EXCERPT: Ugarit~Ancient City

Today, I had a fantastic opportunity to speak at yet another book-club: the BOOKWORMS! I was able to discuss details about WEST OF SANTILLANE, share my research experience, and the many characters in the story. (Warmest HELLO's to my new BookWorm friends!)

Book clubs have really taken off over the past decade and a half. Two weeks ago, I spoke at the FRIDAY AFTERNOON BOOK CLUB which has been meeting since 1935!!! Oh, the POWER of books! They draw us in, enable our imagination to take flight, and give us things to remember and think through. Being an author has not enabled me to join a book club. At least not yet. I'm constantly writing, revising, and consulting with my writing buddy and my editor. That keeps me way too busy. However, I do have a TBR pile. For those of you "new" to the whole "I MUST CONSTANTLY READ" thing, a TBR stands for"to be read".

Brook's Twin Towers

Look here to the right, and you'll see the photo I recently took of my TBR pile. I lovingly call it the Twin Towers. Underneath are books I've read this year, minus several that I've loaned my cousin, that is. And truth be told, this is only HALF of my TBR "pile", because the other half isn't really a physical pile. It's on my Kindle. (Yes... Kindle books DO count as a portion of someone's TBR pile.)

People can tell what type of books you love simply by investigating your TBR pile. You will note that I enjoy BIG BOOKS (and I cannot lie!). I hope some of you readers out there will share some of YOUR TBR piles with me and give me one fun-fact about what lies within them. Besides a bunch of big books, here's one fun fact about mine: there is a graphic novel in there--about King Arthur. Something I cannot WAIT to read!

This week, I have something more for you to consider for your TBR pile, and you KNOW it'll be historical fiction. This one is called UGARIT by Janet Tamaren. Below she has left us a juicy battle scene and I hope you'll consider time-traveling back to ancient Ur, a city that once occupied what is now northern Syria. Welcome Janet and know that I have a tender heart for stories of the ancient world. So readers, all I can say is--

READ ON!

EXCERPT

By Janet Tamaren

DEFENDING THE PALACE GATE

At dawn, temple lookouts saw enemy ships nearing the harbor.  The horns blasted their warning signal.

Guardsmen and citizen recruits at the Palace Gate took their stations, preparing for an assault on the walls. Thut-Moses had joined the defenders. He was an expert archer, from the years he had grown up in Nubia. It was a skill passed on from father to child.

The thirty or so defenders on the battlements were prepared to fight until the walls fell. They did not foresee how rapid it would be.

The marauders swiftly beached their shallow draught ships. They offloaded their warriors on the beach. The blast of horns was still ongoing, and the attackers had already massed at the gate of the lower city, the closest to their landing on the beach.

Within a short time, the invaders took the lower city and were at the Palace ramparts. To Thut-Moses’ estimation, they numbered over a hundred. They were tall, these foreigners, wearing helmets decorated with horns or feathers, carrying double-edged swords and leather shields. An impressive number of them, well over one hundred, with more arriving even as he watched.

As the enemy approached, their captain, Gibor-El gave the signal for the archers to let fly their arrows. Thut-Moses notched his arrow and took aim at the foreign warriors below. His eyes were good, his aim unflinching. He took down two of the attackers: an arrow to the shoulder of one, an arrow to the back of another.

The enemy archers returned volleys of arrows. The man next to Thut-Moses –the gruff guard from the palace gate--was struck by an arrow to the chest. He collapsed and toppled backwards over the top of the battlements. He fell heavily onto the stone courtyard of the palace. As his head hit the stones of the courtyard, Thut-Moses heard a loud cracking. The man thrashed around momentarily and then was still.

Thut-Moses could see blood oozing out on the stones. The gruesome scene reminded him of a medical papyrus he had read, of a man who whose skull was cracked and who was dying. He had time to recollect this stray memory and wished he had not seen it. He turned back to the battle in front of him and took up his bow and a fresh arrow. With a surge of fear, he remained on high alert.

Another volley of enemy arrows flew over the parapet. This time, an arrow struck Thut-Moses in the chest. He crumpled to the ground from the force of the arrow. Thut-Moses was momentarily stunned. After a short span of time, he opened his eyes again and saw a fellow defender bending over him, opening his tunic.

“Your bronze amulet has taken the blow,” the man said. “You are lucky. You will have a bruise, but the flesh is otherwise uninjured.”

Thut-Moses quickly regained his wits and his breath. He got back to his feet. The eunuch gave silent thanks to Isis his protector. And to his short acquaintance with the healer who had given him the amulet.

Meanwhile, the men on the battlements were bombarding the foreigners with their throwing spears, sending sharp-tipped spears into their midst and then getting a fresh one from a cache on the Tower. Other men threw rocks into the soldiers below.

The engagement continued, with the attackers staying in formation below. Then two men among the foreigners were spotted carrying large, sharp bronze axes. The men on top of the ramparts could hear and feel the heavy blows on the thick wood of the heavy wooden gate reinforced with bronze. Then they heard a great cracking sound. The door was splitting. At this point, Gibor-El told his men to halt. “The door is taken!” Gibor-El shouted. “The lower city has fallen. The upper city will fall as well.”

Gibor-El ordered the herald to sound an alarm. A series of long and short blasts warned anyone still in the streets to run. The alarm also warned the men offering a defense to the attacking forces to retreat and run for the east gate.

“Retreat! Do not play the hero and stay here to die!” Gibor- El said.

The men under his command did not argue. They quickly grabbed their spears and other weapons and made their way down the stairs and into the plaza inside the walls of the palace.

ALL ABOUT THE BOOK

A captivating tale of bravery in the face of heartbreak and upheaval.

IN THE SPRING OF 1190 BC, on the sun-drenched shores of the eastern Mediterranean, the thriving city of Ugarit pulses with life, trade, and courtly intrigues. But danger brews beyond its walls.

Yoninah, a gifted healer, offers herbs and amulets to ease her neighbours’ suffering. When a Mycenaean – an ex-soldier from the Trojan War—stumbles into her life, he reawakens memories she thought long buried. Just as whispers of war echo ever closer.

Meanwhile, in the royal court, Thut-Moses is a scribe who was trained in the temples of Egypt. The king is paralyzed by ominous messages: foreign invaders are razing one coastal city after another. As the tide of destruction nears, Ugarit’s fate hangs in the balance.

Torn between loyalty and survival, love and duty, Yoninah and Thut-Moses must each decide: what will they risk to protect what they hold most dear?

Rich with historical detail and inspired by newly-translated cuneiform tablets unearthed form Ugarit’s ashes, UGARIT brings to life the final days of a cosmopolitan world on the brink of collapse – a sweeping tale of courage and resilience at the twilight of the Bronze Age.

Praise for Ugarit:

"A masterfully told tale-rich, riveting, and utterly transporting. I couldn't put it down."

★★★★★ - Historical Fiction Review

ALL ABOUT JANET

Janet Tamaren is a retired physician who practiced for two decades in rural Kentucky. Now living in Denver with her husband, she enjoys writing and is the author of a medical memoir and a guide to Hebrew Bible stories. She began writing UGARIT during the COVID lockdown.

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