Drakis glanced around. All the men were too busy eating and talking among themselves to pay any attention to their commanders. Nevertheless, Drakis lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and his broad white teeth flashed a wide grin in the fire’s light. “They’ll be surprised to learn where we’re going.”
The soldiers believed they were on another training march, destined for the tiny village of Aratta, almost two hundred miles northwest of Akkad. Aratta bordered the unclaimed lands, and the village lay just a hundred miles from the base of the Zagros Mountains. When Eskkar and his men arrived at Aratta, talk of a training mission would vanish.
“If we make good time,” Eskkar said, “we’ll reach Aratta in five, six days at the most.”
“And have time to rest there for a day or two,” Drakis agreed. “Then the hard march begins.”
For months, troops of men and horses, companies of bowmen, spearmen, and slingers, had trained in the cool and hilly horse country, so different from the level countryside surrounding Akkad and stretching south almost all the way to Sumeria.
To maintain the secrecy of this campaign, Eskkar had relied on his subcommanders to prepare the men, and without his usual close inspection of their progress. Now those leaders of ten, twenty, and fifty would be judged by their peers for each and every failure.
“I hope they’re ready.” Eskkar knew just how much depended on the men and their preparations. “We’re going to need every man.”
Drakis’s laugh held little mirth. “Oh, they are ready. Whether we have enough soldiers to do the job, that’s another matter. I still think you should have brought the whole army.”
Eskkar grunted. That argument among his senior commanders had gone on for nearly a year. But he had overruled every objection. Too many men away from the city would weaken its defenses, and worse, jeopardize the plan’s secrecy. No, if he could not defeat the Alur Meriki with almost a thousand picked men, another few hundred wouldn’t make a difference. At any rate, he didn’t intend to go over those arguments yet again.
“Get some sleep, Drakis. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be doing some real riding.”
Drakis groaned.
Smiling at his friend’s discomfort Eskkar wrapped himself in his cloak, rolled over onto his side, closed his eyes, and promptly fell asleep. Throughout the camp, one by one, the men of his troop did the same, covering themselves with their horse blankets and drifting quickly to sleep despite the cold earth.
Drakis gazed at the relaxed figure of his friend and commander, and shook his head. The man could sleep soundly on a pile of rocks. With a sigh, Drakis nodded to the guards, kicked dirt over the fire, and tried to get himself comfortable on the hard ground. Eskkar had spoken the truth. Drakis knew he would really be stiff by the end of tomorrow’s ride.
In the morning, Eskkar climbed on A-tuku and again led the men north. They hadn’t covered much ground before a gentle rain fell from an overcast sky. The wind coming down from the north drove the moisture into their faces as they rode. By midmorning, the drizzle stopped, the sun pushed the clouds aside, and the riders made better time. Still, the wet ground slowed their pace, and most of the sun had descended below the horizon before they reached the next resting place.
Two more days passed in much the same way. As they rode north, the land gradually changed to more hilly terrain, and the thick grass of the south gave way to sparser clumps of vegetation. At the village of Morphoza they joined up with Hathor and two hundred of his horsemen.
Originally from the far off land of Egypt, Hathor commanded Akkad’s cavalry. As tall as Eskkar, Hathor possessed the lean body of an experienced horseman. His bald head and darker complexion made him appear even more ferocious than he was.
He had fought against Eskkar in the battle to retake the City, and been captured before he could kill himself. Only Trella’s intervention had kept Hathor from Akkad’s torturers and saved his life. Every other Egyptian renegade had died that night.
Over the years, Hathor had become one of Eskkar’s closest friends. The two men shared many traits. Both were outcasts living in a strange land, and both had found a new home in Akkad. Now they fought together to preserve their adopted city.
The next day, Muta, Hathor’s second in command and another two hundred and thirty riders from the training campground of Ramparna linked up with them. With the men that accompanied Eskkar, Hathor’s force of mounted horsemen now numbered just over five hundred.
When Eskkar and the cavalry rode into camp at Aratta, he found the remainder of his soldiers waiting. Two hundred archers, carrying the longer and more powerful war bows, had arrived the day before, commanded by Mitrac, Akkad’s master bowman. Two hundred spearmen, led by Alexar, and a hundred slingers, under Shappa’s command, had reached the gathering place eight days earlier.
Another hundred or so supply men guarded the supplies, extra weapons, and spare horses. Not counting those, just over a thousand fighting men stood ready, though almost none of them knew what enemy they might soon be facing.
In the center of the camp, a large square of linen stretched between four tall posts hammered into the ground. Soldiers and commanders watched in silence as Eskkar dismounted beside the makeshift awning, large enough to shelter ten or twelve men from the sun. The trodden down grass felt soft beneath his feet, especially after so many days of riding.
A glance up at the sun told him that mid-afternoon had just passed, so plenty of daylight remained. Eskkar used it to inspect the men, to see for himself if they were ready to fight, and to search their faces for any signs of fear or doubt.
Eskkar strolled through the ranks, talking to the men and especially their commanders, the leaders of ten and twenty who directed much of the actual fighting. Once any battle started, it fell to these subcommanders to provide the leadership and maintain discipline in the face of the enemy. Their decisions in the heat of battle might mean the difference between victory or defeat.
What Eskkar saw and heard reassured him. The men looked fit and ready to fight. His presence in these unclaimed lands dispelled the last rumors about a training mission. Only a fool could believe the King of Akkad would journey so far north, and with so many veteran soldiers, without a real enemy in mind. Nevertheless, the prospect of a fight only whetted the men’s good spirits.
The sun still remained above the horizon when Eskkar and his leaders gathered outside the shelter to eat. The cooks had slaughtered ten cattle that had been turning on spits since morning. After each man received a thick slice of beef, the cooks tossed all the scraps and handfuls of vegetables into the cooking pot. A cup of stew would complete the soldiers’ hearty meal.
Eskkar chewed away at the tough morsels as eagerly as any of his men. Unlike his soldiers, he knew it might be a long time before any of them feasted this well again.
A fine rain began to fall, so Eskkar moved beneath the linen awning. One by one, his commanders finished their supper and joined him. Drakis came in last, after making sure the Hawk Clan guards had formed a perimeter around the shelter, far enough away to ensure that none of the curious soldiers listened to their leaders’ conversation.
Hathor unfolded the linen map on the grass, stitched with colored threads to show its features, that he’d brought with him from Akkad. Made by Trella’s craftswomen, the map identified landmarks, watering places, and possible camp sites.
All the terrain from Aratta to the Zagros Mountains, and the particular gorge that was their destination, could be identified easily enough. The map itself was but a copy of the master layout that rested in the Map Room back in Akkad.