Taking his time, Sargon eased his horse to the top of the ridge line. He hadn’t liked looking up at the warriors. Fashod and the others joined him.
“I thought he was going to cut your head off,” Garal remarked in a low voice. “You should choose your enemies with more care. You are not yet ready to fight one as strong as he.”
Sargon grunted, feeling light-headed, as if he had just escaped certain death. He doubted if he would ever be ready for such an encounter. “You thought I was going to attack him? I was going to order you to do it.”
Jennat laughed, a sharp burst of sound that made the Alur Meriki turn their heads toward them. Even Fashod smiled.
“Keep your words polite, and don’t do anything to anger them further,” Fashod cautioned. “I would like to return to my wives one of these days.”
The Alur Meriki discussion went on longer than Sargon expected. He’d begun to grow impatient when it broke up at last. The leader of ten rode back alone to face Sargon. “I will lead the way to the caravan, with four of my men. The rest must remain here to patrol.”
He meant to keep watch in case an Ur Nammu raiding party was on its way. Still, only five men to guard four, that was good. Obviously the Alur Meriki leader could not admit that five of his men could not defeat three men and a boy.
“Good. But if you can’t keep up, we will leave you behind. Our message cannot wait. We will ride hard from sunup to sundown.”
“We will keep up. Our horses are fresh.”
“Then we ride.” Sargon clucked to his horse, and started at a canter. Fashod and the others were right behind him, leaving the Alur Meriki behind. Sargon heard the warrior swear a mighty oath. But Sargon didn’t look back.
Before they’d covered a hundred paces, the leader of ten moved his horse to Sargon’s right side. When his horse had settled into its pace, he turned to Sargon. “What is so important that it cannot wait?”
Sargon kept his eyes straight ahead. “I do not speak with anyone who will not tell me his name.”
“My name is Den’rack.”
“Well, Den’rack, you will find out soon enough.”
“You are trying my patience, dirt-eater.”
“Ah, do not let my father hear you say those words. Eskkar of Akkad does not have my patience. He would take offense, if you know what I mean.”
“I will pray three times a day to the war gods that you are not who you say you are, so I can have the pleasure of killing you myself.”
Sargon smiled at that. No doubt in the next few days, there would be more than a few trying to kill him. For the first time since they’d started riding, he turned toward Den’rack and met his gaze.
“There should not be any quarrel between us. No matter how this turns out, you have done the right thing for your clan. You said you had a new Sarum. Is Clan Chief Urgo dead?”
The talk among the Akkadian soldiers who had returned from the battle had mentioned Urgo’s name more than once. According to Eskkar, Urgo seemed to be a wise and reasonable man.
“No, he is not dead. But Urgo is too old and infirm to lead the clan in these troubled times. He asked the Council, what was left of it, to chose another.”
Sargon heard the anger in Den’rack’s voice. Eskkar’s victory over the Alur Meriki must have sown many bitter feelings. “Who was chosen as Sarum?”
“Bekka of the Wolf clan.”
The name meant nothing to Sargon, but he guessed he would learn all he needed to know about the man in the next few days.
27
As the sun disappeared below the horizon, Sargon, the Ur Nammu, and the Alur Meriki halted for the night. Den’rack had guided them to a stream he’d camped at a few days earlier. Water, as always, was too important to ignore, even if it meant a few more miles added to their journey. Enough grass grew beside the stream, so the horses could forage without being tempted to wander off.
A small stand of trees arched up over the water, and a fallen log provided a convenient place for Sargon to pitch his blanket. He ignored the frown on Den’rack’s face at Sargon’s casual possession of the most desirable spot to stretch out for the night.
Sargon understood Den’rack’s dilemma. The warrior could have ordered Sargon to move, but if Sargon were indeed the son of the king and forced an argument, Den’rack might lose face. So Sargon pretended not to notice as the Alur Meriki leader gritted his teeth in silence, and flung his blanket on the ground ten paces away.
After seeing to their horses, Sargon and each of his companions wolfed down a few strips of dried meat from their pouches. As he worked his jaws, Sargon had no idea of what animal had furnished the chewy sustenance. Hunger made it tasty enough.
Den’rack’s men spread their blankets beside their leader. He and his warriors looked almost as tired as Sargon. They’d ridden just as far today. Tomorrow would be a greater challenge for them, as they would not have the luxury of alternating horses.
“At least we won’t have to post a guard tonight.” Fashod glanced toward the surly Alur Meriki staring at them. “Den’rack wouldn’t trust any of us anyway. Unless he decides to slit our throats during the night.”
“In that case, they would have killed us when we first met, and saved all of us a lot of riding.” Sargon finished the last of the meat, picked his teeth clean with a twig, and rolled himself up in the horse blanket. Ignoring the talk from the Alur Meriki, he fell asleep in a few heartbeats.
In the morning, he found the Alur Meriki warriors had awoken before dawn, no doubt determined to prove they could rise earlier than any Ur Nammu. No one had much to say, and Sargon ignored his escorts. Everyone checked their horses, mounted up, and resumed the journey.
Den’rack again led the way, but Fashod set the pace, forcing the Alur Meriki to push their horses. Two more days passed in much the same manner — lots of hard riding, little talking, and not much food.
Fashod, who had an uncanny skill at judging distances, estimated they covered almost a hundred and forty miles the first two days after leaving the Ur Nammu camp. After they joined up with the Alur Meriki, the rough terrain slowed them down somewhat, and Fashod guessed that they made only sixty miles for the next two days.
Twice they encountered other Alur Meriki patrols. Sargon endured the required delays these caused. Fortunately, they did not meet anyone of higher rank than Den’rack, someone who might have other ideas about allowing Ur Nammu warriors so deep into what the Alur Meriki considered their territory.
Just after midday on the third day of their joint expedition, they encountered the outer guards of the main Alur Meriki caravan. By then only three of Den’rack’s warriors remained. One rider’s horse had gone lame yesterday, and Sargon had refused to lend the warrior one of the Ur Nammu mounts. Den’rack had to leave the cursing man behind. After such hard riding, all of the Alur Meriki horses were nearly dead on their feet, pushed past their limits of endurance by the effort to keep up with the Ur Nammu.
In less than five days of riding, Sargon and his friends had traversed more than three hundred miles, some of that over patches of difficult country that slowed their progress.
By now, the Zagros Mountains towered over them, the higher peaks capped with snow. The base of the mountains loomed only a mile or so to the north.
When they crested one more of the seemingly endless foothills, Sargon gazed upon a mighty caravan stretched out in a long straggling line, moving slowly toward him. Herds of horses, goats, sheep, and cows ranged on either side of the column.
Unlike the Ur Nammu, most of the Alur Meriki transported their women, children, and possessions in large wagons that creaked and wheezed in a never ending sound, a rasping friction of wood on wood, that soon grated on Sargon’s ears even at this distance.
Nevertheless, the sight of a moving village impressed Sargon, and even Fashod muttered something about the size and might of the Clan.