Against the Tide of Years

by S. M. Stirling

He clapped hands, and one of the guards by the door ducked out. A few minutes later two more entered the room, pushing a prisoner before them. The man was tall, taller than either of the burly Hittite guards, and had his hands tied behind his back—his elbows, rather, which looked extremely uncomfortable. His chin had been shaved at some point and was now sprouting oak-brown stubble; his long hair and droopy mustaches were much the same color, and his eyes were dark blue. The remnants of his clothes were plaid, in garish colors. Trousers and shirt and jacket, Ian noted with interest. He also carried a powerful stench, but that was probably the result of imprisonment. A partially healed wound crusted one side of his head, and his eyes were a little bright with fever.

  Another trooper lugged along a sampling of equipment. The Arnsteins’ eyes narrowed. A broken-off spearhead, with a flame-shaped head and short socket; round-tipped bronze sword with flared-wing hilts cast on; a conical helmet with a model of a raven attached.

  On a suspicion, Ian addressed him in the Iraiina language: “Who are you, warrior, and what is your clan and tribe? ”

  The man started violently and spoke in machine-gun-rapid language. Ian strained and could almost follow him; it was like the haunting pseudo-familiarity of Italian to someone who could speak Spanish.

  “ You know them? ” Tudhaliyas said.

  “ Not them,” Doreen answered. “Relatives of theirs, very far to the north and west . . . Ian, I’d say this guy was some sort of Central European, by his looks. Probably, and if he’s typical.”

  Ian nodded thoughtfully, tugging at his beard. Physical appearance tended to follow the same geographical lines here as in the twentieth, roughly—but only roughly, of course.

  “ These also we took, but they don’t seem to belong with the rest,” Tudhaliyas said hopefully.

  “ I’ll say they don’t,” Ian said thoughtfully, as a carpet was laid on the table and the plunder set forth.

  Steel knife, he thought. A bowie, to be exact. Steel spearheads. And resting in the center, a double-barreled shotgun, flintlock variety. The prisoner stirred uneasily as Doreen took it up, then shouted and tried to dive for the floor when she pulled back the hammers, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger.

  Click-ting, and a shower of sparks from the right-side pan; the flint was missing from the hammer on the left. The prisoner raised his head cautiously, opening his eyes.

  “Well, that tells us something,” Ian said as the man was led away again. Namely, that this man has seen firearms in action but doesn’t know enough to know that one wasn’t loaded.

  Tudhaliyas and his queen had tensed as well. “ No thunder,” he said shakily.

  “ Well, there goes the gunpowder monopoly we thought we’d have, once,” Doreen muttered in English, putting the weapon down. “Damn Walker, anyway.”

  “No, it needs . . . food,” Ian said. They were speaking Akkadian, and Akkadian didn’t have a word for gunpowder. Yet.

  “Well, that settles it,” he said to the Hittite monarchs. “Your barbarian invasion is definitely linked to Walker—Walkheear.”

  Tudhaliyas shuddered. “The Wolf Lord,” he muttered. “We’ve heard a good deal of him. Not least from Ahhiyawa refugees, since he killed their king and took his throne. It’s said he has a witch-queen who sacrifices men to a Dark Lady in abominable rites and from their blood brews—ah, that she practices magic.”

  Ian and Doreen exchanged a glance. She’d kicked him under the table more than once in their joint diplomatic career, and probably Zuduhepa had just given her husband the same service, reminding him that the newcomers probably practiced similar sorcery, only this looked to be on their side.

  Ian cleared his throat. Hong did practice all manner of abominations when she got the chance, and from her file and her record in Alba, she probably did dress them up in cultic garb. Walker would cheerfully turn that to use, of course.

  “ Walker is a rebel against our rulers, just as Kurunta of Tarhuntassa is against you,” he said.

  “So here we have Lord Kurunta of Tarhuntassa in rebellion against the Great Throne, probably with the Wolf Lord’s aid; and these barbarians invading us from the northwest, also with the Wolf Lord’s aid,” Tudhaliyas said. “And we have Wiulusiya, which may not be a loyal vassal . . . and Tarhuntassa will make it difficult to receive aid from your people in Babylon, since the best road—Carchemish—runs on the edge of his territory.”

  Ian sighed. It was becoming increasingly obvious what they’d have to do. The Republic calls, he thought, and surprised himself at how little irony there was in it. I’m getting patriotic in my old age.

  “Well, always interesting to see a new town,” Doreen said in English, reading his expression.

  “No,” Ian said. “I need someone here to coordinate . . . and besides, my dear, if things go wrong . . . well, it would be a hard day for David if we were both there, wouldn’t it? ”

  Doreen scowled. “ You fight dirty,” she said.

  “Of course,” he replied. “I fight to win.”

  The Hittites were beginning to look uncomfortable with this consultation in a language they could not speak. “My Sun,” Ian said to Tudhaliyas, “we have a means of . . . flying over . . . difficulties. And soon we should knit all the strands of our strength together, testing our opponents as we do.”

  “Sorry to interrupt your honeymoon, Sis,” Brigadier Hollard said, reining his camel in beside hers. He lifted his hat and wiped at the sweat on his face and neck with an already sodden bandanna.

  Kathryn, Lady of the Land, Commander of Chariots, grinned back at him. “Wouldn’t want to wear things out so soon,” she said with a chuckle.

  The Marine column was singing as they swung along the dusty dirt track:Oh, we’re marching on relief through Iraq’s burning sands

  A thousand fighting Islanders, the General, and the band;

  Ho! Get away, you bullock-man, you’ve heard the bugle blowed!

  The New Corps is a’comin’, down the Hittite road!

  “Burning sands is a bit much for Hangilibat,” Kathryn said judiciously. “More like ‘dry semi-arid.’ ”

  Hollard looked around. Fair enough, he thought. Moderately rolling plains, cut by tributaries running down from the Anti-Taurus far to the north to feed the Khabur and then the Euphrates; that was why it was also called the Rivers. There was actual grass on the ground even here; sparse, clumpy, beginning to frizzle up toward summer, but grass nonetheless. Even a few fields plowed into it, and the odd low thicket of waxy-leaved scrub oak.

  Or there had been fields plowed into it; a lot of the land was deserted, and they’d seen precious little livestock. Supply would be a real problem if the force got any bigger; they had two battalions of Nantucket Marines, six hundred of Babylon’s New Troops, some specialists, a contingent of the Royal Guard—also retrained on Westley-Richards breechloaders—and . . .

  “ Lord Kenn’et!”

  Raupasha’s chariot drew up beside them; the girl leaned back, the reins in one expert hand, her grin brilliant through sweat-caked dust, the gray eyes shining. The horses snorted and shied a bit at the smell of camel, but a word and pressure on the reins controlled them. She was escorted by Marines, a section of mounted infantry with their rifles at their knees. They were mostly young too; half of them were grinning in sync with the girl’s infectious enthusiasm.

  She was wearing Marine khakis herself—rather incongruous with the golden fillet of royalty—a Python revolver at her belt and a Werder in a scabbard attached to the frame of the war-car, and he suspected that the gangling spotted hound standing with its forepaws on the front of the chariot and its ears flapping in the breeze was unorthodox too.

  “Hello, Princess,” he said. “ What’s new? ”

  “More men rally to us,” she said with delight. “The Hurri-folk do accept me!” She flushed a little, and he squirmed at the look in her eyes. “I wasn’t altogether sure they would, Lord Kenn’et, but you were right.”

  “How many does that make now?” h
e asked, then answered himself. “About three thousand.” They came and went, but the total kept going up.

  “These brought seven chariots,” Raupasha said. “And a hundred footmen! You must meet their leaders when we camp tonight, Lord Kenn’et, and Lady Kat’ryn. When we reach Dur-Katlimmu, they will hear the word of the Great King concerning Mitanni, and I think they will hail it well. I go!”

  She turned the chariot in a curve tight enough to bring one wheel off the ground and dashed back down the dusty column, her Marine escort swearing and thumping their heels against the ribs of their horses.

  Kathryn leaned over and poked him in the ribs.

  “Joan of Arc syndrome, ayup? ”

  “Well, she’s living her daydreams,” Hollard said. “What worries me is how we’re going to feed all the let’s-restore-the-good-old-days-of-Mitanni types she’s gathering in. Even with those camel-drawn heavy wagons, we’re getting a long way from where our steamboats can reach. But yeah, it’ll be convenient; most of the non-Assyrian notables will be there and we can plug them into the new order. With luck we can install her at Dur-Katlimmu”—the largest approach to a city the area had, and the former seat of the Assyrian governor—“install a garrison, and then press on. We’re getting real close to areas where this rebel against the Hittite king is operating, and he’s in cahoots with Walker.”

  Kathryn nodded grimly. “Real work,” she said. “Kash wishes he could be here, but he’s got to consolidate back in Babylon. He said he’s going to build a temple in thanks that we Nantukhtar aren’t all like Walker.”

  “He should,” her brother agreed.

  A click and buzz came from the radio on the back of the tech riding next to him. He edged his camel closer, ignoring its complaints, and took the handset.

  “Hollard here,” he said. Kathryn watched his expression, and her own went blank.

  “Great minds think alike,” he said when he replaced the instrument. “Seems the Wolf Lord wants to steal a march on us. Those barbarian allies of his are moving on Troy.”

  “ Troy VVI, right enough,” Ian muttered to himself.

  “Councilor? ” Vicki Cofflin asked.

  The Emancipator was wallowing as she came in toward the city. A hundred or more hands were ready to take the released lines and guide the huge, light craft into the lee of the city’s walls—the past three weeks had made them accustomed to it, even if they still tended to make warding signs and spit. He could see the harvesters at work among the fields, orchards and silvery-green olive groves among them, and tracts of bright pasture where the city’s famous horses were raised. Most of the villages and all the manors of the surrounding lords were empty, though, and a last trickle of refugees was making its way into the six great gates. The grain was coming in too, as fast as it could be cut. The courtyards of houses and the rooftops had been turned into threshing floors.

  “Archaeological reference, Ms. Cofflin,” Ian said. “Everyone wondered which layer of the site of Troy was the Troy, of the Trojan War.”

  “Yes, but we still aren’t sure that there would have been a Trojan War if we hadn’t showed up, are we, Councilor? Maybe it was all just a story, the first time ’round? ”

  He snorted, and looked down. Yup. The king was waiting for him, anxious as ever.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant. Don’t want to bore you with this sort of thing.”

  “Oh, hell, no, Councilor. It’s a lot more interesting than, say, listening to LG’s talk about President Clinton.”

  He gave her bland smile a look of suspicion—“LG” stood for “Lost Geezer,” a not-very-complimentary term the younger generation used for elders who couldn’t get over the Event—and then chuckled before he turned and walked back toward the exit ramp with what he hoped was appropriate dignity for meeting a king.

  Alaksandrus of Troy had been a surprise. He was a long-nosed, sandy-blond man who reminded Ian of Max von Sydow, as far as looks went. The language he spoke was close enough to Mycenaean Greek that he could understand it without much difficulty; and he spoke the Achaean dialect as well.

  What was really surprising about him was his eagerness to cooperate, once he’d gotten over the terror of the dirigible. He cut an imposing figure in his polished bronze breastplate, boar’s-tusk helmet with a tall horsehair plume nodding behind, and a metal-reinforced kilt. A few brushes with the invading host from the north—the Ringapi, they called themselves—and their thunder-weapons had knocked most of the swagger out of him. There was something slightly touching about the eagerness with which he’d greeted a chance at salvation.

  And something guilt-inducing, as well, Ian thought. I hope I’m not giving him too many false hopes, just to get him to buy us time. The way the ordinary people of the city cheered him through the streets was even harder to take. Refugees from the north had described all too vividly what happened in towns and farms the Ringapi took. Even more feared was Walker the Wolf Lord.

  The airship’s oak landing rails touched the ground, and the rear ramp went down. Ian walked down it, thankful that he didn’t have to wear the elaborate caftan that an ambassador’s dignity required in Babylonia. A force of Marines directed the unloading of the cargo, with a host of Trojans working like . . .

  Don’t say it, don’t say it, save it for your next chat with Doreen! Ian told himself, bowing to the king.

  “ When will your troops arrive? ” Alaksandrus asked.

  Ian sighed internally, keeping a bland smile on his face. “As soon as possible,” he said. “ We’ve brought in a good many by air.”

  It was a sign of how worried Alaksandrus was that he no longer marveled at that but simply accepted it—and railed against its limitations.

  “Each trip brings so few,” he fretted. The horses of his chariot team seemed to catch the infection and stamped and tossed their heads against the expert touch of the young driver.

  “It brings powerful weapons,” Arnstein soothed. And me, more often than I like, because we have to keep you sweet, you old lady in a brass breastplate, he thought, and pointed.

  A heavy seven-foot tube was being lowered onto a waiting timber cradle with oxcart wheels mounted at either end. The dirigible creaked and groaned as it was relieved of the weight, straining upward against the mooring ropes. The cradle groaned as well, and the twelve yoke of oxen bellowed as they were goaded into the traces. The six-inch mortar began to creak its way across the plain of Ilion and toward the South Gate with its great square bastion. The walls of Troy didn’t enclose as much ground as Hattusas or Babylon, but they were impressive in their own right, stone-built and better than four stories high, with towers higher. Unlike most he’d seen, they sloped inward slightly.

  Captain Chong trotted over, gave the king a bob of the head and Ian a salute. “That’s the second battery complete, sir,” he said in English. “If these trained pigs of locals don’t bog it down, in an hour or so we’ll have it mounted.”

  Ian nodded; he was no expert, but he’d been impressed by the speed and competence of the Marine effort.

  “Tell your captain of warriors that my own are worried about the earth ramp,” Alaksandrus said. He pointed toward Troy. “ They feel it is a scaling ladder that we are building for an enemy.”

  All around the city, thousands were laboring to build an earth berm up against the stones; thousands more piled earth and rubble from demolished homes against the interior wall, as well.

  Chong shrugged when Ian interpreted. “Sir, tell him that without backing and something to absorb the shot, that curtain-wall will get converted into rubble if anyone brings some guns within range of it.” He smiled, a savage expression. “Of course, that’ll put them within range of my guns. Mortars, anyway.”

  I do wish Alaksandrus would make up his mind what he’s more worried about, Ian thought several hours later when he sat down with the shortwave set in his quarters. The Marine operator looked at him and handed over the earpieces and microphone.

  “Hard day with the king, sir? ”


  “ Is it that obvious? ” he asked—rhetorically.

  “Hatussas, Hatussas, come in,” he said. “Hatussas—”

  “Hatussas here,” his wife replied. “Hi, Ian. How’s His Gibbering Majesty? I was expecting the Basil Rathbone of the Bronze Age, from Tudhaliyas’s description.”

  “It’s not really funny, Doreen,” Ian said. “I think he was at least a self-confident pirate until he led his troops to try and stop the Ringapi crossing into Anatolia. He still can’t give me a coherent explanation of what happened, except that it involved a lot of explosions and then the Ringapi chariot corps hunting his like hounds after foxes.” He paused. “ What happens when they win isn’t funny at all.”

  “Yeah,” Doreen said quietly. “Anyway, the latest from Colonel—pardon me, Brigadier—Hollard is that—”

  “Sir!” A Marine burst into the room. “Sir, the enemy’s in sight.”

  “Oh, shit,” Arnstein muttered.

  The horde that poured down the flat coastal plain from the north toward Troy was enormous—more people than the whole Republic of Nantucket, the Island, and outports put together.

  I’ve seen as many people at a football game in L.A., Ian tried to tell himself.

  That memory paled to nothing before this vision of warriors in gaudy armor in chariots, warriors on foot in plain gray undyed wool with their spears over their shoulders and shields slung at their backs, dusty women trudging beside big ox-drawn carts with their babies on their backs, chieftains’ women riding in carts with leather awnings, children running about shouting or crying, herds of cattle and herds of sheep and herds of horses . . . and prisoners trudging behind the wagons, yoked neck to neck withY-shaped wooden poles.

  The noise was like distant surf mixed with a grumble of thunder. The smell of the horde came before it, dust and manure and massed sweat, with somehow a scent of burning. The sound changed but didn’t diminish as they settled in, ringing the small hilltop city with a wall of campsites and brush corrals.