Kurush: The First City - Chapter 46

Sunlight drifted through the window. A gentle breeze played with the white curtains. Oresh was still asleep. It had been a year since the clifftop battle but the scars that chequered his body still looked raw. His eyelids were flickering. Anka wondered what he was dreaming of – he was smiling like an idiot, it must have been a good one.

She carefully lifted his arm off of her, got out of bed as quietly as she could and went to the window. The vast, shimmering sea spread out before her, and the Sun was floating just above the horizon. Far below, she could see some ships that must have left the docks at the crack of dawn and were now sailing eagerly along the coast, laden with goods destined for distant lands. Across the sea, somewhere over the horizon, was Kurush. Anka tried to imagine what it must look like now – crumbling walls, heaps of charred rubble, empty silence save for the occasional scavenger digging for abandoned valuables.

She heard Oresh yawn and get up. He sidled up behind her, wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head.

“Do you miss Kurush?” he asked

Anka wasn’t surprised that he could read her mind, “Do I miss the walls, the statues, the mansions? No. But I do miss the people”

Oresh nodded, “When you love someone, it’s like they hold a piece of your soul. When you lose them, you lose that piece too. But we’ve got to keep moving forward, that’s what they would want for us. I’ve been thinking, we need a new word. Something like ‘city’. Kurush was the first city, and Niarush is the second city”

“’City’? Sounds weird”

“We’ve done something incredible here in Niarush. We’ve proved that Kurush wasn’t an aberration, that we can make cities work. Maybe one day, hopefully many centuries from now, Niarush will fall. But another, stronger city will be built in its place, and another and another, each time taking what was best from the previous and refining it. The future probably holds hundreds of cities”

“Hundreds?” said Anka, “That’s ridiculous”

“Something else I’ve been thinking about – we should use the word ‘people’ more. Lishas and hurums have different needs, different experiences, so we need to keep those words. But we all suffer, we all love, we’re all fumbling our way through the world. There’s not a lot that separates us, so why use words that do?”

“Wasn’t the title of your poem going to be ‘The Lishas and Hurums of Kurush’? Is it going to be ‘The People of Kurush’ now?”

“Maybe,” said Oresh, “or maybe ‘The Last Battle of Kurush and the First Battle of Niarush’”

“Very fitting for a warrior-poet”

Oresh’s hands surreptitiously made their way down her figure, gently squeezing her as if to remind himself how soft she was.

“Are you hungry, by any chance?” said Anka

“I could do with a good breakfast”

Suddenly he threw her onto the bed, making her squeal in delight. He was instantly on top of her, their faces almost touching. The burning desire in his eyes made her heart pound. Both their chests were heaving. She was about to take her nightgown off when the door burst open with a bang that made the two of them jump out of their skins.

“Anka!” Ekur bellowed, “Polur’s stolen and hidden my scale-brush again!”

“I haven’t!” said Polur, “Why would I want that disgusting thing?”

“To piss me off, you pillock!”

“You’ve just lost it again, you dimwit!”

Anka took a deep breath and rolled out from under Oresh, “Boys, calm down. Polur, help him find it. Ekur, I expect my bodyguard to behave more like an adult. Come on, get ready, we should leave soon”

Their white-washed home was lacking in decorations and furniture, and with only three rooms for four people it was hard to avoid bumping into each other. But it was still new, it had only been built a few months ago. And after living in a tent for most of the past year, it felt like a palace to Anka. She’d happily live there for the rest of her life.

In the courtyard they had two hapas munching on straw as Anka and Ekur loaded their packs onto their backs. Ekur had put on his bronze armour and helmet, and had his spear at the ready.

“Ekur, I realise that being alone with Anka out in the country might give your stomach some ideas,” said Oresh, “but you had better control yourself“

Ekur gulped, “I wouldn’t even dare to dream of it”

“I’ll be fine,” said Anka, “I can rely on Ekur. My safety is his top priority, isn’t that right?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Are you stopping by Potamyz?” Oresh asked

“Yep, it’ll be good to see Lurush and Dila again”

“I really struggle to imagine Lurush as a farmer. Presumably Dila does most of the work”

“Actually Lurush does her fair share,” said Anka, “I think she enjoys the simplicity. Help me up, will you?”

Oresh lifted her up onto the hapa. Anka pulled him close and rested her forehead on his.

“Stay safe out there”, he said

“I’ll be back before you know it, my warrior-poet,” she planted a kiss on his nose, “right, let’s get going”

Oresh and Polur waved them off as Anka and Ekur rode onto the streets. The market of Niarush was already bustling as people haggled over eye-catching outfits and nose-stinging spices. Merchants from across the region had emerged out of the woodwork and silently decided that Niarush would be the next big trade centre. With the raiders driven away and the docks rebuilt, the handful of traders wanting to barter here had swelled into a swarm, attracting smiths, clothiers, potters, masons and a host of other artisans. Standard-weight ingots of copper and gold issued by the New Sapphire Temple had already become the established currency.

The goods on sale were almost as diverse as they had been in Kurush’s markets. Not long ago, Anka had been amazed to find her family’s funerary chest on sale. The deep blue-painted lid was cracked and the bronze edges scratched, but unbelievably the figurines of her sister, parents and ancestors were still inside. She would have paid more than she actually did, making her feel a little sorry for the scavenger who had unwittingly dug up something so precious from the rubble of Lurush’s estate. It now sat on a mantlepiece in their home.

They passed through the main gate, which was permanently open. In front of it stood a black megalith, at the top of which in the Paruan alphabet were the names of those who were killed in the battle to free Niarush. But people had quickly begun to add the names of lost loved ones underneath, including many who did not make it out of Kurush. Anka and Oresh had chiselled some themselves.

As they went down the headland’s slope, they passed simple, newly-built mud-brick homes. It was as though an entire district had sprung up overnight. People worked hard when they believed that the structure was working, not just for them but for everyone. Anyone could take food from the communal granaries, and anyone who asked the New Sapphire Temple for a job was given one. No-one in Niarush went hungry.

A city is like a wheel rolling along the ground, thought Anka. One spoke is the institution that protects its existence, another spoke is the values that institution is founded on. As more people believe in the strength of the institution, the more they believe in its values, which strengthens the institution more, and so on. As it rolls on, inevitably it bounces over bumpy ground, slowing it down, until eventually it hits something it can’t roll over. It rolls back, people see the weakness of the institution, so they stop believing in its values, which weakens the city even further, until it drags to a halt and topples over. That’s what happened with Kurush. But Niarush had the momentum of youth. Everyday people believed in Niarush a bit more, everyday Niarush became stronger. No doubt there would be bumps in the path ahead, but they would keep moving forward.

One potential bump ahead was the Yrsti. Parua’s traditional feast of hurums would almost certainly become a flashpoint between the city and the villages. The New Sapphire Temple would condemn and forestall the Yrsti, and many Paruans would accuse them of trying to trample on their traditions. But it wasn’t going to be called for several years at least, they had time to negotiate a settlement which prevented conflict. After all, the city still needed food from the villages, and the villages still needed protection from the raiders. That’s why Anka went on tours of Parua, laying the groundwork, putting forward Niarush’s perspective and listening to the villagers’ concerns. This was a chance not only to save the lives of countless hurums, but also to build a partnership that lasted centuries, to unify Parua into one solid society.

They reached the outer wall, which was little more than a six-foot high ring of stone that protected the base of the headland. Anyone could easily climb over it if they wanted to, but they had little to fear while it was being completed. There was a wide gap in the wall where a monumental new gate was due to be constructed. This morning, the gap was blocked with tree branches and other detritus to try and deter people sneaking in under cover of night.

“Ah, sorry Anka,” Staroz ran towards them, “we’ll move all this out of your way”

“That’s fine,” said Anka, “thank you”

“When you say ‘we’ll move it’, I take it you mean me?”, said Ragur as he sluggishly ambled over

“You should be used to manual labour by now”, said Staroz

“My months of hard work on the wall have taught me that I am more suited to intellectual pursuits”

“In other words, you want to go back to doing nothing all day, you posh cunt!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, you ignorant pleb!”

Staroz was trying hard to avoid meeting eyes with Anka, but when she caught a glance, she saw overwhelming regret, as though he was still pleading for her forgiveness. Remembering the past whilst not letting it get in the way of the future, thought Anka, it’s a task as difficult as it is necessary.

She turned and looked up at the summit of Niarush. The chief’s hall had been renamed the New Sapphire Temple, there were already plans to dismantle the thatched dome and build a new structure, with a statue at the pinnacle of a hurum sitting on a lisha’s shoulder, her hand reaching toward the Sun. But it was going to take years to complete.

Anka went up there occasionally to see Hyza, who was teaching her Paruan. Lysta, who was used to roaming the land, now always seemed a bit restless. But they were both happy to have so much time together. The Holy Reincarnations of Sapesh and Galka had three servants administering Niarush for them: giving out the blessings was their Ushi Sopri Peshura, managing the finances was their Ushi Umbisag Gamoz, and protecting the walls was their Ushi Karsh Bukur. All three had local deputies they were training to take up their roles in due course, something Anka never failed to remind the chiefs of Parua.

She remembered how every morning in Kurush she would look hungrily up at dazzling mansions of the Rush. That felt like a lifetime ago. Maybe I thought that by climbing up to the Rush, I could escape the world, Anka thought. But now I’ve found a much greater ambition – to make the world a place worth living in. Once Staroz and Ragur had finished clearing the way, Anka and Ekur rode through the gateway and out into the landscape of golden rock and emerald pines with the Sun on their backs.

The End

Constructive criticism welcome

© Paul Bramhall