Colta, watching from the bridgehead behind, cried: ‘Gah! Once they stop, it is like drawing the teeth from a serpent to get them moving again. Use your cane if you must.’
‘Come on,’ Hattu said, anger rising once more. But the mule tossed its head from side to side, its teeth snapping again, going for Hattu’s buttocks this time. ‘Curse you to the pits!’ he snarled, turning his back on the destination bridgehead to face the sumpter train and drag at the ropes like a strongman, as most of his comrades and the other animals passed him. Just as he was tiring and ready to bring out the cane, his smoke-grey eye ached and he saw something – something very, very wrong: the briefest blur of motion near the northern bridgehead from which they had stepped onto the bridge – the twines of the rope curling, spiralling, shredding.
Lightning slashed across his heart and he cried out with a half breath: ‘Get off the bridge.’
And before the words had fully left his lips, he heard the thick, reverberating twang of ropes giving way. The fifty or so beasts on the bridge and the Wolves entire erupted in a chorus of panic. At once they thundered forward. Hattu swung round too, bounding for the southern bridgehead.
Snap, twang! The bridge juddered violently and sagged to the left. He heard a scream as one of the Wolves pitched, flailing, off into the chasm, three braying mules going with him. Hattu slid to the left also, but grabbed the right-hand rope rail.
Twang!
Now the rail slackened in his grasp and the bridge sagged even more. He leapt for the bridgehead, clasping the Blaze captain’s hand and stumbling gratefully onto solid earth. He spun round to usher the last few Wolves and as many animals as he could from the bridge.
Snap! Again. Now the bridge groaned, the sound amplified and deepened by the chasm. He saw the two Wolves stuck in the mid-section and the twelve oxen and two mules with them. Their eyes were wide with terror, looking to him for salvation.
I’m sorry, he mouthed, just as the bridge plummeted, breaking apart completely at the northern bridgehead. The roar filled the land as the men and beasts fell to their deaths, then the bridge slapped against the chasm’s southern wall side with a shower of splinters and dust, dangling like a ribbon. For a moment there was silence. Even the cicadas had stopped singing. Hattu saw, across the way, Colta, gawping, the chariot teams agog, the Cruel Spears, mouthing panicked prayers, and then the many thousands of pack beasts stranded there too braying and lowing wildly.
‘Chariot Master?’ Kurunta called across the chasm. ‘You are well? The animals are well?’
‘Well enough – though I might need a fresh loincloth,’ Colta grumbled, eyeing the flailing ribbon of the bridge.
‘Can you see another way across?’ Kurunta called.
Even as the general said this, all heads were already combing the chasm in both directions, looking for another bridge to no avail.
A shushing of armour and footsteps sounded behind Hattu. Muwa, Volca by his side. The Chosen Prince scowled at the frayed bridgehead and at the baggage train and chariot wing trapped on the far side.
‘You said the bridge was sound!’ Muwa cried at the nearby scout rider.
‘I… it… it was,’ the fellow stammered, quaking.
‘I’ll have your belly slit and your guts pulled free, you-’
‘The bridge was sound,’ Hattu interrupted. ‘Those ropes were thick and new. They must have broken apart under the weight of the sumpter animals,’ he finished, unconvinced by his own argument.
Muwa turned a white-hot look on Hattu. ‘Damn you, mule-handler… what did you say?’ Muwa growled.
Hattu felt his breast quivering again, remembering poor Arrow dead in his hands. ‘I told you what I saw. If you choose to ignore me then so be it: an ignorant leader you will be.’
As at the camp, both men’s hands reached towards their sword hilts… this time each part-drew their blades with a screech.
As at the camp, Kurunta stepped between them before either could do so, shooting each a maddened glance. ‘Water,’ he cried as if to break the spell. ‘The wagons on the far side hold our water bags and barrels. We each carry just a skin,’ he said. ‘Skins that were full this morning, but I wager are now hanging nearly flat.’
Hattu let his sword slide back into his belt, as did Muwa. Both looked at one another with fire in their eyes and in their veins. This is not over, Hattu growled inwardly.
‘Water is our priority,’ Kurunta continued. ‘We must find a way to bring the baggage train over.’
Volca issued a short, barking laugh. ‘The sun is high – we might spend the rest of the afternoon searching in vain for another crossing, and thirsty soldiers will not last for long. And all the while Pitagga and his forces will be drawing closer. It is paramount that we take up position across the plain, to block the way to the Soaring Mountains,’ he said.
‘But we need those chariots,’ Kurunta insisted, pointing over at Colta, with the stranded wagons and horses.
‘I agree. But let a small team look for a crossing. The rest of the army should proceed at once onto the plain.’ The Sherden warrior turned away from the chasm and pointed across the plains of Nerik. Muwa and Kurunta followed his outstretched hand, gesturing across the circular basin of silvery grassland, maybe five or six danna in diameter. ‘Look: a stream, surely?’ Volca cried, pointing out the slight furrow in the land, running east to west. ‘Is that not one problem solved?’
Hattu, blood cooling a fraction, could not disagree: it looked like a brook of sorts. The only other feature in the basin was a high and sizeable tumulus, abutting the hills near the northwestern edge. He noticed a remnant crescent of tumbledown grey walls cupping the far edge of the mound. It could be only one thing. Nerik? But the haze on the basin floor was like a silvery sea. What else might it be masking?
‘Sir,’ Hattu said quietly to Kurunta. ‘This land is veiled with heat. What if-’
‘Silence, mule-handler,’ Muwa raged.
Curse you, Brother, Hattu mouthed through tight lips.
‘Chariot Master,’ Muwa called across the chasm, ‘take the mules and the chariot teams east, search for a route across. Rendezvous with us at the stream.’ He then waved the quivering scout rider and two others off to the east along this side of the rift.
Turning to face the rest of the army, Muwa gave the order to move west across the plains of Nerik, towards the brook. As the Fury peeled away first like the head of an uncoiling asp, Hattu and the Wolves took up their places in the Storm ranks. Before they set off, Hattu glanced eastwards in the direction Colta was to travel: no crossing point as far as the eye could see.
‘There are no other bridges,’ Dagon said, reading his thoughts.
‘And this one was sound,’ Hattu agreed.
‘Stay for a moment, Chariot Master,’ he shouted across the void to Colta, shooting a glance to be sure Muwa was out of earshot.
The Hurrian, about to set off eastwards, cocked his head to one side and halted his wagons and animal-handlers.
Then Hattu called to one of Raku’s men for a few coils of rope. ‘Help me,’ he said, beckoning the Wolves to the bridgehead. ‘This bridge can be restored far sooner than another one can be found.’ They tied the ropes to the dangling ribbon of bridge, part hoisting it, then lifted the free ends of the ropes and tossed them across the chasm. Colta’s men caught them, then began looking over the herds for the sturdiest oxen who might manage to raise the broken bridge.
Just then, the rest of the Storm ranks began to peel away from the southern side of the void, trailing the Fury and the Blaze.
‘Go!’ Colta hissed, waving him away. ‘We will do what we can here.’ He then lifted and examined the short ends of the broken ropes on the northern side, frowning.
As Hattu and the Wolves fell into place with the Storm and set off across the plains of Nerik, he heard the Chariot Master once again, talking to others over there. ‘These ropes. They look like they’ve been… part-cut.’
***
‘Stay in l
ine,’ Muwa roared at one flagging Fury soldier as they marched alongside the northern edge of the shallow stream under the noonday heat. Instantly, he hated himself for it. He had never been one to drive men with a yoke of fear. But damn, Hattu had made a monster of him in these last days. You claimed Atiya as yours. What right had you? She and I were destined to be. And now you seek to make a fool of me before my men, questioning my judgement, making bold calls before me as if to show you are stronger, wiser. You are a blight, Hattu. A blight! And you were correct. When you were the Cursed Son, things were easier. You knew your place and I mine. Now? Now you had best hope we do not cross paths again for some time. And when Pitagga spills from the northern hills and blunders onto these fields… if his axe falls for you… then, then… he knew what the next thought was, but could not put shape to it.
‘Tuhkanti,’ Kurunta said, having marched forward to draw level with him.
Muwa looked at him, unaware how twisted his mien was.
‘We should take great care as we progress across these lands,’ Kurunta said. ‘The shady passes in the Soaring Mountains,’ he said, pointing to the southern edge of the basin, on their left flank, ‘and the mound of Nerik,’ he added, pointing to the still largely shapeless, undulating mirage lying ahead at the northwestern end. ‘Both make me uneasy. And as Prince Hattu said, what if?’
Muwa felt the latest mention of his younger brother’s astuteness like a lash on his back. ‘Scouts,’ he barked. The team of a dozen unarmoured men on spry steeds, riding wide of the column, six on each flank, cantered to his side. ‘To the mountains and to the mound. See that nothing awaits us in either location.’
‘Yes, Tuhkanti,’ the lead scout said.
Volca fell back then, just before the riders set off. ‘And if all is clear, signal.’
‘Indeed,’ the lead scout agreed, digging a polished disc of bronze from his purse. It fitted snugly in his palm and caught the light like a torch.
‘Three flashes,’ Volca said. ‘If it’s all clear… three flashes, aye?’
‘It will be so,’ the lead scout said before heeling his mount round. The dozen sped off ahead, long dark locks dancing in their wake, before splitting into two groups of six, one heading to the mountains, the other speeding on ahead to the mound of Nerik.
Muwa dispersed his generals back to their divisions, then scowled into the hot ether. Sweat gathered on his top lip and time and again he swiped buzzing black flies away. Volca was a strange creature, but a loyal one, he thought. Kurunta was a legend, but perhaps too set in his ways. Still though, a loyal Hittite. And Hattu is but a flea, he thought with a gurn.
A short while later, the swirling heat haze lit up, three times, from the mountains then again, from beyond the Nerik mound. Muwa saw it as some sort of vindication. The long-range scouting had been diligent, but unnecessary. On they rode for another half hour through the deserted basin. Hattu’s prattling complaints had been proved flawed. Pitagga was nowhere near. And you should be thankful for that, Brother, for if he came for us right now, I would throw you and your damned Wolves into the front ranks and…
‘Tuhkanti, what is that?’ one regimental chief said.
Muwa, nudged from his baleful inner dialogue, looked up, following the chief’s pointing finger. The mound of Nerik was a blur no more. He was close enough now to see the crumbled arch of stone that once marked the western gate of the city.
The three-flash signal came again and again. A knot of figures stood on the near brim of the mound of Nerik. ‘Is that our riders?’ Muwa said, shading his eyes.
The chief was mute for a moment, then his eyes bulged. ‘No! By all the Gods, he’s here! He’s already here!’
Pitagga, festooned in the black breastplate and crowned with the skull of a lion, stood atop the ancient mount, holding aloft a long spear with Sarpa’s desiccated head.
Then, the source of the flickering came into view. Not the scouts’ discs but a tall, silver form: the great silver statue of Tarhunda, on the back of a crude wagon and draped with Kaskan trinkets and furs. The wagon rolled across the top of the mound and drew up beside a thick, round crucible, a fire raging below it and the air above warping and bending violently from the heat. The statue was hastily lifted onto a timber winch of sorts. A chorus of murmuring and dry-throated shouts of confusion broke out from the Hittite ranks before and behind as they saw their holiest of holies being lifted by mountain men and swung to dangle over the crucible. A lone Kaskan mounted a set of timber steps, braving the heat, an axe resting on his shoulder, just waiting for the order to cut the ropes and send the sacred icon to a fiery end. But Muwa cared little for the shamed effigy. He could do nothing other than stare at the next wagon that rumbled up to the mound’s edge, at the X-shaped frame mounted upon it and the form tied to it. Atiya?
His heart fell into his boots as he recalled the rumours of what Hattu had found on that foggy island. Men half-sawn on frames just like this one. He thought of Volca’s words last night as he polished the shining white silver vest in Muwa’s tent. Brother or not, Hattu has failed you, Volca had insisted.
This is your fault, Hattu. You did this. You!
‘Tuhkanti?’ a regimental chief gasped in a panic. ‘Give the order. We will rush the mound and free them.’
But Muwa felt his legs trembling. No… not his legs… the soil underfoot.
‘Earth tremors?’ one of his captains said.
But Muwa had felt earth tremors before. This was different, the soil shivering as he had felt it do in the Arzawan War…
His head swung to the south and his eyes widened on the agitated warm air there before the Soaring Mountains. The silvery grass there seemed to jostle and change like oil in water and then he heard a baritone roar of countless foreign mouths.
‘The scouts flashed three times…’ he said weakly. The scouts are dead, he realised. Pitagga and his horde had got here well before them. With enough time to spare to set up the most wicked of ambuscades.
‘Tuhkanti, guide us,’ another voice cried from the panicking ranks.
‘Turn the men to the south,’ he croaked, then repeated it, this time with a hoarse cry. ‘Turn!’
***
The earth shook. Hattu’s gaze seemed to be detached from his body. He could feel nothing, smell, hear and taste nothing. Only the dark vision atop the Nerik hill existed at that moment. Atiya, bound there, was everything. The men on the wagon flexed their long, two-handled saw. His mind flashed with the grim memory of the torn Kol on the foggy island. He wished for nothing other than to shapeshift into a falcon and speed for the mound. But even a raptor would not be swift enough to get there in time. Pitagga, holding Sarpa’s black, leathery head like a banner up there, knew this.
‘Turn! To the south!’ Muwa’s cry echoed across the grassy basin.
Hattu and every man in the Storm Division swung in that direction, seeing the air bend and twist there. Fright seized every one of them. Then, like a nightmare escaped from a tear in the ether, a flood of fierce warriors spilled into view, just over a slingshot’s range away. Not a raiding party of hundreds, nor an army of a few thousand, way more than the ten thousand or so they had pursued through the Lost North, their bounding ranks widening and deepening. There were bearded curs from every one of the twelve Kaskan tribes. And not just Kaskans: many fierce and strange others ran with them, faces painted, small bones piercing lips, hair dyed, spiked or shaven, backs clad in armour, skins and fleeces. All in the Lost North, it seemed, festooned with sharpened bronze and copper. In a trice, their front was as broad as the Hittite Column was long, easily outnumbering the army of the Grey Throne. The odds had been turned on their head: now at least three spears for every Hittite pair.
‘The stream is our line! Don’t let them cross the stream!’ General Kurunta bawled across the hastily forming ranks of the Storm and Blaze soldiers. A few companies here and from the Fury had already moved to face south and hold the near edge of the stream but many were still in shock, panicked, confu
sed.
The Kaskan war horns blared low and then piercingly high. Hattu felt his mouth turn to sand and his guts to water at the sight of what was coming for them. A storm that no soldier could weather, surely? But he had to live… or she would die.
‘Take your positions,’ Hattu cried to the Wolves. He lurched forward, his trailing plume, tail of hair and forest-green cloak lifting in his wake as he splashed into the shockingly cool waters of the stream, wading in until he was shin-deep. Tanku and Dagon came with him as he knew they would.
‘Come together!’
Their shields amassed as the Wolves pressed up either side of him. Ten men wide and just six deep. More Storm companies arrived on their left and more again on their right, along with the men of the other divisions. He spread his feet and levelled his spear through the small, eye-shaped gap between his shield and Tanku’s.
On the far side of the stream, the Kaskans had closed to fifty paces. They came like rabid hounds, mouths agape in their war cries, eyes unblinking. One hurled a copper axe as if it was a pebble. It hurtled through the air then plunged through the browband of a Storm captain’s helm, breaking the helm, skull and ruining the brain within. His eyes rolled up in his head and blood came in gouts from his nostrils. He sank to his knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut then toppled face first into the brook – the waters too shallow to carry him away. A shower of slingstones came rattling down too, ripping holes through men’s helms, shields, faces and torsos. A thick, strangled scream sounded from one of the Wolves as a stone smashed through his cheek and exploded from the back of his neck in a mizzle of blood. The scream was short lived.
With another blare of the foreign horns, the Kaskans erupted in a chorus of inhuman shrieking and broke into a sprint.
‘Archers,’ Kurunta howled.
Hattu sensed the disorder behind this long, thin front. He shot a look over his shoulder: right enough, the archers within the Hittite ranks were fumbling, bows not even strung. He saw others notice this too, casting looks at the Kaskans now just twenty paces distant, then taking tentative steps back from the hasty line at the stream. Hattu recalled the utter terror of the raid on Hattusa. That moment where the city had seemed all but lost, until he heard the boots marching down from the Great Barracks.
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