Dawn of Empire (76 page)

Authors: Sam Barone

So the City of Akkad would come to be in a few months, or whenever she thought it was ready. He understood her reasons. The village had endured so much change in the past months, with more to come. It would be wise to let them get used to some things gradually.

A cool breeze rustled through the stillness and for a moment the air smelled clean and fresh. He heard the bodyguards, waiting below to give them privacy, shifting their feet, probably impatient to join the revelry.

“Since there is to be so much work tomorrow, then perhaps you could find time tonight to please your husband.” His hands moved up from her waist and he cupped her breasts and squeezed them, enjoying the feel of her body through her dress. That, too, hadn’t changed from their first night. Her body, the scent of her hair, even her smile still excited him. “Or have you already forgotten your wifely duties?”

She leaned her head back and placed her hands atop his and pressed them to her. “No, master, I await your pleasure.” Her voice was soft and her tone as seductive as that first night in his bed, only now she sounded happier than he’d ever heard her.

Esk kar shook his head at the mystery of women. “Sometimes I wonder, girl, who was the master and who was the slave.”

Her answering laugh sounded low and enticing, and they turned away from the darkened battleground and its dead. They faced the village, brightly lit by many torches and fires as the villagers celebrated their deliverance. His village now … no … his city. And someday, if his luck stayed true and the gods approved, it would be his son’s. But tonight—tonight there would be more magic, and tomorrow would take care of itself.

Epilogue

––—

The war drum sounded, faint at first, then growing in intensity and changing into a rolling thunder as a second and third merged in, the rapid strokes summoning every soldier and villager to his post.

Esk kar’s feeling of contentment vanished in an instant as fear and doubt rushed through him. The bench flew backward as he rose from the table.

He grabbed his sword from the wall as he ran down the stairs and out into the courtyard. A quick - thinking soldier brought out Esk kar’s horse. He leapt astride the animal and galloped out of the courtyard, racing through the lanes, scattering stunned and fearful villagers as he burst past them.

At Orak’s main gate soldiers milled about in confusion, cursing as they gathered weapons and climbed to their stations. Esk kar jumped down from the still - moving animal, dashed into the tower, and raced up the steps.

Emerging into the sunlight he found Gatus waiting.

Gatus pointed to the east and Esk kar’s eyes took in the still - barren plain.

He saw the warriors lined up across one of the hilltops to the southeast.

Automatically he began to count them, but Gatus saved him the trouble.

“About sixty of them, I’d say.” The old soldier spat over the wall. “Not enough to attack us, not yet.”

The distant warriors sat on their horses, staring in silence at Orak and its wall, or perhaps at the dead bodies of their kinsmen still littering the landscape. Moments passed, but the horsemen made no move, just waited patiently, as if expecting something to happen.

Esk kar felt just as confused as his men. Four days after the Alur Meriki failed to capture the gate, they broke camp and moved off to the south.

Three days had passed since then, and he didn’t understand why their horsemen would be back raiding around Orak. They had exhausted what little grass had grown back, and the barbarians lacked the strength to assault Orak again. Nevertheless, none of Orak’s inhabitants dared leave the safety of its walls to return to their farms. So a raiding party didn’t make sense.

The center of the line of horsemen parted. The grand standard of the chief of the Alur Meriki rose up from behind the hilltop, preceding another handful of riders. The warriors closed behind their leader as he passed through. Surveying the scene before him, the Great Chief sat on his horse in front of the standard. The only movement was the wheeling of crows and vultures circling over the bodies of his dead warriors. Finally he began to move forward, and the whole line of warriors followed, all riding slowly down the hill. At the bottom they set their horses to a canter and rode through the ruined fields toward the village. They stopped just out of bowshot.

As Esk kar watched, the clan’s sarrum paced his horse a few steps forward. He drew his sword and raised it high over his head. The bronze blade flashed golden in the sun, as the sarrum, taking his time, moved the sword from side to side, from horizon to horizon, three times. Then he lifted it toward the sky once again. He held it there for a few seconds, before lowering his arm until the blade pointed straight toward the tower where Esk kar stood.

The words just carried across the gap between them. Esk kar cocked his head to hear, but he understood them well enough.

Esk kar ignored the murmur that moved across the wall, as each man asked his companion what the words meant. Esk kar climbed onto the face of the tower, feet spread out and balanced precariously on the narrow ledge. The thickness of the tower’s wall tapered near the top and he barely had enough room to place his feet. Gatus grasped his captain’s belt from behind, keeping a firm grip on his leader.

Drawing his sword from its scabbard, Esk kar held it up to the sky for a long moment, whirled it three times around his head, then lowered the tip until it pointed directly at the Alur Meriki leader. Esk kar took a deep breath, and bellowed his response in the barbarian tongue, the harsh words echoing out over the empty plain between them.

The Great Chief thrust his sword once more up to the sky, sunlight again glinting off the blade, then drew it down, sheathed it, and turned his mount. Without a glance back, he put the horse to a gallop, his men wheeling their mounts around as they followed him, the grand standard waving in the breeze.

Esk kar watched as they rode back up the hill, crossed the top, and disappeared. Once vanished from sight, it was as if they had never existed.

He sheathed his blade, and jumped lightly down from the wall.

“What did he say?” Gatus couldn’t keep the curiosity out of his voice.

“What did you say? I heard your name.”

Men packed the top of the tower, his commanders, soldiers with their weapons, even a few villagers, fear showing on their faces. Everyone stared at him, mouths agape.

“He said, ‘I am Thutmose - sin, leader of the Alur Meriki.’ ” Esk kar shook his head in disbelief. “Somehow Thutmose - sin survived. How he managed that … the gods must favor him.”

Gatus stepped closer to his commander. “What else did he say?”

Esk kar took one last look at the empty hill before answering, raising his voice so that all could hear. “He said, ‘You fought bravely, but it is not yet finished. We will return another day.’ ”

Nervous whispers ran through the crowd at the threat, and Gatus had to lift his voice to be heard. “And your answer?”

“I told him I am Esk kar, son of Hogarthak, that I had repaid the Alur Meriki for my family’s blood, and never to come to these lands again.”

The soldiers nearby turned to repeat their captain’s words, breaking into cheers and yelling their approval. A smile crossed Esk kar’s face, though there was no warmth in his eyes. He lowered his voice, so that only Gatus could catch his words. “And I said I’ll be waiting for him.”

The End … Of the Beginning

Historical Footnote

And so began the era of walled cities. Others sprang up across the land, each fortifi ed with its own great wall and surrounded by farms and herds, each a center of local trade and industry. These cities contended with one another for supremacy for many thousands of years, with power shifting from one to another and back again. But less than seven hundred years after the battle of Orak, in approximately 2500 b.c.e., armies united under the ruler of the City of Akkad swept over all the lands to the south, occupied by those who called themselves Sumerians. The Akkadians defeated the Sumerians and ruled over them for many years. The Akkadians had achieved their victories primarily through the skill and strength of well - organized infantry, equipped with powerful bows, and trained in siege warfare. It was history’s first recorded use of an army of foot soldiers skilled in the use of the bow.

The land the Akkadians conquered and ruled became known to the western nations as Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers. Leading this first conquest was the first great king in recorded history. His name was Sargon and he built the world’s fi rst empire, uniting by conquest not only his own lands, but also the lands surrounding Mesopotamia. Eventually his son, also named Sargon, would extend the empire’s reach as far as the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the west and India to the east. From these places, the influence and power of walled cities would spread to many new lands, including one that would come to be called Greece. The Greeks would learn much from their eastern neighbors, and build many walled cities of their own, one of which would be called Athens.

In the east, the great walled city of Akkad would endure for many, many generations, even after the shifting of the Tigris gave rise to an even greater city called Babylon that would raise its walls higher than any other.

But that is another story.

Acknowledgments

Sometimes, somehow, things do work out. This book, begun seven years ago, is an example of that. Thanks to the help and support of many, this book was drafted, written, critiqued, rewritten, revised, lengthened, shortened, revised, and shortened again. All this before my editor saw it. After that … well, you get the idea. I do thank all of you who contributed by reading and critiquing.

Foremost thanks go to my agent, Dominick Abel, who believed in the story and connected me with my editor at HarperCollins, Sarah Durand.

Her suggestions added new material, and generally polished the entire manuscript.

A special debt is owed to those who helped in the beginning. Vijaya Schartz, an excellent author in her own right and past president of the Arizona Authors Association, who patiently red - penned the early drafts, along with others in her critique group, for nearly a year. Extra thanks to my own critique group members, who jumped in every time I needed help. Sharon Anderson, Martin Cox, Laura Groch (my niece, the newspaper editor), Jim Jasper, Deb Ledford, and Sally Mise all contributed to the final draft.

Extra thanks to Jim, for believing in the work enough to contact Dominick Abel on his own, relying on a twenty - year - old connection, to get the first few chapters into Dominick’s capable hands.

And lest I forget, thanks to Gracie and Xena, my writing felines, whose paws and claws helped me get through many a writer’s block.

Last, and not least, thanks to the spiritual father of this story, one of my favorite writers, J. Michael Straczynski, author and producer of the
Babylon
5 TV series. His encouraging email kept me going when I was about to quit. May the Great Maker forgive the occasional idea “bor-rowed” from
B
5.

Sam Barone

Scottsdale, Arizona

August
2006

About the Author

SAM BARONE was born and raised in New York City. He

spent thirty years designing and developing software, and

began writing seriously after his retirement. He lives in

Scottsdale, Arizona, where he’s hard at work on the sequel

to
Dawn of Empire.

www.sambarone.com

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Credits

Jacket illustration by Larry Ratson; fire (c) by Elizabeth

Knox/Masterfile

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DAWN OF EMPIRE. Copyright (c) 2006 by Saverio N. Barone. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader August 2006 ISBN 0-06-124454-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barone, Sam.

Dawn of empire / Sam Barone.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-089244-9

ISBN-10: 0-06-089244-7

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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