Chapter 124 - 3: Resistance Layer by Layer — The First Battle Repels the Enemy

Chapter 124: Chapter 3: Resistance Layer by Layer — The First Battle Repels the Enemy

When the Hittites struck, the day had not yet lightened.

No horns. No war cries. Only a stretch of hoofbeats pressing out of the fog — as if the river had broken open and poured all the blackness of the north into the shoal ground.

A-Yan on the tower heard it first.

He lay at a watch opening and first saw the fog moving. The fog had been still, but now it heaved as if something were lifting it from beneath, surging south wave after wave. He froze an instant, then leapt up, snatched the dry grass from his coat, and stuffed it into the brazier.

The smoke rose.

Three piles of smoke shot up over the tower’s top almost in the same instant. The black smoke tore open the gray-white sky, like someone drawing three heavy strokes on paper.

"Light the fires!" the centurion on the wall shouted at the top of his voice.

In one instant, the thirty li of wall blazed into daylight. Torch after torch was lit — on the wall’s head, on the wall walk, at the wall’s foot — joining into three dragons of fire. On the shoal ground, the woodpiles laid down beforehand were struck by fire arrows and went up — boom — all at once. The firelight tore the fog apart and lit the shoal ground through and through — and there, inside the fog, was nothing but horsemen.

A black mass of horsemen covered half the shoal ground, pressing straight toward River-Bend Mouth.

"Drums!" Horenheb stood on the wall’s head and chopped his hand down.

The one-armed old soldier’s drumsticks struck the drumskin. Dong. Dong. Dong. Three beats, heavy as three stakes driven into the shoal ground.

The bows on the wall rose, all in one motion.

The Hittites were on them.

The first wave was horsemen, sabers snow-bright, driving straight at the shallows of River-Bend Mouth. The water on the shoal was churned to white spray under the hooves. The very foremost had just come within two hundred paces when a foreleg sank — a horse trap. The horse screamed, the rider flew from its back and crashed into the pit. The horses behind could not pull up; one after another they piled in, and the shoal fell into chaos at once.

"Shoot!"

The arrows poured down from the wall like a rain of black. Men and horses fell on the shoal in patches. But the Hittites did not pull back. They jumped from their horses, bore up under the arrow rain, and carried earth bags to fill the pits. Fill a stretch, advance a stretch. When a man fell, the ones behind picked up his bag and went on filling. When the bags ran short, they dragged over the dead men and horses to fill with. On the shoal, earth bags and men and horses churned into a dike that crept slowly forward.

"Fill them." the centurion on the wall said coldly. "The pits filled level, there are still the stakes."

They reached the stake forest.

The horse-stopping stakes stood four feet high, set slanting, two staggered rows. The Hittites rammed their earth bags against them, and the stakes burst through the bags with a crack. They hacked at the stakes with their blades; a quarter of an hour of hacking opened one gap. Inside the gap was the second row. They hacked again, advanced again. By the time they squeezed out of the stake forest, they had lost three men in ten.

"Fire oil!" Horenheb’s voice rose over the war cries.

The hidden gate below the wall opened. A few dozen soldiers rolled wooden barrels out and flung fire oil into the shallow trench behind the stake forest. One fire arrow went down, and the trench burned into a river of fire. The Hittites had just come out of the stake forest and ran head-on into the fire river. The men in front pushed back, the men behind pressed forward, and on the shoal, weeping and cursing and the screaming of horses mixed into one sound.

The first wave pulled back.

On the shoal, men and horses lay every which way. The fires still burned. The smoke rolled skyward, column after column.

Not one soldier on the wall cheered. They knew this was only the beginning.

"Call the count!" The centurions shouted, section by section.

"East section — no casualties!"

"West section — three lightly wounded!"

"River-Bend Mouth . . ." Old Da’s voice came along the wall. "River-Bend Mouth — one." He paused. "Old Kui’s arm was grazed by an arrow — a skin wound. Little River’s grandpa was grazed by a stray arrow. Nothing to worry over."

"Uncle Old River?" Seb got up from the wall’s foot. "Where is he?"

"He will not come up the wall." Old Da said. "He is still at the water gate, watching his nets."

Seb looked toward the water gate. Under the gate, Old River was indeed there. He crouched in the shallow water at the wall’s foot, a cloth bound around one arm, pressing the loosened nets back into the mud. Little River stood beside him, holding up a torch.

"Uncle!" Seb called. "Come up!"

"I will not!" Old River did not raise his head. "The nets are loose, and boats will slip through by night. They charge by day and slip through by night. These nets are worth more than this old life of mine."

Under the water gate, the nets had caught something.

Not only waterweed — half a broken spear, a Hittite leather helmet, and a dark shape slumped over the net, dead or alive no one could say. Two soldiers waded out and turned the man over. He was already gone. In his hand he still gripped a short knife.

"This one went for the nets’ bottom." Old River glanced over. "The stakes caught him. One foot lower, and he would have slipped through."

"One foot." the soldier said.

"One foot is one life." Old River said. "Every inch of these nets was reckoned in lives." He lowered his head and went on pressing the nets. "Carry him out. Dead as he is, he is still a man. Left soaking in the water, even the river is dirtied."

On the earth slope at the shoal ground’s north edge, a black horse had stood all night.

The man on it wore a red cape. He watched his men fill the pits — the pits not yet level, and a whole batch shot down by the wall’s arrows; watched them hack the stakes — one gap hacked open, and a fresh row springing up inside it; watched them charge into the river of fire, the foremost burning into men of flame while the ones behind still pressed on. In the firelight, his face was one patch of livid, one patch of white.

"General," the deputy general rode up the slope, "the first assault — eight hundred lost."

"Eight hundred." The vanguard general’s voice came through his teeth. "The ditch-fillers, the stake-hackers, the fire-chargers — all good soldiers."

"General, do we charge again?"

"Charge." the vanguard general said. "Fill it with lives, and fill it to the wall’s foot. This wall of theirs did not grow up in one day either. Twenty thousand men going up in turns — we will see whose blood runs dry first."

He wheeled his horse and looked east. To the east, those two openings lay hidden in the fog, like two shut eyes.

"The next assault," he said, "strikes the east first. There, the wall is thinnest."

Day broke.

The Hittites had not gone far. They re-formed at the shoal ground’s north edge. The wounded were carried back, the dead horses dragged away, the earth bags stacked anew. Some began watering the horses. Those horses, one after another, had sunken bellies and dull eyes.

"Half-fed horses." Seb said. "The teacher had it right. They cannot run fast, and they cannot hold out long."

"But they have more men." the northern centurion said. "Twenty thousand horse, charging in turns. And we — three thousand."

"Three thousand men and one wall." Seb said. "It is enough."

After the sun rose, they tried the river once more.

The Hittites put down three small boats. The boats were not large, seven or eight men apiece, drifting downstream toward the water gate. The men aboard held hide shields up over their upper bodies.

"Here they come!" a soldier on the wall shouted. "Small boats — three of them!"

The three boats drifted up to the barrier chains and stopped. The chains ran half a foot under the water’s face; the moment a hull pressed down on one, it held. The men aboard hacked at the chains with their blades, sending spray flying. Hack one through, and the boat surged forward — and caught on the second. By the time they reached the third, the wall’s arrows were already coming down.

Of the three boats, not one went back.

"The barrier chains," Seb said, watching from the wall, "one chain is worth one boat. A trade that pays." He turned and shouted down the wall. "Two more chains into the water! The water is cold by night — they will come again!"

"Yes!" Below the water gate, the answering soldiers shouldered the chains and went into the water. The autumn river water set their teeth chattering, but not one came back ashore. The two new chains, like two black snakes, slipped into the water without a sound.

A good while later, the Hittites moved.

This time they changed ground. The main body shifted east, pressing toward the two openings of the east section — those two openings, built last winter, where the wall was thinnest. The horsemen charged first, the foot soldiers followed carrying the scaling ladders, and the earth-bag carts, the trap carts, and the rams were all pushed forward.

"The east section." Horenheb said. "They mean to gnaw on the hard part now. Pass the word — the west section sends five hundred to the east. Old Da stays at River-Bend Mouth."

"Yes."

The battle at the east section ran from midday to dark.

The Hittites filled the trench with earth bags. The lime scattered in the trench was churned by blood and mud into a pool of gray paste. They pushed the ram, blow after blow, against the east section’s gate. The ram was a whole pine trunk, iron-bound at the head. One blow, and the gate shook; another, and the bricks in the wall shed crumbs, rustling down.

Behind the gate, over a hundred soldiers braced the gate bar with their bodies. The men on the bar were changed batch after batch. Some had the webs of their hands split open, blood running down the bar, but not one let go.

"Hold it!" The centurion’s voice was torn ragged. "While the gate stands, the section stands!"

The scaling ladders came up — over twenty at once, thrown against the wall. The men on the wall pushed the ladders outward. Where pushing would not do, they flung fire oil and hurled stones. On the platforms jutting from the wall, the archers leaned half their bodies out and shot down at the wall’s foot from the side. The Hittites on the ladders fell like wheat under the scythe, layer after layer.

"These platforms," a young soldier said, "have done great service. The men at the wall’s foot cannot be hit from the front, but from the platforms every shot tells."

"Fool’s talk." the old soldier beside him said. "This wall was drawn by Officer Seb. The platforms, the crenels, the firing positions — each and every one was reckoned out."

At dusk, below the east section’s wall, the earth bags had piled half a man high. Using the slope the bags made, the Hittites charged nearer and nearer. At the worst moment, seven or eight men clambered over the wall’s head.

On the wall’s head, the hand-to-hand fighting opened.

Old Da came hurrying from River-Bend Mouth with the North Stockade’s old company. He swung a broken spear, stabbing where the men were thickest. A-Song followed behind him, fighting with whatever he picked up. Old Kui blocked the first ladder mouth; the skin wound on his arm had long since torn open, and the blood ran down the spear shaft. He paid it no mind — one came up, he pushed one off. As he pushed off the third, another climbed over the wall below, and while he leaned out, one thrust of a blade went into his ribs.

"Old Kui!" A-Song’s eyes went red at once.

Old Kui did not fall. He reached out and gripped the man’s blade; the edge cut into his palm, and the blood dripped down. Gripping it so, with one shove of his shoulder he hurled the two of them off the wall together. As he fell, he shouted one word—

"North Stockade!"

On the wall, there was an instant of silence.

"Throw them!" Old Da’s voice split the silence. "For Old Kui — hold this opening!"

The men on the wall threw the climbers off, one after another. Those thrown rolled down the earth-bag slope and knocked down a whole patch of men climbing it.

"General!" a runner ran up before Horenheb. "The east section — they are on the wall!"

"I know." Horenheb said. "The wall’s business is for the men on the wall. Pass the word — the horsemen, out."

Ten paces behind the wall, the craftsmen had not stopped their hands.

The mud-mixing pit steamed the whole time. The brick-passers stretched from the wall’s foot to the material piles, hand passing to hand, brick to brick. Seb himself hauled a sack of earth and blocked it behind one breach. Arrows flew in from beyond the wall — some sank into the wall, some into the mud at his feet, with soft thumps. But not one man raised his head.

"Officer Seb!" someone called to him. "That stretch at the east end — three feet of wall skin gone!"

"Patch it with grass-fiber mud!" Seb shouted. "Slap on one layer first — whatever it holds off, it holds off! By night, I will drive stakes for it!"

"By night?" The man blinked.

"By night!" Seb said. "Their daylight strength is nearly spent. Endure this day through, and the wall is still ours."

The women’s carrying poles came all the way from the town to the wall’s foot.

Hot water in front, barley cakes behind, and between them a few stacks of boiled cloth strips. The leader was a tall woman with a bright voice, calling from half a li off: "Make way! Hot water coming! Cakes coming! Cloth for binding wounds coming too!"

"Sister," a brick-carrying youth said, "the arrows are flying like rain, and you still press up?"

"You think only you can hold the wall?" the woman said. "We bring one hot bite, and you shoot one more arrow. It is an account we can work out." She thrust the cloth strips at the man beside her. "My mother and I cut up all my dowry clothes and boiled them. They are clean — use them with easy hearts."

"Dowry . . ." The youth stood dumb.

"Clothes are dead; people are alive." the woman said. "Cloth strips bound on a wounded soldier’s arm are worth ten times cloth pressed at the bottom of a chest." She shouldered her pole and went toward the medical point. A stretch on, she turned and called back: "Lad! Do not let the Hittites up the wall! I am not married yet!"

At the wall’s foot, someone laughed. The laughter was short, but amid that stretch of war cries it rang out unusually bright.

The stretcher teams came from the town as well.

Twenty stretchers, forty able-bodied young men, lined from the wall’s foot to the medical point. The bearers ran steady and sure, calling the chant, their feet never stopping — one trip down, one trip up. One stretcher passed by Seb, and the soldier on it suddenly reached out and caught hold of him.

"Officer . . ." The soldier’s voice was weak, as if floating up from a well. "The wall . . . the east section . . ."

"The east section still stands." Seb took his hand. "They got up, and we threw them off. Go to the medical point with an easy heart. When your wound is healed, the wall will still be here."

The soldier let go and shut his eyes. Not dead. Fainted.

"Carry steady!" the stretcher team called. "Head low, feet high — no jolting!"

Seb stood where he was and watched the stretcher go. He turned, hoisted another sack of earth, and walked toward the breach. The wind lifted the hem of his coat, like a small flag planted on the worksite behind the wall.

When full dark fell, the northern centurion led two hundred horse out through a hidden gate south of the wall.

They lit no torches. Hooves wrapped in hemp, they hugged the wall’s foot and circled east. Around the shoal ground’s outer edge, they turned north. Twenty li out, by the post road, they saw that stretch of firelight — the Hittite grain train.

"Two hundred carts." The northern centurion lay in the grass and counted. "The escort is no more than a thousand."

"Centurion," the rider beside him said in a low voice, "burn?"

"Burn." the northern centurion said. "The grain carts lead — burn the grain. If the escort charges, shoot. No lingering. Burn and go, and circle back by the west."

Two hundred horse, like two hundred arrows, shot into the night.

The grain train burst apart. The fire ran from the head of the line to the tail, cart after cart joining into a dragon of fire. The Hittite escort scrambled up from sleep; before they had felt for their blades, the arrows were on them. Some gave chase — three li out, they found the Egyptians long gone, with only a road of burning carts behind, lighting half the sky red.

The northern sky burned red half the night.

The soldiers on the wall all saw it.

"That is our fire." the centurion said. "It burns their grain."

"Burned well." the soldiers on the wall said. "Let them taste too what it is to fight on an empty belly."

That same night, a party came to the east section’s wall as well.

The Hittites had learned sense. No horses, no torches; the foot soldiers crept bent over, carrying two short ladders, feeling their way up along the wall’s shadows. Within thirty paces, the soldiers on the wall heard them — not footsteps, but breathing. Men who have fought all day breathe heavy.

"Listen." The centurion pressed his ear to the crenel. "Thirty paces out — at least two hundred men."

"Do we hit them?" someone asked.

"Wait." the centurion said. "Wait until their ladders reach the wall. Ladders on the wall, men halfway up — that is when they are easiest hit."

The two short ladders rose against the wall without a sound. The Hittites climbed, extremely slow. Halfway up, a stretch of torches suddenly flared on the wall’s head. Then came boiling water, stones, and arrows pelting down on their heads.

"The wall at night," the centurion shouted down at them, "is higher than the wall by day!"

The men below retreated, rolling and crawling. The two short ladders still hung on the wall, like two snakes with the sinew drawn out of them.

"They forgot." the old soldier on the wall said. "The wall has eyes at night."

"What eyes?" the recruit asked.

"The towers." the old soldier said. "The towers’ smoke reported them long ago. The west section’s two hundred men were already waiting at the wall’s foot." He looked toward the towers. "By day this wall leans on men; by night, on the towers. The towers do not sleep, so the wall does not go blind."

In the medical point, the lamp burned all night.

The wounded were carried in one after another. The old army physician went over them one by one with his apprentices. The heavy cases first, the light ones after. The heavy got medicine, stopped bleeding, and hot water poured down; the light sat outside the door and bound their own cloth. One young soldier, an arrow in his arm, waiting to be dressed, was still laughing: "Worth it. This one arrow of mine traded for one cart of their grain."

"None of your chatter." the old army physician said. "The arrow sits half a finger from the bone. A little deeper, and this arm would have been given back to the Hittites."

"Given back?" the young soldier said. "What would they do with my arm? Even my life — that I would not give them."

The whole room of wounded laughed. Pain was mixed into the laughter. But it was a pain only the living had.

The apprentices were run off their feet. One small apprentice tripped carrying water; the basin tipped over, and the water ran across the floor. He scrambled up, his eyes reddening.

"What are you crying for." the old army physician said. "Water spilled is boiled again. The basin is not broken and your hands are not hurt, so nothing has gone wrong." He paused. "In wartime, not one hand in a medical point may tremble. Hold the tears back, and put the water on to boil again."

The small apprentice clenched his teeth, picked up the basin, and went to boil water again. This time he carried it steady and sure.

Only in the small hours were the wounded in the medical point all settled. The old army physician sat on the doorsill and entered the night’s account, stroke by stroke. When he had finished, he looked up toward the wall. "In the first battle," he said, "the medical point failed no one. In the next, it must fail no one either."

"Master," the small apprentice came over and said quietly, "I want to learn to bind wounds. Bind them faster, and less blood runs."

"Learn." the old army physician said. "From tomorrow, you practice on cloth first. Practice a hundred times, and the hands outrun the head."

"A hundred times . . ."

"Too many?" the old army physician said. "When I was young, I practiced three hundred times on one arm." He held out his own hand; it was covered with old scars. "A physician’s hands are all trained so. With scars on the hands, the wounded suffer the less."

The small apprentice looked at that hand a long time. The light at the sky’s edge fell on those old scars, like a crumpled page written full of characters.

The next day, the Hittites went mad.

Before dawn, they pressed in along the whole line. Twenty thousand horse — all but the camp guards — threw themselves forward. On the shoal ground, the hoofbeats rolled like thunder. Earth bags, scaling ladders, rams — not one thing missing, all hurled at the east section.

"They are desperate." Horenheb said. "The grain is gone and the horses are hungry. If the wall does not fall today, tomorrow they will not have the strength to walk back."

"Pass the word." he said. "East section — hold to the death. West section — send half your men away. River-Bend Mouth — Old Da, not one step back."

Below the east section’s wall, the ground turned into a field of slaughter.

The ram struck the whole morning through. The gate split in three places. Three batches of scaling ladders were brought up. The men on the wall fell, and fresh men took their places. When the fire oil ran out, they boiled water. The boiling water poured down, and a stretch of white steam rose below the wall. When the stones ran out, they broke bricks off the wall’s head. When the broken bricks were spent, they used broken spears for clubs.

On the tower, the smoke rose — all three piles lit.

A-Yan stood at the tower’s top, lighting the smoke and watching toward the wall. Thirty li away, the firelight reached the sky. The war cries came in gusts on the north wind, like a long fleet passing in some very far place.

"Three smokes!" he shouted down the tower. "The wall needs reinforcements!"

"Reinforcements are gone!" the old soldier below shouted back. "The general has moved the west section! You hold the tower, and do not shift your eyes!"

"I cannot shift them." A-Yan said quietly. His eyes ached and swelled, but he did not dare blink once.

In the town behind the wall, the people did not hide either.

The war cries rolled over from the north in gusts. The town’s old folk sat on their own doorsills and listened with shut eyes. Listening a while, one would say to a neighbor: "East section." Listening a while more: "The west section is all right." They had listened to the north wind a whole life, and now they could hear in the wind whether the wall was safe or not.

"Pa," a son urged, "come inside and take shelter."

"Shelter?" the old man said. "If the wall falls, hiding in the house gets you crushed the flatter." He shut his eyes and listened again. "Listen — the east section’s sound has thinned. The Hittites’ later strength is failing."

A child asked his grandpa: "Grandpa, what do Hittites look like?"

"Same as you — two eyes and one nose." the old man said. "Only their hearts grow in other people’s land. They are forever wanting to turn our land into theirs."

"Then how come they cannot beat us?"

"Because under our feet is our own land." the old man said. "Standing on your own land, your feet do not float and your hands do not shake."

Past midday, the Hittites’ strength slackened.

On the earth slope north of the shoal, the red cape still stood.

He had watched from dawn to midday — watched his horsemen charge and fall back; watched the ram break before the gate, the ladders lie crooked on the shoal; watched that wall drenched in blood, once and again, and still it would not come down. His face went from iron-gray to ashen white.

"General," the deputy general rode over, "the horses are done. Half-fed horses cannot hold out to the wall’s foot. Today . . ."

"Today?" The vanguard general’s voice was hoarse as a north wind over stone. "Twenty thousand horse, three thousand garrison. Two days." He looked at that wall a long time. "What is this wall raised with?"

No one answered.

He slowly drew his blade and cut through the flagpole at his side with one stroke. The flag toppled and lay on the shoal, like a bird with a broken wing.

"Withdraw." he said. "Let the living carry what happened here to the commander-in-chief."

The horses were truly finished. Mid-charge, horses sank to their knees on soft legs. Men rolled from their backs and scrambled back, crawling and tumbling. The ladders could not be carried either; two of them lay crooked on the shoal with no one to right them.

"Do you see it?" Horenheb stood on the wall’s head. "Their horses were the first to admit defeat."

"General," the northern centurion wiped the blood from his face, "do we pursue?"

"No pursuit." Horenheb said. "Scattered men are not pursued. They are running back — let them run. The men who run back will tell today’s battle to the ones behind."

At dusk, the Hittites fell back.

Not a withdrawal. A retreat. They fell back with no order to it, like a tide with its strength gone, draining off the shoal layer by layer. The wounded were not carried, the ladders not gathered in, and the ram, broken in two, stood alone at the wall’s foot.

The soldiers on the wall watched them the whole way — back across the shoal ground, back across the river, back into the northern dusk.

"Did we win?" someone asked quietly.

"We won." Horenheb said. "The first battle."

The shouting began at the wall’s east end.

First a few soldiers flung their caps into the sky. Then the whole section, then thirty li of wall. The shouting rolled like waves, one pushing the next: "We won! We won! The Hittites are falling back!"

The town behind the wall burst out as well.

Women, children, and old folk all ran out. Some carried hot soup, some held torches, some stood with children in their arms gazing up at the wall. The old flatbread seller set his stall at the wall’s foot and took no money for his flatbreads: "Today the flatbread is on me! You who hold the wall — eat your fill!"

"Old uncle," a soldier said, "your household has moved south. Where did the flour come from?"

"I carried it back!" the old man said. "The people came back, so the flour had to come back too. With the wall to lean on, my heart sits steady. When you have eaten your fill, the wall will hold."

The children ran at the wall’s foot, picking up the broken arrows stuck in the earth. One child gathered a full double handful and ran to ask the centurion: "Can these arrows still be used?"

"The broken ones cannot." the centurion said.

"Then give them to us." the child said. "My pa says arrowheads, melted down, can be forged into plowshares."

"Take them." the centurion said. "The first battle’s arrowheads, forged into the first season’s plowshares. A trade that pays."

The children ran off cheering. A woman chased after them, calling: "No grabbing! Half to each!"

That night, Seb went up the wall.

He led the craftsmen in driving stakes, patching the wall, slapping on mud. At the east section’s breach, where three feet of wall skin had come away, he had them layer on grass-fiber mud. One layer on, wait for it to half dry, another on. Under the torches, that wall, like a wounded soldier having his dressings changed, grew whole again, little by little.

"Officer," an old craftsman said, "rest a while yourself. The wall can be mended tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow." Seb said. "They have fallen back — not gone for good. The next time they come harder. A wound on the wall left overnight is a death."

He crouched before the breach and marked the wall bricks with his charcoal stick — mark one spot, patch one spot. Drawing into the small hours, he suddenly stopped his hand. "Two more platforms." he said. "Today, the east section’s flanking fire was still thin."

"Where?"

"Here, and here." Seb drew. "Next battle, they will surely come at the east section again. The platforms are built into the wall — from outside, they cannot be seen."

"That means opening up the wall’s body . . ."

"Open it." Seb said. "From now on, two feet mended every day. This wall must be like a man — the more it is fought, the sturdier it grows."

He thought a moment and added: "The pits — one foot deeper. The stakes — one tenth denser. This shoal, next time, will keep them lying one more day."

The things on the shoal were all gathered in the next day.

Broken blades, arrowheads, torn hide shields, and the ram broken in two. Seb led the men in tallying them one kind at a time. Arrowheads — melted down for plowshares. Broken blades — back to the furnace for spade heads. Hide shields — cut up for hand guards. That ram, a whole trunk of northern pine, split open would make the tower-top’s floorboards exactly.

"Spoils of war," Seb said, "not one thing wasted. Everything they brought is material. The wall to mend, the towers to raise, the land to plant — every last one has its use."

"Officer," a soldier came with an armful of arrow shafts, "what about the shafts?"

"Sun-dry them and sharpen them." Seb said. "Their shafts are longer than ours. Long shafts are just right for the horse barricades’ spikes."

"If the Hittites knew," the soldier laughed, "that all their household goods were being nailed into our wall, they would die of rage."

"Die of it they will not." Seb said. "Next battle, they will bring more. Whatever they bring, we take in."

The earth bags were all left behind too. The earth bags heaped like a small hill on the shoal — Seb had them carried back one by one. The torn ones were emptied, the earth sifted, mixed with lime, and made into fresh mud; the sound ones were stacked at the wall’s foot, kept as a makeshift barricade for the east section’s breach.

"In the first battle," Seb said, "they helped us haul the shoal’s material to the wall’s foot." He patted the neat stack of bags. "This stack can save a wall in the next battle."

On the tower, A-Yan had also changed the three piles of smoke to one.

One smoke — peace.

He spread the grass paper on his knees and drew, stroke by stroke. The wall, the shoal, the broken ram. As he drew, his hands began to shake. He stopped the charcoal and rubbed his hands together. Not from cold. From the fear after.

"Fear after is a good thing." The old soldier below the tower had come up at some point. "Knowing fear, next time you are more careful. Once you truly fear nothing, death is not far off."

A-Yan nodded. He folded the grass paper and tucked it into his coat. On it, crooked and unsteady, was the drawing of the northern border’s first battle.

Early on the third day, the medical point was so quiet the water in the pot could be heard.

The young soldier who had laughed and said "one arrow for one cart of grain" did not pull through. His arrow wound had been dressed that same day. But that night, the wound took a fever, and the man began to rave. The old army physician kept watch over him two nights and tried every way there was. At the first cockcrow of the third day, he was gone.

The small apprentice crouched on the doorsill, sobbing in spasms. The old army physician did not weep. He sat under the lamp and entered the young soldier’s name into the medical ledger, stroke by stroke.

"Master," the small apprentice looked up, "did you not say that with the heavy first and the light after, everyone could be saved?"

"That was the hope." the old army physician said. "A physician gives hope. A life — sometimes it cannot be given back." He paused. "Remember it. For every name more on the ledger, from now on we must carry one part more of care."

He closed the ledger, walked to the door, and looked toward the wall. The day was just lightening, and the men on the wall still stood.

That day, Seb went through the account again, from top to bottom.

"Lightly wounded — sixty-one." he reported. "Badly wounded — nineteen. Arrows spent — fifty thousand. Fire oil — eleven barrels. Stakes broken — fifty-seven. Nets torn in two places. Wall skin, three feet gone at the east section."

"Men," Horenheb asked, "how many lost?"

Seb’s voice sank low. "Twenty-three." He paused. "Old Kui of the North Stockade, at the east section, went over the wall with a man in his arms. And that lad in the medical point — the day he took his arrow, he was still laughing that one arrow traded for one cart of grain. This morning, he did not pull through."

Neither man spoke. The torches on the wall crackled.

"Write it down." Horenheb said. "Not one may be missed in the writing. When this war is done, a stele will be raised on the wall. Their names will be on it."

"I have them written." Seb said. "The teacher said — with the account kept clear, a man lives unconfused."

"Your teacher has taught you everything." Horenheb said.

"He never taught how to keep the account of the dead." Seb said. "That account I learned myself, in the north."

On the third day, the shoal ground went quiet.

The Hittite camp still stood. But the fires were fewer by three tenths. The lookouts reported down: they were breaking camp. The horsemen were falling back, company after company, northward. The wounded went first, then the men without horses. Last of all went that crooked flag.

"They are running." the northern centurion said.

"Let them run." Horenheb said. "Half-fed horses, and half-empty grain sacks on their backs. Chase them now, and they will stake their lives. Chase them not, and back in their camp they will carry the word everywhere for us."

He paused. "Twenty thousand horse could not take a wall held by three thousand men. That one word works better than a thousand speeches of ours."

"Then . . . we just watch?"

"Watch." Horenheb said. "Watch them go. The slower they go, the more afraid they are. A frightened soldier, next time he comes, his hands will shake before anything."

The soldiers on the wall watched — watched the Hittites sink into the northern sky, little by little.

On the tower, A-Yan saw one man.

At the very rear of the column, a man in a red cape reined in his horse. Alone, he stopped in the middle of the shoal ground, facing the wall, and stood there a long time. The wind lifted his cape, like a flame burning on the shoal that would not go out.

"That is their vanguard general." the old soldier on the tower said. "Two days he stood on that earth slope."

"What is he looking at?" A-Yan asked.

"The wall." the old soldier said. "Our wall. The broken ram. The men he left on the shoal." He paused. "He is memorizing it. Once memorized — next time, he will come again."

"Then we . . ."

"We memorize too." the old soldier said. "He watches the wall; we watch him. What he memorizes is hate; what we memorize is his way of fighting." He clapped A-Yan on the shoulder. "A man on a tower must not only see, but remember. Once it is remembered, the wall grows taller and taller."

That cluster of red paused on the shoal a while, then at last moved. It followed the column and sank, little by little, into the northern dusk. On the shoal ground, only the wind was left again.

The victory report went south early on the third day.

The messenger was the young soldier out of the North Stockade — A-Song. He rode the same horse that had carried the bad tidings, only this time what he carried at his chest was not a cry for aid but a victory report, written in Horenheb’s own hand, and few words:

"The Hittite vanguard, twenty thousand horse, attacked the wall two days. At River-Bend Mouth and the east section alike, they were beaten back. Two hundred carts of their grain train burned. The enemy has withdrawn north. The northern border’s first battle — victory."

Seb sent a letter too. It was for his teacher, and on it were no words, only a drawing: one wall, a trench below it, two rows of stakes behind the trench, and on the wall’s head a small flag planted. In the corner of the drawing, one line of small characters:

"The half-fed horses were first to admit defeat."

The victory report entered the new capital on the morning of the sixth day.

The messenger’s horse had run two horses to death on the road. The man rolled off the horse’s back and raised the report, his voice torn ragged: "The northern border — great victory—"

This time, the common people before the palace gate heard it first.

"Great victory!" someone shouted. "The north has won!"

"Won!" The whole street took up the shout. The water-carriers, the flatbread sellers, the carters — all stopped. One old woman caught hold of the man beside her and asked over and over: "Truly won? The Hittites truly gone back?"

"Gone back!" the man said. "Twenty thousand horse could not gnaw through our wall!"

"I said so all along." The old woman’s tears came down at once. "With General Horen, with those walls, the north is steady."

In the court, the war ministry’s three old generals passed the victory report among them. The eldest read it once, and read it again. "Good." he said. "Good. This battle was fought with clear understanding."

"Clear it was." another said. "Twenty thousand horse and three days of grain, all thrown away on the shoal. For the Hittites to think this one clear, they will need until the grass yellows through."

"Once the grass yellows through," the eldest said, "they will come again. But the wall is growing too." He paused. "This time, the wall grows ahead of them."

The pharaoh slapped the victory report on the table and said one word: "Reward."

"The northern border’s officers and men — reward. The craftsmen who mended the wall — reward. The boats that carried the grain — reward." He paused. "One thing more — send the decree to every prefecture and county: the northern border’s wall was bought with blood. From now on, whoever dares to short the north’s grain, material, medicine, or wages — he need not wait for military law. I will take his cap off first."

The hall went quiet an instant. In the old guard’s rows, one after another, the heads sank lower.

In the courtyard of the Chief Construction Bureau, Lu Zhu had received Seb’s drawing too.

Alone, he looked at it a long time under the lamp. The wall in the drawing was crooked and unsteady, yet the trench below the wall, the stakes behind the trench, and the small flag on the wall’s head — not one of them was missing.

"Hapy." he said suddenly.

"Teacher."

"Go, and have this drawing mounted." Lu Zhu said. "Hang it above my desk."

"Teacher," Hapy asked quietly, "this drawing is . . . not much to look at."

"The drawing is not much." Lu Zhu said. "But this is what the northern wall looked like when it won its first battle." He paused. "That Seb — his drawing charcoal has been dipped in his own life."

In the upper room of the deep mansion, the old noble had heard the victory report too.

He stood behind the window a long time without moving. At last he said slowly: "One battle won, and they are this pleased."

"My lord," the thin tall man said, "the north’s account . . ."

"The account is still rolling." the old noble said. "First battle, twenty thousand horse. Behind them, eighty thousand more. How long will their wall go on needing mending? How much grain will it eat? How many wages will it pay out?" He turned around. "Winning is a good thing. But the account of going on winning is larger still." He drank a sip of tea. "Wait. The Hittite commander-in-chief has not yet made his move."

On the section of wall held by the North Stockade’s old company, Old Da lit three sticks of incense. The incense had been sent north in former years at the chief priest’s commission, and he had never been able to bring himself to burn it. The three sticks, facing north, he set in a crenel.

"For the North Stockade." he said. "For Old Kui on its wall. For the Mountain-Pass Fort, for the River Fort." He paused. "The wall held. You did not die for nothing."

Fifty-eight men, all at once, bowed toward the north. The wind fanned the incense tips bright, like a few of the north’s stars fallen on the wall.

When A-Song had bowed, he straightened up. "Squad leader," he said, "I want to go back and see the North Stockade."

"What is the hurry." Old Da said. "Wait until the war is done. The North Stockade’s ground will not run off."

"It is not the ground I want to see." A-Song said. "I want to see whether the wall is still straight."

Old Da looked at him a while. "Straight." he said. "The North Stockade’s wall is straight at all times." He clapped A-Song on the shoulder. "When the war is done, I will go back with you. Outside the stockade, we will light three piles of smoke again. This time, smoke of peace."

"Smoke of peace." A-Song said. "One smoke, peace."

Under the water gate at River-Bend Mouth, Old River was mending the nets.

The nets were torn in two places, cut by blades. He sat in the shallow water, sewing stitch by stitch. Little River crouched beside him, learning to thread the needle. The moonlight fell, and the shadows of the grandfather and grandson swayed on the water, back and forth.

"Grandpa," Little River said, "are the Hittites really not coming?"

"They will come again." Old River said. "But these nets I must mend first. With the nets mended, whenever they come, they cannot slip through."

"What if they come by day?"

"By day?" Old River laughed. "By day, River-Bend Mouth has the wall, the stakes, and three thousand arrows. Do you take this water gate for paper pasted together?" He bit the thread through and tugged the net. "Remember it, boy. The north’s folk lean on the wall by day and the nets by night. The wall and the nets — they are our lives."

Little River nodded. He looked up at the wall. The torches on it glowed one by one, red. Suddenly he said: "Grandpa, when I am grown, I will hold this water gate too."

"Good." Old River said. "First learn the nets. A man who holds a water gate must first understand the water."

On the third night, men came again outside River-Bend Mouth.

Swimmers again. Two of them, watercraft so fine that entering the water they raised not one ripple. They hugged the riverbed, feeling toward the water gate. At the nets, one went for the upstream side, one for the downstream. The upstream one struck the stakes; the downstream one had worked half his body under the net when he suddenly went still.

The net moved. The bells on it — the pottery shards Seb had hung there later — rang.

"They are here!" The soldiers on the wall had long been waiting. A torch shone down and lit that half body, caught in the net, struggling for its life.

"Haul!"

The net came up. The man was soaked through, his face purple with held breath. The other was long gone without a trace.

"Question him." Horenheb said.

The old soldier interpreter questioned him a long while. At first the man played dead; later he could not hold out and spat out a few words: the vanguard had fallen back. The commander-in-chief had ordered that the men he had lost should carry a message home. What message, he did not know. He had only come to probe the water road. It would not do tonight, and would not do tomorrow night.

"Tomorrow night you need not come." Horenheb said. "Go back and tell your commander-in-chief. This water gate was sewn shut by Egyptians with their own lives. It is sewn dead. Whoever comes, no one slips through."

He let the man go. The man thrashed in the water a few strokes and vanished into the night.

"General," the northern centurion said, "let him go, just like that?"

"Let him go." Horenheb said. "Keeping his mouth is worth more than keeping his life."

The grain came in on the fourth day.

Old Camel’s fleet made land by daylight. This time, no groping in the dark. The north bank at River-Bend Mouth was thronged with people — unloading grain, loading material, delivering medicine — busy and bustling, like a market day.

"Eight trips, not one short." Old Camel stood at the prow and called to Seb. "The Chief Builder also has me ask one thing — what does the wall still lack?"

"Men." Seb said. "The second line’s towers are five short. The third line’s Mountain-Pass forts have not yet broken ground."

"Men are following behind." Old Camel said. "The second batch of hired workmen, three hundred of them, is already on the road. And on Tia’s register, four hundred more names have been set down. However many the north needs, the south sends."

"And medicine." Seb said.

"The medicine — Shafi has gone over the list again." Old Camel said. "The wound medicine is doubled. She says, the first battle fought, the north’s medicine must follow the new count."

Seb nodded. He stood on the shoal a while and suddenly said: "Uncle Old Camel, thank the teacher for me."

"For what?"

"For those three lines of his." Seb said. "Half-fed horses cannot last three battles. This battle, their horses were the first to admit defeat."

"I said so." Old Camel laughed. "The things your teacher reckons — when have they ever been wrong?"

At the edge of the town behind the wall, the first border household moved back.

It was the family of the old woman who had gone one li out and turned back home for the pot. On the donkey cart were the same household goods, but on top of them now lay a string of garlic and a bundle of dried dates. The old woman stood at the door and felt her own doorframe. "Back." she said. "The door is still the door, and the wall is still the wall."

"The wall won." her son said. "Only so did we dare come back."

"It was not the wall that won." the old woman said. "It was the people behind the wall who won." She lifted the pot down from the donkey’s back and set it on the stove. "Go, fetch firewood. Tonight, I will steam a pot of flatbread. Send a few up to the men on the wall too."

The fire in the stove was lit. The smoke crept out of the chimney, one fine thread, drifting into the northern dusk. The neighboring households saw it, and their minds stirred too: "The first family is back — what are we waiting for?" The next day, on the post road, the carts and horses coming back were one string longer.

On the five towers’ worksites, the sound of tamping came twice as dense as the days before.

With the first tower standing, the five behind it all had their model. Seb split the craftsmen into five crews, one crew to a tower. Crew vied with crew: you rammed one layer, I rammed two; you rose three feet today, I would rise five tomorrow. On the worksites, the work chants rose and fell, and even the north wind was churned warm.

"No grabbing, any of you." Seb came on his rounds, looking at each in turn. "Speed is wanted. But a tower is a thing that must stand a hundred years. Whoever grabs out a crooked tower — I will have his pulled down."

"Set your mind easy, Officer!" a crew leader shouted. "Our lines are checked every day!"

"Checked is right." Seb said. "The wall has won a battle. The towers must not lose to haste."

The three hundred newly arrived hired workmen were scattered into the worksites. The names on Tia’s register fell, one by one, onto stakes, lines, and rammers. The nine-fingered veteran now had charge of all the line-checking; the five towers’ lines were all his. Leaning on a wooden staff, he walked from tower to tower, three rounds a day.

"Old uncle," Seb said, "with those legs of yours, three rounds a day is a hard pull. Make it two."

"Three." the nine-fingered veteran said. "My eyes can still serve. While the eyes serve, the legs must keep up." He paused. "The thing a line-checker fears most is going crooked himself first. One round more from me, and the towers are one part straighter."

Seb urged him no more. He stood among the five towers and looked north. The northern sky was empty. But he knew what that emptiness was filled with — the wall, the pits, the stakes, the nets, and these five towers growing upward.

"Once all five towers stand," he said in a low voice, "the northern border’s sky will never come down again."

That night, Horenheb called the centurions to the middle section again.

This time, not to assign. To go back over the battle.

"In the first battle, what was fought well?" he asked.

"The nets and stakes at River-Bend Mouth." one centurion said. "Not one boat or man of theirs got through."

"The east section’s platforms." another said. "The flanking fire saved the wall."

"The horsemen and the grain road." the northern centurion said. "One fire burned away half their life."

"All written down." Horenheb said. "Now speak of what was fought badly."

A moment of silence. A centurion with a graying beard stepped out. "The pits on the shoal were dug too shallow. Their horses went in and could climb out. Next time, one foot deeper."

"One more." Seb said. "The east section’s breach began with the wall skin cracking first. That stretch was built last winter, and the frost has turned it crumbly. Before the next battle, I will re-ram the east section through."

"Granted." Horenheb said. "A wound on the wall left overnight is a death. You taught that."

"And grain." the wounded storehouse clerk said, on his crutch. "In the first battle, the men on the wall ate two meals a day. Next battle, it must be three. Holding a wall on an empty stomach, even the arrows drift."

"The grain I will make up for you." Horenheb said. "From tomorrow, the men on the wall eat three meals. Not one meal may be short."

"And medicine." the old army physician said. "Three medical points are not enough. From the east section down, carrying a man to a medical point takes close to an hour. Next battle, set one more point behind the east section’s wall."

"Set it up." Horenheb said. "Wherever you say, there it goes."

"And the towers." The old soldier on tower duty, begged by A-Yan into bringing the drawing, spoke with the tower-top’s wind in his voice. "The tower’s watch openings need one more, facing east. These two days, the shoal ground to the east has been half hidden by fog."

"Open it." Seb said. "Tomorrow I will go up and alter it. Once it is altered, A-Yan will redraw that stretch of shoal to the east from the tower."

"And the signals." Old Da said. "Changing the watch on the wall at night, we know men by sight, not by voice. In the first battle, the password was called twice, and once the west section’s reinforcements were nearly taken for Hittites."

"The password changes." Horenheb said. "From tonight, the call is ’Wall,’ and the answer ’Tower.’ One word — it cannot go wrong."

"Wall — Tower." The centurions repeated it in low voices. Two words, in the north’s night wind, like two stones knocked together, clean and crisp.

"Dismissed." Horenheb said. "From tomorrow, the work on the wall follows Seb’s plans. Wherever he says mended, it is mended. Wherever he says one foot deeper, it is one foot deeper."

When the meeting broke up, there was already white at the sky’s edge. Horenheb stood on the wall’s head and looked north. The northern sky was empty. The campfires were gone, the smoke was gone. But he knew that was no peace.

"General," Seb came over, "rest a while yourself."

"I cannot settle." Horenheb said. "They have fallen back — the ones behind will be coming."

"The ones behind," Seb said, "how many?"

"Eighty thousand, less twenty thousand." Horenheb said. "The vanguard has eaten a loss, so the commander-in-chief will come himself. What comes next time are soldiers raised up on full-fed horses." He paused. "This wall must be thicker, higher, faster."

"I will start work tonight." Seb said.

"What is the hurry." Horenheb said. "Sleep first. The wall must be mended, and men must sleep. If you go down, who draws the plans?"

Seb said nothing. He leaned on a crenel and looked north. Looking, his eyes would no longer stay open. He was too tired. These two days, all counted together, he had slept less than ten hours.

"General," he said drowsily, "when do you say they will come again?"

Horenheb did not answer. He gazed north a long while. "When the grass yellows through." he said.

Seb nodded. He took out his charcoal stick and, by the last of the moonlight, drew one last line on the wall bricks — the position of the new platform for the next battle.

"This plan," he said in a low voice, "tomorrow, it goes built into the wall."

"The next battle," Horenheb asked suddenly, "how do you mean to build?"

"The east section first, then River-Bend, then the whole line." Seb said. "The east section re-rammed, two platforms added; at River-Bend Mouth, two chains more, and the stakes one tenth denser; the crenels along the whole line made up and raised half a foot. The pits on the shoal one foot deeper, and beyond the stake forest, one more layer of sharp stakes buried — whittled from the broken spear shafts they left behind."

"How many days?" Horenheb asked.

"Before the snow." Seb said. "When the grass yellows through, they come. Our wall must grow one stretch taller before the snow."

"Good." Horenheb said. "At dawn, I will send up a memorial. The northern works still need more men. You draw the plans; I get the men. The wall races the snow."

Neither man spoke again. The moonlight lay on the wall, white and vast, like a thin snow fallen before its time. The north wind came over the shoal and set the charcoal in Seb’s hand faintly aglow.

In the north, the wind rose.

The wind came from the far north, carrying shreds of withered grass, over the shoal ground, over the wall’s head, blowing south. On the shoal, the charred cart ruts and the fallen flags still held the first battle’s shadow. Where the wind passed, there was a sound, extremely light — as if, very far away, more men, more horses, more fires were packing up to march.

And behind the wall, the five towers’ foundations had already broken ground.

The sound of tamping carried from thirty li away, one blow after another. That sound and the north wind, one south and one north, were like two men sharpening knives across the whole stretch of shoal ground, each grinding his own blade, blow by blow.

Neither blade had yet left its sheath.

The north wind rolled the ash on the shoal up, layer by layer. The wall was still the same wall. But the men on it knew the first battle had been won by the works, by the grain, and by half-fed horses that were first to admit defeat. And to the north, in the camp of those eighty thousand, the grass had already yellowed through. This time, what came were horses fed full, blades sharpened, and that commander-in-chief who had never once struck. Behind the wall, the sound of tamping went on day and night, like drums beaten early for the next battle. The clouds at the sky’s edge pressed low. The northern border’s first snow was near.