An arrow buried itself in the dust at my
feet, and I remembered that I too was mortal and ducked behind the
shield. Even as my hand reached out, my bearer thrust another
javelin into it. I searched the field for another mark.
Over and over again I threw. Sometimes I
missed, but for the most part I found my target. I killed I know
not how many men and horses, and the sight of their deaths filled
me like the breath of the gods. Arrows dropped around me like
hailstones, but I hardly noticed for they could do me no harm.
Once, and once only, the point of one touched the edge of my thigh,
but I could not be bothered to remark it—I did not even trouble to
wipe the blood away. I was in ecstasy. Men who say that war is the
greatest joy under the bright sun are not fools and only lie a
little, for the pleasure of danger and death are great and wash the
mind clean. I think I must have been a little mad.
When the cavalry were almost upon us, we
aimed for the riders. As my men died around me, dropping on their
faces without a word, I could think only of the next throw, and the
next. Once a man on horseback rushed directly upon me, and as he
swung down with his sword to take my head off, my point went in
under his corselet and lifted him straight back over his mounts
tail and he hit the ground with a thud. I didn’t even glance at his
face. I merely pulled the javelin free and looked about me for
another target.
They did not break our lines, and the cavalry
are good for one charge only and then fall to looting the baggage
train—their battle is a short one. When they had passed, the
chariots came.
We were lucky—we had but two venture our way,
and we killed the horses of one of these before it reached us. The
other, though, swept over a corner of our formation, crushing men
under its wheels like dates. By then we had almost closed with the
Elamite line, and the time for javelin and arrow was past. I drew
my sword and my bearer threw down our shield, for now it was each
man fighting his way through alone.
I had come to myself by then, at least enough
to know that these men meant to kill me and that my skin was not
made of iron. I was afraid now, but the fear only made me feel more
alive. It was almost a pleasure, a joy of the senses, to be afraid
like that.
There was noise all around me, shouting and
the screams of the wounded and dying and the clash of weapons.
Those of my men who still lived clustered together like bees
swarming on a tree limb. We acted in a kind of concert but by
instinct rather than plan. There was no discipline, only the will
to live and the knowledge that we needed each other. But the final
truth was that each of us fought alone and for himself.
I am blessed with long arms, so I had that
advantage to compensate for my lack of experience, but I still
collected two wounds that vexed and weakened me. Once a spear
struck me above the elbow, almost causing me to drop my small round
shield. The pain was great but only the matter of an instant and,
in any case, not so great as the danger, for I nearly died a score
of deaths before I could pause long enough to reach down and
retrieve the shield.
It was the great black Elamite with the
scarred face who came closest to giving my body to the crows.
The fighting, which had aimlessly wandered
this way and that like an ant crawling over a stone, seemed to have
moved away from me, and for the first time in what felt like hours
I had a moment to stop and catch my breath. That moment almost cost
me my life, for when I leaned forward, sucking a little air into my
lungs as I rested my hands upon my knees, I suddenly felt something
scrape against the side of my shield—I wasn’t even conscious of
having raised it, but the soldier who lives fights by instinct and
perhaps I had had a glimpse of what was coming. I looked down and
was appalled. The leather was torn open like the belly of a
butchered ox, and I had just time to dance out of the way as the
sword that had done it swung around for a second try at finding my
entrails. I hadn’t even noticed the man.
It wasn’t very long before he forced himself
upon me, though — all at once I was foot to foot with a black
giant, the sweat streaming down his arms and his eyes rolling with
that ecstasy of fury that marks the born warrior. His taut face
gleamed, as if it might have been hacked out of obsidian with an
ax, and he showed his teeth in a fierce grin. It was a face that
had felt the stroke of more than one sword, for across the bridge
of the nose and down the side of his jaw were two great scars,
ridged and shining and thick as sandal cords. When he lunged at me
again, his war cry alone, like the scream of some great bird of
prey, almost unstrung my sinews. How it was he did not kill me in
those first few seconds, I will never know.
We seemed to be alone in that raging
battle—there was no one to offer help, and this devil was bearing
down on me as if he thought to trample me underfoot like standing
barley. His was the initiative. Slashing wildly so that my blade
made the air hiss like an adder, I was somehow able to keep him at
sword’s length, but that was all. I could hardly breathe, and my
heart beat within my breast as if it wanted out. Again and again my
shield felt the impact of his thrust, until I was certain the next
would tear through and find my bowels. Surely he would kill me, I
thought. This is it, this is the moment of my death. Over and over
his sword point darted at me, seeking my life, and each time I
managed to fend it off, and each time it came closer. A thrust, and
his blade slides by against mine, just missing my shoulder.
Another, and his point scrapes against my leather corselet. The
sound of sword rasping against sword filled my ears. I was the
goat, almost ready for sacrifice, and the augur was sharpening his
knife. The next lunge and he would kill me—the suspense itself was
a torture.
And then, at a distance, above the clamor of
battle, I heard the voice of Nargi Adad.
“Hey! You there, you bastard!”
I did not turn to look, for to turn would
have been inviting death, and I knew he was too far away to save
me. The Elamite would have me spitted like a roasting duck—already
I could see the muscles in his great neck tensing to deliver the
mortal stroke. I was already a corpse in that instant.
But he too had heard Nargi Adad’s shout and
he must have thought to make short work of me before that great
hairy millstone had a chance to roll over him. That is the only way
I can explain how I survived, for the great black one pulled his
stroke and somehow I was able this one last time to turn it
aside.
But not enough. It cut through my leather
corselet and bounced over my ribs so that I thought the man had
killed me. I was dead—I knew it.
Yet the black one had stepped in just close
enough that I had the chance to avenge myself. With what I thought
might be my dying strength, I lunged. My sword entered just under
his ribs, and I drove it home. He cried out—more with surprise than
pain, I think—and then, as with a quick yank I pulled the sword
free, he sank to his knees, his eyes holding mine the whole time,
and fell over onto his face.
And somehow I was not dead. The wound in my
side stung like an adder bite—this was a good sign, really—and I
was not dead. I reached inside my corselet, and my hand came away
smeared with blood, but I was alive. I did not even feel weak,
merely sore. I looked around for Nargi Adad, but he had already
vanished into that chaos of fighting. Yes—I was all right. The
Elamite was dead by my feet and I was alive. I lived and fought on.
In a moment I had even forgotten that I was wounded and that was
just as well, for the battle did not end with the death of one
enemy.
Time and again we threw ourselves against the
Elamite line, but it would not break. Neither would we break, for
to break was to invite death. And so the battle went on and on,
without end or hope of it. Sometimes, as if by common consent, the
two great masses of men would fall away from each other, for the
moment too weary to go on. Then there would be a rush and a shout,
and shields striking together would echo like cymbals. And each of
us had eyes only for the men to the right and to the left and for
the enemy in front. If a man died, be he friend or foe, we stepped
over his corpse as if it were a rock, for there was neither time
nor breath for anything more. Thus did the plain at Khalule grow
clogged with dead bodies.
At last the gods, who must hate men for their
folly, took pity even on such as we and let the light of day fade
from among us. We needed only this, it seemed, for the two great
armies—slowly, and with many thrusts and some hesitation—drew apart
from each other, each flowing back toward its own camp like the
tide ebbing away from the sandy shore. No one had won or lost. It
was simply that we could not fight on. Mere flesh would not stand
it.
At last we sat down on the ground to rest,
and as I looked about me I grasped for the first time the true
character of war. Men whose arms and faces were streaked with
smoke, blood, and dust stared out at nothing through eyes that had
grown old in the space of a single day. The smell of corpses hung
thick in the air like fog. There was no heroic grandeur here, only
an appalled horror at what they had done and seen and suffered.
None of these men would ever again know the world in its
innocence—life had changed for them, forever. That was what I saw.
I expect they saw the same in me.
“Where is Nargi Adad?” I asked finally, when
I could find the breath.
“Only the great gods know, Rab Kisir.
Probably dead.”
They watched me through their weary eyes, and
suddenly I understood that they were waiting for me to issue
orders. I was the rab kisir. It seemed time I remembered that.
“Go back to your tents then. Eat and rest.
The fighting is over for this day.”
Slowly they pushed themselves to their feet.
I counted them as they collected their armor and weapons—there were
only two and thirty men left. Some of them might have run away or
become separated somehow, but we had begun the day with a hundred
men and now there were but two and thirty.
“Are you coming, Rab Kisir?”
“Not now—later.”
I wanted to find Nargi Adad.
The battlefield at Khalule had become a scene
out of a nightmare. This had not been war but mutual slaughter—dead
and dying men lay on the ground everywhere, their limbs tangled
together like driftwood. Crippled horses screamed and thrashed
about, trying to stand up again. Crows perched on the faces of
corpses, picking out the eyes with their long beaks. Discarded
weapons, dead men and animals, the cries of the wounded, the stink
of carnage. The ground was slippery with blood. Everywhere, as far
as sight could probe, it was the same. I have not words to describe
it, but I will carry the vision of that place with me into the dark
earth.
But I found Nargi Adad, and he was alive, if
not by much.
He was lying on his side, alert enough but
with pain glistening in his eyes, a great hole torn in his belly,
which he tried to keep closed with his hairy fingers, and they had
grown crusted with dried blood. He smiled when he saw me—I have
never known a braver man.
“You fought well today,” he said. “You fought
like a raging devil. That great black one. . . And you killed him,
did you? I wish I could live to tell Tabshar Sin how well you
fought.”
“You will tell him.” My face was wet with
tears, for I knew there was no hope. “We will find a physician. .
.”
“No, Prince—you see, I can’t even feel my
legs. I think the villain must have cut my spine before I spilled
out his life. That’s him over there.”
Almost at Nargi Adad’s feet lay the dead body
of an Elainite, his eyes still open, the sword still in his hand.
There would be no more wars for him either.
“Does it hurt much?”
“Yes, Prince. It hurts like a bellyful of
nettles. What of the battle? Have they quit the field yet? There’s
an overturned chariot yonder—climb up on that and have a look
around for me.”
I went and looked and came back.
“They are crossing back over the river. The
water is black with boats.”
“Good. Then at least we’ve stopped them. And
now be a good lad and kill me, would you?”
“I couldn’t—I—”
“Do it. Prince. As a favor.” He smiled still,
but his eyes begged me. “It isn’t pleasant work, dying, and I don’t
want to take all night over it. One quick thrust, and you’ll finish
me. As a favor. Prince.”
Before he had time to see the stroke, or I to
lose my nerve, I drew the dagger from my belt and pierced his
heart. He died without making a sound.
I left him there, and wandered without
direction. My mind was throbbing as if from too much wine, and
there was nothing left inside me, no courage, no will. If an enemy
soldier had come upon me and drawn his weapon, I would have fallen
on my knees and begged for life like a woman. There is only so much
any man can bear.
How long I walked aimlessly over that vast
killing ground I do not know. Darkness had long since closed over
the earth; there was only the light of torches from the camp. I
must have been drawn to them. It was at the edge of the camp that I
found the king. He was alone, sitting on the back of his chariot,
his head in his hands. He looked as if he had been weeping.
Many years later I read of this battle in the
annals, of the king’s glorious anger and his victory over the
Elamitcs, whose knees trembled like reeds in the wind. It was all
lies. The histories of nations are usually lies, their own or their
enemies’. The king was not glorious that night when I found him
weeping in his chariot. I touched his arm and knelt beside him, for
it was easy to forget that he was Lord of the Earth’s Four Corners.
He looked up at me, and at first his eyes shone with fear before he
recognized me.