Some of the eager warriors wanted to continue riding, but Sargon, too, recognized the danger. The farther into the Pass they went, the more Elamites they would encounter, and the easier it would be for them to be trapped. He gave the order and the reluctant warriors turned their horses around.
This time Sargon led the way at a gallop. They needed to close up behind Jennat as fast as possible. His forty men had to drive well over two thousands horses, and keep them on the move so that they ran all the way back through the Elamite rear guard and down the Pass.
As Sargon’s warriors raced eastward through the now empty portion of the Pass, the Elamites began to recover from their surprise. Shouts and curses, and even a few arrows were launched at the galloping riders. Sargon, glancing behind him, saw one warrior take an arrow in the throat and pitch from his horse. But then that section of the trail lay behind them, and they kept riding, urging their tired mounts to run as fast as possible.
At last Sargon glimpsed Jennat’s warriors a quarter mile ahead. The much larger mass of horses had obviously required more work to stampede, and more urging to continue. But soon Sargon’s riders added their voices to those of Jennat’s men, and the massive herd, though slowed now to an easy gallop, kept moving.
They swept through what was left of the invaders’ rear guard, and Sargon saw the flattened tents. More than a few bodies littered the ground, proof that some of the laborers had not managed to reach the safety of the cliff walls in time.
Then the last enemy camp lay behind them. The Elamites would pursue them, of course, but it would take them a long time to regain control of their horses, find their mounts, and regroup.
Den’rack, his quiver empty, slowed his horse and joined Sargon. “We’re stampeded more horses than Chief Bekka did to the Carchemishi.”
Sargon grinned. “Now you have your own story to tell.”
Both men laughed, and they continued down the Pass. Neither man noticed that Garal wasn’t with them.
Lord Modran stood outside his tent after meeting with his commanders, angry at the time wasted in coordinating the plans for the final assault. His commanders, so efficient in laying siege to walled villages and cities, and so resourceful at attacking opponents on open ground, seemed both confused and incompetent in the Dellen Pass. The large size of the Elamite army added to the chaos, consuming food and water at an alarming rate, and all the while accomplishing nothing.
Once again Modran cursed the King of Akkad. Eskkar’s men maintained their ranks efficiently, and his supply line continued to deliver war materials to his men. The sight of the steadily arriving food, water, and weapons had sapped the morale of Modran’s soldiers, as they contrasted their plight with those of their Akkadian enemies.
Earlier in the evening another disaster had befallen Modran’s army. The Akkadian slingers had done far more than just disrupt his night attack. With a handful of stones flung through the darkness, they had exposed his plan of attack and unnerved his soldiers.
The insignificant raid had changed the order of battle from a night attack to a full assault at dawn. With it, the certainty of victory had vanished, too, and tomorrow promised another savage conflict. Modran’s anger seethed at every delay.
Regrouping his men took far longer than he expected. Fueling his rage, none of Modran’s supposedly fearless commanders, so loud and boastful when the march started from Zanbil, had offered to lead the attack. Finally Lord Modran and General Martiya had decided the marching order for the morning’s battle.
Every one of his subcommanders knew tomorrow’s fight would be brutal and bloody. They’d come close to breaking Eskkar’s line in the last encounter, but this one promised to be even more vicious.
Although the Akkadians had suffered heavy losses of their own, the Elamite soldiers recognized the truth — Eskkar’s soldiers were not going to flee in terror, not going to retreat, not going to give ground. They had shown their enemies that they were willing to die on their feet and fighting to the last to defend the Pass.
No such beliefs supported Modran’s soldiers. They fought because their leaders ordered them to. Thoughts of quick conquests and easy lootings in the lush countryside of the Land Between the Rivers had vanished. Without that lure, and confined within the Dellen Pass, the old bitterness between the disparate groups that comprised the army returned.
No matter who won tomorrow’s battle, thousands of Elamites were going to die. No soldier wanted to be one of those dead, in order to allow others to win the war.
Both Modran and Martiya recognized the signs. The men would have to be driven into combat. To support the morning attack, and make sure his men didn’t waver, Modran’s Immortals, two thousand men, were divided into two groups.
The largest, fifteen hundred strong, would attack in a column and try to break through Eskkar’s right flank, much the same plan as the discarded night attack. The remaining five hundred would be spread out behind the rest of the assault force, ostensibly to act as the reserve, but with orders to kill any soldier who failed to press the attack or tried to retreat.
After receiving their orders, the gloomy subcommanders headed off to their own tents and their own preparations. Modran breathed a long sigh of relief. He expected to lose half his remaining men in the coming battle, possibly more. Such a thought, unthinkable only ten days ago, now meant little. He had to win. After squandering so many men, a furious King Shirudukh would strip him of his rank and wealth the moment the news reached Sushan that Akkad remained undefeated.
Suddenly Modran felt the ground beneath his feet tremble. At first he thought it was an earth shaker, a fearful prospect here inside the Dellen Pass, where cliffs could topple onto the trail and flatten hundreds of men in an instant. But the shaking went on, and he soon recognized the sound of hoofbeats. Before he had time to react, the soldiers outside his tent erupted into shouts. Horses were galloping through the camp, neighing and rolling their eyes.
One animal raced past Modran, and he saw an arrow protruding from its rump. No doubt some fool of a soldier had mistaken a horse for an Akkadian.
Some of his men tried to catch one or two of the horses, but most of the soldiers just scattered, eager to get out of the way of the half-crazed animals. Confusion swept through the camp. Men who had just turned in for the night, hoping to get a brief respite before the battle, shouted that they were under attack, that the steppes barbarians had stampeded the horses. Other voices blamed the men in the rear guard, or even some of Jedidia’s troops, forced to join Modran’s army and fight under his command.
Modran’s tent lay a quarter of a mile behind the front of the Elamite line. His cavalry’s horses, divided into ten herds, stretched nearly two miles from Modran’s quarters, in the opposite direction. From the sheer number of horses, he realized that something had spooked several herds, causing the frightened beasts to race through the entire Elamite camp.
Many of the winded horses now trotted into the peaceful and empty space between the two armies. Whatever had happened at the army’s rear to spook the animals, the stampede had finally slowed, then stopped.
The Elamite soldiers closest to the Akkadians had panicked as well, thinking their foes had launched a second night attack. A babble of voices rose into the night, with everyone speaking at once and each man knowing as little as his companions.
For the second time that night, Modran shouted for Martiya and for his other commanders. This time, it took even longer for them to reassemble. Modran, his face white with rage, ordered his leaders to get their men under control, and find out what had stampeded the horses.
Midnight had passed before a weary Martiya dismounted at Modran’s tent. “It was a barbarian raid.” Martiya shook his head. “I still can’t believe it, but one of my men recognized their war cries, watched the way they rode. Somehow they got through the rear guard without being stopped, moved half way through the horse camps until they got to the middle of the herds, then stampeded our horses.”