As I Walk Through The Valley..

[Lord General Maahes Asad-Aziem]

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..

In every walk of the life there was a time of peace, when the sun met the leaves of the changing season, and the air felt so very crisp in this new world. With the days still fairly warm, and the sky without a cloud in sight. Maahes would take his youngest on a walk, through the paths of self-discovery where toddlers would be so quick to learn of the world around him. The youngest of his children, had been the last to crawl, and now the last to walk. Everything about him had been late to season, and even his cries had been so quiet compared to the others who shared his same blood. Anubis had been born so small, and still there against his father’s massive chest seemed hardly enough a child over one year. It had not taken long for the swaying of his father’s steps or the sound of the drums beneath the Beast’s chest for him to find his little eyes heavy and his cheek against Maahes’s shoulder.

“If you sleep, you will miss it.” His voice mused to the second born son in his arms who fought the war between the waking moments, and it brought a smile to his father’s lips as he let his son rest. It was all he could offer them of their heritage the sound of the blood that rushed through his veins, fueled by the fires there in his heart of the Arabic drums that made up the sound. Could he hear it? It was rare for Maahes to speak his native tongue, for a bit part of him had died along with it when he started to serve Skye. However, along the road the song that left his lips was one older then the trees an old prayer hymn of Allah and all his greatness.

Maahes had come from a more primitive part of the Middle East, Egypt as it once was though without the shadow of gold covered Gods, and the beauty of the white sands. Everything still worked with the river, the mighty Nile the source of many fortunes, but it was all so different now. After the crusades much of the desert land had not been the same, with now the victory of the fall on their sword, and the blood of Englishmen on their lips. Wars had never stopped, from one tribe to another over Turkish lands to Ottoman empires it seemed there was always a need for a good sword. Fights were held in matches made of rings, though long gone the day of the mighty coliseums, but now back alleys trailed to arenas where the last of the bodies still decayed with the sands their blood remained. It had been home to him, though so very few understood, but of what other man could hold 7 wars now under his belt and still walk along the living. They were labored steps, but they were there—he was a proud man to have come this far. It was only a matter of time to see how far he would continue to go.