4. Twin Rivers

When the Gosti traders returned in Sumiser, with empty hands, there wasn’t a heartbeat of doubt. All gathered their family, collected their most valuable belongings, and ran for their lives.

Fortunately, they were well-prepared, for their own river—the Tigres—had flooded unexpectedly again. Most possessions had already washed away. The waves were also kind enough to take away the dead or dry harvest from before.

“Three years of drought,” Annatas complained, a female Gosti. “Then three severe floods right after one another! The Tigres seems a fickle baby!”

“It’s the gods, I swear,” claimed her husband Perites. “Why couldn’t we get Gulvi as our City God? Now we are stuck with Cosmo, who can only create winds or something.”

Even as he said it, he bowed before the gigantic statue of Cosmo and mumbled a prayer. A second statue accompanied it, displaying a proud bull: their commander.

The creature who walked towards them now.

Annatas shook her fur. Her claws held a few shriveled nuts. “Leave the gods out of it. It’s because of that Meluhanfolk. If they hadn’t insulted us with the trades, we could have defended ourselves.”

“Could have eaten something,” Perites confirmed, who took the nuts with him just in case.

A Gosti trader stepped up to them. “Happy now? We’ve said no for the first time as they went too far. Like you wanted. Aggressive and stern. And now? Now we’re without food and stone and weapons.”

Meluhan, dear reader, was their name for the civilization that lived around the Indus. Because, well, if you didn’t speak each other’s language, how did you tell each other your real name?

Drums sounded in the distance. A thousand hoofs making the ground shiver. The enemy was a hurricane of violence, a force of nature that brought earthquakes—and visible now, as black silhouettes, on the horizon. Ten great cities of Sumiser had already fallen to this army.

So the bull commander made himself big and spoke loudly.

“I hear your whispers. I hear them from your one thousand mouths. But we have weapons. And we are many.”

All citizens looked at each other. Was he really claiming they could defeat the powerful, evil Akradi coming for them?

“We cannot win from the Akradi, not in our current state. But we have good ties with the Meluhan, the civilization nobody has dared attack for a thousand years. The civilization almost nobody else can find. We go there, as quickly as possible.”

“But then we must travel straight through Lagaso!” Annatas yelled.

They’d never had “good ties” with that city. But if it was the last remaining city of your civilization left standing …

“And any who would delay us,” the bull claimed heroically, “will be blown away.”

“And who are you to claim leadership?” a shrill voice stated. “Recent events are clear,” a camel said, spitting at the bull. “You have lost the favor of the gods!”

The bull’s face darkened. “Who would challenge me? You?”

The camel was about to spit again, but thought better of it. He retreated and nobody else was eager to claim the role of commander now.

All were ready to depart. But they missed one member.

Their son, Mamotas, had heard everything but could not yell back. The waves had pulled him under the surface.

All floods! Water forced its way into his nostrils. Pushed him to the seabed, covered in dancing bubbles. His air ran out. He—

Multiple claws and paws grabbed his limbs and pulled him on dry land. Mamotas gasped for air.

“Always the same,” Peritas mumbled. “What was it this time? You saw an interesting stone at the bottom and you had to view it from close range?”

By the time they looked up, the rest of their group had already left. His parents cursed and pulled the distracted teenager along.

They couldn’t overcome the delay. The bull forced everyone to march, as if every farmer, shoemaker and priest were soldiers now.

“What do you think the Akradi look like?” Mamotas asked. “Like us? Like gods? They say they have red eyes and wings, but the strong body of a jaguar. That their weapons—”

“Shut up. Walk.”

Though they could not see them, they felt the Akradi army burn at their back. As if they could appear at any time and push a spear through their back.

“I want to see them,” Mamotas yelled. “Maybe we can talk to them. Maybe it’s more fun with them than—”

“It is not.” His mother pushed some nuts into his mouth to silence him.

“How do you know?” he still spoke with his mouth full. “You’ve never seen them.”

“They come from the city of Akrad, who had Ardex as their City God. You’ve been close to him a few times, haven’t you? What happened to you then?”

“Angry. Furious. Want to break things.”

Finally they came closer. Their vanguard had already crossed the river and now arrived at the closed city walls of Lagaso.

“Would you be happy if you felt that all day? The Akradi now believe that they will die if they don’t wage war and win violent battles for a day. All in the name of Ardex.”

“Then I’m happy we have friendly Cosmo. Maybe he gave us all the ability to fly?” Mamotas waved his arms, then his tail, and eventually his feet. Surprisingly, he did not lift from the ground.

“We have nothing,” mother said. “We pray to them. Now be silent and walk.”

He was silent for the remainder of their journey. Any time they seemed to reach their group, they would suddenly march again. As if Lagaso only admitted fifty creatures at a time and then took a break.

Until they saw that they were oh so wrong.

Their friends and family climbed the walls. The gates were ripped apart, destroyed beyond recognition. Their bull commander ran from left to right, followed by hundreds of Gosti using their weapons to mow down anything that moved. Screams echoed through the valley and all birds fled crowing.

Everyone joined the fight, even that farmer and that priest. The aggression surprised Lagaso, whose City God was the sweet Bella. By the time their army was ready to defend, only half of them were left.

Once Mamotas touched the city walls, the area was already desolate. Dead bodies lay everywhere, both of their own and of Lagaso’s army. Wasn’t that exactly what Akradi wanted? That the aggressive Sumiser wiped out each other?

Meh, who cared about the Akradi’s secret wishes. Lagaso asked for it when they took over his home city ten years ago. And twenty years ago. And probably before that. This was simple revenge, as is required of any good Gosti.

With a loud crash, a gate on the other side of the city opened. All survivors were eager to continue. They’d destroyed the city so much that it wouldn’t protect against the Akradi anyway. Nobody had any hopes of defeating those devils anymore, so they all just ran away.

“Grab all food and water you can find,” the bull told everyone. “The journey to Meluhan is long. But continue like this and we will make it!”

Everyone cheered and clapped as he passed. Mamotas’ parents joined too. Plans for a new, even bigger statue for their great commander were immediately drawn up. The path to the harbor was found and the first ships readied, as they had lost the entirety of their own fleet—which was quite impressive—in the recent floods.

Mamotas himself was distracted by texts scratched into the wall.

Thanks to a new invention called “school”, dear reader, all Sumiseri could read. The Indus could barely depict objects and ideas on their Bulla; the Sumiseri could already tell entire stories.

But where the Bulla had pretty or elegant symbols, the script of Sumiser looked more as if somebody wrote it using rusted nails. As if small, straight twigs had accidentally been left in the clay as it dried. Efficient, not pretty. The straight lines also turned out an amazing way to count any number of things.

He walked past the outer wall of the city and read the texts as he went.

If someone kills a man, that man himself should be killed.

The next piece was partially destroyed and thus unreadable. But the piece after that said: “_If a slave marries a non-slave, they have to give their firstborn son to the other.”

These were rules. Rules for the animals in the city? No wonder Lagaso fell this easily—who was ever going to follow rules they didn’t like?

He turned a corner and arrived in front of a burning building. Part of the roof collapsed, which caused a waterfall of clay tablets pouring out of it. A … storybuilding? Whatever it was, any information it contained was now likely damaged.

He could only save a handful of clay tablets.

And again, many claws and paws pulled him back from his distraction. “Mamotas! Please stay close to us for once! They’ve almost all left on their ships.”

They ran to the harbor.

They were too late.

Joined by several other creatures, they found an empty harbor and could only wave to their commander. The two Gosti traders had missed the boat just as well.

One of them held a most peculiar object to his eye. Mamotas had never seen it before, but it seemed to grant him better vision. As the Gosti looked through the glassy circles, the sight startled him.

He dropped the object in the sand.

The Akradi army wasn’t far anymore.