates, the rot will spread t''infect thy brainish front. Then linger thus, a doltish, bow-backed thief and sneak a-nightly to brabble as low beasts for tuft."


    "Thou sayest I bow to graze in snow-clad verdures to rub my nose the wrong way, be not so grievous and let me browse upon thy birchy trunk, no vesture sprouts on the stem when branches are unleafed." She heaved exasperatedly before relenting to his satyric craving, gold bracelets clang on the hand''s wrist, cleaving open chest''s garment to private view, and the chief lowly leant to gaze upon the shrew''s body. All he could tell apart were cuneiforms, no matter how he bent.


    "You prude!" He yelled. "What odious sorcery! Accursed stonyhearted woman, clay iron ore petrified the flesh!" She said, "my sottish soldier, retire from the rondure of my bar, pursue me not. I am not soft, no nereid mermaid, yet thou art sinking-ripe. Quit thy ribald entreat and drink, then thou canst lead thy panderous group of rogues to fevery affairs." And Am''rru meandered towards Ninkasi with a grave mien, substituting fiendish anger with a stupor brought by the fragrance of her golden brew.


    Heartily, she laughed whilst pouring beer, its flow as thick as the onrush of the Euphrates. Then Am''rru leered upon the mistress, stirred to listen to the elucidating of the marring. ''Indeed, you''ve glimpsed a sight of what is hidden. So spare thy nether-man, then debarras of what thy barbarous hand did glom, and bid investments novel in what I''ve procured." And she hath shown him ''gain the immense tablet she wore as armor then declared. " ''Tis a burden, a malleable substance, cold and hard as clay if worn, for it becomes the person.


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    Strobing when thrust as a binding mass. Insufferable upon the breasts of a belabored woman. Its powers perverse had turned me maniable and docile to the whims of stronger men. ''Tis called the Tablets of the Destinies, which all the kings desire to grab hold of and it does not befit a maiden to wear. Then free me of my manacles and head to meet the declared king of War''ka. And ''stead of trickling coins, I warranty a stable currance, fulsome in reward. For practisants of rulership are superstitious."


    "He''ll pay his crown for such an artifact, his bars of gold source paradisal strife; prost! What roles you''ve parceled?"


    The door swung open. Taken aback, Ninkasi shrouded herself, voice gruffed. Her ken behind a gauzy aperture, kept track of a strange figure out the bar, clad in whole black. Pazuzu, son of Hanbu, lieutenant of the seventh legion, barged inside her Inn with lil?-men astride him, Assyrian scimitars slung at their hips. A totem of pure agony for steaded sinners, Pazuzu sneered, his wry smile lethargizing the stumped mistress, diluting her flushed cheeks as the adulterated wine she serves. Composure-parted, Ninkasi did slur, "What vigorous brew may slate your fervor, sir?"


    Pazuzu stared at her with sulfurous eyes. "The sweetest wort, ripe dates, and honey freckled." Ninkasi serviced them, her spirit carnified, arms trembling as she sloped the fractured jug to fill their cups. They stood in steady round, as pompous palms enrobed of their shadows, and women eyed their stance, robust of bearing, their dark-rimmed eyes affine the date fruits'' clumps.


    Bairns with lutes and tabors merrily strummed to varying rhythms of the hand-held drums. Assyrian kin stood high above the rest, their matted dreads in sturdy locks were pulled, thick beards veiled the visage of each man, with tresses beaded fringe trims, squarely pruned and thick-lipped mouths, their grins maleficent.


    One arm raised angled forward as to cheer, the other arm fixed on the falcate''s sheath as they perpend if each is friend or foe. Not sparing all the lonely girls enwreathed of beauty''s corsage. Martial-tilted men so neatly structured in a perfect circle, they performed the dance of death. Their threnody was thrummed, deep-toned for peerage fickle.


    And Pazuzu began, "the streets descant dour tales inspired by a tavern wench who sold her spirit-essence but to purchase slew pounds of flesh from bondage, then became a bold entrepreneur servicing highway-men. Her needs inflated, directed her to seek the outlaws'' stock, beneath the weary eyes of tower guards to lash her feet a thousand miles in walk and fill her coffers with the stamp of foreign kings, nonnative rulers.


    But Nanna, th'' increscent moon, has ears to hear the whispers from th'' ingathered. Hail hoary winds of death, with thy morbid crooning. Hail to announce what fate attends the odalisque! Come join our dance." And he extended his hand towards Ninkasi but found her floundering, her features terror-stricken, clay tones in rend as she turned destitute, broadly exposed before the Obelisk of Great Assyria.


    Am''rru, not used to seeing the lady stropped, deprived of wonted determinacy, thus intervened, "What men are ye? What sort to frighten such an amenable woman?" Ninkasi grabbed his grotty forearm, muscle-bound, but he retreated not. And the appalled lieutenant regarded him with ghastly propensities.


    "Approach ye hence with features not remote, though primitive. I''ve had reports that our southeastern flanks were breached, for gallied hirelings announced retreat, forsaking posts ere ganking fenceless corpses to strip them of their fees, no longer needed in the afterlife. But bones do clack, clinging to what they''ve suffered. Comest thou forth." But Yudh did stop his master, saying, "Be wary, he''s a seer and senses the squalls which blowingly waft ov''r currents, indistinct."


    "He hearkens howls of dead men? What hocus-pocus! He heeds but bogey ghosts, frail apparitions that swindle him of sense. But they''ll disperse once th'' bouncing liver doth divest intuitions from the baned effect of liquor." Thus Am''rru spoke, Pazuzu cachinnated, his horrid laughter broke the heavy silence which reigned supreme ere he upraised his cup to the indigence of acuity.


    "To souls bygone, which, fluxing from bare crania, turn steam and obfuscate the croft swards. Terrain strewn with embittered corpses, mien irate. A fecund monoculture for the Lord''s garden. Most Festinate of guests, how raw, how brave. Let he that thinketh that man is capable of communicating from beyond the grave with the living, be first t''infringe against this lardy swain.


    What ho? Stands no one? Then prost, my friend. To the forever departed." Am''rru saw naught but darkness in what thenceforth occurred; the nigh lieutenant got hold of him, an object gleaming in his clenched fist. And brewage bile did squirt from th'' gashing wide, for Pazuzu hath bared his murd''ring dagger and thrust it in the giant''s open side betwixt his arced ribs, then whispered thus.


    "Thine ocean eyes are clear, yet rueful are they not? Thy ruddy, scuffled beard is seeped in th'' blood of thy bedeviled victims. Amorite, no man escapes his race predestined. Thy filthy blood will strain into the tavern''s base, and the wood panels shall creak vexatious screeching underfoot of drunken, merry folks in gales of laughter. Croak! Such is the vestige of a cowardly leech."


    The crowd retreated from the murder scene as armed rows broke out in the quatre corners of the thieves'' den, and Pazuzu, with beaming sonder, cut through the teeming rooms in search of Ninkasi. " ''Tis such a jovial moment when death cometh and swordy knells commiserate co-conspirators. Whither art thou, Ninkasi? Comely squire, are fates not intertwined? Serve thine inebriant for both your lives! The liefling of thy clientele rejoice in armistice to flatten sets armorial.


    And then, as rearmice of the fields, they hasten to impart their shares on thee. Thou must stand trial for their inequities, barmaid. By tending to such brigands, thou art intrinced in their affairs and hence, be scoured by the south-reaving winds for all nefarious deeds permitted erroneously in thine establishment." He spread his torch to inflame the sources of impiety.


    "They loiter now, then slink back in the morrow to sacred topes of inebriety. The law must be enforced with exigence." He thus declared as he burned down the gates in scouring of charred corpses to reclaim the bawd intransigent. She ran from fate, taken refuge in a hovel ''midst the storm of wind-borne sulfur, but the tent''s flaps were penetrated by a prong-fringed arm.


    Alarmed, Ninkasi booted hardily, she then begat a strong reaction from the entering man. It was but Yudh, the man that compagnied the slain behemoth she considered a friend. She did not speak but turned towards the fidus of Amurru, dark tears flowing down her cheeks like a rooster''s talons pulping glossy apples.


    Ebony eyes dilated, burning with a fierce blameworthiness. Her staring perennial did agitate the man she eyed to speak, "We must escape straight''way to further south, for durance of thy poling stakes apeak yet not upright were put to test, and thy soothsaying abilities were found but forgery, the raking winds inflamed the dowsed pariah, corse supine and pinioned. Hypnotized to be imbibed unto the fiery serpent of Assyria.


    Remit henceforth thy pendulum to me, for the dies sanguinis has not yet ended but Io, I''ve stol''n a horse and it can sprint much faster than the clinker-laden ghost." She contemplated with a woeful mien before responding, "there is no abscond from Pazuzu, no mighty mount nor glen may alter his ascension. Brood and despond, then pray his sacerdotal rage be swift engulfing us in flames, look how the canvas is holed by flick''ring brimstone, and the mist of cremation seeps through the ominous gaps."


    "I came not here for altercations, Ninkasi. If thou art this effete, then ungarm the tablets of the destinies and I''ll be gone, and thy troubled heart be left unharmed." But as he hastily spoke, the faint moon''s shine divulged the shadowy soldiers looming near. Without pause, he grabbed Ninkasi underneath the arm and pulled upon his neighing horse''s tassel.


    To disappear into Borsippa''s grandeur.

 CH 02 : reveries

    In Borsippa''s district, along the eastern bank of the Euphrates, Lugal awoke, his skin hued glossy bronze, tarnishing the vestal robe of his beloved; a raiment white, discarded, body gone. He skirred the room with honeyed eyes, agglomerating sights. ''Twixt straitly fronds, he found his woman clammed within a window, bricked of sun-dried clay, her luscious figure restrained by the brink of decency. Left foot imprinting on the grime-kissed jamb as she reclined on her outstretched leg.


    Thus he emerged and called on his betrothed, "Thou hadst sat all morning gazing through the gap? What reveries enjamb thy fragmented thoughts? Stare not directly in the copper light lest pupils turn to gemstones, petrified as optic nerves transform to crystal lines for then, the royals ought to reclaim their former dene to add these precious jewels to the crown."


    Lilithu angled herself to his regard, her eyes, like lapis lazul, glistened in the light that ill-starredly crescented her appearance. Alofted hair, crown-tressed, lips subdued astright. She answered him, "I have no strength to fight this arid atmosphere. Such drab and priggish wafts that even the bald-headed vultures, goethite of hues, do suffer from recurrent throbbing in the ridge and they no longer herald their portents, good or ill, to our much desolate land."


    Pitting through her discourse, Lugalu answered grumly, "Art thou forwearied? But by idle sitting? Dark humor overwrought thy synapses, imbalancing the sensibilities, but sparks of starry modicum can reignite thy lapsed brightness. Descry, in th'' sea of darkness of eyes wide shut, a meshwork of neuronal ''ctivity, fiery as the starry hosts of heaven and in their beam celestial, hold thy purse to puise the faience batches from the spiral, now hurl the trebucket''s much irksome comets."


    With languishing looks, she did enact advice to no avail, then shook her head and smirked, entreating Lugal with a mien besmirched by vice. And he responded with his shoulders ¨¦cart, "Alas, I''m but a curer of somatic ails. Contentment cometh from an honest heart, such warp must be addressed within thyself."


    She posed her arm behind her wistful head, observing cloudless skies, glare vitreous. A salve bowl was balanced in her lap, with lithesome fingers patting lasciviously on its ornate rims. Then she said thus, "In soth, I do present a vaguer aura than what may be admitted. Raptness spans and shifts so faithlessly between diverse subjects. Imagining, without stern conscious curb to sift what appanage is virtuous, and which is barred from reason. Hence I must redress this plaint, before I catch myself in acts precarious for I wind down entrusting my own feint. We weren''t hedge-born, yet for thy profession in botany. We''ve abandoned ziggurating lives and bought a bonny grange, cultivating farmstead, segueing to a whiss for plants."


    Declaiming her strife, he said, "Such scandalous admissions, nether stocking baggages for Kur (hell), though puerile still is thine ambition. Must we then entertain the ricanous dastards? Performing drollery but to appease the lower gods of the earth? With clashing iron hurtling up, then crowls in loving conquest. Happily reserve the ending terse for kinglets drenched in foulness. May Heaven''s bower become thy burnished throne, next to your man. For I alone do rive thy wit, cloven adulation and intrigue. Rein in the whimsy stones; let their lustrous stars be strewn at your feet in worship."


    Taken aback by his brash eloquence, she soughed, nonplussed, for he did stand aplomb. She hastened to respond with ordinance, in pleading hope that it might palliate her remonstrance. "I ramble in talk, thoughts sashaying with each leap, from the glib flow of my loquacious tongue, my manners voluble, endorsed by thee, to throng my being for words deplorable. I stammer, caught afoot in th'' errors of my mouth, speaking of well-trodden paths, but bootless and rafted on the edge of my own fumble. Ravaging flows enrapture me, downstream, to lead me down thine augured destination. And I can only watch as blustering waves engage upon my thoroughly soaked frame, bewetting even mine unwarded eyes."


    He drew her closer, softly whispering, "A throbbing pain afflicts my roomy heart when I do see you cry, I''m scant uncaring to what thou sufferest. Let my cradling thwart the bothersome entreat of sere hands, which, reaching for thy bosom, did impress a scion on thy heart, its brandishing roots in scrounge of noble blood. Now rendered restless is thine appearance, why so discomposed?"


    She answered him. "O maleficent roots! A treeing heritage impales my organs and chokes me blunt. gasps interment as memories beset my sprite. Fringe customs, I shiver to evoke the shrine of insanie, how mine oppressive father had me auctioned, youngish and crimson cloaked, faltering as I''m unveiled for goatish strangers.


    But thou didst rescue me, of crowds unfazed for thou leanest to the nayward of such rites. Renying hierarchies and manners ruttish, and thus depriving the swelter''d state of pride to preserve mine esteem. Sithence, I dwell with thee, ''midst brassy woods. Adopted free, I serve thy pelf congenial as might beseem my rate of gratitude whilst nights are spent in studying sights ethereal."


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    "Last night had other uses. And the while, thou smiled so pompously, and deigning, fessed with heady screams thy love. Grinning as a spry despot in th'' bed of dreams, sleep talking." She fumbled, heated by his brief attempt to turn her flush. "Aye, thou art an answer to my fervent prayers. Starkly, orbs aligned, yet now they move again, and thou must work, and I''ll be left awhile, alone, distraught. No purpose to my sentence, nor a bourne. A puffer of dandelion vanes am I. What lot bedaubs the purple eyed woman when she durst fall in love."


    Lugalu said, "then do me company. I note that in thine aureus bowl, divers fragrance enfleurage as the steamy scent is sorbed in fat. When boiled, it turns a balsam to allay intemperance. Howbeit, the comminuted mingling of base plants; of petals, calamus, and cyperus; crushed herbals which filleth the whole room with their pungent scent still lack the oil of seeds. Amid the pith-stemmed rushes of the marshy plains, we''ll reap and gather reeds of nebbish hues."


    But she protested snappishly, "Fie! the swampy environs? Keep distance from the nomad clans! Stay grounded in sagacity for I fear losing you!" Yet he promptly reassured, "The morass territories are bereft of human presence, for Sirius, the sentient star, and the Pleiades were invariably but deft to pleas of seasoned cultivators. Garbed in grosgrain of wheat and barley, marsh Arabs depend on th'' cycle in the sky. Ever since th'' Akkadian king amassed a stoney dam, the ritual of the loopy seasons verged.


    And hectic nomads in the blocked plains migrated towards the Babylonian boroughs with water buffaloes as their oblations; representing tribes of the Ahwar. They wrapped the tunics high about their hair and kept close by to tamarisks and stumps when wading ''cross the reedy marshlands, bare of feet, their plodding steps disturbed the reigning clom. For they''re compelled to push the quffa prams, round baskets filled with children, lain on straws. Engaging with their oars in the basal depths to row the mire for the boats to straut across the boggy swamp with minor harm done to their vessels huge, which then, they heft to dry land. After which the men break up their form, to sell the straw and the frame of willow balk."


    "Be that as it may," Lilithu answered, "They''re scarcely the sole danger in these plains, I think of slimy mollusks, lumpy toads, reed warblers, and marbled teal ducks, mallards which from the thickets shame adventurers. I suffer not from phantasmagoria. What may transpire, that mired up to my knees in gurgling mud, a raw and stockish crocodile, loosely adrift hither my submerged thighs would thrust me, stiffly down, with no repugn; sputtering morsels for the pettish fishes. I am pugnacious, but only on terra firma. For I own no parel fit for brackish trenches."


    "That if he dareth, I''ll skin his scaly dorsal hide and fashion thee a dress with jutting scutes so that its calloused apathy, reptilian armor transmutes thy silken flesh of pinkish hues to antediluvian tones; viridian green. Begrudgingly egress from the levee; the stable ness of mollifying comfort ere the southern wetlands are dried up." She humored him awhile, then interrupted. "Thou dost provoke the prehistoric beasts and cavort ''pon the spines of dormant logs. No man may sink the ever watchful reptile.


    Fist but the air when comes the night, and mistful psyche emerges; whose hoots forewarn. Plucking the brazen gleed is much too gutsy; blame not the vigilant orbs when you can''t fight a croc per nature''s creed. Heed the horned owls'' admonition." And he said, "Fie, ye yowl, hollering, but thy florid face is true of sentiments. Thine eyes, flirtatious like the fluttering wings of a Lysandra butterfly, donning blue perdition; their limbal rings, creased dark, to magnify reactions stratified as I caress thy blooming cheeks, soft beauty marked."


    "Perhaps the wings chitin on th'' hollowed cist are but a tempting bait on the wee snout." Playfully, she thrice denied his tryst to rendezvous in mud, with daffy eyebrows jouncing on her front. Then grabbed onto his hirsute arm with somniferous rubs, tender as she chortled.


    Enlivened thus, he dartly spoke, "Lilith, why dost thou mess propounded endeavors and so resist my orchestrated means? When lulled, at rest to bask in the warm sun, thou argue boredom. Yet when I do propose to hitch with me and smirch thy boots in fun thou naggest then but of supposed dangers. Borsippa''s heat and the mendacious swamps; much too impure for thy discerning steps both fret thy nervy frame, then what is wanted?


    I''ll choose for thee myself. Share the stripping fate of sun-burnt vultures. Near the hearth remain, commixing elements for beauty vain such as the scrounger, lanky-necked who scours deep, penetrating guts of sickened mammals to hue his darkened feathers ichorous taste; a sanguine glow, love colored by exploits faced, Knowest thou how birds of prey avoid ov''heating?"


    Her eyes grew wide, mien sullied, drenched in dread. "I will not shave my head!" She thus declared. "Cut off my tongue and shred my clothes, reclaiming threads, but leave my curly hair in peace, profusely lush. Prithee, I beg. Just spare them and I''ll head with thee, thus sacrificing mine assertive legs. If thou dost spare my brunet locks, I''ll shed the scarlet tinsels from my pegged resolve."


    He answered by taking her hand. Her arms uplifted high so carelessly, "Lilith, arise from thy glimmering lanthorn," he commanded. "Lavolt with me, as brooding vultures turn in thermal soaring."


    Lugalu swung her round in happy heaps, her delicate feet hovered above rough ground. ''Twixt leaps and bounds, she laughed sheepishly, whilst flaunting blithe. Her fingers in a twirl around her glowing cheeks. Hysterical as she reclined her neck backward in open air, whilst gazing dizzyingly beyond the wall. Up to the boundless nature of the skies, with teary eyes discerning clouds and mound, and the sun spherical, with burning brightness, to blind her of the world and its effects. Awake yet dreamy, she leaned towards her man, enraptured by his overwhelming presence. Aground yet floating, her afflictions fanned with vulturous wings, swaying incandescent.

 CH 03 ; Taken

    Whilst Lugal ebbed compass the boggy fen, to gather integrants which the earth provides. Lilithu''s plaintive steps towards the fettled hearth were heavy, laden with their forced divide. Her bronze-wrought mirror, sullenly, she gripped, its golden cast aureoling her reflection, ''twixt folial motifs tinctured verdigris and varmint steeds of Persian derivation. Eyes glinting as she gently dabbed her eyelids with pigments of the bright green malachite to heighten her expressions. She suspired, wild as a Nisean breed entrapped in leafage, its lustrous sheen evanescing in the dark.


    Amidst her grooming, a savage braying startled her, she rushed outside, harried by the callings, "Hark! They venture near and soon they shall disturb our hamlet, beat the breasts preamble!" And thence she saw the rhymester screaming, from atop the bristly back of a louring ass, and a broad-fronted fellow intercepting the bard, unhinged in track.


    "Why shaken? Spears of which offended crowd doth jab at thee? Is chase then put to will? I, by troth, am not froward of handing thee over." To which the bard replied breathing-while, "As I performed my tunes on Mari''s blanched peak to evade the snooping ears of copycats. I heard such cankerous sounds that it beseemed a bloomy shaft awaits thy matron, wrightly acts to turn thy rump-fed whelps but supplicating orphans."


    The barring man took great offense and roisted the sentencious muse from off his barded mule. But Lilith intervened headlong, "hoist not the carrier for the sentence prompted ere hearkening his supplies of information." And the man spoke whilst roughing the bang-beggar, "Would that a woman trusteth an eremite of sedition? This runagate serves not as inerme guardage, he''s a lazar banished, long a-cast from our lot for reasons settled. It''s an old adage to attainder the renegued poet if he slots himself against our peace, for brabbles are inflammatory."


    "Pribble pagan! slavish sordid grunt." Retched up the bard as he resisted chokage. And lilit insisted, "Be not despiteous, let him breathe, backare! Apperil is presaged, and he''s the witness of a wrathful setting what alarum is sound? Pray, let him steadily speak."


    The grip was loosened and the bard did mumble "Ye hang-tough brute with drumbling faculties, heed prudent guidance from the delicate kind, the woman is half-right. Such as her right eye is mould-painted whilst the left eye remains au naturel, she speaks half-truth. Before thou judgest dumbly and mete out punishments. Let he who canst read swordy steles inform the crowd of an advenient bleak for I have peeped, not with one eye but twain, how Amorites were summoned from their peaks. I''ve heard the cadence of a cloven fain.


    Nomadic smiths o''er open rolling plains, from ice-encrusted mounts, forge bridle paths t''wards our ancestral lands, with arrayed wains strapped to their hybrid asses, bristle-backed. With swooning grandeur, Mar Am''rru is fronting his scurrilous men as they pace lithocrags. His wilder ass punted the earth whilst grunting, assessing jagged cliffs with sideway steps. A clefted hoof upon an inset found firm anchorage; coats sandy-hued and coarse concealed them ''long the rocky stretch; earthbound, by nature suited for the perilous course.


    And as I''ve hid, they raised the Nimrud blades; thin ceremonial daggers meant for slaughter. They''ve shed the swanky blood of their baudets with earned triumph being prepollent ov''r heirs for they intend to prove their mount-sprung mettle with an invasion of our half-walled lands and the swift seizure of our stock. Bet on my truth for I have brought an escaped ass to confess randily along my verses. My thighs enchafed are proof of urgency, for I''ve adaunted this most grotty beast. With sight and sound, with smell and frictious scuffing. We herald direful tidings: trouble is afoot!"


    But th'' non-embattled Attar but jeered at him, "It travels on foot for thou didst burglarize them from their riding mule. It seemeth the equine fed on ephedra gerardium and the bard got high, hallucinating virulently on his own stories.  For one, Mari''s clime is dry, and its inhabitants, the northern semites forged an alliance with the king of Babel and Ashur, it shall be indeed a cold-smitten eve in kur if these pacts were ever to be broken."


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Anon as words were spoke, a vast array of armies came into view. Kirishtu-helmeted, adyght in bolted chain mails, four legions marched in regimented precision with banyers hoisting trident flags, red, white, and blue. A stroke thus stupefied Attar. Aft congeries of foretokens blocked, he stumbled on his path as he retreated from the peripheries of the town to warn of happenstance unfathomable.


    As soon as chieftains were duly informed. They have accersed to gather brave resistance, young men agadred to afrount a storm tempesting from the lodestar of the Assyrians. The legions harried on the town to kiln inhabitants and mold their clay, reforging allegiances. With exigence, the chieftains rallied kith and kin, but routed were the settlers, circumscribing perimeters of hastily set defenses. Farmboys to arms ''gan soldiers unrelenting were bridly felled; and dragged towards the incense of burning corpses.


    Ghostly haze ascending surmounted the small town with blinding fear to break the brave and verge recusancy. The subdued were corralled, as cattle shepherded, bemoaning on this day of tragedy their loss of freedom.


    Lugal, returning to his rustic wick, his cuirassed torso obduced in saurian hide, constrict, with prow serrated keeling from his hip and stemmy reed-bundle reamed under arm. ''Pon drawing near, he kenned the rising flames. Subitaneously, a man agrized with visage ember-marred subtended on him. The doddering lamed, alighted from his pride, fell down, wounds embras¨¦, into Lugalu''s arms, amplecting scales. Attar revealed, "bronze armored warriors, invaded, Their order stretched out in scaly length, that to thine house and lovely wife they raught."


    "Lilith..." Whispered Lugal, disconcerted. Attar continued, "men are to be slaughtered whilst women trussed on poles are being coerced to serve as concubines in foreign courts." ''pon hearing thus, Lugalu felt dark fingers searing through his forearm. Without halt, he hastened to the town, a morgen stern mace fixed firmly in his grip. The redoubtable fighting forces were aggregating ''round the captives fair and those with gifts endued, all which the sight and senses can astound. Aft towns were raised and treasures were accrued,


    Lugalu snuck in their encampments, acting as an abatteur to guards distracted by harrowing ceremonies. Excruciant scenes of bounded limbs with extremities hacked and tongueless victims impuissant to scream perturbed his timorous heart. ''tis then he saw his lady paralytic of exhaustion, bound ''twixt beams of rocky altars holding out the night''s skies. She pressed her legs together, forced to stand on narrow crags as crooked, jabbing spires encysted in her flesh, nailed in such stead, she scowled silently whilst they inquired.


    Sheer raiments wimpled underneath the spread of her intrammelled arms, high-reaching skyward. Twain hands a-tremble gyved upon the shafts, redundantly tight grappling lithic flanges. To ensure she doesn''t drag on screes, her steps in shift, sifting across debris, on th''fringe of the escarpment''s precipice, half-bent thighs were tinged with red; rock crests impinged. And she stared down Death Valley from on high whilst soldiers taunted with phoenicious torches, disperpling sparks of ember with each blow towards her struggling chest. Her meandering clutch grew weary of the rocky curves. In throes of such calamity, she heaved, with tears enmeshing hair locks on her ruddy face.


    And Lugal could not bear to see her fearful of such tyranny. With mace in hand, he sprang to cause, invading their assembly, circumscript to elevated ranks. He crushed the skull of an absorbed soldier. Circumspect, the ranked brethren reached for their sappara. Overwhelming the resistant man, they''ve breached his stance and struck his side assailable. Beneath the crying eyes of hanging Lilith, he fell down in the dirt, drained of consciousness.


    The general grabbed onto his brune hair and raising his neck straight to an exposed blade, said to Lilith. "Such are the consequences of defiance. Thy stubornness can cause a man to lose his head." And as he threatened, Lilithu did plead, "I concede to offer myself as slave, a courtesan to fill man''s carnal greed, if I am to be taken, then leave him to his fate."