Son of Ishtar

by Gordon Doherty

  Hattu helped Arrow onto his bracer, backing away, confused. He heard a collection of uncharitable laughs from nearby Fury soldiers, wakened and having heard it all. ‘Even Muwa rejects his shadow now,’ one whispered to another.

  ***

  Volca sliced a thin disc from his pear soundlessly, lifting it to his lips slowly, chewing on it carefully. Perched on the perimeter boulder, he had watched the Cursed Son speak with the king’s heir, heard almost every word too. Spite like that could be extremely useful, if nurtured carefully…

  ***

  Sixteen temple-wagons rolled along the low ridge track, heading east. Two palace scout riders led the way, three or four Hittite soldiers sat on each vehicle’s roof and Captain Kol and the rest of the Eagle Kin jogged alongside the convoy.

  Inside the third carriage, Atiya sat, one hand on her belly, the other on her mouth. It had been an unpleasant ride. The motion of the vehicle combined with the heat and the dust of the ride had proved a nauseous mixture. And the constant wittering of the Elder Priestess sitting opposite helped little. At least this was the second day and nearly the end of the journey – a few more hours and they’d be in the high city of Tapikka. Its pleasant pools and cool temple quarters would soon soothe her.

  In the meantime, she began to thumb the crude wooden beads on the bracelet Hattu had given her. There was a stag’s head, a wolf’s, a lion’s, an elephant’s… the distraction was working wonders for her nausea. Even better, the prattling priestess fell silent at last… only to draw a clay pot out of her hide bag, prizing the lid off to unleash the most horrific stink. ‘Sturgeon paste,’ she smiled to the others – everyone else now clutching hands to their mouths, ‘mixed with egg. Don’t worry, I won’t hog it all to myself, you can have some too,’ she said.

  Another young priestess seemed set to throw up first, grabbing the edge of one curtain, when the whole wagon jolted forwards. ‘Ya!’ they heard the driver yell with the snap of a whip.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the Elder Priestess with the disgusting food squawked.

  Atiya rose from the bench to pull aside the linen flap that separated the rear of the carriage from the driver’s berth. She looked over the driver’s shoulder and across the dusty, noonday countryside: the larger, open-backed wagon ahead rocked under the weight of the silver effigy of the Storm God – covered under a hide sheet – and a trio of other vehicles rode in front of this. The city of Tapikka lay on the horizon – a small, fortified place set on a shard of bedrock that stood proud of the land like a battle helm.

  ‘Driver, why have we sped up?’

  ‘Sit tight, my lady,’ he snapped in reply, cracking the whip again. This sent Atiya stumbling back onto the bench. The wagon jounced along, and Atiya was sure she could hear snatched, anxious calls outside from the now-running soldiers. A dull thud and a grunt sounded from the roof, then something heavy crashed onto the road.

  ‘What was that?’ the Elder Priestess screeched, dropping her urn of fish paste.

  Atiya stood, throwing her hands to the carriage walls to balance. She yanked the curtain back again. ‘Driver, what… ’ her words tailed off as she saw no driver at the reins. The maddened oxen were trotting as best they could. Then she poked her head through the gap and saw the erstwhile driver lying slumped on the berth floor, an arrow in his breast, blood boiling from the wound. Then she looked up and saw something very odd up ahead: a lone rider, still and watching from horseback on the roadside, smiling, his amber hair framing his freckled face, one hand raised.

  You?

  His smile faded and he chopped his hand down like an axe.

  Up ahead, the ridge track darkened and a poplar came crashing down across the road, between the wagons and the amber-haired man. The oxen bellowed in fright and pulled in opposite directions. She reached out towards the reins in the dead driver’s hands to try to calm or slow them, but it was too late.

  The leftmost ox tripped and fell with a pained groan, the wagon bucked across the poor creature and pitched over onto its side, rolling down the ditch at the side of the road. Roof and ceiling changed places. Atiya’s shoulder crashed against the bench, then the ceiling, then another priestess was catapulted into her midriff, winding her. Next, her head thumped against the back wall of the wagon, and all was black.

  She heard screaming and a frantic clashing of bronze, but saw nothing and felt nothing, other than brutish hands hoisting her from the wreck, carrying her like plunder.

  Chapter 14

  The Loyal Watchmen of Galasma

  Spring 1300 BC

  On the fourth day of the march, the army came to a standstill by the edge of the Green River, all eyes on the pair of sorry-looking timber posts and dangling lengths of rope on the opposite banks. The bridge was but a memory.

  ‘This is a cruel joke. I can almost spit into Galasma from here,’ Kurunta growled, kicking a foot into the shingle by the river’s shallows. The track resumed on the river’s far banks and wound north like the waterway through a range of golden hills. The peaks of the Soaring Mountains stood proudly in the distance, but the low country of Galasma between the hills and the mountain range was obscured. ‘But the waters are shallow,’ he said, eyeing the shiny, wet and smooth rocks that poked from the river’s surface, ‘thigh-deep, I’d say.’

  General Nuwanza cast his eye over the breadth of the waterway then back along the halted army column and the sea of soldiers squinting into the sun to see what was happening ahead. ‘It’ll take us the rest of the morning at least to move the divisions across. The wagons and mules will be the slowest part.’

  ‘This was always a contest of swiftness. Can we spare a morning?’ Kurunta asked.

  Nuwanza bit his lip, the gesture answer enough.

  ‘The sky darkens,’ a soldier muttered nearby. Kurunta shot him a look then followed his gaze. Above the obscured flatlands of Galasma, a single, stark wisp of black smoke spiralled and twisted across the sky.

  ‘Are the lead mines already under assault?’ Nuwanza said, stepping closer to him so the men wouldn’t hear. But already the murmur was spreading back along the column. ‘Galasma burns,’ they whispered.

  Kurunta shrugged. ‘A Galasman has left his bread in the oven too long while he sees to his wife,’ he grunted, feigning good humour.

  ‘Still, we had best be on our way across the ford,’ Volca said, appearing between Kurunta and Nuwanza.

  Nuwanza railed at the man’s intrusion. ‘Aye? Well maybe, if that is what the Tuhkanti decides.’

  The trio strode back to the royal carriage, where Prince Muwa stood.

  ‘We need direction, Tuhkanti,’ Kurunta replied. ‘You are the king’s voice. The bridge is down. The river will hamper our progress but, he lowered his voice, flicking his head towards the black pall in the north, ‘we cannot afford to tarry here.’

  ‘Send me on ahead,’ old Ruba said, ambling towards the carriage with Onyx the pony in tow. His bald head was burnt from the sun and his gait shambling, but he was insistent. ‘I know the Galasmans well. I taught the sons of their nobles – I taught Darizu… well, I tried anyway. And if there are Kaskans up ahead, they will ignore me – what threat would they see in an old man and his pony?’

  A fair plan, Kurunta thought. But Prince Muwa seemed deeply agitated. The young man had been on a number of campaigns already and Kurunta had never seen him like this. ‘I can advise you on what I’d do if you wish, Tuhkanti.’

  ‘Take a detachment ahead while the rest of the column crosses the ford,’ Muwa replied swiftly and tersely, flicking a finger at Kurunta and Nuwanza. ‘Nuwanza, you will lead.’

  ‘Aye, well, he must be bored of following me,’ Kurunta muttered with a salty half-grin to his fellow general.

  ‘True, being downwind of you is not a pleasant affair,’ the bowman shot back with an arch look.

  ‘Tuhkanti,’ Volca interjected, ‘Is it wise to stumble into the lands ahead in pieces. Keep the army as one. Cross the river and march into Galasma in unison.’
/>
  ‘The army will not advance in pieces,’ Muwa sighed. ‘The detachment will be small – insignificant even.’

  Volca made to persist, but Muwa raised a hand.

  ‘I have made my choice,’ Muwa said. ‘Old Tutor, you will go too with a pair of scout riders,’ he said to Ruba. Then he looked at Kurunta and Nuwanza and flicked his head down the line of the halted column. ‘Summon two companies – one from each of your divisions.’

  ‘Pitiless Ravens,’ Nuwanza beckoned to a company of one hundred from the Blaze.

  Kurunta looked down the line to the Storm Division. He saw the many companies of veterans, and the one with his most recent recruits. They would have to be stretched at some point, he thought, and perhaps this sortie would give them a first taste of true danger. ‘If enemy soldiers lie beyond, we are not to engage, are we, Tuhkanti?’

  Muwa shook his head. ‘You are scouts, no more. See what lies ahead, then return to us. If something happens – if danger looms or you fall into trouble and cannot bring word back – send a single fire arrow into the sky to warn us.’

  Kurunta nodded, then bawled: ‘Mountain Wolves, with me!’

  ***

  The two hundred splashed across the ford and moved at a gentle run on up the northern track, hugging the Green River’s eastern banks. They moved with a rapid crunch-crunch of boots, rasping breaths, clinking bronze axes, swords and maces swinging in their belts. It was reminiscent of the red-fell training – moving at a pace that had Hattu’s lungs burning as if there were hot stones sitting in each.

  ‘Your falcon, if only she could talk,’ Tanku panted, running by Hattu’s side, his eyes glancing skywards where Arrow soared. ‘She will see what lies ahead before the old scribe and the horsemen do.’

  ‘The smoke is waning,’ Dagon whispered. Indeed, that menacing, single wisp of black had vanished.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean the trouble has faded with it,’ Kisna added.

  Hattu saw the flinty look in the pair’s eyes. The Kaskan raid on Hattusa had robbed both of much: Dagon his home, his father crippled; Kisna his entire family.

  The folds of the river valley seemed never-ending until, at last, they saw a broad V of azure sky ahead. They slowed at Kurunta and Nuwanza’s command, moving half-crouched, breaths held captive.

  ‘Whatever is beyond,’ Hattu said, ‘remember who we are.’

  ‘Aye, we trained together, we bested every challenge of the academy,’ Tanku agreed.

  ‘The Wolves,’ Dagon said in a strong whisper.

  ‘The Wolves,’ the rest agreed in throaty rasps.

  The scarred veterans of the Pitiless Ravens seemed compelled by this to make a whispered oath amongst themselves.

  They spilled from the end of the river valley to see not a waiting enemy, but a sun-soaked and broad stretch of alluvial flatland: a patchwork of gold crop, green meadow and brown fallow, dotted with farmsteads. The Green River separated into myriad brooks that meandered across this plain.

  ‘Galasma,’ the Captain of the Ravens muttered in a muted tone.

  ‘Land of the loyal watchmen,’ Nuwanza said.

  A pleasant-enough country, Hattu reckoned, were it not for the proximity of the snow-capped Soaring Mountains, now a clear and crisp jagged wall, impossibly high, lining the north edge of Galasma like an army of watching giants. This was the northern edge of Hittite lands, hard and ever-so real. Now he understood the Galasmans’ lot: gifted fine farmlands by the Grey Throne in return for helping man the northern watchtowers, accepting their lot as a buffer state, and enduring the lofty realm of the Kaskans hovering on their shoulder. On the foothills before the Soaring Mountains, Hattu saw the many dark pockmark-like holes of the famed lead mines of this region. On top of these low hills he spotted two stone and red-clay watchtowers. Broad, square turrets, three storeys high, but smothered in the morning shadows of the mountains. Against the backdrop of the imposing peaks and the Kaskan threat that lay within, these frontier towers looked like children gazing up at an oncoming tidal wave of stone.

  Kurunta said nothing, his good eye fixed on the mountains. Then, at last, his gaze dropped to the Galasman flatlands immediately ahead and he said to Ruba: ‘Lead the way, Old Goose. We have your back.’

  Ruba led them down a gentle grassy slope into the Galasman flatlands, rich with the scent of woodsmoke, barley and ox-dung and the gentle sounds of nature.

  ‘All seems well?’ Hattu mused.

  When they approached a cluster of mud-brick huts lining one brook, he saw the workers in the fields. And as they drew closer, Hattu saw many don nervous looks, gulping, some turning their backs.

  ‘They fear us?’ Hattu muttered. ‘Why – we are allies?’

  ‘The mighty Galasmans,’ Tanku said mockingly, ‘the hardy fighters that will join us and tilt the balance against Pitagga.’

  ‘Hold on, where are all the men?’ Garin said.

  Hattu looked around. Women, children and old men. Not a man of fighting age to be seen. Only a few men of any age remained in open view, the nearest, a short-haired old fellow resting his weight on a crook who watched their approach with bagged, tired eyes.

  The army halted when General Nuwanza threw up a hand. The Master Archer then whispered to Ruba, by his side. ‘Old Goose? What is this?’

  Ruba shrugged, smiled an unconvincing smile then heeled Onyx into a trot over to a man with the crook. ‘Greetings, comrade,’ Ruba said.

  ‘Welcome,’ the lame man muttered in reply. ‘It has been some time since the King of the Grey Throne visited these parts.’

  Tanku and Dagon exchanged a look.

  ‘A warm welcome, eh?’ Garin said.

  Something irked Hattu about the man’s words, but he couldn’t work out what.

  Ruba maintained his bright manner. ‘Your people are well, I trust?’

  ‘Aye… aye,’ the old fellow sighed.

  ‘We saw smoke. Black smoke, coming from these parts. We feared the worst.’

  The lame fellow’s eyes widened, unblinking. ‘We… we had an infestation of locusts on one of our barley fields,’ he said. ‘A blight of black spots. We had to put it to the torch.’

  Hattu saw beyond the small village a patchwork of fallow fields. One was darker than the others and might have been burnt, but he couldn’t tell from this distance.

  ‘Where is Darizu, Chief of the Watch in these parts?’ Ruba asked.

  The old fellow shook his head. ‘All the menfolk have upped and left.’

  A confused chatter broke out around Hattu from all the soldiers who heard this.

  Nuwanza switched his head in every direction ‘To where?’

  ‘To the line of the northern watch,’ he said, lifting his crook and pointing it towards the shadowy foot of the Soaring Mountains and the two towers visible from here, then dragging it along to the west a little, where woods and hills obscured the view.

  Hattu saw just north of that area a narrow breach in the mountains, like an axe wound.

  ‘Where exactly?’ Kurunta pressed, growing impatient.

  ‘To the high fortress at Baka,’ the old man said after a pause, ‘overlooking the throat of the Carrion Gorge. They left in a great hurry, you see, after an outlying goatherd came in from the Soaring Mountains and told of a Kaskan approach from the north. Darizu hopes to bed in at Baka and block any southwards incursions.’

  ‘Then it is true: Pitagga comes to take our lead mines?’ Nuwanza asked.

  The lame fellow shrugged. ‘We can only assume so. The only other thing he will get by coming this way is a damned hard fight.’ He swung a fist as he said this and some of the Ravens and a few of the Wolves laughed. Hattu had never felt less humoured.

  ‘Is there not a single man of the weapon who can take us there?’ Kurunta asked, his good eye shooting across the houses and seeing just frightened children and women peering from the windows and roofs.

  ‘Not one,’ the old fellow answered.

  Ruba, Kurunta and Nuwanza gathered to convene.
Hattu strained to listen in. ‘This is not what I expected,’ Ruba said. ‘I knew Darizu’s father when he was chief of the Galasman Watch. He would never neglect to leave a small garrison of sorts to watch over this unwalled settlement.’

  ‘But if a heavy Kaskan force is coming down the gorge, perhaps every man was needed?’ Nuwanza countered as he looked to the north and that narrow break in the peaks.

  Kurunta growled like a cornered dog and then spat into the dirt. ‘I fear that picking over these bones for too long would be a mistake. We should hurry for Baka Fortress – find out what is going on there in good time before the Labarna and the rest of the divisions reach these parts.’

  ***

  Noon came and went with few words spoken before the two hundred reached the northern end of the Galasman flats. The midday sun chased the last of the shadows from the land and the mountains shimmered like silver. The cicadas screamed now as they moved along the age-old track that took them into the foothills and along a rising path walled with pine woods. It was cool here at least, part-shaded from the sun by trees. As they marched, Hattu saw the shadow of a bird pass over him. He looked up and there was Arrow soaring overhead. She shrieked once, twice and again.

  What’s wrong, girl? he mouthed. She was a noisy bird at the best of times, but the way she beat her wings and tacked through the air in swift turns suggested this was no mere strop in search of food. Suddenly, the shade within the trees seemed to threaten. But nothing happened. As they approached the top of the path and emerged from the woods, Hattu could almost feel two hundred or so breaths being released as the landscape beyond rose into view. The Soaring Mountains towered over them, broken only by the wide Carrion Gorge which stretched off northwards, the silvery air within dancing in a heat haze. And not a sign of danger as far as the eye could see.

  ‘The gateway to the Lost North,’ he mused, peering into the mirage of the gorge.