Dawn of Empire (71 page)

How many men did Thutmose - sin have left? At least a thousand, Eskkar guessed. The horde in front of the village slowed, stopping just out of bowshot as they found their stations and took up their shields, preparing to face the arrows they knew awaited them.

Only silence came from the enemy. There would be little shouting or taunting, no eager war cries. They’d learned their lessons and knew they faced hardened soldiers who would not easily yield. They’d miss the joy of battle, Esk kar decided, no quick slaughter of men on foot, no feats of horsemanship, just moving forward into the rain of arrows.

Esk kar understood why they didn’t use the horses. They’d lose too many, more than they could replace. He smiled at that thought. Thutmose -

sin must be worried about how big a price he’d pay today, even in victory.

The Alur Meriki leader must have a victory, and it must be cheap enough to satisfy those who hoped for his failure.

We just have to give them a reason to turn back, and some will take it.

Calls for silence moved up and down the walls as Totomes and his men finished testing their bows. The master archer had no more instructions for his men and needed no orders from Esk kar to tell him when and what to shoot. Huge stocks of arrows stood ready and the archers would begin loosing shafts as soon as they could, for as long as they could bend a bow, until every last arrow was gone.

Esk kar nodded in approval. He’d done all he could, and now the arms of his archers would determine whether Orak stood or fell.

He felt a gentle tap on his arm and turned, surprised to find one of the women standing there. At first he didn’t comprehend her words, then he saw the water jug in her hand. An elderly matron, she had long gray hair that blew around her shoulders in the light breeze. The jug’s weight made her hands tremble. She’d carried her burden first to him, bypassing others on her way.

Esk kar took the jug and lifted it to his lips. He didn’t feel particularly thirsty yet, but the sun already warmed the wall and the full heat of the day would be on them soon enough. So he took a long drink and returned a much lighter vessel to the woman.

“Thank you, elder,” he said, not knowing her name, as he wiped his mouth with his hand.

“Good fortune,” she answered soberly. “My sons fight with you this day. So bring us victory.” She didn’t wait to hear his reply, moving down the wall with her water, a task she would perform throughout the long day or until an arrow took her down.

Behind her stepped Grond, newly promoted leader of the captain’s personal guard, carrying Esk kar’s copper helmet, now painted brown to look similar to the leather ones. He handed it to his captain, as well as a leather vest and gauntlets for his arms. Esk kar fastened them on his body, taking care to lace them properly, letting Grond help him. The other bodyguard handed Grond a thick leather collar.

“I’ll not wear that.” Esk kar shook his head. “It itches, and I feel like I’m in a noose.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, but Gatus and Lady Trella insisted.” Grond stared at him. “Or we’ll have to carry you from the wall. The enemy will be targeting you and we don’t want you to take an arrow in the throat.”

Esk kar could have browbeaten the bodyguards, who looked nervous.

But so long as Grond stood firm, they’d obey orders to carry off their captain. For a moment Esk kar’s annoyance flashed, but Grond waited patiently, meeting his eyes, still offering up the collar. Esk kar felt tempted to take it and pitch it over the wall, but that would be childish. Besides, Grond would probably climb down into the ditch to retrieve it.

Esk kar ground his teeth and jerked the collar out of Grond’s hand, then wrapped it around his neck. Immediately it began to chafe. Grond stepped around him to fasten the laces. “Make it loose, damn you. I don’t want to choke to death.”

Grond knew his business and the nearly three inches of stiff leather sat on the base of Esk kar’s neck, loose but capable of deflecting, with luck, an arrow. That duty done, Grond nodded to the two bodyguards and they moved in front of Esk kar, bringing their wooden shields up to rest on the wall.

Esk kar would be able to peer between and over them, but the thick wood would shield most of his body. More men moved into position, including two special marksmen assigned by Totomes. These archers looked grim as they glanced at their captain. Their job was to kill anyone targeting Esk kar.

A messenger arrived, breathing hard, eyes wide as he reported to Eskkar. “Captain, Corio says there are at least eleven hundred armed men coming toward us, with about five hundred slaves.”

“Send word to the command post.” Esk kar spoke calmly, though he swore to himself at the number. He hadn’t thought they had that many warriors left. They must have recalled every outrider and pressed into service all the old men and young boys. Or perhaps another raiding party had joined them. Wherever they came from, it would be a lot of men to stop.

“Already done, Captain,” the boy answered.

Esk kar thanked the boy who moved aside, wedging himself out of the way in an empty space near the back of the tower. Out on the plain, a drum began to beat. Everyone turned toward the sound. The Orak bowmen looked nervous, almost anxious to get on with the battle. Their day had come and they’d be put to the test in the next few hours.

The barbarian horsemen moved to the flanks, staying just out of range.

They’d try to keep as much pressure on the other walls as possible. They’d probe for any weak points, and they had enough men to mount a rush. But their primary task was to draw off as many defenders from the main gate as possible.

Meanwhile the main force of Alur Meriki paused, crowded together, carts ready, and wooden shields lifted on high. Suddenly the drum changed its rhythm. With a few shouts the mass of slaves, warriors, horsemen, and carts began to move. Esk kar glanced up at the sun, well above the horizon.

An hour had passed since dawn.

The men on the wall fell silent. All eyes focused ahead as they took their stances and put arrows to the string, waiting for Totomes’s order. The tall archer took his time. He waited until the thick block of men reached the range of even the weakest of his archers before giving the command.

That order echoed along the rest of the wall, as the first flight of arrows told everyone the battle for Orak had begun.

The main wall held just two hundred and twenty archers, with the rest spread thinly along the other three walls. They faced at least seven hundred warriors heading straight for the gate, plus the mass of slaves used as shields and beasts of burden, well over a thousand men.

Arrows rattled up into the sky, flight after flight. His men were loosing between fifteen and eighteen arrows a minute. Out on the plain barbarians fell to the earth but the wagons kept coming, slowed for a moment as one or two men went down, but moving steadily forward.

So far no one fired back, but that would soon change. The enemy advanced, stoically absorbing the losses. War cries sounded on all sides now, as warriors raced their animals along the north and south walls.

The drumbeat quickened. The barbarians broke into a run, driving their slaves in front of them by the flat of their swords. Before long the leading edge of Alur Meriki knelt in the dirt and planted their shields about fifty paces from the ditch, as archers moved up behind the protection and began to return fire.

For their shorter bows it was still long range, and the advantage lay with the defenders, aided by their stronger bows and the height of the wall. But already more than three hundred enemy warriors plied their bows and began to score hits, even at that distance. The wagons still advanced.

An arrow whistled past Esk kar’s head. Totomes directed his men to target the men advancing the wagons. Men went down again and again, but others took their places.

Esk kar grimaced. Most of these were slaves, not even warriors, forced to labor until an arrow took them. To turn away meant facing the swords and lances of warriors behind them. At last the first of the wagons, one piled high with planks nailed together and showing scorch marks on its high sides, reached the edge of the ditch. The attack would begin in earnest now.

An arrow glanced off Esk kar’s copper helmet and a moment later another brushed his right arm, gouging the stiff leather. Grond pulled him down behind the shield, then ordered the archers to kill those who aimed at their captain. Esk kar saw a sudden flurry of activity behind the first wagon, already sprouting a thicket of arrows as defenders shot at every barbarian around it.

About twenty leather

-

clad warriors ran alongside the wagon and

grasped the topmost planks. They lifted a section and carried it forward into the ditch. Many went down with arrows, but enough stayed on their feet and managed to get the bridging section to the ditch and fling it down, before running back behind the wagons for shelter.

Another group of men tried to repeat the effort but this time Totomes’s archers stopped the second attempt with a wave of arrows that brought warriors, screaming in pain, to their knees before they reached the edge of the ditch. It proved only a momentary setback. More men rushed up to aid them, and they managed to grasp and lift the heavy platform once again and rush it forward, some leaping down into the mud, others dropping onto the first piece of bridge.

In their haste they failed to place the second section properly. For a moment no warrior would venture out to correct it. Instead they brought up more archers from the rear and a hailstorm of arrows drove the defenders beneath the wall for a few moments. Esk kar could only watch through the narrow gap between the two shields as two gangs of men rushed forward, one to straighten the second section and another to lift and carry the third section.

By now all the barbarian archers were shooting from behind some sort of cover, making it harder for Orak’s archers to hit them. Their enemies needed only to aim for the top of the wall to keep the defenders pinned down.

With the third bridging section in place, the barbarians had reached more than halfway across the ditch, even though the trench here stretched twice as wide. Esk kar turned to Gatus. “Get every archer you can fi nd up on the wall. I’m going to the gate.”

Without waiting for a reply Esk kar dashed away, Grond and the bodyguards following him. Esk kar ran down the tower steps, pushing past a constant stream of men climbing up to reinforce or resupply those already there. Emerging into the sunlight he took only a few steps before he found Corio directing a handful of villagers carrying three heavy clay pots.

“Good work, Corio,” Esk kar shouted. “Is this the oil?”

“All that’s left. The storehouse is empty.”

The lands around Orak held numerous pools of the oil - that - burns, but no such pool existed inside Orak. The countless torches needed every night had drained the stores of oil faster than expected. Esk kar’s fire raid had taken the rest.

Esk kar grimaced but there was nothing he could do about it. “We’ll need more than that. Find more. And send one jar up to the top of the gate.”

“Captain, be careful, we might set fire …”

Esk kar left Corio and climbed up the narrow wooden steps leading to the upper parapet. Several archers manning the slits had taken wounds, but a few cheered at the sight of their captain. He moved to the gate’s center, then pushed an archer aside to glance through the firing slit. The barbarians had placed another section into the ditch and looked ready to move up another. That one would completely bridge the ditch.

A burly villager bumped into Esk kar’s back, breathing hard and carrying the largest of the pots of oil. Esk kar took the vessel and almost dropped it, surprised by the weight.

“Fetch as many torches as you can,” he ordered. The man nodded, then swung over the edge of the platform and just dropped to the parapet directly below, before jumping to the ground.

The last bridging section had the farthest to go and again Totomes’s archers waited for the Alur Meriki effort. A wave of arrows from the defenders cut the first attempt short, hitting a half - dozen warriors before they could even take up the burden. Another attempt failed as well, until a horde of nearly fifty men rushed up and by sheer numbers carried the section down into the ditch and heaved it into position. Despite the heavy losses, a shout of triumph accompanied their success.

Esk kar turned to Grond, who’d stayed right behind him. “We’ll hurl this as far from the gate as we can. Understand? At the count of three!”

Together they lifted the clay jar, each holding it with one hand on the bottom and using the other hand to steady it. Esk kar took a deep breath and braced himself, nodded at Grond, then gave the count. “One … two …

three!”

With a mighty heave they hurled the pot of oil over the top. The jar landed at least twenty feet away from the gate, bursting into a hundred pieces as it emptied its contents between the fourth and fifth sections.

Without bothering to look Esk kar seized the flaming torch that the laborer had brought and hurled it over the top. By the time he reached a slit, the torch had ignited the oil and a sheet of flames burned hotly wherever the oil had spread. Even the mud in the ditch caught fire.

Two arrows hissed through the slit and Esk kar felt his heart jump. If he’d stared an instant longer … Alur Meriki archers below now waited for any target. “Get another pot of oil, Grond. That should slow them down.”

Men crowded the gate now, its parapets sagging dangerously as ten more archers added their weight to the platforms. Another jar of oil arrived, this one smaller, and again Esk kar and Grond heaved it over the gate. It landed closer to the mud this time but shattered well enough to cover the burning wood again. A strange whooshing noise and a wave of heat accompanied flames that rushed into the air. The few warriors who had ventured out onto the platform quickly retreated. For a moment the conflagration rose even higher than the gate.

The last two sections of the bridge burned steadily, and nothing would put them out until the fire reached the muddy underside of the wood. The barbarians halted, surprised to find their own tactic used against them. The vicious exchange of arrows continued taking its toll on both sides. Grond readied the last pot but a quick glimpse told Esk kar it wasn’t needed yet.