While he might not capture as much loot as the other generals, Jedidia would still add much wealth to his coffers by the time this campaign ended. Within a year Jedidia expected to return victorious to Elam, and with even more horsemen under his command. Once the Akkadians collapsed and King Shirudukh had imposed his rule, Jedidia would absorb the fittest survivors into his cavalry.
Mid afternoon arrived before the Builder returned. One glance, and Jedidia knew he had a problem. The man, thin and nervous, bobbed his head in deference. Gray rock dust covered almost every part of his body. Jedidia saw fear on the man’s face, all the usual signs of someone obviously afraid to deliver bad tidings.
“What is it?”
The Builder flinched at the snarl in Jedidia’s voice. “General Jedidia, the Pass is completely blocked. Part of the mountain toppled, and the trail is buried for at least a hundred and fifty paces.”
Jedidia had seen as much for himself. “How soon to clear it?”
The Builder shook his head. “I. . I don’t know, Master. We’ll need digging tools, hammers and chisels to break up the boulders, carts to remove the rubble, ropes to climb up the rocks. Ten or fifteen days, perhaps longer.”
Fifteen days! Jedidia had expected to hear the task would take a day or two at most. Of course the fool standing before him knew they had none of those items with the expedition. Jedidia led an invading force, not a construction gang. He restrained his anger.
“Very well, then how long will it take to clear a pathway. We don’t need much, just one wide enough to accommodate a horse.”
The man swallowed. His face, caked with dust, showed his thirst, but Jedidia had no intention of offering him a chance to drink.
“Master, the rocks are large and piled up on top of each other. To carve a trail through the rubble wide enough to accommodate a horse, it would take almost as long. In a few days, we could probably clear a way for men to scramble through to the other side, but horses. . not without ropes and chains. We need hammers and chisels, and plenty of men to labor moving the rocks. If we had lumber, we might be able to construct a plank bridge over the rubble.”
Jedidia gritted his teeth. The nearest source of wood lay sixty miles behind them. He took a deep breath and softened his tone. No sense terrorizing the man any further. “Look, Builder, there must be a way through these rocks. The Akkadians, they did this. They found a way to bring down the mountain, didn’t they?”
“Yes, Master, but the place where the cliff tumbled leads right into the heart of the mountains. Your soldiers are searching the rocks on either side, but I do not think they’ll find a way through. Men, yes, but not horses.”
“Can’t you dig your way through, or under the blockage?”
“We are in the mountains, Master. The dirt we see underfoot is shallow, with solid rock beneath. There is nothing to dig into.”
The Builder’s hands trembled in his fear, and rightly so. If any of this proved to be false, Jedidia would have the man whipped to death. Jedidia’s lips clamped shut. No, that was too quick. He would make sure the fool suffered for at least three days before he died.
The General turned his back on the Builder and stared at the blocked pass. A sense of dread settled on his shoulders. He had worked with the Builder and his kind before. He knew their estimates tended to be optimistic. The reality always took much longer.
Jedidia’s men had only enough food and water left for four or five days. Of course that could be stretched if the men went on half rations. But even if he had tools and food, the Builder claimed they couldn’t get through the rocks in that short time.
They could eat a few horses, of course, but there was almost no wood to build fires. He could send foragers back to the east to find food, but carrying enough supplies for his army back up into the Pass would be impossible. His horses were already short of grain and water. Jedidia hadn’t concerned himself with that, since he expected to reach grassland and water in a few days.
As for taking his men through without the horses, that was out of the question. Even if they climbed past the rubble, and made it all the way through the Pass, Jedidia’s men would be on foot, a hundred miles from nowhere, and without food or water.
He had expected to live off the fertile lands of the Akkadians. Long before he found and collected enough to eat, his force of soldiers would have disintegrated, and what remained would be little more than a hungry rabble. Not to mention that Jedidia didn’t intend to walk into enemy country, or face the famous Akkadian bowmen on foot.
Slowly, the realization sank in. Either his men would find a way around the blockage, or he would have to turn back. If he did that, by the time he crossed back over Elam’s border, resupplied his men, and followed Lord Modran’s footsteps through the Dellen Pass a hundred miles to the south, the war might well be over. Modran would have collected all the glory and all the loot.
Jedidia would be the laughingstock of the Elamite army, the great warrior who let a handful of Akkadians block his path with a few stones. Not to mention what King Shirudukh would say about that. Or do. His exalted cousin had no sympathy for failure, even from his relatives.
Jedidia’s teeth ground together in rage. He would send a few messengers back to Zanbil, to see what supplies there might be useful in getting through the landslide. That would give his men a few days to attack the problem. Perhaps they would find another way, or the stupid Builder might come up with some plan to get the horses through.
Jedidia decided not to have the man killed. Better to let King Shirudukh himself hear the man’s words and excuses. Then the Builder could be properly tortured by the King’s skilled jailers and publicly put to death for incompetence.
Still, Jedidia could not shake the gloom from his thoughts. The Akkadians were no fools. They wouldn’t have bothered toppling the mountain here if there were any easy way around. He would need luck to find such a way, and luck, as his advisors had warned him before setting out, always seemed to favor the King of Akkad.
Thoughts of the Barbarian King made him clench his fists and smite his chest. Eskkar had taken Jedidia’s already gloomy prospects and ruined them completely. He might end up being tortured alongside the Builder. “Damn you, barbarian! Damn you and your cursed tricks!”
Chapter 17
The soldiers’ garrison at Nuzi. .
Sabatu stood in his garden, practicing his archery, when he heard the sound of hoofbeats. A rider galloped past his home, and through the open gate Sabatu heard the labored breathing of the horse. A few moments later, the hoofbeats stopped abruptly, which most likely meant an important message had arrived from Akkad for Commander Tooraj. The solder in charge of Nuzi’s garrison lived only a hundred paces from Sabatu’s own residence.
Nevertheless, Sabatu refused to speculate on what message the horseman might carry. Instead he continued with his training, whipping a shaft from the quiver, fitting it to the string, and launching the arrow at the target. One after another, Sabatu loosed his shafts, stretching the rock-hard muscles in his arms. For more than a year, he’d worked with his bow, improving his eye, strengthening his muscles, and teaching his reluctant hands to master his custom-made bow.
Each repetition sharpened his skill and honed his eye, and Sabatu had grown quite proficient with his weapon. While he did not have the long range skill of Mitrac or even Daro, he could match his skill with the best of Akkad’s horsemen. Sabatu varied the routine often, moving about, shooting without bringing the arrow to his eye, dropping to one knee, even loosing a few shafts while running toward or backing away from the target.