Several fell to their deaths without ever reaching him. The few brave fools that actually managed to engage him were soon dispatched.
Now, he had been entrusted with an army of ten-thousands, and he was determined to stare the Demon King Himself in the face, and dare Him to a contest of wills.
He rode now with those that were mounted, three-thousand on horse, with the aim of making the best possible time. He wished to reach the narrow pass at the east end of the Valley of Baruk before the enemy had a chance to take it. For three days they rode east, pushing the horses to the limit. The seven-thousand on foot he told to advance at an easy pace: they were to arrive fresh with their endurance intact.
Akaru's steed, which he rode without bridle, was a menacing, solitary brute-- a sleek, chestnut, wide-horned mountain bull of a species now long extinct. They were rare even in those days, and were bigger and stronger than any dray horse. The animal was notoriously ill-tempered, and none save Akaru could approach or ride him. Small wonder, since Akaru himself had raised the beast. This was no domesticated bull, but one bred to the wild, less deep in the chest and longer in the
limb, that could outpace even the fastest horse. In fact, the animal had once crushed a high-strung destrier against the rear of its own stall, when the horse had gone mad and trampled its handler. Struck head-on, the collision had crushed and impacted the destrier's head and spine upon itself, so that the horse's remains were little more than a broken, bleeding bag of broken bones with four stiff legs attached.