Daro laughed as he led the way toward the supplies stacked up upon the beach. “We’ll drink to our next capture. I wonder how King Naxos is doing?”
Chapter 21
After leaving Daro and the supply cove behind, the Isin and Akkadian cavalry covered twenty miles without incident. As the last of the day faded into dusk, the scouts returned and reported no sign of the Elamites. Hathor, riding at the head of the column beside Naxos, decided not to press their luck.
“Let’s make an early camp,” Hathor suggested. “The Elamites are bound to have patrols to the north and west, and they’ll likely be returning to Sumer before dark. If we get too close to the city, we may run into one of them.”
“We could make a few more miles before nightfall,” Naxos agreed, “but there’s no sense wearying the horses.”
They had reached a small stream, an offshoot of the Tigris, that also found its way to the Great Sea. Too shallow for the large, seagoing vessels the Elamites used to transport their supplies, the branch was also the closest source of fresh water to the cove. The Elamites, traveling in three separate armies so that the ships could resupply them along the way and at the cove, had reached Sumeria a few days apart.
Each army would have come up this same trail, then followed the stream north until it joined with the Tigris a handful of miles south of Sumer. The debris and human waste scattered about indicated that the Elamites had indeed camped here as well.
The combined force continued another half mile north, until they found a relatively clean place to halt for the night. Sliding down from his horse, Hathor ordered his commanders to join him. Issuing the night orders didn’t take long. His men understood they were in enemy territory, and they knew what needed to be done.
With so many men and horses, even stopping to make camp presented its own challenges. The mounts came first, of course. They had to be fed a few handfuls of the precious grain captured at the cove, then rubbed down, and corralled for the night. Units of one hundred men, each under the leadership of a subcommander, comprised each group. Fortunately, the forces of Akkad and Isin had ridden together for almost thirty days, and every man knew his task.
“Make sure the sentries are posted,” Hathor said. “Double the guard on the horses, and I want fifty men ready to mount up at all times.” Then he strode through the camp, as the evening fires were lit. Hathor stopped at every small gathering, talking and laughing with his men, much the way Eskkar always did.
Hathor understood the need to stay close to his men. Soldiers fought, he knew, not just for a cause, but because they believed in themselves, their companions, and their leaders. And the more they saw their leader concerned with their welfare, the harder they would fight.
As he moved among them, Hathor saw no signs of fear or worry, though everyone knew they might be fighting for their lives tomorrow. Sumer, besieged by thousands of Elamites, lay only twenty miles or so to the north, and the men knew it.
During the march through the mountains, Hathor and Naxos both had to deal with the usual petty frictions of large numbers of soldiers jammed together. Quarrels had broken out nearly every day, but there had been only a few incidents occurring between the men of Isin and Akkad. Where the blame fell upon his men, Naxos had been harsh in his punishments, and Hathor had followed the King of Isin’s example.
Both commanders knew they had to make their forces cooperate, or the entire expedition might fail. But the shared suffering that the men had endured during the long and difficult journey had softened everyone’s rough edges, and by now, to Hathor’s satisfaction, the men worked willing together. Even the dimmest witted or most quarrelsome bully understood that the enemy would kill the soldiers of Isin and Akkad indiscriminately, and that bond kept the men close.
In his rounds, Hathor did take in all the usual complaints — too much riding, contrary horses, not enough food, and stiff and sore muscles — the list was endless. Soldiers had grumbled about such things as long as men had gone to war, and with much the same result — another hard ride the next day, a desperate battle, and a good chance of ending up dead.
Still, if the soldiers had any real misgivings about their mission, Hathor would have glimpsed it in their eyes or heard it in their voices. Instead they splashed about in the stream, or relaxed in the warm and breezy evening air, still smelling of the sea, a happy change from the endless days and stifling heat in the foothills. They might have been children playing, instead of men about to go into battle.
Satisfied with his men’s good spirits, Hathor took one final walk around the perimeter of the camp, checking on the sentries. He’d heard too many of Eskkar’s stories about stealing horses and night stampedes to leave anything to chance, especially this close to the enemy. Both he and Naxos wanted their men and horses to be fresh when they reached the city. They might all be fighting for their lives before the sun cleared the horizon.
Only then did Hathor drop down on the soft ground. The gurgling of the water against the rocks lulled him to sleep, almost as quickly and deeply as any of his soldiers.
In the morning, Hathor and Naxos woke their men well before dawn, in case the Elamites had learned of their presence and planned a morning attack. By the time the leading edge of the sun lifted over the horizon, every fighter stood beside his mount, ready to ride or repel an attack. But sunrise brought only empty horizons, with no sign of any enemy scouts observing their position.
Naxos gave the order, and the cavalry formed into its usual columns and resumed its journey. The open terrain, mostly sand with large clumps of bright green grasses, promised easy riding for the men. The two pennants taken from the beach, each fastened to a lance tip, waved in the breeze just behind the two leaders.
“They haven’t discovered us yet,” Hathor said, riding at Naxos’s side. “We’d have seen their scouts by now.”
“Or they’re baiting a trap for us closer to Sumer,” Naxos argued.
Hathor laughed. Naxos’s gloomy words didn’t carry conviction. “In that case, we’d better hurry north. It wouldn’t do to keep the Elamites waiting.”
Naxos swore, then laughed.
They continued north, following the stream. The day promised to be another hot one. Hathor didn’t mind, having been raised in the Egyptian desert. As midmorning approached, the Akkadians had their first encounter with the enemy. Still traveling at a comfortable pace to conserve the horses, they came across an Elamite supply party returning to the beach, to collect food and supplies from the boats.
Fifty pack animals, twenty Elamite handlers, and ten guards comprised the supply gang. Either because of the captured pennants, or perhaps because they didn’t expect a hostile force between Sumer and the beach, they rode right up to the slow-moving Akkadians without the slightest suspicion. As he had yesterday, Naxos killed the leader himself. The rest of the Elamites died almost as fast, taken by surprise and cut down in a hail of arrows.
“Collect all the horses,” Hathor shouted when the killing stopped. “We don’t want any riderless horses returning to Sumer.”
Naxos, a splash of Elamite blood on his right arm, appeared as ferocious as any of his men. Isin’s King, Hathor decided, enjoyed killing people. Certainly the man showed no fear of death of fighting. Hathor prayed to the gods that Naxos’s eagerness for battle wouldn’t turn to some reckless action.
The Akkadians left the dead where they had fallen, and continued their journey.
“Not many guards,” Naxos commented cheerfully.
Maybe, Hathor decided, the King should kill a man or two every morning, if it would keep him in a good mood. “Nothing of value to guard,” Hathor said. “Just empty packs to fill with supplies at the cove. Still, you’re right. These Elamites seem very confident. I expected we’d be spotted by now.”