to within five hundred paces, he saw horsemen streaming out of the village, lashing their mounts and scattering in all directions. This camp might not have had any advance warning, but they had reacted swiftly the moment they caught sight of Hathor’s cavalry bearing down on them.
More Tanukhs reached the corrals, wrenching open the gates and catching the first horse they could. The Tanukh menfolk felt no compunction about sacrificing their women and children, as long as they could save themselves and their horses.
In a way Hathor was glad to see them run. Two or three hundred Tanukh warriors wouldn’t have presented much difficulty, but there still would have been many Akkadian casualties with no guarantee that word of Hathor’s cavalry would not be spread far and wide.
His eight hundred men swept through the camp, ignoring the few arrows fired at them by the defenders. The inhabitants of Tibra were hunted down and slain as mercilessly as those of Margan. Those who could reach a horse galloped away, safe for the moment from Hathor’s tired horses. Those who couldn’t escape on horseback, mostly women and children, fled into the desert, running for their lives, each desperately hoping someone else would be hunted down and killed.
In moments, the Akkadians had swept through the camp. Hathor heard Klexor shouting to his men to collect the remaining horses. The more mounts the Akkadians could capture, the weaker their enemy would be.
At the same time, the burning started. One running man with a torch could set a great deal of fires, and soon flames from every tent sent a wall of heat up into the sky. This time Hathor gave his men little time to enjoy their victims. Food and grain were loaded onto captured horses, the oasis water fouled with the bodies of the dead, and anything that would burn was heaped in piles and set afire.
Only one life was spared. Hathor found the old man standing before his burning tent, a sword in his hand that he barely had the strength to raise. Hathor rode up just as one of his men was about to kill the Tanukh.
“Wait! Let this one live.” Hathor glanced around him. This trembling old man might be the only Tanukh still alive within the camp. “Find Muta. Tell him to come here.”
Hathor swung down from his horse and stared at the old one. The man made no move to attack, just stood there, his mouth flecked with saliva, his chest rising and falling with his fear.
Muta, his sword and right arm splattered with blood, walked over, a wide grin on his face. “Is this one the only one left?”
“Tell him who we are and why we came.”
Muta took two steps toward the Tanukh. With a sudden movement, he struck the sword from the old man’s trembling hand. Both sword and man went to the ground.
Muta put his sword to the man’s throat. “When your cowardly men return, tell them the soldiers of Akkad have destroyed your village as a warning. Tell them that if they ever raid the lands claimed by Akkad again, we will return, and kill every one of you, no matter where you hide. Remember what I say, and tell your leaders. Do you understand?”
The old man nodded, unable to speak.
Muta spat in his face. “Don’t forget!”
Hathor grunted with approval. “Now let’s get our men on the move. We’ve still a long way to go today.”
Before the sun had moved much more than a hand’s breath across the sky, Hathor and his men departed Tibra. Behind them, fires burned and smoke slid high into the cloudless sky before disappearing. Hathor felt as much satisfaction as any of his men. Two Tanukh camps had been destroyed, but now the Akkadians’ presence in these lands was known. He had to continue to move and to strike, and strike again as quickly as possible, before the Tanukhs had time to combine their scattered forces against him.
At least the Akkadians had plenty of food and water as they rode south. By mid-morning of the next day, Hathor’s scouts spotted a band of Tanukh horsemen following them. They stayed far out of bowshot, but hung on Hathor’s trail most of the day.
When the Akkadians camped for the night, a stronger than usual guard had to be posted. Hathor expected that the Tanukhs would try to steal back their horses, or perhaps attack the sleeping soldiers. Throughout the night, two hundred soldiers guarded the camp, every man taking his turn, until the morning sun lifted above the horizon and showed an empty landscape.
After eating and drinking their fill, the Akkadians started moving again. Hathor pressed for all possible speed. The quicker they could move through this land, the less likely the Tanukhs would be able to muster enough horsemen to dispute their passage. Hathor’s cavalry rode south, continuing straight into the desert. By now frantic Tanukh messengers, leading extra mounts, would be racing around his force, desperate to warn the villages and camps that lay before these new invaders.
That night, the Tanukhs crept up as close as they dared, and launched arrows from out of the darkness. The shafts were intended not only to kill Akkadians, but to stampede the horses. All night long the attacks continued, sometimes only an arrow or two, other times a dozen at a time. It took all the Akkadians’ skill to restrain the horses and prevent them from bursting through the rope corrals. None of the Akkadians got much sleep. Nevertheless, Hathor’s men took it as a point of honor to deny the Tanukhs any chance to get at the horses, and each man hung on to two or three mounts most of the night.
When the sun rose, Hathor had lost two men killed, and nine wounded. But none of the horses had broken free or been stolen, and they found the bodies of seven dead Tanukhs scattered around the camp, killed by Fashod’s men who hunted the Tanukhs in the darkness and took extra pleasure in the killing.
“Get the men moving, Klexor,” Hathor shouted.
The men were just as eager to leave this place. The Tanukhs, their number increasing, resumed their shadowing of the Akkadians, but only once did they venture close. Muta wheeled suddenly with a hundred riders and charged toward the Tanukhs. They turned and fled, but not before Muta and Fashod’s warriors drew close enough to launch three flights of arrows, shooting them at a dead run, just as they had been trained by the Ur Nammu. Four Tanukhs died, and as many horses, while the rest fled for their lives. After that, the desert dwellers kept their distance.
H athor pressed on. Only one more village remained between him and his destination. When they camped for the night, they were able to find suitable ground between two low hills. It gave them a place to hold the horses, and surround them with guards. Once again, Hathor let the Fashod and his Ur Nammu warriors patrol the darkness. Whether due to the defendable location or Fashod’s men, no arrows reached the Akkadians that night. Hathor and his commanders sat in the shadows and made their plans for the coming day, grateful for the chance to get some rest.
I n the pre-dawn of the eighth day since leaving Eskkar, Hathor moved through the camp making one last check of his men. Everyone had to know their mission and be prepared to move as fast as possible. He led the way out at first light, still heading south. He pushed the pace. Today they had to cover a great distance, and the horses would get little rest until tomorrow.
Another Tanukh village lay to the south-west, about a day’s ride, and Hathor wanted to give the enemy shadowing his movements the impression that it remained his destination. A little after dawn Hathor spotted a dozen Tanukh horsemen riding at full speed and leading spare mounts, intending to warn the village of his approach. No doubt the main force of Tanukhs assembling to attack him had headed in the same direction.
At mid-morning Muta, who’d been leading the men, slipped back to Hathor’s side. “We’re here.”
They had just ridden to the crest of a hill, and its height gave Hathor a good view of the desert before him. He gave the order to halt and let his eyes scan the empty landscape before him, taking his time and searching the land from horizon and back. No landmarks, not even a trail showed on the shifting sands and rocks. As he finished, Klexor rode up to join them.
“This is the place?”
Muta nodded. “From here, we turn east. The trail is unmarked, and it’s a long dry march for men on foot, at least two days, but it leads to Uruk. On horseback, we should be able to make it in a single day. Once we reach the river, we’ll need some luck crossing over. But the river shouldn’t be too high at this time of year.”
Hathor knew they had to ride almost fifty miles, then cross a branch of the Euphrates. If they could manage that, they would reach Uruk just before the sun went down. With luck, no word would have reached the city of the presence of a large force of Akkadian cavalry driving toward them. If Hathor hoped to take the city by surprise, his men would have to cover nearly eighty miles from dawn to dusk. There was only one way to find out if the horses could maintain that pace.
