slipped from its fastening and hauled aboard. The boat swung with the current for a moment, then the men worked the oars, and the vessel began its journey across the Tigris.
Eskkar remained in the stern, facing the gathering dusk and watching Larsa burn. This was war, war the way barbarians waged it. Devastation, destruction and terror. Larsa would likely never be rebuilt, and when men sailed the river or led caravans past the ruins, they would tell the tale of the city’s destruction, as a penalty for bringing war to Akkad’s lands. He hoped the lesson would linger for a hundred years, but Eskkar knew how quickly men can forget.
Nevertheless, when Shulgi arrived, he would find nothing useful, not even a roof to cover his head. Meanwhile, thousands of people roamed the land begging for something to eat. All the crops in the nearby fields had been burned. No food, weapons, supplies of any kind remained in the ruins. The dead — hundreds of bodies — had been dumped in the city’s wells. They would poison the water for months, maybe longer. The city’s gold and valuables would travel to Akkad. Trella would sell them, to help pay for the war.
Larsa had ceased to exist. No one would organize raids to the north from this place again. Eskkar nodded in satisfaction and turned to the west. Tomorrow would be the sixth day, and then there would be only six more days remaining to defeat Shulgi’s army. Until today, he hadn’t spared much thought for Hathor. He wondered how his horse commander was faring. Everything would now depend on him.
50
Day 6
Shulgi, Razrek, Vanar and the rest of Sumer’s commanders rode up to what was left of Larsa’s wall, two hundred horsemen following behind and another hundred leading the way, all of them alert for any possibility of an ambush. The sun drifted down toward the horizon in the west, but Shulgi wanted to see the damage for himself before it grew dark. The rest of his army remained half a day’s march behind, and wouldn’t arrive at Larsa until midday tomorrow.
A rage burned in Shulgi’s chest at the sight of Larsa’s devastation. The stench of death mixed with the acrid smell of burnt wood. Uncountable flies buzzed about, feasting on the rotting flesh of men and animals. Shulgi wanted to rail at Razrek once again, but he had already done that, bitterly accusing the cavalry commander of cowardice and of failing to defend Larsa. The two had nearly come to blows, and Shulgi knew he couldn’t afford that luxury yet. He still needed Razrek and his horsemen.
“They’re still across the river,” Razrek remarked, breaking the silence that lasted far too long.
Shulgi didn’t answer, but he lifted his eyes from the smoking ruins. On the other side of the Tigris, part of the Akkadian camp showed atop the bluff. No death odors up there, only clean breezes blowing off the river. At the base, more than a dozen boats lined the west bank. The camp looked peaceful. No ranks of warriors, no line of sentries stared at the riders approaching Larsa. The Akkadians didn’t care about Shulgi’s army, at least not today. All the Sumerians understood the humiliating situation. King Shulgi’s men had no way to cross the river.
Larsa had always boasted the easiest crossing for miles in either direction. That’s why the city had sprung up here, to take advantage of the easy crossing. But while its current might flow slowly, the Tigris remained too wide and deep for horses or men to swim across. Boats and rafts would be needed to get the soldiers and supplies across, and any crossing would be vulnerable to attack until enough soldiers were established on the far side.
“I can ride north.” Razrek’s voice seemed loud in the stillness that hung over Shulgi’s commanders. “There’s a village ten or twelve miles from here where we can get some horsemen over.”
“No. We’ll cross here.” Shulgi had already made his decision. “Have the men scour the countryside. We’ll build the rafts just above Larsa.”
“Why cross the river at all? We can reach Sumer just as quickly from this side of the river.”
“If we want to close with Eskkar, we need to cross here.”
“The Akkadians will stop us. From those bluffs, they could pour arrows down on us.”
“They won’t be here to stop us,” Shulgi said. “They haven’t bothered to establish outposts or watchtowers. I think they’ll soon be on the march once again, tomorrow or the next day.”
“Heading to Sumer.”
Shulgi’s advance force had encountered dozens of naked survivors, most of them women and children, and all of them exhausted, hungry, and full of despair. The Akkadians had driven them out of the city with nothing, and the dazed inhabitants had begged Shulgi’s men for food and water. Eskkar’s men had poisoned every well with dead bodies, man and beast, that now rotted in the warm water.
Shulgi understood the trap Eskkar had set for him. If he ignored the wretched survivors, left them to starve, his troops would begin muttering against him. If he ordered his men to share their own meager food with them, his soldiers would be forced to do with less, and his entire army would be slowed down in the process. Gritting his teeth, Shulgi acceded to the need to share his supplies.
Almost all who had survived the city’s fall repeated that the Akkadians planned to march on Sumer. Shulgi wasn’t so sure. The further south Eskkar went, the greater the danger to the Akkadians increased. Even if he reached Sumer, the city wasn’t likely to fall overnight, like Larsa. Shulgi had already dispatched a company of horsemen to warn Kushanna that the Akkadian army might be on the march toward them and to take extra precautions. And with every step farther southward, the Akkadian supply line would be stretched thinner and thinner. Shulgi already had men working to stop the infernal boats that carried men and supplies to Eskkar’s forces.
None of these thoughts gave Shulgi any satisfaction. He had to cross the river somewhere, and the easiest route to Eskkar’s army lay across the river. If Shulgi moved to some other crossing, he would waste another day marching, and still have to find or build boats. Better to do it here, where the abandoned men of Larsa could at least provide a labor force.
“Razrek, set up the camp over there, away from the stink of Larsa.” The horses sensed the odor of death, too, and pawed the ground nervously, unwilling to move closer to its source. The gagging smell would last for days, perhaps longer.
“As soon as the camp is started, send riders up and down the river, looking for boats, wood, ropes, anything we can use to build rafts.”
He turned his horse away and trotted back to where he ordered his command tent erected. For once the servants and soldiers doing his bidding had nothing to say. Everyone avoided his gaze. Shulgi handed off his horse and sat cross-legged just outside the tent flap. He spread a map out before him and stared at its symbols. He hadn’t moved when Razrek returned.
“I’ve sent fifty horsemen up and down the river, searching for boats.” Razrek squatted down across the map from Shulgi. “We should be able to start crossing as soon as the army arrives. That is, if Eskkar’s men are gone. Though I still think it’s a waste of time to cross if we’re going back to Sumer.”
Shulgi lifted his gaze from the map. “Eskkar has no intention of marching to Sumer. He’s going to Isin. He wants us to dash off toward Sumer, to give him more time to take the city.”
Razrek glanced at the map. “Why Isin? Why not Sumer? It’s not that much further.”
“Have you wondered where Eskkar’s cavalry is?”
“Not lately.” Razrek shrugged. “No one has seen any sign of them. As long as they’re not a threat, who cares where they’ve gone?”
Shulgi bit off the cutting reply. Razrek had his uses, but strategy wasn’t one of them. “Eskkar cares. I think he’s sent them out into the desert. They’ve ridden north, circled around Lagash, and are probably attacking Nippur right now. Unless they’re headed to Uruk.”
“Uruk! They’d have to ride halfway across the desert, and the Tanukhs still have plenty of men there to stop them. And they wouldn’t have any supplies.”
“Unless there were more of those cursed boats coming down the Euphrates to resupply them.”
“There’s no way, not by boat. Lagash sits on the Euphrates. If that many boats tried to run past them, we’d have heard about it.
“These maps don’t show every stream and creek in Sumeria, and the Euphrates has more than one branch going south. I spoke with several men from Lagash. They say there’s a good-sized stream that bypasses Lagash
