Son of Ishtar

by Gordon Doherty

  ***

  Mursili saw nothing but starlit darkness up there. Zida gave him a shrug, but kept his tapered eyes on the window for a moment longer. The king returned to his thoughts, rubbing his temples, still trying to put shape to what had occurred with the Egyptian ‘diplomat’.

  ‘The Egyptian borders must be reinforced,’ Prince Muwa repeated urgently.

  Mursili half-nodded. With the crowds gone, it was a time for stark truths. His thoughts shifted to the other great threat in those lands. ‘And what of our frontier with the Assyrian Empire?’ he muttered, glancing down at a young Hittite nobleman who had travelled from the southeast.

  ‘The fortress of Gargamis watches over the River Mala ford like a stone giant. Viceroy Shahuru’s garrison is small but skilled, and he sends his thanks to you for your gift of chariots,’ he replied. ‘But the Assyrians… they, like the Egyptians, are not for accepting our presence there.’

  He scanned the arc of men and found those he was looking for: the allied kings of Ugarit, Nuhashi, Amurru and Kadesh – each vassal commanding a small army and a small buffer territory in northern Retenu, each a vital protector of the precious tin route. He recalled and cringed at his hubris-fuelled words to the Egyptian earlier on.

  And extra weapons? I have no need for them. Have you seen my divisions in their pomp? They shine and clatter, heavy with sharpened bronze of their own.

  The truth was far bleaker: tin reserves were scarce, perilously so.

  ‘I count upon you, loyal kings, to be my eyes in the east, to keep the tin trade route open, lest my bronzesmiths’ forges grow dim and cool.’

  Zida seemed a little perturbed by his stark words in front of these unreliable kings. ‘Our mine at Kestel, just a half moon’s ride to the south, still holds some tin, My Sun. We are not entirely dependent on the trade routes through Retenu.’

  Mursili gave his Gal Mesedi a dry half-grin. The last attainable seams at Kestel were mined generations ago. Remember what happened when my father tried to dig further, to the deepest seams? Regardless, he let Zida’s tactical fiction resonate. ‘Perhaps. But in any case, the southern edge of that land must be watched carefully. Should the Egyptian Pharaoh prove as brave with his actions as he is with his words and clumsy theatre, then I must know as soon as possible.’

  The leathery-skinned King of Ugarit answered first. ‘It will be done, My Sun.’

  Mursili made a faint noise of agreement, then his thoughts swung from east to west. ‘And what of Western Anatolia?’ he asked King Alaksandu.

  Alaksandu stood tall, clearing his throat. ‘Unrest prevails, My Sun. Ahhiyawan brigands roam the Seha River Lands, encroaching on Wilusan territory as if there is no code of law.’

  Mursili felt the rising heat of agitation. The myriad city states across the Western Sea – Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes, Sparta, Tiryns, Ithaca, Argos and many more, dotted across the rocky, broken and strange peninsula known as Ahhiyawa – had formed some sort of warlike coalition.

  The feather-crowned Lukkan Chieftain stepped forth, eager to air his view: ‘They use the coastal city of Milawata as a bridgehead. They dream of taking all Anatolia, My Sun.’

  ‘As long as Troy stands in their way,’ Alaksandu thundered, ‘the states of Ahhiyawa will never truly call Anatolian soil their own.’

  ‘You underestimate the Ahhiyawans,’ the Lukkan Chieftain replied curtly. ‘They make alliances with strange sea warriors from the distant, dark western islands.’

  Alaksandu’s nose wrinkled. ‘Still, they will never best my navy.’

  ‘Enough,’ Mursili said, a little more tersely than intended. ‘I understand. The south and east suffer the covetous eyes of the King of Assyria and the Egyptian Pharaoh. The west is ripe for another rebellion – invasion, even.’ He sighed through his nose.

  ‘Now, of the north… ’ he directed this question to a small, mop-haired, bearded and pig-eyed man who hadn’t spoken yet. This was Darizu – the Bel Madgalti, Lord of the Northern Watchtowers. He wore a knee-length Hittite robe and nobleman’s jewels in his ears, yet he was not a Hittite but a Galasman – a small but pithy tribe who helped man the northern frontier and work the precious lead mines of those lands. While his father had been a stout master of those borders, Darizu was as yet unproven. ‘Pitagga and the Kaskans are quiet at least?’

  The truth was those twelve mountain tribes were like a spear lodged in the northern flank of the Hittite realm. For generations they had called the Lost North their own – the once-great Hittite cities of Hakmis, Zalpa and Nerik had for too long lain in tumbled ruination, their Gods disgraced, Kaskan mud-dome shanty towns erected amongst the fallen stones, their swines foraging amongst the tall grass that sprouted through the toppled temples. Too numerous to conquer, too devious to outmanoeuvre, the best a succession of Hittite Kings could hope for was to contain the Kaskan threat.

  Darizu’s nervous pause was enough to send Mursili’s heart plummeting. ‘Bel Madgalti,’ Mursili reiterated, ‘of the north?’

  Darizu gulped. ‘Pitagga rises against you, My Sun. I tried to tell you before the Gathering beg-’

  ‘Tell me now,’ Mursili demanded.

  Darizu licked his dry lips. ‘He struck the northern towers in the first days of spring. A stretch of the beacons and turrets have been toppled. I only knew of the breach when I smelt the smoke one morning. I watched them herding masses of Hittite families, captured soldiers and droves of oxen and sheep back north, towards the pastures of Wahina.’

  ‘You watched them?’ Mursili said softly. ‘From where?’

  ‘From the fort-city of Tapikka. From m-my balcony,’ Darizu stammered.

  ‘The polished stone balcony designed by my chief architect?’ Mursili mused. ‘High above and safely within Tapikka’s stout walls?’

  The Galasman’s face drained of colour, leaving just a red glow of embarrassment around his cheeks.

  ‘What of the garrison I provided you? Three hundred men and twenty chariots I stationed in Tapikka,’ Mursili said. ‘Enough to ward off a few Kaskan raiding parties, surely?’

  ‘This was not just a few raiding parties, My Sun. They moved like an army, they-’

  Mursili glared at him, pressing for an answer to his original question.

  ‘I despatched the garrison in pursuit of the Kaskan forces,’ Darizu said meekly. ‘They… they were slaughtered. All of them.’

  ‘Yet you survived?’ Mursili observed dryly. ‘Oh, I see: you despatched your forces but remained on your balcony to watch and see how they would fare. Brave,’ he said, curling his lower lip and nodding fiercely, ‘noble. Your father would have been proud.’

  ‘I have failed you, My Sun,’ Darizu bowed and dropped to one knee.

  The northern towers were breached. Men and beasts had been stripped from Hittite lands. Mursili almost felt the rupture in the vital defences like a gash in his own shoulder. Left to fester, infection would set in and soon spread. The Kaskans would return, probing further south. The heartland cities and their surrounding and precious crop meadows would suffer destruction and plunder. More men and herds would be lost. Famine and unrest would soon threaten.

  Trouble burgeoned in every direction, it seemed. The Hittite Army – twenty thousand strong and the dread of the battlefield when mustered in its entirety – could only be in one place at any time. That it consisted of four divisions was a playful bait, a tidy solution for a mind untrained in military matters, for to send a single division of his forces to each beset border would be akin to answering the wrathful roar of each enemy army with a yelp. No, the divisions of the Hittite army had to move as one and conquer, united. Perhaps one division could be left behind to protect Hattusa, but what destination for the other three?

  To send the army west to crush the fresh troubles in those recently-pacified lands, or to lead them southeast to ward off the bold Pharaoh, or east, to keep the Assyrians in check. No, only a fool would fight faraway demons when one hovers behind his back, he mused saltily. The Kaskans were the mos
t immediate of the great threats: with Pitagga and the mountain men perched like black crows just north of the Hittite realm, there was no luxury of choice.

  He rose from his throne. ‘Before the summer is past, the pastures of Wahina will quake under our boots. Our captured people will be liberated and returned to their homes. Pitagga and his Kaskans will be crushed: the Lord of the Mountains will become the Lord of Ashes and Bone.’ He looked down at the kneeling Darizu. ‘And when we march, brave watcher from the balcony, you will march at our head.’

  ***

  Hattu, watching the discussion like a wary cat, hung on his father’s words just like the foreign kings. The Labarna possessed an aura, a commanding backbone to his every word that made the room his own. To maintain such a presence in the face of so many doubtless shrewd individuals, Hattu thought, was surely the quality of a true king. He envied early signs of those same virtues in Muwa, and bemoaned the lack of them in his own nature.

  But the moment of awe passed. He saw now what would happen in the coming days: Father, Muwa and the high generals would once again lead the divisions to war, a bronze beast that would crush the Kaskans and free the captive Hittites… and he saw his own future, in the quiet rooms of the Scribal School. He sighed and turned away from the hall to face the night and the acropolis ward – now rippling with increasingly drunken forms, the tables scattered with bones and crusts of bread.

  He backed one leg down from the sill, stretching to find the thin gap between the stonework below, then worked his way down – silent and unseen just as he had ascended, halting only to shoot a triumphant look at the two Golden Spearmen at the throneroom doors, oblivious.

  ‘Curse them and the rest of the army – hurkelers, one and all,’ he muttered. A hurkeler – one who engages in sexual congress with an animal – was the favourite curse word of the soldiers. At least, it was the one Hattu always heard the acropolis guards muttering under their breath when they were ordered to do some tedious or unwanted task. ‘Aye, hurkelers!’ he enthused.

  A sense of smugness was just building, when something clamped around his shin and shook him like an earth tremor. He gasped and scrabbled to keep hold of the stonework, only to be torn from it. He fell his own height and crashed onto the red flagstones of the courtyard, winded and startled.

  Glowering down at him was a bald, one-eyed nightmare incarnate, scowling, inhuman, his single silver braid hanging like a whip.

  ‘Kurunta?’ he gasped in a whisper, shaking free of the man’s grasp.

  ‘We’re all hurkelers, you say?’

  ‘I, I -’

  ‘You, you?’ Kurunta mocked, his top lip twitching in disgust.

  ‘I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,’ Hattu stammered.

  ‘Then you should have done as your father bid you and stayed at the feasting tables. You were not invited to the talks, boy.’

  Hattu wilted under the general’s gaze and blunt accent which contrasted sharply against the more polished tones from the throneroom.

  ‘You hate it when they call you that name, don’t you?’ Kurunta spat, eyeing him with a scowl that showed every fine line on his face. ‘The Cursed Son.’

  Hattu felt the words like a stinging lash. He stood up and shot Kurunta what he hoped was a fierce look.

  ‘If you hate it so much then why do you persist in feats of idiocy like this?’ he gestured sharply up and down the outer corner of the throneroom walls. ‘Your father wants you to have no part in the affairs of the military, don’t you understand that? For your own good, boy, stay in the Scribal School with that wittering old goose, Ruba.’

  Kurunta took a step towards him, radiating threat. Hattu took one step backwards, panicked.

  Kurunta stamped a foot, flicked his head towards the palace, and issued a tssss! as if chasing away an irritating cat. Hattu turned and ran, stifling hot tears of shame.

  Chapter 3

  Land of Wraiths

  Autumn 1303 BC

  King Mursili’s heart thundered in anticipation of battle, his bronze scales clinking as he ran, his eyes fixed on the point where the grassy brow of the hill met the cloud-streaked Wahina sky, his mind conjuring the image of the Kaskan force on the other side. The telltale glow of a fire had been sighted here during the night and they had moved to close upon it even before dawn. It had been an arduous campaign, but Pitagga had been cornered, at last. His warriors would be smashed and the Hittite people he held captive would be liberated.

  Beside him, the eager Zida and the trembling Darizu of Galasma stumbled along. Behind him came the Wrath Division. Up, up they went with the dull clatter of spears rattling into place beside shields, the clicking of arrows being nocked to bows…

  Mursili crested the banking first, his tall bronze battle helm catching the sunlight, spear in one hand and his battle blade in the other. He leapt over the brow, his long, grey cloak trailing in his wake. ‘May the Gods rush before us!’ he cried. The wall of spearmen erupted in an echoing cry and the skirling battle pipes exploded in a buzzing song of battle… only for the world to fall silent again.

  The cries faded, the rumble of boots died to nothing, the pipes sagged and fell quiet. Mursili gazed across the barren field before him. Not a soul to be seen. Just the charred remnant of a colossal campfire. A tremulous whimper of relief escaped Darizu’s lips. Mursili shot him a winter-cold look.

  Then, across the plain, a similar embryonic war cry rose from the woods there. The ranks of the Wrath Division bristled, Darizu wailed… then many sighs and curses escaped as the Fury Division burst from the trees and slowed, equally bemused. Prince Muwa, leading them, gazed at the smouldering bonfire and then across at his father.

  A third shrieking song of war erupted and was swiftly cut short as the Blaze Division arrived on the western edge of the plain. General Nuwanza, the strapping Master Archer and leader of the Blaze, cast his gaze across the empty plain. He shot Mursili an exasperated and mildly reproachful look and held out his palms to either side.

  ‘Aye, bowman, you were right, we should have waited for our scouts to report back first,’ he muttered. A black plume of smoke and a trail of bootprints had lured them here. Their haste had been foolish, in hindsight.

  ‘Where are they?’ Zida grunted, hurling his spear into the soft earth where it quivered, his red cloak swirling around him in the breeze. ‘What are we hunting: men… or wraiths?’

  Mursili eyed the hoof and boot prints in the worn grass. A host of some sort had been through here recently. But who, and how large, and where were they now? His eyes narrowed and he combed the horizon, suddenly feeling not like the lord of an avenging army, but like a rabbit in the sights of an archer.

  ‘My Sun,’ Zida said, his voice low.

  Mursili turned to see his Gal Mesedi lifting something from the ashes of the fire on the end of his spear. A string of blackened beads and a charred skull, brutally halved. The beads were Hittite. The skull had been split by a Kaskan axe. A chasm of an eye-socket stared at him and the teeth grinned horrifically. Some of the captured Hittites had found liberation of another kind.

  ***

  As night fell, Zida and the Mesedi set about erecting the royal pavilion while the army marked out the camp and set up their bivouac tents. King Mursili sat before a fire stocked with birch wood, his retinue alongside him. He looked into the embers and could not help but think of the grim find from earlier that day. His advisors had counted the remains of eighty charred bodies. A fraction of the people captured from Hittite lands. Where were the rest? Where was Pitagga? Somewhere deep inside his mind, he heard the Kaskan Lord laugh long and loud.

  ‘That is three false hopes dashed to pieces,’ Nuwanza reasoned, chewing on a chunk of charred river bream on the end of a stick. ‘They were at the lakeside village, apparently, until we got there and found nothing but abandoned huts and a lone captive, hanging by his neck from the mast of a fishing boat. They were camped by the woods, until we arrived and found only another captive staked through from groin
to mouth and shorn of his tongue and guts. Then today, we risked disaster on the premise of a glow of fire in the night.’

  ‘Yet we have nothing else to go on,’ Prince Muwa mused.

  ‘Then we should return to the heartlands, to Hattusa,’ Nuwanza replied. ‘Winter is but a single moon away and the passes will soon be blocked with snow. It would be folly to maroon ourselves in these parts until spring.’

  A regimental chief from the Wrath Division interrupted upon hearing this: ‘And it would be dangerous to leave Hattusa in the hands of Kurunta One-eye for too long, My Sun.’

  Mursili looked up and shot the man a long, silent glare that almost knocked the officer to his knees. Awkwardly, the man took his leave with some muffled excuse and a curt bow. Mursili gazed into the flames, the man’s meaning irking him.

  Kurunta’s Storm Division – devoted to the almighty Tarhunda – had been left in Hattusa to guard the capital and its approaches. A fool’s choice, he had heard people whispering, for just one of the Storm’s five, thousand-strong regiments was mobilised – the men of the other four deemed too vital to be taken away from the otherwise under-tended crop fields or from garrison duties in the other major heartland cities. Imprudent also, some had suggested, to leave the ‘vengeful general’ in charge of the capital. From the depths of his mind and despite his will to keep the memory supressed, he recalled the sucking, squelching sounds of Kurunta’s eye being scooped out, the animal grunts of the men pinning him to the ground and performing the punishment and the utter silence of Kurunta himself. He closed his eyes, shaking the memory away.

  ‘I cannot leave until I have found my people,’ Mursili concluded. ‘It would be victory for Pitagga were we to return to Hattusa without having given him battle or liberated those he shackled and led from our lands.’