“O Most High, how long shall nations lift up their graven images? They bow down to the work of their own hands, which can neither see nor hear. As they are, so are they that make them. Therefore shall the fire consume them, and their temples be laid waste. Yea, perish all who place their trust in naught. Burn amidst the ashes of idols!”

  —Psalm of the Damned 21:12

  “I’ll cast the first stone,” Kaleb said, shouldering his way through goatherds and shepherds, jaw tight, fists clenched like hammers. “Not a bastard here will stop me.”

  “Enough, Kaleb.” His mother trailed behind, her shoddy, reed-woven sandals scraping the dirt. “That boy did you no wrong.”

  He flashed a shard of granite. “After what he said about Father, I’d gut him for stealing a sack of grain.”

  She pinched his ear between thumb and forefinger, hard enough to make him wince, and pulled him close. Her breath reeked of garlic. “Don’t like what he said? Then don’t arm others with the very blade that’ll cut you down.”

  Kaleb didn’t deign to respond. He whipped around and marched ahead, sick of her tongue-lashings. A gust flung grit into his eyes, but his rage kept him from blinking it away. He passed face after face, each more worn and beaten than the last. Everyone brayed like donkeys, filling his head with a senseless din. He crinkled his nose at the stink of sweat. Someone’s hair whipped into his mouth, and he spat it free.

  His next stride saw him wedged between two big-boned strangers. He toppled them without a second thought. He’d plow through them all, no matter who stood in his way. No one had better cause to be here than Kaleb.

  The last obstacle was a pair of old hunchbacks who stank of fish and brine, as if they’d crawled up from the deep itself. Kaleb slammed them together, chest to chest, and they crumpled in a tangle of limbs.

  The sun was big, white, and cruel, a blister. The air shimmered like some endless sheet of bronze. Kaleb squinted against the glare, not a cloud in sight. Here it lay, the land that’d beaten and forged him, drinking deep of his blood, sweat, and salt. His forebears had put down roots here, and if you asked him, their ghosts lingered still.

  Toramesh, cradle of the Toraphites.

  Someone ought to torch the place.

  Might be an improvement, even. Walk a hundred leagues in any direction, and you wouldn’t find a bigger waste of space. Only his tribe would’ve settled this hellhole.

  Green pastures? Madness. Springs brimming with rainwater? Laughable. Valleys thick with figs and olives? Unthinkable. No, they belonged here in paradise, chewing sand and letting scorpions pinch their asses.

  But he wouldn't grumble today, for soon he’d taste the sweetest revenge. He licked his lips, turning the stone in his hand. Maybe he’d let his brother watch.

  Outside the mob stood the condemned, fettered at wrist and ankle. He was a pitiful sight, hair matted with grease, brow beaded with sweat. Flanking him were two guards, clad in skullcaps and breastplates, each shouldering a spear tipped with flint.

  Kaleb slowed his stride.

  The rightmost regarded him like a maggot in one’s breakfast. “Away with you, boy.”

  His partner spat. “Aye, you’ve no business here.”

  “Listen to them, Kaleb.” His mother’s voice, drawing nearer. She pushed from the crowd, panting, and nodded at the guards. “Forgive him, he’s leaving now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Kaleb growled.

  She gripped his wrist. “Drop the stone. Jaspeth put you up to this, didn’t he?”

  “Can’t I heed my brother’s counsel?”

  “You can, but what of mine?”

  Kaleb’s throat tightened as he stared at the woman before him. It took a moment to remember that she was his mother. The creases beside her eyes ran deeper than he remembered, and gray strands had stolen into her coal-dark hair. Had he done that to her?

  He dropped the stone.

  No sooner had he turned away than another two emerged from the crowd, their footfalls heavy. A man and a woman, both wearing hairy roughspuns.

  The woman stopped before Kaleb, tears streaking her cheeks. She slapped him across the face. “He took my daughter’s life. I will cast the first stone.”

  “Our youngest,” her husband added, fixing him with a glare. “What did he take from you?”

  Kaleb’s lips parted, but no words came. As the pair brushed past him, he lowered his head and unclenched his fists. The guards stepped aside and allowed the man and woman to pick their stones.

  The murderer trembled in his fetters. He was of an age with Kaleb, a boy named Sachareb. Someone should’ve stoned him long ago. Kaleb gnashed his teeth, feeling as if they might shatter. His mother grasped his shoulders and steered him back into the howling mob.

  When did loyalty become a sin? Three moons ago, Sachareb had said the wrong thing to Kaleb. “No one gives a fig where your father went, least of all your whore mother. He’s made a new brood for himself. That’s it. Three silvers says he’s in Hezebel now, raisin’ another son.”

  Kaleb had beaten Sachareb bloody that day, but it all ended when a woman stormed out, wielding a sickle and threatening to geld everyone involved. Kaleb’s mother. Sachareb may’ve survived, but luck hadn’t followed him far.

  Maybe this was divine retribution. But if so, why wasn’t Kaleb the one passing the sentence? No one had the right to drag his father’s name through the muck.

  Leaving your family’s no sin, not if you plan on coming back.

  His father was on a pilgrimage. That had to be it. He’d return. He’d set everything right.

  “Lost your chance, fool,” a voice rasped through the din.

  Kaleb’s mouth went dry. Here came the worst part of it, this farce of a life.

  “Kill him, Kaleb. He spoke ill of Father.”

  A shudder crept through his shoulder and wormed its way down to his left hand. He tugged back his sleeve, turned his wrist, and fought the bile that crept up his throat. His fingers twitched without warning, seized by a will not his own. Two bloodshot eyes glared up from his palm, judging. Fleshy lips framed rotted teeth. A nub of a tongue slithered out, glistening.

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  “Damn you, Kaleb,” the twisted mouth said. “I thought we were brothers.”

  Kaleb grimaced at the words oozing from that abomination. Suffocate him. Silence him forever. This thing isn’t your brother. But if sharing a body didn’t make them brothers, then the sky wasn’t blue.

  Their mother eyed them like a hawk. Anyone with a lick of sense knew better than to quarrel with Jaspeth. He’d only drag you down with him.

  Worse, he wasn’t done. “What happened to revenge?”

  “Forget it,” Kaleb said.

  “You always say that. Soon enough, even the lepers will have you underfoot.”

  A ram’s horn blared in the distance, echoing through Kaleb’s bones.

  “The chieftain’s here,” his mother whispered. “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”

  Sure, but I can’t speak for Jaspeth.

  The crowd cleared a path down the middle. Kaleb and his mother pressed against the wall of onlookers. Murmurs filled the air about justice being meted out and the condemned’s blood flowing. A column of standard-bearers marched into view, sunlight glinting off their copper helmets. They hoisted poles topped with totems of bearded bulls.

  Following in their steps was His Holiness, dragging the butt of his staff through the dirt. His hair hung dead and lank, blanched by the trials of time. Kaleb, for a heartbeat, met the chieftain’s eyes. One was clear, the other was stricken by a cataract. He looked hipshot, his gait slow and uneven.

  Chamoreb ben Kofimeb, Chieftain of the Toraphites. The only man you could mistake for a discarded foreskin.

  He came to a stop, regarding Sachareb with a pitiless look. He faced the crowd, raised his staff, and declaimed, “It grieves me that we must gather here today, my tribespeople, but we are left without choice. If justice does not reign, rivers will cease to flow, stars will cease to wheel, and the very earth will crumble. Every action we take serves the Most High.”

  Get on with it, windbag.

  “We are Azavel’s wayward children. Though the land of our forebears is lost, we shine as beacons of righteousness in this sinful world.”

  There he went again, prattling on about Azavel. It was gone, though. Toramesh was all Kaleb had ever known.

  The chieftain turned toward the condemned. “Now we reckon with Sachareb ben Anafeb. He trespassed against us by murdering one of our daughters, a kindly girl no older than nine. Why? Because she stole figs from his garden. Sinful behavior, to be sure, but undeserving of death. Nothing that cannot be corrected with ten lashes! Sachareb, however, gave into wrath. Pray for his damnation. I beseech you, in the name of the Most High!”

  “Glory unto the Most High,” Kaleb’s tribe droned like locusts. “Glory unto the Most High! Glory unto the Most High!”

  “You needn’t watch,” his mother said.

  Kaleb shrugged. “I see worse every day.”

  The chieftain made a sweeping gesture toward Sachareb. “Let his blood nourish the earth.”

  The crowd jeered, packed tight together, cheek by jowl, shoulder to shoulder. Would that Kaleb might claim his share of blood, but everyone stood between him and what he wanted. That said, he resolved to enjoy himself. What else was he to do on the Day of Rest? Every other day was spent in the brickyards. Tomorrow he would return to the mud. Tomorrow he would return to his shackles.

  But at least he’d be alive, unlike this fool.

  When it came time for the stones to fly, Sachareb stood alone. The girl’s parents took their places. The mother snapped forward with an overhand throw, blasting Sachareb’s temple. The father followed with a blow that cracked Sachareb’s brow. Blood spattered the dirt in sloppy patterns.

  Sachareb staggered, chains rattling, hands feebly raised to ward off the stones. They flew in earnest now, a rhythm building with each new bruise, each new break. He tried to speak, to plead between gasps, but a stone clipped his jaw, sent his teeth scattering like hailstones.

  The chieftain watched, his face unmoving, drawn tight by years of watching men return to the earth. Kaleb saw it too, felt it in his gut. Sachareb was close now, close to his last breath. The parents hurled two more stones, sure and true, bound for Sachareb.

  But the stones halted in midair.

  As if pulled taut by invisible reins, hanging two paces shy of Sachareb. Everyone fell quiet. A breeze sighed around Kaleb’s neck, making him prickle.

  A figure emerged from the east, his robes flowing like dusky clouds. A leather thong dangled from his left hand, cradling a dripping wineskin. He held a staff in his right, the kind used by shepherds.

  “Not another step,” the chieftain said. “Name yourself.”

  The intruder broke his stride. “You don’t recognize me, Your Holiness?”

  The old wretch dropped his staff. “Yasha…”

  Kaleb’s mother muffled a gasp. She wasn’t the only one. Elders murmured. One of the hunchbacks from earlier shrank away, trembling. Kaleb had never seen this man, nor heard his name.

  Guards leveled spears, but the chieftain waved them down. “Why did the Most High send you back?”

  Yasha sauntered to the stones that hung in space, then plucked them like ripe figs. “Please, Your Holiness. I haven’t prayed to the Most High since the day I left.”

  “You look different. What happened to your… ?”

  “I got rid of them,” Yasha said, tossing the stones aside.

  “That boy you saved is a condemned murderer, our offering unto the Most High. Mercy is not yours to dispense.”

  “Does your god tire of sheep and goats?”

  “Mind your sinner's tongue.”

  “My sins are more numerous than the stars, yes, but even I can smell innocence.”

  The dead girl’s mother thrust an accusing finger. “Innocence? He was drenched in my daughter’s blood when we found him!”

  “He must die,” her husband said.

  “Are you certain?” Yasha seized a fistful of Sachareb’s hair, yanking his head back until his mouth gaped. He stuck the butt of his staff straight down the murderer’s throat. “Come out. Don’t be shy.”

  Yasha withdrew the staff almost as quickly, then stepped back. Sachareb doubled over and clawed at his own throat. His chains rattled as he heaved, as he puked bile so thick and black it resembled pitch.

  Scaly claws emerged from his mouth and latched onto the corners of his lips. A creature wriggled free, standing no taller than three handspans. Ears like an elephant’s flared from its skull, and it tested the air with a forked tongue. Its arms were twice as long as its legs.

  “Gilgamite!” someone cried.

  Children shrieked. Their parents intoned psalms to ward off the threat. Kaleb, for his part, was shocked to see such a creature in the flesh. They were supposed to be gone, the Gilgamites.

  “Poor thing looks hungry,” Yasha said, advancing. He stomped his sandaled foot until the creature lay in a pool of black gore, then kicked away a tangle of white innards. “Don’t give this tribe a bad name, now.”

  Jaspeth admired the sight. “Yasha, was it? We should welcome him into our tent. He’d make a powerful friend.”

  Kaleb scratched his jaw. “Who is he?”

  “Don’t you boys speak his name,” his mother said. “Stay away from him. He’ll only lead you to ruin.”

  Yasha nodded at children clinging to parents, at parents clinging to guards, at guards clinging to spears. “It’s been too long, my tribe. Ten years, right?”

  “You are no Toraphite,” the chieftain said. “A babe I found drifting in the river, nothing more. Your own mother did not want you at her teat.”

  Ignoring him, Yasha opened a sack and shoved the creature’s remains inside. His fingers came away black and slimy. “Ever seen a Gilgamite, Your Holiness?”

  “Never in all my days, but my father had, and his before him. This does not bode well. Are there more?”

  Yasha draped the sack over his shoulder and stalked away. “I’ll worry about that.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He glanced back. “Not far. I look forward to your hospitality when I return.”

  The chieftain blinked. “Hospitality?”

  “A tent, nothing large. Leave me supper. Lamb should do, with leavened bread and your choicest wine. No poison.”

  “You cannot make demands of me.”

  Yasha stretched his neck, rolled his shoulders. “What kind of chieftain turns away an old friend?”

  He stamped his staff in the dirt. “Only a few can be called my friends, and you are not one of them.”

  “I’m sure you cherish your friendship with the Kergalonians.”

  “Do you think I take pleasure in serving them? That I do not yearn to lift the burdens from our shoulders? I am no god. I alone cannot stand against Kergalon, and not a craven behind me has the spine to fight.”

  Yasha nodded. “We all have our excuses. I’d appreciate it, though, if you kept my arrival a secret.”

  “First you ask for lodging, and now you want me to deceive my—”

  “I won’t be here long.”

  “No? Pray tell, why are you here?”

  “Why, you ask?” Yasha narrowed his eyes, and there was the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Only to find a disciple.”