The sound was a deep, grinding roar that shook the very ground, followed by screams that were sharp and immediate. A section of the newly raised western wall, a quarter-mile from the palace complex, had collapsed. A plume of dust, like the brown ghost of the fallen structure, rose into the sky.
They arrived at a scene of utter chaos. A residential sector was buried under tons of shattered mud-brick. The air was thick with dust and the wails of grief and desperate shouts for help from those trapped within.
King Kur's face was a mask of cold, focused fury. He immediately summoned the foreman of that section.
"The mixture was flawed!" the man stammered, trembling before his ruler's wrath. "The straw binder was not to specification! I take full responsibility—"
Lagnun spoke without looking up from a small wax tablet he was already sketching corrections on. "The tensile strength of the bricks from that batch was 18.3% below design tolerance," he stated, his voice devoid of blame or anger. It was a simple, clinical statement of fact. "The structural failure was inevitable."
King Kur cut him off with a sharp gesture. He was not looking at the foreman, but at the collapse, his mind already calculating the political and strategic damage. "The structural integrity of the entire western defensive line is compromised. This sector is a cancer. It must be cauterized." He turned to his captain of the guard. "Quarantine the area. No one in or out. We will contain the damage, then demolish the entire sector and rebuild from the foundation. The design must be pure."
The captain nodded, already moving to cordon off the area with his guards, their faces stoic as they ignored the desperate cries from within the rubble.
Lagnun gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. The demolition and rebuild were, from a purely engineering and logistical standpoint, the most efficient solution.
Enki felt the order like a physical blow to his chest. "They are your people," he said, his voice tight with a disbelief that was both ancient and fresh. "There are families in there. Children. You would bury them alive for the sake of your 'design'?"
Kur finally looked at him, his eyes utterly devoid of empathy, reflecting only cold logic. "To save the body, one must sometimes cauterize a wound. The few are sacrificed for the stability of the whole. It is the first principle of triage. It is the first principle of statecraft. It is logical."
It was the most horrifying thing Enki had ever heard. This was his first true moral precipice. To obey was to become Kur. To defy him was to declare war.