Bronze Summer

58

The Third Year After the Fire Mountain: Late Summer

On the night before the battle the Northlanders emerged from the crevices of their great Wall, marched south, and formed up into units. They almost looked like an army, the Trojan scouts said, dismissive. And at last they were offering battle.

Despite the urgings of his basileis to strike before dawn, Qirum was prepared to wait until the sun was risen before responding. He had laid siege to the Wall for half a year already, it had been months since his spies had reported the Annids were preparing for battle, and there was plenty of the campaigning season left to get this done. Waiting a few more hours would do no harm.

The day was well advanced when Qirum at last emerged from his tent and walked out into the field, before his lines, alone. Qirum wore no armour, nor did he carry weapons or a shield. He wanted the men to see him, and his enemies, if they could peer that far. He caused a stir among the men as he walked along the lines, and there were ragged cheers from the still-loose formations.

The land was flat to the horizon. The dew was heavy in the marshy grass; his boots left footprints in the soft earth. The sky was a milky blue, the sun pale, but at least you could see the sun this morning. The dew would soon burn off, but the day would never get overwhelmingly hot, for it never did here. A good day for fighting, then. In the air he saw a bird of prey, a kestrel perhaps, eerily stationary above the ground, watching some hapless prey. And at his feet there was a patch of some ragged pink-headed flower about which butterflies and bees fluttered. He wished the busy creatures well; soon this little stage of life would be trampled and blood-soaked. He breathed deeply of the fresh, slightly chill air. This was not home, and never would be, and yet it had its riches, in its own way, on such a day as this.

In the north the Wall was a faint bone-pale line. Before it he saw the enemy lines, a mass of men in the mist, with smoke from their fires rising into the still air.

He turned to survey his army. Facing the enemy, they were drawn up in units of fifty or a hundred each, in three rough blocks: Protis and his Greeks in the centre, with Qirum’s own Trojans to the left and the Spider with his mostly Hatti exiles to the right. The men were strapping on armour if they had it, sharpening blades with whetstones they would dump before the charge, boasting and joshing, gathering their energies — summoning up the will to fight. Behind the main blocks there were units of archers and slingers, and further back the charioteers were readying their vehicles, harnessing up the horses. The animals skittered and neighed.

And as the King walked before his men the songs began. The Trojans thumped spears on shields and chanted battle cries. The Anatolians sang hymns to their Storm God; Qirum recognised one mournful lament, a soldier’s prayer to be buried at home beside his mother. The Greeks were different; they preferred to stay silent, watchful, ready — ominous. Qirum briefly wondered how it would have been for the generation before his in Troy to have faced a siege by thousands upon thousands of such silent, competent warriors.

He could hear similar music wafting across the field from the Northlander lines. He recognised more doleful Hatti elegies — hymns to the Sun Goddess of Arinna, perhaps. They had all come so far from home, he thought, to kill and be killed on this distant plain.

The Spider walked out to him, laden with the King’s armour, which he set respectfully on the ground. Qirum put on his breastplate, and shields for his shoulders and thighs, and shin guards, and shaped pieces for his forearms, tying each leather strap tight. The Spider was already fully armoured himself, with sword and spear at his back, his helmet under his arm. As Qirum dressed the Spider sniffed the air, peered around with his one good eye, stepped forward and dug his heel into the ground. ‘This bog will cut up.’

‘The same for both sides.’ Qirum glanced towards the enemy. ‘Just as the scouts said, they advanced across the river they call the Milk to face us. They seem to have sought no advantage from the terrain, as I would have done. But then, I would never have sallied out from the Wall and its defences.’

The Spider shrugged. ‘There’s no high ground advantage to be had on this tabletop of a country. Do you want to speak to the men?’

‘Enough speeches, I think.’

The Spider nodded. ‘Then if you will permit me to be your champion-’

Qirum clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Let’s see if you can finish this before it’s started.’

The Spider strapped on his helmet and strode forward across the plain between the armies. He began to bellow insults, in his own tongue and the locals’. ‘Northlanders! Savages! Women, dogs, children all! Is there a man among you, just one man, who will face me and settle this?’

Seeing him advance, the men roared.

Deri stood with Muwa before the Northlander lines. He could clearly see the lone warrior approaching, his stride purposeful, even eager. Behind him the Trojans were yelling, cheering, slamming weapons against their spears, thousands of them; it was a noise like a thunderstorm.

Hunda came out of the block of Hatti at the centre of the Northlander line and walked before the men, lifting his arms. ‘Answer them!’ he yelled in his own tongue. ‘Are you going to let them make all the noise today? Show them how Hatti can sing!’ And in the Etxelur tongue, ‘Show them how Northlanders can yell!’

Soon the whole line was roaring back at the Trojans, the Hatti and the Northlanders at the centre, and the more exotic blocks of warriors from Albia and Gaira to right and left, the dark wolfmen of the forest, the white-robed priest-warriors from their country of skies and open spaces and stone circles.

Milaqa ran at Hunda’s side, without armour or weapons, shouting translations of his Hatti words. Her voice could not match Hunda’s battle-trained bellow, but her thin voice got the message across. Deri would have preferred her to be far from this field, but he had no control over his niece. He could only pray that her own sense would see her survive the day.

‘He comes to issue a challenge,’ Muwa said to Deri, raising his voice over the din. His Northlander tongue was clear if heavily accented. ‘The Trojan. You understand that if we send out a champion to meet him, the issue may be resolved without further loss of blood, whoever lives, whoever dies, if honour is served on both sides.’

Deri grunted. He began to tighten up his armour, borrowed from the Hatti. ‘I have learned more of your bloodstained customs than I ever wanted to know.’

‘I will go, if you wish.’

‘Thank you, my friend. But Northland’s champion must be a Northlander. And as you said, I don’t even have to win.’ He spoke evenly, and yet he felt fear and a kind of deep regret in his heart. He was not by nature a warrior; he was a fisherman, forced into this role by circumstance. He glimpsed a scrap of blue in the sky above, a rare sight these days. Was this to be the day he died?

And then a roar went up from the Northland lines. Startled, Deri looked round. A single man was already walking out to meet the Trojan challenger. Armoured, bristling with weapons, it was Tibo.

Deri ran after him.

Muwa followed. He warned Deri, ‘If you drag him back you will make a fool of him, and of yourself. This is all about honour, remember.’

‘But I cannot let him die.’

They caught up with Tibo. He marched forward, his pace steady, unrelenting. He said, ‘Leave me alone, father. I have no intention of dying.’

‘It is not your place to do this.’

‘You speak of honour. I know that man. That is the Spider. Who has been more dishonoured by this man than me?’

Despite Muwa’s urging, Deri grabbed his son’s arm and forced him to stop. ‘Please. I’m begging you. In your mother’s memory — let me take your place.’

Tibo, his face hidden by bronze armour plates, would not look at his father, and would not speak further. All the efforts by Riban and others to calm Tibo had come to nothing, Deri saw, gone now there was a scent of vengeance. There was little left of the son he had raised in that twisted face, only the rage that had always threatened to consume him. And Deri, who had failed to protect his son from the death of his mother, or from the fire mountain, or from the brutalising at the hands of the Spider, could now not save him from himself.

He let him go. The boy continued his steady march towards the Spider, who waited for him, hands on hips.

Muwa touched Deri’s shoulder. ‘We can accompany him. We can carry his weapons-’

‘And carry his broken body back from the field.’

‘If necessary. But you must not fight for him.’

Deri nodded curtly.

Tibo faced the Spider.

They stood a dozen paces apart on a patch of unremarkable green sward, in a flat, featureless landscape. Yet the world pivoted on the two of them.

The Spider grinned. He pushed his helmet off his head, and dropped it. ‘No armour. Come on, boy, I remember you, I know you picked up some Hatti-speak in the camp.’

‘No armour,’ said Tibo thickly, and he began to work at his own straps.

Soon heaps of discarded armour plate lay at the feet of the two men.

Muwa and Deri stood back, some paces behind Tibo. ‘This might help the boy,’ Muwa murmured. ‘He may be quicker than the older man, more agile.’

‘Only the mothers can help him now.’

‘Now the weapon,’ the Spider said. He hefted sword and long spear, one in each hand. ‘What’s your choice, little boy? The sword? No, not for you-’

Tibo hurled himself forward, spear held aloft. The Spider easily sidestepped, nimble in tunic and boots, his legs bare, and he swept the shaft of his own spear so it caught Tibo’s legs, tripping him, and he went sprawling in the grass. The Spider pivoted and prepared to lunge, but Tibo rolled and was on his feet in a heartbeat.

The Spider could have struck again, perhaps even ended it. But he backed away, applauding ironically.

Muwa had hold of Deri’s arm. ‘You must not intervene.’

Deri raged, ‘You call that honourable? To goad the boy? If the red mist closes in his head-’

‘It is his fight. He must learn to master himself, and his own flaws.’

But Deri feared his son had little time left in which to learn anything.

The Spider walked before Tibo and made a lascivious curled-tongue gesture. ‘As I was saying. The spear’s the weapon for you. Look at my spear, boy, the shaft of ash, the bronze head. Lovely piece of work. I remember those nights in the camp. Your warm little arse. It was the long spear for you then, wasn’t it?’

Tibo charged again.

Again the Spider sidestepped easily. This time he swung the blade of his spear across the back of Tibo’s legs as he stumbled by, and the boy went down screaming, blood pouring from a wound on the back of his right calf, shockingly bright. He tried to get to his feet, but his injured leg gave under him and he went down again.

‘Hamstrung,’ Muwa murmured.

The Spider stood before Tibo, his arms spread wide. ‘Come then. Finish me. Finish me as you longed to, all those nights when you warmed my bed, and the beds of my men.’

At last Tibo made it to his feet, using his spear as a crutch. Even now, thought Deri, even now the boy might have had a chance if he only thought clearly, if he used the Spider’s arrogance against him, if he looked for a gap in the man’s sloppy defence. Or he could throw down his weapon and admit he was beaten — he would be dishonoured, maimed, but he would live.

None of this came to pass. Tibo raised his spear, steadied himself on his one good leg, and hurled himself forward. It was less a run than a controlled lunge.

The Spider knelt, jammed the butt of his spear into the soft ground before Tibo, held it firm. Tibo could not stop, could not turn aside. He fell onto the spearhead. The watching Trojans roared. As the metal cut through cloth and flesh, sliding deep into the stomach cavity just below the ribs, Tibo made a gurgling, choking sound. Blood and darker fluids poured down the shaft and over the Spider’s hands as he held the spear firm. Then he twisted the shaft, Deri heard a ripping sound, and Tibo gave an animal cry.

Deri would have gone forward, but Muwa grabbed him, arms around his torso. ‘You must not,’ he murmured. ‘You must not.’

The Spider cautiously let go of the spear. It remained jammed in the ground, and propped up Tibo’s body, precariously balanced. Still the boy lived; his arms moved, his fingers twitching. The Spider, soaked by Tibo’s blood, walked around the pinned boy, like an artist before his creation. ‘What fond memories this brings back.’ He ran his finger delicately down Tibo’s back. Then he pulled up Tibo’s tunic, and ripped down his loincloth, exposing his buttocks. Deri could see the boy had soiled himself. The Spider pulled his face elaborately. ‘Oh, how unfortunate. But still — once more, shall I give you something to remember me by as you sink into the underworld?’ And he lifted his tunic up.

Deri raged against Muwa’s strong grip. ‘You will get your chance,’ Muwa murmured. ‘Another place, another day, the man will die at your hands. But not here-’

An arrow slammed into the Spider’s back, knocking him to the ground. He lay still, dead immediately. There was an angry roar from the Trojans.

Deri looked back at the Northlander forces. Mi had come out of the lines. She screamed abuse, brandishing her bow. Others from her unit of archers came to drag her back. Another damaged child, Deri thought.

To gruff shouts of anger, outrage, dishonour, Trojans started to advance, all along the line, spontaneously, raggedly. Their sergeants had to follow the events; they ran forward, bellowing to the rest to follow and form up.

And Tibo slumped and fell at last, the spear twisting out of the ground.

‘So,’ Muwa said. ‘Dishonour on both sides, and we must fight after all. But at least we got rid of the Spider.’

Deri spat, ‘And that’s worth the life of my son, is it? My own life ends with him, whatever happens today. Come — help me with him. I won’t leave him here.’

They hurried forward to the body before the Trojan line reached it.