“You are mad,” Enimhursag said. “You let your men run wild. One day soon, they will run away with you.”
“It is not so,” Engibil said, though Sharur thought it might perhaps be so. “Kimash the lugal and I have an understanding.”
“Aye, no doubt,” Enimhursag said. “He does your job. While he does your job, you sleep. It is an understanding that requires no understanding: certainly it requires no understanding from you. This is as well, for you have no understanding to give.”
“Mock me. Scorn me. Insult me. Revile me,” Engibil said complacently. “Your city falters. My city thrives.”
“Truly you are asleep—or perhaps I am speaking with the ghost of Engibil, who died some time ago,” Enimhursag jeered. “Merchants from other cities of Kudurru shun Gibil. Merchants from lands beyond Kudurru shun Gibil. The gods from the land between the rivers shun Gibil and Engibil. The gods from lands beyond the land between the rivers shun Gibil and Engibil. And you say your city thrives!”
“My city thrives,” Engibil repeated. “I know things of which you know nothing, and I say my city thrives. The proof lies before you: my men, the men of Gibil, move forward, while your men, the men of Imhursag, move back. You have puffed yourself up big as a pig’s bladder blown up with air, but still my men wound you. See how you bleed.”
Enimhursag looked at his left hand, which Sharur and other Giblut had cut again and again. “Yes, still your men wound me,” the god said. “They wound me because they do not feel my power as they should. They have powers of their own, newfangled powers, godless powers, to set in the scales against my greatness, against my might, against my majesty.”
Engibil laughed in the face of his rival god. “How great is your greatness, how mighty is your might, how majestic is your majesty if men wound you?”
“Laugh all you please,” Enimhursag said. “Today, men of your city wound me. Tomorrow, beware lest they wound you.”
Engibil did not reply. He folded his arms across his chest. So far as Sharur could tell, he exerted no special strength against the strength of Enimhursag. If anyone answered the god of Imhursag, it was Kimash the lugal, who cried, “Forward the Giblut!”
“Forward the Giblut!” the men of Gibil echoed, and the battle, which had hung suspended while the gods bickered, picked up once more.
Sharur traded sword strokes with an Imhursaggi who, though larger than he, was not skilled with his weapon. Taking the foe’s measure, Sharur struck a clever blow. The sword flew from the Imhursaggi’s hand. Sharur brought back his own blade for the killing stroke.
“Mercy!” the Imhursaggi cried. “Spare me!” He sank to his knees and set the palm of his hand on Sharur’s thigh in a gesture of desperate supplication. “I am your slave!” Bending lower, he kissed Sharur’s foot through the straps of his sandal. “Mercy!”
“Get up,” said Sharur, who had no stomach for slaughter in such circumstances. “Go back through our line. Go back to our camp. Tell everyone as you go that you are the captive and slave of Sharur. If my people let you live long enough, I will give you over to Ushurikti the slave dealer, that I may profit from your price or ransom.”
“You are my master.” The Imhursaggi got to his feet. “I obey you as I would obey my god.”
No one would get a stronger promise from an Imhursaggi. If Sharur’s captive broke it... if he broke that promise, he would make a better Gibli than an Imhursaggi, anyhow. Sharur jerked his thumb to the rear. Still babbling praises and thanks, the man shambled away.
Habbazu said, “You might readily have slain him there. He is an enemy of your city. He is an enemy of your god. You would have gathered only praise.”
“This way, I shall gather profit instead,” Sharur said. “Profit also has its uses. And, this way, I shall be able to ask Kimash the lugal for leave to go back to Gibil after the fight here is done, so that I may give my captive over to Ushurikti for safekeeping and for sale.”
“You Giblut can be devious when you choose,” Habbazu remarked. “It is as well that your god smiles not on thieves; were it otherwise, the men of your city would make formidable rivals for us of Zuabu.”
“We judge man by man, not city by city,” Sharur said.
“That is because your god does not roll his own cylinder seal across your souls so strongly as do the gods of other cities,” Habbazu said. “This leaves you far more various from one man to another than are the men of Zuabu or Imhursag.”
“It could be so,” Sharur said.
“It is so.” The Zuabi thief spoke with assurance. “You live among the men of your own city. I see them as an outsider, and see with my own astonished eyes how various you Giblut are.” His eyes sparkled. “And now, another question: when you go back to Gibil to give your prisoner over to the slave dealer, may a certain retainer of such low estate he need not be mentioned to the godlike lugal accompany you?”
“What makes you think I know such a man?” Sharur inquired blandly. Habbazu glared at him, then started to laugh. Sharur went on, “Indeed, if I knew such a one, he might well accompany me when I go back to Gibil.”
“Perhaps you will soon make the acquaintance of such a one,” Habbazu said. At that moment, with Enimhursag bellowing to urge them on, the Imhursagut tried to rally. Habbazu said, “Perhaps we will both soon make the acquaintance of some large number of unfriendly men.”
The Imhursagut fought fiercely, but the men of Gibil had more armor, better weapons, and, despite Enimhursag’s exhortations, more confidence. The rally faltered. The Imhursagut began falling back once more.
Panting, Sharur was surprised to note how far the sun had sunk toward the western horizon. Panting hurt; he had taken a blow in the ribs from an Imhursaggi club. The blow had not been so strong as it might have, and had struck one of the bronze scales of his armor. Bruised he surely was, but he did not feel the grating or stabbing pains that would have warned of broken ribs.
Back and back the Imhursagut went, until they reached the tents of their encampment. They rallied once more in front of those tents, fighting now for the possessions they had brought into Gibil as well as for their god. With darkness looming, Kimash drew back from a final assault.
“He is wise,” Habbazu said. “If you make Enimhursag desperate, who can guess what he might do?”
“I would rather not find out,” Sharur said. “Kimash would rather not find out. It could even be that Engibil would rather not find out.”
“It could even be, indeed, that Engibil would rather not find out,” Habbazu said, nodding.
Leaving behind scouts to warn and companies of soldiers to resist for a time if the Imhursagut, contrary to expectation, tried to steal the war by night, Kimash led the bulk of his own host back to their camp. The wounded men among them groaned and cried; those who were unwounded sang songs of praise to their lugal, to their city, and, almost as an afterthought, to their god.
In the march back to the camp, Sharur found Tupsharru and Ereshguna. His brother bore no wound but the cut face Sharur had already seen; his father had bruised ribs almost identical to his own. “You should see what I did to the Imhursaggi, though,” Ereshguna boasted.
At the camp waited the Imhursaggi whom Sharur had captured. He threw himself down before Sharur, crying, “I am your slave!”
“Of course you are,” Sharur answered. “I am going to see if I can get leave from the lugal to take you back to the city and give you to the slave dealer there. I have no need for another slave of my own; the dealer will sell you or ransom you, and he and I will share the profit.”
“You may do with me as you please,” the Imhursaggi said. “You spared my life when you might have slain me. I am yours.”