endeavored to focus on the lanes leading to the gate. An arrow flew past his head, but he ignored it. A plume of thick black smoke, wavering in the morning sun, trailed up into the sky from what appeared to be the barracks. That must mean Bantor had broken through the river gate and attacked. From his vantage point, Drakis could see two of the lanes that fed into the expanse behind the gate. Men ran toward the gate, but whether friend or foe, he couldn’t tell.
He went back to Enkidu’s side, kneeling next to the opening. “Men are coming, but…”
A roar went up from inside the tower, as four or five arrows flashed through the opening, miraculously striking none of the defenders. Then the Egyptians, shouting their war cries, rushed the last few steps separating them from their enemies.
Staying on his knees, Drakis used his sword, thrusting at anything that appeared on the landing. Tarok’s men, crouched over to avoid arrows from the other tower, took their time, using the last of their arrows against those attackers trying to force their way onto the battlement. Swords clashed, spears shoved and prodded, and men screamed in each other’s faces. The attackers surged toward the opening again and again, but each time they faltered. Only a few men could approach on the stairs at one time. After the third attempt, the Egyptians halted their efforts, returning to the safety of the landing to regroup.
Drakis looked about. Enkidu had taken another wound, and leaned against the battlement, trying to catch his breath. Tarok, sword in his hand, had taken his place. It took only a moment to count those able to fight. Five men remained, and only one had a bow in his hands. That one scrambled about, picking up any stray shafts that lay about.
One more attack, Drakis decided. One more rush and they’d be finished, overwhelmed. He heard the attackers gathering inside the tower, taking their time now that the Akkadians had exhausted their arrows. Suddenly Korthac’s war cry echoed eerily throughout the tower, as the Egyptians’ followers raced up the last flight of steps, and hurled themselves at the opening.
Alexar paused when he reached the main gate, studying the situation while he struggled to catch his breath. The sounds of battle echoed from the left tower, and he guessed that Drakis and his men had taken refuge in there, no doubt fighting for their lives. The expanse now held plenty of panicky men, most of them heading toward the gate itself. In a few moments, they’d have the gate open.
The right tower, only a few dozen paces away, seemed deserted except for some of Korthac’s bowmen on the battlement above. He made up his mind. Eskkar had said to keep the gate shut, and clearly Drakis didn’t have enough men.
“We’ll take the other tower. Let’s go.”
Alexar, Yavtar, and their men burst out of the lane, running at full speed toward the tower’s entrance, mixing in with the crowd of frightened villagers and bandits rushing toward the gate. Alexar never hesitated or slowed. He dashed into the tower, sword in his right hand, bow in his left.
No one challenged him, so he sprinted up the stairs, expecting resistance at each landing, but finding no one to oppose him.
At the top, he broke into full daylight, never stopping. Almost a dozen men, bows in their hands, faced away from him, searching for targets on the opposite tower. Alexar was on them before they knew he was there, dropping his bow and striking at a dark-skinned Egyptian.
At such close range, swords were more useful than bows, and he had two men down before they could react. By then Yavtar and the others were beside him, all of them hacking and shouting Eskkar’s name, making the battle cry again echo over the city. The Egyptian archers, taken by surprise and with their bows in their hands, couldn’t react fast enough.
They clutched at their swords, but by then Alexar and his seven men had joined the fight.
Pinning their opponents to the tower wall, the Akkadians wielded their swords like men possessed by demons. Two men fell screaming over the wall, to land with a loud thud just in front of the gate. In a few savage moments, Alexar’s men swept the battlement clean.
Alexar’s lungs burned with every breath. The dash up the tower steps, the furious, close-in fighting, had sapped his strength. Gathering his bow from where he’d dropped it, Alexar peered over the wall toward the other tower. He saw men struggling there, and picked out Tarok, his red hair waving, fighting with a sword. Drakis must have retreated to the top of the battlement, and the Egyptians must be about to swarm over the Akkadians.
“Men, get your bows ready. Stop those men before they slaughter Drakis.”
Alexar launched the first arrow, the shaft clearing Tarok’s head by a hand’s span, and flashing into the opening. Two more arrows snapped across the space between the towers, just as Tarok and those defending the doorway were about to be pushed aside. Alexar’s next volley stopped the assault, five men firing together, pinning two bodies in the opening. The Egyptians disappeared back into the tower’s confines.
Enkidu’s face appeared above the wall, a bloody sword in his hand.
He shouted something, and it took Alexar a moment to comprehend the words.
“Yavtar, take half the men to the other tower. Help them.”
Yavtar nodded. He and his men carried no bows, and they could do nothing more from up here.
Alexar moved to the corner of the tower, and glanced down at the gate, just in time to see the last of the huge beams that barred it shut come down. A crowd of men massed against the wide wooden strakes in their panic, for a moment the press of their own bodies the only thing keeping the gate closed.
Alexar jumped onto the battlement, directly above the gate. Placing his feet with care, he drew a shaft and picked his target. An Egyptian trying to get the mob to move back died first. A second foreigner followed, then another, this one waving a sword. At such close range, shooting straight down from less than twenty paces, Alexar could scarcely miss. He stood alone, exposed on the battlement, but no bowmen opposed him, and he kept shooting, whipping the arrows from quiver to string to his ear so fast his movements never seemed to stop. And with each twang of the bowstring, a man died or fell wounded.
Panic erupted below. Some still worked to force the gate open, but others turned and ran, desperate to escape the deadly arrows that hissed down upon them. One of Alexar’s men joined him, adding his shafts to the carnage below. Bodies lay atop one another, forming a fresh barrier to anyone striving to open the gate.
Just as he nocked his last arrow, Alexar realized he had no targets below. The mob had broken and turned back.
“Keep watch. Kill anyone that tries to get out,” Alexar ordered, then jumped down and went back to where the three archers stood, bows drawn, still waiting for targets to appear in the doorway opposite them. Across the open space, the doorway to the other tower stood empty. A man leaned on the wall, waving a red-stained sword at him. Alexar had to stare before he recognized the bloody figure of Drakis.
Before Alexar could wave his bow in reply, he heard a rush of noise from below. Moving to the tower’s edge, he leaned over and saw Bantor and more than twenty soldiers jogging into the open space, bows ready, looking for targets. Following them was a wall of men, hundreds of them, all shouting Eskkar’s name and waving whatever they could find as a weapon, filling the lanes. The inhabitants of Akkad had finally rallied in force to support their liberators. The last of Korthac’s fighters threw down their weapons and dropped to their knees, crying for mercy.
Alexar laid his bow across the battlement and stared down at the sight.
The battle for the gate had ended. The soldiers and the people of Akkad once again ruled their city.
29
Bantor and ten men galloped through the main gate, heading south.
All were bone-weary after a long night without sleep, but no one complained. Every one of them had a score to settle with Ariamus, and Bantor had no trouble finding volunteers. Each man led a spare horse, and carried his bow slung across his back.
After Bantor put down the last resistance at the gate, the city had gone wild, with all the inhabitants out in the streets, cheering and praising their deliverers, and generally getting in the way. He wasted close to an hour before he fi nished searching the dead and wounded that surrounded the towers, looking for Ariamus. Bantor even spoke with the prisoners, wounded or those who surrendered, asking for Ariamus, but no one knew the
