The Assyrian (14 page)

Nargi Adad had a quick laugh and a sunny
temper. He was always hungry and never tired, and he was as fine a
soldier as ever lived. In appearance he was a short, thick man and
as hairy as a goat. He had almost no forehead at all and his beard
seemed to begin just below his eyes. His hands and even his feet
were matted with black hair, and when he took off his tunic he
looked like the animals called bears which I have seen in the
mountains of the east. What another man might have cursed as a
disfigurement was to him a source of immense pride, and he claimed
the harlots of all nations found him irresistible, a thing I
doubted not since, as Kephalos was always fond of pointing out,
women are great lovers of novelty.

Under conditions of forced march, traveling
during the whole six hours of daylight, an army could cover in four
days the distance between Nineveh and the disputed territories that
lay in Akkad east of the Tigris, but they would arrive in no fit
condition to fight. We were more leisurely, since we knew that the
Elamites and their Chaldean allies were already in the field, and,
as pious men, on all unlucky days, of which each month carries
five, we kept to our tents, wearing ragged clothes and eating no
food cooked in a pot. Thus we did not wet our sandals in the Radanu
River until the twelfth day.

“Well, Prince, when once we are across this
dribble of ox piss we will have to look about us, for between here
and the Turnat surely we will meet the enemy.”

Nargi Adad laughed and clapped me on the
shoulder, for like most of the soldiers of Ashur he was no
respecter of birth. The uniform of a rab kisir makes no man a
warrior and I took some small pride in the fact that my own ekalli,
who had fought by the side of mighty Sargon, treated me quite as if
I were neither his officer nor the king’s son but a comrade in arms
of long standing. I knew this was no more than his whim, but it
meant that Tabshar Sin, who was his friend, had given a good report
of me.

“How many, do you think?”

“An army, Prince, and a big one.” He nodded
at the flat brown shoreline beyond the river, no longer smiling.
“These men are not cowards and they know it is past a joke with the
king your father, that they must stop him here or he will march us
straight on to Susa to couch with Kudur-Nahhunte’s women and dig up
the bones of his ancestors. They will be fighting for their homes
and fields, as we might be ourselves before long—if we don’t stop
them.”

“But we will stop them.”

Nargi Adad turned the head on his short neck
and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He was on the verge
of making some remark but then stopped and laughed.

“Yes, Prince—with Ashur’s help, we will stop
them. Their bones will be stretched from here to the Bitter River
so that a man could walk there stepping on the faces of dead
Elamites. Come. Let us feed the men and be off. Tomorrow night we
will camp within sight of the Turnat River, and the next morning
there will be a battle which, should somehow you chance to survive
it, will provide you with tavern stories for the rest of your
days.”

And so we crossed the Radanu, and the next
day, near a wretched little cluster of mud huts called Khalule—may
its name disappear from the lips of men and the fields there be
plowed with salt—the army made camp.

Nargi Adad and I decided to see for ourselves
how the land lay, and together we went into the village. The
inhabitants had fled, since they knew there was about to be a great
battle and that, no matter who won, the pillaging and slaughter to
follow would be terrible. As we walked among the deserted houses,
the only sound we heard was the barking of a dog unfortunate enough
to have been left behind. The place made a dismal enough
impression. We climbed to the roof of the highest building there
and looked about us that we might know the terrain.

I do not like the southern lands. This is in
greater part because my memories of them are a chronicle of
destruction—no one who took part in the wars in Babylon longs ever
to look upon that slaughtering ground again—but also, to some
degree, because I was born in the Land of Ashur and love the sight
of distant mountains. The plains of the south are flat as a
drumhead, with nothing to distract the eye except, perhaps, the
sight of a mud filled river or a clump of date palms—as all men
know, the ugliest tree the gods ever made. From that rooftop in
Khalule the land seemed to stretch without a ripple into misty
infinity.

“See how they come?” Nargi Adad murmured,
almost as if afraid that Elamites might hear him. He pointed with
his furred arm toward the distant glimmering ribbon of water that
was the Turnat. Already its surface was half covered with the round
little boats made with pitched reeds and called gufas. “They are
crossing in force. In two hours we shall be able to see their
cooking fires, and in the morning. . . They mean to make a fight of
it, Prince. They have no thought of retreat. As you see, they will
have their backs to the river.”

By the time we returned to camp we could
already hear their war drums, like the brooding of distant
thunder.

“They will keep that up all night. No doubt
they mean to frighten us to death.” My ekalli grinned, showing his
large stained teeth. “I don’t know how well they will sleep, but
for myself I find the sound quite restful.”

That night, after I had had my dinner and the
half jug of strong Babylonian beer Nargi Adad forced down me, I
took off my sandals and wrapped myself in a blanket, letting it
cover my ears to keep out the booming of the Elamite drums. It was
a hot night, so I cannot claim that I was trembling with anything
except a great fear of death. My head buzzed from the beer, but
still I was tingling in all my limbs, feeling alive as those who
have not known battle rarely do—fear does that to a man.

Tomorrow, as early as first light, I thought
to myself, tomorrow I may be dead. An arrow, perhaps, or I may be
trampled to death under a chariot. And afterward when the battle is
finished, they may mutilate my corpse. Some Chaldean, it might be,
will go back to his wife and children with my private parts
dangling from his quiver. I had forgotten all about my sedu and my
dreams of glory. All I wanted was to rise from my bed, choose a
direction away from the Turnat River, and run until I dropped. If I
slept at all that night, it was only for seconds at a time, but I
do not believe I did sleep.

I was a rab kisir and deeply ashamed to be
afraid, but I have fought many battles since then and yet never
lost that stark terror in the darkness before, so I have learned
not to think so badly of myself for it. Fear is as natural as
breathing. How a man copes with it is the only question.

The next morning I had a breakfast of bread
and grapes, put on my greaves, my leather corselet, and helmet of
bronze and, as I stood with my javelin in my hand, discovered with
surprise and relief that my fear had deserted me. I would not turn
tail and flee, at least, and that was almost the same thing. I
found I was actually looking forward to the battle. It is thus, I
think, with most soldiers.

I will not speak of the ordering of troops,
of which forces were held in reserve and which not, of the weight
of cavalry or the tactical disposition of the chariots, for if
there was any grand strategy at work that day, I did not see it. In
any case, the schemes of both commanders must have been hopelessly
inept to go so wrong, for a well planned battle does not end in so
general a slaughter. The object in war is to kill one’s enemies,
and this at as little cost as possible. On that day at Khalule it
was not kings and generals who fought, but men. The armies were
like two giants locked in combat, their hands about each other’s
throats, and when at last they separated it was not because one had
vanquished the other but because both were too weary and wounded to
go on. That was how it was.

So I have no story to tell of that day except
my own, which I think is as close to the general truth as any. In
other times, when I was myself a commander of armies, I would stand
on a bluff overlooking the field and watch the battle unfold
according to the plans I had hatched in my brain, and I believe my
plans saved the lives of many soldiers on both sides, for a clear
victory is always cheaper for everyone. But at Khalule that was not
the way of it.

In the dim gray light of morning the smoke
from the cooking fires hugged the ground like mist. Men did not
speak. There was no sound except the clink of weapons and the
snorting of horses. Even the drums of the Elamites had stopped, for
they too knew that time was short and everyone was too occupied
with the practical business of shield straps and bowstrings for the
luxury of some nameless dread.

“Come, Prince. Let us see that the men are
ready.”

In his armor and helmet, Nargi Adad looked as
round and impregnable as a stone, making me think that all we
needed to do was to roll him toward the enemy lines and he would
crash through as if they were a row of reeds. He put his thick,
hairy hand on the muscle of my right arm and squeezed it.

“Tabshar Sin tells me that you have a mighty
skill with the javelin,” he said, grinning like a dragon. “He
claims you can take the eye out of a mouse at a hundred paces. I
pray it is not too much less than the truth, Prince.”

My men were a company of archers and
throwers, the backbone of any army. They fought in units of two
men, one to wield the bow or the javelin and the other to protect
them both behind a huge woven leather shield. We were to fight in
the first line, arranging ourselves in an arrowhead pattern, and we
would be opposed by cavalry, who would try to ride us down, to
break up our formation and scatter us like chaff. But they had to
reach us first, and they would be riding straight into the points
of our weapons. If they did not reach us, or if we did not break
after their first charge, then we would advance on the Elamite
lines where, at last, it would be close fighting with sword and
dagger. Of the great armored chariots, which could cut down men’s
bodies like standing wheat, we tried not to think at all.

I shall not soon forget my first sight of the
Elamite lines. They, of course, had many allies among the small
southern states—the men of Anzan and Lakabra, the Chaldeans, the
tribes of Iazan and Harzunu, the Pasheru, peoples and races beyond
counting—but the Elamites were in the center. Without them the
others were no more than buzzing flies. We were of the quradu and
thus formed the vanguard around the king’s own person. We would
take the full force of the Elamite advance.

As I stood on that dusty, windless plain,
shaded from the morning sun by a leather shield, I could watch
their war horses digging at the air with hoofs that would cut like
daggers. The soldiers wore bronze armor and helmets with horns like
a bull. Their shields were without number and their weapons flashed
in the dim light like the glinting of water as they raised their
spears and swords in taunting challenge. Their drums were silent
now and they did not waste their breath on war cries. Their very
silence was enough.

“All right, men!” It was the voice of Nargi
Adad, breaking the quiet air like a hammer. “Remember—it is the
brave man who lives to fight again. Panic, and they will trample
you down like grapes in a wine vat. The only way to keep them from
killing you is to kill them, so have hearts of snow and aim true.
We are the quradu, the strong ones, and we have the king’s life in
our keeping. Remember that as well. And tonight we see how the beer
tastes in Elam!”

Every man’s voice rang with cheering, and
mine not least. If ever I believed in the glory of war—if ever
there was glory in it—it was in that moment.

Suddenly, somehow, we were moving forward,
one step at a time as we kept our formation, as we listened for the
pounding of hoofs of the Elamite cavalry and readied our weapons.
My bearer carried our shield on his left arm, and with his right he
held in a leather sling perhaps five and twenty of my thin,
copper-pointed javelins. Another was in my right hand, balanced and
ready. I was even then looking for a mark.

The javelin thrower must be quick, for his is
the most dangerous of arts. The bowman may stay behind his leather
shield, but the thrower needs more room and thus must step out and
into plain sight to make his toss. He must take the time to be
accurate or he risks his life for nothing, but he must be fast or
an arrow will find his belly and he will not throw again. The
Elamite cavalry were coming now—I could see the flash of their long
curved swords. I waited for them to come near enough. At all but
the closest range one aims for the horse, for a cavalryman will run
like a rabbit as soon as he loses his mount, and the horse is
bigger and carries less armor and can tear a formation to shreds
even without its rider. I waited for the horse—it was my enemy, and
the man whose knees clutched its shoulders was a mere shadow. I
waited, for my arm trembled with eagerness and my javelin was
thirsty for blood.

At last—at last—the lead rider was close
enough. I did not see him, only the horse, only a patch of brown. I
stepped out from behind the shield, yanked back my arm, waited that
fraction of an instant that allowed me to be sure, and threw.
Everything, every fragment of my strength went into that throw. The
javelin arched through the air like a bird of prey and I stood and
watched it, bewitched, unable to move. Higher and higher it rose,
and then it swooped down and buried itself in the base of the
horse’s neck. The beast rolled straight over like a cartwheel, and
its rider did a quick acrobat’s flip in the air and fell beneath
his dead mount. He must have been either crippled or killed,
because he did not even try to crawl away. It was a beautiful
sight. I could not take my eyes from it.