survivors had taken wounds. Damn Bantor. Ariamus had planned well, but he hadn’t expected to find himself in this situation, with only half a victory. What would he tell Korthac?
How could Ariamus explain that he’d left twenty Akkadians alive, when he had over twice that number still fit to fight?
“Exactly how many men did we lose, Rihat?”
Rihat shrugged, then got up and began a detailed count. It took some time before he came back and sat down on the grass. “We’ve forty-one men left, not counting us. Two are wounded, but not too badly. They can still ride.”
Only two men wounded, but more than twenty dead or missing. The numbers didn’t improve his mood. Those arrows had struck with such force, and at close range, the shafts struck hard enough to knock a man off his mount. He doubted any of his men who’d lost their horses or gotten wounded survived. The Akkadians’ arrows would have finished any survivors by now. Ariamus had lost about as many men as he had killed.
Not that he cared about his losses. With Korthac’s gold, they could always recruit more men.
More important, Bantor’s men had been soldiers, men trained to fight, and not so easy to replace. The horses couldn’t be easily restocked either.
Ariamus had to scour the western lands to get the mounts he had acquired.
On foot, the Akkadians wouldn’t be much of a threat. Ariamus remembered seeing Bantor go down under hooves, and didn’t recall seeing him get up. He recalled Bantor as a slow-witted fool anyway, and once again Ariamus wondered what Eskkar had seen in the man. Nevertheless, Eskkar’s stupidity was Ariamus’s good fortune.
He’d broken Bantor’s men, and left them on foot. Their bows would be useless against the walls of Akkad, and from those walls Korthac and his men would have their own bows. No, the situation looked less bleak the more he thought about it. At least, it would have to sound that way when he reported to Korthac. Ariamus had promised the man he would destroy all the Akkadians, not just half of them. He started thinking about what he would say to the new ruler of Akkad.
Even more important, Ariamus didn’t dare lose any more men. Without a sizable force reporting to him, Takany would overshadow him, and Ariamus, as leader of the horsemen, would lose whatever influence he had with Korthac. No, Ariamus decided, he’d already lost more men than he’d expected. Any more would be disastrous, even if he survived another attack himself.
“We must go back and finish them, Ariamus,” Nebibi interrupted Ariamus’s thoughts. “Korthac said we should…”
“Korthac isn’t here, Nebibi.” Ariamus cut him off. “Do you want to charge again against those bowmen?”
Nebibi’s face told him the answer. The Egyptian had plenty of courage, but they both knew what kind of men they led.
“We’ve no bows, Nebibi,” Ariamus began, lowering his voice and speaking now in the language of Egypt. “Even if we could drive this lot back for another attack… even if we succeed, we’ll lose too many of our own doing it. And remember, those archers will be targeting anyone urging the men to the attack.”
Nebibi opened his mouth, then closed it. The man might fear Korthac’s wrath, but Nebibi had never seen arrows such as those, knocking horses to their knees.
“We’ve done what we set out to do, Nebibi. We’ve smashed Bantor’s force. The few that survived, that escaped, let’s say less than a dozen, are masterless men now, and helpless. Korthac will be pleased when he receives our report.”
Nebibi thought it over, no doubt trying to balance the danger of shad-ing the truth to Korthac compared to facing Bantor’s men again. At last he nodded uneasily. “Yes, Ariamus, only a few escaped us. Less than a dozen.
Korthac will be pleased.”
Ariamus smiled in satisfaction, then turned to Rihat. “Close up the men.”
Moments later, the whole force of bandits clustered around their commander.
“Men! We have won a great victory. We have broken our enemies, and left less than a dozen alive, most of them wounded, and without horses.
You have done well to fight so bravely.”
That raised a ragged cheer from his fighters, though some of them wondered how they could be cowards and fools one moment, then heroes the next.
“Now we return to Akkad. We will join up with Korthac’s men, and enjoy the city we took yesterday. The gold, the women, the horses, all the best of Akkad, will be ours.”
They cheered again, as they realized the fighting had ended. He saw the smiles on their faces, and knew their confidence had returned, that they once again considered themselves ferocious fighters. So long as they didn’t have to face those archers again.
That would be how he explained it to Korthac. Nebibi would support the story, or have to admit to his own failure. Besides, a few men on the loose, scattered over the countryside, wouldn’t matter anyway. They’d round them up in a few days.
“Back to Akkad,” Ariamus shouted, as he climbed on his horse, “back to Akkad and our gold!”
Another cheer, louder this time, went up. Nebibi looked at Ariamus, and nodded acquiescence, tight-lipped. Their report would satisfy Korthac, at least for now.
By the time the three trailing scouts reached the column, the fight had ended. Bantor, back on his feet, shook with rage, swearing torture and death to Ariamus. Half the men had never heard the name before.
“Take it easy, Bantor,” Klexor said, trying to calm his captain down.
“Let’s take a look at your shoulder.”
Alexar walked up, carrying a water skin. “They took us by surprise, but we drove them off and killed more of them than we lost.” He and the other two men acting as rear guard, had rushed forward as soon as they saw the ambush, but none of the attackers had passed within a hundred paces of him. Alexar managed to dismount and tie his horse to a bush.
He’d been one of the first to fire as the men rode past.
The ambush left everyone with a raging thirst, and they drank the remainder of their water with no thought to save any for later. They couldn’t carry it far on foot, anyway.
“Anyone know who they were?” Alexar tossed away the now-empty water skin. “They weren’t Alur Meriki, or we’d all be dead by now.”
“If they were Alur Meriki,” Klexor offered, “they would’ve finished us off with lances, the barbarian way, instead of riding through us like a bunch of old women who can’t control their horses.”
“Their leader was Ariamus, the former captain of the guard in Orak,”
Bantor said, staring at the ground. He tested his shoulder, moving his arm carefully; it didn’t hurt quite as much. Perhaps the bone hadn’t broken after all. Bantor took a deep breath, still struggling to control his emotions.
“The coward Ariamus ran off when he learned the barbarians were coming to Akkad, and that’s when Eskkar took command of the village.”
Bantor left unsaid that, a few months before his departure, Ariamus had sent Bantor out on a patrol, then summoned Annok-sur to his bed for an afternoon of pleasure. Annok-sur had never spoken about it, but Bantor had heard whispers of it from the men.
Short of stabbing Ariamus in the back, and so forfeiting his own life for killing his superior, Bantor could do nothing, so he’d swallowed his pride and pretended ignorance. He knew Annok-sur had not gone willingly, but to protect her husband and daughter.
Flexing his arm, Bantor couldn’t remember a time in the last few months when he wasn’t recovering from one wound or another.
“Well, whoever they were, they headed off toward Akkad,” Alexar replied, “so they must be sure of being able to enter the city.”
“They can’t enter Akkad, not that many of them, and not carrying weapons,” Bantor answered, trying to understand what had happened. No large force of armed men could get into Akkad, unless…
“Could they have taken the city?” Klexor asked, his mind going down the same path as his
