Long into the night were the men of Ishkinil's army awake, partaking in muted celebrations and commemorations, with drinks passed around and men moving from campfire to campfire, to talk, to sing, to remember.
Come the dawn and Ishkinil was already up, making preparations for the days ahead. She called together her advisors and aides, to speak with them and plan.
“Uthash should arrive in the next day or two,” she said. “It all depends on how hard he wishes to march forward. I will ride out to scout for his army, to judge its size and intent and how long we have until he arrives. Sha-kalal, I will leave you here, to prepare for his arrival. We will hold here at the watering hole, to defend it and deny him access to the water that he requires for his army. We will dig in the infantry as best we can here, while the cavalry will be deployed to sweep around the southern flank.
“We do not have much cavalry left,” Vanas noted.
“Nor do they. But we have enough. We will make them advance through arrow fire to get to us, with our own men sheltered by the trees. If we can dig and build defences on the edge of the oasis, it will give us added protection.”
“The ground here is hard and rocky,” Sha-kalal pointed out. “It was hard enough to dig to bury our dead yesterday. To construct defensive lines will be harder still.”
“I know, but it is necessary. They will have a numerical advantage, just as Ash-Negasu did, but this time we have no ridge to defend. We need this to give us the advantage we need.”
“I will see that it is done,” Sha-kalal told her.
When Ishkinil left, she went with a small escort; Anubarak and Varas, as well as a score of light cavalry and two score of mounted archers, swift enough to escape any danger but enough to provide a deterrent to small patrols of scouts.
West they rode, and north, following the road that led towards Uthash's marching army, heading out from the oasis. Already Sha-kalal had men at worked, scraping away at the hard ground around the oasis, seeking to scrape out a ditch and rampart behind it, to try and recreate the battle on the ridge from the day before on a smaller scale. Men laboured to move stones, some requiring two or three men to shift, while others dug into the ground.
Passed where the cavalry battle had taken place they rode, rounding the road that bent around the hills so that the oasis was hidden from sight. Ahead lay open land, the vast and endless deserts, of shifting sands and rocky ground, with the rocky badlands off to their right. Nothing they could see of an approaching army, no smear upon the horizon nor dust kicked up into the air by the passage of their passing. If the army was near at hand, it was not moving and was laying low.
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Anubarak frowned as he surveyed the way ahead, eyes narrowing from the glare of the sun upon the barren wastes. “They are a goodly way off,” he remarked, “If we can as yet not see them.”
A shake of the head came from Ishkinil. “Even if they were, we should at least see outriders and scouts forging ahead of the main body. Two days ago we met their cavalry; it seems unlikely they would have sent them that far ahead alone for fear of being too far apart to aid each other in case of an emergency. No, this is unusual. We must press on to see what we can find.”
On they rode, through the day and the heat, heading further into wastes and the unknown, always on alert for any sign of trouble or danger. Passed many canyons emerging from the badlands they rode, and each they stared into, checking for tracks, to see if the enemy was hiding away in them, yet in none was anything to be found. Nor were any unusual signs found on the earth marking the passing of an army; a horde that large, with many wagons to support it, could not do anything but leave behind evidence of its passing. There were a few horse tracks, here and there, evidence of the cavalry that had previously travelled down the road, but nothing beyond that.
It was not until later in the day that one of the scouts roaming ahead came riding back to meet up with them.
“Up ahead,” he stated, “A body.”
They rode forward to see what the man had discovered. At the exit from one of the canyons they found the body of a man sprawled out on the sands, the ground beneath him showing evidence of large pools of blood having soaked into it. The man’s body bore many wounds, many cuts, his clothes tattered, and in his hand, he held a scroll, the fingers clenched tight around it.
Ishkinil got down from her horse, kneeling beside the body of the man, inspecting it.
“He comes not from Uthash’s army,” Ishkinil noted.
“Who is he then?” Anubarak asked,
“He comes from Arin Avech,” she responded. “A messenger by the looks. I would say that he came through the badlands to carry a message to Uthash.”
“It was not well received by the looks of it,” Vanas noted. “They killed him slow.”
Ishkinil pulled the scroll out from between his stiff fingers, rolling it open to read.
“This is not over,” she narrated, “For ever enmity shall be between us. Ash-Negasu you may have defeated, and in that new opportunities have been opened up, and new dangers. But one day we shall meet again, and on that day, I shall cut out your heart and claim mastery over life and death.”
Ishkinil let the scroll roll up again. She turned back to the men, and while there was a look of relief in her eyes, there was also one of fell determination. “Uthash has discarded Ash-Negasu now that he has badly been weakened. He has returned home.”
“So the war is over? We have won?” Anubarak asked.
“No,” Ishkinil replied, with all certainty, “The battle has been won, but the war, the war is just beginning.”