Mormon 4

Year 363: The Nephites went from Desolation to battle against the Lamanites, who drove them right back. As the Nephites nursed their wounds in Desolation, Lamanites attacked them there, seized the city, took prisoners, and slaughtered thousands (no official count).

Those who escaped went to nearby Teancum.

None of this would have happened if the Nephites had not launched their unprovoked alleged vengeance campaign. One group may win, another lose, but in God’s eyes they’re all losers if they act like brutes and settle life’s problems by releasing more hormones and acting on them. Call the mutual destruction karma, if you want. I call it God’s prisoners performing their own executions.

Year 364: The Lamanites attacked Teancum. The Nephites rebuffed them, then started to boast again and in a new onslaught, took back Desolation.

What piece of real estate is worth ten thousand rotting human carcasses?

By year’s end nothing had changed. The same old cycle of violence that has ruined man’s potential since Cain chopped his brother down.

I’ve probably been understating the scene. We don’t have a huge vocabulary and if we did I don’t know that I’d pollute the language by using all the words that apply. I’ll just say that blood was everywhere: running on the ground, drying out in open wounds, flaking from dead skin. Every form that blood takes was in eyeshot wherever you looked. And every soldier that was left, so far as I could tell, wanted nothing more than to spill more blood. It was the first time I’d seen actual bloodlust.

I doubt there’s been a pathology this deep and repulsive since the world began. But then again, we live in a pretty sheltered place. There may well be contenders elsewhere.

Anyway, the Lamanites took over Desolation, soon outnumbering the Nephites there. They did the same with Teancum, then sacrificed animals to their invented gods to boot.

Year 367: Nephite men rose up in hate, looking for vengeance one more time. This time they routed the Lamanites.

No more Lamanite attacks till Year 375. And then it was a full-scale, fullon blitzkrieg. They ravaged the Nephites the way maggots ravage a corpse.. Evaporated them like the sun evaporates dew

Nephites who escaped went this time to Boaz and put up a good fight—the first time around. The second time it wasn’t good enough. Lamanites killed the men and used the women and children for human sacrifices.

Again, a few escaped and rallied citizens of surrounding towns, coalescing forces for more attacks.

Meanwhile, I took the plates back to Shim Hill. I felt strongly the Lamanites were about to take over and I couldn’t let them have these.