Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  Enimhursag reached down again, and succeeded in killing another Gibli. The success gave him confidence. It gave him, perhaps, too much confidence, for his next try resulted in another wound, this one worse than that which Dimgalabzu had given him. A Gibli scribe’s voice rose in a triumphant cry.

  The Imhursagut cried out, too, in dismay. “Our god is wounded,” moaned a man in front of Sharur. “Our god bleeds!”

  “You will be wounded,” Sharur shouted at him. “You will bleed.” He flourished his sword and screwed his face up into a fierce and terrible grimace. When he took a step toward the Imhursaggi, the fellow spun on his heel and fled back through his own lines, throwing away his club to run the faster.

  Sharur threw back his head and laughed. He was a young man at the forefront of a victorious army. When he had sneaked into Imhursag disguised as a Zuabi, he had been afraid. When he had gone openly into Imhursag to deceive the god, he had been afraid. He had been alone each time then. He was not alone now. He and his comrades, he and the men of his own city, were driving the enemy before them. No wonder, then, he laughed.

  Also driving the enemy was one man not of his city. Grinning widely, Habbazu displayed a fine, heavy gold necklace. “So long as you took that from an Imhursaggi and did not steal it from a man of Gibil, enjoy it and profit from it,” Sharur said,

  “A man who would steal from his friends is no gentleman,” the thief replied. “In this fight, the Giblut are my friends, for they help keep the Imhursagut from doing my body harm. I have this of an Imhursaggi, not from a Gibli.”

  “It is good,” Sharur said. Along with the. nobles and smiths and scribes of Gibil, he pressed deeper into the wavering host of Imhursag, forcing the foe back in the direction of the canal that marked the border between Imhursaggi land and that of Gibil.

  Then a shadow fell on his part of the battlefield. Involuntarily, Sharur looked up. The day, like most days in Kudurru from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn, had been bright and clear. For a cloud to pass in front of the sun was rare.

  But no cloud had passed in front of the sun. Obscuring its light was the massive form of Enimhursag. Sharur stared up into the god’s enormous face. That proved a mistake.

  Enimhursag’s eyes widened as he recognized the mortal who had led him and his city into this war.

  “You liar!” Enimhursag shouted, his voice ringing in Sharur’s ears. “You cheat! You trickster! You Gibli!” To his mind, that seemed the crowning insult.

  He intended more than insult. With his left hand, the hand unencumbered by the sword, he reached down for Sharur. No green and growing stalks of barley hid Sharur from the god’s search and anger now. If Enimhursag squeezed him in that man-sized fist, his blood would pour down onto the struggling Giblut and Imhursagut, as the luckless Zuabi merchant’s blood had poured out of him after Enimhursag seized him by mistake.

  Unlike the luckless Zuabi, Sharur was not taken asleep and helpless on his mat. He had a sword in his hand and he had the determination to use it. He swung it at the enormous thumb that curled down to grasp him.

  The blade bit deep. Sharur yanked it free and slashed again. Enimhursag would have been wiser to try to smash him flat than to seek to lay hold of him. But the god had proved imperfectly wise in other ways as well. Wounded a second time, he bellowed like a bullock at the instant in which it is made into a steer: a cry of commingled pain and astonishment that without words said, How could such a dreadful thing happen to me?

  More great drops of ichor splashed the ground by Sharur. Enimhursag’s vital fluid did not have the harsh, metallic stink of human blood; it smelled more like the air just after lightning has struck close by—a smell that made the nose tingle on account of its power. If, affer the battle was over, wizards could find the spots where the god had bled and dig up the ground into which his ichor had soaked, they might do great things with it.

  That would be for later, though. For now, Sharur brandished his sword and shouted up to Enimhursag: “Go back to your own land. This land does not want you. Go back!”

  All the Giblut took up the cry: “Go back! This land does not want you. Go back!”

  Enimhursag howled in rage. He had expected the men of Gibil to welcome him as a liberator, to thank him for rescuing them from mad Engibil. But the Giblut not only did not welcome him, they not only did not thank him, they were handily defeating him and his people, and were defeating him by themselves, without even seeking the aid of their god.

  Where that must have humiliated Enimhursag, it made Sharur proud. And yet, at the same time, it worried him. He had not wanted the Imhursagut to beat the men of his city. But he had wanted to draw Engibil’s notice to the northern border of the land Gibil ruled. If the god of Gibil needed to pay no attention to the invasion, he would not-be distracted from affairs in and around his temple, and Habbazu would have a harder time stealing the Alashkurri cup.

  Sharur fought on. So did his fellow Giblut. Step by step, they forced back the Imhursagut. Enimhursag managed to slay a few more men of Gibil, but was also wounded again and again. Whenever the god tried to attack a smith or a scribe or some other man intimately connected with the new in Gibil, he found good reason to regret it.

  Sharur briefly wondered if smiths and scribes would also be able to resist the power of Engibil. Before that thought had the chance to do anything more than cross his mind, he forgot it, for Engibil appeared on the battlefield.

  He did not manifest himself as taller than a building, in the fashion of Enimhursag. He was, in fact, hardly more than twice as tall as a man. But his voice, like Enimhursag’s, rang above and through the merely human din of the fighting. “Go home,” he called to his fellow god, as the Giblut had done. “You have no business here.”

  “You are not a god, to give me orders,” Enimhursag shouted back. “You are not even a god to give your own people orders. If men will not heed you, why do you think I will heed you?”

  “The men of Gibil are doing as they should,” Engibil said. “They are driving greedy invaders from their land. They are doing as I desire. If they can do it without unduly troubling me, so much the better.”

  “You are mad,” Enimhursag said. “You let your men run wild. One day soon, they will run away with you.”

  “It is not so,” Engibil said, though Sharur thought it might perhaps be so. “Kimash the lugal and I have an understanding.”

  “Aye, no doubt,” Enimhursag said. “He does your job. While he does your job, you sleep. It is an understanding that requires no understanding: certainly it requires no understanding from you. This is as well, for you have no understanding to give.”

  “Mock me. Scorn me. Insult me. Revile me,” Engibil said complacently. “Your city falters. My city thrives.”

  “Truly you are asleep—or perhaps I am speaking with the ghost of Engibil, who died some time ago,” Enimhursag jeered. “Merchants from other cities of Kudurru shun Gibil. Merchants from lands beyond Kudurru shun Gibil. The gods from the land between the rivers shun Gibil and Engibil. The gods from lands beyond the land between the rivers shun Gibil and Engibil. And you say your city thrives!”

  “My city thrives,” Engibil repeated. “I know things of which you know nothing, and I say my city thrives. The proof lies before you: my men, the men of Gibil, move forward, while your men, the men of Imhursag, move back. You have puffed yourself up big as a pig’s bladder blown up with air, but still my men wound you. See how you bleed.”

  Enimhursag looked at his left hand, which Sharur and other Giblut had cut again and again. “Yes, still your men wound me,” the god said. “They wound me because they do not feel my power as they should. They have powers of their own, newfangled powers, godless powers, to set in the scales against my greatness, against my might, against my majesty.”

  Engibil laughed in the face of his rival god. “How great is your greatness, how mighty is your might, how majestic is your majesty if men wound you?’ ’

  “Laugh all you please,” En
imhursag said. “Today, men of your city wound me. Tomorrow, beware lest they wound you.”

  Engibil did not reply. He folded his arms across his chest. So far as Sharur could tell, he exerted no special strength against the strength of Enimhursag. If anyone answered the god of Imhursag, it was Kimash the lugal, who cried, ‘ ‘Forward the Giblut!”

  “Forward the Giblut!” the men of Gibil echoed, and the battle, which had hung suspended while the gods bickered, picked up once more.

  Sharur traded sword strokes with an Imhursaggi who, though larger than he, was not skilled with his weapon. Taking the foe’s measure, Sharur struck a clever blow. The sword flew from the Imhursaggi’s hand. Sharur brought back his own blade for the killing stroke.

  “Mercy!” the Imhursaggi cried. “Spare me!” He sank to his knees and set the palm of his hand on Sharur’s thigh in a gesture of desperate supplication. “I am your slave!” Bending lower, he kissed Sharur’s foot through the straps of his sandal. “Mercy!”

  “Get up,” said Sharur, who had no stomach for slaughter in such circumstances. “Go back through our line. Go back to our camp. Tell everyone as you go that you are the captive and slave of Sharur. If my people let you live long enough, I will give you over to. Ushurikti the slave dealer, that I may profit from your price or ransom.”

  “You are my master.” The Imhursaggi got to his feet. “I obey you as I would obey my god.”

  No one would get a stronger promise from an Imhursaggi. If Sharur’s captive broke it... if he broke that promise, he would make a better Gibli than an Imhursaggi, anyhow. Sharur jerked his thumb to the rear. Still babbling praises and thanks, the man shambled away.

  Habbazu said, “You might readily have slain him there. He is an enemy of your city. He is an enemy of your god. You would have gathered only praise.”

  “This way, I shall gather profit instead,” Sharur said. “Profit also has its uses. And, this way, I shall be able to ask Kimash the lugal for leave to go back to Gibil after the fight here is done, so that I may give my captive over to Ushurikti for safekeeping and for sale.”

  “You Giblut can be devious when you choose,” Habbazu remarked. “It is as well that your god smiles not on thieves; were it otherwise, the men of your city would make formidable rivals for us of Zuabu.”

  “We judge man by man, not city by city,” Sharur said.

  “That is because your god does not roll his own cylinder seal across your souls so strongly as do the gods of other cities,” Habbazu said. “This leaves you far more various from one man to another than are the men of Zuabu or Imhursag.”

  “It could be so,” Sharur said.

  “It is so.” The Zuabi thief spoke with assurance. “You live among the men of your own city. I see them as an outsider, and see with my own astonished eyes how various you Giblut are.” His eyes sparkled. “And now, another question: when you go back to Gibil to give your prisoner over to the slave dealer, may a certain retainer of such low estate he need not be mentioned to the godlike lugal accompany you?”

  “What makes you think I know such a man?” Sharur inquired blandly. Habbazu glared at him, then started to laugh. Sharur went on, “Indeed, if I knew such a one, he might well accompany me when I go back to Gibil.”

  “Perhaps you will soon make the acquaintance of such a one,” Habbazu said. At that moment, with Enimhursag bellowing to urge them on, the Imhursagut tried to rally. Habbazu said, “Perhaps we will both soon make the acquaintance of some large number of unfriendly men.”

  The Imhursagut fought fiercely, but the men of Gibil had more armor, better weapons, and, despite Enimhursag’s exhortations, more confidence. The rally faltered. The Imhursagut began falling back once more.

  Panting, Sharur was surprised to note how far the sun had sunk toward the western horizon. Panting hurt; he had taken a blow in the ribs from an Imhursaggi club. The blow had not been so strong as it might have, and had struck one of the bronze scales of his armor. Bruised he surely was, but he did not feel the grating or stabbing pains that would have warned of broken ribs.

  Back and back the Imhursagut went, until they reached the tents of their encampment. They rallied once more in front of those tents, fighting now for the possessions they had brought into Gibil as well as for their god. With darkness looming, Kimash drew back from a final assault.

  “He is wise,” Habbazu said. “If you make Enimhursag desperate, who can guess what he might do?’ ’

  “I would rather not find out,’’ Sharur said. “Kimash would rather not find out. It could even be that Engibil would rather not find out.’ ’

  “It could even be, indeed, that Engibil would rather not find out,’’ Habbazu said, nodding.

  Leaving behind scouts to warn and companies of soldiers to resist for a time if the Imhursagut, contrary to expectation, tried to steal the war by night, Kimash led the bulk of his own host back to their camp. The wounded men among them groaned and cried; those who were unwounded sang songs of praise to their lugal, to their city, and, almost as an afterthought, to their god.

  In the march back to the camp, Sharur found Tupsharru and Ereshguna. His brother bore no wound but the cut face Sharur had already seen; his father had bruised ribs almost identical to his own. “You should see what I did to the Imhursaggi, though,” Ereshguna boasted.

  At the camp waited the Imhursaggi whom Sharur had captured. He threw himself down before Sharur, crying, “I am your slave!”

  “Of course you are,” Sharur answered. “I am going to see if I can get leave from the lugal to take you back to the city and give you to the slave dealer there. I have no need for another slave of my own; the dealer will sell you or ransom you, and he and I will share the profit.”

  “You may do with me as you please,” the Imhursaggi said. “You spared my life when you might have slain me. I am yours.”

  Had capture ever been his fate, Sharur was certain he would have made a far more obstreperous prisoner than the abject Imhursaggi. But the Imhursaggi had been a slave before he was captured: a slave to his god. He was not getting a master for the first time, merely getting a new master. “Wait here,” Sharur told him. “I will return soon.”

  He found Kimash the lugal surrounded by his guardsmen. The lugal raised in salute the cup he was holding. “Come, son of Ereshguna!” he called in expansive tones, waving for Sharur to approach. “Drink beer with me.”

  Someone pressed a cup of beer into Sharur’s hand. He drank gladly; after a day of fighting in the hot sun, he was as dry as land to which no canal could bring water. “Mighty lugal,” he said when the cup was empty, “have I your leave to go back to Gibil come morning, to take a prisoner, a captive of my sword, to the house of Ushurikti the slave dealer for safekeeping?”

  “This will be the second Imhursaggi you have brought to Ushurikti, not so?” Kimash said. Sharur nodded, wondering if the lugal was angry at him for having captured Nasibugashi in the process of starting a war with Imhursag. But Kimash went on, “Aye, take this one back, too. Sooner or later, all the Imhursagut will be Gibli slaves, and deserve to be.” As soon as his cup of beer was empty, he began another. He was not drunk yet, but soon would be.

  Bowing his head, Sharur returned to his kinsfolk, his prisoner, and Habbazu. “Tomorrow we shall go down to Gibil,” he told the captive, “you and I and my comrade here.” He did not mention Habbazu’s name; what the Imhursaggi did not know, he could not tell. .

  “It is good,” the captive said. “Because you are generous, I still live. I still eat bread. I still drink beer. What can a man owe another man that is larger than his life? I know of no such thing. There is no such thing.”

  As a slave, he was liable to eat stale bread, and not much of it. As a slave, he was liable to drink sour beer, and muddy water dipped up from a canal as well. None of that seemed to bother him in the least. He had been a man of wealth in Imhursag, else he should not have held a bronze sword when he faced Sharur. Now, unless he was ransomed, he would be a man with nothin
g. Perhaps he failed to understand how far he had fallen. Sharur did not enlighten him; the more ignorant he was, the more tractable he would remain.

  “If you and your comrade and your captive are not awake at earliest dawn, I shall rouse you,” Ereshguna said as Sharur stretched out a mat on which to sleep. Like Sharur, his father did not mention Habbazu’s name. A man could not be too careful. Word of the name might get back to Kimash. Or, for that matter, Engibil might be listening. Stretching, Sharur worried over that—but not for long.

  When Sharur’s father shook him awake, he did not want to rise. He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he made himself get to his feet. “Is the captive still with us?” he asked, looking around in the gray dimness of early twilight.

  “Sleeping like a child,” Ereshguna answered. “I have seen this in other Imhursagut, and in men from other cities where gods rule. They do not fret so much as we; their gods fret for them, as they do everything else for them. There are times when I almost envy them. Almost.”

  Sharur saw Habbazu sipping a cup of beer. The Zuabi thief looked very alert, and very much as if he did all his own fretting. He nodded to Sharur.

  Ereshguna said, “Yesterday evening, after you lay down and as I was about to do the same, men came here from the pavilion of Kimash the lugal. They asked if we had ever laid hands on the thief we sought.” He still named no names. Habbazu smirked. Ereshguna went on, “I told them no, and they went away. But it will be well when you and your comrade leave this camp, lest someone wonder if Habbazu the Zuabi thief and Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary are one and the same.”

  “Yes.” Sharur stirred the sleeping Imhursaggi captive with his foot. The man looked confused for a moment, then recognized Sharur and recalled his circumstances. He scrambled to his feet and clasped his captor’s hand. Sharur gave him bread and beer for breakfast, then led him south, back toward Gibil.