Quest for Honour (59 page)

At last Trella straightened up, and Eskkar knew that the latest difficulty had been resolved. She looked at him, surprised to find him standing in the doorway. Trella was, he decided, even more beautiful than that night when he saw her for the first time. Then she’d been a young girl, but one already past the usual age for marriage. Now she was a woman grown.

Eskkar had taken her to his bed that night, and even that first time he knew she possessed something special, that she was unlike any woman he had ever known. For her part, Trella had worked her magic on him. Facing threats from within and without, they learned to help each other. Soon their lives were bound together, first as master and slave, then as partners working to save the city, next as husband and wife, and finally
king and queen of Akkad. They had saved each other’s lives, they had fought together, and now they ruled together. Trella was, as the barbarians said, a gifted woman.

Eskkar knew that some men grew tired of their women, or needed second and third wives. While he had taken other women from time to time, he remained under Trella’s spell, if that were what it was, as much today as when they’d first joined.

Even now, he felt the stirrings of desire pass through him, as he watched the firm muscles move beneath her simple dress. Shaking himself from his thoughts, Eskkar entered the Map Room, strode down the length of the table, and placed his arm around Trella’s shoulder. “I think it’s time for you and Ismenne to take some food and rest.” He leaned down and kissed the top of Trella’s head.

“Yes, Lord Eskkar,” Ismenne said. “As soon as I finish making these changes.”

“Eat first.” He couldn’t help smiling at the girl. “Or you’ll be too tired to get through the day.”

Not that he believed it, of course. The young girl had plenty of energy and strength. Still, some fresh air and a bite to eat wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps some day Trella would bear him a daughter who might grow up as beautiful and wise as Ismenne. Despite her youth, Corio’s daughter and her efforts might yet help win the war with Sumer.

They left the Map Room. Ismenne closed the door behind them, then disappeared down the stairs to tell the servants to bring food to Eskkar and Trella. Before they could sit down, shouting erupted from the courtyard below. Hoof beats drummed on the earth, a horse neighed, and Eskkar’s own mount, always close at hand, answered it. A guard called out the challenge.

“Another problem,” Eskkar muttered, “and always as we sit down to eat.”

Eskkar moved to the stairs and started to descend. But before he descended halfway to the common room, two men burst through the main entrance and headed for the stairs. The first man looked up and saw the king standing there. Eskkar recognized the leader of twenty who guarded Akkad’s main gate.

“Lord Eskkar! The outpost at Adarnar has been attacked!”

Guards, servants, even some tradesmen, followed the others into the room. Bantor and Grond, who’d been taking their meal outside, pushed
the onlookers aside and followed the messengers, their eyes as wide with excitement as the youngest recruit.

Eskkar turned his attention to the second man, an older soldier swaying on his feet, a bloodstained bandage on his left arm, and a large bruise on his cheek. Flecks of dried blood still stained his neck and tunic.

“Come upstairs,” Eskkar ordered. “Everyone else wait outside in the courtyard.” He found Trella standing behind him. Her expression told him she understood. The long dreaded war with Sumer might have begun.

Grond had to help the wounded man up the steps. Eskkar dragged over a stool and the soldier slipped onto it with a long gasp of relief. Trella handed him a cup of wine, then had to help hold it while he sipped. Despite her efforts, his trembling hand spilled half the liquid onto his chest, staining the ragged garment as red as the blots of color on the dirty bandage.

“Send for a healer,” Trella ordered. “This bandage needs to be changed.” Her fingertips traced the nearly black bruise on his face. “His cheekbone may be broken as well.”

“What’s your name?” Eskkar snapped the words out. The man appeared ready to slip into shock, and needed the sharp words to keep his focus.

“Sargat, my lord.” He coughed, then again lifted the cup to his lips. “Second in command to Enkidu at Adarnar.”

“What happened?”

Alexar and Gatus, both breathing hard, joined them in the workroom. Drakis entered a moment later and completed the senior commanders in Akkad.

Sargat kept his eyes on the king. “Yesterday . . . no, three days ago, a little before sunset, a band of Tanukhs rode across the Sippar and attacked the outpost. Adarnar was overrun in moments. We tried . . . there were too many of them, hundreds and hundreds. We couldn’t stop them.”

A barbarian raid, Eskkar decided, but perhaps only an isolated attack.

“How many were there? How long did Adarnar hold out? How did you get away?”

Everyone had a question. At this rate, the man’s story would take the rest of the day.

“Let Sargat tell us what happened,” Eskkar cut in before anyone else could speak. “Take your time. Start at the beginning, and tell us everything that you remember.”

The events at Adarnar came out in halting words. Trella refilled the wine cup, this time mixing the strong wine with plenty of water. No one said a word while Sargat spoke, every man in the room knew how the Tanukhs fought, all of them could visualize exactly what had taken place at the fort. The soldiers would have fought to the death, rather than let themselves be captured and tortured. Then would come the villagers’ turn, tortured and killed for their captors’ amusement, the women raped before being murdered, after watching their children butchered before their eyes. When only the dead remained, the Tanukhs would have burned the fort to the ground.

While Sargat spoke, the healer entered the room, put down his heavy box of implements, and without a word began attending to the wound. The soldier scarcely noticed when the healer used his obsidian knife to cut open the wrapping, cleaned the deep cut, and applied a fresh bandage around the man’s arm. At last Sargat ended his tale and slumped back in the chair, his eyes closed.

“Did anyone else get away?” The soldier needed rest, needed more attentions from the healer, but Eskkar had only two more questions.

The eyes opened. “Yes, lord, one other. I was the last one out the gate. I caught up with the last handful of men to ride out. We had to fight our way through the Tanukhs. Only myself and one other soldier managed to get though all the confusion . . . there were so many of them, and all trying to get into the fort. He was wounded as well, and I left him behind at the first place of safety. I took his horse and rode for Akkad, as Enkidu wanted.”

“How sure are you that these raiders were Tanukhs?”

“They were Tanukhs. I saw them and heard them speak. Enkidu recognized them as well.”

Not Sumerians pretending to be tribesmen then.

“My thanks to you, Sargat.” Eskkar reached out and touched the man’s shoulder. “You’ve done well. Now get some rest.” He nodded to the healer. “Take him downstairs and do whatever else you can for him. Tell the servants to put him in the guest chamber.”

Eskkar strode across the room and into the Map Room. Bantor, Grond, Alexar and Gatus tramped after him, the floor flexing from their weight. Trella, Ismenne and Annok-sur came in together, and closed the door.

Standing over the map, Eskkar studied the land around the symbol
that represented Adarnar. “Two or three hundred Tanukhs . . . that’s a lot of men to slip across the border and travel so far east without being noticed, all to attack an insignificant outpost. They could have found plenty of farms to raid closer to home, on both sides of the Sippar.”

“They could be halfway to Akkad by now,” Gatus mused. “Or they could be on their way back to the desert.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Bantor said. “They would have had to cross over Larsa’s territory. They must have been seen. We should have gotten word of their passage.”

Eskkar turned to Trella and Annok-sur.

“Nothing, my lord.” Annok-sur’s voice showed her concern. It was her task to gather information, in order to prevent such a thing. “I spoke with a trader yesterday who came from Larsa. He heard nothing out of the ordinary, only the steady preparations for war. Even to the people of Larsa, a band of Tanukhs would be noticed and talked about.”

“Unless they crossed over further south.” Eskkar traced the Sippar river with his finger. “It’s longer, but Sumer could also have given them passage through part of their lands. The Tanukhs could then ride north and strike anywhere they wanted.”

More muffled shouting came from the common room below, until one voice rose up over everything else.

“Lord Eskkar! I must speak with Lord Eskkar at once!”

They heard the heavy tread of footsteps on the stairs. Eskkar had just opened the Map Room door when a soldier pushed his way into the workroom. Eskkar recognized Daro, one of Yavtar’s commanders.

“Daro? What’s wrong?” The man looked almost as weary as Sargat. Bloody bandages covered both his hands. “What happened to your hands?”

Daro lifted his hands as if seeing them for the first time. “From working the oar. We’ve been rowing upriver for almost two days.” He shook his head. “The enemy has taken Kanesh. They’ve stopped all the traffic on the river. No boats are coming north.”

Eskkar glanced at Gatus, then nodded to Trella. One attack might be just a raid, but two – that meant hostilities had broken out. The same force that attacked Adarnar couldn’t have reached Kanesh so quickly. Nor would Kanesh have fallen so easily, with its force of more than ninety defenders. Eskkar guided Daro back to the workroom table and gestured him to the same stool just vacated by Sargat.

“Sit down and tell me what happened. Take your time, and don’t leave anything out.”

W
hen Daro finished his tale, Eskkar ordered him to see the healer and remain in the Compound. Now only the commanders remained, sitting around the table in the workroom.

“How can this have happened?” Gatus asked the question none of the others wanted to voice. “We expected to have days of warning, plenty of time to reinforce Kanesh.”

They had argued over sending more soldiers to Kanesh, but in the end they decided it might provoke the conflict.

“I’m sorry, Gatus.” Trella’s voice showed her concern. “Our last reports – one arrived only yesterday – showed nothing unusual in Sumer or Larsa. The Sumerians showed no signs of moving to the attack, no increase in the number of men, no large-scale movement of supplies.”

“And yet they took us by surprise, captured Adarnar, Kanesh, and who knows how many other outposts.” Gatus clenched his fist and rapped it on the table. “All by using the Tanukhs against us. Now the way is clear for them to ravage all the countryside south and east of Akkad.”

“How they did it doesn’t matter now,” Eskkar said. He felt the same anger as Gatus, but Trella had provided them with good and timely information for almost four years. “Somehow the Boy King of Sumer has struck the first blow. By now his infantry forces are on the move, marching at top speed toward Kanesh. They’ll be there long before we can muster enough force to recapture the outpost.”

“Once they’ve strengthened Kanesh,” Bantor said, “they’ll move north. They could be at Akkad in five or ten days. But they’ll never be able to take the city.”

“They’ll come in force, and prepared for a long siege.” Gatus shook his head in frustration. “We’ll be trapped inside Akkad. With so many men, they could just starve us out, while they harvest our crops and herds in the countryside.”

“We need more reports on what their strength is.” Eskkar kept his voice calm. Even with his closest commanders, he didn’t intend to show any fear or doubt. “We’ll need strong troops of cavalry to range the
countryside, learn how many men we face. Once Hathor arrives with all the horsemen and we can dispatch them on patrols, we’ll know better what to do.”

“We may learn more from our spies in the next few days.” Annok-sur waited until all the bad news had sunk in. “And those fleeing the Tanukhs may be able to tell us more.”

“Meanwhile, we should not let the city see how grave this situation is,” Trella said. “If they see us looking worried . . .”

The commanders understood that problem. If the people living in and around Akkad saw doubts and fears on their leaders’ faces, they’d flee the city, and the defenders would have even fewer resources to withstand Sumer’s armies.

“We need to do more than that.” Eskkar looked for a moment at each of his commanders. “We need to tell . . . no, show the people that we will not only strike back, but that we will defeat Sumer. We need to remind everyone in Akkad that the one who strikes the first blow may not be the one who strikes the last. In battle, anything can happen. Our first defense has been broken, but we’ve many more weapons we can bring to bear. The people need to know that we will not only avenge the loss of Kanesh, but punish Sumer and the other cities until they beg for peace. We need to show more than strength. We need our people to understand that we are determined to avenge our losses, and that we will win.”

“The people already believe it,” Trella said. “You saved Akkad once from certain destruction. If we show strength, then they will remember that above all else. You will protect Akkad.”

“When I march our spearmen through the city’s lanes,” Gatus said, “the people will believe in our victory.”

“And as Annok-sur says,” Eskkar reminded them, “we’ll know more in a few days. There is no real danger to Akkad yet, and we’ve enough time to prepare.”

“Still, we’re going to need a new plan,” Gatus said.

Almost all of their tactics had relied on Kanesh withstanding any attacks, at least for a few days, until help could arrive or an orderly retreat set in motion. Now ninety good fighting men were dead or captured in Kanesh, and another thirty in Adarnar. Other outposts along the river had probably met the same fate. Akkad would be cut off from all information about the borderlands.

“Oh, yes,” Eskkar answered, wondering if his face revealed his own doubts. “We will most certainly need a new plan.”