Let's begin with the Night of Weeping, also referred to as Hatra's Lamentation. That night's festivities, as I once penned, as well as everything leading up to it and all that followed, were well written within the Royal Chronicles, but many details were redacted before any mortal eyes witnessed them. It was not this tale's beginning, but it is the best place to start. Few events, no matter their overall import, display the setting and introduce characters that will take part in this story. Here they took their place around the stage of this unforeseen tragedy, unaware as the fires of their own demise ignite, which would soon surround them all.
To call anything that happened that the Night of Weeping festive is an outright lie, but there was a cause for celebration, (a grand reason that still stirs this old man's heart to this very day.) On that evening, in the year four hundred seventeen of our great founder Gilgamesh the Immortal, the kingdom of Hatra experienced its first peace since before the reign of King Frederick, who became known as the Compromiser. It was ten years since the former King passed into his next life and his third son, Li, now called the Chaotic, first sat upon the throne. (The false names bestowed on these two men of royal breeding distresses me, but I must call them by it, if for no other reason so that those that find this will not mistake them for anyone else).
(Looking over the Chronicles, they have one thing correct, if nothing else.) The last decade was one of bloody war and rampant death. Not a day went by without a mother witnessing her son's gored remains being buried in the cramped graveyards outside the city. It was the best the kingdom could do for the fallen heroes brave enough to stand up against the raging enemies which longed for Hatra's demise. Every night, a mother's cries echoed from the mass graveyard.
Hatra, the empire that began with one fortified city, now the vast kingdom's capital, ended the almost half-century war with the kingdoms of Myndus, the coastal city-state which dominated the seas for the better part of two decades, and Petra, the mountainous people clad in the faces of demons, reappearing on the battlefields with massive armies of seemingly undead soldiers. How the war began was a mysterious thing. Most believed it started because of a disagreement between their merchants, each from a different nation. Others have reported that a ring of bandits committed deceptive robberies that made each kingdom suspect the other. Some thought it was a mere matter of courtly politics, the kind that expanded national borders and left destruction in its wake. To know the truth, one should turn to the chronicles of year three hundred sixty-seven, the year the war began, pages four hundred eighty-seven through five hundred sixty-two, where it explains the elements that created the long war go in greater detail than this volume of parchment can bear. Suffice to say the war began as quick as a bee's wingbeat.
A single battle, one that seemed to bring Hell itself to the world's surface, closed the fifty-year chronicle of the war, and for most, this revelation was almost impossible to comprehend. When the sound of clashing blades, thudding of boots, twangs of bows, and the cries of dying men all ceased, every soldier stood with their weapon of choice poised, ready to deliver the death blow to any man in striking distance. It was then that the King's Cry sounded his horn.
Within battle, the war horn's importance did not need explaining. All military strategy hung on its sweet notes. In the Hatran army, all messages relating to charges, retreats, rerouting, changes in the battle, reinforcements, victories, and defeats came from the King's Cry, the Chief of the Buglers, and his devout men that repeated his message. Every nation has distinct calls relayed across the battlefield, serving as a code that only those within their ranks understood and any opposing military did all they could to memorize enemy calls and use that information to their advantage.
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On the last day of the war, as the men prepared to slay their enemies, the Hatran men held the Voice of the King's Cry, relayed by his messengers. They faltered. As the clear, firm notes resounded, they pricked up their ears, unsure if they understood the message. There were a dozen messages that the King's Cry could deliver, and some of them were not heard often, if at all. That ending cry was one never used on the battlefield, not once in the entire fifty years. As notes floated over the soldiers, they searched their memories, trying to remember what message resounded.
Every note the messengers sounded were the King's orders. Not a single message came from any other, so when they realized what the call meant, they bent down to the blood-stained ground of the Citadel and wept. Peace. The horns declared that peace, after a half-century, was here and that the war was over. On the hill, where King Li watched the battle, he heard the enemy horns relaying a message he knew was the same as theirs. He saw the enemies drop to the ground and weep alongside his soldiers. Late into the night, only the joyful sobs of battle-weary men came from that valley.
Two weeks later, the Hatran soldiers returned to the capitol. News of peace preceded them and the streets burst with the cheers of poor elated citizens, giving no thought to their afflictions from years of poverty and malnourishment. Many from surrounding towns raced into the city to join in the celebration. Confetti rained down from the watchtowers, all the colors of the rainbow filling the sky. Children jumped up and down, screaming the names of the soldiers, their heroes. Women, with no gift for dancing, spun about regardless of if a partner would take her in his arms or not. Old men sat and cried, not believing that they would live to see that day.
This brought a smile to the soldiers' faces, but on that day, they could not enjoy their victory. Entering the gates, they displayed to their home what deformities they now bore. Of those that survived, most returned maimed. Missing eyes and hands being the lightest of the injuries. Some hobbled on makeshift crutches which made up for a leg they no longer had. Others hid their missing arms with shabby cloaks. Those were the lucky ones, while the worse off could not return, remaining in the closest city to the Citadel, where their ragged bodies received care, praying they would survive.
No matter the joy of the festivities, the soldiers could not ignore what they lost and in mere moments, the crowd joined them in their silence. Behind them, the procession of the dead followed. Horses, weary from travel, dragged the carriages behind them, each piled with the bodies of that hellish battle. The shock of this display brought on an eerie quiet that not a single breath disturbed. Before returning, they took a census and King Li knew what the war's end cost him. He paid the price for peace in blood, though he did not wish to, but to achieve the war's end, this sacrifice was unavoidable. Of the ten thousand men he brought to the final campaign, all the soldiers he could afford, only fifteen hundred still drew breath. There was not a single battle in the entire fifty years which harmed so many and took so much life.
That night, the entire city held a vigil for the fallen. No one ate a morsel or drank a drop of water. All thought on those that could not be with them. Widows wailed and children longed for the sturdy arms of their fathers. Mothers wished to see their sons again and old women prayed that their sacrifices would not be in vain. Every soul mourned, for those who died two weeks before, but also for those that fell in battle those fifty years. Those dwelling in the nearby towns heard the cries of Hatra throughout the night.
