Bronze Summer

55

The Third Year After the Fire Mountain: Late Spring.

After midnight the party came out to repair the Words on the Wall. It was pitch dark, under a sky choked with cloud.

Tibo stood with his father at the balcony, in a gentle, cold rain. They were high on the Wall here, high over Old Etxelur. The night was cold, and the day under a sunless sky hadn’t been much warmer. Looking down, Tibo saw that the latest bonfires the Trojans had built at the base of the Wall had died back, thanks to the heavy rain earlier in the day; only a sullen red glow came from the huge heapings of wood. Further out, nothing could be seen of the enemy save the diffuse lights of the Trojans’ fires. Some of the fires cast reflections in standing water. Northland under siege had become a soggy landscape, all the way to the face of the Wall itself.

And beyond that was only darkness. Any Northlanders between here and the horizon were in hiding. If the land was dark it was silent too — almost, anyhow. You rarely heard the sounds of the night any more, the cries of wolves, the calls of owls. Even the animals and birds fled from the Trojans.

But tonight Tibo thought he heard something coming out of the gloom, a murmur of voices, a deep creaking like the swaying of a gigantic tree. The Trojans often worked at night, launching their pinprick raids on the Wall under cover of the dark. Were they up to something this night?

The rain fell harder. Tibo lifted his face, letting the droplets prickle on his skin. It felt oddly soothing, cooling. Briefly he closed his eyes, and concentrated on the feeling of the moisture on his face. He had continued his military training, but his anger kept getting him into trouble, and he had been working with cousin Riban the priest on mastering his rage. Caxa had tried to help him too, as, she said, he had once helped her. But sometimes it felt as if his head was too full, of the hours on the fire mountain when he thought he would die, the days in the camp of the Spider when he wished he had. Now he faced these Trojans, who ripped up the very country his ancestors had made. In a world full of such huge destructive forces, he needed his strength, and he needed his anger to fuel that strength. But he had to learn to put aside that anger until he was in a position to unleash its lethal energies usefully. At least he had found a way to treasure moments of stillness, like this, whenever he could. He had even begun to sleep properly, some nights anyhow.

His father clapped his shoulder. ‘You all right? Here comes Mi with the lantern bearers. We’ll be moving soon.’

The bearers were coming forward now, carefully carrying a wide-mesh net to which small oil lamps were attached, already lit. The bearers stood at the balcony in a line, and let the net down the face of the Wall, gently, gently, making sure the lanterns were not spilled. The watching Trojans would see this, of course, and they would know what the Northlanders were up to, but there was nothing they could do about it. The bearers were mostly older folk and children, too old or young to fight. As Raka kept saying, in this war for survival every Northlander was a warrior, and could find some role to play.

Mi murmured quiet commands to make sure her team worked as one. Fifteen years old, focused, intense, Mi always seemed capable, always in control, despite her youth. Some people were flourishing in this protracted war, and Mi was one of them, people said, one of the brighter of the young generation. She was using the hideous death of her stepmother Vala to fuel her determination. She was coping. That was what people said. Nobody said such things of Tibo. He didn’t care, as long as he got the chance to kill a few more Trojans, before, inevitably, one of them killed him.

Again he heard that deep creaking from the landscape below, a crack like a root breaking. ‘Father, I think the Trojans are doing something out there.’

Deri grunted. ‘Whatever it is we’ll see it in the morning, and we’ll deal with it then. As we have everything else they’ve thrown at us.’ He stretched and yawned hugely, and Tibo smelled the fish on his breath. Everybody’s breath smelled of fish, as did their farts. There was plenty of fish to eat on the besieged Wall, delivered to the growstone harbours facing the Northern Ocean that the Trojan ships couldn’t reach, but little else.

At last Mi whispered to Deri, ‘Ready.’

Deri nodded, and beckoned to his team. The other sign-makers came forward now, all along the balcony, picking up their paint even as Mi’s team finished anchoring the net securely. Tibo lifted a jar of paint and fixed it to his leather belt with a bit of rope. The wooden jar was heavy, and would make climbing awkward. There were brushes too, simple tools of split willow; Tibo took a couple and stuck them in his belt. He also had his sword in its scabbard, strapped to his back, out of the way.

Deri led the way. He sat up on the low balcony parapet, swung his legs over, and then began to climb one-handed down the net.

Tibo followed his father. Soon he was clambering down the net, down the outer face of the Wall. The climb was easy save for the awkward bulk of the jar, and the scabbard digging into his back. But the Wall was covered by greasy rain-soaked soot from the Trojans’ fires, and soon his hands, his bare legs, the front of his tunic were all stained black. Of course the soot stains were the reason they were here.

To left and right, in the light of the lamps, the others climbed down in a rough line, all along this part of the Wall’s face. These workers were all fighters, men and women, all seasoned in combat. A couple of times the Trojans had hastily erected long ladders and come swarming up to the painters’ nets, trying to use them to gain access to the Wall galleries. If the Trojans tried that again it would be the job of Deri and Tibo and the others to hold them off. There was no sign of Trojan activity tonight, not here. But Tibo was wearing no armour, and he had his back to a plain occupied by the enemy, and the space between his shoulder blades itched as if inviting the kiss of an arrowhead.

Around halfway down the net he came to grooves cut into the growstone face, visible in the light of the torches, swooping circles and lines, with splashes of red and orange paint under the obscuring film of the soot. This was the Word he was to work on. He anchored himself, braced against the net with his booted feet on the face of the Wall, and tied a loop of rope from his belt to the net. Then he got out a brush, dipped the frayed end in the paint bucket, and started smearing the sticky stuff on the Wall. Soon the orange stain of the paint added to the black muck on his tunic. He just had to paint the grooves as far as he could reach, and then move on, down or sideways. After the first few trials nobody had bothered trying to clean off the Trojan soot; it was found that from a distance, across the landscape, the repainted Words stood out even more strongly against the soot’s dark background than the white face of the Wall itself. All the better if you could use the Trojans’ own efforts against them.

The Words had been an inspiration of Caxa, the Jaguar-girl sculptor who had memorably carved a sign to the gods outside My Sun — a sign now desecrated by the Trojans who had smashed the place up, but the Annids had promised that some day it would be restored. The Trojans’ advance on the Wall had cut off Etxelur, the Wall and the Annids from the rest of Northland. So Caxa, inspired by the colourful banners that were draped over the Wall’s face on festival days like the midsummer Giving, had suggested painting slogans on the Wall itself: tremendously tall designs, Words that could be seen many days’ travel away. The idea had been accepted with enthusiasm. Soon sections of the Wall’s white face were covered with the ancient ring-and-groove lettering of Etxelur, messages shouting out to all who could see, and read them: THE WALL STANDS! THE LOVE OF THE MOTHERS PROTECTS US ALL! THE TROJANS CANNOT PREVAIL!

Of course the Trojans responded. Even if they couldn’t read such signs they could guess their purpose. So in their assaults on the Wall the Trojans defaced the signs, and built bonfires to smear them with soot. In response the Northlanders had cut the signs deeper into the Wall’s sheer face and painted over the soot. It had become a strange side-battle in this war, a battle over words, symbols, ideas, one side writing, the other side erasing, over and over. And it was a uniquely Northlander battle too. Most Northlanders could read and write, whereas in Troy and Greece and the land of the Hatti, literacy was the province of the scribes — not even the kings could read the proclamations they applied their seals to. Regardless of what the Words said, their very existence were a reminder of the uniqueness of Northland civilisation.

Tibo worked steadily, shifting his position, balancing the weight of his bucket. The work was easy, if repetitive. It seemed to satisfy some corner of his soul to complete such a simple task, just filling a groove with paint. Another way to achieve the calmness Riban had urged him to find within himself. And as he worked on he became aware of the dawn approaching. He worked with his back to the landscape, but gradually he made out the face of the Wall before him in the gathering daylight, a blue-grey wash that picked out the pocks and flaws in the Wall’s growstone surface.

Then there was another wooden creak, louder, and voices calling from the plain.

Tibo turned to see, hanging one-armed from the net. Northland had emerged from the dark, flat to the horizon under a cloudy blue-grey sky. The land was scarred by the Annids’ huge new defensive earthworks, ramparts and ditches, running for long stretches along the face of the Wall. At the base of the Wall itself water stood in hollows, building up against the growstone. Trojan raiders had long ago torched the windmills on the Wall’s roof, so now, in chambers safely tucked deep within the Wall, work gangs were turning great wheels to keep the pumps working — gangs manned by volunteers, it was said. But it was impossible to keep the flooding down completely. Looking along the face of the Wall itself Tibo could see more relics of the Trojans’ many assaults: broken ladders, the wreck of a battering ram that had smashed itself to pieces against the Wall’s growstone face, earthen ramps, even pits where Qirum’s men had tried tunnelling under the Wall.

But this morning, Tibo saw, astonished, Qirum was trying something new.

At first he thought the thing silhouetted against the dawn light was a huge man, a terrifying figure. Then he saw that it was no creature but a man-made thing, a tower of wood and rope roughly nailed and bound together. Platforms stuck out of it like great tongues, protruding towards the Wall. Some of them were surely high enough to be able to reach the galleries, like the one from which he dangled.

And the tower was moving. It was mounted on wheels, thick and solid, that looked as if they had been cut from the trunks of huge, ancient oaks. Teams of oxen dragged this thing over the muddy ground, and it cut deep ruts as it passed. There were so many of the animals that they combined in his view into black slabs of heaving muscle, their breath steaming in a cloud. Men drove the oxen with sticks and whips, and warriors jogged alongside the tower, their bronze armour bright in the gathering light. Chariots followed, perhaps bearing commanders. There were men in the tower itself, dwarfed by its scale. They looked like toys, Tibo thought, toy soldiers that Puli or Blane would play with.

This was the source of the tremendous wooden groans he had heard through the night. It was a siege engine.

‘Father!’

‘I see it.’ Deri was hanging on the net, staring. ‘I heard of such things in Hattusa, but I never saw one before — and I never heard of one so big. But then I imagine no siege in history has ever faced such a barrier as the Wall.’

‘Where did it come from? It wasn’t here yesterday.’

‘They must have brought it up overnight, in pieces, on carts. Then they put it together in the dark, and here it is.’ He shook his head. ‘We must never underestimate the Trojans, son.’

Now the Wall community was waking in the dawn, and cries of alarm echoed in the galleries. Soon the first resistance began. Arrows and stones flew from the galleries above Tibo’s head, some of the arrows burning. Tibo glanced up, and saw Mi with her lethal Kirike’s Land bow firing off shot after shot, one glowing spark sent flying through the air after another.

The first fire arrows fell on the tower. Some sank home in the engine’s wooden frame, but they burned only slowly, perhaps the wood was wet, and there were men with blankets and buckets of water and earth to douse any fires that did catch. Meanwhile, down on the plain, the Trojan warriors raised their shields and fired back in response, but being so far below their arrows fell well short, thumping back into the muddy ground.

And all the while the great engine lumbered ever closer to the Wall. Now it approached the band of ditches and ramparts that had been dug out before the Wall itself. Trojan engineers rushed forward to break the ramparts and lay boards over the ditches. The few defenders stationed there put up some resistance, but when the Trojans arrived, when the swords glittered and the blood splashed, they fell back.

‘We aren’t going to stop it,’ Tibo murmured.

‘There’s a way to go yet. But you and I might have some fighting to do today, son. Come on.’ Deri dumped his jug and brush, letting the paint splash down the Wall’s face, and began scrambling back up the net. ‘Words will have to wait.’

Tibo followed his father up the face of the Wall, staring over his shoulder at the engine’s lumbering advance.

On the balcony, even as she fired her own bow, Mi called out commands, redirecting the arrow fire. Now the defenders began to target the oxen that dragged the tower. Unless you had a lucky shot it would take more than a single arrow to bring down a mature ox, but it was all but impossible to miss an animal in that compressed mass, and the wounded animals writhed and bellowed in distress, disturbing those around them. The drivers had to work hard to keep the beasts moving in formation, with oaths and blows.

And now Mi heard a roar, coming from somewhere below and to her left. A mass of warriors had run out from a concealed entrance in the face of the Wall. They formed up into a rough block and headed straight for the Trojan force, their weapons held aloft, yelling defiance. The units were commanded by officers from Hattusa, but by now Northland’s army contained men from Etxelur and the other Wall Districts, the rest of Northland, and from allies in Albia and Gaira. They sprinted over boards hastily thrown over the ditches, and made for the engine, coming at it from the side. The Trojans formed up in response.

But before that battle was joined there was another tremendous wooden groan, like a huge cry of pain. Mi saw that the engine was leaning. Its front left corner was tipping into a hole that had opened up in the ground beneath its wheels. Faces everywhere turned to the siege engine, the defenders on the Wall, the warriors on the ground, the engineers at their work breaching the ramparts.

‘Ha!’ a man called, leaning over the balcony. ‘I did that! I helped dig that trap! Just brush and a dusting of earth over a hole in the ground. One of Raka’s bright ideas, meant to trap a chariot, but if it catches that monster it will do for me!’

The engine tipped further still. Mi was surprised by how easily it was going over. For all its bulk it had to be tall to reach the Wall’s galleries, and so it must be top-heavy, and once it started to fall it was doomed. The drivers beat the broad backs of their oxen, but the panicking animals could do nothing now. Indeed, Mi saw, some of the bellowing oxen were being dragged backwards as the tower tilted. When their traces broke the animals stampeded, causing more panic among the increasingly disorganised Trojans. Men trapped in the tower itself ran, yelling. Some of them jumped to the ground, arms flailing. The commanders’ chariots turned away sharply, fleeing the disaster.

The end was near. As the engine tipped further and further panels fell away from the tower’s sides, falling to the ground in a hail of wood shards, and Mi heard the pop and crack of big structural beams breaking, like bones snapping. At last the tower’s huge flank hit the ground, and the engine collapsed into the dirt, whole tree trunks wheeling out of a cloud of wood shards that flew into the air.

Mi heard whoops of triumph all around her. It looked as if the whole population of the Wall, swollen with nestspills, had come out onto the galleries to see.

And from below there came the raucous shouting of fighting men. The Northland defenders were closing now, encouraged by the catastrophe of the tower to finish off the raiders. The surviving Trojans got themselves organised, but they faced a fighting retreat along the road to the south.

Mi yelled encouragement, releasing the grief and anger that always lingered inside.