by Wilbur Smith
'Lean in!' Nefer shouted at Krus, 'Give him your shoulder!' Nefer sawed the reins. This was what they had trained for, all those months in the desert. With Taita driving the other team, Nefer had taught Krus to love this contest of strength, and now he bore in with his great right shoulder, tucking it in just behind the other horse, lifting him off-balance. The locked chariots veered to the right, and the gateway was coming up fast. The portals were columns of hewn red stone, and though the grit-laden winds of the centuries had polished and shaped them they were still massive and forbidding.
'Ride him off!' Nefer shouted to Krus, and encouraged him with a strong hand on the reins. Krus forced the other horse another yard over until he was headed straight for the solid red stone wall.
At the very last instant Daimios became aware of what was happening and, with a wild cry of alarm, he let go of the bamboo rod and tried to recover control of his racing chariot, but Krus dominated the other horse and drove him headlong towards the stone gateway.
Daimios realized that he could not stop the flying chariot and avoid the collision. He tried to jump from the hurtling cockpit, but he was too late. Both his horses ran full tilt into the stone column. It killed them instantly. Nefer heard their last terrified screams as they went in, the crash of the impact, the crackle of their breaking bones and the shattering and rending of timbers. One wheel was torn clean off and for a moment bounced along beside Nefer's vehicle. Daimios was hurled like one of his own javelins straight into the wall. He struck head first and his skull burst as though it were an overripe melon. His strong white teeth were embedded in the surface of the red stone, souvenirs to be prised out later by urchins, threaded on chains of gold and sold in the market-place.
Nefer steered Krus and Dov into the gateway, and though the hub of their near wheel scraped the red stone they tore through into the central avenue of the city, which was lined on both sides by the joyous crowds. They had strewn the paving with palm fronds and flowers and even with shawls and headcloths and other pieces of their own apparel.
Nefer's first concern was for Dov. He halted the horses, jumped down and ran to the wounded filly. The barbs of the javelin were buried deeply in her shoulder. He trusted only Taita to remove them, but he snapped off the shaft, so that it no longer dangled down her side. Then he climbed back to the footplate and took the reins again.
The crowds swarmed into the avenue and ran along beside the chariot as it moved on at a walking pace. They reached up to touch Nefer, using their headcloths to wipe up the blood that dribbled down his legs from his wounds. The blood of a god, a pharaoh and a Red Road warrior would transform the cloth into a sacred relic. Hysterically they screamed their praises.
'Pray for us, mighty Egypt. Pharaoh indeed!'
'Lead us, great Pharaoh. Let us share your glory.'
'Hail, divine brother of the Red God!'
'May you live a thousand and a thousand years, Nefer Seti, true Pharaoh!'
At the entrance to the forum the crowd was so dense that the city guards had to run ahead of the chariot and club them out of the way before Nefer could drive through into the forum.
--
In the centre of the forum on the raised stone dais Hilto and Shabako stood to welcome their new brother warriors. Nefer halted the battered, dusty and blood-splattered chariot below the platform, and the two men came down and helped him lift Meren. Between them they carried him into the temple of Hathor where Taita waited to care for him. They laid Meren on the trestle Taita had prepared, and the old Magus began work on him immediately, first at tending to the deep sword thrust in his side. Merykara's tears fell upon Meren's broken and bleeding body, and anointed his wounds.
The warriors of the Red Road led Nefer back into the forum. Then Nefer went down the steps, lifted the two hair braids from the chariot, and carried them to the brazier that burned on its tripod in the centre of the raised stone dais. He knelt before the brazier, and declared, 'No enemy has laid hands upon these trophies of our honour and valour.' He held them high for all the world to witness, and then he spoke clear and proud: 'I dedicate them to the Red God.'
He flung the hair braids on to the fire. They burned up brightly. Nefer rose to his feet and, weakened by his wounds, swayed as he stood before them. 'I have run the Red Road! Though I lack the years, I have confirmed my right to the double crown of Egypt. I declare myself Pharaoh. The one true Pharaoh. Let any other pretend to the crown at his peril.'
They cheered him then while the warriors of the Red Road knelt before him, kissed his right hand and foot, and swore their allegiance unto death and beyond.
Nefer raised his right arm for silence, but his legs gave way under him and he might have fallen had not Mintaka rushed forward and steadied him. With one arm around her shoulders he looked into her eyes, and whispered, 'What I have done was for this very Egypt and for you, my love.'
His voice was so husky and low that only she heard him. She reached up and kissed him full on the lips, and the populace recognized this gesture as an open declaration of betrothal. They shouted until the echoes startled flocks of rock-pigeons from the cliffs beyond the walls.
--
Floating on the waters of the two great rivers, the city lay before them like a lotus flower, ready for plucking. Its walls were of burned brick. They were twenty-seven cubits thick and taller than the tallest palm trees of this fertile and well-watered land.
'What is their span?' Trok asked Ishtar the Mede. 'How far is it to ride around this city?'
Ten leagues, Majesty.' Ishtar told him. 'Half a day's ride.' Trok stood taller on the footplate of his chariot and shaded his eyes. 'Is that the Blue Gate of legend?' he demanded. He knew that Ishtar had lived in this royal city of Babylon for fifteen years, and had learned much of his magic here in the temple of Marduk.
Even at this distance the gateway glimmered like an enormous gemstone. The threshold was so wide that ten chariots could enter driving abreast, and the carved cedarwood gates were higher than ten men standing on each other's shoulders.
'It is truly blue in colour,' Trok marvelled. 'I have heard that it is covered with lapis lazuli.'
'Not so, Majesty.' Ishtar's face twisted in a condescending grimace. 'They are ceramic tiles. Each tile depicts one of the two thousand and ten gods of Babylon.'
Trok cast a general's eye along the miles of wall on each side of the Blue Gate. There were watchtowers at every two hundred paces, and at regular intervals the massive walls were heavily buttressed. Ishtar knew what he was thinking.
'There is a road along the top of the wall, wide enough for two chariots to ride abreast. Within an hour Sargon can move five thousand men along it to any point that is threatened by a besieging army.'
Trok grunted, to show that he was unimpressed. 'Still and all, any wall can be undermined and sapped. We need only one breach.'
There is an inner wall, divine Pharaoh,' Ishtar murmured in a silky tone. 'It is almost as impregnable as the first.'
'If we cannot go through, we will find a way round.' Trok shrugged, 'Are those the gardens of Sargon's palace?' He jutted out his beribboned beard to indicate the terraces that rose in mighty tiers into the sky. They were so skilfully raised upon each other, a soaring inverted pyramid, that they seemed to float like a mighty eagle with spread wings, free of the bounds of earth.
Ishtar pointed with one sinewy, blue-tattooed arm. There are six terraces built around a vast courtyard, each wider than the one before. The zenana alone has five thousand rooms, one for each of Sargon's wives. His treasury is buried in a deep dungeon below the palace. It is packed with gold to the height of a man's head.'
'Have you seen these wonders with your own eyes?' Trok challenged him.
'Not the zenana,' Ishtar admitted, 'but I have entered the main vault of the treasury, and I tell you straight, King-who-is-a-god, that in all your army you do not have sufficient wagons to carry away such a treasure as lies before you.'
'And I tell you straight, Ishtar the Mede,
that I can always build new wagons.' And Trok threw back his head and laughed with animal high spirits.
The march to Babylon had been one long triumph, an unbroken string of victories. They had met Ran, Sargon's eldest son, on the banks of the Bahr al Milh: between the chariots of Trok and Naja they had ground his army like dhurra, and swept the chaff into the lake until the waters ran red with blood, and the bloated corpses floated from one bank to the other.
They had sent Ran's severed head to his father, skewered on a spear. Maddened with grief, Sargon had charged into the trap they had prepared for him. While Naja retreated before him to lure him on, Trok had circled out to the south then come at him from the rear with a thousand chariots. When Sargon turned back to defend his baggage train, they had him in a glittering ring of bronze.
Sargon had managed to break out with fifty chariots but he had left two thousand chariots and eleven thousand men behind him. Trok emasculated the prisoners, an undertaking that took two days to accomplish. But he joined in the work in person, bloody to the elbows like a butcher, and with a ribald jest to each of his victims as he dangled their severed genitalia in front of their eyes. Afterwards he allowed his victims to bleed to death, their blood an offering to Seueth, the hungry god who loved such fare. Trok sent the severed trophies to Sargon, packed in salt, in a hundred cedarwood chests. A subtle warning as to what he might expect when Trok and Naja came to Babylon.
Babylon was built upon the narrow spit of land between the two rivers, the Euphrates to the west and the Tigris to the east. In his headlong retreat Sargon had not been able to destroy the bridges. In any case, it would have taken an army to tear down those massive piers of burned brick on which they were built. Sargon no longer had an army. He had left one depleted regiment of foot to defend the bridges, but they were demoralized and without chariots to support them. They had not lasted long against the two pharaohs.
Trok had bound the survivors hand and foot and dropped them from the central span of the bridge into the broad brown river, and the Egyptian troops had lined the parapet to delight in their antics as they drowned.
Now Babylon lay before them, little more than a year since they had marched from Avaris,
'You know the defences, Ishtar. You helped design some of them. How long before the city falls?' Trok demanded impatiently. 'How long will it take me to breach the walls?'
'The walls are impregnable, Majesty,' said Ishtar.
'We both know that is not true,' Trok told him. 'Given enough time, men and determination, there is no wall built that cannot be breached.'
'A year,' Ishtar murmured thoughtfully. 'Or two, maybe three.' But there was a sly look on his tattooed face, and his eyes were shifty.
Trok laughed and playfully seized a handful of Ishtar's lacquered spiky beard. He twisted it until his blue whorled face contorted with pain and his eyes watered. 'You want to play games with me, wizard. You know how I love a good game, don't you?'
'Mercy, mighty Egypt,' Ishtar whimpered. Trok pushed him away so hard that he almost fell from the footplate of the chariot and had to clutch at the side of the dashboard to steady himself.
'A year, you say? Two? Three? I have not that amount of time to sit here and look upon the beauties and wonders of Babylon. I am in a hurry, Ishtar the Mede, and you know what that means, don't you?'
'I know, god without peer. And I am but a man, fallible and poor.'
'Poor?' Trok shouted in his face. 'By Seueth, you slimy charlatan, you have milked me of a lakh of gold already, and what do I have to show for it?'
'You have a city and an empire. After Egypt itself, the richest in the world. I have laid it at your feet.' He knew Trok well by now, knew just how far he could go.
'I need the key to that city.' Trok watched his face, happy with what he saw there. He knew Ishtar almost as well as the magician knew him.
'It would have to be a key made of gold,' Ishtar mused. 'Perhaps three lakhs of gold?'
Trok let out a great burst of laughter and aimed a blow at his head with a mailed fist. It was not intended to do damage, and Ishtar ducked under it easily.
'With three lakhs I could buy another army.' Trok shook his head and the ribbons in his beard danced like a cloud of butterflies.
'Yonder, in the treasury of Sargon, lie a hundred lakhs. Three from a hundred is a small price to pay.'
'Give me the city, Ishtar. Give it to me within three full moons and you shall have two lakhs of gold from the treasure of Sargon,' he promised.
'If I give it to you before the next full moon?' Ishtar scrubbed his hands together like a carpet trader.
Trok's grin slid from his face at the prospect, and he said seriously, 'Then you shall have your three lakhs, and a convoy of wagons to carry them away.'
--
The army of the two pharaohs went into camp before the Blue Gate, and Trok sent an emissary to Sargon to demand the immediate surrender of the city - 'to save such a prodigy of architecture from the flames, and your person and family and populace from the sword', as Trok humorously phrased his demand. In reply Sargon, sanguine and defiant behind his walls, sent the messenger's decapitated head back to Trok. The preliminaries having been dealt with, Trok and Naja made a circuit of the walls to allow the Babylonians to view their full might and splendour.
They drove the golden chariots, Trok's drawn by six black stallions, Naja's by six white. Heseret rode beside Naja, glittering with jewels and wearing the golden uraeus on her high-piled curls. Behind the golden chariots marched fifty prisoners, Babylonian women captured from the outlying towns and villages between the two rivers. All were pregnant, some very near their time.
They were preceded by a vanguard of five hundred chariots and followed by a rearguard of another five hundred. The slow, stately circuit of the city took all that day, and at sunset they came back to the Blue Gate. Sargon and his war council were gathered on the parapets above the shining gateway.
Sargon was tall and thin, with a shock of silver hair. In his youth he had been a mighty warrior and had conquered the lands as far north as the Black Sea to add to his domains. He had suffered defeat only once in all his campaigns and that had been at the hands of Pharaoh Tamose, the father of Nefer Seti. Now another pair of Egyptians stood at his gates, and he did not delude himself into believing that these would be as merciful as the first.
To confirm him in this belief, Trok had the pregnant women stripped naked and marched forward one at a time. Then, while all the city watched their swollen bellies were slit open, the unborn infants ripped out and the tiny bodies piled on the threshold of the Blue Gate.
'Add these to your army, Sargon,' Trok bellowed up at him. 'You will need every man you can get.'
It had been a long and exciting day for Heseret, and she retired to her tent with all her slave girls, leaving her husband and Trok to pore over a map of the city by lamplight. It was a work of art, drawn on a finely tanned sheepskin, the walls, roads and canals drawn to scale, each of the main buildings depicted in coloured detail.
'How came this into your possession?' Naja demanded.
'Twelve years ago, by the command of King Sargon, I surveyed the city and drew this map with my own hands,' Ishtar replied. 'No other could have achieved such accuracy and beauty.'
'If he commissioned it, why did you not deliver it to Sargon?'
'I did.' Ishtar nodded. 'I delivered the inferior draft to him, while secretly I kept the fair copy you see before you. I knew that one day someone would pay me more handsomely than Sargon ever did.'
For another hour they studied the map, muttering a comment now and then, but for the most part silent and absorbed. As fighting generals with a professional eye for the salient features of a battlefield, they were able to admire the depth and strength of the walls, towers and redoubts that had been built up layer upon layer over the centuries.
At last Trok stood back from the table. 'There is no weakness that I can divine, magician. You were right the first time. It will take th
ree years of hard work to break through those walls. You will have to do better than this to earn your three lakhs.'
'The water,' whispered Ishtar. 'Look to the water.'
'I have looked to the water.' Naja smiled at him, but it was a serpent's smile, cold and thin-lipped. 'There are canals supplying every quarter of the city, enough water to grow Sargon's six terraces of gardens that. reach up into the sky, and to water and feed the city for a hundred years.'
'Pharaoh is all-seeing, all-wise.' Ishtar bowed to him, 'but where does the water come from?'
'From two mighty rivers. After the Nile itself, the mightiest rivers in the world. A supply of water that has not failed in this millennium.'
'But where does the water enter the city? How does it pass through, under or over those walls?' Ishtar insisted, and Naja and Trok exchanged a look of dawning comprehension.
--
Half a mile north of Babylon, outside the city walls, on the east bank of the Euphrates, at a point where the flood broadened and ran sluggishly, stood the temple of Ninurta, the lion-headed winged god of the Euphrates. It was built on stone piers that extended out into the river. The multiple images of the god were engraved on a frieze that ran around all four outer walls. In the Akkadian language, chiselled into the stone lintel over the entrance, was a warning to all who sought to invade the sanctuary, calling down the wrath of the god upon them.
Ishtar the Mede worked a charm on the threshold to nullify the curse, slitting the throats of two captives and splashing their blood on the portals. Once the way was cleared Trok, with twenty troopers at his back, strode through into the temple courtyard where all the purple-robed priests of Ninurta were gathered. They were chanting and gesticulating, waving their arms towards the intruder, splashing water from the Euphrates in his path, invoking Ninurta to build up an invisible wall of magical power to turn Trok back.
Trok strode through the wall without a check and killed the high priest with a single thrust through the old man's throat. Wailing at such sacrilege, the other priests prostrated themselves before him.
