Alma 62

This cheered up Moroni, who was in another of his funks since his letter to Pahoran. He saw he had a friend in high places. (Besides God.)

But he was steamed about the continued dissent that shook Pahoran from his seat at court. Minority opinion cannot be tolerated in a free society.

Anyway, Moroni did as Pahoran asked, marched a small group to Gideon, leaving Lehi and Teancum in charge of the troops at home.

He pitched his Liberty Flag everywhere he went and got recruits as he did. Thousands, really, who felt under siege by the very thought of monarchy. He hit Gideon and combined forces with Pahoran’s into a bigger army than Pachus (the monarchist king) had. They headed for Zarahemla and attacked Pachus’ forces. They killed Pachus, took his monarchist friends prisoner, and put Pahoran back in his judgeship. Yay for freedom!

Pahoran tried Pachus’ men and, no surprise, found them all guilty and had their heads cut off. The same for any other Pachus-sympathizers. Throughout the whole region he rounded up dissenters and chopped their heads from their bodies. The law must be obeyed. Anyone against freedom, as the church defined it, must be killed.

That was the happy resolution of the thirtieth year of the judges’ reign. Peace at last. Death to disturbers of the peace.

The new year began and Moroni—again, no surprise—got massive favoritism from the chief judge. Tons of food and a redeployment (with six thousand men) to Helaman to help in “preserving” that city.

The same deal for Lehi and Teancum in defending Zarahemla.

Pahoran marched with Moroni and his troops toward Nephihah, intent on wiping out the Lamanites there. Along the way they killed most Lamanites they saw, adding their food and weapons to the Operation Snuphi campaign.

Hey, they had to defend themselves.

Besides, they did let a few Lamanites live, under the throatbound oath to never, ever, ever threaten a Nephite again. Those they let live under these conditions amounted to four thousand all told. These got sent to Ammon for cultural assimilation.

When the Nephite troops got near Nephihah they pitched their tents on the plains, baiting the Lamanites to come out and fight. The Lamanites were in no hurry, though, given the proven bloodthirst of their ultra-godly opponents.

At the first nightfall, Moroni climbed up the city wall to see where the Lamanite armies camped (which was not in houses; they had to keep ready for action, even when sleeping). He saw them sleeping by the city gate on the east. No one was awake. Apparently they hadn’t figured out the night watchman concept.

Moroni went back, woke up his troops, and told them to start making rope ladders for an assault over the wall. They did so, then marched to the west wall, rope ladders in hand, and climbed down into the city. Deep sleepers, these Lamanites.

Morning came and the city teemed with Nephite soldiers. Which scared the Lamanites right out of their blankets and through the gate. Moroni set his men on them and had running Lamanites gouged to death if they wouldn’t surrender. A few got away. But amazingly, no Lamanite tried to defend himself (though this could be one of the distortions of legend).

Moroni’s army, meanwhile, didn’t lose a single man. They were getting pretty good at the death-on-sight policy toward anyone who looked Lamanitish. The Lamanite prisoners, noticing that, vowed to become titular “freemen” and defend such a concept of liberty. “Give us liberty or give us death,” became their mantra. Even individuals took it up.

By the grace of his hand, Moroni sent all of them to Ammon to become land workers on the collective farms, which included dairy herds and flocks of sheep for the textile industry. The Nephites sighed a collective “whew” at the good fortune of their mandatory all-for-one-and-one-for-all cultural system. Another victory for freedom.

After Moroni conquered Nephihah, gutting the Lamanite forces and taking back Nephite prisoners of war, he turned toward Lehi-by-the-Sea. The Lamanites saw his army coming and retreated. Where all the alleged Lamanite savagery and bravado went, I have no idea. Moroni’s armies, soon joined by those of Lehi and Teancum, pursued like hungry wolves, city to city till they reached the full contingent of all Lamanite armies cowering in, of all places, Moroni. Ammoron was the head cowerer.

The Nephite armies virtually surrounded them, then camped overnight. Everyone was tapped out—except for Teancum who had his own vendetta against Ammoron and his brother Amalickiah, whom Teancum blamed jointly for this years long trudge through war. They were the authors of the funeral industry. They were the villains that had starved out generations.

So Teancum went out in a seething rage, dropped himself over the city walls, found the king, threw a javelin in his chest and killed him. The king’s shouts awoke his slaves, who ran after Teancum and killed him.

Lehi and Moroni got wind of this weird lone-wolf suicide mission of Teancum’s and sobbed in horror and grief. He was one of the best, they thought, a valuable tool God used over and over to slaughter his foes. His death fortified the resolve of the troops, who went out the next day and acted like Teancum a thousand times over: slash, shake the blood off your sword, slash again, shake again, on and on till thousands more Lamanites were dead.

The Nephites got their land back and won the fight for freedom. And that’s how the thirty-first year ended. Another triumph in the poisonous tale of mutual obliteration.

Given how truly dysfunctional Nephite society had turned, you’d think God would let them lose a few more battles. But apparently he favors the whole group on the basis of the few members of it he really likes. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

The river of wars had two effects: it embittered people who thought less and less of the military’s pretenses, or it tenderized the hearts of those whose losses had overpowered them. They shrank back in disgust and yet craved a better relationship with God so they could understand how this was all supposed to work.

In any case, Moroni’s troops marched back into Zarahemla with their reputation flying over their heads like the banners they’d hung on a thousand towers. Moroni handed over command to his son Moronihah and went home to enjoy the aperitif of a tremulous peace and a heavy dose of fan worship.

Pahoran was at the judge’s bench, Helaman at the pulpit. The former stuck to his routine of disputes and resolutions. Helaman decided to hit the revival trail. The impulse was locked into his genes. Success too, apparently, because many people swooned, asked for baptism, and promised lifelong devotion, as all converts do for a time. The church grew all through the territory. New religion-based civil laws appeared. New judges got elected at every level.

Prosperity steamed from the populace as if it were a hot feast. Money, money everywhere and not a coin to withhold. By that I mean that these people shared their wealth, didn’t hoard it. They had no visible pride. They kept covenants with God. They remembered their churchy legacy. Not to mention how God had shielded them from intra-societal ugliness, kept them from being prosecuted (if that were ever necessary) or vanquished by enemies they knew or didn’t. They prayed and God demonstrably answered. They loved to talk about their successes in slightly immodest but ultimately humble grandstanding.

This is a fair characterization of their society through the thirty-fifth year, the year Helaman died.

A coda in the form of chronological overview: