by Sam Barone
The distance no longer mattered. He had to reach it before dark. The new moon had moved into the sky only two days ago. It would rise late, and the slight light it would shed meant no horse could travel safely after dark, not in this rocky land.
Hathor turned to his subcommanders. “Get the men moving. We’ve still a long way to go.”
He put heels to his horse and led the Akkadian cavalry down the hill. He refused to look at the Alur Meriki warriors, though he knew his men would be glancing up at them every few steps. Hathor understood what thoughts raced through his soldiers’ minds. They were moving deeper and deeper into the heart of enemy territory, riding straight into danger. And that was exactly how it felt to him, too.
On the opposite hilltop, Bekka watched the dirt eaters, his lips moving slowly as he counted the strangers. Unegen, who sat beside him, had sharp eyes indeed. Not another clan of steppes warriors, but dirt eaters. Nonetheless, these strangers knew how to handle their mounts, unlike most of the dirt eaters the warriors encountered. It didn’t take long before Bekka had a good idea of who the unknown horsemen were, and where they might be headed.
“Where are they going, Chief Bekka? Are they lost?”
A stupid question, but Unegen was young, less than twenty-two seasons, with much to learn. Bekka softened his reply. “They’re heading for the water that flows from the mountains.”
Unegen digested that for a moment. “Why go there? Why don’t they run from us?”
Bekka ignored the first question. “They don’t run from us because they’re from Akkad, and they’ve been taught how to fight by the demon Eskkar, curse him.” He spat on the ground to appease the gods for speaking the traitor’s name. Bekka’s horse jerked its head at the rider’s sudden movement.
Bekka faced his subcommander. “Take two men and ride to the caravan as quick as you can. Find Thutmose-sin and tell him everything that we’ve seen, that we first found eleven, then one hundred dirt eaters. Say that they’re heading for the water, and that I will raise as many men as I can to stop them from reaching it.”
Without waiting for Unegen to reply, Bekka started giving orders to the rest of his men. In moments the Alur Meriki horsemen disappeared from the hilltop. Once out of sight, they broke into groups of twos and threes, and rode off in different directions. The Alur Meriki had more than one war party scouting these lands, though most of them were too far south to help Bekka. Something tightened in his stomach. He had a feeling that he was going to need every man he could gather.
Hathor and his men pushed their way east, up and down the seemingly endless succession of hills. They rode with care, bows strung, swords loose in their scabbards. Although he could see nothing that smacked of danger, Hathor felt the eyes of the Alur Meriki watching his progress.
His own scouts, six riders spread out along the line of movement, rode with even greater caution, arrows nocked and bows at the ready. At the crest of any hill, they might encounter a hidden band of barbarians ready to cut them down.
The rest of the cavalry rode together, four abreast, with the five pack animals under careful guard in the middle of the column. So far the pack horses hadn’t slowed him down, and Hathor didn’t dare abandon them. Those animals, and the supplies they bore, might mean the difference between defeat or victory.
The sun moved higher in the sky, passed its highest point, and began to descend. No Alur Meriki had yet challenged their passage, but Hathor knew that time approached. As soon as the barbarians gathered enough warriors, they would harass his movements, even if they lacked enough men to stop him. When they thought they had enough, they would attack in earnest.
The Akkadians kept moving, the men dismounting to lead the horses up the steepest part of the trail. By now his riders were too tired even to swear at their misfortune. The sun kept moving, too, falling toward the horizon.
A shout from his rear guard snapped Hathor’s head around. A band of twenty or so warriors, perhaps the same one he’d seen earlier, was traversing another hill to the Akkadian right. They’d come from the south, and now moved in the same direction as Hathor. The barbarians had fresher horses, and their riders didn’t carry the burden of the extra food and weapons.
Whatever the reason, they were making better time across these hills, and at this rate they would reach the stream before him.
Up ahead, Hathor watched his scouts disappear over the top of the next hill. A few moments later, one of them reappeared, waving his arms. Hathor kicked his horse into a canter, and rode up the hill to join him.
“The stream’s not much farther, Commander. I think I recognize the landmarks you described.” He pointed to a pair of almost identical boulders, tall and slim, that pointed like angled fingers toward the mountain peaks. Each stone stood four or five times the height of a man.
Hathor halted his men while he studied the landscape. Mountain crags towered to his left, while fingers of rock extended from their base, as if to lend support to the vast weight of stone soaring above them. He, too, remembered that two large boulders marked the trail, with the stream less than a mile ahead.
Of course all the rocks looked much the same, and it had been over a year since he’d ridden these hills. Still, he agreed with the scout, it couldn’t be much farther. If it were, they weren’t going to make it before dusk.
“Two more hills,” Hathor said. “Call the rest of the scouts back, except for two. We might as well all arrive together.”
No sense in having a few men picked off by the barbarians, or even having his scouts chased back to the main force.
Draelin rode up to join his commander. Hathor had given him responsibility for the rear guard.
“Any sign of the barbarians?” Draelin’s face showed that mixture of nervousness and excitement that often accompanied men riding into battle.
“No, but they’re probably all around us by now,” Hathor said. “The Khenmet isn’t far ahead. Tell the men we just need to push over one or two more hills, and we’ll be there. Tell them to ready their weapons, and make sure they stay close together.”
Draelin laughed. “They’ll be glad enough. They’re sick of riding and walking.”
Hathor’s second in command turned his horse and rode back to the rear. As the word spread through the ranks, men prepared themselves and their horses. They loosened their packs, so they could be discarded at a moment’s notice. The short rest would have to do.
Hathor waited until Draelin gave the signal that he was ready. “Move out!” The Egyptian’s voice easily carried the length of the column.
They rode down the slope, enjoyed a brief respite of almost flat ground for a few hundred paces, then another gradual ascent up the next hill. Once again Hathor found the two scouts waiting at the crest, and when Hathor reached it, he understood why.
A line of barbarian warriors stretched across the top of the next hill. As the rest of Hathor’s men reached the top, he took a count of the enemy.
“Between forty and forty-five,” Hathor commented, as Draelin reached his side.
“There could be five hundred waiting for us behind the hill.”
Hathor shook his head. “If there are, we’re finished, whether we go forward or back. So it doesn’t matter. They’re between us and the stream. We’ve no choice now but to attack.” He stretched himself upright and took one last look around. The hills behind them remained bare of life. For this battle, at least, only the barbarians in front of him mattered.
Nevertheless, Hathor didn’t like what he saw. He and his men would be attacking uphill, always a disadvantage. That, too, no longer mattered. His men needed the Khenmet’s water.
“Form the men in two lines, sixty in front and forty behind the center. That way they won’t be able to charge downhill and just ride through us. You take the left flank, and I’ll take the right. If we can envelop them, so much the better. As soon as you’re ready, we’ll go. Tell the men to shoot as soon as they’re in range, but not before.”
“Yes, Command
er.”
With a shout of excitement, Draelin wheeled his horse around and trotted off, calling out orders as he went. Hathor called up his leaders of ten and twenty, and gave them the necessary orders. “Remember, watch for any sudden shifts of their line. Wherever they try to break through, shift your men to take them from the flank.”
Each of his commanders would pass his words to the men, so that every man knew what was expected of him. It took only moments, as these Akkadians had trained and practiced maneuvers such as this hundreds of times. When Hathor felt satisfied that every one understood the order of battle, he moved to his own position just to the right of center and waited until Draelin situated himself in a similar position on the left.
The column of fours broke in two parts, then separated again, forming a front line of sixty riders, with the second line of forty about thirty paces behind the first. Each man settled into position a pace apart from his neighbor. As Hathor inspected his men one last time, he saw no signs of fear or confusion, only riders loosening swords in their scabbards, testing their bows, and fitting arrows to bowstrings.
Almost all of these men had fought a mounted battle before, and at Isin they attacked an enemy four or five times greater in size. These Akkadians knew what to look forward to. The Alur Meriki, Eskkar claimed, did not expect to confront men who could ride and shoot at the same time. Now that idea would be tested.
Hathor glanced down the line to where Draelin sat astride his horse, bow in hand, waiting the command to attack. Hathor saw the excitement on their faces and reflected in their movements, but still not a trace of fear. All the men were ready. Hathor drew his sword, raised it up, then swung it forward. “Move out!”
Draelin’s shout echoed his commander’s. The two lines surged forward and down the hill, moving at an easy canter and maintaining a good line. Nevertheless, the animals sensed the tension of their riders. Horses whinnied in excitement and tried to surge ahead, while the ground shook from their hooves as they went down the hill.
As soon as the horsemen reached the middle of the flat expanse, the men would kick their horses into a fast canter. The Akkadians wouldn’t be in range of the barbarian bows until they reached the foot of the next hill. Then the order to gallop the horses as fast as possible would be given.
Hathor tightened his grip on the sword as the front line reached the bottom of the hill and increased their speed across the open space.
From the opposite hilltop, Bekka sat on his horse and watched the Akkadians make their preparations. They wasted no time, showed no confusion, and he detected no signs of fear in any of the riders facing him. Every rider carried a short, curved bow, much like those his own warriors carried, and Bekka guessed these intruders knew how to use them. They handled their bows and horses almost as well as his own men.
Never before had Alur Meriki horsemen faced dirt eaters who knew how to use a bow from horseback. Their calm preparations proved that they had faith in themselves and their weapons. Their leader didn’t even bother to urge his men to the attack.
The more Bekka observed, the less he liked the prospect of this battle. In each previous encounter with Akkadian soldiers, every warrior who had faced Akkad’s dreaded longbow archers soon learned to respect the power of those weapons. If these dirt eaters had mastered the same skills with the smaller bows . . .
Kushi, a leader of twenty who had joined Bekka earlier in the day, moved his horse beside that of his chief. One of Bekka’s cousins, Kushi had taken charge of Unegen’s men in his absence and was now Bekka’s second in command. Together they watched the dirt eaters form two battle lines. “They’ll flank us.”
Kushi, too, understood the size of the line and what it meant. The mass of horsemen in the center would slow down any charge trying to cut through the Akkadians, which was exactly what Bekka had intended to do, tear through them and regroup on the far side. Now he knew that wouldn’t work. His warriors would break through the first line, he felt certain of that, but those that survived would be riding into forty more enemy arrows shot at close range.
Long before his Alur Meriki fighters, those that survived the first encounter, could hack their way through the second line, the weight of dirt eaters on their flanks would be on them, putting arrows in their backs. If the enemy knew their business, Bekka’s warriors would be enveloped and cut to pieces. He could lose every man.
Bekka took one final look behind him. For most of the day, warriors in two and threes had ridden to join him. Many of these he had dispatched as soon as they arrived, ordering them to scour the countryside until they located the two main war parties still many miles to the south.
By now a large force of warriors would be galloping over empty lands toward this place from many directions, but none had arrived yet. He’d hoped to convince the enemy horsemen that he had reserves behind the hill, perhaps even make them hold off their attack and send out some scouts, but the Akkadian commander hadn’t wasted a single moment worrying about that.
Instead, the Akkadians would soon be pouring arrows into his flanks. Bekka’s men might hold the center, might even inflict heavy casualties on the men charging up the hill, but whatever advantage he got during that first exchange, he would pay twice over for it when the dirt eaters reached the crest and wheeled their horses into his flanks and rear. Then it would be the Alur Meriki under the gauntlet as they were driven down the slope, while bowmen shot arrows at them from every direction.
Even if Bekka could win this fight, or manage to slow down the attackers, most of his men would be dead. Across the hilltop, Bekka watched a tall rider on the left flank draw his sword. For a moment, he wondered if it might be the traitor Eskkar. Not that it mattered. As the weapon swung down, the Akkadians gave a shout and the line began its descent.
“Damn them.” Bekka just did not have enough warriors, and he didn’t intend to waste the lives of his kinsmen fighting against a trained force more than twice the size of his. “Get the men out of here. We’ll form up on the other side of the stream.”
If Kushi were unhappy with the order, he didn’t show it. “Yes, Chief.” He rode off, shouting orders as he went, and no doubt giving thanks to the gods that he wasn’t in command.
Bekka took one last look at the Akkadians. “Damn you to the pits, Eskkar.” Then he turned his horse around and started down the slope. Some of the men protested, and few launched arrows at the approaching horsemen, but most seemed glad enough to avoid this fight. The Alur Meriki had no qualms about turning away from a fight against superior numbers. A war leader was expected to win fights, not waste the lives of his warriors.
Nevertheless, by the time Bekka splashed across the stream, he had started worrying about how news of this retreat would be received in Thutmose-sin’s tent. The punishment for cowardice in front of an enemy was death.
6
The halting horn’s deep bellow signaled the end of another day’s traveling. With sighs of relief, the women and old men driving the Alur Meriki wagons eased them to a stop, each one turning this way and that, searching for the best place to set up camp. But though the day’s journey had ended, much still remained to be done before anyone could take their ease. Everyone, women, girls, younger boys, and slaves who’d walked beside their family’s wagons all day, now readied the night camp for their kin.
The youngest wandered off to gather wood and dung chips for the fires, while others pitched sleeping tents beside the wagons. The herds of sheep, cattle, goats and pigs also needed to be settled down for the night. That task fell to the older girls and young maidens not yet women.
With long switches, they guided the weary animals to their final foraging of the day, letting them search out the occasional clump of grass before settling down to their own respite. As during the day’s march, the food animals stayed north of the wagons.
On the south side, warriors and older boys saw to the horse herds. Every fighter in the Clan possessed at least two or three horses. No young man dared approach a maiden’s fa
ther seeking to take a wife without a satisfactory number of horses to prove his status and worth. The most successful men boasted even larger herds, eight or ten, more if the warrior had a slave or two to tend them.
The day’s journeying had ended, and everyone in the caravan looked forward to a night of rest. The gradual climb up the slopes of the foothills had wearied the long line of travelers, hindering the caravan’s already slow pace. Still, everyone knew that in another four or five days, the Clan would start its descent into the grasslands that bordered the northern steppes.
Thutmose-sin, the Great Chief of the Alur Meriki Clan, rode up to the two wagons that contained his wives, children, and possessions just as the final blast of the horn sounded. He’d spent the day riding to the south, examining the land and making sure that his warriors attended to their duties. Thutmose-sin, too, looked forward to a peaceful evening with his kin.
Tall and broad, Thutmose-sin had more than forty-five seasons. Nevertheless, he yet possessed much of the strength of his youth. Spending most of each day on the back of a horse ensured a man stayed fit. Thutmose-sin seldom let a day go by without taking time to practice with at least one of his weapons.
Doing so kept him proficient with sword, lance, bow, and knife. No leader of the vast Alur Meriki Clan dared appear weak. A challenge to his rule could arise at any time, and Thutmose-sin kept himself prepared.
As he slid from his horse, Thutmose-sin heard the rolling beat of hooves, mixed with the shouts and curses of those forced to scatter as a rider galloped his way toward the Sarum’s wagons. Thutmose-sin’s guards, all of them kinsmen to some degree, moved forward, should they be needed. But the arriving horseman dragged his mount to stop before the guards could intercept him.
The rider’s horse, covered with dried lather and foaming at the mouth, had to spay its legs wide to keep upright. The rider slid down from his exhausted mount, and glanced around, until his recognized his Sarum. The copper medallion that glistened on Thutmose-sin’s chest identified him to all as the Great Clan’s leader.