The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

Bessas slapped his thigh. "As I feel now, I should welcome a battle with the whole of Meroê. When—"

He wheeled, staring down the road. Along the track came faintly the sound of drums. "Puerma!" he exclaimed.

Meroê came to languid life. The sleeping soldiers awoke, yawned, and picked up their spears and shields. Others joined them. People issued from the gate, first in a trickle and then in a stream.

The guardsmen cleared the road for the approaching army. They ran up and down the sandy track, screaming at the citizens and beating them back with the shafts of their spears. Once the quick tempers of the Kushites erupted into a brawl. There was an instant of yelling. Spearheads flashed in the glare, and a dead man was dragged out of the press for his family to wail over.

The other Kushites lined up on both sides of the road. There were mop-headed men and women with tribal scars on cheeks and the kilt of Kush about their loins. There were swarms of naked black children. Bessas and his party elbowed their way to the front, ignoring the scowls of the Kushites and the movement of the men's hands towards the daggers strapped to their upper arms.

The drumming became louder. A cloud of dust appeared down the road. Out of it issued a group of whifflers with staves to clear the way. Then came a squad of drummers, madly beating complex rhythms on deep, narrow drums. The vultures flew up from their feast and flapped in circles, croaking indignantly.

After the drummers ambled General Puerma on an ass. Although the ass was one of the big white Egyptian breed, it was hardly large enough to carry the general, whose bare feet scarcely cleared the road. For Puerma was a large man, tall and rather fat, so that he must have come close to Bessas' weight. He wore a towering headdress made of a lion's mane, a cuirass of silver scales, and a kilt embroidered with gold thread. One man led the ass while another trotted alongside, holding a parasol over the general's head.

The Meroites screamed "Puerma! Puerma!" The general smiled blandly, but his smile vanished as he stared hard at Bessas and his companions before riding on.

After the general came men carrying loot. There were bags of gold dust. There were tusks, hides, horns, and plumes. A man carried a basket full of dubious brown objects.

Then came captives. Each bore a forked wooden pole about four feet long. The captive's neck was clasped in the fork of the pole and held in place by rawhide lashings, while his wrists were lashed to the long end of the fork. To avoid exhaustion, each prisoner rested the end of his pole on the shoulder of the captive in front of him.

The captives were mostly men, although there were some women and children. They were of many types. There were slender, bearded, hook-nosed, light-brown highlanders; there were squat, thick-thewed, inky-black men with full lips and slanting eyes. Some were as tall as Bessas, but thin as storks; others were equally tall but mightily muscled. Some had the lower middle front teeth missing, while some bore tribal cicatrice patterns on shoulders or buttocks. Most were completely naked, and many bore partly healed wounds. Kushites with whips and bludgeons hustled them along.