Empire Rising (68 page)

A voice rose up over the clamor. “Eskkar! Annok-sur!”

Eskkar saw Bantor leading the attack, his sword slashing at everyone before him. “Cover him,” he ordered Mitrac, who shifted his bow to put a shaft into Bantor’s opponent. A few more shots from the doorway, and the Egyptians broke, unable to withstand swordsmen in front and archers behind. The last of the enemy ran for the rear, frantic to scale the courtyard wall before an arrow took them. A few attempted to make a stand in the quarters across from Eskkar’s house. But without solid doors, the soldiers’

quarters provided only temporary security. More of Bantor’s men brought their bows back into play, shooting through the doorways and windows.

Overwhelmed, the last few Egyptians died or threw down their swords, calling out for mercy, their cries for leniency barely audible against the roar of cheering men. A few ran back into their quarters, desperate to regroup, but most dropped to their knees, pleading for mercy, begging to be spared, anything to avoid being killed by their battle-mad opponents.

Eskkar stepped out from the doorway, Mitrac at his side, an arrow still Empire Rising

401

nocked on his string, his eyes searching for danger. The courtyard seemed covered in bodies, most of them with arrows sticking out of them. Nearly all seemed to be Egyptians. Bantor, his chest heaving and his eyes wild from the battle madness, finally recognized his leader.

Bantor stood there, blood covering his right arm and splattered all over his face and chest. But his smile belied the blood, and he raised his sword high as the cheering men rushed past him to Eskkar’s side. Their jubilation turned into a deafening roar at the sight of their commander.

With the fighting ended, at least at Eskkar’s house, the dirty, bloody, and battle-weary men looked at each other in the bright morning light.

Their voices turned into a chant that grew in volume, as the men shouted

“Eskkar! Eskkar! Eskkar!” at the top of their lungs. The cheer went on and on, until Eskkar thought it would never end. Half the city could hear the words, and would know that Korthac had been defeated.

The wounded needed to be tended, and the fighting wasn’t over yet.

Eskkar saw Klexor, who’d just reached the house, and pulled him away from the delirious soldiers.

“Take charge here,” Eskkar ordered. “Get the men organized and secure the courtyard.”

His smile never changing, Klexor nodded and began bellowing orders.

Eskkar grabbed Bantor’s arm and led him back inside the house. Mitrac was already there, tending Grond’s wounds. Covered in blood, most of it his own, Eskkar’s bodyguard appeared ready to collapse. The fighting had raged back and forth across the room. Wreckage of the big table littered the fl oor, and one of the benches had been smashed. But Eskkar found one still whole, and righted it as Mitrac and Bantor lifted Grond up and laid him out on the bench. Just enough light filtered in to show three separate wounds.

“Find the women and the healers,” Eskkar said. “They must be nearby.

Get them here at once.” He grabbed one of Bantor’s men. “Stand here and guard these steps. Trella and Annok-sur are above.”

Bantor, his bloody sword held loosely in his hand, approached. “Annok-sur, where is she? Is she . . . ?”

“She’s upstairs, with Trella, guarding Korthac. She’s all right, only a knock on the head,” Eskkar said. “Did you find Ariamus?”

“Isn’t he dead?” Bantor’s voice hardened and he straightened up, the fatigue dropping from his shoulders. He stopped moving toward the steps.

“Tell Annok-sur I’ll be back. I’ll take some men and start hunting Ariamus down.”

402

SAM BARONE

Eskkar’s eyes narrowed at the tone of Bantor’s voice. “No, Ariamus can wait. What’s happened to Drakis? Is he still holding the towers?”

Bantor hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Take your men to the main gate,” Eskkar ordered, his voice firm.

“Drakis may need you. If some of these Egyptians escape . . .” He saw Bantor hesitating, and shook his head. “Ariamus is wounded. In an hour the whole city will be looking for him. Drakis needs you now.”

“Can’t you go . . .”

“No, I’m staying here.” With Korthac upstairs and this place recaptured, Eskkar knew his remaining soldiers would be coming to him, looking for orders. Besides, he didn’t want to leave Trella and the child. He’d left Trella alone for weeks; he didn’t plan to leave her again, not to chase down a handful of foreign fighters whose cause was lost.

“Damn the gods,” Bantor said, rage back in his voice. “I’ll go to the gate.

But I swear Ariamus won’t get away from me this time.” Bantor shouted for Klexor. They collected their men, nearly twenty of them, and jogged out into the lane, heading for the gate.

As Eskkar turned back toward the stairs, Ventor the healer entered the house, his eyes wide in amazement as he took in the carnage and death.

His frightened apprentice, glancing nervously in every direction, followed carefully behind, carrying his master’s box of instruments. Eskkar took Ventor by the arm and guided him toward the steps. “Have your apprentice care for Grond. You attend to Trella. She’s upstairs, wounded.”

Eskkar took the instrument box from the apprentice, and used his other hand to half-carry the old healer up the stairs and into the outer room.

“Annok-sur,” Eskkar shouted, the sound filling the now quiet workroom. “It’s Eskkar. Open the door.”

He heard the bar scrape, then fall to the floor with a thud. The door swung open. The lamp still burned, but the sun provided more than enough light. The baby had stopped crying, held close and nursing in his mother’s bloody arms. Korthac lay where Eskkar had left him, still unconscious. Annok-sur looked weak, but she still held Korthac’s knife over his motionless body. She nodded to Eskkar and moved back to the foot of the bed, to maintain her watch on the Egyptian.

Trella’s eyes looked up at him. She seemed to have trouble focusing, but then she recognized Eskkar and smiled.

“You’re safe now, Trella,” he said, kneeling next to the bed and taking her hand. “Korthac is taken and his men are being hunted down.”

Empire Rising

403

She nodded, and her body seemed to relax. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Stay with me, Eskkar.”

“I’ll not leave you again, Trella, I swear it. Now let Ventor tend to you.”

“Is Bantor alive?” Annok-sur asked, leaning over and holding her head with both hands, still holding the bloody knife.

“Very alive,” Eskkar said. “He’s gone off to hunt down Ariamus.”

“Look at your son, Eskkar,” Trella said, her words calling him back to her side.

Ventor moved to the other side of the bed. “Give me the child for a moment, Lady Trella.” He gently lifted the child from her arms, then offered the babe to Annok-sur. She handed the knife to Eskkar, then took and held the infant close to her breast.

“Let Ventor tend to your wound, Trella,” Eskkar said, stroking her hair for a moment.

She nodded, and her head fell back onto the bed. “Look at your son.”

Eskkar took a step to Annok-sur’s side, and peered down at the infant for a few moments. The child, its cheeks red and eyes screwed shut, looked very small.

“He looks well, Trella,” Eskkar said, not sure what to say.

A moan from the floor turned his attention to Korthac, still lying there unmoving. Eskkar reached down and grasped the unconscious man by the shoulders and dragged him out of the bedroom, pulling him across the workroom until he reached the top of the stairs. The soldier Eskkar had ordered to guard the stairs still held his post at the foot of the stairs. Just then two of the household’s servants stepped through the remains of the door, moving gingerly past the bodies of the dead, their eyes wide at the sight of all that blood and death.

“Get this filth out of my house,” Eskkar said, letting Korthac slump to the landing. Eskkar resisted the urge to roll Korthac off the landing; the fall might kill him, and that would be too easy a death. “Find three men to guard him. They’re to stay within arm’s length of the Egyptian. If he gives you any trouble, or anyone tries to rescue him, kill him.”

The soldier nodded.

Eskkar called down to the servants, and told them to bring fresh blankets, water, and anything else they thought Trella and Annok-sur would need. He turned back inside, pushing the door closed to lessen the noise from the courtyard.

404

SAM BARONE

Annok-sur didn’t even look up when he returned, just rocked slowly back and forth, trying to soothe the baby. Ventor had pulled back the blanket from Trella’s hips and leaned over to examine her wound, his face inches from the still-oozing cut.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to change the bedding when I’m done, Lord Eskkar,” the old man said. “There must have been much blood lost during the birthing.”

Another woman, one of the regular servants, came into the room, but left almost immediately as Ventor called for bandages and fresh water.

Eskkar stood there, unsure of what to do. He wanted to ask Ventor if Trella would live, but he knew better than to interrupt the healer with questions; the man would tell him as soon as he knew. The baby began to cry, and Annok-sur whispered soothingly to the infant. Ventor began wiping the blood from Trella’s side, and Eskkar saw the wound from Korthac’s knife. The slashing blow had struck a little above her hip.

The servant returned with water and linen. Ventor washed the gash, then wiped the blood from Trella’s body before pressing the cloth against the wound. “She’s still bleeding from the birthing, but not heavily. The wound is only a deep cut, and she won’t be walking for a few days. I believe she will recover.”

Eskkar exhaled a long sigh of relief. His wife would live. That was all that mattered.

Ventor’s touch calmed Trella almost as much as his words. Her eyes closed, and she seemed to fall into a light sleep.

The healer worked swiftly. He cut up a clean part of the blanket and used it to bind Trella’s wound. Then he washed the rest of the blood from her body.

Eskkar handed him the second blanket, and Ventor draped it gently over her, leaving only her head and shoulders exposed.

“She needs to rest for a few hours,” Ventor said. “We’ll know more then. I’ll go tend to the other wounded.” He stood and went to Annok-sur, gazing down at the child. “The baby seems healthy, though a bit small.”

“The child is safe, Eskkar,” Annok-sur said, ignoring Ventor’s comment.

“And so is Trella. The wound is not deep. But she’s lost a lot of blood.”

Eskkar muttered thanks to the gods. His wife would live, and he had a son. He’d captured Korthac, broken his men, and retaken Akkad. Eskkar started to shake, as much a reaction from worrying about Trella as from all the fighting. Suddenly his legs felt weary.

Empire Rising

405

Annok-sur recognized the signs. Wincing from the effort, she lifted the baby up onto her shoulder. “Come outside, Eskkar. You can do nothing here. Let her rest for a few moments, to regain her strength.”

Giving Trella one last look, Eskkar followed Annok-sur out of the bedroom, peering over her shoulder at his son’s tiny face. For the first time, Eskkar felt the stirring of pride. He’d fathered a son, Sargon, who would carry on not only Eskkar’s name but his descendants’, those who would come afterward, down through the ages. The thought surprised him. Eskkar had never thought more than a few days ahead before, but now, the future appeared to stretch before him, the child showing the way. Somehow that seemed more important than Korthac’s defeat.

28

——

——

H athor and his Egyptians had finally gained control of the mob milling about the main gate. A handful of the cursed Akkadian archers had slipped into the city and captured the left tower, but his men still held the right. They reported no activity in the countryside outside the gate, no horde of fighters waiting for the gate to be flung open. Once again, Takany had chosen an unwise course of action. For a moment Hathor felt tempted to take his men and return to Korthac’s house, but that would have provoked Takany beyond all reason. Better to fi nish the business here and then return, with the gate safe and under Hathor’s control.

He had a rough count of the enemy who’d taken refuge in the tower, and knew he faced less than twenty men. Now Hathor needed to come to grips with them, to kill these intruders before the city turned against him.

He didn’t have much time. Eskkar’s name sounded everywhere around him, growing louder every minute as more and more people of Akkad took up the cry. Dawn had broken over the city’s walls, exposing the full extent of the carnage at the gate. Bodies littered the open area, most with arrows protruding. Wounded men cried out for help, or tried to crawl to nearby houses seeking safety.

Hathor didn’t know how Korthac had lost control of the city so quickly. No word had come from Nebibi, who’d slept at the barracks, or from Takany, since he’d ordered Hathor to the gate. He’d dispatched two runners, one to the barracks and one back to Korthac’s house, but neither had returned and Hathor had no idea whether Korthac’s men remained Empire Rising

407

in control at either location. Not that it mattered. Right now, and for his own protection, Hathor needed to retake the gate from these Akkadians.

He had more than enough men, but the longer Eskkar’s men could hold Hathor at bay, the greater the danger to all of them.

One loud voice kept bellowing out Eskkar’s name as a battle cry from the tower’s top, the man’s powerful lungs sending the name over half the city. The booming voice rattled his men, another evil omen that weakened their nerve. Hathor knew it wouldn’t be long before all these cursed Akkadians rose up against them. If he failed to destroy these men in the next few moments, he, Korthac, all of them, might be overwhelmed by the city’s enraged citizens. The last thing Hathor wanted was to be trapped inside Akkad.

Reinforcements kept arriving, swelling the number of fighters under his command. That would have reassured him, until Hathor discovered most of them had fled from fighting elsewhere. Apparently battles had been fought at the barracks as well as at Korthac’s house. Hathor swore briefly at this demon Eskkar, and wondered how he and so many men had sneaked into the city.