The Lod Saga (Lost Civilizations: 6) Read online

  “Elohim,” he muttered. “Hear my plea, my cry. I am buried in the earth, forgotten and alone. I prevented an evil sacrifice to Esus, one of the unhallowed First Born. I slew one of his abominable sons. I sought to uphold my pledge to the warlord of Assur, and he has heaped dung and abuse upon me, threatening to kill me for my faithfulness. Free me from this dungeon, I beg. Then I will cast down this demon—if I am shown the demon’s form.”

  Shortly thereafter, Lod closed his eyes, and he slept fitfully. A wicked dream plagued him. In it, he ducked and dodged the blade of Esus. And he saw a thing rise from the ground. It was dead, but it moved like one of the living. It took the sword of Esus.

  —Lod’s eyes snapped open. The heavy chains still bound him. A rat squealed, probably at another of its kind. Then Lod heard the shouts that had undoubtedly woken him. There was metallic banging, the thump of shields. Men screamed in the manner of those stuck with weapons. The sounds came from up the ramp and behind the big wooden door.

  The last scream gurgled into silence. Lod waited tensely. A bar rattled against the door. Then the door creaked, opening slowly.

  Hul stood there, clutching his axe with one hand. Blood dripped from the sharp edge. He held a lantern with his other hand.

  Hul staggered down the ramp, favoring his right leg. Keys jangled as he moved. The same hand holding the lantern clutched onto a ring of keys.

  With the rattling of heavy chains, Lod surged to his feet. “Elohim sent you,” he said. “In my vision, Elohim showed me a dead thing that walks like a man, wielding the sword of Esus. I must slay it.”

  Hul lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. “You owe me half your gold. That’s why I came.”

  “I have no gold,” said Lod.

  “Don’t you remember promising me half your gold if I helped you rescue Mari?”

  “I remember. But Naram-Sin has forgotten to reward me.”

  “You have a talent for angering others,” Hul said. “But you also have some skill with your weapons. I thought you might like the chance to earn the warlord’s forgiveness by doing mighty deeds in the coming battle.”

  “You slew his guards just now?” Lod asked.

  “Kishite sell-swords,” Hul said with a shrug.

  “Naram-Sin took Mari?”

  Hul nodded as he handed Lod the keys. Lod began to test the various locks with them.

  “Once you give me half the gold owed you,” Hul said, “I will be rich indeed.” The mountain warrior grinned. “It might be next to impossible for the warlord to forgive you. But I’m willing to accept half of what you gain in plunder—if it proves to be a heady sum.”

  Lod unwound the heavy chains, clinking them onto the dirt floor. He grasped Hul in a warrior’s grip, forearm to forearm.

  “You can have all my gold,” Lod said. “Just stay by my side until we free Mari and I slay this evil thing called from death.”

  “I’m not interested in dying heroically, my friend. But it galls me that the warlord has withheld half my gold by denying you. All I ask is that this time your insane exploit wins the warlord’s favor instead of enraging him.”

  Lod grunted, and asked, “Do you have extra weapons?”

  “You can loot the guards I slew.”

  Without another word, Lod charged up the earthen ramp.

  -13-

  Giant flames crackled as another Kishite farm burned. Black smoke funneled into the sky. Oxen lowed in terror from within the burning barn. Hogs squealed as they squeezed out of the earth, having dug out of the barn like panicked hounds. One by one, the hogs dashed for freedom, only to die under an avalanche of Zimrian javelins. The peasants suffered—a man, his wife and three children. All were nailed to their wooden hut of a home, wailing in misery and pain, and as the straw roof began to smoke as the first flames shot up.

  Amalaric stood in the shadows of three alder trees, beside the farm’s pond. Hundreds of warriors were scattered around him. They feasted on geese, hog and the stores carried out of the farm’s cellar.

  The afterganger stood behind him. A few moments ago, Amalaric had glanced back at it. The thing had stared at the destruction though glassy, dead eyes. The waxen face had seemed more like a wooden mask, yet it had shown delight at the carnage, an obscene, evil kind of joy.

  Amalaric had turned away, horrified. Supernatural bonds chained him to the afterganger. It wilted his resolve to try to escape from it.

  Now a warrior ran toward him. The warrior had three eagle feathers sticking from his hair. He was a herald, a messenger. He ran to the alder trees, and he bent on one knee before Amalaric, bowing his head as his sides heaved.

  “Great Chieftain,” the herald panted.

  Black smoke stained the sky. Burnt meat smells dominated the air. The last Kishite screams of agony drifted from the burning hut. Amalaric had not foreseen such a warpath as this. It was too grisly, too unmerciful and terrible.

  The afterganger shuffled closer. Amalaric barely kept himself from cringing. The animated, dead Jarn Shield-Breaker was the Great Chieftain. He was merely the Great Chieftain’s mouthpiece.

  A dead hand clamped onto his shoulder. Amalaric wanted to howl in misery. He dreaded these communications.

  “Speak,” whispered Amalaric.

  “The Assurite Host marches toward us,” the herald said. “They wish to parley with… with the Great Chieftain.”

  The afterganger tormented Amalaric by pouring words into his mind. It made his head throb and tears well in his eyes as they ached. As before, he absorbed the afterganger’s words.

  Then, “Go,” whispered Amalaric to the herald. “Tell the Assurites that if they throw aside their weapons and crawl on their bellies, that Esus will be merciful to them.”

  “There’s more to the message,” the herald said.

  “What is it?” asked Amalaric, before the afterganger spoke into his mind again.

  The afterganger painfully tightened his hold. Amalaric gasped at the pain.

  The herald looked up, and he paled. He quickly bent his head, averting his eyes from dead Jarn Shield-Breaker.

  “Speak, man,” Amalaric whispered. “Spit out your cursed message.”

  “T-The warlord of Assur has Mari. He wishes to trade her for peace with us.”

  Amalaric stared in horror at the kneeling messenger. He wanted to draw his sword and strike the herald’s head from his shoulders.

  The sacrifice belongs to Esus. The words were like knives in Amalaric’s mind. She is stolen booty. Send the messengers to the other clans. It is time to bring everyone into one horde. We shall avenge the blasphemy that birthed me.

  Amalaric opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak such words. Mari, sweet, strong Mari had escaped. It was the only good thing that had happened in his miserable life. He saw that now.

  The afterganger’s awful grip ground his shoulders bones together.

  Amalaric cried out at the pain.

  Summon the warriors, voice. Or you shall find that there are worse things in life than this. Do it quickly, or—

  “We must gather the warriors,” Amalaric whispered, hating himself for his weakness.

  “I await your words,” the herald said.

  Amalaric swallowed painfully. He hated life. He hated this pain. Most of all, he hated the undead Jarn Shield-Breaker. Despite the loathing he felt for himself, Amalaric began to relay the afterganger’s orders.

  -14-

  By the afternoon of the next day, as Lod and Hul ran over grassy hills, scouts rose up and challenged them. The scouts were part of the thousand sell-swords of Kish who marched with Naram-Sin.

  The Kishite sell-swords fought differently than the spearmen of Assur. Kish along the eastern edge of the Hiddekel was a rolling, hilly country, with many tall bushes, clumps of alders and oaks and thick grass. Kishites lived in villages, ruled by a hetman. The best warriors fought on foot with javelins, shouting like banshees, dancing out of range of their enemies. When the enemy retired, they rushed forward, hurling dar
ts. When their enemy advanced, they fled before them like foam on a dashing wave. The pinnacle moment for a Kishite band came when the enemy ran fleeing. Then the warriors of Kish drew their wicked-looking knives—their jebals—and fell upon the panicked warriors, cutting them down from behind.

  The three scouts stopping Lod and Hul were armed in such a manner.

  “Naram-Sin sent us on a secret errand,” Hul said.

  “What is the password?” asked the chief scout.

  Hul gave it to him.

  The chief scout nodded, turned and pointed into the distance. He pointed at some higher hills. “The host waits there as the Zimrians march for them. There will be a battle soon. Likely, you will have to wait until after the battle to speak with the warlord.”

  “We are not too late for the fight?” asked Hul.

  “Not if you run,” the scout said.

  As the scouts walked away, Lod removed a wolf-skin hood. Soon, he and Hul raced for the distant hills.

  ***

  A little over an hour later, Lod and Hul joined Kishite sell-swords stationed on the edge of the host’s formation. Naram-Sin had chosen a defensive position. There were no trees here, just grass and rolling terrain. A ring of five hills half-surrounded a broad, grassy valley. In the open plain opposite the five hills, waited the seething mass of Zimrian clans. Some of the last forest warriors trickled into their horde as Lod and Hul squatted to rest.

  Lod drank from a canteen, quenching his thirst. Around him, sell-swords shifted nervously. Some tested their wicker shields. Others hefted their favorite javelins.

  Lod wore mesh-mail and possessed a wooden shield with bull-hide layers in front. He had a short sword. Hul had his axe. The sell-swords around them had darts and knives.

  Lod examined the host.

  Assurite spearmen were halfway down the middle three hills in a long line. The majority sat in their formations, with their large, oblong shields and six-foot ash spears on the ground beside them. Like their officers, the soldiers of Assur were stout and heavy-limbed, most with thick beards. They wore leather jerkins or lighter linen armor, chiefly relying on their shields and helmets for defense. Each wore a peaked cap with a spike. Most were hardened veterans, with a sprinkling of younger men on their first foreign campaign. The Assurites had faced many foes, and their iron discipline and deadly stabbing spears had shattered each enemy horde in turn.

  On the wings of the three thousand massed spearmen, were the sell-swords of Kish, each clump five hundred strong. The two flanks possessed the two outer hills, one on each side. The sell-swords stood without formation, clots of warriors used to running at the enemy together and discharging their iron-tipped darts.

  Lod heard somebody talking about Naram-Sin’s fifty chariots. There were supposed to be behind the southernmost hill. Lod was stationed on the northernmost hill.

  The chariots were out of sight of the seething horde of Zimrians in the plains. Lod knew that the chariots were the host’s swift striking arm. They were lightly built, each pulled by two spirited stallions. Each chariot possessed a driver and an important noble from cities tributary to Assur. Each noble wore a long leather coat that reached below his knees. Shekel-sized brass plates had been sewn onto the leather, each one overlapping the one below it. It was scale-mail armor, and looked like a fish’s scales. It protected the chariot nobles from stones, arrows and darts. Each noble possessed a powerful bow. Many of the precious weapons took years in the making. Their skill with these bows was prodigious, and the favored tactic was to race onto the battlefield along the enemy’s flanks, park and fire hissing shafts into the masses of foemen. When the enemy charged out, the chariots rattled elsewhere and repeated the tactic. With the steady, spear-armed host as a protective base, the chariot attacks had proved irresistible on a hundred battlefields.

  Lod appreciated the skill of Naram-Sin’s dispositions. Against a normal Zimrian horde, it should prove victorious.

  The horde of forest warriors on the plains, however, weren’t normal. They had no special formation, just a seething horde of warriors that slowly spread out in a longer and longer line. Most wore furs, leathern helms and had wooden shields. They waved spears, knives, hatchets and the richest and most powerful, swords. Handheld totem poles waved back and forth. On the poles were wolf heads, bear skulls and eagle’s beaks.

  Before the horde, shamans in antlered caps dragged struggling captives of Kish. Warriors dug holes. Others brought out sharpened stakes. A team of men held down each captive in turn, while one used a hammer to drive a stake up into the guts of the victim. Zimrian warriors then erected the impaled unfortunates to wriggle out the last hours of their miserable existence.

  The pitiful screams and spectacle caused a vast stir among the host of Assur and the sell-swords of Kish. All around Lod, warriors angrily shouted oaths and shook their darts and knives at the hated enemy.

  The antlered shamans began to dance and chant obscenely before the impaled ones. Soon, like a living thing, a pall of fear rolled toward the Assurite line. Warriors who had suggested they race right this moment and put the barbarians to flight now hung back and began glancing over their shoulders.

  “They’re casting a spell,” Hul whispered.

  Lod motioned with his head, bidding Hul follow him. Then Lod shouldered his way to the front. Sell-swords gladly let him pass. One or two slapped him on the back.

  “There’s a champion,” one sell-sword said.

  Lod raised his short sword, and he shouted encouragement to the warriors around him. Then he stood at the front of the sell-swords on the northern edge of the host.

  Zimrians with huge curved horns of beaten copper stepped forth from their horde. They blew mightily, creating a discordant sound. That caused the horde of Zimrians to beat their knives, spears and hatchets against their wooden shields. Others chanted into the shields, creating a reverberating sound. The combined din worked like magic on the horde. Zimrian champions began to tear off their furs, exposing their pale skin. Those warriors strode out of the horde and strutted back and forth, issuing loud challenges to their foes on the hills.

  Now trumpets blared from the middle hill. A detachment of spearmen marched down from the gentle slope and onto the plain between the two armed hosts. They escorted a woman in a long linen dress.

  Almost immediately, a knot of fur-clad warriors began to stride from the Zimrian horde. They held totem poles and contained three antlered shamans.

  “What is the warlord doing?” Lod shouted.

  “It’s a trick,” a sell-sword captain said. “The warlord is giving them a sacred captive. It will lull the Zimrians. Then we will attack and kill the forest barbarians.”

  The small groups walked toward each other. They would meet in short order between the two gathered armies.

  All the spearmen of Assur were on their feet now, in battle formation. Yet to a practiced eye, they seemed hesitant. The sight of those wriggling captives, the screams…

  Lod turned to the sell-swords around him. Many of them watched wide-eyed, with growing fear. The Zimrians looked terrifying.

  “I don’t like this!” Lod shouted. He banged the pommel of the short sword against his shield.

  Sell-swords glanced at him.

  “Giving them that girl will only embolden the Zimri!” Lod shouted. “By Elohim, that’s evil. Look at how the forest barbarians impale the people of Kish. You sell-swords are men of Kish.” Lod banged the pommel hard against his shield. “I want vengeance!” he roared. “Give me vengeance against those shamans!”

  Hul lifted his axe, shouting the Arkite war cry.

  “Follow me, lads!” Lod shouted. “Let’s show the warlord what sell-swords of Kish can do!”

  He ran bellowing toward the Zimrian party.

  The vile impaling earlier and Lod’s action, it fired the blood of many nearby sell-swords. In a clot of shouting warriors, hotheads followed Lod and Hul. That electrified more Kish to pour at the enemy.

  It also caused a
mighty shout of rage to rise from the assembled Zimrians. Cries of treachery drifted across the battlefield.

  As Lod sprinted across the dirt, bellowing, waving his sword, the party of Assurites halted. The lone spearmen looked around.

  Now a vast HURRAH! arose from the Zimrian warriors. The forest barbarians surged forward, breaking into a run. It was like a human wave of howling, angry warriors.

  The small, exposed group of spearmen turned and ran back for their lines. The woman in the white linen dress, surely Mari, lifted up the hem of her long gown to expose her white legs. She turned and ran toward the Assurites, sprinting past some of the heavily armored spearmen.

  ***

  Naram-Sin of Assur was on the middle hill, a little higher than the spearmen lined below him. He shouted with rage. Those Kishites sell-swords, they were supposed to wait to attack. Those hotheaded fools—Lod! He couldn’t believe it. He saw the white-haired warrior leading the attack. How had Lod escaped out of the root cellar? It didn’t matter now. He could punish him later. Right now, he had to win the battle.

  “Sound the trumpets!” Naram-Sin bellowed in a roaring shout. “We must attack, attack, and not wait for the blow to fall on us.”

  All around him, leather-lunged trumpeters raised long silver trumpets. They blared loudly. They pealed the signal heard on hundreds of battlefields. The spearmen on the three hills closed ranks and began to march downward. Soldiers won because of a belief in victory. To stir a soldier’s fighting spirit, one needed to advance, not wait for an attack.

  Naram-Sin donned his helmet and drew his sword, and he ran down to join his soldiers. The warlords of Assur always joined in a battle and inspired the soldiers by example.

  “Attack!” Naram-Sin bellowed. “Slaughter these savages from the forests.”

  ***

  Despite the blare of trumpets and Naram-Sin’s lusty example, the spearmen of Assur did not charge down the slopes with their customary zeal. The veteran spearmen knew that first the hidden chariots were supposed to race onto the battlefield and pour arrows into the barbarian horde. The sell-swords were supposed to have done likewise with their darts. Both arrows and darts would have softened the enemy for the charge that would have swept them from the field. The veteran spearmen knew the tactics that had won them endless encounters.