Chapter 1: Reeds, Clay, and the First Summons

The temple workshop in Kalḫu smelled of damp clay, lamp smoke, and reed shavings. Nabû-ēreš sat on a woven mat with his legs folded tight, trying not to smear the tablet resting on his knees. He pressed his stylus in clean wedges: barley, sheep, jars of oil, totals. The signs looked orderly, like small fences keeping the world in place.

Šamaš-mukīn, his teacher, watched from behind a low table stacked with drying tablets. He did not praise. In the workshop, praise was rare, like silver.

“Your lines are straight,” the older scribe said at last. His voice was calm, but his eyes were sharp. “Your numbers are not. A wandering number empties a storehouse as surely as a thief.”

Nabû-ēreš lowered his gaze. “I will check again.”

“You will check twice,” Šamaš-mukīn corrected. “A scribe who checks once is a child. A scribe who checks twice may live long enough to grow old.”

Beyond the workshop, the courtyard was bright. Doves bobbed near a water jar. A priest’s sandals slapped the stone as he crossed to the shrine. For a moment, Nabû-ēreš wished his life could remain inside these walls, where mistakes were corrected with scolding instead of blows.

At home, the talk was never only about tablets. His mother, Mullissu-šarrat, kneaded dough with quick, practiced hands. “The tax collector came,” she said, not looking up. “He wants grain now, not later. He speaks as if the granary is a spring that never runs dry.”

His father, Aplāya, returned from the palace stores smelling of dust and old rope. He set down a bundle of reed pens he had been ordered to deliver. “They are taking more men for road work,” he murmured. “More donkeys. More sons.”

Nabû-ēreš tried to sound sure. “They won’t take scribes.”

Aplāya gave a short laugh without humor. “They take what they need. And writing is also a kind of war.”

That evening, Nabû-ēreš sat in the doorway where the last light caught the clay in his hands. He practiced signs on a scrap tablet, imagining the day he would have a seal—his own mark pressed into fine clay, proof that his words carried weight.

Then the city’s quiet broke. Hooves struck the street. A trumpet sounded near the gate. Messengers in the king’s colors rode past, raising dust that hung in the air like a warning. Neighbors stepped out, calling to one another.

“News from Nineveh!”

In the next days the name moved like heat through the city: Ashurbanipal. In 667 BC the king was gathering strength again—officials spoke of the western lands and of Egypt’s pull under Taharqa, the Kushite ruler who still troubled Assyria’s reach. Nabû-ēreš listened from the edge of the courtyard as priests and palace men spoke in low voices.

He looked down at his clay-stained fingers. He had wanted to belong to the empire’s great machine. Now he felt the machine turning, and the pull was stronger than any wish.

Chapter 2: The Road of the King

The city changed in a week. Smiths hammered until the sound seemed to live in the walls. Leatherworkers stitched quivers in their doorways, needles flashing in the sun. Donkeys brayed under sacks of barley and bundles of spare bowstrings. Even the temple courtyards filled with motion as if the gods themselves were packing.

Before sunrise, Nabû-ēreš returned to the workshop and found Šamaš-mukīn speaking with a palace clerk whose belt carried pouches for seals and silver weights. The clerk’s beard was oiled and combed, his eyes quick.

“This one,” Šamaš-mukīn said, pointing with his stylus. “His hand is steady enough.”

Nabû-ēreš felt his mouth go dry. “Master—”

“You will go with the officials,” Šamaš-mukīn said. “You will write what you are told. Rations, deliveries, obligations, names. You will not invent. You will not forget.”

The palace clerk’s gaze traveled over Nabû-ēreš’s thin arms. “He is small.”

“He is fifteen,” Šamaš-mukīn replied. “So are many who march.”

When the clerk left, Šamaš-mukīn reached under a shelf and brought out a cloth-wrapped lump of pale, fine clay. It was smoother than temple clay, clean as river stone. He placed it in Nabû-ēreš’s palm.

“A blank for sealing,” the teacher said. “You speak of seals as if they are ornaments. They are not. Earn the right to press an official mark. Until then, it is only clay.”

Nabû-ēreš closed his fingers around it. Pride rose first, then fear, heavy and slow.

At home, his mother packed dried dates and flatbread. Her hands trembled as she tied the cord. “Stay near the officials,” she whispered. “Do not argue with soldiers.”

His little brother stared up with round eyes. “Will you see the Great Sea?”

“Maybe,” Nabû-ēreš said, and hated how uncertain his voice sounded.

Aplāya walked him to the road outside the gate where a small group of scribes and clerks gathered beside carts. Writing boards, styluses, spare reeds, jars of water, and baskets of clay were loaded as carefully as arrows. A priest sprinkled water and murmured a protective prayer, tracing signs in the air.

Aplāya gripped Nabû-ēreš’s shoulder. “Remember what I told you.”

“That writing is war,” Nabû-ēreš said.

“That writing is responsibility,” his father corrected softly. “A soldier can kill one man. A scribe can feed ten thousand. Or starve them.”

The column began to move. Wheels creaked. Men shouted to keep the line. Nabû-ēreš looked back once at the city walls and the temple roof catching the sun. He wanted to run back to quiet clay and predictable days.

But the king’s road opened west. He stepped forward with the others, the fine clay pressing against his skin like a promise that could also become a chain.

Chapter 3: Smoke, Rations, and the Quartermaster’s Eye

Nabû-ēreš had imagined an army as a line of men with spears. The moving camp was something else: a city that could fold itself and walk. Tents rose and fell in rows. Fires smoked under iron tripods. Pack animals stood in tight lines with ropes looped around their necks. Shields were stacked like doors. Everywhere there were shouts—orders, curses, laughter that sounded forced.

He clutched his writing kit and tried not to be crushed by the flow of bodies. A mule lay on its side near a cart, legs twitching, while a handler yanked at the rope and swore at the animal as if anger could pull it upright.

A broad-shouldered man with a scar across his cheek stopped him. His eyes looked like they could weigh grain by sight.

“New scribe?” he asked.

“Yes,” Nabû-ēreš said. “Assigned to the officials.”

“I am Bēl-iddin,” the man said. “Quartermaster. If you write my numbers wrong, you will learn hunger. If you write them right, you may learn sleep.”

“I will write them right,” Nabû-ēreš said too quickly.

Bēl-iddin’s mouth twisted. “We will see.”

Near the ration tent, a youth stood with his hands bound loosely. His hair was uncut, his clothes dusty, his eyes wary. A soldier shoved him forward.

“Translator,” the soldier said. “Aramean. Knows the coastal tongue.”

The youth lifted his chin. “My name is Tabni,” he said in careful Akkadian.

Bēl-iddin looked him over like a tool. “Speak when told.”

Tabni’s jaw tightened, but he lowered his gaze. Nabû-ēreš felt a twist in his chest. In the temple, order was holy. Here, order was a rope and a fist.

Work began at once. Bēl-iddin pointed at men carrying sacks. “Write. Barley measures. Count sacks. Record issue.”

Nabû-ēreš counted fast, lips moving. He pressed wedges into soft clay, but his stylus slipped and his thumb smeared a line. When Bēl-iddin demanded the total, Nabû-ēreš read it back—too high. He had counted wrong.

Bēl-iddin slapped the tablet from his hands. It fell face-down in dust. “Again,” he said, voice low. “If a man receives less because of you, he will steal. If he steals, he will be beaten. If he is beaten, he will hate. Do you want hatred tied to your name?”

“No,” Nabû-ēreš whispered.

“Then count as if your mother’s bread depends on it.”

That night, Nabû-ēreš sat by a small lamp, redoing totals. Around him, soldiers traded rumors. The name Taharqa drifted through the dark, spoken with irritation and respect. Some said Egypt still stirred the southern lands, that princes leaned toward the Nile when they thought Assyria’s gaze had turned away.

Nabû-ēreš listened, thinking of lessons about far rivers and old kingdoms. In the temple, Egypt was a word on a tablet. Here, it was a reason men sharpened blades and measured water.

Tabni crouched nearby, rubbing his wrists where the rope had chafed. Nabû-ēreš wanted to speak, but words could be dangerous. Instead, he checked his numbers twice, then again, hearing his teacher’s warning as if it were spoken beside him.

He pressed his palm against the fine clay in his pouch. It felt heavier than it had in the workshop, as if it already carried the weight of what he had not yet written.

Chapter 4: Omens and the Taste of Iron

The morning of the omen rites, the camp felt tense, as if the air itself had tightened. Officers moved with stiff purpose. Soldiers cleaned helmets and spearheads until the metal caught the sun. Even the cooks spoke less, stirring pots with quick, silent motions.

Nabû-ēreš was called to the diviners’ tent. Inside, incense fought with the sharp smell of fresh blood. A ram lay on a low table, its throat cut clean. The chief diviner, heavy-lidded and calm, lifted the liver with practiced hands. Assistants leaned close, murmuring the names of marks and pathways.

“Write exactly,” the diviner said without looking at Nabû-ēreš. “Not what you think. What is said.”

Nabû-ēreš knelt with his tablet. The diviner recited formal phrases—“the gate is open,” “the weapon is favorable,” “the path turns”—words Nabû-ēreš had copied in school. But here the words rode the heat of the tent and the copper smell that clung to his throat. His stylus pressed too deep. A thin crack formed at the tablet’s edge.

His stomach dropped. He smoothed the clay with his thumb, careful not to draw attention, and kept writing.

Outside, Tabni waited near a post where a guard leaned with bored eyes. When Nabû-ēreš stepped out, blinking, Tabni spoke quietly. “They will march toward the coast soon.”

“How do you know?” Nabû-ēreš asked.

Tabni’s eyes flicked toward a knot of officers. “I hear names. Places where my people trade. Your maps are lines. Our land is wells and stories.”

Nabû-ēreš surprised himself. “Tell me the names. So I write them correctly.”

Tabni hesitated, then nodded. “Ashkelon—Ašqaluna. Gaza—Ḫazzatu. And villages where a wrong turn means thirst.”

The word thirst sat like sand on Nabû-ēreš’s tongue.

That afternoon, a scouting party returned late. Two men were carried on shields, faces gray under dust. A third staggered behind, one arm pressed to his side, blood seeping between his fingers. Nabû-ēreš stood frozen as they passed. He had copied lists of dead sheep and broken tools. He had never seen a man’s breath rattle like a jar with a cracked neck.

An officer dictated the report in a flat voice: distance traveled, arrows used, enemy “removed.” Nabû-ēreš wrote the clean phrases, the ones that made pain tidy. His stylus made the same sound as always—press, lift, press—but his chest felt hollow.

That night, the campfires seemed dimmer. Groans drifted from the healer’s tent. Men spoke loudly as if noise could keep fear away. Nabû-ēreš lay awake and understood something he had not learned in the temple.

Words could calm panic, yes. But they could also hide suffering. A tablet could turn a death into a line. The line could be carried without the weight, as if the clay did the grieving.

He touched the fine clay in his pouch. He had wanted a seal. Now he wondered what, exactly, he was trying to earn.

Chapter 5: The Sea Wind and Ashkelon’s Walls

Nabû-ēreš smelled the sea before he saw it—salt, rotting weed, and wet wind. Then the land opened and the Great Sea lay ahead, restless and bright. It did not sit still like a bowl of blue. It moved like a living thing, never finished.

Ashkelon rose near the shore, its walls pale and stubborn. The Assyrian camp spread around it in a wide ring, not with sudden drama but with steady labor. Men hauled earth in baskets, building ramps. Carpenters shaped beams for platforms and shields. Slingers tested stones. Archers waxed bowstrings and checked fletching. The air rang with digging and shouted counts.

Bēl-iddin dragged Nabû-ēreš through the supply lines. “You will tally,” he said. “Grain issued to workers. Water jars. Arrow bundles. If a village is ordered to deliver, you note it.”

Along the roads, locals were pushed aside by soldiers. A woman clutched a child against her hip, eyes wide. An old man stumbled, and a soldier prodded him with the butt of a spear—not with glee, but with the dull impatience of moving a cart stuck in mud.

Nabû-ēreš felt heat rise in his face. He looked down at his tablet and focused on measures and totals. It was easier than meeting eyes.

Near a small village, an official read demands while Tabni translated. “Grain,” the official said. “Oil. Sheep. Delivered within three days.”

The villagers murmured. One man stepped forward with hands raised. Tabni listened, then spoke to the official. “He says their stores are low. The last harvest failed near the dunes.”

The official’s mouth tightened. “Then they will go hungry sooner than we will.”

Tabni’s eyes flashed, then dulled. Nabû-ēreš wrote the village name and demanded amounts. His hand stayed steady, and that steadiness frightened him more than shaking would have.

Days passed in heat and grit. Arrows hissed from Ashkelon’s walls. Assyrian archers answered in volleys. Once, a sling stone struck a man near Nabû-ēreš. The soldier fell without a sound, as if his strings had been cut. Blood darkened the sand quickly.

At night, Nabû-ēreš heard the sea and the distant cries from within the city. Hunger was a weapon. So was time. The camp kept counting: rations, arrowheads, labor shifts, water jars sealed and resealed.

Whispers ran that the city’s leaders would submit. Nabû-ēreš was brought with the record-keepers to the officials’ tent where terms were dictated. “Tribute,” the chief clerk said. “Silver, gold, textiles. Hostages to ensure loyalty.”

Hostages. The word scratched his throat.

When Ashkelon’s representatives arrived, their clothes were fine but dusty. They bowed low. One spoke through Tabni, voice strained. “We offer what the great king demands. Let the city live.”

Nabû-ēreš wrote the phrases that turned fear into agreement. Outside, the sea kept moving, indifferent, while Ashkelon’s gates opened—not with a crash, but with a slow surrender that sounded like wood groaning under weight.

Chapter 6: Lists of People, Lists of Things

Submission did not end the work. It multiplied it. After the gates opened, order arrived in the form of lines—lines of goods, lines of people, lines of names pressed into clay.

In a shaded area near the officials’ tent, captives and hostages were assembled. Some men stared straight ahead with hard faces. Some women held infants close, rocking without sound. Boys tried to stand tall and failed when fear tugged their shoulders down.

Nabû-ēreš sat with a senior clerk and two guards. “Write names,” the clerk said. “Fathers’ names if known. City. Rank. Mark those chosen as hostages.”

Tabni stood nearby to translate, watched by a guard who toyed with his spear strap. The first man stepped forward. His name came in a language Nabû-ēreš did not know. He pressed signs as best he could, then paused.

The clerk leaned in. “Not that sign. This one. Do you want the wrong house punished because you were lazy?”

“I wasn’t—” Nabû-ēreš stopped. There was no safe way to finish.

More names. More goods counted: bronze bowls, dyed cloth, livestock driven in nervous clusters. Each item became a mark. Each mark became a lever of power.

Then Tabni stiffened. A boy about Nabû-ēreš’s age stepped forward, jaw clenched. Tabni translated, but his voice roughened. Nabû-ēreš caught a glance between them—recognition, sharp as a knife.

When the line moved, Nabû-ēreš leaned closer. “You know him.”

Tabni did not look at him. “Do not ask.”

Later, when the clerk rose to speak with an officer, Nabû-ēreš slid a small piece of bread from his pouch toward Tabni, keeping his hand low. “Eat,” he whispered. “You’ve had less than the soldiers.”

Tabni’s eyes flicked to the guard. “If they see—”

“They won’t,” Nabû-ēreš said, though he was not sure.

Tabni snatched the bread and tore off a bite, chewing fast. For a heartbeat, Nabû-ēreš felt clean, as if he had found a small place where kindness could live.

A guard noticed anyway. “What is that?” he barked, stepping in.

Nabû-ēreš’s heart slammed. “It fell,” he stammered. “From my pouch.”

The guard’s gaze narrowed at crumbs on Tabni’s lip. “You feed captives now, scribe?”

Before Nabû-ēreš could answer, Bēl-iddin appeared. He spoke calmly, as if discussing barley. “The translator needs strength. You want wrong names on your list? Wrong names bring wrong punishments. Then everyone is angry, including the officer you serve.”

The guard hesitated, then spat. “Keep your tools sharp,” he muttered, walking away.

Bēl-iddin gripped Nabû-ēreš’s sleeve and pulled him aside. “Kindness is a flame,” he hissed. “In this wind, it burns the hand that holds it.”

“I only—”

“You only wanted to feel good,” Bēl-iddin cut in. “If you want to help, help with accuracy. Careful is braver than soft in a camp like this.”

That night, Nabû-ēreš lay awake with the list tablet beside him. Names pressed into clay. Lives pressed into a system that could not see faces. He understood that coming of age here was not learning to be fearless.

It was learning the price of a name—and learning how not to raise that price through carelessness.

Chapter 7: Wells, Dust, and the Long Pull South

The camp did not rest long. Orders came like blows: pack, load, move. The sea vanished behind them as they marched through harsh country where wind drove sand into eyes and mouths. Men wrapped cloth over their faces. Water skins were guarded like treasure.

Water became the center of every argument. Jars were counted and sealed with clay lumps stamped by minor officials. Wells were watched by armed men. When a jar cracked, the loss was treated like a wound.

Nabû-ēreš walked near the record carts, his tablet case thumping against his hip. Dust coated his tongue until speech felt thick. Bēl-iddin kept him busy.

“Record water issue,” he said. “Record barley. Record fodder. If an axle breaks, record delay. The king’s road is not magic. It is wood, rope, and men’s backs.”

One afternoon, a cart wheel split with a sharp sound. The cart lurched, spilling a jar of oil that soaked into the ground like wasted blood. Soldiers cursed. An officer struck the driver with a stick. The delay stretched under the sun, and tempers rose as quickly as flies.

Nabû-ēreš wrote the loss and the delay, his wrist aching. He realized how easily power could stumble. An empire could threaten cities, yet it could be slowed by a broken wheel and an empty well.

News traveled with them. Local rulers shifted loyalties, some sending gifts—copper, goats, dyed cloth—hoping to be left alone. Others hesitated, listening for Egypt’s voice. Taharqa’s name returned again and again, tied to rumors of letters, gold, and promises. In 667 BC, Assyrian officials spoke openly of pressing against Egypt’s influence so the western princes would not lean south.

Tabni walked near Nabû-ēreš when he could, still watched. His translations became essential. At one village with a deep well, locals argued about how much water they could spare. Tabni listened, then turned to the official.

“They say the well is shared with flocks,” Tabni said. “If you take too much, animals die. Then there is no milk, no wool.”

The official’s face hardened. “Tell them the great king’s thirst comes first.”

Tabni translated, voice flat. The villagers’ shoulders tightened. Nabû-ēreš saw resentment settle like dust on everything.

That night, Nabû-ēreš and Tabni sat behind the scribes’ tent where a small fire gave weak light. Nabû-ēreš offered Tabni a sip from his water skin. Tabni hesitated, then drank carefully, as if even water could be a trap.

“Why do you help?” Tabni asked.

Nabû-ēreš stared into the coals. “Because you help me. And because I don’t want to become only a hand that writes.”

Tabni’s expression softened for a moment. “A hand that writes can still be a chain.”

“I know,” Nabû-ēreš said. He swallowed dust and truth together.

He checked his tallies twice, then a third time. Not only to avoid punishment. He began to understand that accuracy could reduce harm at the edges. It could not stop the march, but it could keep the machine from grinding even harder than it already did.

Chapter 8: A Skirmish Under Taharqa’s Shadow

The land flattened as they moved farther south. Fields appeared where water could be drawn from the earth, and villages sat like knots on the road. People here watched the army with eyes that seemed to lean in two directions at once—toward Assyria’s iron and toward Egypt’s distant promise.

Nabû-ēreš carried tablets between tents and overheard officers debating over a rough map scratched into clay. One jabbed a finger at a crossroads. “These princes will bend,” he said. “They always bend when they see the king’s power.”

Another shook his head. “Some bend toward Egypt. Taharqa sends gold and letters. Words are cheaper than armies, but they still buy loyalty.”

Nabû-ēreš thought of his father’s warning. Writing was war, even when the writer never lifted a blade.

The clash came without warning. Scouts reported hostile riders near a crossroads—local men, perhaps emboldened by Egypt’s influence, perhaps desperate and hungry, perhaps both. Orders snapped. Soldiers ran. Dust rose in a thick cloud that swallowed the sun.

Nabû-ēreš crouched behind a supply cart, tablet pressed to his chest. He heard arrows whine, the thud of feet, shouts cut short. A horse screamed—a sound too human—and then there was only coughing dust and the harsh clang of metal.

When the dust thinned, bodies lay twisted on the ground. A horse kicked weakly and then stilled. A man crawled with one arm, dragging his legs as if they belonged to someone else.

Bēl-iddin found Nabû-ēreš. “Scribe!” he barked. “Up. Record losses. Now.”

Nabû-ēreš’s legs felt like wet clay, but he stood. He counted the dead as they were gathered. He wrote numbers for the wounded. He issued emergency rations under Bēl-iddin’s watch, measuring barley with hands that would not stop trembling.

Tabni appeared with dust on his face. “Some spoke Egyptian words,” he said softly. “Or tried to. They shouted like men copying a language they barely know.”

“So Taharqa’s shadow is real,” Nabû-ēreš said, and heard how young his voice sounded.

Tabni’s mouth tightened. “Shadows are always real. You notice them when they cover you.”

That night, Nabû-ēreš could not sleep. The skirmish repeated in his mind, not like a heroic tale but like smells and sounds: blood, sweat, breath failing. He took a scrap of clay and practiced steady wedges to calm his hands. He wrote the sign for “life,” then beneath it the sign for “death,” and stared until his eyes burned.

He understood that numbers could hide suffering unless someone chose precision. “Ten lost” could be tossed aside like a broken pot. But ten was ten voices, ten homes waiting, ten bodies that would not rise.

He could not stop the campaign. He was fifteen. The empire moved like floodwater. But he could refuse to add harm through carelessness. In the dark, he pressed his thumb into the fine clay lump in his pouch, leaving a small dent—proof that he was still himself inside the machine.

Chapter 9: The Tablet That Could Change a Family

After the skirmish, fever spread through the clerks’ tent. The senior scribe assigned to hostage lists grew hot and glass-eyed, his breath shallow. One morning, Nabû-ēreš was called inside. The man lay on a mat, lips cracked, the smell of sickness thick in the air.

The chief clerk stood over him, face hard. “You have been writing under Bēl-iddin,” he said to Nabû-ēreš. “Your numbers are clean.”

Nabû-ēreš swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“You will take this set,” the clerk said, tapping a stack of tablets. “Tribute obligations. Hostage names. Seals of cities. If totals are wrong, the wrong city pays. If names are wrong, the wrong family suffers. If the tablet breaks, you answer.”

The words landed like stones. Nabû-ēreš reached for the tablets with careful hands, as if they were eggs.

Outside, Bēl-iddin watched him. “So,” the quartermaster said, “they put a knife in your belt.”

“It feels heavier than a knife,” Nabû-ēreš admitted.

Bēl-iddin’s scar twitched as if he almost smiled. “Good. Fear keeps you awake. Do not let it steer your hand.”

All day, Nabû-ēreš worked under shade cloth, copying names and totals onto a master tablet. The clay had to be the right wetness. Too soft and the signs collapsed. Too dry and the stylus tore the surface. He kept a damp cloth nearby and smoothed edges with care. He whispered totals under his breath, checking twice, then again.

When he reached unfamiliar coastal names, his stylus paused. Guessing could turn one family into another. He looked up at Tabni, who stood nearby under a guard’s bored stare.

“Tabni,” Nabû-ēreš said, keeping his voice even, “help me with these names. Quietly.”

Tabni’s eyes widened. “If they think I change the list—”

“You will not change it,” Nabû-ēreš said. “You will keep me from changing it by mistake.”

Tabni glanced at the guard, then leaned in. He whispered pronunciations, pointing low with a finger. Nabû-ēreš wrote slowly, matching sound to sign. When Tabni corrected him, Nabû-ēreš listened without pride. He felt the strange relief of sharing weight.

Hours passed. Sweat ran down Nabû-ēreš’s back. A fly landed on the clay, and he froze until it moved away, afraid even a tiny mark could become an accusation.

At last, the tablet was full. Totals aligned. Names spaced evenly. Nabû-ēreš held it up, turning it toward the light to look for cracks.

Bēl-iddin leaned over his shoulder. “Read the totals.”

Nabû-ēreš read them. His voice stayed steady.

Bēl-iddin nodded once. “You are learning what power is made of.”

Tabni sat back and exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing for a heartbeat. Nabû-ēreš understood then that adulthood was not a sudden step. It was a series of decisions: to check again, to ask for help, to accept fear without letting it rule, and to remember that a single sign could pull a rope tight around someone else’s life.

Chapter 10: The Seal Pressed into Soft Clay

A formal audience was announced, and the camp cleaned itself as if dirt could be ordered away. Officers wore their best belts and fringed garments. Guards stood straighter. Rugs were laid in the officials’ tent, and a low table was prepared for the tablets to be presented and sealed.

Nabû-ēreš stood among the scribes, heart beating hard. The master tablet he had prepared lay on a tray, firm enough to handle but still unbaked. Beside it sat small lumps of sealing clay and a set of cylinder seals—carved images of gods, royal symbols, and lines of official titles.

The chief clerk called Nabû-ēreš forward. “You wrote this record.”

Nabû-ēreš bowed. “Yes, sir.”

The clerk scanned the tablet line by line. Nabû-ēreš felt sweat gather under his arms. A mistake here, in front of officers, would not be corrected with temple scolding.

At last, the clerk grunted. “Acceptable.” He reached into a pouch and pulled out a small, worn seal with a simple star and an office line. “You will stamp the record of obligations for the coastal cities. Under my eye.”

Nabû-ēreš’s breath caught. This was what he had dreamed—an imprint that meant his writing mattered.

A guard pressed a lump of sealing clay onto the tablet’s edge. Nabû-ēreš took the seal with both hands. It was heavier than he expected, cool and smooth. His fingers wanted to tremble. He forced them still.

As he positioned the seal, movement at the tent’s edge drew his eye. Hostages were being led away after the agreement—boys and young men with bound hands, heads held high or bowed low. One boy, no older than Nabû-ēreš’s brother, glanced around with wide eyes. His lips moved as if counting steps, as if numbers could keep fear away.

Nabû-ēreš’s stomach twisted. The seal in his hands suddenly felt like a stone tied to a rope.

Tabni stood near the entrance, face blank. When one hostage passed, Tabni’s jaw tightened. Nabû-ēreš remembered the earlier recognition and the way Tabni had said, Do not ask.

The chief clerk’s voice cut through the moment. “Stamp it.”

Nabû-ēreš looked down. The clay waited, soft enough to take an imprint. He understood then that this was not a clean reward. Skill did not float above the world. Skill was used, and the user could choose only small things: steadiness, accuracy, restraint.

He pressed the seal into the clay with firm, even pressure, careful not to wobble. When he lifted it, the mark remained crisp and official.

A murmur moved among the clerks. The chief clerk nodded once, granting a small portion of trust.

Nabû-ēreš handed the seal back. His palm felt empty afterward, yet heavier than before. Outside, the sea wind carried salt and smoke. Somewhere beyond the tent, families counted what they had lost and what they still had to surrender.

Nabû-ēreš stood still and watched the seal mark begin to dry. He felt pride and bitterness mixed together so tightly he could not separate them—and he knew that this, too, was part of growing up.

Chapter 11: Returning East, Returning Changed

When the column finally turned back east, the camp moved slower. Men limped. Donkeys were thinner, ribs showing under dusty hides. Carts creaked under tribute: bundles of cloth, metal vessels, sacks of grain taken from many hands. Captives walked in guarded lines, ankles coated in dust.

Nabû-ēreš traveled with the record carts, watching villages as they passed. Some people stared from doorways in silence. Some offered water quickly with lowered eyes, eager to avoid attention. At key wells, new guards stood where none had before. New obligations were spoken in the language Nabû-ēreš now understood too well: measures, deadlines, penalties.

He realized the army’s return changed the land as much as its arrival. Roads became stricter. Fear became routine. Even those not taken as hostages learned to live with an invisible hand on their shoulder.

Bēl-iddin rode near him for a time. “You did not break,” the quartermaster said. It was the closest thing to praise Nabû-ēreš had heard from him.

“I nearly did,” Nabû-ēreš answered.

“Nearly does not count,” Bēl-iddin said, then looked away. After a moment he added, quieter, “Remember that when you are tempted to be careless.”

As the Assyrian heartland neared, the air grew familiar—richer soil, reeds near the rivers, the smell of wet earth after irrigation. Nabû-ēreš felt longing for the temple courtyard’s quiet. But he also feared it. Quiet left room for memory.

In Kalḫu, people came out to cheer. Priests lifted their hands and thanked the gods for the king’s strength. Drums beat. Children ran alongside soldiers, laughing as if war were a festival.

Nabû-ēreš walked through the noise like someone wearing a different skin.

At home, his mother grabbed him and held him too tightly. “You are thin,” she said, voice breaking. “You smell like smoke and strangers.”

“I’m here,” he managed.

His father stood behind her, relief shining in his eyes though he tried to hide it. “You came back with both hands,” Aplāya said. “That is not small.”

His younger brother ran up, waving a stick like a spear. “I was a soldier!” the boy shouted. “I fought enemies!”

Nabû-ēreš stared at the stick and the bright excitement. He opened his mouth, then closed it. How could he explain the sound of a man choking? How could he explain that a list of names could be a cage?

That night, by lamplight, he unpacked his writing kit and set his tablets on a shelf with careful hands. He took out the fine clay lump and the small stamped proof he had been allowed to keep—an imprint showing he had served.

His mother touched it with one fingertip. “So this is what you wanted.”

“Yes,” Nabû-ēreš said.

“And do you still want it?” she asked.

He thought of Tabni’s blank face, of boys led away, of Bēl-iddin’s warning, of his own steady hand pressing a seal. “I want to be worthy of it,” he said at last.

It was the only answer that did not feel like a lie.

Chapter 12: A Record That Holds More Than Praise

Back in the temple workshop, the air felt cooler than Nabû-ēreš remembered. The shelves still held stacks of tablets. The courtyard doves still hopped near the water jar. Yet Nabû-ēreš had returned with older eyes, and the old quiet did not erase what he had seen.

Šamaš-mukīn set a fresh tablet before him. “You will copy the official account of this year’s western actions,” the teacher said. “Clean style. Court language. The king’s strength. The cities’ submission.”

Nabû-ēreš’s throat tightened. He understood what the court wanted: straight roads, smooth victory, no stumbling. In 667 BC the king’s officials spoke of pushing against Egypt’s influence and of keeping western rulers from leaning toward Taharqa. The record would present that pressure as order and protection.

Nabû-ēreš lowered his stylus and began. He wrote of Ashurbanipal’s campaign in the west, of cities submitting, of tribute delivered, of hostages taken as “pledges.” He used the formal phrases he had learned, the ones that made power sound like a natural law.

But memory pressed at the edges: cracked lips at a well, the smell of blood in a tent, villagers’ faces when their stores were demanded, a boy counting steps as he was led away. Nabû-ēreš paused, stylus hovering.

Šamaš-mukīn watched him closely. “Do not slow,” the teacher warned. “History is a road. It must be straight.”

Nabû-ēreš looked at the clay. Straight roads still pass through broken places, he thought. He made a careful choice—small enough to survive, large enough to matter.

Where the style allowed numbers, he made them exact. Not “many wounded,” but a count. Not “supplies gathered,” but measured grain and water rations. Where it demanded lists, he spelled names carefully and asked another scribe to check his signs. He included the hard details of movement: delays from broken wheels, losses from cracked jars, the cost of thirst. He did not accuse. He did not write rebellion into the tablet. He wrote truth in the only way he could—through precision.

When he finished, he read the account aloud. The court would hear victory. The temple would store it among thousands. Yet between the wedges, Nabû-ēreš could see the human weight he had refused to erase.

Šamaš-mukīn nodded slowly. “Your hand is steadier.”

Nabû-ēreš reached into his pouch and set the stamped clay proof beside the new tablet. Not as a trophy, but as a reminder that a seal did not only grant honor. It also locked decisions into place.

He did not know Tabni’s fate. The empire’s records would not write every ending. Still, Nabû-ēreš had learned what it meant to grow up inside power: to obey enough to survive, to count carefully because counting shaped lives, and to keep a small space inside himself where people were more than entries.

He smoothed the tablet’s edge with his thumb, then placed it on the shelf to dry among the year’s records. The clay would harden. The imprint would remain. And Nabû-ēreš, no longer a boy who believed writing was only safety, began the long work of becoming a scribe who understood what words could do.