‘Better that than broken legs should you hit a rock,’ Colta said. ‘You’ll get used to it.’ He cleared his throat and shuffled his shoulders, handing Hattu a stiffened leather belt. ‘You’d best put this on to support your sapling back.’ Hattu was about to complain but noticed that wild look returning to Colta’s face as the chariot master raised the whip. So instead he buckled the wide leather belt on as swiftly as he could with trembling fingers. ‘Now,’ Colta yelled, ‘all you have to do… is hold on… Ya!’
The scream was enough to convince Hattu to grab the lip of the chariot car in the breath before the whip cracked and the stallions’ bodies tensed. The chariot lurched forward. Stillness to a violent surge in a heartbeat. Faster, faster and faster. Hattu felt the fears in his belly shoot across his entire being like raindrops blown across a smooth surface. And the still day was banished as the wind of the ride grew into a shrieking whistle, warring with the thunder of hooves and the din of breaking stones under the wheels. The gust battered Hattu’s face, casting his hair up in his wake, throwing his brow band off, stinging his eyes. He clung to the car lip with all his strength as the vehicle bucked and leapt as if determined to cast him out. Very quickly he understood how Colta had built up such strong, sinewy legs.
‘You see?’ Colta howled gleefully. ‘Does not every man long to move fast and free like a horse? This is it. This is it!’
‘I…’ Hattu croaked, panic strangling his words.
‘Scared? Ha, then all is well. Courage is like a muscle, it must be worked and strengthened, fuelled with fear time and again until the muscle is hard and strong,’ Colta shouted over the rushing air.
Scarcely comprehending, let alone capable of replying, Hattu noticed the chariot master’s arms tensing, the rightmost of each horse’s two reins tightening and pulling on that side of their mouths. He sensed the violent turn before it happened, and just threw his weight towards Colta before the horses swung to the right. He felt every sinew of the muscles developed in the red hills groan and ache as the turn went on, around the shaded southern end of the oval, seemingly lasting forever. ‘Good, good.’ Colta shouted. ‘Not many anticipate the turn.’
‘Not many? What happens to them?’ Hattu yelled.
Colta said nothing, drawing a shard of burnt gold rock from the pocket of his tunic and tossing it off past Hattu and out of the left side of the chariot. It shattered against a larger boulder with a puff of dust. ‘They tend not to make it past the first session. They return to the barracks to serve in the infantry… if they can still walk.’
Colta released the tension in the reins and the horses straightened up again, now heading back towards Dagon, Tanku and Garin. Hattu felt the initial wave of terror pass. Now there was a crumb of certainty – just like that which he sought when climbing. A hint of smugness crept into his thoughts, knowing that his turn was almost over. They thundered on, then made another, gentler turn to slow and stop where they had started by the oval’s northern end. Hattu leapt down from the car, his step shaky, his heart still racing.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ Garin said, stepping forward, his face pale.
Colta laughed, leapt down and held up a hand to bar the lad. ‘Not yet.’ He pressed a hand onto Thunder’s breast and invited the others to do the same. It was beating fiercely, Hattu realised, just like his own. ‘Thunder indeed,’ Colta said. ‘And a good driver never rides his horse to exhaustion. The storm in their hearts must be harnessed and used wisely. A charge can win a battle, but if overused, it can also ensure defeat.’
‘My father keeps horses on his farm,’ Tanku interrupted. ‘The stouter ones are strong but slow. Perhaps a more spry horse might be able to gallop longer?’
Colta grinned. ‘Fast at the gallop, but hardy enough to trek to faraway Retenu should the Egyptians invade? No, you need balance,’ he said, one wagging finger raised in example. He returned his hand to Thunder’s heart then checked Rage’s too. ‘It is time,’ he said, bidding Garin forward.
For the rest of the day, they took turns to ride with Colta. At times he made sharp turns and sudden stops, testing the new horses and potential crew in every aspect. Near sundown, he called over a pair of the chariots sparring nearby and had them ride just ahead of Thunder and Rage. On his command, the leading chariots would slow suddenly, allowing him to test the reactions of the four young soldiers and of Thunder and Rage. They were swift to veer around the chariots ahead. Soon, the four were vying to have another turn driving the vehicle.
At last light, the chariot field was laced with a mesh of scars from the many twists and turns. Hattu and his three fellow soldiers helped dismantle the chariot and Colta watched on, silent, stroking his forked beard in thought.
‘What happens now, sir?’ Dagon asked.
‘You walk with me back to the stables. Then you return to the barracks.’
‘And tomorrow?’ Garin asked.
‘Well, you have not soiled yourselves or died horribly under the wheels, so you have the makings of a chariot crew in you. Kurunta will be disappointed. Come back to the stables at first light.’
Hattu gazed up at the staring eyes of the Horse-God, Peruwa, an almighty shiver shooting down his spine.
***
Over the next month, Hattu lived for the thrill of the charge. Some days he would waken before the dawn horn, his blood already fired with excitement. These mornings he would glance around the barrack hut to see Tanku, Garin and Dagon’s eyes glinting, awake, like him, while all others lay in a deep, exhausted slumber, snoring like boars… and some releasing inhuman quantities of gas. As soon as the morning muster was over, the four would race to the stables, help Colta and his hands load a wagon with fodder and equipment, then ride to the nearby chariot field. After a month with Colta, the chariot master chose Hattu and Dagon to ride together as a team.
They practiced like this for days on end, taking turns as driver and passenger. Soon, Colta brought up a second chariot and pair of horses and took to racing one team against the other: Tanku and Garin rode two silvery steeds against Hattu and Dagon with Thunder and Rage. Speed and swiftness of thought won Hattu and Dagon six of ten bouts. Hattu learned exactly when to lash his horses and when to slow them, allowing them to flow round the bends and storm along the straights. And when Dagon had the reins, Hattu learned how to apply his weight to add grace and momentum to the ride. Skilled as Hattu was with the reins, it soon became apparent that Dagon was the better driver.
The summer became a blur: racing, grooming, learning how to lead the horses across deep water – swimming with them when necessary – and then night riding, using the echo of their hooves and wheels to manoeuvre with only starlight overhead.
It was not until the hottest month that Colta had stablehands bring arms to them. They handed Hattu and Tanku each a leather cuirass and pointed helm, a headless spear, a bow and a quiver of snub arrows. The pair looked at one another then at Colta.
‘Drivers,’ he said, pointing to Garin and Dagon. ‘Warriors,’ he added, meeting Hattu and then Tanku’s eyes. ‘Battle is the test of horse, man and vehicle to see if they can stay true to all they have learned so far, while all around them men howl, horses charge and missiles fly through the air. Today, you will race around the track, but in opposite directions. When you pass one another, you must seek to strike the driver or warrior on the other vehicle. ‘Victory can be won by any means, in a true battle, at least: spear and bow, sword or mace; you can even toss your weapon at the opponent’s wheels; your horses can bite and kick like demons; the whip, even, can down a foe. Today, I’d suggest you limit yourself only to the blunted spears and tipless arrows – lest we end the day with a pile of shredded timber and mangled bodies.’
The four mounted their chariots.
‘Ready?’ Dagon asked, whip ready to lash.
‘No,’ Hattu replied.
‘Excellent, neither am I,’ Dagon agreed, then cracked the whip with gusto.
A moment later, the pair were crouched, feet w
ide apart for balance as they came shooting round the oval’s northern bend. The chariot came onto the straight then spat forward with another snap of the whip over the yoke. Hattu’s eyes locked onto the blurred shape hurtling round the southern bend and onto the same straight, coming for them in an inferno of cast-up red dust. He saw the thrashing hooves, the wild-eyed horses, Tanku and Garin’s clenched teeth. Tanku had his spear hoisted like a javelin. Hattu knew he could get a shot off from his bow before the big soldier could come close enough to throw. He swung his bow from his back and plucked out an arrow, now at ease having no hands on the lip of the car. He fumbled and nocked the bow then raised and stretched it, his thumb vibrating by his ear. The vision of Tanku and the oncoming chariot juddered furiously before him, always avoiding the tip of his arrow as he tried to train it. Closer, closer… Tanku was about to throw his spear.
Thrum, the arrow flew off the string… then fouled on the leather bracer on his left wrist. He saw it squirming through the air like a fish. It whooshed past Tanku and plunged into the dirt track harmlessly. Before Hattu even had time to curse, Tanku’s spear rushed through the air for him, the speed tripled by their opposing charge. He ducked down on his haunches and the shaft grazed the lip of the car with a loud thwack, splintering the wood.
‘Gods!’ Dagon yelped, glancing agog at Hattu and the scarred battle car.
On they went for another lap. Again they came at each other on the straight. Hattu held up his spear this time. Tanku, spearless, loosed a shot from his bow. Something told Hattu that he was safe, that there was no way Tanku’s first attempt at shooting from a speeding chariot would be a success. And he was right. The arrow flew over his head… by the width of a gnat’s wing. As the two chariots drew closer, Hattu hoisted his spear and threw it.
The lance thwacked into Tanku’s breast, punching him back from view. As the chariots sped past one another, Hattu gawped backwards. From here he could only see the trail of dust. Dagon slowed the chariot, reading Hattu’s concern. His eyes tortured him, making out dull outlines of a fallen, mangled body on the track. But the dust cleared and there was none. A violent bout of coughing sounded as the other chariot came round again at a canter. Tanku was pulling himself to his feet from the car’s floor, clasping his breast, his eyes streaming with water and his face red.
‘You bastard. You lucky, lucky bastard.’
For a moment, Hattu wondered if the burly lad was about to leap for him, but the big soldier grinned and nodded back to the starting point. ‘Next time, you won’t be so lucky.’
They sparred all day and for the next seven days, the victors emitting lasting, triumphant wolf-howls and the vanquished launching a chorus of blistering oaths. It came to a point where they even took to drawing swords and clashing them together as they passed one another. Soon, they left the oval track behind and moved onto the open field, where the veterans’ chariots were mock-sparring under the statue of the prancing horse-god.
It was a mass of criss-crossing dust plumes, a riot of shouting, whinnying and crunching of wheels on dust. Hattu, with his comrades at the edge of the fray, eyed the maelstrom of speeding chariots like men viewing a violent blizzard from a doorway. Hattu looked to Colta in concern.
Colta grinned. ‘Now go. And remember what my tutors told me: enter the fray with guts and grace. End the day with your guts in place.’
Dagon set Thunder and Rage in motion. ‘Ya!’
‘Take us in easy,’ Hattu said, waving one hand towards the left edge of the contest. Garin and Tanku, nearby, veered away, preferring to take their chariot towards the right.
‘Two kills, that’s all we need,’ Hattu encouraged Dagon, recalling Colta’s instructions. Any two mock-kills for a chariot team meant they finished as ‘winners’, along with any other teams who achieved the same feat. Anyone ‘killed’ just once was listed as a loser for the day. Hattu saw the red dust before him swirl and pucker. With a growl of breaking scree, a chariot burst forth, the driver urging the horses onwards, the warrior a nobleman judging by his jewelled headband and long, emerald earrings… and his supercilious, hectoring screams directed at his driver.
‘Ha – the Cursed Son rides!’ the noble spat with a serpent’s glare, then thrust his spear pole out like a snake’s tongue. The strike was aimed well at Dagon’s chest. Hattu threw his own spear out like a club, across Dagon’s front, blocking the strike. The noble cursed and berated his driver, before vanishing into the dust cloud again. Now, Hattu realised, he and Dagon had been drawn into the midst of it all. Another chariot sped past behind them like a wraith and a snub arrow loosed from it thrummed between him and Dagon. By the time he had spun round to find the bowman who had loosed it, their attackers were already gone, consumed by the dust.
‘Hattu,’ Dagon yelled.
He swung back round to see the jewelled noble and his driver coming from behind at a gallop and at an angle, set to ride alongside and strike. ‘Stop!’ Hattu cried.
‘Ho!’ Dagon yanked on the reins. The horses obeyed and slid to a stop within a few paces. The noble’s chariot spat past in front of them and the noble twisted round, lifting his spear to throw. Hattu raised his bow, nocked in a heartbeat, trained the tip on the noble’s chest and loosed. With a dull thud, the snub arrow struck home and the noble’s face fell, spear still unthrown. The chariot slowed and he turned to his driver and began beating him around the head.
At the side of the field, a watching academy scribe shielded his eyes from the sun and peered through the dust, then noted the successful strike on a tablet of soft clay.
‘One kill,’ Dagon said with a relieved but somewhat devilish grin. He snapped the whip again and the wheels ground to life. They cut in and out of the fray again. Most of the time, they saw just dark shapes speeding past. Hattu quickly learned there was no point in shooting hopefully at these. Only when he could see rider and warrior, and had a reasonably steady shot, was it worth loosing an arrow or a spear.
But then he saw one chariot moving at a trot, the driver and warrior crowing about a fresh kill, unaware of Hattu’s proximity. ‘Forward, steady,’ he croaked to Dagon, but already his friend had read the opportunity. Hattu raised his spear, sure he could make it a true strike. He tensed his shoulder and clenched his teeth… when a dull, sideways blow took him by surprise, crunching into his ribs – below the raised arm – and sent him pitching out of the chariot car. The world turned upside down and the next sensation was a hard return to the earth. His shoulders crunched and every bone in his body jarred. Round and round he rolled. When at last he came to a halt on his back, he groaned and blinked, raising his head to see what had happened. Dagon had slowed the chariot a few strides away, his head hung in defeat. The vulnerable, crowing chariot team were gone. But who had struck him? Then a headless spear shaft poked into his chest. He looked up and, at once, relief washed through him.
Muwa gazed down the length of the spear from the side of his battle car, having stolen up on Hattu’s flank unseen. Now seventeen summers, his handsome face, uplit by his polished silver scale vest, had lost the last traces of boyishness. The Tuhkanti’s nostrils flared and shrank with a few snatched breaths. His ice-bright eyes were alight with mischief. ‘Kill,’ he grinned, holding a hand in the air to attract the attention of the nearest watching scribe.
‘Brother?’ he croaked, taking Muwa’s offered arm to rise then clasping his other hand to his brother’s muscular shoulder. ‘I did not know you were here. The army is back? The Kaskans were repelled?’
‘Pala and Tummanna have been liberated. The Kaskans were driven back,’ Muwa replied, the mischief in his eyes fading.
‘And Pitagga?’
Muwa’s eyes grew glassy. ‘He… he is dead. We found the mangled remains of a body under the wheels of one of our chariots – fiery-haired and clad in Pitagga’s armour.’ He hesitated, as if uncertain, but then shook his head to rid himself of doubt. ‘It is done. Our brother is avenged,’ he said with a barely-choked sob. ‘We did not recover Sarpa�
��s head, but his killer has been struck down.’
Hattu closed his eyes and held back the tears, seeing in the blackness Sarpa by the Spirit Bridge: at last the sadness was gone from his face. Within the memory, he faded and was gone. Avenged. ‘Bless all the Gods,’ he whispered.
Muwa averted his eyes as if ashamed of the reddening in them. ‘Pitagga’s armies fled – great numbers of them unharmed – but without that foul bastard to unite them, their threat is surely over.’
‘And what of you?’ he asked Muwa, looking him over: no signs of injury. ‘You are well?’
‘Well enough,’ Muwa smiled. ‘Perhaps when next the army marches, you will be there with me?’
A rousing shiver shot up Hattu’s spine. ‘Perhaps, Brother. If the Gods will it. The Chariot Ordeal will make me or break me, I am told.’
‘The Ordeal is like no other,’ Muwa said without a trace of play, then swung away and remounted his chariot. The driver lashed the whip and they moved off. ‘Fare well, Brother, until next we speak.’ And then he was gone, into the dust cloud.
Hattu and Dagon returned to the edge of the field where Colta, who had seen the incident, had summoned an asu. The young healer had with him a clay basin of water, some rags, roots and pastes.
‘A charioteer needs a hunter’s eye,’ Colta said, pointing to where the incident had occurred. ‘Never lose sight of what is coming at you from the side.’
‘Aye,’ Hattu agreed, wincing as the asu unbuckled his leather armour and raised his tunic, dabbing at the unbroken skin there. He made a few non-committal noises then shrugged. ‘It’ll bruise like a lettuce, but he’ll live,’ the healer joked.
‘Good,’ Colta said, ‘because now the king has returned from war, the Chariot Ordeal can be arranged.’
Son of Ishtar Page 21