Eskkar and the others began to move. Crouched over, they crept straight toward the base of the palisade, which they reached in moments. Unlike Akkad, Bisitun had no ditch to give added height to the wooden fence. No alarm had been given yet, but at any moment they could be discovered.
They reached the base of the palisade, hugging close to the rough timbers. Grond and another man unslung the ropes they carried coiled across their chests. One end of each rope had been fitted with a short block of wood, wide enough to secure the line against the top of the palisade. Mitrac had already scaled the fence, boosted up by his companion, and now stood guard atop the barrier.
Grond tossed the two ropes up, and Mitrac wedged the wooden blocks behind the tops of the logs. The two archers started climbing, the timbers creaking under their weight, though they hoped not loud enough to attract any attention.
Eskkar could barely contain himself. The sounds of fighting had increased from the direction of the main gate. Or perhaps the defenders cheered their own victory. Either way, Eskkar could no longer tolerate doing nothing. If Sisuthros had not held the camp, if he had not driven back Ninazu’s men… no, it was too late to worry about that.
The instant the two archers disappeared overhead, Eskkar grabbed one of the ropes and began to climb. Grond pushed him from below, and the rough wood of the stockade gave Eskkar some purchase, the vertical beams creaking a little louder under his heavier weight. He reached the top, and one of the archers waiting there pulled him over.
Eskkar dropped down to his knee and looked about, until he saw Mitrac kneeling on the rampart a few steps away. The bodies of two men lay in front of him, but already the arrows had been pulled or broken off from their bodies. The silhouette of an arrow sticking out of a corpse was too easy to identify, even at night. Eskkar crept over to the archer.
“What do you see?” Eskkar asked softly.
“Two more sentries up ahead, but they face the front of the village,”
Mitrac whispered. He held his bow at an angle, with an arrow fitted to the string. “They’re staring at the main gate.”
Even as Eskkar glanced in that direction, he saw some flames shoot up into the sky. Crouched down, he couldn’t see the front of the village. Suddenly a flaming arrow streaked up into the sky and fell over the wall. He grunted in satisfaction at the signal. Sisuthros and his forces had not only held the camp, they’d driven back the attackers and started counterattack-ing the village with fire arrows.
Using the black oil that Drakis had brought up from Akkad, Sisuthros’s men had made a hundred fire arrows, wrapping cotton thickly around the shaft, binding it with linen threads, and soaking the tufts in oil. When touched to fire, the cotton would burst into flame, a flame so hot that not even the arrow’s flight through the air could extinguish it.
The palisade behind him creaked again, and Eskkar turned to see Grond come over the wall, the last man to make the ascent. Eskkar looked down at the village beneath him. The inner rampart stood only about ten feet off the ground, and even in the dim starlight, he could see a lane that seemed to lead toward the front of the village. The smell of a slaughter-house reached him, and he could see animal pens below. A few houses backed against the enclosure.
The village remained indistinct in the darkness, lit here and there by torches or watch fires, but dawn approached and already the eastern sky seemed a bit less dark. As he watched, villagers emerged from the houses, roused from their sleep by the noise, talking excitedly and all looking in the direction of the main gate.
That might change at any moment, and Eskkar had to get his soldiers off the rampart. He turned to Grond. “Get the men down now.” Moving as he spoke, Eskkar grasped the edge of the rampart, and swung to the ground. His men joined him, all except Mitrac, who called softly to his two archers. Eskkar paused briefly, watching, as the three bowmen stood up, drew their bows, and launched their arrows at the sentries who guarded the next position on the palisade.
He heard a faint cry, followed by the sound of a body thudding to the earth, but nothing more, no outcry or alarm. Mitrac, followed by his two men, paced slowly along the rampart. Anyone giving them a casual glance would take them for sentries. Ignoring the rampart for now, Eskkar started off, striding with authority, followed by Grond and eleven other men. It took only a few paces before they had to push their way past the first confused villagers.
Nothing distinguished them from any of Ninazu’s men. In the darkness, they would seem merely another group of Ninazu’s followers, moving toward the main gate. Eskkar saw one man’s mouth open in surprise as he shrank back from them, but the man said nothing, and in a moment they’d moved well past. The lane forked and Eskkar didn’t know which way to go, so he grabbed the first villager he encountered, an older man whose white hair shone in the dim light.
As Eskkar’s hand tightened on the old man’s arm, the man froze, helpless, as much from sudden fear at these men as the hard muscles in Eskkar’s grip. “Which way is the quickest to the main gate?”
The man’s mouth opened, but no words came, and Eskkar repeated the question, shaking the man as he did. “Which way!”
The man pointed to the left, and Eskkar kept his grip on the man as they resumed walking, dragging his unwilling guide with him. The lane twisted left and forked again, but this time Eskkar had only to look at the man, and he gestured the way. A few more steps and Eskkar could see his destination. He loosened his grip a little. “Return to your house and keep silent, or I’ll slit your throat!” He pushed the man aside and increased his pace.
Fire blazed from the outer fence, and two watch fires had been lit in fire pits on either side of the gate. Sisuthros’s arrows would have started fires in several places, and now his men, shooting from the darkness, would be targeting any defenders who attempted to put out the flames.
Ninazu’s men had recovered from their shock. Men raced to the ramparts, and cries for water echoed all around them. A dozen villagers, pressed into service, carried buckets of water from the well to extinguish the arrows in the gate.
Eskkar paid no attention to all that, his eyes searching until he saw what he wanted. A house with a low roof that faced the open ground behind the gate. The passage to the house remained closed, but even as Eskkar approached, prepared to put his shoulder to it, the door opened. An elderly woman wearing nothing but a loose shift bumped into him, obviously intending to see what all the commotion was about. Instead, Eskkar pushed her back in, his hand over her mouth to keep her silent, though she seemed too frightened to cry out.
Inside, two more women and some children had roused themselves, fearful at the sounds of fighting that now rang through the village. Grond swept them together into a corner of the hut. “Keep your mouths shut if you want to live,” he ordered.
Meanwhile Eskkar climbed the flimsy ladder that opened on to the roof.
From the housetop, torches and the burning fence illuminated the scene before him. He knelt down, taking everything in as he studied the situation.
The outer palisade blazed in three places, and without immediate water, the fire would soon be unstoppable. Villagers with water buckets rushed about, pouring water down the palisade. On the ground just inside the main gate a dozen men stood, two of them with arrows still protruding from them. Ninazu’s men struggled to fight the fire and the attackers at the same time, while others rounded up more villagers to bring water.
Eskkar noticed plenty of men carrying weapons and standing about, talking loudly and gesturing in frustration. Obviously Ninazu hadn’t lost too many in his attack on the camp. Eskkar guessed that most of the bandits had turned and run back as soon as they realized their foes waited for them. He sought to pick out the leaders, those trying to restore order to the mass of confused and panicky men.