Conflict of Empires (2010)

by Sam Barone

  The Sumerian horsemen needed only moments to turn around and countercharge. Shappa didn’t intend to give them that moment. “Throw! Throw! Slow them down!”

  A few of the slingers let loose their missiles while they pressed ahead, but most slowed down enough to put all their force into the throw. Hundreds of stones rose up into the air, to descend on the Sumerian cavalry. In moments, the air hummed with the steady sounds of slings snapping as they hurled their small but deadly projectiles at the enemy horsemen.

  By now all four hundred slingers were in range, and missiles filled the air, striking horse and rider in what seemed like an unceasing rain of bronze. It was almost impossible not to hit something, with so many horses jammed together. The animals began bucking and rearing, whinnying in pain as the heavy round pellets stuck their necks and chests, or glanced off their flanks. Some of the riders turned aside, moving either toward their own rear or trying to get to the slingers’ flank or rear.

  Shappa had to prevent that. If he could move his men directly between Eskkar’s cavalry and the enemy horsemen, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone in his rear. The thought that he might get run down never entered his head.

  “Keep moving forward! Move closer!” Shappa gave the order and set the example, moving forward, determined to put his slingers directly between Eskkar’s force and the Sumerian horsemen. Off to his right, he caught a glimpse of Nivar urging his men in the same direction, even as his friend loosed his own weapon.

  Enemy riders went down, struck by stones or pitched from their mounts. The countercharge against Eskkar’s riders hesitated, then stopped, as men fought to control their animals. None of the Sumerians or Tanukhs had ever faced slingers before, and this new tactic by this strange foe had them confused. Their horses, too, reacted with fear to these men whirling things through the air.

  Shappa knew his men looked helpless and vulnerable, without any real weapons. The obvious Sumerian tactic would be to ride them down. To accomplish that, the great numbers of Sumerian cavalry needed only to move as a concerted force, ignoring their losses until they could ride into the slingers’ midst. But the stones kept coming, smashing into the enemy horsemen with even greater force as the slingers drew closer.

  A few riders charged the slingers. Some even managed to evade the dozens of stones flung at them. But when those hardy Sumerians tried to strike down the apparently helpless slingers, they saw their opponents throw themselves to the ground beneath the Sumerian swords, only to rise up an instant later and strike with their long knives at the rear legs of the horses. Wounded animals reared out of control, unhorsing their riders, who then became easy targets for the slingers’ stones or long knives.

  Shappa had trained his men well, and they knew to seek out enemy commanders as targets for their missiles, those men who would be trying to restore order and rally their ranks. Without commanders urging them forward – ordering them to run down the slingers and kill them at any cost – the Sumerians continued to hesitate, then some began turning away from the rain of missiles. They saw the fate of those who had rushed into the slingers’ midst, and decided a more prudent course of action was to ride around them. A few galloped off, as much to get out of range of the slingers as to reach the Akkadian rear.

  Shappa ignored them. He kept directing his slingers against the mass of horsemen still milling about. The stones sought them out, arcing higher in the sky before falling. When they struck the horses, the animals bolted or started bucking, often tossing their riders to the earth at the same moment. Shappa had to keep up the pressure. The Sumerians had thousands of riders, and if it occurred to all of them to simply ride around the flanks of the slingers, both Eskkar and the spearmen would be in trouble.

  But the havoc and commotion of Eskkar’s charge had driven reason from their heads. They had thought only of attacking Eskkar’s smaller force, hitting them from the rear and wiping them out. They wanted to reach the Akkadian king, not waste time on insignificant slingers, and risking their own lives in the process.

  Shappa had no time to worry about that. He kept dropping stones into his pouch, and flinging them toward the enemy. Suddenly his hand came up empty from the first pouch. He had already thrown over thirty stones. He ripped open the second sack, and hoped that the Sumerians turned back, or help arrived, before he emptied that one as well. Off to one side, he saw a large force of enemy horsemen moving across the battle line, intending to attack Gatus’s rear.

  That didn’t concern him. His task this day was to halt or slow down the Sumerian cavalry, and by all the gods, he intended to do just that.

  Razrek picked himself up from the ground. He didn’t remember falling, but a stone must have struck his bronze helmet and knocked him from his horse. He needed both hands to push himself to his feet. His sword had vanished, lost in the debris that now littered the battlefield. Bodies of men and horses lay scattered on the ground all around him. Those cursed slingers continued to hurl their missiles into his horsemen, many of them milling around like a bunch of frightened women.

  With an oath he stumbled toward the rear. A horse kicked its heels, its halter tangled around its dead rider. The man’s body kept the frightened animal from bolting. A vicious cut with his knife freed the rope, and Razrek jerked the halter so hard that the stunned animal ceased its frantic efforts to get away. Still, it took all his strength to pull himself onto the animal.

  “Razrek! Razrek! We can’t get through!” Mattaki pulled up beside him. “Those slingers are blocking the way …”

  “I can see, you fool! Forget Shulgi, and forget these slingers. Get our men to the rear of the Akkadian infantry. We can ride them down. They’ve no one behind them.”

  “I’ll rally the men …”

  Two stones arrived at the same time. One hit Mattaki’s horse in the chest, and the other glanced off Razrek’s forehead.

  For a few moments, Mattaki fought to regain control of his bucking mount. When he finally got the animal under control, he turned toward Razrek, and saw his leader motionless, flat on his back with his forehead a mass of blood, either dead or dying. More stones hissed through the air. The accursed Akkadian slingers still had a plentiful supply of missiles.

  Mattaki thought of all the gold he’d buried deep in the earth near the edge of the desert, and decided he had had enough fighting for the day. Razrek was dead and, win or lose today, Shulgi wasn’t going to be too happy with the commanders of his cavalry. Mattaki wheeled his horse around and galloped at full speed away from the battle. A few other horsemen had already reached the same conclusion. By twos and threes, then by twenty and thirty, many of the Sumerian cavalry followed, riding away from the battlefield.

  Gatus heard the wild roar that signaled Eskkar’s charge. The enemy spearmen had pushed forty or fifty paces past their line of stakes, their bowmen moving up behind them. The first Sumerian arrows began to strike the Akkadian shield wall, and he knew that soon every Sumerian bowman would have the entire Akkadian force within range. But that didn’t matter any longer. The line of deadly stakes had vanished, overrun by the advancing enemy. The time had come. The anvil had to move forward.

  “Spearmen. Ready to advance!” One brief moment to make sure the command reached up and down the line. “Advance! Fast march! Advance! Attack!”

  Up and down the line, leaders of ten and twenty repeated the commands. The line moved forward. No slow step this time. The Akkadian infantry took full strides, moving as quickly as the ground permitted, determined to close with their enemy and get past the arrows beginning to rain down on them. Ignoring the noise and cries of battle all around them, they quick marched in silence, shields raised, spears still carried low in the right hand.

  The two soldiers responsible for guarding Gatus pulled him from his horse. One handed him a sturdy shield. As the only mounted man, he would have drawn every Sumerian arrow, and Eskkar himself had warned them about that possibility. One guard smacked the mare on the rump, sending it away from the coming batt
le.

  Gatus had no time to do more than swear at his guards. He rushed forward, slipping his arm through the shield’s leather grip and hitching it into position. His two guards stayed in front, using their shields to protect his sides from any stray arrow. Behind him, he heard Mitrac ordering the bowmen forward as well. If the archers were going to face a Sumerian arrow storm, they’d be safer as close behind the spearmen as they could get.

  Arrows now flew in both directions, and the Sumerian arrows started to take their toll. Men dropped out of the advancing line, killed or wounded, but the line kept its cohesion and those in the rear ranks moved forward to fill the spaces of those who’d fallen.

  Gatus stretched his body upward, jumping every few steps so that he could see the men’s progress and gauge the remaining distance to the enemy spearmen. A dozen more paces. The approaching enemy had closed to within a hundred and fifty paces. Close enough, he decided.

  “Spearmen! Ready to charge!”

  Those words rippled up and down the line, the men growling impatiently. Voices called out from the ranks, to add their own encouragement to their leaders orders, as they waited for the final command that would release them to the attack. But they never stopped moving forward.

  Gatus’s bellow rolled out over the battlefield. “Spearmen! Charge! Charge! Charge!” The two Akkadian drummers, silent up to this moment, now pounded the attack drumbeat.

  With a roar that drew every head on the battlefield, the Akkadian spearmen broke into a run. The spears were lifted to the attack position, raised just over the shield, which they held at eye level. With their bronze helmets, only Akkadian eyes and spear points were visible to the enemy.

  Everyone shouted as loud as they could. The line surged forward. They’d been silent throughout the battle so far, and now they intended to make up for it. War cries filled the air as the line rushed forward. Some parts moved a bit quicker than others, but the three-man-deep attack line remained in good order, holding its cohesion. For long months the men had trained to charge together, spears raised, shouting as loud as they could. Now all that training would be put to the real test.

  The Sumerian line, which had moved at a regular marching pace, heard the savage drumbeats and saw the enemy approaching at a run, screaming war cries as their spears moved up and down with each stride. The Sumerian line slowed slightly. They had expected the two lines to close together at the fast marching pace. No one expected a wild charge by the smaller force, still only three ranks deep.

  Most of the others didn’t notice the slight slowing, the doubt creeping into the Sumerian forward line. Gatus, however, had been searching for it. By now he could see wide-eyed Sumerian faces showing the first hint of fear. The Sumerian army might win the battle, but those spearmen in the front line knew who was going to take the full brunt of the collision.

  “Attack! Charge! Kill them all! Akkad! Akkad! Attack!”

  Gatus’s words, bellowed with every breath within him, swept over the ranks. The frenzied spearmen repeated the war cries. They all screamed like demons possessed. Then the gap between the forces disappeared.

  The Akkadian spearmen crashed into the still advancing Sumerian line. At the moment of contact, spears were driven forward with every bit of strength the men could summon. Sounds of splintering wood crackled over the deeper crash as shield wall met shield wall, both overshadowing the sudden cries of the wounded and dying. The noise drowned out every other part of the battle, as the shields smashed together up and down the line.

  In the front rank, bronze spear points tore right through Sumerian shields, to impale the shrieking body behind it. The Akkadian second rank pushed their shields into the backs of the men in front of them, leaned forward, and drove their spears into the faces of the enemy, jabbing again and again at any thing that moved, any flesh that showed itself.

  The Sumerian front line went down by the dozens. Despite having twice as many men in the ranks, and overlapping the Akkadians to some extent, the Sumerian countercharge slowed, and stopped.

  As the Akkadian second and third ranks closed up, the six-deep Sumerian line found themselves, to their own surprise, being pushed back by the smaller force. To the Sumerians, these Akkadians were indeed demons, unafraid to attack a superior force. The Sumerian spearmen – forced to take a step or two backward to regain their momentum – found themselves incapable of moving forward again. Instead they found themselves slipping or stumbling, unable to use their weapons. Some tried to duck behind the shield of another, to gain a moment’s protection from the spears and swords now being thrust at their faces.

  The Akkadians kept pushing, pushing, driving the heavier line backwards, their powerful leg muscles thrusting furiously against the earth, as they tried to shove the Sumerian line into the ground. Men tripped and stumbled over dead bodies, and live ones, too, whose howls rose up from the ground as they were trampled on.

  The smell of dying men was in the air and blood now soaked the ground. Shields, helmets, faces, all were splashed in hot liquid that spurted from open veins and splattered like rain against men’s faces and shields. Soldiers shouted their battle cries into the faces of their enemy, sometimes only a hand’s width away from their own. Other men screeched in agony as sharp spear points thrust into their bodies.

  Many in the Akkadian front rank had lost their spears, either splintering from the collision or hopelessly entangled with the enemy. But despite the press of bodies at their front and rear, each could still manage to draw his short sword. Some men – squeezed in front and back by the pressure of opposing shields – had no room to use a blade. Instead they smashed the pommel of the weapon into their opponents’ faces. Others jabbed the sword’s point into the heads and necks of those pressed against them, or those in the rank behind. They struck again and again, until the man in front of them went down. When that happened, the now ragged line would surge another half-step forward, bringing a new opponent into reach.

  Some of the dead had no room to fall, kept upright for a few moments by the sheer press of numbers. Others, their bodies slippery with blood, slid to the ground, many still alive and gasping at the thought of what awaited them. To fall meant never to rise again. Scrambling feet from both sides trampled those underfoot, adding new pain to existing wounds or simply crushing the life from their bodies.

  The battle had degenerated into individual combat, with each man pressed against the opposing man’s shield. But the Akkadians had trained hard for just such an encounter. They welcomed the pressure of their companion’s shield in their back, and as Gatus had taught them, they never stopped struggling to move forward. They knew their legs would win the battle for them, as long as they pressed ahead. The days of long and hard training under Gatus’s tutelage kept the shield wall not only intact, but moving forward, a half-step every few moments. The smaller force had not only stopped the advancing Sumerians, but now began to drive them backwards, step by step.

  For the Sumerians, to reach the front rank meant death, but still they held their ground, clinging stubbornly to their position. The Sumerian commanders urged their men forward, and determined men hurled themselves against the backs of their ranks. The Akkadian advance slowed, then stopped. The greater weight of numbers on the Sumerian side began to weigh against the tiring Akkadian infantry. The battle line surged and rippled, but the Sumerians, now in a battle frenzy of their own, halted the onrush and began to push their enemy backwards.

  Klexor led his men at the charge, at first following the path of Eskkar and Hathor. Klexor’s orders were to take his men between the other Akkadian commanders. The battle plan required that the king break through the line with his men and seek out Shulgi. Hathor would attack the Sumerian left flank. Klexor’s objective was to guide his three hundred men between Eskkar and Hathor’s forces, and crumple the Sumerian spearmen’s rear, to disrupt the Sumerian infantry from behind. Only by attacking from the front and rear could the Akkadians hope to prevail over the superior numbers of their enemy. Never
theless, this meant Klexor’s men had the greatest distance to cover before they came to grips with the enemy. To make sure his horsemen followed his lead, Klexor had the steadiest men under his command. All of them knew where to go, and what to do.

  Eskkar’s men had vanished into a mob of swirling horses and screaming men. Still, Klexor found the tiniest of gaps, only a few paces wide, between Hathor and Eskkar’s fighters. Klexor raised his sword and guided his horse toward the opening. “Attack! Follow me! Attack!”

  He swept past Hathor’s still struggling horsemen. In front of Klexor the enemy spears loomed up. The enemy left flank still extended beyond the line of Gatus’s spearmen, and hadn’t yet engaged in battle. Now they saw Klexor’s thundering horsemen approaching, and tried to turn to their rear to meet this new threat. But that maneuver required some doing. Men had to shift and reform ranks, a task that would take precious moments. If they could raise a wall of spear points between them and Klexor’s men, they would be able to stop the advance.

  But before the Sumerians could form up, Klexor’s cavalry began hurling their javelins at the mass of men struggling to regroup. Flung with all a man’s strength, and aided by the speed of the galloping horse, the deadly missiles rained down on the reforming ranks. Arrows, too, flew into the Sumerians, disrupting their effort to form a solid line. Some men panicked, trying to shift out of the path of the onrushing horsemen that had suddenly appeared in their rear.

  Klexor saw the fear in their faces as he swung his sword down with all his might, striking right and left at anything that moved, pushing the horse ahead with all his strength.