A strange thing began to happen. Slowly our little corner of wasteland began to fill with people. They had not heard what I had heard, but they had heard of us—they came for their own reasons. We formed a little community, there in the desert. For the most part, we were an independent band, for one does not leave the city to be ruled, but the spirit of communal endeavor is a wonderfully enlarging one. Without trouble we came together for the purposes of survival, when necessary: eating, clean water, if necessary, defense. Squabbles, of which there were not none but few, were resolved by a savagely fair system of justice. There were no political considerations to concern ourselves about, and we were few enough that each man saw each threat as a threat to himself.

When I chose to think about our situation it was with extreme misgiving. This god who had brought me here, He had stopped speaking. If there was a task for me to do, I had not yet been granted it though it had been ten years since I left Ur.

I looked, from time to time, at the hundred or so canopies gathered in this sparse place, spread out beneath the moon’s white ship, under that dark blue heaven which only I saw filled with thronging angels, and I wondered. It would be alright if there was nothing here, this life was pleasant. But if there was nothing here…

The wind sighed around me in mournful voice, rustling the tufts of late summer grass.

Then came the day that changed everything.

Pounding hooves at dawn are not a sound a man easily forgets.

At first, I thought the Earth was shaking, as it had from time to time when I had lived in Ur. But when I looked to the east it seemed a thousand suns had risen over the canyon wall. And then I knew what it was.

Once, as a young man, I had served n the armies of Ur on a number of border raids against the nearby townships and cities—there were always wars to be fought. I had risen, even, to captain of a hundred. I had been on the winning side of many engagements, and on the losing side of a few., both ghastly. Yes, I remembered how the Earth shook as we awaited the charge of enemy horseman. And I remember how bronze shields take and hold the light like they were made of fire.

I stood and watched for a moment. Though warning was surely needed to my compatriots, it would be better to know what I had to warn them of. I could tell even from this distance that they had seen battle. When men fight and survive, something goes out of them, some restraint. This is why, one feels, there are so many gods of battle. For here comes a man into a field of men all who seek only to do him harm. Everything about them is to end his life. And they fail, he lives. In that miracle moment, he is reborn as a god.

And gods fight without honor or fear. A shiver of dread rolled down my spine, and I hurried back to the camp to get everyone into hiding. We were small prey, and there were many fatter towns near enough that I knew these men had not come for us, just as I knew that they would ride us down if we were in their path.

We were by and large a nomadic encampment, and the horsemen I had seen were far enough off that it was not overly difficult to draw our tents to the ground and hide ourselves amongst the rocks. Our encampment was too far spread out to be sure how well each of our people fared, but where I stood, the horsemen tumbled harmlessly by, only the cloud of dust they raised provided us with an inconvenience, stinging our eyes and filling our lungs.

By the time we had re-erected our tents, and had a quick meal the sun was low in the sky. No serious damage seemed to have been incurred by people or property. Just in case, I called in the scouts, and the elders. Someone reported that a runner, an official courier of one of the great nations, had been captured on the eastern side of our camp. While I worried about being drawn into a larger conflict, information in this case might prove vital. I had him brought in.

He told us what we had suspected, that there had been a battle, and a very large one at that. The King of Elam himself had come with his vassal kings against the cities of the plain, and their armies had clashed in the bitumen-pitted Valley of Siddim. The cities of the plain, those cities of Canaan nearest to our encampment, had lost. What we had seen had been only a small raiding party, looking for loot. Had it been the main body of the army, it would have been far worse for us. We fed the messenger, and released him unharmed. My heart felt light at the thought of our narrow escape.

But the morning bought grim news. My cousin Lot, who had not returned after the drought, and by this time had moved into the city of Sodom, had been among those captured by the Elamite army. In the morning, we would have to go after him.

That’s when I first felt fear, with the copper sun blazing and clanging on the horizon like a bell.