When the Heavens Above (310 words)

Nusa stood atop the temple at the heart of Kish and looked out over the horizon as the setting sun bathed his city in red.

He should have been pleased. A few paces away, an untested boy was being anointed ruler of his city. He had made a plan, executed it near flawlessly, and the previous Ensi, the boy's father, had been slain in the ambush leaving a mere child in control of the most powerful city state in Sumer with Nusa as the foremost adviser, ever willing to assist young Enkara in running the city. It was such a complicated business to be thrown into without warning, after all.

When the soldiers had returned, however, there were far survivors than he had anticipated, and the rumors they brought with them were... troubling. And Nusa well knew that a rumor started by a solider spread quicker than plague in an ox-fold and were twice as hard to weed out since killing the "infected" only served to spread rumors the more quickly.

They were saying that Urbau had been blessed by the gods themselves - he arrived on the winds of the storm god, Enlil, to warn his men of an ambush he could not have known about, and then fought with the ferocity and strength of Zababa, the Strong-Armed God himself. It was said that he single-handedly held fifty Maradi soldiers at bay and bought his own men the time they needed to win the day.

Nusa of course had his own theories as to what happened and planned to pay his man in Marad a personal visit to have a discussion about the importance of discretion and focus when it came to sensitive matters of state, but in the end he had gotten what he wanted: an inexperienced boy on the throne that he could ply as he wished.