Empire Rising (20 page)

Mitrac waited there, leaning on his bow, next to the two men he had considered his best archers, both men who had fought beside Hamati at Dilgarth. Even Eskkar felt satisfied that everyone knew what to do.

Midnight passed without event. Eskkar could do nothing to make the time pass faster, not even pace around. If Ninazu’s attack came, it would likely be when the moon began to set, about two hours before dawn. Too excited and nervous to rest or sleep, Eskkar and his men just waited. Most of them lay on their backs and watched the silver orb slowly cross the night sky. At last the moon began to fade. The time had arrived.

Eskkar sat on the ground, drumming his fingers against his leg, a bad habit he had picked up during the siege of Akkad. He didn’t like anyone knowing he felt nervous, and he stopped the motion the moment he became conscious of it. Except for the faint crackling of the fire, Eskkar could hear nothing. Another hour crept by, and still he heard no sign of any activity. He wanted to start moving, but he didn’t dare take the chance.

Any unusual sound might stop Ninazu’s attack. If Ninazu even did plan to attack tonight, it should have come by now.

His doubts growing every moment, Eskkar had just decided that he had guessed wrong when a shout went up from the Akkadians’ main encampment. A moment later someone hurled a torch into the sky, Sisuthros’s signal an attack had begun. Shouts drifted across the black ground.

Without any commands, Eskkar and his men started to advance, trying to make as little noise as possible. They swung wide around their small fire.

In single file, they moved rapidly toward the southern corner of the village, each man following the man ahead of him. Mitrac led the way. He’d studied the ground during the day, and now Eskkar and the others followed Empire Rising

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him. Behind Mitrac strode his two picked archers, trailed by Eskkar, Grond, and the rest of the men.

Time moved quickly, and they soon drew close to the village, where it came closest to the river. When Mitrac stopped, less than a hundred paces separated them from the palisade. They crouched among the rubble, and hoped no one watched this side of the village too closely. Mitrac and his chosen archers disappeared into the darkness.

Sound continued to drift in from the front of the village, though Eskkar couldn’t tell what any of it meant. For all he knew, his men in the camp had been overrun and slaughtered, or they had already driven back Ninazu’s men. Whatever the result, Eskkar was committed, and they hadn’t much time. He hoped any sentries watching this side of the village would be lax, their attention focused on events happening in front of the main gate.

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.

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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 Empire Rising

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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, 106

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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 cov-Empire Rising

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ered 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 108