Bronze Summer

60

Deri had scarcely hauled Mi to safety when a huge Trojan ran straight at him, spinning a sword over his head. Deri raised his shield to fend off the first blow, taking an impact that felt as if it drove his arm back into its socket. But he and the Trojan were shoved together as the lines closed, shields clashing with a slam. Deri was face to face with his man, their faces a hand’s length apart. His breath smelled of strange spices, and he wore an elaborate helmet with a horsehair plume. Arms pinned by the struggling crowd, it was difficult for either of them even to move, let alone make an effective strike. But the Trojan was stronger. With a single hand in Deri’s chest he shoved him back, and raised the wicked blade of a bronze dagger. Deri twisted so the descending weapon landed on his breastplate. All the air was knocked out of him by the punch, but the bronze blade only scratched Deri’s heavy armour of hardened iron. And in that instant Deri swung his own sword across the man’s throat, cutting through flesh and gristle until the blade lodged in bone. No hesitation. The man gurgled and choked. Deri yanked at the sword to get it free of the bone; it came away with a scrape. The sword was a new kind sent from allies on the Continent, to the east beyond Gaira, bronze but with less propensity to snap at the hilt when you used it to slash than others. Well, it had already proven its worth. The Trojan, bleeding out, had no room to fall. Deri pushed him down by brute force and stepped over the body to get at the next man following.

This man had no armour save a leather helmet, a small round shield, leather kilt and shin guards over a tunic. Already the Northlanders were cutting through the Trojan elite; Piseni’s archers had done the job that was asked of them in thinning out the fore-fighters. But the man was muscular and determined, Deri could see from the blood smeared on his tunic that he had already killed today, and he raised a stubby spear. But Deri was faster; he swung the flat of the sword to chop at the man’s belly, twisted the weapon and hauled it backwards, dragging out a loop of grey entrails. The man looked down, as if astonished. Then Deri slammed the hilt of his spear into the man’s forehead with a satisfying crunch of bone, and the man fell back.

His falling created a space, and Deri had a heartbeat free of the fight. He was already breathing hard, already his arms and chest ached from the heavy blows he had taken. Neither of the men who had stood by him at the start of the fighting was still there; both of them had been replaced by those pushing from behind. Yet the battle was only moments old.

And here came the next man, as lightly equipped as the last. Deri managed to get his spear in play this time, and impaled the man before he got within arm’s length. But before he could get the spear loose another came, and he had to swing his sword again, this time a lucky strike that cut the man’s face open so that he fell back, jaw dangling, screaming in a strange, liquid way. And then the pressure from behind shoved him forward almost into the arms of his next opponent, and he lunged and stabbed again.

So it went on, the great blocks crashing into each other in a band of bloody friction, where men screamed and lunged and slashed and stabbed in a compressed, struggling mass. There was a stink of piss and shit from emptied bowels, and the blood was everywhere. Deri had to fight just to stay upright, let alone to give himself room to swing a blade. He had barely moved from the position where he had started, the lines were collapsing in on the front where they met, and soon he found himself slipping on a heap of corpses underfoot. Yet he remembered Tibo, and Nago, and Vala, and all the others who had fallen because of the Trojan, and let the anger fuel his muscles as he slew and maimed, again and again.

And then above the screams and battle cries he heard a new sound, like thunder, rolling across the field. Some of the more experienced men recognised it. ‘Chariots!’

Standing on the flood mound with the commanders, supporting a battered and dizzy Mi, Milaqa saw the Trojan chariots coming from behind the enemy’s right flank. There were dozens of the charging vehicles, pulled by swiftly running horses, the sound of their hooves loud even over the battle’s din, and bells clanged noisily. They were a shocking sight, a mass of spinning wheels and rearing animals driving at the Northlanders’ left flank where the Spider’s advancing Hatti units had been met by Gairan priest-warriors, strange silent men who fought ferociously. Now the fighting men were distracted by the noise, and the sergeants bellowed for them to hold their shape, to keep fighting.

Kilushepa pointed. ‘A mix of Greek and Hatti types. Look, can you see, Raka? The fleeter ones are Greek, lighter, with two men — four-spoked wheels. The Hatti are the big ones with three men, and their six-spoked wheels…’

Milaqa murmured hasty translations.

‘They are running better than we supposed they would,’ Raka said. ‘We had hoped the ground would be too soft.’

Teel said, ‘Qirum had the initiative. The weather has been dry, the groundwater low, the ground reasonably firm. He knew that. This was a good day to fight, for his purposes.’ He let the criticism hang in the air, unspoken. We should not be fighting the man at all. And if we must fight, not today.

And Milaqa watched, astonished, as the chariots slammed into the Gairan lines, huge masses of hurtling wood and straining animals that cut a bloody swathe through the ranks of men, like blunt blades passing through flesh. The big three-man Hatti chariots were the most effective, each with a driver and shield-bearer accompanying an armoured warrior who shot arrows from a distance, and stabbed and slashed when his chariot closed. As the chariots spread chaos and panic through the Northlander lines, the Trojan infantry pressed with renewed vigour. The fighting became even more intense and chaotic.

Now the surviving chariots emerged from the crush, having passed right through the Northlander phalanx, and they drew up, preparing for a fresh strike. Hasty cries went up from the commanders for the archers to reform and take on the chariots. ‘Aim for the horses!’

Hunda clambered up the mound. He was bloodied and panting; he had been in the thick of the fight, but Milaqa knew that Muwa had sternly ordered him to make sure the person of the Tawananna was safe. ‘Madam. This position may be threatened. Please fall back.’

Kilushepa knew better than to argue. She began to help Hunda lead the Annids down off the mound.

Mi lunged forward, as if trying to get off the mound and back into the fray. But she staggered, still dizzy from the blow to the head she had taken on the field.

Milaqa grabbed her arm. ‘No, you don’t. Besides, you lost your bow.’

‘We must do something…’

One more chariot, a big Hatti three-man vehicle, belatedly broke out of the crush. The crew looked around for a fresh target. They spotted the commanders on the flood mound, pointed up. The driver hauled on his reins and the chariot veered that way.

Heading straight for Milaqa on the mound.

‘We can take it,’ Mi said suddenly. ‘That chariot coming.’

‘What? How?’

For answer Mi slithered down the slope, to the edge of the tide of battle, where broken corpses lay unmoving. She grabbed a sword and spear — but as she straightened up she staggered again, the bruise on her head purpling.

‘You are insane.’ But Milaqa saw there was no other choice than to follow her. She scrambled off the mound, found a spear, and stood by her cousin.

And the chariot charged towards them. The driver was dragging at his reins, trying to control the horses, and the warrior and shield man were looking up at the notables on the flood mound. None of them seemed to notice the young women standing before them.

Mi began running before the chariot reached them. Milaqa joined her, spear in hand. Mi jumped first, grabbed the chariot driver by the neck and fell back, pulling the astonished man off the chariot with her. Milaqa managed to leap up on the platform itself. Without thinking, she swung her spear and caught the warrior with its shaft. He fell from the chariot before he even saw her. But now the plummeting chariot, out of control, was tipping over. The last man, the shield bearer, yelling in fear and anger, swung his shield at Milaqa. She ducked, but the shield caught her on the back of the head, and she fell out of the chariot onto a mound of bodies, warm and slippery. She heard a splintering crash as the chariot went over — and then a huge weight fell on her back, knocking the air out of her.

She sank into a dream of stone and bronze and iron.