July – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Ninsianna
They came at them not from the direction Gisou had encountered Pareesa’s captors, but a much larger band attempting to raid the houses at the western edge of the village. As had happened in the other villages, attackers peppered the defenders with arrows to push them back a safe distance while a second group tried to gain access by giving each other a hands-up over the outermost walls. The Chief's intelligence indicated they always attacked at night, while people slept, so that the villagers wouldn't have time to organize a defense. If not for Gisou’s warning...
"Light the arrows!"
Ninsianna gave the signal. Small bursts of fire ignited from the other rooftops where the archers crouched, dipping arrows wrapped in a thin rag soaked with tallow into clay pots with live coals. The Halifians may have discovered the weapons first, but Mikhail had taught them to create 'tracer arrows' only within the last few days, a strategy which had never occurred to the raiders. Ninsianna drew her bow back to her cheek, her arm aimed high so that the descending arrows would land in the midst of the advancing raiders. The other archers followed suit. Her arm trembled, wrent with tension from the bowstring.
"Shoot!" Ninsianna shouted. She loosened her fingertips the tiniest bit so the movement wouldn't cause her aim to go amiss. On either side the other archers did the same. The whoosh of arrows sounded like the goddess' breath, the wind, followed by the screams of injured and dying men.
"Again!"
She pulled another arrow from her quiver, a regular one this time, and led the archers through a second volley, and then a third. The fiery rags betrayed the attacker's nighttime position. Unfortunately, she and the archers were still awkward with their inexperience … or how many arrows they'd carved to fill their quivers.
"I wish Pareesa was here," Yadiditum shouted. "She's our best archer!"
"Pareesa, nothing!" Homa said as she restrung her bow. "I wish Mikhail was here!"
"Keep shooting!" Ninsianna shouted, but cover fire could only do so much. With shouts of rage, the Halifians slew the three Assurians defending the narrow alley between the outermost row of houses built wall-to-wall to create a barrier from just such an attack and poured through the gap like scarab beetles swarming a carcass in the desert.
"They're inside the village!" Alalah shouted.
Ninsianna looked from the Halifians swarming both sides of the rooftop where the archers were perched and made a decision. She didn't need the whispers of She-who-is to realize they were about to be trapped.
“Fall back!” Ninsianna shouted as the warriors retreated. “Alalah, Orkedeh, that roof over there! Take Kiana with you.”
Old Behnam crept up to her, elbow over elbow on the woven reed mats which covered the roof.
“I suggest three groups,” Behnam said. “I'll take that rooftop there. The mud brick crenellation should provide a bit of cover."
Ninsianna gave him a grateful nod. Behnam might be old, but until he'd become too frail to fight hand-to-hand, he'd been a warrior of her grandfather Lugalbanda's generation and also one of the few men in the village who had ever indulged Ninsianna's curiosity about the art of warfare until Mikhail had come to their village. His suggestions were welcome.
“Yadidatum! Homa. Follow Behnam,” Ninsianna shouted. “Gisou, you’re with me!”
They ran along the rooftops, the houses of the outer ring built so that the wall of one house met the next one to create an impenetrable outer wall, until they reached a place they could descend safely. One by one, they scurried down the pine log leaning against the side of the house, branch nubs left intact to make a ladder, and ran to the new positions she'd determined was the best place to make a second stand. They scurried up ladders to their new perches on rooftops on the next ring of houses across the street and resumed shooting cover fire.
"Ninsianna, we're almost out of arrows!" someone shouted.
Ninsianna took the next shot, and then the one after it before her quiver came up empty. She looked around, frantic to find something to shoot at the men who fought hand-to-hand against the raiders in the street below. She heard a noise whipped the bow around even though she had no arrows left to fire. Her breath came out as a pounding exhalation as she recognized Pareesa’s nine-year-old brother Namhu skittering up onto the roof carrying a quiver of his sister's arrows and a miniature bow.
"Namhu!" Ninsianna scolded. "Don't come up behind us announced!"
“I just thought Pareesa would want you to have these," Namhu said. The boy handed her the extra arrows, his expression apologetic.
“Thank you!” Ninsianna said, giving silent thanks to She-who-is.
“I can help you fight,” Namhu said eagerly. “Pareesa taught me.”
In spite of what was happening on the ground below, Ninsianna smiled. She opened her mouth to tell the boy he was too young, and thought better of it. That was not what Mikhail would do.
“Yes,” Ninsianna said. “You can help us fight. You have younger sisters at home, don't you?”
“Four of them,” Namhu said. "And a baby sister!"
“These men will try to steal them,” Ninsianna said. “Go home and tell them Mikhail wants them hide in your grain cellar. If they come after you, kill them, but don't shoot at them unless they find your hiding place. Do you think you can do that for me?”
“Yes,” Namhu said.
She held her breath as the boy skittered back down the ladder amongst warriors fighting for their lives and stray Halifian arrows to make his way home. Words of the Song of the Sword came into her mind, the part about raising armies from the dust. Yes. You didn't get much closer to raising armies from dust than recruiting a nine-year-old boy to do a man’s job, or at least sending him home to defend his family if the men failed. The Halifians had a long history of taking children for ransom or even selling them into slavery.
She watched her Papa fight the attackers hand-to-hand with the other warriors from the ground. He got off a few good shots before the attackers got too close to effectively use the weapon. Both sides switched to more traditional methods of fighting, hand-to-hand combat.
Conversations she'd listened to between Mikhail and her father about the need to fortify village defenses came into her mind. Through his eyes, she could now see all the places he'd warned them that they were weak, but in their arrogance, they'd bragged that no one had ever breached Assur's walls. She watched their warriors get beaten back by Halifian mercenaries, who had constant experience performing raids. In such close quarters, it was difficult to shoot the enemy without accidently shooting one of their own villagers. She didn't want to hit her own people.
She wondered where Mikhail had gone and if he had found Pareesa.
Chapter 77