Empire Rising es-2

by Sam Barone

Precious moments dragged by with no movement or activity from Mitrac. Eskkar couldn’t control his patience. He hated to restrain himself from action when all his instincts urged him to the attack. He started to move forward, when one of Mitrac’s men slipped back to his side. “Come!” he whispered, “Mitrac killed the sentry.”

  Eskkar and the others began to move. Crouched over, they crept straight toward the base of the palisade, which they reached in moments. Unlike Akkad, Bisitun had no ditch to give added height to the wooden fence. No alarm had been given yet, but at any moment they could be discovered.

  They reached the base of the palisade, hugging close to the rough timbers. Grond and another man unslung the ropes they carried coiled across their chests. One end of each rope had been fitted with a short block of wood, wide enough to secure the line against the top of the palisade. Mitrac had already scaled the fence, boosted up by his companion, and now stood guard atop the barrier.

  Grond tossed the two ropes up, and Mitrac wedged the wooden blocks behind the tops of the logs. The two archers started climbing, the timbers creaking under their weight, though they hoped not loud enough to attract any attention.

  Eskkar could barely contain himself. The sounds of fighting had increased from the direction of the main gate. Or perhaps the defenders cheered their own victory. Either way, Eskkar could no longer tolerate doing nothing. If Sisuthros had not held the camp, if he had not driven back Ninazu’s men… no, it was too late to worry about that.

  The instant the two archers disappeared overhead, Eskkar grabbed one of the ropes and began to climb. Grond pushed him from below, and the rough wood of the stockade gave Eskkar some purchase, the vertical beams creaking a little louder under his heavier weight. He reached the top, and one of the archers waiting there pulled him over.

  Eskkar dropped down to his knee and looked about, until he saw Mitrac kneeling on the rampart a few steps away. The bodies of two men lay in front of him, but already the arrows had been pulled or broken off from their bodies. The silhouette of an arrow sticking out of a corpse was too easy to identify, even at night. Eskkar crept over to the archer.

  “What do you see?” Eskkar asked softly.

  “Two more sentries up ahead, but they face the front of the village,”

  Mitrac whispered. He held his bow at an angle, with an arrow fitted to the string. “They’re staring at the main gate.”

  Even as Eskkar glanced in that direction, he saw some flames shoot up into the sky. Crouched down, he couldn’t see the front of the village. Suddenly a flaming arrow streaked up into the sky and fell over the wall. He grunted in satisfaction at the signal. Sisuthros and his forces had not only held the camp, they’d driven back the attackers and started counterattack-ing the village with fire arrows.

  Using the black oil that Drakis had brought up from Akkad, Sisuthros’s men had made a hundred fire arrows, wrapping cotton thickly around the shaft, binding it with linen threads, and soaking the tufts in oil. When touched to fire, the cotton would burst into flame, a flame so hot that not even the arrow’s flight through the air could extinguish it.

  The palisade behind him creaked again, and Eskkar turned to see Grond come over the wall, the last man to make the ascent. Eskkar looked down at the village beneath him. The inner rampart stood only about ten feet off the ground, and even in the dim starlight, he could see a lane that seemed to lead toward the front of the village. The smell of a slaughter-house reached him, and he could see animal pens below. A few houses backed against the enclosure.

  The village remained indistinct in the darkness, lit here and there by torches or watch fires, but dawn approached and already the eastern sky seemed a bit less dark. As he watched, villagers emerged from the houses, roused from their sleep by the noise, talking excitedly and all looking in the direction of the main gate.

  That might change at any moment, and Eskkar had to get his soldiers off the rampart. He turned to Grond. “Get the men down now.” Moving as he spoke, Eskkar grasped the edge of the rampart, and swung to the ground. His men joined him, all except Mitrac, who called softly to his two archers. Eskkar paused briefly, watching, as the three bowmen stood up, drew their bows, and launched their arrows at the sentries who guarded the next position on the palisade.

  He heard a faint cry, followed by the sound of a body thudding to the earth, but nothing more, no outcry or alarm. Mitrac, followed by his two men, paced slowly along the rampart. Anyone giving them a casual glance would take them for sentries. Ignoring the rampart for now, Eskkar started off, striding with authority, followed by Grond and eleven other men. It took only a few paces before they had to push their way past the first confused villagers.

  Nothing distinguished them from any of Ninazu’s men. In the darkness, they would seem merely another group of Ninazu’s followers, moving toward the main gate. Eskkar saw one man’s mouth open in surprise as he shrank back from them, but the man said nothing, and in a moment they’d moved well past. The lane forked and Eskkar didn’t know which way to go, so he grabbed the first villager he encountered, an older man whose white hair shone in the dim light.

  As Eskkar’s hand tightened on the old man’s arm, the man froze, helpless, as much from sudden fear at these men as the hard muscles in Eskkar’s grip. “Which way is the quickest to the main gate?”

  The man’s mouth opened, but no words came, and Eskkar repeated the question, shaking the man as he did. “Which way!”

  The man pointed to the left, and Eskkar kept his grip on the man as they resumed walking, dragging his unwilling guide with him. The lane twisted left and forked again, but this time Eskkar had only to look at the man, and he gestured the way. A few more steps and Eskkar could see his destination. He loosened his grip a little. “Return to your house and keep silent, or I’ll slit your throat!” He pushed the man aside and increased his pace.

  Fire blazed from the outer fence, and two watch fires had been lit in fire pits on either side of the gate. Sisuthros’s arrows would have started fires in several places, and now his men, shooting from the darkness, would be targeting any defenders who attempted to put out the flames.

  Ninazu’s men had recovered from their shock. Men raced to the ramparts, and cries for water echoed all around them. A dozen villagers, pressed into service, carried buckets of water from the well to extinguish the arrows in the gate.

  Eskkar paid no attention to all that, his eyes searching until he saw what he wanted. A house with a low roof that faced the open ground behind the gate. The passage to the house remained closed, but even as Eskkar approached, prepared to put his shoulder to it, the door opened. An elderly woman wearing nothing but a loose shift bumped into him, obviously intending to see what all the commotion was about. Instead, Eskkar pushed her back in, his hand over her mouth to keep her silent, though she seemed too frightened to cry out.

  Inside, two more women and some children had roused themselves, fearful at the sounds of fighting that now rang through the village. Grond swept them together into a corner of the hut. “Keep your mouths shut if you want to live,” he ordered.

  Meanwhile Eskkar climbed the flimsy ladder that opened on to the roof.

  From the housetop, torches and the burning fence illuminated the scene before him. He knelt down, taking everything in as he studied the situation.

  The outer palisade blazed in three places, and without immediate water, the fire would soon be unstoppable. Villagers with water buckets rushed about, pouring water down the palisade. On the ground just inside the main gate a dozen men stood, two of them with arrows still protruding from them. Ninazu’s men struggled to fight the fire and the attackers at the same time, while others rounded up more villagers to bring water.

  Eskkar noticed plenty of men carrying weapons and standing about, talking loudly and gesturing in frustration. Obviously Ninazu hadn’t lost too many in his attack on the camp. Eskkar guessed that most of the bandits had turned and run back as soon as they realized their foes waited for them. He sought to
pick out the leaders, those trying to restore order to the mass of confused and panicky men.

  Grond tapped him on the shoulder. All the soldiers had climbed up on the roof and knelt behind him, including Mitrac and his two men. Every Akkadian had a bow, except Eskkar and Grond, who carried only their swords. Eskkar turned to Mitrac. “There, see them, to the right of the gate.

  And the one at the well, and those two on the rampart.”

  Mitrac nodded as Eskkar pointed out the first targets. Mitrac took over, pushing in front of Eskkar and moving closer to the edge of the roof. Eskkar stepped farther back and shoved the wooden frame that covered the access hole to the roof into place. He didn’t want anyone coming up behind them. The dry rasp of arrows on wood sounded, as Eskkar’s thirteen archers stood up, bows drawn, as Mitrac’s low voice prepared the men for the first release. Then Mitrac drew his own arrow to his ear and released.

  Even after all these months, Eskkar still found himself amazed at Mitrac’s skill. He scarcely seemed to aim, and yet the shaft that vanished into the darkness would no doubt find its mark, while another arrow seemed to leap from his quiver to the bowstring. The other men fired as well and immediately the screams started. It would take the defenders a few moments to figure out that they’d been attacked, and many of their leaders would be down before they turned and located their attackers.

  The men Mitrac had chosen for this raid had proven themselves among the best archers in the troop, and now, despite being crowded together, they poured arrows into their enemies at a rate that made them seem like twice their number.

  The roof gave Eskkar’s men clear shots, and the watch fires burning at the gate provided plenty of light for their shooting. For the defenders, the shafts seemed to come out of the darkness, and at such short range, little more than forty paces, the heavy shafts with their bronze, leaf-shaped points struck with lethal accuracy.

  Before a man could count to fifty, the Akkadian archers swept the area beneath the gate clear of defenders, the defenders tripping and scrambling down from the walls, some of them tossing their bows and buckets aside. Out of the corner of his eye, Eskkar made note of every time the closest archer fired. The man had released his tenth arrow before anyone spotted them, and another four volleys were launched before anyone turned a bow against them.

  Eskkar couldn’t count that quickly, but he guessed nearly two hundred arrows had been launched, enough to break any small group of men, let alone those still recovering from being defeated by Sisuthros at the camp.

  The bandits broke and ran, determined to get out of the killing zone.

  With the defenders fleeing, Eskkar called out to Grond, who raised a small trumpet to his lips and blew a long blast that echoed out over the walls and into the darkness. Eskkar heard an answering sound from the Akkadians outside the gate. Sisuthros and his men now pressed their attack in earnest, the trumpet announcing that most of the defenders had abandoned the walls. They screamed and howled like wild men as they charged, every man shouting at the top of his lungs, as ordered. They carried with them the rest of the ropes, and would soon be over the palisade and into the village, even if the gate remained fastened.

  Eskkar kept his eyes moving, and finally saw for what he searched. A flash of silver in the flames, and he saw the leader of the defenders on the move. Eskkar cursed the bad luck that let the man survive the archers’ arrows. Now Ninazu would need to be hunted down and killed before he could escape over the fence into the darkness. No, even now, the darkness had started to give way to dawn, and the fi rst rays of the sun already climbed slowly into the heavens. “Grond! Mitrac! Come with me!”

  Eskkar ran to the side of the house and swung himself down, Grond, Mitrac and his two archers following him. Ninazu and a group of his men were moving down one of the village streets, already out of sight, and no doubt headed toward the river gate. The bandits’ horses would be kept there, close to the rear gate and the river.

  Ninazu had decided to run for it. The bandit leader would have no idea how many soldiers had slipped inside Bisitun, not that it made any difference. With all the casualties his men had taken, the Akkadians now outnumbered them. More important, Ninazu’s men had lost the will to fight. Every bandit’s thought would be on fleeing the village and saving his own skin. To stay meant death. Within hours, the villagers would turn in or denounce any of Ninazu’s men still in Bisitun. Only escape could save them now.

  Eskkar didn’t care if a few dozen leaderless bandits escaped, but a man like Ninazu, who could organize and lead others, would only cause more trouble if he remained on the loose. Ninazu must be stopped, before he escaped.

  In his younger days, Eskkar believed his strength and skill with a sword had brought men to follow him. Now he knew better. As Trella said, those skills might be useful, but they didn’t make a man a true leader. A good leader, she’d told him, could think months ahead as he bent men to his will.

  A great leader, she added, could think years ahead.

  Eskkar didn’t consider himself a great leader, but he knew he didn’t want to be chasing Ninazu around the countryside for the next few months.

  So now he and his men ran headlong down the lane, ignoring the frightened villagers who screamed and shouted in terror, panicked by the fi res that lit the sky, and worried their entire village might go up in flames.

  For the fi rst time that night, Eskkar drew his sword, raising it up over his head as he lowered his shoulder to clear the way whenever some panicked villager blundered into his path. But before they had gone very far, Grond passed Eskkar, whirling his sword overhead, as he opened the way for his captain.

  Then the lane widened and converged with the other, and they ran right into Ninazu and his followers. The bandits had started first, but they had the farthest distance to travel, and the two lanes joined here. Eskkar guessed Ninazu had twelve or fifteen men with him, at least three times Eskkar’s group. But these confused men had only flight on their minds.

  Half of them kept running, screaming in fear, while the others turned, raising their swords more in surprise than anything else.

  Grond struck down two of them with two rapid strokes. Eskkar slashed at another. The man parried the stroke, but the force of the blow took all the fight out of him and he turned and ran. Eskkar and Grond kept running, hardly slowing their pace and still pursuing the fleeing Ninazu and his men.

  This time the narrow streets and villages worked to Eskkar’s advantage.

  The frightened villagers slowed Ninazu’s men. One of them stumbled, and Grond slashed at the man as he ran past, opening a gaping wound in the man’s shoulder. Another man tried to duck into a house, but a woman peered out from the doorway and they collided. Eskkar struck at the man’s back, and again a scream went up into the night, as the wounded man staggered against the doorframe. Eskkar and Grond ignored their victims.

  Wounded bandits would be easy to gather up later.

  He and Grond burst into an open area where two lanes joined. Eskkar caught the stable smell even before he heard the animals whinnying in fear of all the shouting and the scent of fire. Someone attempted to rally the bandits at the corral. Three of Ninazu’s men turned to face their pursuers, but others pushed their way into the corral, diving through the enclosure’s fl imsy bars.

  Three men or a dozen meant nothing to Eskkar. He and Grond charged ahead like men possessed, each of them shouting at the top of his lungs. They rushed at the bandits. One raised his sword and died when Eskkar’s blade struck twice, once to knock the sword aside and then a killing thrust before the man could recover. The other bandits changed their minds before Grond could reach them, one dropping his sword and diving through the corral.

  The screams of horses split the darkness, and one of them reared up, crashing into the corral. The horse’s weight knocked the bars loose, and the frightened animal pushed its way through the gap. Another riderless horse followed. Two more horses loomed up, men clinging to their necks, as Eskkar reached the fence. One
horseman swung a sword at Eskkar’s head.

  He sprang aside, then dropped low as he thrust his sword into the horse’s rear leg. The horse whinnied in fear and pain, then twisted as its leg gave way, stumbling into the second horse, and sending both riders tumbling to the ground. A third bandit attempted to ride through the cleared opening, but an arrow struck him square in the chest, and the man slid backward off the horse. Eskkar turned his head for a second. Mitrac had caught up to his leader, and stood to the side of the lane, already aiming a second shaft.

  All the horses still inside the pen had panicked now, moving away from the entrance of the corral. After they bunched up in the rear, they turned in unison and moved forward once again. Terror-stricken animals would not be easy to mount. Eskkar tried to see past them. The night’s darkness had turned to gray, and in a few more moments the sun would be up. He swore again. He wouldn’t let Ninazu get away now.

  “Grond! Mitrac! Shoot the horses!” With those words, Eskkar rose up, bringing the great sword up over his head and striking directly at a horse that suddenly appeared, charging right at him. The horse shied away, just enough for Eskkar to move out of its path even as he struck the blow at the beast’s head. The animal’s cry of agony rose up, its shoulder knocking Eskkar to the ground.

  He rolled away, but even before Eskkar regained his feet, the horse had taken an arrow in its neck, the two wounds driving it beyond control.

  Another horse went down, then a third, their almost-human cries mixing with the noises of panic from the other beasts. But the remaining horses turned away, moving once again toward the rear of the corral. One animal, riderless, jumped the fence in panic, its hooves kicking the top rail to splinters.

  Eskkar looked again into the corral. With the first rays of dawn, he had just enough light to pick out two forms, both of them struggling to hold on to their mounts. Another man lay senseless on the ground, while a fourth pushed himself up from the dirt, trying to get to his knees. One of Mitrac’s arrows took him, and he pitched forward without a sound.