by Sam Barone
“Yavtar! Can you get us a little closer to the shore?” Daro’s bellow shook Yavtar out of his fascination with the battle on shore.
Yavtar took a quick glance at the water flowing beside the hull, then at the riverbank. The water would be deep enough and the current about the same. It seemed madness to draw closer to the enemy bowmen, but today no one worried about that. He scrambled back to the rear of the craft, hunched over the whole way. He found himself muttering prayers to the god of the rivers, and hoping an arrow wouldn’t find his backside as he wriggled past the grunting archers and sweating rowers.
“Move us in closer, about twenty paces.” The steersman’s face went a shade whiter at the order. “Hurry, Daro wants a closer shot!”
The man nodded his understanding, and he pushed on the oar with hands that shook more from fear than the force of the river. The craft responded well, turning slightly and edging closer to the shore.
Yavtar glanced at the other boats. Hopefully they would remember their orders to take station wherever Yavtar’s vessel went.
Daro shouted orders to his men. Soon arrows from sixty archers again began striking the partially exposed right flank of the Sumerian spearmen. The enemy had their shields raised up for protection against Mitrac’s shafts, and Daro’s arrows weren’t a numbing volley, but even Yavtar’s hurried glimpses over the side of the boat showed the attack’s effect. The Sumerian spearmen anchoring Shulgi’s right flank had to shift some shields to protect their exposed right sides. Meanwhile, arrows from the Akkadian archers behind the ranks of Gatus’s spearmen continued to fall on them. Daro’s men had an unheard of opportunity to loose their shafts down the solid mass of the enemy’s main battle line. Even shafts that glanced off an upraised shield might strike another target before they came to rest.
No infantry expected to be under continual fire like that, from two directions, especially not at such close range. If the Sumerians could have mounted even a brief charge, the Akkadian bowmen would be slaughtered. But at least seventy-five paces of water remained between the boats and the river bank, and Daro’s archers were as much out of reach as if they were on the other side of the river. Unless Shulgi wanted to order swimmers into the river to try and board the boats, he could do nothing except have his archers shoot back at them.
By now the sides of the boat and the shields were riddled with arrows. At least two of Daro’s men were down, one wounded in the leg and out of the fight, another dead with an arrow in his throat.
But the Akkadian shafts continued to fly at the Sumerian ranks. Each boat had pushed away from shore that morning with two hundred and fifty shafts for every archer, an enormous reserve of arrows and more than enough to allow a steady fire. And Yavtar knew these bowmen could do it, shooting shaft after shaft, drawing each feather to the cheek before releasing the arrow.
The bowmen ignored the bellowed threats and curses from the shore, Yavtar’s shouting of orders that passed up and down the length of the boat, and even the harsh breaths and grunts each man made as he released his missile. The snapping of bowstrings mixed with the steady drumming of Sumerian arrows striking every wooden surface on the boat added to the din. Yavtar had fought before, but nothing compared to this frenzy of conflicting noise.
On the shore, Shulgi’s commanders soon recognized the danger in the boats attacking them. An entire company of Sumerian bowmen shifted their position and started launching arrows at the three vessels that lay just out of reach.
“Bowmen!” Daro’s voice boomed out over the battle din. “Maximum range. Aim for their leaders. Aim for the red banner!”
Yavtar risked another glance, but couldn’t see any banner. Daro must have caught sight of a worthy target, perhaps Shulgi himself or one of his commanders. Yavtar saw the bowmen elevate their weapons even higher, sending the shafts high into the sky, to rain down well away from the riverbank, and close to the position occupied by the Sumerian leaders.
It seemed odd to be shooting at something that wasn’t shooting back at you, but the archers didn’t seem concerned about that. They just kept launching their shafts at whatever target their leaders selected, grunting with every effort to draw the string back to the full force position before letting fly.
Yavtar wondered if these latest shafts, aimed high into the sky, were having any effect. He watched Gatus’s men first advance and then fall back, an orderly movement that kept their lines and shield wall intact. Still, the Sumerians hadn’t budged from their position, which wasn’t a good sign. By now Yavtar expected that the enemy would have abandoned their defensive positions to come to grips with their attackers.
He decided to move the boats a little more upriver, to catch a glimpse what lay behind Shulgi’s main battle line. It might confuse the Sumerians who would be expecting the ships to stay just ahead of Gatus’s spearmen.
“Move the boats upriver!” With both hands cupped to his mouth, Yavtar’s bellow carried to the other two ships, and he repeated the message twice in each direction. “At least three hundred paces. Pull, you lazy bastards, pull!”
He turned to find Daro staring at him, but the questioning look on the master bowman’s face gave way to approval.
“Good idea!” Daro, too, had to shout to be heard. “We’ll be able to see behind them.” He raised his voice. “Keep shooting! As fast as you can!”
The three ships moved ponderously forward, pulling well ahead of Gatus’s line. If Yavtar could maneuver the boats even a small distance behind the Sumerian front, Daro’s archers should be able to create havoc.
The ships crept steadily upriver. The enemy either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. Yavtar’s vessel, still in the center of the little fleet, had drawn almost even with the Sumerian line when the arrows stopped arriving. The cessation of enemy arrows drumming against the hull tempted Yavtar to take a good look at the Sumerians.
On the shore, at least a thousand bowmen had shifted their positions, readying themselves to fire directly at the boats. The men moved quickly, formed ranks facing the river, and drew their bows. Yavtar turned to Daro, but the archer had already grasped the significance and shouted new orders to his men.
A few moments later the first volley hurtled toward the ships. Yavtar hunched down below the boat’s hull, and shouted a warning to his steersmen and rowers to do the same. Daro and his men ducked behind their shields. The thudding impact of the first volley was strong enough to make the boat lurch in the water. Before Yavtar had time to congratulate himself on being alive, more arrows struck, creating a hammering sound that went on and on. The limp sail even captured a dozen shafts entangled in the thick linen, while plenty of others just passed through.
Looking forward, he saw more arrows protruding from the vessels’ sides like blades of grass in a field. If it weren’t for the outriggers, slipped into place right after the morning launch, the boats might have capsized from the extra weight of all those arrows alone. Every one of the archers had dropped to his knees and huddled close to the shields, while the rain of death poured down on them.
But the moment the volleys ended, Daro ordered his men to return to their shooting positions. Yavtar counted four more bowmen down, victims of the savage volleys, either dead or out of the fight. Probably the losses would be about the same on the other boats. But Daro still had a battle grimace on his face, and every man that could fight still launched his shaft with a full pull of his bow.
Something burned along his cheek, and Yavtar realized a shaft had just missed his eye. He felt the warm blood dripping down his face, and he hunched a little closer to the wooden shield, not much thicker than the width of his thumb, all that stood between himself and almost certain death.
58
From the slight incline that provided some height, Shulgi still had to strain upwards on his horse to take in the entire battlefield. What he did see caused his brief moment of exultation to turn to anger again. The Akkadians had finally advanced within bowshot, but then they retreated almost as quickly. Meanwhi
le, their cursed archers were wreaking havoc on his bowmen and infantry. The spearmen at least had their shields, but the rear ranks of archers and foot soldiers were taking losses at an alarming rate.
Now those damned riverboats had crept further up the river, almost level with his own position, and launched arrows at his spearmen’s right flank, and even toward his command post. Once again the main force of Akkadian archers remained just out of reach of his smaller bows, and though he had three times as many archers, they might as well have stayed in Sumer for all the good they were doing. They couldn’t even stop the handful of enemy archers on the ships, who kept shooting despite the massive volleys that he’d ordered directed at them.
“Shulgi! We have to advance! Now! Their archers are cutting our men to pieces!”
He turned to find Vanar beside him, a shield held up high to protect his head. His commander’s wide eyes reflected his concern. Shulgi took another look toward Eskkar’s horsemen, still moving slowly to the east.
“Not yet. I want to see what Eskkar’s cavalry are doing.”
“Damn Eskkar! Whatever he’s up to, we’ve got to close with those bowmen. The men are already looking behind them. They’ll be running soon.”
“The Akkadians should have been out of arrows by now.”
“The riverboats must have resupplied them. We have to attack. Now.”
Shulgi gritted his teeth. He wanted to wait at little longer, but if even a few men started to run… he knew what that would lead to. “All right, give the order to advance. Move them all forward. Make sure they all move together. We need to strike the enemy with a solid line.”
“They will, and the sooner the better.”
Vanar shouted the orders as he turned away, and the subcommanders repeated it. The Sumerian spearmen raised a cheer as the preliminary commands worked their way up and down the ranks. They welcomed the order. Better to move forward on the attack than just stand there taking enemy fire, and plenty of men in the Sumerian ranks wanted revenge for Larsa.
As Shulgi watched, the first rank, after some pushing and shoving, moved forward, slipping between or knocking aside the stakes driven into the ground yesterday in preparation for the Akkadian night attack that had never come.
Shulgi urged them on. His Sumerians looked as eager to close with the Akkadians as he was. They’d chased Eskkar’s army for days, and now wanted nothing better than to cut them apart. Shields held high, they moved forward.
He turned to see Razrek’s cavalry on the move, continuing to shift so as to contain Eskkar’s moving horse fighters. Then Shulgi saw the gap between his infantry and horsemen begin to grow. Razrek was supposed to keep the left flank of the spearmen protected. Instead he’d left it exposed as he moved his men eastward.
Shulgi turned to one of his messengers. “Move up the Tanukhs! Have them close that gap! And send a rider to Razrek and tell him to protect our flank!”
Shulgi had kept a quarter of the Tanukhs in reserve, almost three hundred fighters, intending to send them in where they might be needed. They might not be as steady as Razrek’s men, but they would do until Razrek got his horsemen under control. For now, Shulgi wanted to maintain a solid line, as much to overawe his enemy as protect his center.
O ut of the corner of his eye, Eskkar watched the movement in the Sumerian lines. He saw the small gap developing, but forced himself to continue plodding east. He needed to get all of the Sumerian horse in motion. And once they started, he knew they would find it hard to stop. The horses would want to keep moving, if nothing else.
Across the gap between the two cavalry forces, Razrek’s men — not as well trained or used to following orders — began to move faster and faster to the east, determined to stay ahead of Eskkar’s horsemen, so that when the attack command came, they could easily sweep around Eskkar’s flank.
“Eskkar, I think it’s time…” Grond’s voice betrayed his excitement.
More than five hundred paces now separated Eskkar from Gatus and the spearmen, and the rest of the line stretched far ahead.
“Keep steady! Not yet.” Eskkar kept his eyes on Klexor and Muta, at the far end of the line, still pacing their horses steadily to the east. Eskkar had ordered his commanders not to turn their heads around, but to keep their eyes and those of their men straight ahead until they heard Eskkar’s signal.
He gritted his teeth and let the horse take another dozen steps before he allowed himself to turn his head toward the Sumerians. The small gap shifted and opened a bit more as the horses kicked some dust into the air. He glimpsed men milling around in the rear of the infantry, behind Shulgi’s command post. A force of horsemen remained in the rear, no doubt a reserve. Suddenly, he saw a cluster of men that must be Shulgi’s guard, surrounding a trio of tall red banners. That would be where he would find Shulgi. If Eskkar could see Shulgi, that meant the moment had come. He took a deep breath.
“Fashod! Now! Akkadians, attack!”
The bellowed order carried down the line, and even as he uttered it, Eskkar wheeled his horse around and kicked it into a gallop. Fashod barked his own command in the harsh gutturals of the Ur Nammu, and Eskkar heard it repeated up the warriors, though by now it didn’t matter. The pounding of the horses’ hooves relayed the moment of attack as well as any words. As soon as he had the horse moving at a dead run, he brought up the two javelins that he’d carried in his right hand, held along the side of the horse. Eskkar might not be able to shoot a bow from horseback like his kinsmen or some of his own cavalry, but his powerful arm could still hurl the javelin as hard and as accurately as any of his followers.
Like the tip of a spear, he headed straight for the small break in the Sumerian lines that had opened between the Sumerian foot soldiers and their cavalry. Behind Eskkar, his gleaming helmet and breastplate catching the sun, charged the Ur Nammu warriors, already fitting shafts to their bows. Their war cries burst across the gap and managed to rise above the din of the Akkadian archers, the frightening sounds of the steppe barbarians riding to war. In a few dozen strides — and determined to lead the charge — they drew abreast of Eskkar’s stallion and he had to urge his horse again just to keep up with them.
As soon as Eskkar began the charge, Hathor and Klexor also tugged their horses around and followed, the entire Akkadian cavalry aimed directly — like the shaft of a spear — at Shulgi’s command post, driving at a full gallop, every rider shouting his war cry, as they cut diagonally across the open space.
Months and years of training to teach horse and rider to respond to every command, no matter how odd, now proved its worth. The Akkadian charge, led by Eskkar and Fashod, was only thirty horses wide, but the entire mass of Hathor’s cavalry followed in their steps. They rode as wildly as any barbarian horde, with the fastest moving to the front and the slower following behind, all intent on closing with the enemy as fast as possible.
Arrows flew toward Eskkar and those leading the charge, a few striking the horsemen, but the Sumerian archers were far to the left of the line, many having been shifted to the river to deal with the Akkadian boats, and not all that remained had a clear shot. And at a full gallop, the moments Eskkar and his men were under fire from the enemy archers would be brief indeed.
Eskkar shifted one lance to his left hand and raised the other in his right hand. The horses thundered across the shaking ground, and already he could see his foes shouting at each other in confusion. No one had expected the Akkadians to attack the Sumerian infantry at their flank, especially not with so many of Razrek’s horsemen ready to oppose such an attempt. Eskkar saw one or two already taking a few steps backward, unsure of what to do.
At about one hundred and fifty paces from the enemy, Eskkar heard Fashod signal the Ur Nammu warriors to loose their arrows. Some had already launched their shafts, counting on the speed of their horses to propel the arrow the extra distance. All the missiles flew straight at the Sumerians directly in their path, those still trying to fill the gap. That first flight didn’t have much ef
fect, but in moments, every one of Eskkar’s mounted bowmen were loosing shafts as fast as they could, guiding their horses with their knees and still managing to give their war cries. With so many men before them, they had no need to aim, just launch as quickly as possible.
Eskkar glimpsed horsemen urging their horses forward to fill in the gap, but now arrows were striking at them. Horses were hit, disrupting the movement. Wounded animals tried to flee, frightened at the mass of horses approaching them. Others reared up in simple fright. Eskkar took all this in as he galloped. From behind, more arrows from his own riders flew just over his head, striking at the Sumerian horsemen moving to fill the gap. Caught in the battle rage, Eskkar gave voice to the battle cry of his fathers, as he hurled himself toward Shulgi’s forces.
Nevertheless, the enemy horsemen kept moving forward from the rear, and the empty gap began to disappear. However, the number of defenders moving into position remained small for the moment, and by now nothing could stop the Akkadians hurtling down on them.
The distance between the forces vanished. Eskkar saw a Sumerian horse fighter, struggling to control his horse, and aiming an arrow at him. Eskkar flung the lance with all his strength, arching it up slightly, its flight intensified by the speed of his horse. The shaft struck the man in the chest, the force of the blow knocking him backward off the horse.
Eskkar had just enough time to snatch the second lance from his left hand, and hurl it toward the mass of riders moving toward him. Then he jerked the sword from his scabbard as his horse burst in the midst of the Tanukh riders, the Ur Nammu warriors screaming like demons beside and behind him.
A touch of the halter guided the stallion between two Sumerians. One man went down from Eskkar’s sword, swinging down with all his strength, while the second was knocked from his horse by the stallion’s shoulder. More arrows, fired at a dead run by both the Ur Nammu and the Akkadians still charging behind their leaders, hissed through the air, striking down men and horses alike, everything in their path. Javelins, too, flung by most of the cavalry, struck with devastating effect. Behind Eskkar, Hathor and his men were screaming their war cries, the sound drowning out any Sumerian battle cries.