But those horses, would soon work in Akkad’s favor. Eskkar felt confident that his bowmen could not only stop a cavalry charge, but turn it to his advantage.
Mitrac gave his first order, and a drumbeat began, the distinctive pattern immediately echoed by two more drummers equidistant from Mitrac’s position. At the sound, Akkad’s archers planted their feet, fitted their first shaft to the string, and waited.
Mitrac, his own bow in hand, stood at the center of the line, just behind his men. He needed no orders from Eskkar as to when to begin. As soon as the enemy drew within range, Mitrac would unleash his archers. The keen-eyed Master Bowman studied the approaching Elamites and took one last gauge of the wind.
“Draw!
The drummer changed his beat, and Eskkar heard the rasp of sixteen hundred arrows. Every bowman raised his weapon to achieve maximum distance. Except for the drum, still repeating the same notes, the Akkadian ranks fell silent, waiting for the final command.
“Loose!”
The Battle of the Dellen Pass had begun.
The twang of the bowstrings mixed with the hiss of the shafts in flight, louder than any flock of birds taking wing. The first cloud of arrows rose up into the still air of the Pass, the missiles aimed to strike the front rank of the Elamites, and timed to arrive just as the enemy entered extreme range. Well before the first missiles arrived, a second volley took flight.
“Keep the count,” Eskkar ordered Zerla, the senior of his two clerks.
The Elamite archers, still out of range with their smaller bows, slowed their advance as they watched the arrow cloud descending upon them. Because of that hesitation, Eskkar guessed more than half of the Akkadians’ first volley fell short, the arrows clattering and bouncing off the hard ground.
Even so, enough struck into the advancing mass to slow further the approaching front ranks. Then the second volley landed, this time with many more shafts reaching the formation of Elamite bowmen.
Eskkar saw that the enemy archers wore little defensive leather. Without shields to protect them, the long Akkadian arrows slammed home into flesh, disrupting the line. The Elamites would have to advance at least another hundred paces to get within range of their opponents. The enemy commanders urged their men forward, knowing they had to endure the arrow storm.
Without thinking, Eskkar realized he’d also been keeping count of the volleys. Mitrac’s men launched sixteen flights of arrows before the first ranks of the Elamite archers drew close enough to raise their bows.
Twenty paces away, Alexar’s voice boomed out, and another drummer raised his sticks and echoed the commander’s order. The front rank of infantry went down on one knee, placing their shield on the ground directly in front of them. The second rank closed up, and set their shield atop those of the first rank. The third and fourth ranks raised their shields and turned them sideways, to provide protection from any arrows arching down from above.
His usual bodyguards, Pekka and Chandor, moved into position in front of Eskkar, raising their shields to protect the King. At his left side stood Saruda, and on his right were two more of Saruda’s men, their own shields raised. Eskkar lifted his shield, holding it just below his eyes. He needed to see the battle as it progressed.
Arrows began to strike the ground in front of the Akkadian infantry. A few reached the shield wall. By now Mitrac’s archers had loosed twenty four ragged volleys, as the faster bowmen plied their weapons more efficiently than the slower. Mitrac’s men needed no urging to continue the arrow storm. They had little enough armor, and the longer they could keep the enemy bowmen at a distance, the safer they would be.
Despite heavy losses, the sheer numbers of Elamite archers kept pushing the front rank forward. More and more arrows began striking the Akkadian infantry’s shields. Eskkar glanced behind him, but Muta had already given the order. The first volley from the dismounted cavalry, eight hundred of them, rose up into the sky. The shorter bows might not have the reach of the Elamite weapons, but from the greater height, they would strike the front line.
Eskkar grunted in satisfaction. The Elamites were dropping, struck down by the long shafts that slammed into the ranks, their sharp bronze tips still moving fast enough to tear through flesh and bone. Now smaller arrows began to arrive, falling almost straight down, to strike heads and shoulders. Eskkar glanced at Mitrac’s archers. As far as he could tell, not a man had been killed, though Eskkar saw one bowman had taken a shaft in the arm.
This was the way to win a battle, Eskkar knew. Killing large numbers of the enemy at long range would take the fight out of the invaders. No man likes to stand and die without being able to inflict a few blows of his own.
He saw the confusion in the Elamite ranks. No doubt their leaders wondered when the arrows would lessen, when the Akkadian bowmen would run out of missiles. But the bundles of arrows were being steadily replaced. Hundreds of men had carried many thousands of those shafts, spears, and bronze bullets all the way from Akkad, and even now, during the fight, Trella’s porters continued to distribute them. Mitrac’s bowmen would drop from exhaustion before they ran out of arrows.
In the last two years, Trella’s supply clerks had accumulated and hidden tens of thousands of the missiles in supply depots throughout the land. Akkadian volunteers, following the path of the soldiers, had carried their bundles all the way from the city and surrounding villages to this place in the Dellen Pass.
With no slackening of the arrow storm, the Elamite commanders abandoned their initial plan. Their bowmen fell back and to the sides of the Pass, clearing the way for their cavalry to advance.
Mitrac’s drummers sounded the call to halt, and the arrows ceased to fly. Every left arm dropped down, the men grateful to have even a few moments rest. The Elamite cavalry had to pick its way through the dead bodies strewn in its path, before it could gather itself for the charge.
“Draw!” The drums echoed Mitrac’s command.
Eskkar turned to Zerla. “What’s the count?”
“Twenty-six!” The man’s excited voice brought a few chuckles from the men nearby.
Sixteen hundred bowmen had each launched twenty-six arrows. That calculation was beyond Eskkar’s ability. He glanced at the other clerk, Enki, who as a young boy had helped save Trella’s life. She had trained him as a clerk, and soon discovered that he possessed a unique skill in calculations. Now he knelt almost at the King’s feet.
“Enki, how many arrows is that?”
Moving his lips and fingering his counting beads, the young clerk took only a few moments. “Forty-one thousand, six hundred, My Lord.”
A staggering sum, one Eskkar could barely comprehend. Each bowman had nearly emptied the two quivers he had carried into the Pass. Now they would be supplied by the bundles brought by Akkad’s inhabitants. He swiveled his head, making sure that each archer still had a plentiful supply at hand.
Then Eskkar realized that Enki’s total didn’t count the volleys shot by Muta’s eight hundred dismounted cavalry. No wonder the Elamite archers had been driven back. No fighting force could withstand such an arrow storm.
Now the Elamite cavalry would have their turn. Even at this distance, Eskkar could see the jerky movements and hesitations that signaled fear in their ranks. The enemy could see the trail before them, strewn with their dead and wounded, thousands of arrows protruding from the hard ground like so many blades of tall grass. Modran’s cavalry knew they would have to endure the same devastation.
“Loose!” The enemy horsemen had surged forward, and Mitrac’s order launched a fresh wave of destruction on them. Once again, sixteen hundred shafts flew up into the sky. The frightening hiss of the arrows in flight echoed against the rock walls, as the bolts reached their peak and, with a whistling sound, began to descend.