by Sam Barone
“Keep shooting!” Mitrac bellowed the commands, even as he worked his own bow. “Pull every shaft to the ear! Get them up in the air!”
The Sumerian archers fired their own weapons, but almost all the arrows landed twenty or thirty paces short of the Akkadians. A small enough distance, Gatus realized. A shift of the wind to the opposite direction could bring the enemy bowmen within range.
But for now, at least, most of the Sumerian weapons did not have the same reach. The Akkadian archers needed months of practice to build up their strength, so as to draw the heavy bows to the maximum. Some of these men had trained with their weapons for as many as four years, had fought from the wall against the Alur Meriki horsemen.
Gatus whirled the mare around and glanced at his rear. A steady stream of men trotted from the water’s edge, each carrying four quivers of arrows in their arms. Six of Yavtar’s supply boats had managed to reach Eskkar’s forces just after midnight, along with three fighting ships. Yavtar’s force had encountered King Shulgi’s boats and archers almost twenty miles upriver, and it had taken a hard battle before the Akkadian ships broke through, at the cost of losing five boats. Now the surviving vessels crept along the river behind the marching soldiers, carrying thousands of extra shafts, and stones for the slingers as well, although those weren’t needed yet.
Gatus raised his eyes to the horizon, and saw nothing. Eskkar had assured him that Naxos wouldn’t come out of his city, but Gatus hadn’t been so sure. But the land behind them lay empty. Not even any of Razrek’s men had attempted to swing around behind them yet.
Turning the horse back toward the Sumerians, Gatus glanced to his right. Eskkar and the cavalry had ever so slowly opened a gap of about two hundred paces between the two halves of the Akkadian army. That gap would tempt the Sumerians soon enough.
The bowmen kept launching shafts into the sky, grunting now with the effort to pull each arrow back to the ear before releasing. Empty quivers littered the ground beneath them. Each archer had already emptied one quiver, and their second would be exhausted soon. Those arrows, already more than twenty thousand, would be taking their toll on the enemy, despite the Sumerian shields.
No more carefully timed volleys now. Better to have the arrows arrive continually, Gatus knew, so that every enemy would be afraid to show his face.
Many arrows fell short, but most reached the enemy position. The Sumerian infantry had their shields raised up to cover their heads, but a few shafts here and there would slip over or under the protection, wounding or killing when they did. A shield couldn’t cover every part of the soldier’s body, not unless the man hunched himself down like a dog behind it.
The Sumerian archers returned the volleys. Supposedly, Sumer had two thousand archers, more than twice the number of Akkadian bowmen, but, as Gatus knew, giving a man a bow didn’t make him a bowman. He turned to his right, to see Eskkar still moving slowly away from the Akkadian spearmen. At least Eskkar and his horsemen wouldn’t be under attack by Shulgi’s archers.
Gatus knew they had reached the most dangerous time of the battle. The arrows raining down on the Sumerians would make it difficult to get their infantry moving. But if Shulgi sent his men charging toward the Akkadians spearmen, they would likely be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. Nevertheless, the Sumerians remained behind their line of stakes. They wouldn’t want to give up that position readily. And the odd movement of the Akkadian cavalry would be proving a distraction. Eskkar and Gatus had to give young Shulgi the chance to make a mistake. And making him worry about bowmen on the one side, and Eskkar’s odd maneuvering on the other, just might do the trick.
Gatus turned his mare to the side and trotted over to where Mitrac stood, just behind his double line of bowmen. The young master archer was using his own bow, but Gatus saw that he kept his eyes on his men as well.
“It’s up to you, Mitrac!” Gatus shouted. “You’ll have to loosen that position.”
Mitrac nodded. “We will. Their archers can’t reach our men. We can keep shooting all day if we have to. They can’t stand up to this for long.”
Even as Mitrac said the words, another handful of panting men arrived, carrying fresh bundles of arrows that they distributed to replace those already launched. Thanks to Yavtar’s boats, the Akkadians had plenty of shafts. The old sailor had delivered thousands of arrows with the last of his boats.
Gatus wondered how many arrows Shulgi’s archers had with them. They’d likely lugged those arrows from Sumer to Kanesh to Larsa and now to Isin. The Sumerians would get their first surprise soon enough. They’d be expecting the number of Akkadian arrows to diminish, as the archers shot most of their shafts, but with Yavtar’s last cargo, that wasn’t going to happen, not for some time.
The Akkadian bowmen continued their assault on the Sumerian lines. Gatus could see men going down, despite the shields. And many of the shafts were falling behind the line of spears, no doubt striking at the Sumerian archers, who had to be as close as possible to their front line to have even a hope of reaching the Akkadians. The enemy would be growing nervous, fearful, aware that death could strike at any moment from the sky. Thousands of arrows had already been loosed, with only a few Sumerian shafts able to reach Gatus’s men.
Again Gatus stretched himself upright on his horse. He’d seen movement in the Sumerian ranks. The center, where the enemy cavalry butted against the infantry, had started to thin. Gatus snorted. Perhaps Eskkar’s luck might hold up one more time. He knew Eskkar and the cavalry would begin their charge any moment. Now was the moment to give Shulgi something else to think about. He filled his lungs with air.
“Spearmen! Ready your weapons. Prepare to advance!” Gatus looked up and down the line, to make sure every commander stood ready. “Advance!”
The battle cry “Akkad!” roared from more than three thousand warriors, the first sound they’d uttered today. The spearmen began marching toward the Sumerians, the front rank holding their shields to the front, the second and third ranks holding their shields high, to protect against descending arrows that would soon be arriving in greater numbers, as they closed within range of their enemy.
Behind the spearmen, Mitrac issued his own orders. Seven hundred bowmen continued their shooting, arcing their shafts up into the air, to fall on the crowded Sumerian ranks of infantry and archers. The Akkadian archers moved forward as they shot their shafts, spread out in a ragged line and staying just far enough behind the spearmen so that they could launch their arrows. Without shields, the only protection the bowmen had came from the spearmen, and the fact that the Sumerian archers were now directing their arrows at the advancing infantry, to stop the Akkadian advance.
“Spearmen! Halt!”
Gatus gave the order before the men had moved another hundred paces. His soldiers expected the command, so they maintained their ranks. He waited until all the forward movement had ceased. “Spearmen! Retreat!”
The subcommanders and leaders of ten repeated the command, and the spearmen began backing up, moving with care since they had to keep their shields up and maintain their ranks. Mitrac’s bowmen retreated also, but they kept loosing shafts as they moved, maintaining their position just behind the spearmen. For the Sumerians, this must seem a strange sight, to see their enemy first advancing, then retreating in good order and all the while maintaining their shield wall. Gatus’s men had trained for months to execute such a maneuver. It was an infantry movement he doubted the Sumerians could duplicate.
When the men had returned almost to their starting point, Gatus called a halt. A few bodies lay scattered on the ground in front of his men, so the Sumerians had caused some damage. He saw that Mitrac, too, had lost a few bowmen dead or wounded. They had little protection, just their leather helmets and vests that might stop a shaft at this range, but not if the distance diminished.
But the archers kept firing, and arrows kept leaping off their bows, to rise into the sky and descend on the enemy. Already the front wall of Sumerian shields ap
peared to be covered with arrows. Something had to break soon, he knew. Shulgi should be getting rattled by now. At least, that’s what Gatus hoped.
57
On the river, Yavtar watched the soldiers form up and move northward. As soon as they moved out, he issued orders and his own three fighting boats pushed away from the riverbank just after dawn. Three of the cargo ships had departed in the middle of the night, carrying wounded men and sacks of loot intended for Akkad. Yavtar had wished the boat captains good luck, and guessed they would need it. For them, the first stage of the slow passage upriver might be more dangerous today than fighting Shulgi’s army.
Yavtar had hoped to have five or six of the big war boats here today, but Shulgi’s blockade had left him with only three. At least he had some of the rowers and archers from the lost boats, so each craft had more than its usual compliment of bowmen. His three vessels would deliver a deadly sting to the Sumerian army, but whether any of them would survive the encounter remained an unanswered question. No one — at least as far as he knew — had ever used boats as floating platforms for archers, or contemplated using them against a massive land army.
With his three craft well away from shore, they rowed up river, already struggling to keep station with Gatus’s spearmen, whose easy strides covered the ground faster than his boat crews could row. Each ship had raised its sail, but the linen squares hung limp in the still air. Later in the morning Yavtar expected a slight breeze from the south that might help, but this early in the day, such winds seldom appeared.
The boat crews had to row hard just to keep from being shoved downriver by the current. Since the boats carried extra men, the heavily laden vessels handled even worse than usual, each craft carrying more than twenty archers and a dozen rowers. His men struggled with the oars, thrusting them deep into the brown waters of the Euphrates and pushing with all their strength, forcing the craft forward against the current.
The archers provided some assistance. They used the few extra paddles to help drive the boats. Yavtar had intended to take the lead, but another craft slid easier through the water, despite Yavtar’s steady cursing at his own rowers, and until finally he waved the other boatmaster ahead, settling into the second position.
Daro, in command of all the archers, also directed the bowmen on Yavtar’s craft. Daro kept moving up and down the line, making sure the broad shields sat firmly in their place, and that every man had plenty of arrows and extra bowstrings at hand.
“Pull, you dogs!” Yavtar’s bellow carried across the water to all three craft. “Gatus is moving ahead. Damn you, pull!”
A few men had enough breath to laugh at their commander’s eagerness to get into battle.
Stroke by stroke, the ships clawed their way upriver, until they rode alongside Gatus and his spearmen, only a hundred paces away. “Keep rowing. We need to be ahead of them.”
When the spearmen launched their real attack, they’d be running as fast as they could cover the ground. The sooner the infantry could close the distance, the less time the enemy archers would have to launch shafts at them. That meant Yavtar needed to be well ahead of Gatus’s infantry. Fortunately, the river widened a bit, and the boats began to move faster through the water, slowly drawing ahead of Gatus and his spearmen.
As soon as Yavtar saw that he’d be in position, he took a moment to study the enemy. His eyes widened at the sight of so many men. No one had ever assembled such a host before. He could scarcely believe what he saw. Yavtar had heard the estimates, seen the numbers, but to actually face so many, their upright spears glinting in the sun… he wondered how Eskkar could maintain his steadfastness of purpose, let alone his belief in victory. Even more, Yavtar wondered how the soldiers marching forward maintained their trust in their commander. Eskkar’s reputation had much to do with that, of course, but most of all Eskkar believed in himself, and the men sensed and shared in that belief.
The king had once remarked that every battle he’d ever fought, he’d been outnumbered.
“Did you ever think of run… not fighting?” Yavtar had corrected himself just in time.
“Every time,” Eskkar replied, smiling at his friend.
Seeing the enemy host, Yavtar wondered what thoughts might be tempting the king today.
“What a sight.” Daro finished checking his bowmen, and joined Yavtar at the rear of the boat, just ahead of the steering oar. He stared in amazement at the enemy army.
Two crewmen crouched right behind Yavtar, one holding the steering oar and the other ready to take his place should an arrow take him. A larger than usual shield gave them good protection, but under no conditions did Yavtar want to end up with his boat beached on the riverbank due to the loss of the steersman.
“I think I’m glad to be on the water,” Yavtar said, following Daro’s gaze to the shore.
If disaster struck the Akkadians, the boats would have a chance to escape, though they would still have to maneuver past the narrow bend in the river a few miles from here. Yesterday Shulgi had spread his boats and men across the water and caused the sinking of half a dozen boats before Yavtar could break free. But the Sumerians might have abandoned that place once the battle started.
“It’s a long way back to Akkad.” Daro strung his own bow, then tested the pull. Thumb-ring and wrist gauntlet were already in place. “Let’s hope we don’t have to row all the way there.”
“Look! There goes the cavalry!” Yavtar couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.
Eskkar’s horsemen were on the move, walking slowly away from the spearmen. Gatus had already halted his men. The boat crews caught their breath. Now they just had to hold their position until the next advance.
“My bowmen are ready to fight,” Daro said. “They’d rather shoot arrows than row any time.”
“Good luck and good hunting to you, Daro.”
“And to you, Yavtar. Remember to keep low and stay behind the shields. I think we’re going to have thousands of arrows launched at us.”
The idea of a thousand arrows striking the boat made Yavtar’s mouth go dry. The archers would be behind shields, but they would still have to expose part of their bodies to launch their shafts. And his crew would still have to work the boat, despite the enemy’s missiles. Many on board were going to die.
Yavtar reached down and scooped up a water skin half hidden beneath the steering bench. “Better take one last drink before we start.” He took a few swallows then handed the skin to Daro. While the archer drank, Yavtar retrieved another skin from a deeper recess. “And a few swallows of wine can’t hurt, either.”
Deciding there would always be plenty of water from over the side to drink, Yavtar took a deep pull from the wine skin, then handed it to Daro.
Daro accepted that skin as well. “To victory.” He lifted the skin as if it were a cup, and drank deep.
Yavtar took another look at Shulgi’s army. “I’ll drink to that. I’ll even drink to having a drink tomorrow night, if we’re still alive.” He took back the wine skin and swallowed as much of the strong liquid as he could force down his throat. “It’s going to be a long day,” he explained, “and I don’t want to get thirsty later.”
From the shore, Gatus’s spearmen gave their battle cry, and began moving forward, the men maintaining their position. It appeared as though a solid block of shields and spear points were on the move.
“It’s time.” Daro moved forward, to his place in the center of the boat.
“Pull for all your worth,” Yavtar shouted. He tossed the wine skin to the two men behind him. “Might as well finish that. We’re going to need it.”
Once again, the three ships slowly gathered way against the current. For the first time in anyone’s memory, boats were going to be in the thick of a land battle. Yavtar checked his sword for the tenth time, and moved toward the bow of the vessel. Soon they’d be far enough upriver to see what lay behind the enemy lines.
Gatus’s infantry halted for the second time, but Yavtar continue
d moving forward, and soon his three little boats had drawn almost even with the enemy ranks. So far no one had loosed an arrow at them, but Yavtar knew that would soon change, once they saw how powerful a sting rode the river.
Daro’s voice rose up, echoing out over the calm water. “Bowmen! Loose at will!”
After the training volleys that Yavtar had seen in Akkad’s training ground or the northern camps, the few shafts from Daro’s archers seemed puny indeed. But soon more than sixty bowmen spread out over three ships were launching shafts at Shulgi’s right flank. Many fell short, but Yavtar knew that would change in a few moments as the range shortened, as the ships continued making headway against the river.
The archers were on their fifth or sixth shaft before the Sumerians returned the first volley. Daro shouted a warning, and Yavtar looked up to see a cloud of shafts arch up into the sky, then begin to fall toward his ship. For a moment it seemed as if every single arrow were aimed right at him. He ducked down behind the shield, practically shoving his face into the bilge water, just as the shafts struck home.
In a moment, the ship was riddled with shafts protruding from every surface. As the arrows struck the wooden hull or shields, a loud drumming came from the wood, as if each shaft were a hammer blow. To Yavtar’s surprise, not a bowmen went down under the first volley. He picked up his own round shield, and held it between his head and shore, so he could see what was happening. The lead ship was shooting arrows as well, already in range to reach targets well back from the river. To his rear, Yavtar saw that the third boat had turned away from the shore for a moment, then righted its course once again. A body fell into the water, but its archers continued to launch their arrows.
A quick glance toward shore saw that Gatus’s spearmen continued moving slowly toward the Sumerian line. But as they drew within a quarter mile or so, they halted. The front rank had its shields held up, while the second and third ranks raised them over their heads. Behind them, he saw Mitrac’s archers begin shooting.
