The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  I would leave one third of the garrison behind, for a large army, like a wounded snake, does not cover ground quickly. My quradu I would take, and seven companies. If I could not conquer with them, more soldiers would only mean more corpses to glut the crows. I departed from Amat on the morning of the sixteenth day of Elul, leading men whom, for the most part, I had commanded not even a month.

  A soldier on campaign lives a life harder than any slave’s, and that march, across nearly forty beru of rough, rock strewn wasteland, was an ordeal as terrible as any battle. On the first day, while the men were still fresh, we covered seven beru, and that night, as I toured the camp, the soldiers I saw huddled about their cooking fires had not even strength left to curse me. The second day we came within sight of the Tigris River, a ribbon of light glistening sluggishly in the distance, and that day we had marched six beru. On the third and fourth days we maintained a pace of five beru, but I heard much muttering, especially on the fourth day, which was an evil day when decent men would have kept to their tents.

  In truth, I felt some uneasiness on this point, but I was more afraid of the onset of winter, which, if it found us still in the field, was certain death, than I was of evil spirits, which are a vague and insubstantial menace. So I told the men we were all under the protection of the god Ashur, who could forgive any sin, and of my sedu, which was of great power. When we were not attacked by marauders or struck down by plague, many came to believe me—they did not cease to complain, which is no more than a soldier’s right, but I heard no more of evil days.

  Each day they had to rise from their bed in the dark because I had given orders that the marches would commence at dawn, whether the men had been breakfasted or not. At the height of noon I allowed one hour of rest, and then the march would continue until almost night. That there might be no ill feeling, I walked myself, using my horse as a pack animal, and ordered all officers to do the same.

  By noon of the eighth day, while the men rested, outriders returned to report they had seen the Bohtan River over the next line of hills, and that there were encampments with wagons and much livestock on the meadows on both sides. So the Lord Lutipri had not lied—everyone knew that the Scythians, alone among the nomadic peoples, traveled by wagon.

  I gave orders that we would make camp where we were. The men were exhausted and would be in no condition to fight for at least two days. I would not have the enemy know of our presence before then. There were to be no fires lit, and no one except lookouts would approach the crest of the hill. We would wait, and rest, and stay quiet.

  I could restrain my soldiers easily enough—most of them were quite content to stay in one place and not move—but I could not restrain myself. I would see this new adversary, so much talked of and so little known, for the Scythians were new to these mountains, so long plagued by wandering tribes, each pushing the next before it in successive waves, and all always moving farther west. Where the tribes had come from, and what had set the pattern of their migrations, no man knew, not even they themselves.

  Leaving my horse behind, I walked to the crest of the last hill and, for the rest of that afternoon, sat in the shadow of a great rock and watched as they grazed their animals in the heavy meadow grass and went about the routines of their curious existence.

  The Scythians, like the Cimmerians, the Mannaeans, the Medes, the Uqukadi, the Sapardai, and all the rest, are a herding nation—their lives are bound up in a ceaseless search for new pastures for their oxen, horses, and sheep. For the rest, they are bandits, preying on the settled people whom they dispossess. They practice no farming and hold in contempt all who do. Any manner of living that obliges them to stay in one place they abhor worse than death, maintaining that it leads to womanish softness, that only among the nomads are there true men. Naturally, since they seek only to plunder other nations and must constantly defend their own grasslands against other tribes, they put the highest value on the martial virtues—higher even than do the men of Ashur, since among the Scythians every man must be a warrior. They are fine horsemen and fight only as cavalry. Their weapon is the bow, with which they are marvelously proficient, and the lance. They carry no swords, only a rather long dagger which they wear in their belts. They prefer to retire before a formidable adversary, but in battle they are courageous to the point of folly, disdaining even to wear body armor. It is the greatest misfortune to fall into their hands as a prisoner, for their cruelty is a matter of legend.

  All of this I had heard at one time or another, and from my mountain vantage there was really little more I could learn—except for two things. The first of these was the very curious manner of their dress; above they wore a heavy quilted jacket that came down almost to their knees, but below they covered themselves with a strange garment the like of which I have never seen among any other peoples. This garment was forked at the crotch, and each leg had its own tube of cloth that covered it almost like a second skin all the way down to the foot. It seemed a very practical way of dressing for a horseman, but I cannot imagine anyone could be very comfortable in such an outfit.

  The other thing which excited my curiosity was that there seemed to be no women about. Men and boys alone tended to the animals, but even in their camp—the one which was closest to me—I could see no women. They appeared to do their cooking on their wagons, which were large and covered with a kind of tent that was open at the top to let the smoke escape, so perhaps. I concluded, the women stayed in the wagons.

  By rough count, there were close to four thousand men in the two encampments on either side of the river. Assuming that half of these would be fit to fight, that gave them a three to one advantage over us in numbers.

  Already then I had made my plans, and when the light began to fade I returned to camp to a cold meal and a conference with my officers.

  “They are not even bothering to put out patrols,” I told them. “They do not expect an attack. We can wait until the morning after next, when our men will be fresh again. Then we will march over the crest in seven battle squares, three in front and four behind. The cavalry and the chariots we will hold in reserve. We shall wait until the second hour before giving them any sign of our presence, that they may have dispersed their herds too widely over the plain to be able to collect them quickly—that way they shall be forced to stand and fight. Let the drums wait until we have nearly engaged, since I think there is little enough chance of frightening the men, but the horses may not be accustomed to the noise.”

  That night I slept like the dead.

  All the next day the men reassembled the chariots and otherwise prepared themselves for battle. I did not concern myself with such matters. I had issued my orders, and that would have to be enough. These soldiers must believe that I entertained no doubts about their will or their abilities. I returned to my lookout and studied the ground upon which this battle was to be fought.

  The hill sloped too quickly to the plain to allow chariots to be driven straight down, but there was a path, perhaps just wide enough, that followed the slope at an angle. They would have to proceed in single file, and their wheels would have to be damped, but we had brought only ten, so this would present no problem. I would send them down after the infantry and cavalry had already reached level ground.

  The process by which the Scythians were crossing over from one side of the river to another seemed a gradual one, and the Bohtan, while it probably carried less water now than at any other time of year, was still a formidable obstacle. How long their forces would remain thus divided I knew not—it would be at most a momentary advantage—but these men would have no choice but to offer battle. They would have no retreat.

  That was my only fear, that somehow they would slip away from me. I had no other doubts. This engagement was as clear in my mind as if it had already been fought. I might die on this grassy plain—this being no more than the chance taken by every soldier—but, dead or alive, I would be victorious.

  And the thought of death held no terrors for me. I
f I perished, then my body would be covered in honey and taken back to Nineveh, where I would be mourned over by those who cared for me. I would be free of remorse and suffering, having died as a soldier ought, and in triumph. And the dead do not endure the pangs of abandoned love. If I died here, tomorrow. . . The idea appealed to me more than I could say.

  I decided, there and then, that I would drive one of the chariots myself. The men, knowing this, would take courage, and they would not need me after tomorrow. I had no taste for watching this fight from a safe distance. I would ride into the very mouth of death, and snatch out her tongue that it might be forced to sing of my glory to the last days of the world.

  That night I did not sleep, but my mind was calm. What should I know of fear? What terrors should tomorrow hold, when I had resigned myself to death? I had but to close my eyes, and Esharharnat was with me. Once I had disentangled myself from the net of my living flesh, it would be thus forever. We had never parted, not really. My unhappiness had been nothing but the confusion of things seen and felt—I had been blinded by the nearness of life. Death was nothing, only the loss of a man’s last few illusions. I could see that quite clearly now.

  . . . . .

  The next morning, the twenty-sixth day of Elul, I ranged the seven companies of infantry just below the crest of the hill, where they would not be seen until the last instant. It was a fine, bright dawn, and a light breeze blew toward us that the sound of our preparations would not carry nor would the horses of the enemy smell us. I watched the Scythian riders herd their animals out onto the meadow. I waited until the grass at my feet had lost the last of its dew, and then I raised my arm to signal that the advance might begin.

  “Is it not a fine day, Rab Shaqe? Is it not?”

  It was my driver, Gadi, his eyes beaming his pleasure. The beard on his face was like down, he was such a baby. This would be his first battle.

  “Yes—it is a fine day,” I answered, forcing myself to smile.

  The lines of soldiers poured down the slope, one after the other, walking slowly that the battle squares might remain intact. The only sound was the crunch of their sandals against the stony ground. The sight of them made my heart swell.

  From the crest to the river was perhaps fifteen hundred gar, the distance a man might walk in an hour if he kept a brisk pace. In a quarter of that time my infantry would be upon the plain, for this hill did not rise to any great height. Unless the enemy would be content to have themselves backed straight up to the water’s edge, they would have no more than an hour in which to engage us—and they would need every minute of that to rally themselves from the first shock of surprise. By then, with good fortune, our cavalry and chariots would be on level ground. Mine would be the last chariot down.

  I watched—with some admiration—how the Scythians conducted themselves when at last they saw what had been prepared for them. There was no evidence of panic. Riders went back and forth, giving the alarm, and then some hundred men began to herd the animals together to drive as many as they could across the river to safety. By the time we were ready, they were ready, their lines of cavalry formed and waiting. There were more of them than I had expected, very nearly 2,500 mounted men. They were arranged in four ranks and would attack in waves.

  I stepped onto my chariot, which was surrounded by the six riders who would carry orders for me, and told my driver to start down the plain. We had hardly reached level ground when the war drums began their booming. The enemy was engaged.

  The first waves of the Scythian riders attacked, screaming like hawks and shooting their arrows with greater accuracy than I would have imagined possible from men on horseback. At the last moment our forces halted and let the paling of long iron lances drop into place around all four sides of their formations. It was not something the enemy had expected, that soldiers on the field of battle could convert their ranks into an impenetrable fortress, and those who were not spitted like rabbits, or who were not tumbled to the ground by horses mad with fear, retired in confusion. I saw the corpses of only a few of our own troops, so at least we had won the first skirmish.

  What would they do next? What could they do? That was up to them, and I did not care to give them leisure to consider the problem at length.

  “Continue the advance!” I shouted, and a rider turned his horse and raced off in the direction of our formations. He reached the front of the first square, ducked down to say a word to the corner man and, as he straightened up, took a Scythian arrow in the neck and toppled over—it had served him right. Only a posturing fool would ride to the front like that, exposing himself to the enemy. Soldiers at the back of a square have as good ears as those in front.

  The second wave of enemy cavalry did not even attempt a direct assault on our formations—they had learned the folly of that. Instead, they split into two halves and harried our lines with arrows. It was what I should have expected.

  The Scythians wore no armor, but they were moving targets and difficult to hit except with massed clusters of arrow and javelin. We, of course, were almost stationary but better protected, but we were killing them only very little faster than they were killing us. And there were many more of them. Clearly they planned to wear us down with their numbers—they did not seem to care how many of them died. It would not do.

  I ordered the chariots forward—my last order of this battle; the time for orders was over—and picked a javelin from one of the wicker holders that lined the sides of my car. From this moment on I was merely a soldier, no different from any other. It was a release from bondage. As the horses gathered speed, I could feel the blood pounding in my veins like a hammer.

  A chariot is a terrible weapon, especially when the horses are protected by an armor of copper scales sewn onto leather. It bears down on an enemy like the hand of heaven, striking terror into men’s hearts, and its wheels are fitted with blades, slightly longer than the length of one’s arm, which turn with the axle and can cut a man or a horse to pieces with the slightest touch. All soldiers, mounted or on foot, fear a chariot above any other force that can be turned against them.

  But there are dangers. A man in a chariot is no less exposed than he is on horse; it takes no more than a lucky hit to fell him, and he can be certain enough that many darts will be turned in his direction. Or if a horse is lamed, or the driver hits a stone and breaks a wheel or is thrown—to have that headlong rush stopped is to become helpless, and to become helpless is to die.

  Or one’s driver can be killed. That is what happened to me.

  He was hardly more than a boy, was poor little Gadi, so eager for glory, and an arrow pierced his side, just under the arm, and found his heart. He turned to me as he died—I am unlikely ever to forget the expression on his face, his look of pain and something almost like remorse, as if he imagined he had failed me—and he just had time to put the reins into my hands before he pitched over backward, already dead, and tumbled onto the field.

  But I had no time to think of Gadi. I was alone now, the floor of the car shaking beneath my feet as I reined in the fury of two horses half mad with the frenzy of war. I understood how they felt. I could feel it myself—I could feel nothing else, nothing but that all consuming mingling of fear and exultation which is a warrior’s passion. I was the god himself, Adad the Thunderer. I would deal out death, stripping men of their lives.

  “Ashur is King!” I shouted. The cry broke from my lips, as if of its own will. “Ashur is King! Ashur is King!” The pounding hoofs really were like thunder—I felt as if I might kill the world. “Ashur is King!”

  A Scythian bowman slowed his horse to take aim at me, but he waited just an instant too long. I turned in on him and ran him down, my wheel blades leaving him and his mount gutted on the field like a brace of pigs. Another, close behind him, drew out from my path. Then, from the side, he began to bear down on me, the arrow already seated in his bow, but to me he too was already a dead man. I took the reins in one hand—I felt strong enough for that, strong enough fo
r anything—lifted my javelin, and threw. My aim was certain, and the man slid out of his saddle, trying with both hands but all in vain to pull the javelin from his breast, even as he died.

  Back and forth I tore across the field, raising a plume of dust that might have been fire. The Scythian horsemen could not keep to their formations—soon they were swarming about aimlessly, clumped up together like bees, and then, as the massed arrows from our battle squares began to take their toll, that grassy meadow quickly turned into a killing field.

  But they would not give ground. The Scythians, their backs to the river, fighting for their livestock and the safety of their families, charged us over and over, vainly attempting to drive us off. They were foolish in their stubborn valor—what chance had they?—but their valor was still a sight in men’s eyes. The ground was covered with their dead, but they would not stop. At close range our javelins killed them, at a distance our flights of arrows that seemed to block out the sun. Over and over again they would charge on our battle squares, and over and over again they would fall like sparks from a grinding wheel, their light dying as they dropped away. As they tried to regroup, our chariots would scatter them—or drive them together in confused masses, entangled like barley husks.

  They would not yield. They seemed to disdain yielding—and their disdain brought down upon them a great slaughter.

  As the sun rose toward noon, the battle, which was now within two arrow flights of the Scythian camp, changed its character. As a man loses the giddy excitement of youth and enters into his sober, steady middle age, so our fight, no longer a contest of equals, settled into the grim, joyless, dangerous business of dealing out death. To stay alive oneself and to kill the enemy—these were the only thoughts in anyone’s mind. And it was a labor, a bitter toil. My horses’ sides were lathered with sweat, and my arms ached.