The Scribe of Nineveh

by M. Cassandra Wycliffe

The clay was still cold in his hands when the shadow of the Mashki Gate fell across him. Nabu-shuma-iddina shifted the bundle of reed styluses wrapped in oiled linen from one arm to the other, his fingers stiff from the predawn chill that clung to the banks of the Khosr. The river moved sluggishly …