He looked back over his shoulder at Imhursag’s army. Enimhursag had believed him and acted on that belief even more strongly and quickly than he had hoped. Uppermost in his mind was the question of how he would escape the army when the time came. He felt like a hare in a pot, waiting in the market to be sold as someone’s supper.
“Are they not splendid?” Enimhursag said. “Are they not magnificent? Are they not formidably armed and equipped?” The god paused, looking at Sharur through Aratta’s eyes. Such moments always made Sharur fight to hold in his fear: would Enimhursag be content to look at him, or would the god look into him as well? This time, Enimhursag was looking at him, no more. The god went on, “You, Gibli, are not formidably armed.”
“That is so.” Sharur touched the bronze knife that hung on his belt. “I have no other weapon besides this.”
“This should not be,” Enimhursag said. A moment later, one of his warriors came trotting forward and pressed into Sharur’s hands a bronze-headed mace. Enimhursag went on, “Now you have a proper weapon with which to chastise the wild folk and mad god of your city.”
“Great god, you are generous. You are forethoughtful. You leave me in your debt.” Sharur would have preferred a sword. If Enimhursag had chosen to give him a mace, though, he would take it without complaint. It was a better weapon than he had had before.
“I do indeed leave you in my debt,” the god said. “When Gibil is mine, you shall repay me. When Gibil is mine, Gibil shall repay me. Gibil has owed me for long, for long.”
Aratta’s eyes blazed. Sharur looked down at the ground. What he felt now was awe, not fear. Seeing the power of the god in the man reminded him he was truly a wild Gibil madman to play this game.
Enimhursag’s army moved no more swiftly than its slowest soldiers. The god halted the host well before sunset, too, so that his men might encamp far enough from the border to keep the Giblut from noticing anything out of the ordinary. That was sound generalship of the most elementary sort. Sharur was disappointed to find the most elementary sound generalship from Enimhursag.
Once in camp, Imhursag’s peasant levies acted as the peasant levies of Gibil would have acted: they made themselves as comfortable as they could, got food and drink, and then either fell asleep or sat around the fires talking and singing.
The nobles slept in pavilions of wool and linen; slaves fanned them to keep them cool in the warm night. A few did not sleep, but gathered round Sharur, questioning him about the roads down toward Gibil and about the opposition they might face. “The Giblut have invented nothing new since we faced them last, have they?” one of the nobles asked anxiously. “I never did see such people for inventing new things.”
“No, they have no new weapons,”' Sharur answered truthfully. The noble let out a sigh of relief.
One of Enimhursag’s shaven-headed priests gave the fellow a reproving look. “The ingenuity of the Giblut is of no account. They are only men, toying with the things of men. We have the power of the god with us.”
“Do not sneer at the things of men,” the noble returned. “The grandfather of my grandfather died by the sword in a war against Gibil, back in the days when the Giblut had such things of men and we had them not.”
“We have them now,” the priest said. “Enimhursag has ordained that we should have them, and so we do.”
He missed the point entirely. The noble rolled his eyes, understanding that he missed the point entirely. But most of the other nobles, all the other priests, and Aratta in whom Enimhursag was dwelling nodded in approval at the priest’s words. Sharur had noted before that Imhursagut thought more slowly than Giblut, not least because their god was doing part of their thinking for them. He saw it again here.
And the noble, who also saw it, bowed his head and said no more. Most of the Giblut whom Sharur knew would have gone on arguing. Justified or not, Giblut had confidence in their own wits. Confidence in their own wits was a large part of what made them Giblut.
Aratta lay down on the ground and fell asleep, as if he were still no more than a peasant. No. Sharur stared. Aratta floated a couple of digits above the ground, and slept on a cushion of air. When mosquitoes tried to land on him, they could not, but buzzed away unsatisfied. And when Sharur lay down, he discovered he did not touch the ground, either. Enimhursag granted him the same soft rest as he did to the man in whom he had chosen to dwell for the time being. Nor did insects bite him. He passed as luxurious a night as any in all his life.
The rising sun woke him. Beside him, Aratta was already awake and alert. Perhaps the peasant woke quickly every day. Perhaps, too, having the god looking out through his eyes roused him to early alertness.
Through Aratta, Enimhursag said, “Today, we cross into the land the Giblut stole from Imhursag. Today, we cross into the land Engibil stole from me. Today, that land returns to its rightful owner.”
“Have you sent scouts into the land the Giblut rule?” Sharur asked. “Have you sent spies into the land that once belonged to Imhursag?”
Enimhursag shook Aratta’s head. “I have not done this. In the land where I rule, I can at my will see through any man’s eyes, hear through any man’s ears. I can reach beyond my borders where the gods of the lands are not my enemies. But in the land of the raving Engibil, I am as one blind and deaf.”
“Ah.” Sharur nodded, remembering how the family’s Imhursaggi slave woman mourned the absence of Enimhursag from her spirit. He said, “If it please you, great god, I can go into Gibil, scout ahead, and then come back and tell you what I see. If an Imhursaggi tried this, he would give himself away, but I would not betray myself, having been born a Gibli.”
“Yes, you were born a Gibli,” Enimhursag said, as if reminding himself. Sharur was acutely conscious it was the god studying him through Aratta’s eyes. If Enimhursag did more than study him ... But, after that measuring stare, the god went on, “Yes, go into the land Engibil took from me. Accompanying will be the noble Nasibugashi. He, too, will scout ahead. You were born a Gibli. You will protect him, so he will not betray himself.”
“It shall be as you say.” Sharur bowed his head.
“Of course it shall.” Enimhursag allowed himself no room for doubt.
Nasibugashi proved to be the noble who had wondered whether the Giblut would bring any new weapons to the war. Sharur judged him a shrewd choice on Enimhursag’s part. He seemed more his own man, less drunk on the power of the god, than most Imhursagut. That would make him better able to act on his own in Gibil than others from his city might have been.
“Let us be off,” he said to Sharur. “Let us be moving. The farther ahead of the army we get, the deeper into Gibil we can go, the more we can see, the more word we can bring back to the warriors and the god.”
“These things are true,” Sharur said. Was Enimhursag looking out through Nasibugashi’s eyes, too? Sharur had trouble telling, far more so than he had with Aratta. Perhaps Enimhursag’s presence was lighter in the noble. Or perhaps Nasibugashi had more personality of his own than did the peasant, making Enimhursag’s presence harder to discern.
As Nasibugashi had urged, Sharur and he hurried out ahead of the host of Imhursag. When they walked through the village to which Aratta and the other peasants had brought Sharur after he crossed into Imhursaggi land, Munnabtu came out of her house and waved to him. “The god told me you were coming this way,” she said, smiling. “Did I make you glad?”
“Truly, you made me glad,” Sharur answered, and smiled back.
“You made her glad, too,” Nasibugashi said. Was he only a man, judging by a woman’s smile, or was the god speaking through him with certain knowledge? The latter, Sharur judged: he sounded very certain.