Helaman

Helaman 1

Year 40 of judge-rule: serious trouble for Nephites. Pahoran had died and fresh contestants fought over who was next in the judge-throne. All were Pahoran’s sons: Pahoran Jr., Paanchi, and Pacumeni. Hard to keep their names straight in some ways, though Jr. had the advantage. They all ginned up their campaign platforms with spicy digressions to stick out. But, no surprise, Pahoran Jr. won.

Pacumeni went along with the vote.

Although judges exist mostly to protect minorities, majority rule still ruled. But Paanchi and his devotees couldn’t swallow defeat. They wanted open rebellion. A coup. But before they could get their coup up, the police arrested Paanchi. His brother, the new boss judge, called for a trial, which Paanchi lost. The sentence? Death, of course, which seemed to be the solution to most problems at the time.

This didn’t sit well with the Paanchi-ites. These political cultists hired a hit-man, Kishkumen, who killed Pahoran Jr. as he sat in his judge’s chair.

Pahoran’s footmen chased him. But Kishkumen had plenty of experience in running and hiding. The footmen were no match. When he got back to the smoke-filled backroom where the cultists plotted, they all made a pact of secrecy and Kishkumen changed his appearance. As he and his oathbound gang circulated on the streets, the police rounded up some of them. They were almost instantly sentenced to death.

The last-running candidate of the original election ended up as the new judge. There’s a moral in this, something about patience or serendipity, I’m sure. But I’m not going there.

Year 41: The largest and best-equipped army of Lamanites showed up on the Zarahemla border. Their general? An overgrown bully, the estranged Nephite revolutionary named Coriantumr. The Lamanite king, Tubaloth ben-Ammoron, put a lot of stock in Coriantumr’s intellectual girth and well-toned upper body. A slam dunk, he thought. So he revved up crowds not only to essentially worship Coriantumr but to volunteer to be on his front lines invading Nephite territory. This blood feud was unstoppable. And here was a cult hero in the making.

The Nephite Achilles Heel: the civil unrest about Pahoran, et al. Internal dissent drew attention away from outside threats. And complacency always dogged the New World.

Coriantumr led a quick-step march to the city gates, where he found a completely unprepared populace. City guards scrambled for weapons and armor. Coriantumr easily hacked them down, took his men through the gates, and started to stab and beat anyone who dared stand their ground. Before anyone could even spread the news, the Lamanites had taken the city. Pacumeni ran to the city walls to get out. Coriantumr personally whacked him against the wall with his sword. And that was the end of the last of three once-competing judges in the land of freedom.

Coriantumr stared across the blood alleys in his wake and smiled. In less than an hour he’d taken the strongest, testiest city in the New World. After packing any survivors into prison cells, slamming and locking the doors, he and his troops, veins flowing with bile, quick-stepped toward Bountiful City. Their mission: take over the north.

They marched on the plains without warning, easily overpowering the small, scruffy, urban Nephite militias.

Moronihah got wind of this and licked his lips at what seemed good luck for him and his growingly pretentious forces. The urban folk were a buffer against the urban strongholds that Moronihah felt sure they could keep.

But the Lamanites were a juggernaut on an reckless path. They rolled over any resistance they met. They took over everything from cabins to statehouses.

Moronihah sent Lehi and his army to fend off Coriantumr’s forces before they could hit Bountiful. So Lehi did and started to push the Lamanites back to Zarahemla. Moronihah, seeing his troops were winning, went to the frontlines. They roared like a wildfire across the Lamanites. In what was the bloodiest battle anyone recalled, Coriantumr himself fell. Having moved out from their scattered cities, the Nephite armies surrounded the Lamanite aggressors. With Coriantumr now dead, the aggressors quickly gave up.

Moronihah and his troops retook the city of Zarahemla. But he didn’t kill the prisoners, just exiled them back to Lamanite territories. This was as Christian as Moronihah had ever acted—though Christianity has its own dangers, as we’ve seen.

Year 42: Peace, but a vacant judgeship.