Dawn of Empire

16

Thutmose — sin led the way along the winding trail, his horse avoiding the loose stones and debris. The hooves of many horses marked their passage in the rocky soil. His men trailed behind him. None of them spoke. No one laughed; not since they reached the place where the first clash occurred.

A mile behind them, a dozen Alur Meriki bodies, fl esh already picked from their scattered bones, showed where they had engaged the Ur Nammu. The absence of Ur Nammu bodies confirmed what Thutmose — sin already knew: a force of warriors had defeated his men so completely that their conquerors had time to gather and bury their dead.

The trail led deeper into the foothills, winding its way between cliff walls and alluvial flows. Thutmose — sin knew immediately when he reached the canyon where the slaughter had taken place. Even eight days had not settled the signs of earth churned to clods by a hundred horses.

Urgo waited for him there, just outside the canyon’s entrance, with a handful of men.

Thutmose — sin stopped beside him, trying to visualize what had happened. The Alur Meriki had pursued the Ur Nammu to this place. Either that, or they had been lured there. Whatever the reason, his men had ridden in, and none had survived.

“Issogu… Markad…” Thutmose — sin called out to his subcommanders riding just behind. “Send trackers along the canyon walls. Look for tracks, anything left behind.” He turned to his remaining subcommander.

“Behzad, bring ten men on foot, and follow me. Search the ground as you go. The rest of you stay here.”

He touched his heels to the horse. The animal lifted its head and stepped forward. Urgo guided his horse alongside. The trail twisted along the rock wall almost immediately, and as soon as Thutmose — sin entered the curve, the smells and sight of the dead reached him.

At the far end of the canyon carrion eaters, birds, animals, and insects, thronged about the Alur Meriki carcasses. Even animals that normally fought each other for food feasted together, so plentiful was the human flesh. As Thutmose — sin drew closer, they moved grudgingly away, annoyed at the interruption of their repast, scurrying up the slopes or flapping wings until they lurched noisily into the sky.

A single lance protruded from the pile of broken bones and rotting fl esh, a dirty yellow streamer spotted with bird droppings hanging limply in the still air.

Twisting about, he studied the death scene, examining the steep ramparts surrounding him. The nearly sheer walls held no easy place to position men, let alone hide them. Thutmose — sin saw only a few places where a man might cling to his footing long enough to work a bow.

Beneath him, battle debris littered the ground. Shattered swords, broken lances, and bloodstained rags lay amidst the animal and human bones.

Arrows, most of them snapped off, still protruded from some of the bodies.

Thutmose — sin’s eyes searched the ground, but he stayed on his horse; the animal had to be firmly urged to guide it close to the pile of the dead.

“Sarrum, look at this.” A warrior, holding an arrow in his hand, ran up to Thutmose — sin.

A glance told Thutmose — sin why the man had noticed it. The arrow’s barb was missing and the shaft broken off just behind the binding. Even so, the shaft stretched longer than any arrows his men used, and when he took the arrow in his hand, he felt the extra thickness.

He handed the unusual shaft to Urgo, who studied it for a moment.

“Ah, I’ve seen these before, a few years ago, when we raided to the far north. There was a clan that used such long shafts. Good bowmen.” He scratched his beard for a moment. “But they were not horse people. They lived high on the steppes, in thick forests.”

“Look for more of these,” Thutmose — sin ordered, taking the shaft from Urgo and handing it back to the warrior. “Show it to the others as well.”

His men found three more such shafts, all broken or damaged. Their presence convinced him that others beside Ur Nammu had fought his men. Thutmose — sin turned to the old clan leader. “Bring twenty men in.

Have them clear the bodies from the burial place. Then have them dig up the grave.”

Urgo’s mouth hung open for a moment. “But Thutmose

— sin, the dead…” His voice trailed off at the look on his leader’s face. “Yes, Sarrum. I’ll get the men.” He wheeled his horse about and rode back, shouting orders.

Issogu returned, jogging to his leader’s side. “No tracks or any stones disturbed on the canyon walls, Sarrum,” he said, pointing to the eastern side. “Nothing.”

Thutmose — sin turned to the western side, where Markad had paused to kneel on a rock outcropping, studying the earth. “Help him,” he ordered.

Urgo returned, leading twenty gloomy men behind him. One look at their leader convinced them not to complain. They began clearing away the bones, using their lances and knives as much as possible, to avoid touching the decaying flesh. They muttered incantations to ward off the spirits. Soon the rotting bodies were being dragged and pushed away, the flesh sometimes falling from the skeletons of Thutmose — sin’s former warriors. Clouds of flies rose up in the air as the men sweated at their tasks.

Markad walked over, his face wrinkling in disgust at the stench. “Sarrum, there was little to see. But a few men might have followed the rocks on that side. I found one of our arrows up there, the tip broken against the wall where a man might stand. Archers might have been there, firing arrows down into our men.”

“How many?”

“At most a handful, Sarrum, even less,” Markad said, shaking his head.

“More would have left tracks, scratches on the rocks. There was nothing, just the one arrow.”

Then it wasn’t an ambush, despite the strange arrows. “Good, Markad.

Keep searching for any other sign.”

He sat there, enduring the grave stink and the flies in silence, until his men finally cleared the dead and began digging into the rocky soil.

He knew they cursed and swore at him beneath their breath, but no one dared refuse. The earth had been tamped down, to keep the carrion — eaters at bay, and at first the ground resisted his men’s efforts. At last one of the diggers gave a shout. A few moments later, his warriors dragged the first Ur Nammu body from the grave.

Thutmose — sin ordered another twenty men to join the work, using them to clear the ground and lift the bodies from the grave. The heat added to the miasma of death that now flowed around them like a mist.

Body after body came forth, more than forty of them, and still they kept lifting Ur Nammu from the earth.

One of his men cried out in surprise, and Thutmose — sin moved toward the man. They’d dragged out another body, but this man looked different.

The body’s clothing remnants showed the tunic of a dirt — eater. The man’s face had the broad, flat look often found in those who worked the earth.

Two more bodies came up, with the same look about them. One looked to be a boy, barely old enough to ride. After that, nothing. They’d exposed the entire grave.

The sweating men stood about, covered in filth and dirt, waiting, while Thutmose — sin considered what he’d seen.

The Ur Nammu had buried dirt-eaters with their own warriors. He’d never heard of such a thing before, to dishonor fighting men by burying them alongside farmers. The Ur Nammu, like the Alur Meriki, had no use for dirt-eaters. They were to be hunted and killed. But not these men. These men… their bodies buried properly… he thought about the strange arrows, looking down at the one still in his hand.

His warriors weren’t fools. They hadn’t been ambushed, and they’d killed plenty of Ur Nammu and wounded many more, as the bloody rags scattered about attested. But then the tide of battle turned, and they all died, killed by… not enough arrows, not enough to account for so many dead. So riders had joined in the fight, helped by a few archers along the cliff wall. These strangers had turned the battle, probably striking the Alur Meriki from behind. A sudden attack from the rear, even by a handful of determined men, must have changed the battle’s outcome. Instead of wiping out the last of the Ur — Nammu, his men had found themselves trapped between two forces-trapped and annihilated.

The shaft of the arrow snapped between his hands. His warriors had died-vengeance cried out for the blood of those responsible. The Ur Nammu must be destroyed, along with those who helped them.

Thutmose — sin looked up. His men stared at him, waiting for his orders, the silence broken only by the flies buzzing about the dead. What all this meant, he wasn’t sure. But he knew a way to find out.

“Urgo, rebury the dead Ur Nammu.” He ignored the shock on his men’s faces. “Bury them properly, then walk the horses over the ground.

Have the prayer — givers offer up sacrifices to the spirits, to atone for disturbing the dead.”

Without looking back he rode out of the canyon. At the entrance, he called out to Markad and Issogu. “Follow the trail, wherever it leads. Find out where they went. And look to see if a band breaks off and rides to the west. Take as many men as you need.”

Two hours later, he gave the order to camp for the night, at the same place where the Ur Nammu had halted and rested from their wounds. The camp’s fire rings showed that men had used it for several days. Urgo found another of the large arrows from the north, broken off in a tree obviously used for target practice. So the northern archers and the Ur Nammu had become friendly enough to shoot together, no doubt after celebrating the destruction of his men. A broad trail led north, made by perhaps thirty or forty riders.

In the next few days, Markad and Issogu would track the Ur Nammu.

But Thutmose — sin could guess what they would find. The surviving Ur Nammu would flee to the east, and another trail would head west, back toward Orak.

A band of riders from Orak had either tracked the Ur Nammu, or, more likely, his own Alur Meriki raiders. The dirt — eaters then joined with the Ur Nammu or just attacked the Alur Meriki from the rear. Whatever their method, Orak’s riders turned the battle, losing only a few men in the process. Then the two bands of hereditary enemies had camped together for several days, recovering from their wounds and taking time to sharpen their archery skills.

That much time together… that meant whatever the Ur Nammu had learned, Orak’s dirt — eaters now knew also.

Even worse, it told Thutmose — sin that Orak had a leader, someone who knew the ways of war. That meant that the dirt — eaters would fight this time, not run. They’d beaten his men, and such a victory would give them strength. His own losses mattered little. At least the Alur Meriki had effectively finished off the Ur Nammu, ending that conflict at last.

The loss of his own men didn’t trouble him. He had too many warriors as it was. But his men would look at each other and wonder. An Alur Meriki force had suffered defeat, annihilation, something that hadn’t happened in nearly a generation. And that would make his men begin to doubt. They would look at their clan leaders differently. If warriors could be defeated once, then why not again?

Thutmose — sin went over this with Urgo, who sat across from him in silence, unable to challenge his sarrum’s conclusions.

“Your plan, Urgo. Are you still certain we can trap the dirt-eaters?”

Urgo chewed on a blade of grass, taking his time. The loss concerned him, too, since any reduction in warrior numbers limited the number of fighting men available. “We’re driving everyone toward the village. Unless there are so many that they can resist us, we’ll take the village.”

Thutmose — sin stared at his kinsman. “And the wall you say they are building?”

“A wall without fighting men is useless, Sarrum.” He met his leader’s eyes. “Are their fighters now equal to our warriors, after one small skirmish? An ambush, on favorable ground, and with archers on the walls?”

“They have a leader now, someone who knows how to fight, when to fight, someone who can defeat our men.”

“Perhaps, Sarrum. But even a few such men, however strong, cannot defeat all the Alur Meriki.”

“Nevertheless, I want to know more about the war chief who led this force. Find out who he is. If this Orak has a new leader, someone skilled in the ways of war, then we should learn what we can about him.”