Son of Ishtar

by Gordon Doherty

  Nuwanza’s wraith applauded. An arrow loosed in haste is an arrow gone to waste.

  ‘The Wolves!’ Dagon cried, flicking his head across Hattu, to the infantry clash on their left. There, Tanku and the Mountain Wolves had been hewn away from the Hittite line and corralled into a tight knot by two speeding Azzi chariots on this side of the stream and a band of Kaskans charging across from the far side. Tanku’s mouth was agape in a constant roar of encouragement, despite the young soldiers with him falling in droves.

  Hattu’s chest broadened as he drew back the bowstring until the thumb of his draw hand touched his ear lobe. He almost heard General Nuwanza’s coaxing words from back in the academy as he pulled his shoulder blades towards one another for a fuller draw until his arms trembled just a little, then winked and trained the point of his arrow on the foremost of the two Azzi chariots.

  The warrior on that war car swung out his sickle like a snake’s tongue towards Tanku’s throat. Hattu’s smoke-grey eye ached at once and he saw his friend and chosen man – the one who had raised him to captain of his own volition – on the edge of death.

  When Hattu loosed, the arrow flew fast and true. It did not strike the Azzi charioteer on the chest as he had intended, but skewered the cur’s hand instead. The Azzi warrior shrieked, dropping his sickle and falling from the chariot to tumble over and over across the earth. Then, with a thick snap of vertebrae, he came to a halt, twitching, a blade of white bone poking from the back of his neck.

  Tanku staggered back from the expected sickle blow, not quite believing he had been saved.

  The second Azzi chariot then ploughed over the top of the corpse, dragging it for a distance, leaving a streak of blood on the trampled grass, before some part of the body caught fast on the chariot’s wheel – with a bang! the vehicle bucked forward over itself, tossing driver and warrior ahead and crashing upside down in a riot of splinters, upturned thrashing hooves and frantically whirling wheels. An almighty cheer erupted from the Hittites within the infantry fray.

  ‘Son of Ishtar!’ Tanku cried, pumping his fist in the air, the other Wolves joining in.

  Hattu let loose a wolf howl in reply before Dagon yelped some monosyllabic noise that brought his eyes forward again: they had charged to within paces of the thick of the chariot fray. A wall of dust and speeding battle cars. Like the training sessions at the Fields of Bronze, but with a slim chance of life as a prize.

  ‘Spears,’ the commander of the chariot reinforcements howled. ‘Smash them!’

  Hattu tossed his bow to the car floor and plucked one of his three spears from the small leather strap holding them to the chariot’s side. He crouched a little, right foot extended backwards for purchase, bringing the lance to the level just as Dagon cracked the whip over Rage and Thunder, who exploded into a full gallop. Hattu saw the Azzi chariot directly ahead, flank presented mid-turn. He saw the strung, gawping Hittite heads dangling from the chariot’s side. The warrior onboard – Scarface! – screamed at his driver to turn faster.

  Scarface’s chariot swung to face them and he raised a javelin, targeting Hattu but not soon enough. Hattu’s whole body flexed as his spear flew from his hand and hammered into Scarface’s chest. The tip tore out one half of the man’s ribcage – bone, cartilage and half a lung remaining impaled on the tip as the warrior spun away and fell from sight. They streaked on through the fray, enemy drivers and riders falling like wheat, reins cut and spokes smashed with carefully tossed bronze staves. Horses thrashed and men were thrown. Within moments of the arrival of the reinforcement Hittite war cars, the Azzi threat was in pieces. A handful of enemy chariots sped away, some to the eastern passes that led away from this basin, but a few fled towards the Nerik mound.

  ‘Turn,’ Colta howled, swinging his chariot towards the Hittite right flank, rounding it then crossing the stream, throwing up a sparkling mist. An arrowhead of Hittite chariots followed his lead like a skein of geese, wheels roaring as they churned across the water, whips snapping, war cries and horns bellowing as they once again sped up, scything along the southern banks, across the rear of the Kaskan lines. Kaskan heads turned, eyes bulging, disbelieving. Their own snare had been turned upon them.

  Hattu and every other chariot warrior loosed arrow after arrow into the massed mountain men. The surviving bowmen of the Hittite infantry, at last relieved from the Azzi threat to their rear, now took to loosing their arrows too. Back and forth across the Kaskan rear the Hittite charioteers went. As they turned for another sweep, Hattu’s eyes shot to the Nerik mound. He saw Pitagga up there, crying out some tirade, hands shooting to the skies, to the mountains and then to the axeman over the crucible and the bound Atiya. He spotted a flash of copper... the two warriors were positioning the saw between the priestess’ legs.

  Atiya!

  ‘Hattu!’ Dagon cried.

  Hattu swung round to see that a band of Kaskan infantry were surging against the Hittite chariot assault, hurling javelins. One plunged past Hattu, nicking his cheek. From the corner of his eye he saw comrade crews felled: horses staggering and plunging to their knees. Hittite war cries turned to screams of pain as a handful of cars were pulled over by a swell of defiant mountain men – warrior, driver and horse’s heads staved in with bronze-spiked clubs. The balance was swinging again.

  The chariot shuddered as a Kaskan leapt aboard. The man was a giant, and immediately grappled Hattu in a wrestler’s embrace, squeezing the air from his lungs. Hattu saw spots and lights flash before his eyes. But just before darkness took him, the pressure eased. The giant staggered back, Dagon’s knife jutting from his neck. The Kaskan fell from the back of the chariot and was sucked under the wheels of the chariot behind. Nearby, other Hittite chariots had repulsed the Kaskan surge too. It was somewhere in the midst of those few critical moments that the day turned for the final time. Trapped amongst the Hittite divisions on the stream’s north bank and the Lords of the Bridle behind them on the south bank, the Kaskans’ nerve shattered. Their swell became an ebb tide, masses of them surging not at the chariots but between them, flooding for the mountains, for the eastern and western passes.

  Over the fading storm of battle, Hattu heard Colta shouting: ‘The day is ours!’

  A song of desperate triumph broke out.

  But Hattu’s blood felt like fire. His limbs were numb, his heart crashing relentlessly. He looked to the mound of Nerik once more. Then he saw the demonic apparition of Kurunta, plastered in strips of skin and dripping with blood as he splashed across the stream to drive back the last clutch of determined Kaskans like an angry hound, twin blades whirling. The one-eyed general slowed beside Hattu’s chariot. ‘Are you deaf?’ Kurunta bellowed like an ox. ‘We’re done here. Now go to the mound… ’ he rasped. ‘Save the effigy. Save her! I will follow on.’

  Dagon responded with a tug of the reins even before Hattu could reply. Rage and Thunder peeled away from the scene of the battle, speeding towards the Nerik mound like flames licking from a torch.

  Hattu braced as the chariot sped up the mound’s lower slopes, one bloodied hand on his last spear. He watched as the sawmen steadied themselves by Atiya. He recognised the crow-faced one from the foggy island, saw his fingers curl as he took a firm grip of the saw handle. Hattu’s right eye ached and he saw it so clearly: the man’s knuckles whitening, the saw rising, lifting with it the hem of Atiya’s robe. Her scream was long and shrill. Without a moment of thought, he hefted his spear and hurled it with everything he had. The lance shot through the air, up, up, up, and straight into Crow-face’s temple. The man collapsed in a puff of blood, his head bursting like a rotten olive, red-grey muck showering the other sawman who backed away in fright. Pitagga swore black oaths at the frightened man before realising how close danger was. ‘Protect the hilltop!’ he roared. At once, a squadron of forty chosen Kaskan axe-warriors burst from the within the ruins atop the mound, forming a wall, blocking Hattu’s path to Atiya.

  ‘Break them!’ Hattu snarled, gripping the lip of t
he chariot, willing Thunder and Rage to plough through the wall of men.

  But the chariot swung away at the last, speeding around the girth of the hill, parallel to the baying warriors just above. ‘They’re too densely packed – we’d break them and ourselves,’ Dagon cried, just as a volley of hand-axes and stones rained down around them

  ‘Then go round!’ Hattu yelled, pointing to the back slopes of the mound. But there, another squadron had emerged to guard that approach. More spears rained down, one nicking Thunder’s croup. Hattu, oblivious to the danger, craned his neck, trying desperately to keep sight of Atiya up there.

  ‘We can’t break through alone,’ Dagon yelled as a Kaskan arrow zinged from his helm.

  ‘By the grace of the Storm God, you are not alone!’ a voice thundered from the foot of the slope. Hattu looked down there to see, charging up the mound in a pack, the forty young men who remained of the Mountain Wolves: big Tanku, Sargis, Kisna… and General Kurunta at their head, his face in an animal rictus, his silvery braid whipping in his wake as he raced uphill.

  The Kaskans lining the edge of the mount bristled, then Kurunta sprung up the last stretch of the slope like a pouncing lion, legs pedalling through the air as he drew his twin swords mid-leap. ‘Tarhunda, coat my heart in bronze!’ he bawled as he brought the blades together like shears around the neck of the biggest Kaskan. The foe’s head spun free. Then the Wolves erupted in a howl and fell upon the rest of the Kaskan defence. Blood and chaos reigned.

  Hattu and Dagon shared a momentary look, then Dagon slowed the chariot near the fray and both leapt from the car and plunged up the hill on foot to join the melee. It was a visceral contest now, with gasping men, ripping flesh and screams all around them. Hattu’s body was spent of energy yet on he fought with a fire summoned from deep within.

  Through a tiny gap in the mass of thrashing soldiers, he saw Pitagga, face pale with fright, backing away towards the wagon and the frame holding Atiya. He saw her eyes, wide and wet with tears, wrists and ankles struggling against her bonds. Pitagga untied her and looped an arm around her neck, using her like a shield. He pointed to the dangling silver effigy and the boiling crucible.

  ‘Your God will be cast into the flames,’ he screamed. ‘Cut the ropes,’ he yelled to the axeman on the timber steps beside the crucible. ‘Cut the damned ropes!’

  Hattu knew there was nothing he could do. He was too late: the axeman was already swinging his weapon. The Kaskan axe chopped through one of the two ropes. But, like a heavy necklace suddenly snipped at one side, the statue swung away from the cut like a hammer, towards the wooden steps, crashing through the support pillars and sending kindling in every direction. The axeman atop the steps could only flail wildly as he fell, face-first, into the crucible and the boiling ore it held. Hattu heard an animal shriek from within, amplified by the vessel. A breath later, a skinless hand clawed at the cauldron’s edge, blood vessels and sinew boiling and retracting to leave just a skeletal claw. For an instant, an inhuman face rose up too, riddled with swollen bubbles of skin and crowned with blazing, shrivelling hair, staring out in confused horror, before one eye burst from the heat and the axeman toppled back into his fiery grave. The statue of Tarhunda came to a rest safely, canted, the loose end finding purchase on the ground beside the boiling vat, the Storm God watching as his would-be executioner was reduced to ash.

  The edge of a copper axe nearly brained Hattu, tearing his eyes from the sight. He blocked the warrior’s next blow then saw through another gap: Pitagga, pressing a dagger against Atiya’s throat. Hattu’s veins filled with ice. He charged for the gap, squeezing through, only for the axe face of one of Pitagga’s two bodyguards to smack him hard on the shoulder, casting him to the ground. He sensed the axe and the spear of the other rising to chop down on him, but he did not care, seeing only the red runnel of blood that shot down Atiya’s neck as Pitagga pushed the dagger in. He heard himself cry out, one hand stretched uselessly out towards her, their eyes locked in her final moments.

  What happened next was a blur. A spinning frenzy of twin blades. Kurunta stormed through the Kaskan defence, alone, rolling then bounding to his feet again, skewering one of the two bodyguards standing over Hattu with one sword, then ramming his second blade into the other’s belly, before lurching at Pitagga and thrusting a palm against the Kaskan Lord’s wrist. The dagger spun from Pitagga’s hands, away from Atiya’s throat at the last.

  Hattu felt his heart surge and plummet at once: it was a reckless move, a fool’s move, just as Kurunta himself had preached. Never spend your last weapon. The one-eyed general had neither sword, shield nor spear to block the counterstrike of Pitagga’s swiftly-drawn axe. The cur’s blade hammered into Kurunta’s flank, cleaving deeply.

  When Kurunta One-eye fell, the Wolves erupted in a pained roar and overran the Kaskan blockade, breaking onto the mound top, enraged at the felling of their battle-master. The remnant of the Kaskan guard pulled back, forming a ring around their lord, swallowing up Atiya too in their midst, shrinking back, deeper into the ruins of the Nerik mound.

  Hattu and the Wolves surged forward in pursuit of the retreating Kaskan guards, then he slid to one knee as he came to the broken form of General Kurunta. No healer could treat the deep, dark axe-wound in his side. ‘You gave your life to save me, to afford her another few moments,’ Hattu tremored, unable to believe the teak-hard warrior had been beaten in combat. ‘The silver effigy is safe too.’

  Kurunta’s good eye was growing distant. ‘I have lived my life in worship of Tarhunda but… damn the effigy… save the priestess.’

  Hattu nodded, grief entangled with the fire of battle. He made to rise and obey the general’s last order, when Kurunta grabbed his wrist. ‘Prove your father wrong, lad… prove Ishtar wrong… ’

  Hattu gazed down at him, hearing his breath rattle and seeing his pupil dilate. Like the passing of an uncontrollable storm, General Kurunta was gone. Hattu stood tall, his teeth grinding like rocks. ‘Pitagga!’ he roared, stalking forward, seeing the knot of Kaskans still backing away, vanishing into the shards of old Nerik’s fallen buildings.

  But before he could close upon them, a grinding of wheels and a puff of colour to his left snagged everyone’s attention: there, three shapes spat forth from the ruins of an old stable and sped down the southern edge of the mound. Hattu’s smoke-grey eye ached as he saw it: Pitagga, driving an Azzi chariot, racing down onto the plain and off to the south, the lance with Sarpa’s head upon it standing proud. Flanking him were two more chariots, crewed by cruel-eyed Azzi men.

  ‘He’s headed for the Soaring Mountains,’ Dagon cried. ‘If he reaches them then he will melt away once again.’

  Hattu heard him, but took none of it in. He glanced at the second, crumpled form on the floor of Pitagga’s chariot. ‘He has Atiya,’ Hattu roared, backing towards his own battle car, where Thunder and Rage waited.

  Dagon was onboard in a heartbeat.

  ‘Ride… Ride!’ Hattu screamed.

  ***

  Volca, perched like a raven on the carriage roof, scowled at what he was seeing. The cursed armies of the Grey Throne had turned the day – Kaskan warriors were breaking away in packs, fleeing in every direction. And now… now Pitagga himself had abandoned Nerik.

  He watched the three Azzi chariots speed away to the south. ‘Aye, you pig-farming son of a whore, run. I should never have invested so much in you,’ he growled. Then he saw Hattu’s chariot in pursuit and realised something: it was over for the Lord of the Mountains and the Kaskans. The battle was lost. But his battle was still there for the taking. The sick king would soon fall into eternal languor. And the hateful brothers… were they not only hours before swearing death upon each other? His sulk lifted into a smile, and he leapt down from the carriage roof, landing with a wet crunch on fallen men. The carriage sides were spattered with blood and innards.

  He leant in once to hover over the ailing king. ‘Now, Great King, I must leave your side,’ he said, uncorking and
tipping his last vial of pungent root juices down the king’s throat – the final dose, he reckoned. ‘The princes need my help, it seems…’

  King Mursili’s eyes widened then the lids drooped and his whole face sagged.

  Volca threw away the empty vial then swung away from the wagon, trod through the carpet of dead, inhaling the metallic stink of drying blood, hearing the rhapsody of buzzing flies and feasting vultures like a thunderous round of applause from a court full of sycophants. He came to Prince Muwa, whose black-armoured shoulders rose and fell in exhausted gasps as he directed his Fury ranks to refrain from chasing after the fleeing Kaskan infantry.

  ‘Leave them to Colta’s chariots,’ he bawled.

  ‘Tuhkanti,’ Volca said. ‘Pitagga escapes.’

  Muwa swung round, following Volca’s pointing finger.

  ‘He makes for the mountains, and has the priestess in tow.’

  Muwa instinctively stepped in that direction, then bristled in helplessness.

  ‘Fear not, however, for the Son of Ishtar gives chase,’ Volca said, then waited, watching, knowing what the prince would do next.

  Muwa flinched angrily, then looked to one of Colta’s chariots nearby, drawn up and driverless.

  Yes, do it, Volca purred inwardly. ‘Drive, Tuhkanti,’ he said, leaping aboard. ‘I will be your warrior.’

  Muwa climbed aboard the near vehicle and fumbled with shaking hands to take up the reins. ‘Ya!’

  The chariot spat forward away from the remains of the battle. Men shouted after their Tuhkanti in confusion, but Muwa’s face was hard, his eyes aflame with confusion and hatred.