Everyone in the camp worked at something. Those men too old, or unable to fight or ride made weapons, mostly lances, bows, and arrows, scraping and carving most of the day. The Ur Nammu had few skilled in working with bronze, but Akkad filled that void, providing them with bronze swords, knives, and lance heads.
Sargon examined the shafts in one of the quivers. All had bone tips set into the shaft and bound with thread. Few looked straight enough for accurate shooting. The feathers that steadied the arrow in its flight looked jagged and uneven.
Garal halted twenty paces from the first post, and told Sargon to begin. Dropping the quivers to the ground, Sargon strung his bow, set his feet, and launched his first shaft. It struck the dangling grass sack, making it rock back and forth.
“Good,” Garal grunted. “Again.”
After launching twenty or so arrows, Sargon’s right arm started aching, and his left trembled as he struggled to keep it rigid. Some shafts flew wide of the mark. Nevertheless, Garal declared himself satisfied with Sargon’s efforts.
“Your teachers in Akkad taught you well. You know how to take aim and to release smoothly. That is good. But you must nock and aim faster. On horseback, everything happens at once. One moment you are out of range, the next you are too close. Often you get only one chance to launch a shaft.”
To demonstrate, Garal slung a quiver over his shoulder. With a smooth motion, he whipped an arrow from the quiver, nocked and drew the bow in the same motion, and released the shaft. Without pausing he plucked another arrow from the quiver, and another and another, until he emptied his quiver of missiles, sixteen arrows in all.
Sargon stood there with his mouth hanging open. None of Hathor’s warriors or even Mitrac’s archers had ever shot so many shafts so quickly. Even Mitrac himself, Akkad’s master archer, had never accomplished such a feat. And every one of Garal’s arrows struck the target.
The warrior led the way to recover the shafts. “Your fingers must grow used to nocking the arrow to the bow. You must do this without looking down, as that will disturb your aim.”
They practiced until midmorning. By then, Sargon’s arms had turned to water, and he felt even more tired than if they had worked out with swords.
“Time to get our horses and ride,” Garal remarked. “We will each carry our bows and one quiver.”
They returned to the camp, drank at the stream, then collected their horses and rode out. Sargon carried his bronze knife, along with the wooden sword slung over his shoulder. He carried the bow in his left hand, with the quiver fastened to his waist on his left side. In battle, Sargon’s left hand would also have to hold the halter and guide his horse, assisted by pressure from the rider’s knees. The right hand, of course, remained free, ready for sword, lance, or to draw the bow.
Most of the warriors carried their weapons in this manner, though some replaced the bow with a pair of lances. Aside from his Akkadian tunic, Sargon looked and rode like any Ur Nammu warrior.
Garal set a fast pace as they raced around the camp, crossed the stream, and headed east. They galloped up and down gentle hills covered with grass, jumped gullies, and wove their way through large collections of boulders, pausing only long enough to rest the horses when they needed it. The ride ended where the morning had started, at the archery range. This time the two men remained mounted.
“The horses are too tired for much more.” Garal patted his mount’s neck as he spoke. “But they can still serve to give you some more practice.” He started at the same twenty paces. Slipping an arrow from the quiver, he loosed it at the target, followed by five more, all launched with the same speed. “We’ll take turns. Now you shoot a few.”
Sargon found himself fumbling with the quiver. Sitting astride the horse, the quiver didn’t hang straight down, so the arrows rested inside at an angle, which made them harder to grasp. When he finally nocked one to the bow, he realized the bow could not be held straight either. The halter, which still had to be grasped, interfered with his grip, and his left thigh forced the bottom of the bow out to the side. Sargon’s first arrow flew wide of the mark. His next one, which took even longer to nock, also missed the target.
“It is difficult at first,” Garal said. “Keep trying.”
Gritting his teeth, Sargon emptied the quiver, while his bored horse pawed the ground. At least the last few shafts struck the target.
The two men climbed down and recovered their arrows.
“Now let’s try it at a walk,” Garal said. He guided his horse to a spot about fifty paces from the target. “A skilled warrior would have already shot two shafts by the time he reached this point. Set your horse to a walk, and we’ll see how many arrows you can put on the target.”
The moment the animal started moving forward, even at a plodding walk, Sargon found the entire process had doubled in difficulty. The horse’s movements jiggled the quiver, even as it made Sargon’s leg shift slightly, forcing him to fumble when he extracted a shaft and nocked it.
Determined, he kept shooting, loosing the arrows as fast as he could yank them from the quiver. Nevertheless, he managed to only get off ten shafts before the horse halted in front of the target.
Sargon glanced at Garal, who said nothing. He didn’t have to. Half of the Akkadian’s shots had missed the target.
Garal broke the silence. “We’ll collect our arrows and try again.”
And again and again, until the pain and weakness returned to Sargon’s arms. But his last effort showed improvement, as he put fourteen arrows into the target, and missed only two.
“Enough archery for today,” Garal said, glancing up at the sky to see how much daylight remained. “Another ride will do the horses good, too.”
A final quick gallop through the countryside brought them back to the camp well before dusk. “Now it’s time to practice your sword play.”
This was the first time that Sargon had done any training inside the warriors’ camp. After tending to the horses, they washed the dust from their faces, and drank from the stream. They walked back to Chinua’s tent and found themselves an open space nearby. Garal put down his sword and took up a wooden one. “Let’s begin.”
The session began, but this time with a crowd quickly forming to watch the performance. Women, children, even a few old warriors, appeared as if by magic, attracted by the thumping of the wooden blades, to watch the young Akkadian match his skills with one of their own.
Aware of the growing audience, Sargon exerted himself, defending attack after attack by Garal. With the sweat pouring from his face, Sargon matched strokes with his instructor, but Garal seemed to grow stronger with each clash of the swords.
Soon a stroke slipped past Sargon’s guard, a stinging blow on his upper arm that, if the swords had been real, would have probably severed the limb.
Garal ordered a brief rest. Sargon, breathing heavily, glanced around, and saw that about thirty people had formed a rough circle around the two men. He heard comments, most of which he didn’t understand, exchanged between members of the crowd. Half a dozen warriors watched also, but they stared in silence.
They were, Sargon realized with a shock, studying both antagonists, just in case they ever had to face either of them in a fight.
The practice resumed, but it didn’t take long before Sargon’s lack of endurance made itself evident. His offense vanished in moments and his defense began to weaken. Garal, stronger to begin with, seemed to grow in strength with each attack. Stroke after stroke slipped through Sargon’s guard.
In the end, his weary legs made him stumble as he failed to block one of Garal’s simple overhead strokes. The thick wood of the sword landed almost unimpeded on the side of Sargon’s head.