Leaping and advancing and retreating to advance again, the Hittites plied swords and battle-axes and hurled heavy spears at close-range while higher up on the slope the light-armed footmen hurled javelins and throwing spears and still higher the bowmen, shooting high over the heads of their people, rained down flight after flight of arrows upon the Assyrians.
Unused to such fighting, the Assyrians gave way. They fled from the slope and reforming on the plain, advanced again. Horsemen and chariots were useless among the boulders so it was only the footmen who could be sent against us. And again and again our men broke the Assyrian power and drove them back. At last scouts came with the news that part of the Assyrian army was making a detour to mount the slope at a point distant from the battle-field and thus attack us from the rear. Then while the Assyrian army was divided, the king of Khita made his bold stroke.
He gave the order to form for a charge. Swiftly the boulders blocking the roads we had built were rolled away. Arriving before the Assyrians, and working under the cover of night, we had in a fashion, smoothed and levelled out roads down the slope which would allow chariots and horsemen to descend. The Assyrians were not aware of this for we had blocked the roads with great boulders. They thought we were no more able to hurl the full strength of our horsemen and chariots against them than they were us.
Thus it was with the utmost amazement that they saw the whole Hittite army careering down the slope toward them, at reckless speed.
The archers followed swiftly, discharging flights of arrows as they ran. A band of horsemen whirled past my company. Among them, riding like a whirlwind was Ammon the Amalekite. He had been fighting with the Hittites among the boulders and his sword was already red.
“Ho!” he shouted as he whirled past me, swinging his sword, “This is the way to fight! Not like foxes among the rocks!”
Coming as they did down that slope, at a speed like that of the wind, the chariots and horsemen of Khita struck the Assyrian army. Many a horse and rider went down, many a chariot plunged downward on that slope but the chariots that remained drove right through the Assyrian ranks and the Hittite horsemen swept in behind them.
Behind them came the heavy-armed footmen, then the light-armed footmen, then the archers.
That was a battle! For the Assyrians, rallying under the orders of that fiendish general of theirs, fought like devils and almost turned defeat into victory.
From two ranked battle-lines the battle became a surging, mingled mélee, in which chariot, horsemen, footmen and archers were mingled without order or formation.
I found myself in the midst of the battle, fighting with short sword and dagger. Such close, hand-to-hand fighting was not to my liking and I was getting the worst of the conflict, being hemmed in by three Assyrian swordsmen when a tall, pantherish warrior, smashed his way through the battle-press. With three flashing, lightning-quick thrusts he disposed of the three Assyrians and I saw it was Ammon the Amalekite. His sword was red from point to hilt, his shield and helmet were dented and battered and he was bleeding from sword-cuts about his arms and a slight cut on his cheek. But his eyes were dancing with enjoyment.
“A great battle!” he shouted swinging up his his shield in time to catch a descending sword and thrusting the Assyrian through. A spear he turned aside with his sword and at the same time dashed his shield into the face of the Assyrian who wielded the spear with such force that man pitched backward.
“That devil of a general begins to rally the Assyrians!” he shouted, “We are lost unless we can smash this part of the army before the other part comes down the slope upon us.”
For a moment the space about us was cleared as the battle swirled away.
“Look!” shouted Ammon seizing my arm, “See the Assyrian fiend?” he pointed at a chariot some distance away. In it I saw a man. A chief he was, dressed in costly armor, with a long black beard and a look of such malign cruelty that even at the distance I shuddered.
“’Tis he!” Ammon shouted, “It is the Assyrian general!”
There were a few arrows left in my quiver. I selected one with care but hastily.
Sighting along the smooth shaft, I drew with all my strength. I loosed. Far and fast sped the arrow, upon it resting the rescue of the Hittite nation.
And the Assyrian flung wide his arms and plunged headlong from his chariot, as the arrow parted that long black beard and drove through his corselet of iron and bronze.
“Ho!” shouted Ammon the Amalekite. He whirled his sword high in the air.
“Ho!” he shouted again, “A wonder! A noble bowman are ye, Lakur the Hittite!”
And from the Assyrian ranks rose the shout, “Flee! The general is slain! The terrible Seni-Asshur is slain!”
“Rally, men of Khita!” shouted Ammon, “Rally and smite these Assyrians!”
And he leaped into the battle-press, his sword whirling and leaping like a flame.
The annals of Khita will tell you how the Hittites rallied under the commands of their general. How they hurled themselves with reckless valor against the wavering Assyrians and drove them back across the plain, defeated, their army shattered. How then the general of Khita swung the army about and met the charge of the other Assyrian army that was careering down the slope, and hurled back that army in defeat.
The annals of Khita will tell you how the remnants of that mighty and terrible Assyrian army fled back across the plain in swift retreat and how the Hittite warriors marched back through the great gates of Carchemish with many prisoners and rich plunder, while the people rejoiced and made a gala day of it.
They will tell you of the cunning and daring of the Hittite general, of the might and daring of the warriors of Khita.
And all that is as it should be, for no mightier warriors, no more sagacious general, ever lived than the warriors and the general of Khita.
But I say, and say it without vainglorious boasting, that it was the arrow of I, Lakur the bowman, who won that battle for the Hittites and so says Ammon the Amalekite.
CHAPTER 2,
THE VIKING.
I dwelt in a land far to the north. It was cold there, with snow and driving sleet and screeching blizzards.
My people lived on the shores of a great sea and were a sea-faring folk. We were tall and strongly made, with flowing fair hair and the men wore heavy, fair beards. We were a war-like people and people who roamed the sea.
My name was Hakon and I differed from most of my tribe in that my hair was black and my eyes were grey.
I was a fair-sized man, but no giant such as were many of my people.
When a young man I went to one of the fiercest and most powerful sea-captains of that time, one Tostig the Mighty.
And mighty he was, a great, yellow bearded giant of a man, a terrible warrior and a man whose wish was his only law.
He towered inches higher than I, his winged helmet adding to his height, his hand resting, as if by habit, on the hilt of his great sword.
“You wish to join my crew?” he stared at me rather contemtously, “As you will, but do not join unless you are willing to fare far and fight many battles.”
He had two dragon-ships. He commanded one himself and the other was captained by a viking named Ragnar.
Swift, fierce-fought battles and rich plunder were ever for Tostig’s men. We sailed recklessly out into the great seas, our long, low galley tossing like a chip on the waves but riding the highest seas stanchly.
Ships were not over-numerous upon the seas in those days, but we took every one we could over-haul and who was not too strong for us.