The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  “I will return this devastation whence it came,” I thought. “I will kill them in their thousands, enslaving their women and sons, burning their cities and their fields. They will remember my name to the end of time, for I will close my heart to pity.”

  That night we camped beside a stone cliff that bore the carved image of Great Sargon, a figure twice the size of living men, left there to record his glory. Beneath his feet he had caused to be written a warning and a curse: “Stranger, you enter the Land of Ashur, Lord of Heaven, Giver of Victory, the Son of Wisdom and Power. Here the law of kings prevails, who are mighty in war. Ashur will drown his enemies in their own blood.” From the king’s hand ran the leads to four Median chieftains who knelt before him, their arms raised in supplication and their lips pierced with rings to make them tractable as cattle. Now it was his grandson’s task to make good this royal boast.

  The senior officers of our hastily assembled army, with some of whom I had fought at the Bohtan River and even in Babylon, while others were almost strangers, formed a circle around the table in my tent as I explained my plans for the campaign. Before us, drawn in charcoal on an oxhide, was a copy of the map used by the Lord Sargon when he had made war against the Medes, ten years before my birth. It showed almost nothing beyond a ragged line of mountains, a river or two, and the names of some ten or twelve settlements that might have been anything from villages with fifty families to great cities.

  “We shall have to move carefully,” I told them. “We shall have to send our scouts out two or three days ahead to feel the way for us—we make war upon strangers in their own land, and it is best to be cautious.”

  “The Medes will think we are frightened,” said a rab abru from the garrison at Arzuhina, a squat, dark, solid little figure whose name was Bel Itir and who had the reputation of a fire eater. “What is the point of fielding this vast force if it does no more than lumber timidly about like a water buffalo with a bellyful of nettles?”

  As he spoke his eyes blazed in the flickering lamplight, as if he could already hear the laughter of his enemies and held me solely responsible for this intolerable humiliation.

  “Let the Medes think what they like. If this year we cut off only the tip of one finger, next year we will be back for the whole arm.” I smiled, knowing that a man like Bel Itir would be hard pressed to understand.

  “I mean to reduce these barbarians to silence,” I went on, speaking now more generally. “When we have finished here, the Medes will not venture from their mountains for a generation—perhaps not even then. But this will not be the work of a single campaign. So let the tribes think we come only to burn a few villages and then, honor satisfied, hurry back to the comfort of our great cities. If they imagine that we have grown soft, they will learn their mistake soon enough.

  “Now then—I propose that we follow this line of mountains into Ellipi, to about here, where we will divide into three wings and converge upon this point, called Ecbatana. . .”

  So we marched east and into the land of the Medes, an army of near twelve thousand men. And every hour we could feel upon us the measuring eyes of our enemies—they were no more than that, a presence that made the air heavy in our lungs. It was full twelve days before we even saw their faces.

  I will never forget my first sight of that warrior race. It was not more than an hour after sunrise and we had covered hardly a single beru of our day’s march. All at once I raised my eyes and saw them. A group of some twenty riders had appeared on the crest of a low hill—they were simply there, as if they had sprung straight from the earth. How they had managed to slip past my scouts I could only guess, for this was their country, where I was but a stranger.

  I raised my arm and brought the line of march to a halt.

  We had at last reached the steppes of the Zagros Mountains, that great grassland that seemed to roll forward forever. On our left, at the very limit of the horizon, visible only as a thin, pale ribbon of melting light, was a vast salt desert where, it was said, the sun could kill in a single hour, baking a man’s brains into syrup. On our right were the mountains, cold, barren, filled with hidden places—little valleys of astonishing lustiness, or so I had heard, the secret homes of the Median tribes. And now, it seemed, since so small a party could entertain no hope of attacking us, they must wish to hear what unwelcome business had brought us so far.

  Finally, when they understood we were waiting for them, they pricked their horses forward and rode down, eight or nine abreast, to parley. These would be some local headman or other and his clan elders, and they did not hurry.

  The party drew to a halt some seventy paces in front of us, on what they probably considered safely neutral ground. I went forward with my principal officers to meet them.

  Some among their number were men full of years, whose knowledge of life’s hardships seemed etched into their faces. A few might have been old enough to have fought in the wars against my grandfather from the very beginning of his eastern campaigns, and these, after the manner of those who have spent long lives commanding warriors from the back of a horse, were figures of immense dignity—I noticed that two of them, their hair as white as frost, kept glancing at me as they conferred in excited murmurs. Some were younger. A few, as is always the case, were probably fools.

  One, a handsome man in the middle of his life and, like most of his race, tall and slender, kept slightly ahead of the rest and waited in expectant silence, studying me with almost disdainful calm, as if he regarded this meeting as entirely a matter between the two of us. His hair, which showed very little gray, was cut short and tied back with a red fillet, and his beard was carefully curled. He wore heavy boots, trousers like the Scythians, and a sheepskin coat lined inside with fleece. There was nothing except his bearing to indicate that he was lord here.

  “I am Uksatar, son of Ianzu, whom the Ahura loved, and parsua of the Miyaneh,” he announced, the way a man does when he assumes his name will be recognized.

  “And I am Tiglath Ashur, son of the Lord Sennacherib who is king in the Land of Ashur.”

  “I know your name. Lord. I wish to know what has brought you here.”

  “To know one is to know the other, Uksatar, son of Ianzu, for what except the god’s call for retribution would bring a prince of the world’s masters to such a place as this?”

  I swept my hand over the horizon, as if to indicate its contemptible emptiness. Uksatar, parsua of the Miyaneh, seemed oblivious to the insult.

  “Then you seek to avenge a few mud huts and a handful of stolen cattle?” he asked, raising his eyes in apparent astonishment. “If you wish only to punish a tribe of raiders, you bring with you too large an army—you will never catch them. If you have come to conquer the land of the Aryan, it is not nearly large enough.”

  “It is large enough. The man who herds sheep needs no more than a few good dogs.”

  “I see that the son of Sennacherib, king of Nineveh, still has a bitter tongue,” came a voice from behind Uksatar’s back. We both looked to see who had spoken, and a horse nosed its way forward. The man who rode it no longer wore the blue tunic and black vest of an Uqukadi, but I recognized him nonetheless. The smile on his thick, fleshy face was still there, as if nothing had changed since our last meeting, and perhaps, for him, nothing had. His people were scattered, dead, or in bondage, but to him, perhaps, it made no difference, for this was a leader whose final loyalty was to no one except himself.

  “Then you survived,” I observed, returning his salute with a slight nod. “And, it would seem, have prospered.”

  “A wise man, my Lord Tiglath, can always escape with at least part of his wealth, and a wealthy man is never without influence.”

  His smile broadened, as if he expected me to congratulate him. He seemed actually to be waiting for it to happen.

  “But we took each other’s measure long ago,” he went on at last, shrugging his heavy shoulders. “Did we not, Lord? There seem to be some among these worthies who suspect you of bein
g a mighty spirit come back to punish them for some ancient wrong, but I have assured them that you are—”

  “That is enough, Upash,” snapped the parsua of the Miyaneh—it seemed that the Lord Uksatar did not relish having his counsels opened for my inspection. “You chatter like a woman. All that is needful is to make the foreigner understand that we do not fear his might and that, in any case, those who plundered the lands of his unclean god broke no law which we recognize.”

  He turned to me, his eyes narrowing as if he thought to kill me with a look.

  “Go home, Prince Tiglath Ashur, son and grandson of kings. You will find nothing here but ruin and death.”

  “One of us will, in any case,” I answered, smiling—this was a game I had played before. “And for now I wish you a pleasant morning, willing even to believe that you are as fearless as you claim.”

  I raised my hand in salute, but the Lord Uksatar recoiled at the gesture, as if I had made to strike him. Nor was he alone—several among his entourage reined back their horses, and I could hear the murmur of low voices pass among them like a thrill of panic.

  “Dastesh!” one of them shouted, as if suddenly overtaken by surprise. “Dastesh—setare ye kohn e Sargon!”

  As one man, they wheeled their horses about and galloped off, not stopping until they had vanished from sight.

  “By the sixty great gods, Rab Shaqe,” Lushakin scratched his beard in bewilderment as we rode back to our own columns. “What do you think got them so upset?”

  I couldn’t answer him. I could only shake my head and wonder, the same as he.

  “I can tell you.”

  It was the rab abru Bel Itir who had spoken. He rode along beside us, his shoulders hunched grimly, staring out at nothing. At last he ventured a thin, cruel smile.

  “I know their tongue a little,” he said. “A man learns a few words posted out in this wilderness—enough. It is the birthmark the rab shaqe carries on the palm of his hand that frightens them, the blood star, as they called it. It is the mark of our late king, Mighty Sargon. They fear that he is not quiet in his grave and returns in his grandson’s person to avenge himself. They fear it is a ghost who leads us into battle.”

  . . . . .

  That night I had a dream. The dream was of an eagle, rising effortlessly into the sky, turning in great circles as the wind lifted it higher and higher. At last it came to rest on a barren outcropping of rock. It looked down, and through its eyes I could see the earth spread beneath me like a wrinkled carpet. The next morning I gave orders that we were to abandon the steppes and begin our climb into the Zagros Mountains.

  My officers must have thought I had gone mad, for there was no military reason why we should give up the plains, where at least we had less to fear from ambushes. There seemed to be no reason of any kind, none even that I could see. I was listening to some inner voice, and all I knew for certain was that I would do its bidding and follow where it led.

  We did not see the Medes again for many days. They were watching our progress—of this I had no doubt; I could almost feel their eyes upon us—but they kept themselves from sight. They did not attack, as I would have expected them to. They held off and waited. We all seemed to be waiting.

  The mark of the Lord Sargon. The red star I have carried since the hour of my birth, since the hour in which he met his death, somewhere in these very mountains. His sedu protected my steps—this the blind maxxu had told me, long ago. Perhaps it was even true. If ever he was with me, if ever he kept me from harm and led me to see with his own eyes, it was then, in the land of the Medes, while I wandered the ragged spine of the Zagros, listening for the words of the god’s voice.

  And then, at last, it came to me. Not the sound of some inner speaking, but an understanding that I been to this place before, had climbed these mountain passes and felt this wind upon my face—that none of this was unfamiliar, that I knew what to expect and would know when I found it, the place where it would happen. And then, at last, I lost my fear, for I was cradled in the hand of Ashur.

  On the seventh day since we had left the safety of the plains we found a place of shale and limestone cliffs, beneath which the spring waters oozed like fresh blood. A shepherd was there with his dogs and his flock, one man alone. He watched us with wild, fearful eyes, uncertain whether he ran the greater risk to stay or to flee. I had seen all this before, with my soul’s eyes, waking and dreaming. I ordered the soldiers to make camp, for here we would stop.

  I summoned Bel Itir to me, for he alone among us understood something of the speech of these lands.

  “You have questioned the shepherd?” I asked him.

  “Yes, Rab Shaqe. It seemed a wish precaution, although he claims to know nothing. Shall I order his throat cut?”

  “No—let him go, as an offering to the god. Does he say of what tribe he is?”

  “Of the Kullumite, Rab Shaqe—great once, he says, but now nearly gone from these mountains.”

  “Does he say what place this is?”

  “He calls it the Place of Bones, Rab Shaqe. He does not know how it came by that name.”

  I knew, although I did not say. And I knew then why the sedu of my grandfather, glorious in arms, had led me here. The Place of Bones—yes, of course. Great Sargon could have told how it had come by that name. Nargi Adad would have looked about him and remembered. What other name should it have had? The old men of the Miyaneh had been right to feel afraid.

  “Set up watchtowers in all the high places,” I ordered. “Set the men to digging pit traps against the enemy horses—no man shall rest until the work is done. I wish this place fortified as against a siege. We will all sleep in our armor tonight, and every night if need be. Each soldier will stand his watch through half the hours of darkness, including the officers.”

  “You expect them here then, Rab Shaqe?” he asked, smiling thinly, as if he thought me mad.

  “They will come, Bel Itir, and we will be ready for them. And do not fear but that we will paint the ground red with their blood.”

  “It shall be as you will, Rab Shaqe.”

  No, it would be as the god willed. Mighty Ashur, Lord of Heaven, he whose power may never be subdued, whose light blinds like the sun, it was he who had brought us here, through his chosen instrument, Tiglath, son and grandson of kings, a little man whom he leads as he might a dog that knows its master.

  While the day was still with us, I sent out riders to scout every approach. Sentries were posted along the tops of the cliffs, where even in the black of night they would hear the approach of an enemy force, even if their horses’ hoofs were wrapped in linen. Our supply carts, those few that had survived the journey, were turned on their sides and left as obstacles to impede the charge of cavalry. The soldiers prepared their weapons against an enemy they had never seen, for whose very existence they were forced to take my word. No man rested. As the sun faded, we worked by torchlight.

  And at last, the thing was done. The cooks made our supper, butchering a pair of horses that the soldiers might have a little meat, but we were almost too weary to eat. And there would be no more than a few hours’ rest tonight, as we waited.

  All day long the riders had come back, and always they reported that they had seen nothing—not a single man under arms, not even a goatherd with a stick for killing snakes. Our enemies eluded us, although I never doubted they were close enough to reach out their hands to us whenever they liked. These mountains were filled with little canyons where five thousand men could conceal themselves for days, even months, and my scouts might pass by twenty times and never notice the narrow stone gully, covered over with brush, that led to their hiding place. The Medes were at home here. Why should we see even their shadows before they were pleased to show themselves? Nevertheless, they were there.

  In my tent my officers gathered. I outlined to them my plans and my expectations, assigning each his role in the coming battle. They listened with sullen attention, saying nothing, for they did not half believe m
e. Some, I think, were ready to relieve me of command and take me back to Nineveh tied to a pole, but it was no small thing to raise one’s hand against the king’s own son, so they kept their own counsel and, for now, took my orders in silence.

  When I stepped outside, the soldiers were waiting. They, too, doubted, but they were simple men for whom the rab shaqe’s word was law. And so, their work finished, they waited in patience to hear that word, to weigh for themselves the purposes that had brought them to this

  place. This they would hear from the Lord Tiglath Ashur, shaknu of the northern provinces, son and grandson of kings. This was their right.

  I climbed up on the back of a chariot and looked into that sea of faces, a great murmuring crowd in the wavering light of campfires and torches. What could I say that they might understand and believe? I knew not. I opened my lips and let the words come.

  “Men of Ashur, you are the servants of a wise god. Like the eagle, he circles wide above us but always comes back to the same nest. He confides in no man but hugs his vengeance to his own bosom and waits, for he is patient. He has brought us here that we may work its fulfillment and see with our own eyes the unconquerable might of his will.

  “We stand, at this moment, on ground which he has made holy to receive us, for here, on this high and rocky plain, twenty years ago and more, Sargon the Great, king in the Land of Ashur, whom the god loved above all men, perished at the hands of his enemies. Here he fell. This flint hard soil drank his blood. And now the King of Heaven and Earth has led us back to this place that the death of our lord may at last be avenged!”