by Sam Barone
Hathor slowed for a moment, looking down at the body, but a shout raised Hathor’s eyes, and he saw another of his soldiers take down some Akkadians, both of them falling against the side of a house.
“Look, he’s killed one of our…”
“Forget him,” Hathor ordered. “Get to the gate.” He shoved the man ahead with one hand and drew his sword with the other as he approached the two bodies. The downed Egyptian appeared dead or unconscious, but the weight of his body still pinned his stunned attacker to the ground.
Hathor raised his sword, but someone screamed behind him. Whirling around, he saw a young woman, a knife in her hand, rushing at him. Off balance, he swung the sword at her head, but she ducked beneath, darting past him and throwing herself across both bodies, trying to protect her man. The knife had fallen from her hand as she landed, and now she fumbled in the dirt trying to recover it.
Although surprised at her courage, Hathor didn’t care. They would both die. He took a step and raised the sword. As he did so, the woman gazed up at him, her eyes wide with fear.
“En-hedu,” he said, recognizing the leather seller from Korthac’s lane.
He even remembered her name.
“Hathor. No!” She raised her arm to protect herself, as her eyes locked on to his.
Speaking his name wouldn’t save her. The sword came down. At the last moment, however, he turned the blade aside, striking the ground a finger width from her ear and knocking the dirt of the lane into her face and hair. For an instant, they stared at each other.
Hathor broke the spell. “Get back to your house, you fool!” The words surprised him as much as En-hedu, who looked up at him in bewilder-ment, her mouth open.
Then a stone, flung by someone in the crowd, flew past his head and rattled against the wall. A few villagers approached, shouting curses and threats at him. Another stone cracked against the wall. He had no more time to waste. Cursing himself for a soft-hearted fool, he raced away, heading toward the gate.
Behind him, cheers arose as the crowd saw the Egyptian running away.
Shocked, En-hedu watched him go, her heart still pounding with fear.
She knew how close to death she’d come. A man and a woman reached her side, and lifted her up. Her legs felt weak and she could scarcely stand. Together they pushed the dead Egyptian aside, the one Tammuz had killed.
En-hedu wrapped her arms around Tammuz. More people joined her res-cuers, and two men gathered up Tammuz. Blood flowed from a large gash over her master’s temple. A woman beckoned them from the doorway of the nearest house, and in a moment, En-hedu and Tammuz found themselves dragged inside its cool walls. For Tammuz and En-hedu, the fighting had ended.
Inside Eskkar’s house, Mitrac fired shafts as fast as his fingers could snatch the arrows from his quiver and fit them to the string. The enemy had burst in and driven them back to the landing. Already Grond was hard-pressed at the base of the stairs. An arrow smacked into the door, just missing Mitrac’s face, and another struck one of his archers on the step below.
Mitrac heard the man cry out as he fell from the steps. But forced back onto the stairs, his back to the door to Eskkar’s private quarters, Mitrac had nowhere to hide.
He knew his only chance lay in killing all the Egyptian archers before they killed him. So Mitrac picked his targets carefully, first selecting the enemy archers, making sure they launched no arrows of their own, but still shooting so fast that he and his last two men seemed like a dozen.
Despite his haste, Eskkar’s words always rang in his thoughts. “Shoot the leaders, Mitrac, and the men will lose heart.”
Another shadow blocked the entrance to the house for a moment. Mitrac glanced up just as the doorway cleared. A lone warrior, a man as tall as Eskkar, stood behind the attackers, shouting in a booming voice and driving them onward, ordering them to press the attack.
Without hesitation, Mitrac shifted his aim from the spearman he’d been about to kill to the enemy leader. That warrior carried a shield held high, just below his eyes. Without conscious thought, the shaft flew from the twanging string, the arrow gliding a hand’s width over the lucky spearman’s head and slipping under the upraised shield by a finger’s breadth, before burying itself into the man’s belly, just beside the hip bone.
Before the shaft landed, Mitrac had drawn another, killing a man with a spear trying to skewer Grond at the foot of the stairs. Mitrac never noticed the Egyptian commander stagger back against the doorframe, dropping his sword to grasp at the arrow feathered low in his belly.
With a scream of pain and rage, Takany bent double, trying to grip the heavy shaft that clutched and burned at his insides as if someone had shoved a torch deep within his body. He stumbled back through the door into the courtyard, then tripped and fell, the shaft brushing against the dirt and sending another wave of pain through his body. Agony seized him, and he cried out for help, but his words disappeared in the confusion, as inside the house, his men still sought to fight their way up the stairs, most of them unaware of their leader’s wound.
Takany tasted dirt of the earth in his mouth even as he breathed its dust into his lungs. The pain increased, and a wave of dizziness went over him. His own blood, as hot as if it came from a fire, covered his hands. The gods of the underworld had called out for his spirit, demanding that he come to them. Takany knew he was dying here in this foreign place, after all the fights and all the years of killing, dying with the strange taste of an unfamiliar land in his mouth.
He opened his mouth to call out, but he could no longer control his voice. Despite the dawn’s growing light, his eyes refused to focus. He stopped moving, suddenly lightheaded, as if he were falling from a great height. All he could do was gaze upward toward the sky, unable even to blink, watching the dawn beginning to burst over the city. He felt his blood soaking his hands and stomach, pooling between his naked legs, his life’s blood pouring out into the dirt. It was the last thought he ever had.
Takany died unnoticed by his men, who fought on against the few Akkadians still standing between them and the doorway. They could feel the defense weakening, and only two bowmen remained on the landing. The storm of arrows had nearly ended, as the Akkadians emptied their quivers. Step by step, the Egyptians fought their way up the stairs, sensing victory within their grasp.
Suddenly the door behind the archers opened, a rectangle of soft light illuminating the landing. Everyone’s eyes lifted to see who stood there.
One glance answered the question. A tall, blood-spattered warrior holding two swords that glinted in the growing light appeared, slipping behind the archers and pointing a long horseman’s sword at them.
“Korthac is dead,” the warrior roared, the words filling the room. The fighting paused for a moment, just long enough for the warrior to repeat his words. “Korthac is dead!”
Every Egyptian flinched at the sound, knowing an evil omen filled the house. “Korthac is dead, and now you will all die as well.”
Not all the Egyptians understood the meaning, but all of them recognized Korthac’s name, and they all comprehended the truth of the message. Korthac must be dead, or he, not this barbarian demon, would stand before them.
The warrior bellowed something unintelligible, then jumped off the landing, practically in the midst of the Egyptians, attacking them with a fury that saw two men struck down in as many heartbeats. The Akkadians, arrows exhausted and about to be overwhelmed, took heart, and began their own counterattack. Disheartened, the Egyptians fell back.
The battle gods had turned against them. No one wanted to face the certain death awaiting anyone who dared to challenge their battle-enraged opponent.
In moments, the common room emptied, as the Egyptians shoved and pushed their way through the outer door and into the courtyard. The last man had barely cleared the door when someone picked up the table knocked over when the door was forced, and shoved it upright against the doorway, blocking the opening.
In the courtyard, less than a d
ozen of Korthac’s fighters remained alive, plus an equal number of Ariamus’s men. They’d seen Eskkar come out of Korthac’s room alone, proclaiming their leader’s death. A handful of battle-crazed archers had somehow driven them from the house, shooting shafts so quickly that they seemed like twice their number.
The Egyptians shouted at each other in confusion. Meanwhile, the sound of Eskkar’s name rang through the city, taken up by hundreds of voices, a nonstop chant that filled the lanes and echoed across the rooftops, rattling their nerves. Takany, in a pool of blood, lay dead at their feet, an arrow buried in his stomach. Hathor and Ariamus had departed for the gate. Nebibi was at the barracks. Most of the senior men were dead.
Without anyone to give orders, the Egyptians began to argue. Some wanted to charge the house once again, others wanted to link up with Hathor at the gate. More than a few just wanted to flee. Korthac’s death unnerved them. Korthac had survived a hundred fights. If he could be killed, then who might be next? Without a leader, they started drifting toward the courtyard gate, and in a moment all of them began moving.
They rushed out of the courtyard and into the lane, heading for the main gate. Before they’d taken a dozen steps, they ran directly into Bantor and his men charging up the lane.
The street outside Eskkar’s courtyard erupted with the Akkadians’ battle cry. Bantor led his men up the lane, his bloody sword flashing in the morning sun, his men strung out behind him. The charging Akkadians in front had no time to draw their bows; instead they snatched swords from scabbards and smashed into the surprised Egyptians before they could form a line. For a moment Bantor’s attack slowed, as bronze clashed upon bronze, men cursing as they fought. Korthac’s men still outnumbered their attackers.
Bantor, engaged in a furious sword fight with a thickset Egyptian, lifted his voice. “Archers! Aim for their faces!” The archer struggling behind Bantor fi nally got his bow in play. The shaft nearly took off Bantor’s ear, but the Egyptian screamed as the arrow took him in the mouth; the wounded man staggered back.
With a scream of satisfaction, Bantor pushed ahead. “Aim for their faces! Kill them all!”
Another arrow struck, then another. Rapidly fi red arrows launched at point-blank range struck down the Egyptians, while Bantor and a handful of men up front protected the bowmen from assault. The shafts, many launched directly into the enemy’s faces, took the fight out of them.
Unable to close with the archers, some of Korthac’s men abandoned the fight and started to retreat up the lane. Already more than half of them had taken wounds or been struck down. The rest broke, turned, and ran back toward Eskkar’s courtyard. Some fled past Eskkar’s gate, disappearing from sight as the lane twisted and turned, but others ducked back inside, seeking safety. Before they could shut the gate, an arrow brought down the last straggler, an Egyptian already wounded, and the man’s dead body blocked the opening.
Bantor, his face covered in blood splatter, flung his shoulder against the gate even as the surviving Egyptians struggled to shut it. In a moment the rest of Bantor’s men added their weight and forced the gate open. Bantor stumbled through, ducking under a wildly swung blade and falling to his knees. Before his attacker could recover, Bantor had thrust his sword into the man’s stomach.
Bows were forgotten as the Akkadians forced their way in, sword clashing against sword. Outnumbered now for the first time, the Egyptians fought back, knowing their fate should they be defeated; for a moment, they stopped Bantor’s advance, and the sound of clashing arms rose up throughout the courtyard.
“Eskkar! Annok-sur,” Bantor bellowed, the words echoing off the compound’s walls. He wanted those in the house to know that help had arrived. “Eskkar!” he yelled again, as he redoubled his efforts against those facing him.
Arrows began killing Korthac’s followers from behind. Most of the Egyptians fought to the end, but those recruited by Ariamus had no stomach for this kind of close-in fighting. They ran, throwing away their weapons and scrambling up and over the courtyard wall. Desperate to escape, they fled through lanes and even houses, searching for any path, as long as it led away from the fighting.
Bantor killed the last Egyptian facing him. Glancing around the courtyard, his eyes searched the dead, looking for Ariamus.
“Ariamus!” he shouted. “Where are you?”
It must be Bantor,” Eskkar said. The clash of men fighting out in the lane sounded clearly even inside the house. “Shove that table aside.”
With Mitrac’s help, Eskkar cleared the hasty barricade erected only moments ago from the door, while the two surviving archers stood behind, bows at the ready. Grond tried to move to Eskkar’s side, but slipped to the floor, his wounds weakening him. Mitrac nocked his bow as Eskkar lifted his sword, then shoved the table clear, ducking back as he did so.
One glance told Eskkar all he needed to know. The courtyard was filled with men fighting. Some bellowed war cries and others screamed in pain from their wounds, but this time more than half the combatants were shouting Akkadian war cries. He started forward but Mitrac caught his tunic.
“No, stay here,” Mitrac said, pulling Eskkar away from the doorway.
He stood just inside the doorway, and fired an arrow into the back of an Egyptian standing only a few paces away. The other two archers moved up behind him, and added their shafts, shooting over Mitrac’s head. Standing with his sword ready, Eskkar watched as Mitrac and his bowmen started the final slaughter, the three of them picking off targets. With every shot, an enemy died, as the carefully aimed shafts took down any who still sought to stand their ground.
A voice rose up over the clamor. “Eskkar! Annok-sur!”
Eskkar saw Bantor leading the attack, his sword slashing at everyone before him. “Cover him,” he ordered Mitrac, who shifted his bow to put a shaft into Bantor’s opponent. A few more shots from the doorway, and the Egyptians broke, unable to withstand swordsmen in front and archers behind. The last of the enemy ran for the rear, frantic to scale the courtyard wall before an arrow took them. A few attempted to make a stand in the quarters across from Eskkar’s house. But without solid doors, the soldiers’ quarters provided only temporary security. More of Bantor’s men brought their bows back into play, shooting through the doorways and windows.
Overwhelmed, the last few Egyptians died or threw down their swords, calling out for mercy, their cries for leniency barely audible against the roar of cheering men. A few ran back into their quarters, desperate to regroup, but most dropped to their knees, pleading for mercy, begging to be spared, anything to avoid being killed by their battle-mad opponents.
Eskkar stepped out from the doorway, Mitrac at his side, an arrow still nocked on his string, his eyes searching for danger. The courtyard seemed covered in bodies, most of them with arrows sticking out of them. Nearly all seemed to be Egyptians. Bantor, his chest heaving and his eyes wild from the battle madness, finally recognized his leader.
Bantor stood there, blood covering his right arm and splattered all over his face and chest. But his smile belied the blood, and he raised his sword high as the cheering men rushed past him to Eskkar’s side. Their jubilation turned into a deafening roar at the sight of their commander.
With the fighting ended, at least at Eskkar’s house, the dirty, bloody, and battle-weary men looked at each other in the bright morning light.
Their voices turned into a chant that grew in volume, as the men shouted
“Eskkar! Eskkar! Eskkar!” at the top of their lungs. The cheer went on and on, until Eskkar thought it would never end. Half the city could hear the words, and would know that Korthac had been defeated.
The wounded needed to be tended, and the fighting wasn’t over yet.
Eskkar saw Klexor, who’d just reached the house, and pulled him away from the delirious soldiers.
“Take charge here,” Eskkar ordered. “Get the men organized and secure the courtyard.”
His smile never changing, Klexor nodded and began bellowing orders.
Eskkar grabbed Bantor’s arm and led him back inside the house. Mitrac was already there, tending Grond’s wounds. Covered in blood, most of it his own, Eskkar’s bodyguard appeared ready to collapse. The fighting had raged back and forth across the room. Wreckage of the big table littered the fl oor, and one of the benches had been smashed. But Eskkar found one still whole, and righted it as Mitrac and Bantor lifted Grond up and laid him out on the bench. Just enough light filtered in to show three separate wounds.
“Find the women and the healers,” Eskkar said. “They must be nearby.
Get them here at once.” He grabbed one of Bantor’s men. “Stand here and guard these steps. Trella and Annok-sur are above.”
Bantor, his bloody sword held loosely in his hand, approached. “Annok-sur, where is she? Is she…?”
“She’s upstairs, with Trella, guarding Korthac. She’s all right, only a knock on the head,” Eskkar said. “Did you find Ariamus?”
“Isn’t he dead?” Bantor’s voice hardened and he straightened up, the fatigue dropping from his shoulders. He stopped moving toward the steps.
“Tell Annok-sur I’ll be back. I’ll take some men and start hunting Ariamus down.”
Eskkar’s eyes narrowed at the tone of Bantor’s voice. “No, Ariamus can wait. What’s happened to Drakis? Is he still holding the towers?”
Bantor hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Take your men to the main gate,” Eskkar ordered, his voice firm.
“Drakis may need you. If some of these Egyptians escape…” He saw Bantor hesitating, and shook his head. “Ariamus is wounded. In an hour the whole city will be looking for him. Drakis needs you now.”
“Can’t you go…”
“No, I’m staying here.” With Korthac upstairs and this place recaptured, Eskkar knew his remaining soldiers would be coming to him, looking for orders. Besides, he didn’t want to leave Trella and the child. He’d left Trella alone for weeks; he didn’t plan to leave her again, not to chase down a handful of foreign fighters whose cause was lost.