Clash Of Empires (The Eskkar Saga)

by Sam Barone

  The long night had proven grim for the Elamites. First their planned assault using the Immortals had collapsed in the confusion brought about by the sting of Akkad’s slingers. Before Modran’s forces had fully recovered from that, the horse stampede had further disrupted the formations.

  By that raid, even the lowest and slow-witted of the Elamite soldiers realized that their leaders had lied to them, that no new supplies or reinforcements would be coming through the Pass. Now the day of the final battle had come, forcing Lord Modran to attack in daylight.

  The Akkadians had made their own preparations, and they, too, had slept little. Eskkar glanced from one side of the Pass to the other. Everything looked much the same as in the previous battles. At least, he hoped it still appeared that way to Modran’s commanders. Eskkar wanted them to believe his Akkadians would fight today’s battle the same way as the first two assaults.

  The longer Eskkar studied Modran’s advancing formations, the more convinced Eskkar became that an attack by the Elamites last night would have succeeded. He could just make out the vaunted Immortals moving into position, behind a frontal mass of barely organized infantry. Modran obviously no longer cared about preserving his elite fighting force. Even in a victory today, they would sustain heavy losses. The Elamite commander had grown desperate indeed.

  Eskkar felt certain that some of that same desperation had also seeped into the enemy commanders and even individual soldiers. The forebodings that had swept through Modran’s men last night would still linger in their hearts this morning. That, and their lack of food and water, gave the Akkadians yet another advantage.

  The outcome of the battle might well rest on just how anxious and fearful the Elamite soldiers had become. He glanced around at his own men. They, too, seemed subdued. They knew what approached, and word had spread about the Elamite Immortals, and their fighting abilities.

  “Here they come.” Drakis’s cheerful voice broke into Eskkar’s grim thoughts. “And just like Markesh reported, the Immortals are bunched together against our right flank.”

  Alexar galloped up to join them. “Muta’s men are ready, Captain. As are my spearmen and Mitrac.” He lowered his voice. “By Ishtar’s honey pot, I hope this works.”

  Eskkar and Drakis both laughed at the crude joke, the sound making hundreds of heads turn toward their leader. “We’ll know soon enough,” Eskkar said.

  The worries and qualms that had nagged Eskkar’s thoughts during the night had vanished. The sight of your adversary often accomplished that. Only confidence remained. Whether his plan succeeded or failed, at least he would have taken the initiative. Waiting patiently for the Elamites to attack, and then suffering under their assaults was not the kind of fighting he preferred. That impatience was no doubt ingrained in the blood of every steppes warrior.

  “That we will,” agreed Alexar. “At least we have our own Immortal, Drakis, to match against those of our enemy.”

  Drakis would be commanding the right flank, where the brunt of the Elamite attack would fall. Even so, his combativeness and determination would spread to his troops, and they would fight hard and follow wherever he led.

  “Then to your posts,” Eskkar said. He turned his horse and cantered across the Pass, until he could see Shappa and his subcommanders. “Are you ready?” Eskkar’s bellow easily reached up into the rocks where Shappa waited.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Eskkar grunted in approval. The final orders had been given. Today there would be no speeches to his men, nor any further orders to his commanders. They knew their tasks, what needed to be done, and how high the stakes. Every man seemed ready.

  He trotted the horse back to the center of the line, settling beside Mitrac. The Master Archer stood by his ranks of bowmen, just as he had done in each of the previous attacks. Only today, most of the sacks containing the extra shafts had vanished. Instead, every archer had a second quiver belted on his hip.

  “Once again I need your arrows, Mitrac,” Eskkar said.

  Of all of Akkad’s soldiers, only Mitrac had followed Eskkar into every battle, starting even before the first Alur Meriki siege of Akkad, then known as the village of Orak. Mitrac and his deadly archers had played a key role in the campaigns at Sumer and Isin, and many others. He would do so again today against the Elamites.

  “We’re ready, Captain,” Mitrac said. He waved his bow toward ten men who stood behind him. “My archers will find their marks, and every leader of ten knows what to do. Many of the enemy commanders have already been killed.”

  That, too, would likely be a factor today. While many Akkadian leaders of ten and twenty had died, the number was insignificant compared to the losses of their counterparts among the Elamites.

  Eskkar took one last look at his reserves behind him, where a handful of mounted Akkadian cavalry stood waiting, positioned much the same as the previous two battles. He glimpsed Garal riding at Muta’s side. The Ur Nammu warrior, feathers once again dangling from his bow, also had a lance slung across his back.

  The rest of the horsemen had been moved farther up the slope, presumably to protect the Akkadian horses from the enemy’s arrows. Only a small portion of the herd was visible before the trail twisted out of sight.

  The drums of the Elamites changed their tempo, and Eskkar glanced down the slope. The enemy continued its advance, its soldiers trudging slowly up the Pass, the men shifting into their attack positions. For a long moment Eskkar stared at the oncoming invaders, studying the advance until he felt sure of their intent.

  “It’s as we expected, Mitrac,” Eskkar said. “Good hunting to you, and may your arrows find their marks. And to you, Alexar.”

  Alexar nodded and trotted off down the ranks of spearmen, moving toward the far end of the left flank. Where once the Akkadian infantry had stood four deep, now only two ranks remained, except for the very center of the line, where another forty men formed a third rank.

  Mitrac’s bowmen had also lost many archers, and while they still maintained four ranks in depth, the spacing between each man had widened.

  Modran’s army, despite its two defeats, yet filled the Pass from side to side, a solid block of men. The Elamites remained quiet, knowing what awaited them. Even so, their masters would drive them forward with threats and the flat of their swords. Once they closed with Eskkar’s men, the sheer weight of numbers would be in the Elamites’ favor.

  Everyone in the first four or five ranks carried some type of shield. Modran must have collected anything that could stop an arrow and given them to the front ranks for this final assault.

  Watching his foes advance, Eskkar swore under his breath. He needed one more victory to make the Elamites cut and run. Even if his men just managed to hold them off, it would mean the end of the invasion. Eskkar needed something to make them hesitate, something to break their spirit and convince them that they couldn’t win.

  Win or lose, this fight was going to be close, and plenty of Akkadians were going to die. The loss of so many of his valuable spearmen and archers was bad enough, but to fail to defeat the enemy would make their deaths in vain.

  Alexar cantered back toward the center, and waved at Drakis, who waved his spear in return. Alexar swung down from his horse beside Eskkar. “Our men are ready, Captain, at least as ready as they’ll ever be. But it looks like it’s going to be close. Good hunting.” He handed his horse’s halter to one of his men and strode calmly back toward his position in the center of the left flank.

  Eskkar knew Alexar preferred to fight on foot, beside his men.

  Then Mitrac’s drum sounded and the time for orders and doubts had passed. The Elamites had moved within range.

  “Loose!” Mitrac launched the first flight of arrows into the sky.

  The third battle of the Dellen Pass had begun.

  From his higher position up the slope, Eskkar could see almost the entire Elamite army, and he saw the weight of Modran’s cavalry, grouped closer toward Eskkar’s right flank. He guessed Modran h
ad less than four thousand mounted fighters remaining, and the effectiveness of that force might be the key to victory or defeat today.

  Nevertheless, almost eighteen thousand Elamites, a mix of infantry and archers, filled the width of the Pass. All of them urged on by their commanders, and determined to finish off the Akkadians once and for all.

  But first the Elamites needed to come to grips with their enemy. Once again, more than fifteen hundred of Mitrac’s archers continued to pour arrows into the advancing troops, slowing their approach. Another three hundred bowmen, Muta’s dismounted cavalry, faced the approaching Immortals. Now they, too, began launching their arrows. The screening Elamite infantry lacked a sufficient number of shields, and the Akkadian arrows ripped into their ranks.

  However despite taking heavy losses, the enemy commanders drove their men onward.

  Eskkar, keeping his shield between himself and the enemy, trotted his horse behind the bowmen. He ignored the occasional shaft that overshot the Akkadian ranks. The Elamites, those who survived the arrow storm, were almost within charging distance. In another fifty paces, they would fling themselves forward.

  The time had come. Eskkar raised his sword, and waved it back and forth. Two drummers, awaiting that signal, pounded out a quick beat, a special sound meant to alert every Akkadian in the Pass. That sound was repeated by one of Muta’s men at the top of the slope. Almost at once, Eskkar felt the ground rumble. From higher up the Pass, a herd of horses galloped into view, running toward the Akkadian position.

  More than a thousand riderless horses, urged on by the swords and shouts of another six hundred mounted Akkadian horsemen, burst around the curve in the Pass and thundered down the slope. The terrified horses stampeded down the Pass, driven to a full gallop by the swords and arrows of Muta’s riders.

  As soon as the animals appeared, the Akkadian infantry and archers abandoned their positions on the left and center, and raced toward the right flank, opening a wide gap in what had been the center and left flank of the battle line.

  The Akkadian soldiers from the left flank, running for their lives across the width of the Pass, barely had time to reach the right flank. Brandishing their spears and bows, they created a wall of weapons and shouting men that kept the stampeding horses in the center and left side of the Pass. Still racing at a full gallop, the panicked Akkadian horses poured through the suddenly empty gap in what had been only moments before two-thirds of the Akkadian position.

  The Elamites, about to launch their own charge, looked up to see a stampede of wild-eyed horses bearing down on them, with mounted Akkadian cavalry waving their swords and urging the riderless beasts on from behind.

  The onrushing horses, fearful of the line of spears and bows brandished by Eskkar’s shouting men, charged past the Akkadians and into the open space. Out of control, they jumped over the dead bodies littering their way. Although many of the beasts went down, the mass of crazed animals, driven by the loud battle cries of Muta’s men, tore into the approaching Elamites.

  The front ranks of enemy soldiers disappeared under the horses’ hooves, trampled to death. Many of the Elamite soldiers panicked, as the animals continued to force their way through the advancing enemy, and even their great number of soldiers could not halt them.

  The center of the Elamite assault collapsed. Men scrambled to get out of the path of the charging animals. The forward progress of the assault vanished. At the back of the Akkadian horses now appeared a line of slingers. Shappa and his four hundred men, hidden in the rocks just behind the abandoned front line, had raced into the wide gap where the Akkadian left flank and center had been only moments ago.

  The slingers formed a rough line, and then they, too, moved forward, following the horses. Their task was to prevent the Elamites from regrouping and launching an attack at Muta’s rear.

  Running hard and using their stones, they kept the stampede moving, striking animals and inflicting pain that caused the panicky beasts to continue surging down the slope. Even those Elamites who managed to keep their feet and avoid the maddened animals had no chance to use either their swords or their bows.

  For a brief moment, all of Eskkar’s soldiers, with the exception of Muta’s horsemen and the slingers, were packed together on the right flank.

  Then a column of Akkadian archers, standing just behind the wall of spears, charged fifty paces down the slope, before halting and aiming their weapons toward their right. They poured arrow after arrow into the front rank of the few surviving Elamites who had screened the Immortals. Shooting at close range, sometimes less than ten or twelve paces, they inflicted such horrendous losses that those soldiers abandoned their position and fled toward the rear, despite the efforts of Modran’s commanders and the Immortals to keep them in place.

  The last of the three thousand infantry leading the Immortal attack vanished, either dead or running to the rear. Now the shafts of Mitrac’s bowmen poured into the front and side ranks of the Immortals with a fury that devastated the battle-hardened and elite Elamites. Each of Mitrac’s archers, supplied with two quivers of arrows, had at least sixty shafts to launch.

  The Immortals on Eskkar’s right flank suddenly found themselves opposed on two sides, their front and right flank, by the entire weight of Akkadian infantry and archers. Almost two thousand bowmen launched shaft after shaft at the Immortals. Their advance slowed, but somehow they kept moving forward.

  Brave men who had never known defeat, they continued advancing, the men in the rear replacing those in front who were struck down. Despite horrific losses, the Immortals struggled on, until they were within thirty paces of Drakis and his front line of spearmen.

  But before Immortals could launch their final charge, Drakis bellowed an order and his drummers sounded their own call to action. More than twelve hundred spearmen burst into a run, screaming their war cries and leveling their spears as they rushed across the last bit of open ground that separated the two armies.

  With a shock that echoed off the cliff walls, the Akkadian infantry tore into the tattered front ranks of the Immortals. Their long spears were driven forward on the run with all the strength in each man’s arm, and even the Immortals’ sturdy shields could not deflect them.

  The entire front rank of the Elamites went down, most without striking a blow. A moment later, the second met the same fate, entangled by the dead in front of them, and driven backward or into the ground by the Akkadian spears that reached over their companions or between gaps in the line.

  Meanwhile the last of the stampeding horses had charged their way past the disorganized mass of Modran’s infantry that had advanced toward Eskkar’s left flank and center. Now Muta turned his six hundred remaining cavalry away from the path of the stampeding horses, and swung them to his right.

  Akkad’s cavalry crashed into the right rear of the Immortals. Driving their horses ever forward, they flung their lances into the tightly packed enemy. Then they slashed and cut at anything that moved, their targets always easy to spot by the red headscarf.

  No matter how fierce the Immortals might be, mounted riders always possessed the advantage against sword-wielding infantry, especially men bunched together in a thick column. That dense formation, formidable in a forward assault, proved much weaker when attacked on its flank.

  Behind the Akkadian spearmen, Mitrac’s bowmen and Muta’s dismounted archers ran forward. They launched arrows at any target they could find, aiming for faces, legs, even sword arms.

  What remained of the center of the Elamite advance, demoralized by the stampede and now the incessant hail of stones from Shappa’s slingers, turned and ran. First the wild horses, followed by the charging horsemen, and finally the agile slingers proved too much for the already tired and thirsty enemy soldiers. Without any strong leaders to keep them moving forward, their flight to the rear soon turned into a rout.

  The entire force of slingers now formed a thin line that stretched across the Pass. Eskkar had gambled that Modran would not waste any
more of his troops trying to force their way through the boulders. That left the slingers free to abandon the cliff and rocks, and take a stand out in the open. The stones of Shappa’s men now kept the horses moving down the slope, and prevented the Elamites from mounting an effective attack.

  Nevertheless, the battle remained in doubt. Muta’s attack had caught the Immortals by surprise, and now the elite Elamites desperately tried to regroup and face the danger that threatened them from front and flank. The din of the battle filled the Pass. Even the lone war cry of Garal of the Alur Meriki floated over the air, as Muta’s cavalry recklessly pushed the attack.

  Eskkar’s horsemen, scarcely used in the first two battles, now took advantage of their opportunity. In their frenzy to strike at the Elamites, they inflicted heavy losses on the Immortals, disrupting their formation and weakening their resolve.

  Less than a hundred paces from the attacking Akkadian horsemen, Lord Modran’s cavalry struggled to push their way through the crowd of their own retreating soldiers. If they could charge into Mitrac’s bowmen and attack Muta’s horse fighters, they would relieve the pressure on the Immortals.

  Ignoring the confusion in the center of the Pass, Drakis’s infantry, after their first wild charge, continued moving forward. A relentless wall of spears, borne by shouting fighters, had stopped the vaunted Immortals from advancing, and began forcing them back.

  General Martiya tried to rally the Immortals and the other troops still uncommitted to the battle. Waving his sword, he turned to face Modran’s commanders and signaled to those fresh troops in his rear. Martiya realized the critical point of the battle had arrived. If the Elamite cavalry could be brought into play, they could run down the Akkadian bowmen. Without the archers, the spearmen would not be strong enough to break the Immortals.