so they maintained their ranks. He waited until all the forward movement had ceased. “Spearmen! Retreat!”
The subcommanders and leaders of ten repeated the command, and the spearmen began backing up, moving with care since they had to keep their shields up and maintain their ranks. Mitrac’s bowmen retreated also, but they kept loosing shafts as they moved, maintaining their position just behind the spearmen. For the Sumerians, this must seem a strange sight, to see their enemy first advancing, then retreating in good order and all the while maintaining their shield wall. Gatus’s men had trained for months to execute such a maneuver. It was an infantry movement he doubted the Sumerians could duplicate.
When the men had returned almost to their starting point, Gatus called a halt. A few bodies lay scattered on the ground in front of his men, so the Sumerians had caused some damage. He saw that Mitrac, too, had lost a few bowmen dead or wounded. They had little protection, just their leather helmets and vests that might stop a shaft at this range, but not if the distance diminished.
But the archers kept firing, and arrows kept leaping off their bows, to rise into the sky and descend on the enemy. Already the front wall of Sumerian shields appeared to be covered with arrows. Something had to break soon, he knew. Shulgi should be getting rattled by now. At least, that’s what Gatus hoped.
57
On the river, Yavtar watched the soldiers form up and move northward. As soon as they moved out, he issued orders and his own three fighting boats pushed away from the riverbank just after dawn. Three of the cargo ships had departed in the middle of the night, carrying wounded men and sacks of loot intended for Akkad. Yavtar had wished the boat captains good luck, and guessed they would need it. For them, the first stage of the slow passage upriver might be more dangerous today than fighting Shulgi’s army.
Yavtar had hoped to have five or six of the big war boats here today, but Shulgi’s blockade had left him with only three. At least he had some of the rowers and archers from the lost boats, so each craft had more than its usual compliment of bowmen. His three vessels would deliver a deadly sting to the Sumerian army, but whether any of them would survive the encounter remained an unanswered question. No one — at least as far as he knew — had ever used boats as floating platforms for archers, or contemplated using them against a massive land army.
With his three craft well away from shore, they rowed up river, already struggling to keep station with Gatus’s spearmen, whose easy strides covered the ground faster than his boat crews could row. Each ship had raised its sail, but the linen squares hung limp in the still air. Later in the morning Yavtar expected a slight breeze from the south that might help, but this early in the day, such winds seldom appeared.
The boat crews had to row hard just to keep from being shoved downriver by the current. Since the boats carried extra men, the heavily laden vessels handled even worse than usual, each craft carrying more than twenty archers and a dozen rowers. His men struggled with the oars, thrusting them deep into the brown waters of the Euphrates and pushing with all their strength, forcing the craft forward against the current.
The archers provided some assistance. They used the few extra paddles to help drive the boats. Yavtar had intended to take the lead, but another craft slid easier through the water, despite Yavtar’s steady cursing at his own rowers, and until finally he waved the other boatmaster ahead, settling into the second position.
Daro, in command of all the archers, also directed the bowmen on Yavtar’s craft. Daro kept moving up and down the line, making sure the broad shields sat firmly in their place, and that every man had plenty of arrows and extra bowstrings at hand.
“Pull, you dogs!” Yavtar’s bellow carried across the water to all three craft. “Gatus is moving ahead. Damn you, pull!”
A few men had enough breath to laugh at their commander’s eagerness to get into battle.
Stroke by stroke, the ships clawed their way upriver, until they rode alongside Gatus and his spearmen, only a hundred paces away. “Keep rowing. We need to be ahead of them.”
When the spearmen launched their real attack, they’d be running as fast as they could cover the ground. The sooner the infantry could close the distance, the less time the enemy archers would have to launch shafts at them. That meant Yavtar needed to be well ahead of Gatus’s infantry. Fortunately, the river widened a bit, and the boats began to move faster through the water, slowly drawing ahead of Gatus and his spearmen.
As soon as Yavtar saw that he’d be in position, he took a moment to study the enemy. His eyes widened at the sight of so many men. No one had ever assembled such a host before. He could scarcely believe what he saw. Yavtar had heard the estimates, seen the numbers, but to actually face so many, their upright spears glinting in the sun… he wondered how Eskkar could maintain his steadfastness of purpose, let alone his belief in victory. Even more, Yavtar wondered how the soldiers marching forward maintained their trust in their commander. Eskkar’s reputation had much to do with that, of course, but most of all Eskkar believed in himself, and the men sensed and shared in that belief.
The king had once remarked that every battle he’d ever fought, he’d been outnumbered.
“Did you ever think of run… not fighting?” Yavtar had corrected himself just in time.
“Every time,” Eskkar replied, smiling at his friend.
Seeing the enemy host, Yavtar wondered what thoughts might be tempting the king today.
“What a sight.” Daro finished checking his bowmen, and joined Yavtar at the rear of the boat, just ahead of the steering oar. He stared in amazement at the enemy army.
Two crewmen crouched right behind Yavtar, one holding the steering oar and the other ready to take his place should an arrow take him. A larger than usual shield gave them good protection, but under no conditions did Yavtar want to end up with his boat beached on the riverbank due to the loss of the steersman.
“I think I’m glad to be on the water,” Yavtar said, following Daro’s gaze to the shore.
If disaster struck the Akkadians, the boats would have a chance to escape, though they would still have to maneuver past the narrow bend in the river a few miles from here. Yesterday Shulgi had spread his boats and men across the water and caused the sinking of half a dozen boats before Yavtar could break free. But the Sumerians might have abandoned that place once the battle started.
“It’s a long way back to Akkad.” Daro strung his own bow, then tested the pull. Thumb-ring and wrist gauntlet were already in place. “Let’s hope we don’t have to row all the way there.”
“Look! There goes the cavalry!” Yavtar couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.
Eskkar’s horsemen were on the move, walking slowly away from the spearmen. Gatus had already halted his men. The boat crews caught their breath. Now they just had to hold their position until the next advance.
“My bowmen are ready to fight,” Daro said. “They’d rather shoot arrows than row any time.”
“Good luck and good hunting to you, Daro.”
“And to you, Yavtar. Remember to keep low and stay behind the shields. I think we’re going to have thousands of arrows launched at us.”
The idea of a thousand arrows striking the boat made Yavtar’s mouth go dry. The archers would be behind shields, but they would still have to expose part of their bodies to launch their shafts. And his crew would still have to work the boat, despite the enemy’s missiles. Many on board were going to die.
Yavtar reached down and scooped up a water skin half hidden beneath the steering bench. “Better take one last drink before we start.” He took a few swallows then handed the skin to Daro. While the archer drank, Yavtar retrieved another skin from a deeper recess. “And a few swallows of wine can’t hurt, either.”
Deciding there would always be plenty of water from over the side to drink, Yavtar took a deep pull from the wine skin, then handed it to Daro.
Daro accepted that skin as well. “To victory.” He lifted the skin as if it were a cup, and drank deep.
Yavtar took another look at Shulgi’s army. “I’ll drink to that. I’ll even drink to having a drink tomorrow night, if we’re still alive.” He took back the wine skin and swallowed as much of the strong liquid as he could force down his throat. “It’s going to be a long day,” he explained, “and I don’t want to get thirsty later.”
From the shore, Gatus’s spearmen gave their battle cry, and began moving forward, the men maintaining their position. It appeared as though a solid block of shields and spear points were on the move.
“It’s time.” Daro moved forward, to his place in the center of the boat.
“Pull for all your worth,” Yavtar shouted. He tossed the wine skin to the two men behind him. “Might as well finish that. We’re going to need it.”
