by Sam Barone
The two scouts pulled their snorting horses to a stop. “Enemy soldiers are up ahead, General. We counted at least twenty of them, hiding in the rocks on the left hand side of the trail. They shot arrows at us, but the range was too great.”
Jedidia frowned at the foolish report. Of course the scouts had no real idea of how many men might be hiding in the rocks, waiting to attack. Not that it mattered. Unless Eskkar had sent his entire army to the Jkarian Pass, Jedidia’s fighters would brush them aside.
He had more than enough men to deal with any lesser resistance. No, this was more likely some scouting party that had slipped past his advance scouts, or perhaps a small force thrown together in desperation to try and defend the Pass and slow his advance.
“We’ll soon find out how many there are.” He turned to Zathras. “Take command of the vanguard, and clear the trail.”
In moments, Zathras had raced ahead, and reached the head of the leading column. Orders were shouted, and suddenly five hundred heavily armed men were in motion, riding at a fast canter and readying their weapons. The thunder of the horses’ hooves echoed against the walls of the Pass. Jedidia nodded in satisfaction. His second in command had more than enough men to deal with any ambush.
Jedidia kept the main column at its usual pace, letting the gap widen between him and the vanguard. He had no need to rush, and he would soon see for himself what mischief the Akkadians had prepared. The barbarian king of Akkad might be famous for his battlefield tricks, but Jedidia knew that overwhelming force was the best trick of all.
As he rode, he glanced again at the smoke pouring up into the sky. The thick gray ribbon appeared to have grown denser, turned into a cascade of flames, shimmering in the heat as it twisted its way into the air. From here, it appeared as if the cliffs themselves were on fire. The breeze shifted, and he breathed a hint of the oil that burns. Perhaps a subterranean stream of oil had breached the surface and somehow caught fire, though usually such pools were found only in the lowlands.
The advance force, weapons at the ready, slowed as they approached the part of the trail level with the smoke. Suddenly a deafening clap of thunder echoed between the walls of the Pass. At the same moment, the ground shook.
Jedidia’s horse stiffened its legs and dug its hooves into the ground. The general clutched at his horse’s halter, and with a firm yank, managed to bring the frightened animal under control. Earthquake. It must be an earthquake.
Men cried out in fear, and shouts made him glance once again toward the column of smoke. He glimpsed a massive slab of rock falling through the air, before it slammed into the cliff wall that bordered the Pass.
The sound of snapping stones and rumbling rock filled the air. The ground continued to tremble, and the horses closest to the landslide panicked. Jedidia saw men dumped from their seats, while others fought to control their wild-eyed mounts. The soldiers’ shouts had turned into a babble of excited voices, and loose horses galloped away from the danger, scattering or knocking aside anything in their path.
A huge cloud of dust floated in the air ahead, obscuring the trail, some of it drifting towards the Elamites. At least the ground had ceased shaking. The gray cloud slowly settled, and Jedidia’s mouth opened in astonishment.
The trail through the cliffs had vanished. The opening, at that point no more than fifty or sixty paces wide, had disappeared under a massive rock slide. Boulders the size of houses were piled on top of one another, much like a child would stack a pile of stones. In some places the barrier stood almost thirty paces high.
The advance force had narrowly missed being crushed by the slide, and now they scattered. Frightened horses, many of them riderless, whinnied in fear at the trembling earth. Jedidia rode up as close as he could get without risking his horse in the debris. The last of the dust blew away, and he could see that the slide extended some distance down the Pass. Obviously it would take time to clear the way. Still, it would take more than an earthquake or landslide to stop him.
Zathras rode back, covered in dust from the shattered rock. “The Pass is blocked, General.” He had to pause to clear his throat. “And we heard men shouting from behind the rocks. The Akkadians may have done this.”
Jedidia clenched his jaw. Of course it was the Akkadians. Who else would be lurking in the Pass.
“Take five hundred men forward on either side of the pass. Work your way through the rocks on foot until you reach the other side. Kill anyone you find. If you meet any resistance, send word and I’ll give you as many men as you need.”
Zathras nodded, whirled his horse around, and galloped off.
General Jedidia glanced up at the sun. Only a little after midmorning. Well, his men would find a way through the rubble. Still, he knew they weren’t going any farther today, and decided there was no sense standing around in the sun. He dismounted and ordered his men to make camp and his servants to set up his tent.
That attended to, Jedidia turned to one of his messengers, riding a few paces behind. “Send for the Builder.”
The General had with him a handful of men trained in dealing with walls and fortified villages. Jedidia had nearly left them behind, thinking he would not need them for this invasion. Now he blessed his foresight. They would be useful in clearing a way through the pass.
He waited impatiently until the Master Builder and his five assistants rode up from the rear of the column. Jedidia pointed at the slide, told them to find a way through the rocks, and ordered them on their way.
Noon came and went without any word from the Builder. The sun continued to move across the sky. Messengers from his second in command returned and reported that they could not find a way through the rocks on either side of the pass. Jedidia frowned at those reports, and told them to keep searching.
With nothing to do, his thoughts returned, as they so often did, to his humiliation. In the last few years, many had noticed Jedidia’s successes and ever increasing popularity with his men. And so for this campaign, King Shirudukh had tossed Jedidia the hardest bone to gnaw on, and the one with the least flesh.
Nor was Shirudukh the only one who had noticed Jedidia’s rising star. Both Modran and Chaiyanar had grown jealous of his accomplishments. They wished to add glory to their names and wealth to their Houses, so Jedidia would receive little opportunity for either plunder or battlefield victories. Together the two generals must have groveled before the King, and whispered lies about their rival into his ear.
Regardless, the orders General Jedidia had received from King Shirudukh should be easy to carry out. The main thrusts of the invasion would be toward Sumer and Akkad. The Akkadians and their allies, if indeed they had any, would be busy defending those cities, and would have no soldiers to spare for their northern lands. If any dared to ride against him, Jedidia had more than enough well trained horse fighters to deal with Eskkar’s cavalry.
Before the invasion started, such ideas had troubled Jedidia. Now he could only hope that he could achieve some significant victory over the Akkadians. A more pleasant thought, one that often soothed his mind at night, was that perhaps by some lucky stroke Lord Modran would die in battle, fall from his horse, eat tainted food, or any of the other countless ways men could perish in a campaign.
Such things did happen. Some in Elam’s Council of Advisors thought that the barbarian king Eskkar would prove a formidable opponent. If that turned out to be true, well, even a dying snake could still strike a lethal blow. But as for himself, without the favor of the gods, Jedidia could do little to change his fate. He would have to endure this humiliation, and hope for the best.
Unlike the other two prongs of the Elamite invasion, all of Jedidia’s fighters were mounted. Though in the last two years he had trained and equipped almost ten thousand infantry, those soldiers had been taken away from Jedidia and given to Modran and Chaiyanar.
That meant Jedidia had no foot soldiers stumbling along, slowing him down and struggling to keep pace. His baggage train consisted of a mere two hundred
pack animals carrying only enough food to last until he established himself in Akkad’s lands.
And his men, recruited from all over the Empire, comprised some of the best horse fighters in the land. They could ride hard all morning and then fight all afternoon. With their own homelands ground to dust under King Shirudukh’s heel, these renegades, traitors, and nameless men were loyal only to Jedidia and the King. At their General’s command, they would slaughter any in their path without a hint of remorse.
Not that Jedidia expected to meet any real resistance. The barbarian Eskkar, faced with overwhelming numbers, would fall back and hide behind his city’s walls. Or he just might flee, abandon his city and run for his life, taking only his wives and as much wealth as he could carry.
Jedidia, with more horsemen than the entire city of Akkad could field, expected to encounter nothing more than terrified refugees fleeing north, clutching with them any gold or whatever pitiful valuables they possessed. He intended to take the gold, kill the old and the young, and turn the rest into slaves, thousands upon thousands, that he would sell back in Elam.
While he might not capture as much loot as the other generals, Jedidia would still add much wealth to his coffers by the time this campaign ended. Within a year Jedidia expected to return victorious to Elam, and with even more horsemen under his command. Once the Akkadians collapsed and King Shirudukh had imposed his rule, Jedidia would absorb the fittest survivors into his cavalry.
Mid afternoon arrived before the Builder returned. One glance, and Jedidia knew he had a problem. The man, thin and nervous, bobbed his head in deference. Gray rock dust covered almost every part of his body. Jedidia saw fear on the man’s face, all the usual signs of someone obviously afraid to deliver bad tidings.
“What is it?”
The Builder flinched at the snarl in Jedidia’s voice. “General Jedidia, the Pass is completely blocked. Part of the mountain toppled, and the trail is buried for at least a hundred and fifty paces.”
Jedidia had seen as much for himself. “How soon to clear it?”
The Builder shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know, Master. We’ll need digging tools, hammers and chisels to break up the boulders, carts to remove the rubble, ropes to climb up the rocks. Ten or fifteen days, perhaps longer.”
Fifteen days! Jedidia had expected to hear the task would take a day or two at most. Of course the fool standing before him knew they had none of those items with the expedition. Jedidia led an invading force, not a construction gang. He restrained his anger.
“Very well, then how long will it take to clear a pathway. We don’t need much, just one wide enough to accommodate a horse.”
The man swallowed. His face, caked with dust, showed his thirst, but Jedidia had no intention of offering him a chance to drink.
“Master, the rocks are large and piled up on top of each other. To carve a trail through the rubble wide enough to accommodate a horse, it would take almost as long. In a few days, we could probably clear a way for men to scramble through to the other side, but horses . . . not without ropes and chains. We need hammers and chisels, and plenty of men to labor moving the rocks. If we had lumber, we might be able to construct a plank bridge over the rubble.”
Jedidia gritted his teeth. The nearest source of wood lay sixty miles behind them. He took a deep breath and softened his tone. No sense terrorizing the man any further. “Look, Builder, there must be a way through these rocks. The Akkadians, they did this. They found a way to bring down the mountain, didn’t they?”
“Yes, Master, but the place where the cliff tumbled leads right into the heart of the mountains. Your soldiers are searching the rocks on either side, but I do not think they’ll find a way through. Men, yes, but not horses.”
“Can’t you dig your way through, or under the blockage?”
“We are in the mountains, Master. The dirt we see underfoot is shallow, with solid rock beneath. There is nothing to dig into.”
The Builder’s hands trembled in his fear, and rightly so. If any of this proved to be false, Jedidia would have the man whipped to death. Jedidia’s lips clamped shut. No, that was too quick. He would make sure the fool suffered for at least three days before he died.
The General turned his back on the Builder and stared at the blocked pass. A sense of dread settled on his shoulders. He had worked with the Builder and his kind before. He knew their estimates tended to be optimistic. The reality always took much longer.
Jedidia’s men had only enough food and water left for four or five days. Of course that could be stretched if the men went on half rations. But even if he had tools and food, the Builder claimed they couldn’t get through the rocks in that short time.
They could eat a few horses, of course, but there was almost no wood to build fires. He could send foragers back to the east to find food, but carrying enough supplies for his army back up into the Pass would be impossible. His horses were already short of grain and water. Jedidia hadn’t concerned himself with that, since he expected to reach grassland and water in a few days.
As for taking his men through without the horses, that was out of the question. Even if they climbed past the rubble, and made it all the way through the Pass, Jedidia’s men would be on foot, a hundred miles from nowhere, and without food or water.
He had expected to live off the fertile lands of the Akkadians. Long before he found and collected enough to eat, his force of soldiers would have disintegrated, and what remained would be little more than a hungry rabble. Not to mention that Jedidia didn’t intend to walk into enemy country, or face the famous Akkadian bowmen on foot.
Slowly, the realization sank in. Either his men would find a way around the blockage, or he would have to turn back. If he did that, by the time he crossed back over Elam’s border, resupplied his men, and followed Lord Modran’s footsteps through the Dellen Pass a hundred miles to the south, the war might well be over. Modran would have collected all the glory and all the loot.
Jedidia would be the laughingstock of the Elamite army, the great warrior who let a handful of Akkadians block his path with a few stones. Not to mention what King Shirudukh would say about that. Or do. His exalted cousin had no sympathy for failure, even from his relatives.
Jedidia’s teeth ground together in rage. He would send a few messengers back to Zanbil, to see what supplies there might be useful in getting through the landslide. That would give his men a few days to attack the problem. Perhaps they would find another way, or the stupid Builder might come up with some plan to get the horses through.
Jedidia decided not to have the man killed. Better to let King Shirudukh himself hear the man’s words and excuses. Then the Builder could be properly tortured by the King’s skilled jailers and publicly put to death for incompetence.
Still, Jedidia could not shake the gloom from his thoughts. The Akkadians were no fools. They wouldn’t have bothered toppling the mountain here if there were any easy way around. He would need luck to find such a way, and luck, as his advisors had warned him before setting out, always seemed to favor the King of Akkad.
Thoughts of the Barbarian King made him clench his fists and smite his chest. Eskkar had taken Jedidia’s already gloomy prospects and ruined them completely. He might end up being tortured alongside the Builder. “Damn you, barbarian! Damn you and your cursed tricks!”
Chapter 17
The soldiers’ garrison at Nuzi . . .
Sabatu stood in his garden, practicing his archery, when he heard the sound of hoofbeats. A rider galloped past his home, and through the open gate Sabatu heard the labored breathing of the horse. A few moments later, the hoofbeats stopped abruptly, which most likely meant an important message had arrived from Akkad for Commander Tooraj. The solder in charge of Nuzi’s garrison lived only a hundred paces from Sabatu’s own residence.
Nevertheless, Sabatu refused to speculate on what message the horseman might carry. Instead he continued with his training, whipping a shaft from the quiver, fitting i
t to the string, and launching the arrow at the target. One after another, Sabatu loosed his shafts, stretching the rock-hard muscles in his arms. For more than a year, he’d worked with his bow, improving his eye, strengthening his muscles, and teaching his reluctant hands to master his custom-made bow.
Each repetition sharpened his skill and honed his eye, and Sabatu had grown quite proficient with his weapon. While he did not have the long range skill of Mitrac or even Daro, he could match his skill with the best of Akkad’s horsemen. Sabatu varied the routine often, moving about, shooting without bringing the arrow to his eye, dropping to one knee, even loosing a few shafts while running toward or backing away from the target.
But now Sabatu’s aim and attention wandered, and not every missile struck the center of the target. His thoughts lingered on the horse and rider that had raced past his gate, wondering if today the long-awaited summons to war had arrived.
The sun settled closer to the horizon, and as more time passed without any further sounds or activities, Sabatu dismissed the idea of war from his thoughts. His arrows once again found their mark in the center of the target with each snap of the bowstring. Then he heard footsteps, and a moment later, Commander Tooraj stepped through the gate.
“Just got word from Akkad, from the King.” Tooraj wasted no words. “The Elamite army under Grand Commander Chaiyanar is moving against Sumer. Their forces are likely to arrive in the next ten days or so. If you’re still wanting to join that fight . . .”
The long-awaited day had indeed arrived. Sabatu never hesitated. “Yes. How can I get to Sumer?”
“The soldier who carried the message is returning to Akkad by boat tomorrow morning. You can travel downriver with him. Once there, I’m sure Lord Eskkar will tell you how to get to Sumer.”
“I will be ready before dawn.”
“I’ll be sorry to see you go,” Tooraj said. “I could use a master bowman here. The King is taking half my men, and I’ll be short handed.”