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Anat, Ugarite goddess of war, twelve feet tall and wreathed in roiling smoke boiling off her body, towers over a countryside of corpses and knows no joy. She has slaughtered for two days straight these warriors and citizens of a nation whose name she already can’t remember. So much of it laid waste at her feet; a nation who would not stay their weapons even with the promise of Ugarit’s ample riches in trade; this, her nation’s perpetual deterrent, if not a foolproof one. And so her people begged their goddess of war, of the hunt, of violence, defend them against would-be destroyers.
Their prayers she has answered only too well, this goddess they fear call upon unless they desire her wrath be directed outward. She, the last resort of a peaceful nation.
This place’s gods, too, lie broken behind her. Those at least who did not flee when they saw their strongest – their winged brethren, blazing with light and power, bronze and copper-girded – fall under her umbral hand.
Once, she lived for this. Now...
Bones burgeon in her wake like a trail of cadaverous blooms as Anat walks among the dead. Her storm-dark, shadowed form stutters as she moves, as if reality can’t quite keep up with her, the pale lamps of her eyes shining in the gathering dark as she half-heartedly seeks grizzly trophies not already gathered from dead gods – their bones and weapons and feathers collected to adorn her home on the sacred mountain.
Yet, what does it matter how much she saves her people, how glorious her conquests, her hoarding of reminders of their defeat, if Eresh-once-Lamma will not take leave to listen on her works; if the Kengir goddess of the sky keeps Anat, too, along with all others, shut out beyond the shuttered doors of her temple home while she grieves and grieves and grieves.
It has been decades since her friend and former lover locked herself away. How can one goddess mourn a murdered wife so long? How does she still have tears to shed when Anat is there for her, ready to pick up the pieces of her broken heart? Especially after Anat worked so hard to sunder it so she could swoop in and mend it; after having so thoroughly deprived Eresh-once-Lamma of wife and friends and inner circle. She made herself the only shoulder left to cry on, hers the only bosom to fall against, ensuring Eresh-once-Lamma was harrowed and alone. And yet. And yet...
