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The cattle grazed on the stubbly grass, letting at the occasional moo and bellow as the

herd slowly moved across the pasture.

They competed for space with a vast flock of sheep, hundreds of the bleeding and chomping

under the watchful eye of adolescent shepherds and their barking dogs.

In the fields beyond, the farmers were weeding, pulling the pesky invaders out from among

their carefully-tended stands of wheat sticking upward out of the rich black earth.

The sky hung low here over the flat, grassy steppe, the land gently rolling into low hills

and distant ridges, some of them far away covered with trees.

As the sun began to dip lower toward the endless horizon, the shepherds drove their sheep and

cattle in defense enclosures for the evening.

A few stuck around to keep watch for the predators, some of them four-legged, others walking

around on to, who might try to make off with their precious animals during the night.

The farmers gathered their tools, others hefted large, finely painted pottery jugs full of milk.

Together, they began walking down a slightly sunken, well-worn path that wound its way

through the fields and pastures.

Plumes of smoke rose in the near distance, dozens of fires sending their signals upward

into the darkening sky.

As they walked along the path, coming closer and closer to the source of all that smoke,

a curving wall rose ahead of them.

The path cut through a gap and as they looked left and right, so did others, leading

...