2
The summer of 3130 BC, the City of Akkad. .
King Eskkar stood at the Workroom window, staring down at the garden courtyard below. The deepening shadows within the Compound’s walls told him the sun had already set. The two willow trees that shaded the house’s private well had spread their branches, and threatened to intertwine. For the last few years the gardener had to trim the topmost branches and boughs, to keep them within the walls.
As always, living things struggled into existence, grew strong and hearty for a time, then succumbed either to their enemies, fate, or in this case, the gardener’s saw. Men were much the same. They strove for mighty endeavors that often came to naught, despite all their efforts.
Now, much like the trees that struggled against the gardener’s blade, Eskkar planned a new and dangerous endeavor, but one necessary if the City of Akkad were to continue growing. Once again he would be risking his life against a hardened and steadfast enemy.
In three days the campaign long planned in secret would begin. Without fanfare, Eskkar and a small contingent of soldiers would ride out of the city, heading northwest. Fewer than a handful knew what he intended, though many had participated in the preparations.
The myriad and diverse rumors, carefully fed by Trella’s network of agents and spies, had already run their course. Another wearisome training mission, everyone said, as they nodded their heads knowingly. But only Eskkar and a few others knew that barbarian horsemen were once again on the move toward the Land Between the Rivers.
The barbarian horde, known as the Alur Meriki, traveled in a long migration cycle. This time they returned, after many years, to the northern lands, moving across the foothills of the Zagros Mountains on their journey to the west. Aware of Akkad’s strength and long reach, the Alur Meriki would seek to avoid any direct conflict.
Nevertheless, there would be numerous raids on Eskkar’s northern border. The barbarian honor code would accept nothing less. And so more than a few villages and countless homesteads would be destroyed, farms and crops burned, people and livestock killed.
Eskkar had decided the time for barbarian raids had ended. For the last two years, he and Trella had planned for the day when the barbarians returned to the fringes of Akkad’s lands. Many of the people no longer remembered the daring raid that brought the Alur Meriki within Akkad’s walls during the war with Sumer, but Eskkar had never forgotten. In that battle, the barbarian horsemen had discarded their warrior code and attempted to sneak into the city by treachery.
This time Eskkar intended to crush the Alur Meriki once and for all, and put an end to their depredations. The fact that Eskkar had been born into that same clan, had lived as one of them until his fourteenth season, mattered not at all.
Three quick knocks sounded on the open door. Eskkar turned away from the window, to see Annok-sur, his wife’s closest friend and companion, standing in the doorway. Her presence surprised him. She had left the Compound well before dusk, to return to her home a few steps down the lane. Something important must have brought her back.
“What is it?”
Before Annok-sur entered, she turned and spoke to the guard at the landing. Then she closed the door.
“Lord, I need to speak with you about. . something has come up.”
Her demeanor told him as much as her words. Tall and sturdily built, Annok-sur’s long hair contained more gray than brown, though she was only a few years older than Eskkar. As leader of Akkad’s network of spies, she held more power than anyone else in Akkad, except for Trella and Eskkar.
Her husband, Bantor, was one of Eskkar’s top commanders and Captain of the city’s Guard. Despite her responsibilities, Annok-sur seldom let her thoughts or emotions show in her face or manner. Now she seemed hesitant, almost agitated. He waved her toward the table, and she accepted his offer to sit.
Eskkar sat as well, but not across from her. Somehow facing his friends over the width of the wide table always seemed so formal. Besides, he wanted to see her in the fading light. Over the years, Annok-sur and her husband Bantor had grown into part of Eskkar and Trella’s family. “Something that can’t wait until tomorrow? Should I send for Trella?”
Trella had gone to visit Hathor the Egyptian, Eskkar’s second in command, and his wife, who had just delivered her third son. Their dwelling, too, was but a short distance away, though in the opposite direction from Annok-sur’s.
“No, I’m glad that she’s not here. Otherwise, I would have to ask her to leave the room. I gave my word that I would speak to you, and you alone.”
Eskkar furrowed his brow. Trella had been at his side and involved in every decision for almost fifteen years, and no one stood closer to Trella than Annok-sur. For her to go against that confidence surely meant something serious had arisen.
“A man called at my house just after dusk. He gave no name, just insisted that he had to speak with me. The guards refused to pass him in, but he persisted. He wore a hooded cloak that kept his face in the shadows. He told the guards he had something urgent to tell me, and that they should give me that message.”
Annok-sur took a deep breath. “Naturally, I came. The man surrendered his sword and knife, and we spoke in the courtyard. He declined to enter the house. He made sure no one could overhear our words, and he kept his face in the shadow of his hood.”
“How did you know he didn’t mean to attack you?” Annok-sur had almost as many enemies in Akkad as Eskkar and Trella.
“No, I sensed that was not his purpose. But I kept both guards close by, just far enough away so they could not hear the man’s softly spoken words.”
“What did he want?”
“That’s what surprised me. He wanted me to bring him to you, in secret. He wants to talk to you. No one, he insisted, must know his name or his face, or even that he visited with the king.”
“You said no, of course.”
“Yes, but he expected that. He asked me to give you a message. He had a presence about him, a force of will that I found hard to deny. He was very. . persuasive. He said you would see him when you heard the message.”
“This stranger seems very sure of himself,” Eskkar said. “What did you tell him?”
“I refused to carry a message to you without knowing his name. He thought for a moment, then gave me one that he said you would understand, and the message. The name he gave is Master Guide Tarrata.”
By now, Eskkar’s curiosity had taken control. Tarrata was not an uncommon name, and Eskkar had known several over the years. None that he could recall held any claim on his time.
He shrugged. “What was the message?”
“He said,” she paused again, as if to make sure she had the words right, “that he was the man who left you the five silver coins buried beneath the bloody rock along the southern road that leads to Orak.”
“Ahhh.” Eskkar leaned back in surprise as the memory swept aside the years. Orak was the old name for Akkad. Trella and he had changed the city’s name soon after they defeated and drove off the barbarians more than fifteen years ago.
Without thinking, he touched the scar on his leg, the wound that had nearly killed him when it became infected. Eskkar had been almost delirious when he limped into Orak for the first time. Now he remembered the name Tarrata well enough. Not just a guide, though. A caravan master as well. Tarrata had died in the same fight against bandits that had left Eskkar with the wounded leg.