Orders were barked, and the line of spearmen rippled and shifted, spears lowered once again to the marching position. Then the three ranks began to move, taking their time, as the formation moved ever closer to Shulgi’s forces waiting behind their line of stakes.
The Akkadians moved slowly across the gap. Mitrac trotted a dozen paces away from Gatus, to keep a better view of his own men. Now Mitrac had to worry more about the disposition of his bowmen than anything else. He was the one who would decide when to halt the formation.
“Far enough, Gatus!” Mitrac had both hands to the sides of his mouth as he shouted the words. “We’ve a bit of a breeze behind us.”
“Halt!” Gatus bellowed the command, repeated by his commanders and subcommanders. The advancing spearmen stopped moving, the line almost as straight and smooth as if they were practicing back in Akkad’s barracks. According to Gatus’s count, they had advanced a little more than a hundred and twenty paces.
Mitrac shouted another command, and his seven hundred bowmen halted, braced their feet wide apart, and put shafts to the bowstrings. The master archer paused to glance up and down the line of archers. Everyone appeared ready. His was the command that would start the actual fighting. “Draw your shafts! Loose! Shoot at will!”
Gatus watched the first flight of arrows whistle high into the sky, level off, and begin its descent. Before they reached the highest part of their flight, another seven hundred shafts were launched. A third wave of arrows flew upwards even as the first wave descended on the enemy. At first Gatus thought Mitrac’s bowmen had stopped too soon, but then Gatus saw the arrows strike the enemy shield wall. Many shafts fell short, but most rained down on the upraised shields. The arrows sounded a soft drumming note when they struck, but Gatus also heard men screaming, as a few shafts found crevices and gaps between shields.
“Keep shooting!” Mitrac bellowed the commands, even as he worked his own bow. “Pull every shaft to the ear! Get them up in the air!”
The Sumerian archers fired their own weapons, but almost all the arrows landed twenty or thirty paces short of the Akkadians. A small enough distance, Gatus realized. A shift of the wind to the opposite direction could bring the enemy bowmen within range.
But for now, at least, most of the Sumerian weapons did not have the same reach. The Akkadian archers needed months of practice to build up their strength, so as to draw the heavy bows to the maximum. Some of these men had trained with their weapons for as many as four years, had fought from the wall against the Alur Meriki horsemen.
Gatus whirled the mare around and glanced at his rear. A steady stream of men trotted from the water’s edge, each carrying four quivers of arrows in their arms. Six of Yavtar’s supply boats had managed to reach Eskkar’s forces just after midnight, along with three fighting ships. Yavtar’s force had encountered King Shulgi’s boats and archers almost twenty miles upriver, and it had taken a hard battle before the Akkadian ships broke through, at the cost of losing five boats. Now the surviving vessels crept along the river behind the marching soldiers, carrying thousands of extra shafts, and stones for the slingers as well, although those weren’t needed yet.
Gatus raised his eyes to the horizon, and saw nothing. Eskkar had assured him that Naxos wouldn’t come out of his city, but Gatus hadn’t been so sure. But the land behind them lay empty. Not even any of Razrek’s men had attempted to swing around behind them yet.
Turning the horse back toward the Sumerians, Gatus glanced to his right. Eskkar and the cavalry had ever so slowly opened a gap of about two hundred paces between the two halves of the Akkadian army. That gap would tempt the Sumerians soon enough.
The bowmen kept launching shafts into the sky, grunting now with the effort to pull each arrow back to the ear before releasing. Empty quivers littered the ground beneath them. Each archer had already emptied one quiver, and their second would be exhausted soon. Those arrows, already more than twenty thousand, would be taking their toll on the enemy, despite the Sumerian shields.
No more carefully timed volleys now. Better to have the arrows arrive continually, Gatus knew, so that every enemy would be afraid to show his face.
Many arrows fell short, but most reached the enemy position. The Sumerian infantry had their shields raised up to cover their heads, but a few shafts here and there would slip over or under the protection, wounding or killing when they did. A shield couldn’t cover every part of the soldier’s body, not unless the man hunched himself down like a dog behind it.
The Sumerian archers returned the volleys. Supposedly, Sumer had two thousand archers, more than twice the number of Akkadian bowmen, but, as Gatus knew, giving a man a bow didn’t make him a bowman. He turned to his right, to see Eskkar still moving slowly away from the Akkadian spearmen. At least Eskkar and his horsemen wouldn’t be under attack by Shulgi’s archers.
Gatus knew they had reached the most dangerous time of the battle. The arrows raining down on the Sumerians would make it difficult to get their infantry moving. But if Shulgi sent his men charging toward the Akkadians spearmen, they would likely be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. Nevertheless, the Sumerians remained behind their line of stakes. They wouldn’t want to give up that position readily. And the odd movement of the Akkadian cavalry would be proving a distraction. Eskkar and Gatus had to give young Shulgi the chance to make a mistake. And making him worry about bowmen on the one side, and Eskkar’s odd maneuvering on the other, just might do the trick.
Gatus turned his mare to the side and trotted over to where Mitrac stood, just behind his double line of bowmen. The young master archer was using his own bow, but Gatus saw that he kept his eyes on his men as well.
“It’s up to you, Mitrac!” Gatus shouted. “You’ll have to loosen that position.”
Mitrac nodded. “We will. Their archers can’t reach our men. We can keep shooting all day if we have to. They can’t stand up to this for long.”
Even as Mitrac said the words, another handful of panting men arrived, carrying fresh bundles of arrows that they distributed to replace those already launched. Thanks to Yavtar’s boats, the Akkadians had plenty of shafts. The old sailor had delivered thousands of arrows with the last of his boats.
Gatus wondered how many arrows Shulgi’s archers had with them. They’d likely lugged those arrows from Sumer to Kanesh to Larsa and now to Isin. The Sumerians would get their first surprise soon enough. They’d be expecting the number of Akkadian arrows to diminish, as the archers shot most of their shafts, but with Yavtar’s last cargo, that wasn’t going to happen, not for some time.
The Akkadian bowmen continued their assault on the Sumerian lines. Gatus could see men going down, despite the shields. And many of the shafts were falling behind the line of spears, no doubt striking at the Sumerian archers, who had to be as close as possible to their front line to have even a hope of reaching the Akkadians. The enemy would be growing nervous, fearful, aware that death could strike at any moment from the sky. Thousands of arrows had already been loosed, with only a few Sumerian shafts able to reach Gatus’s men.
Again Gatus stretched himself upright on his horse. He’d seen movement in the Sumerian ranks. The center, where the enemy cavalry butted against the infantry, had started to thin. Gatus snorted. Perhaps Eskkar’s luck might hold up one more time. He knew Eskkar and the cavalry would begin their charge any moment. Now was the moment to give Shulgi something else to think about. He filled his lungs with air.
“Spearmen! Ready your weapons. Prepare to advance!” Gatus looked up and down the line, to make sure every commander stood ready. “Advance!”
The battle cry “Akkad!” roared from more than three thousand warriors, the first sound they’d uttered today. The spearmen began marching toward the Sumerians, the front rank holding their shields to the front, the second and third ranks holding their shields high, to protect against descending arrows that would soon be arriving in greater numbers, as they closed within range of their enemy.
Behind the spearmen, Mitrac issued his own orders. Seven hundred bowmen continued their shooting, arcing their shafts up into the air, to fall on the crowded Sumerian ranks of infantry and archers. The Akkadian archers moved forward as they shot their shafts, spread out in a ragged line and staying just far enough behind the spearmen so that they could launch their arrows. Without shields, the only protection the bowmen had came from the spearmen, and the fact that the Sumerian archers were now directing their arrows at the advancing infantry, to stop the Akkadian advance.
“Spearmen! Halt!”
Gatus gave the order before the men had moved another hundred paces. His soldiers expected the command,
