And it was changing—our luck would not hold forever. Having driven the fire up the valley wall to the very summit, the wind began to fade. The fire seemed trapped inside Daiaukka’s camp, where slowly it would sputter out. That was where we would meet our enemy, amidst the ashes of his stronghold. And it would not be long before the battle was joined.
The sun was within an hour of noon when we first reached the outskirts of Daiaukka’s burned out campsite. Within minutes teams of laborers had dug out sections of the earth ramparts and pushed them into the surrounding ditch so that our chariots could cross. We took possession, having conquered nothing, not even the scorched earth itself. We had merely arrived at the scene of our ordeal by combat—even as the smoke drifted away we could see the Medes marshaling themselves for the counterattack.
Thus the two great armies faced each other across not even half a beru of flat, fire-blackened land. We would fight on level ground now—Daiaukka had lost that tactical advantage—but he had withdrawn his men in good order and his force was still greatly superior in numbers. And now we were all, the Medes and us alike, weary, hardened to fear, and sick of the smell of blood, which meant that the coming battle would be waged with the desperate cruelty of men who have already learned to despair of their lives.
The Medes had their lines drawn up after the pattern they had learned from us: foot soldiers in the center with horsemen at both wings. They had no chariots, an instrument of warfare with which the mountain nations had yet to grow familiar, but our battlefield was so constricted that I feared we would not be able to use our own to very great advantage— the time had come for close fighting, the hardest and most pitiless kind of war. It but wanted a beginning.
There was silence. It was that terrible calm just before the storm breaks as each side waits upon the other. I could hear the rattle of my horses’ harness. Everyone, even the Medes, seemed to be waiting for my signal to begin.
At last, when I could stand it no longer, I raised my arm and shouted, “Ashur is King!” Instantly that shout was echoed by twenty thousand voices. I cracked my whip, the chariot lurched forward, and I found myself hurtling down on the Median lines.
I could feel a thousand spears leveled at my breast, but they did not matter—the battle had begun and as I collided with what seemed a wall of enemy horsemen I felt myself as deathless as the very gods.
Words are but poor things to describe what the next hour was like. They passed in a blood streaked blur as the ecstasy of battle was upon me. I hit a boulder with my chariot wheel and broke an axle, so I cut one of the lead horses free from its traces and, even before I could scramble on its back, armed with nothing but my short sword and a single javelin, I saw a Mede galloping down on me, his lance point already swinging around to impale me like an apple. He was no more than forty or fifty paces from me when I first noticed him, and riding hard, but I seemed to have an infinity of time. In one fluid motion, uncoiling like a snake, I turned and threw, knowing before the javelin left my hand that it would strike home. The Mede horseman pitched over the hindquarters of his mount and fell dead almost at my feet, the point of my javelin sticking a hand span out of his back.
“Good,” I thought, “then I have it again.” I put my foot on the man’s chest and pulled my javelin free with one quick yank. Of such things is a man capable when the blood frenzy is upon him.
For that day I seemed to bear a charmed life. Nothing could touch me. A hundred swords and lances and arrows beyond counting drew me for their mark, but always they fell short, or their aim was wanting, or I seemed able to deflect them. Sometimes I seemed surrounded by the Medes, on foot and on horseback, yet I cut then down like summer barley. I was not afraid—what was there for me to fear when Death was a god who lived in my right arm?
But at last I broke free from this enchantment. All at once I found myself alone. There was no enemy within the reach of my hand, and as I looked about for one I saw how the field was thickly strewn with dead and dying men—Medes and my own soldiers both, having sealed that truce which subsists among the corpses of all nations. It had been a bloody day, and the sun had not yet descended two hours from noon.
We had reached a terrible standoff, in which both armies could only butcher one another, each man hoping to inflict the deadly blow before it fell on his own shoulders. For the most part, the battle squares of my foot soldiers still held, but the Medes in their vast numbers and their astonishing, reckless courage, were pressing down hard upon them. The cavalry on both sides had abandoned even the pretense of a cohesive strategy, and their horses weaved in and out of the mobs of soldiers to strike at what targets they could find.
Nothing could be worse than this, I thought. The gods made war to punish men’s iniquity. And then: We must break free. We must. . .
But what? I was not the rab shaqe now—I was only one more soldier among so many. The time for grand strategies was long past, and these men, locked in an embrace of the most sickening carnage, would only fall away from each other when, on one side or both, they grew too weary to hold on any longer.
And before then. . .
I could hear something—a shrill war cry that seemed to come from nowhere, like the screams of a hunting hawk as it falls upon its prey. It was an oddly familiar sound, yet I could not remember where I had heard it before. . .
And then I knew. I turned my head, knowing what I would see—the Scythian riders, streaming down from a nearby bluff, an avalanche of men and horses. Tabiti had kept his bargain.
My men heard it too—and so did the Medes—and at once it seemed to turn the fortune of battle. Suddenly, as if they had found new hearts, even before the shock of that first charge made itself felt, the soldiers of Ashur surged forward. The Medes began to buckle, and then, from one instant to the next, like a rotting plank under a man’s foot, their lines simply broke.
These things happen quickly. What a few minutes before had been a battle all at once became a rout. The Scythians, like scavenging birds, merely finished off an enemy already wounded to the death. Daiaukka’s brave warriors, those who did not take to their heels, were simply trampled under the wild rush of our victory. The slaughter which followed was terrible to witness.
And it went on until the merciful darkness forced it to a halt. As long as the sun’s light held, the Medes suffered death and mutilation. Those who were wounded or had been left without a horse or found themselves trapped behind the swift current of our advance perished like sheep at the butcher’s block as the victors took their revenge and collected trophies: heads, hands—in one case I recall the skin from a man’s arm, peeled off even to the fingernails, red with blood. It would make a quiver cover when it dried.
My own soldiers soon grew weary of the business. They had fought since the hours before dawn and were sick of blood, so their officers had little difficulty in bringing them to good order. But the Scythians were fresh and, having been cheated of their proper share of the battle, felt disposed, after the fashion of barbarians, to make the most of whatever was left. They were not my men. I could not have restrained them.
Did I even wish to? I know not. At first the necessity of taking any kind of action did not even enter my brain. I was stupid with exhaustion and for several minutes could only gaze out over the developing carnage with the mute incomprehension of an animal. As soon as the Medes had begun their flight, however, my principal officers began gathering about me on the field to await my commands. It was time to return to life.
“Lushakin!” I shouted—suddenly I was filled with alarm. “Lushakin, take as many men as you need and find Daiaukka. If he is still on the field, find him! Find him alive, if you can—he will be far less use to us with his throat cut by some Scythian bandit—but alive or dead, find him!”
“Rab Shaqe, no one except yourself has ever seen him,” was his highly sensible answer. “How are we to know one blood smeared Mede from another?”
“Take prisoners then—find a few willing to sell their lord for a chance
to live. Hurry!”
As Lushakin climbed on his horse to do my bidding, I tried to force myself to think. There were orders which at this moment should have sprung naturally to my lips—what were they? My mind seemed unable to hold any idea except that of Daiaukka’s hacked and bloody corpse.
He could not be allowed to cheat me. Now now—not after all this.
“Think!” I told myself. “Today, you are the victor here. Act the part!”
“Give the men one hour,” I said, “and then I want this brought to an end. And send out patrols to look for whatever has escaped of Daiaukka’s cavalry. Do not interfere with them; simply report on their numbers.”
“What of the Scythians, Rab Shaqe?”
“Yes, what of the Scythians, Rab Shaqe?”
I looked up and saw Tabiti leaning over his horse’s neck to grin down at me pityingly. He looked as fresh as if he had just risen from his bed.
“We will leave them to their robber chief,” I said. “How are you, brother? We would have carried the day without you, but perhaps men will say that you helped a little.”
The headman of the Sacan threw his head back and laughed like a jackal. Then, as if he had remembered something, he swung his horse around and scanned the field.
“Not many of the foot soldiers have escaped,” he said. “But the riders were more fortunate. It is a thing to be regretted, for the Medes are possessed of fine horses. Yet a robber must take his booty were he finds it, brother.”
He laughed again. Tabiti was wise enough to know he had no reason to be displeased with this day’s work.
“But I tarry,” he went on, gathering up his reins. “My men require me as the companion of their sport.”
“Tabiti. . .”
“Yes, brother—what is it?” His catlike eyes widened inquisitively.
“The shah Daiaukka, if you find him alive. . .”
“Then I shall kill him. What of it, brother.”
“I need him alive, if that is convenient.”
“You wish to kill him yourself—yes, I understand perfectly.” He flashed his white teeth in an amused smile. “If he falls in my way, I will save him for you. Farewell, brother.”
He rode away, like a boy eager to chase rabbits. His was an uncomplicated view of the world and I envied him.
The silence that he left behind was broken by the hurried sounds of voices and the screams of dying men. The real horrors always come at the ends of battles and perhaps it is better so, lest men forget that fighting is a serious matter, not to be entered into lightly. I saw soldiers, their tunics soaked in blood, sitting down among the corpses of their enemies, clearing the dust from their throats with water from goatskin bags filled by women who did not yet know that their sons and husbands were dead. Already my men were starting to quarrel over their loot—it would not be long, if they were left to themselves, before they began cutting each other’s throats. Such is ever the glorious conclusion of war.
“I weary of this,” I said, to no one in particular. “Someone fetch me a horse that I may return to camp. See that everything I have ordered is done.”
It was almost dark before I found my own tent again. With the smell of carnage finally out of my nostrils, I was looking forward to my dinner and then, perhaps, the unimaginable luxury of a full night’s sleep, but it was not to be.
A small knot of men was waiting for me and, lying on the ground in front of them, was some object wrapped in a blanket. No one spoke.
At last, in the imperfect way of one whose eyes have seen more than his mind can hold, I understood that what the blanket concealed was yet another corpse—there were so many, why trouble me about one more?
And then I felt my bowels grow cold with apprehension. I knelt down beside the body and uncovered its face. It was Tabshar Sin, staring at me with wide, cloudy eyes that still registered the shock of death.
I had been in many battles, but never, I think, until that moment had I known what it was to hate my enemy.
. . . . .
There are times when it seems impossible to grow drunk. I tried, but it was hopeless. Each swallow merely sharpened the hard edge on things, so that my mind, like a small child playing with a dagger, seemed to cut itself with every fumbling movement.
So I was in no very happy frame of mind as I sat by the campfire in front of my tent, the corpse of Tabshar Sin at my feet, wrapped and ready for burial. A spear had caught him under the arm, breaking off at the shaft only when its point had crossed straight through the center of his chest. They say that such a massive wound brings no pain, that a man is dead before he feels more than the impact of the blow which kills him. I can only hope it is true.
He had met his simtu as an ordinary soldier and had lain unnoticed until someone remembered that this was the old man who had taught Prince Tiglath his first lessons in the warrior’s craft and enjoyed the rab shaqe’s love almost as a second father. I indeed had loved him, yet I could not even weep for him. What was missing in me that I could not shed tears over the body of Tabshar Sin? Why could grief find no outlet except in dark hate?
The wine tasted bitter—life was bitter, and death merely the last of the god’s cruel jests. In the morning I would bury my old rab kisir, and I promised myself that many Median prisoners would pacify his ghost by emptying their heart’s blood onto his grave. They would pay, although it was my fault more than theirs—I should have left him back in Amat, where he would have lived to die in bed. That did not matter, however. The Medes would still pay. I would find an ax and hack off their heads myself as they knelt over his burial mound, and thus they would make my amends for me. Lack of sleep, the strain of battle, grief, and my own uncomfortable conscience all combined to make me cruel.
Or perhaps I was drunk. Perhaps it is best to assume that I must have been. Otherwise it becomes difficult to explain what happened when they brought Daiaukka to me.
The process had been going on throughout the afternoon and evening—Lushakin and his spies had been rounding up every man of importance they could find among the surviving Medes, those fortunate enough to have been taken prisoner and those simply discovered somewhere on the battlefield with enough life left in them to make it worth the trouble of fetching them in. Perhaps twenty or thirty of them, bound hand and foot, waited on their knees before my tent, waited for the conqueror to decide their fates. Most, doubtless, expected to die, but I had settled nothing with myself. Indeed, I had not even considered the matter. A new man would be brought to me, I would glance at him long enough to confirm that he was not Daiaukka, and then dismiss him from my mind, returning to my own morose reflections.
But at last there he was, alive and in my hands. I stood up and turned to Lushakin, who grinned at me.
“Yes, Rab Shaqe” he said. “I thought this would be the one. These slaves will try to sell you as many Daiaukkas as there are seeds in a barley field, but this time I had a bit more confidence in their word. He stayed behind, did our hero here. He was still trying to fight off a crowd of those Scythian rascals with nothing but a half burned piece of tent pole. They weren’t very pleased to have their quarry stolen from them, I can tell you—you may even hear of it from your friend the Lord Tabiti, because we had to cut one of them a little before they would mind their manners.”
“Take the rest away and leave me alone with him,” I said, which made Lushakin frown.
“You don’t mean alone, Rab Shaqe—he’s. . .”
“He’s harmless enough.” I smiled, trying to be patient. “You needn’t worry about me, Lushakin. I can still defend myself against an unarmed man who has his hands tied behind his back.”
Reluctantly, he did as he was told, and soon the shah-ye-shah was sitting on a log on the other side of the fire, watching me through wary black eyes.
“I will cut your hands free if you give me your word not to violate my hospitality,” I said. Daiaukka seemed to consider for a moment and then nodded.
I took the dagger from my belt and severed the le
ather cords around his wrists. Then I filled a wine cup and set it down beside his right foot. Daiaukka picked up the cup and drank it off in what could have been a single swallow. I filled it again and he emptied it again, so I simply left the jar for him. It was possible he had not tasted so much as a sip of water since that morning. I sat down again.
“How much of your army is still intact somewhere?” I asked. “A third, do you think?”
“I doubt so many—and the best are all dead.”
Neither his face nor his toneless voice reflected the slightest emotion. We might have been discussing the fates of strangers for all he revealed of his feelings. It struck me again, as it had at both our previous meetings, that this was a remarkable man.
“And you know what will happen next,” I continued. “In the morning I will begin receiving offers of submission from your surviving nobles. There will be a race to see who can most quickly throw himself at my feet, and one tribe will blame the next for initiating this war—and all will blame you. You have lost your gamble, Daiaukka, and the nation you dreamed of making from these goatherds is dead.”
“For the moment, yes. But you must finally leave here, my lord, and men will dream again.”
He lifted the wine cup to his lips once more and drank slowly, like a man who was at peace with himself. What he said was no more than the truth.
“I have no desire to take your life,” I said, feeling uncomfortable, as if somehow I had been the loser today. “I will spare it if you will pledge your submission to the king in Nineveh. It would be better if you could accept the consequences of this defeat and, as you say yourself, wait for better days.”
“Better for whom, Lord Tiglath Ashur?” He smiled at me, as if amused by the simplicity of a child.
“Better for your people, whom I intend to see never raise their heads again during my lifetime—who will find themselves with a shah of my choosing if you refuse.”
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