Son of Ishtar

by Gordon Doherty

  With a wild swing, Hattu hurled the rock at Red-beard’s face. The warrior’s bloodthirsty leer vanished in a puff of scarlet mist, a crack of nasal bone and a roar. The Kaskan fell in a thrashing mess. Hattu stooped, ducking under Atiya’s midriff and hoisting her across his shoulders. For a heartbeat, he was faced with the rest of that tidal wave of frenzied creatures from the northern mountains, before he pivoted round with a puff of dirt and dust and lumbered as best he could towards the postern tunnel. A rain of stones, spears and thrown axes battered the rim of the tunnel as he rushed inside, the three-legged farm dog coming with them.

  For a moment there was nothing but near-blackness and the odour of musty, damp air, alive with the clatter of his feet and weak cries from Atiya. Then his eyes adjusted, with a little help from the pale, algae-streaked wash that coated the corridor walls and smooth floor: the passageway was just high enough for him to carry Atiya without ducking, leading them under the walls and into the city. Footsteps rapped – his own and many heavier ones in pursuit. His breath came in panicked gasps. The pursuing Kaskans’ breaths came with anticipatory growls – one of them scraping an axe along the wall as he went, filling the postern with the most awful, demonic screech.

  ‘Hattu!’ Atiya wailed, the tremor in her voice enough to tell the story of the swiftly gaining Kaskans behind.

  ‘I will draw out your guts while you still live, Hit-tite scum,’ the lead pursuer said in an acid hiss.

  Hattu put everything into his run, his grey eye fixed on the bright triangle of light ahead. With a sequence of loping strides, he spilled out and into blinding daylight again, just inside the lower town wall. Instantly, a group of citizens pulled down a pair of heavy, bronze-strapped gratings over the postern opening, a pursuing Kaskan slamming against it a trice later, only to be driven back by a pole, thrust through the grate. Moments later and he and Atiya would have been stuck in that tunnel.

  All around him was chaos. He staggered, barged one way and another by a frantic contraflow of rushing bodies, deafened by screams and shouts from every lane and building in the lower town.

  ‘The dread Lord of the Mountains is here, at our hallowed walls!’ a priest screamed, aloft upon the balcony of a nearby shrine.

  Hattu’s veins flooded with ice-water. ‘Pitagga is here?’ he gasped, the certainty that Father and Muwa were right now in the land of Wahina putting that rogue down now crumbling like stale bread. ‘How can it be?’

  Atiya was wrenched from his shoulders by two women in the swaying crowds. ‘She has turned her ankle. Take her to the healer, take her deep into the city – far from the walls,’ Hattu cried as the women carried her off. And she was gone. Just then, from the muffled din of roars outside the walls, a sharp, thrumming noise cut through. An instant later came the punch of something hard and sharp hitting something else soft and wet. A shadow passed over Hattu as a sentry flailed backwards, swatted from the wall tops, a Kaskan axe embedded in his breast. He landed with a crunch on his back before Hattu, shuddering, convulsing, shield and spear falling from his dying grasp, thick gouts of blood pumping from the atrocious wound. The stricken soldier’s wide eyes met Hattu’s, his dying look one of confusion and terror. All around them, a rapid, irregular drumming struck up – a storm of missiles from the Kaskan masses battering down into the lower town streets: axes, rocks, slingshot, javelins and blazing, pitch-soaked arrows. In every direction, the hail mowed down bodies: A goat, shot through the eye and an innkeeper, struck in the throat. A woman fell, back peppered with arrows. A young girl dropped dead, struck on the head by a rock and a man pierced by a pitch arrow ran, screaming, ablaze like a living torch.

  When a javelin stabbed into the ground by Hattu’s feet, he stumbled back, seeing that few – too few – sentries were upon the walls: a company of one hundred at most along the Tawinian Gatehouse and the abutting sections of curtain wall. Most were pinned – crouched behind the merlons, their hide shields taking a battering from the hail. A dozen more were struck down in a bloody mizzle, one pirouetting from the defence, face torn open by a slung pebble, hair and limbs flailing, his dark red leather helm flung from his crown. And then came a far uglier hail: a cascade of severed Hittite heads – tossed from the tips of Kaskan spears – came thudding down, rolling through the dust, long hair flipping as they went. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. One came to a halt by Hattu’s foot: a soldier of the northern watchtowers, he realised. Another head was a woman’s, and another an elderly man’s: some of the captives carried off to Wahina?

  A leader of ten barged past him, guiding his scant troop of bronze and leather-clad spearmen towards the sturdy mud-brick stairs that would take them up onto the battlements. No sooner than the captain had climbed the stairs than a thrown rock took him in the temple, crushing the bronze brow-band of his helm and cracking his skull, sending him staggering on and over the merlon. A terrible scream sounded from outside and a puff of red shot up where he had landed in the Kaskan swell. The rest of his ten climbed onto the walls more guardedly, but an instant later, a clatter of timber on baked mud-brick sounded as ladder tops swung into view along the battlements, shuddering and creaking, the Kaskan cries growing louder, nearer.

  Hattu’s body was wracked with a shuddering fear that came in waves, each more violent than the last. His mouth drained of every last drop of moisture as he backed away, sensing the swell that was about to burst into view over the wall. He looked behind him, across the Ambar and halfway up the acropolis mount, to the Noon Spur and the Great Barracks. Where was Kurunta One-eye and the garrison regiment? Surely the bell had been heard there too? Surely.

  Suddenly, he recalled the whispers of drunk men near the open tavern by the Ambar. The king gouged out Kurunta’s eye. One day, the vengeful one will have his redress…

  An animal cry sounded and Hattu turned back to the wall as the first of the Kaskans leapt from the ladder-tops and onto the battlements with an ululating shriek. The man’s copper sword struck across the back of one Hittite warrior, blood blossoming across his long, white cloak from the strike before he fell to one knee. He tried to rise but a torrent of crimson boiled from the wound and he collapsed. Many more Kaskans flooded onto the wall tops and the meagre resistance crumbled. As the enemy began rushing down the wall stairs and dropping down into the lower town only paces from Hattu, the few Hittite soldiers there were quickly despatched. Hattu backed away, overcome with fright.

  And then a mighty boom shook the air. Hattu saw the ancient Tawinian Gates shudder, dust crumbling from the gatehouse’s mud-brick upper, the few sentries holding out up there disappearing under a hail of missiles. Boom! again – now the gates bulged violently and a spidering crack shot across the curtain wall either side, chunks of plaster toppling into the town and merlons breaking off and falling outwards. Boom! with a shredding crunch and a shower of splinters, the bronze tip of a ram burst through. Another few strikes and the famous old gates would be kindling.

  ‘Pull back – to the Spirit Bridge,’ one voice yelled.

  Hattu saw a Hittite soldier, face and tunic smeared with dust and blood, standing atop one home, waving the citizens and the few remaining wall guard back from the fray, towards the thick bridge that crossed the River Ambar. It would serve as a bottleneck – a last redoubt to prevent the Kaskans spilling through the lower town entire and up towards the Royal Acropolis.

  ‘Fall back to the br-’ the soldier’s words ended with a wet gurgle as a spear whooshed up and tore into his chest. A gout of blood leapt from the soldier’s mouth as he clutched at the shaft, then he pitched from the roof and crunched onto the ground. Moments later, a trio of flaming torches were hurled into that building and the home was swiftly ablaze, the skyline stained orange and undulating in the heat of the blaze.

  Crash! and the Tawinian Gates burst inwards. Kaskans flooded into Hattusa’s streets.

  Hattu spun and ran, haring along the main way. Shooting glances behind, he saw Kaskan warriors loping along in his wake. He dipped his head and p
ut everything into his flight. But when a dull whirring grew louder and louder he looked back once again, only to pull his head to the side, the spinning dirk aimed for the back of his skull shearing a lock of hair and whirling on into the side of an abandoned ox cart. The streets were thick with Kaskans now: they threw over bread and grain carts and pinned down women, tearing off their gowns and deaf to their pleas for mercy.

  ‘Hit-tite dogs,’ one warrior roared in a spirant, throaty breath as he knelt on the chest of an old market trader, hoisting a weighty rock then bringing it down, crushing the old man’s head like a watermelon.

  There was one who stood out like bronze studs in a leather shield – fiery-bearded, broad and tall, clad in a black leather cuirass and crowned with a fearsome lion-skull helm. Pitagga, Hattu realised at once. This was the ambitious lord who had united these oft-infighting mountain people. Pitagga stalked forward steadily. He carried a double-headed axe, twirling it with devious intent.

  The Lord of the Mountains caught Hattu’s eye and the murderous look was enough to throw his stride. Catching his toe on a flagstone, Hattu was catapulted to the ground, smacking down on his jaw and shoulder and then rolling. Dazed and prone, he shook his head and tried to right himself, only for his spinning vision to come together and sharpen on the sight of Pitagga a stride away from him, axe rising, the baleful eyes complemented by a yellow-toothed rictus.

  The axe blade hammered down for Hattu’s thigh. He swung his leg back just as the blade shattered the flagstone underneath, sending up a shower of dust and stone across Hattu’s eyes. Blinking, he staggered to his feet.

  ‘It is you,’ Pitagga said, grinning a hunter’s grin as his gaze flicked between Hattu’s odd eyes. ‘The climbing boy. The Cursed Son of King Mursili. The progeny who shames him so.’

  Hattu stumbled backwards, the words gripping his darkest doubts like black roots.

  ‘Perhaps it would be more fun if I were to leave you breathing, for now,’ he said in a mocking tone, then stamped forward and sharply thrust his head down and forward like a ravening vulture – nose to nose so Hattu could smell his fetid breath, the lion fangs on his helm touching Hattu’s face. ‘Run,’ he hissed, then brought the back of his hand across Hattu’s cheek.

  Hattu’s head filled with a shower of lights as the brute’s knuckles raked across his face. He scrambled and sprinted on up the main way, his mind in pieces as Pitagga’s tormenting cackle rang out behind him. His cheek felt like it was on fire and seemed set to burst. He ran and ran, oblivious to the chaos all around him. But one voice cut through the din.

  ‘Help… help!’ it cried from one side of the street. Hattu saw there the doorway of a house – blocked by an abandoned cart. A boy’s face peered out from within, his eyes wide like an owl’s. Hattu noticed the lad’s gaunt, plague-scarred features and thin, slicked back hair. It was the one who had recoiled in derision from him at the city gates in spring as he and Muwa had come in from the woods. ‘Please,’ the boy begged.

  Hattu grabbed the cart by the handles and hauled it clear. The boy scrambled out.

  ‘Run,’ Hattu pushed him to get him going.

  ‘Thank you,’ the boy panted, then melted into the lanes with the many other panicking citizens. Hattu ran too, black smoke scudding across his path until he finally came within sight of the short, wide, Spirit Bridge. Not a soul stood there waiting to defend the choke point. Nothing. Nobody. Just a cacophony of screaming and shouting on the far side and the fleeting glimpses of citizens rushing to and fro – generally on up the main way towards the Noon Spur and the acropolis and the protection those heights might offer. Panicked, heart-sick, he ran across the bridge, looking this way and that as he went, the din of the pursuing Kaskans rising swiftly behind him. Father, Muwa, where are you? The enemy is here, in our home.

  Hattu was halfway across the bridge when the thunder came. From further up the main way sounded a low, dull clatter of boots moving rapidly in time, the source obscured by the kink in the road and the rising maze of houses hugging the way’s sides. Hattu slowed, wondering if he was about to run into a second wave of Kaskans coming through the other side of the city. The air around him thickened and crackled like in the moments before a storm. Then a single voice, a noise like a bellowing ox, split the air:

  ‘Men of the Storm… raise your weapons!’

  Hattu stumbled onto the southern banks, awestruck at the cry.

  Then came the reply: a deep, reverberating cry of one thousand voices that caused the bridge and the streets of Hattusa to shiver: ‘Tarhunda, God of the Storm, coat my heart in bronze!’

  Like a pack of baying hunters they came, at a jog, round the bend in the main way. Hittite spearmen. Their pointed, leather helms jutting, faces fixed in animal rictuses, dark hair in tails that jostled and lashed behind them like those of angry lions, bodies clad in stiffened linen or baked leather cuirasses, shields bound in dark leather or raw, black and white cattle skin – covering them neck to thigh, spears trained like fingers of judgement. Twenty-wide, they filled the road, and forty such ranks advanced in perfect order behind them. Crunch-crunch-crunch, the rapid din of their upturned leather boots was unrelenting. The rightmost soldier on the front rank held aloft a wooden staff topped with a golden lightning bolt – the symbol of the Storm Division.

  One figure broke through to run proud of their front, head dipped, lone-eye ablaze, silvery braid swishing, teak-hard chest bulging under his leather crossbands. Hattu tried to get out of Kurunta’s path, but could not escape his gaze. ‘You?’ Kurunta gasped. ‘Get back, boy, back,’ he swiped a hand towards the side of the main way. That was enough to send Hattu stumbling out of their way, letting the lone regiment of the Storm Division take up its position, spilling onto the near half of the bridge like a plug.

  At the same time, a clutch of Storm archers burst into view, clambering like spiders from a disturbed nest up onto the rooftops around the bridge, around two hundred in all. With no armour or weapons bar their composite bows and twin quivers looped over their backs, they were spry and sped into position on the lips of those roofs within moments, nocking arrows to their bows, those nearest the edges kneeling so others behind them could stand and shoot too.

  From the southern banks, Hattu watched, panting, as the wall of spearmen slowed to a walk on the centre of the bridge. Kurunta stepped up on the wooden rail on the side of the bridge, flush with the front line. Reaching over his shoulders with both hands to draw out and raise the twin, curved blades there, he reprised that ox-like howl once again:

  ‘This sacred bridge must be held,’ he cried. Just as they had moved in unison, they stopped as one, a wall of shields and spear tips, blocking the wide bridge as firmly as any stone redoubt. Then he gestured to the archers on the rooftops. ‘Shoot down any hairy hurkeler who tries to ford the river.’

  With a vociferous roar, the Kaskans now exploded into view and flooded onto the northern end of the bridge, erupting in a thunderous roar. Pitagga remained a safe distance back, climbing atop the side of a stone cistern and pointing his double-headed axe like a preacher’s finger.

  ‘Where is your Great King, your Labarna, your Sun?’ Pitagga cried out, as if the city of Hattusa itself was listening. ‘Ah, he is chasing my shadow, faraway in Wahina,’ he bellowed with laughter then continued in a gurgling cry, swinging his axe forth: ‘Forward. Topple their temples, take their treasures, spill their blood! Leave their sacred city no more than a dark stain like the rubble-heaps that are Zalpa, Hakmis and Nerik – upon whose soil my pigs now shit.’ The Kaskans surged across the bridge with a roar.

  ‘To the Dark Earth with these dogs. To the Dark Earth!’ Kurunta screamed, his din just besting the enemy cry before it was drowned out in a riotous clash of bronze blades clanging upon the bridge’s midpoint, men screaming, shields sparring and the crisp whistle of many arrows being loosed from either bank.

  Hattu watched as the two forces vied for possession of the bridge like herds of clashing bulls. Hittite spearmen l
ashed their lances forth without mercy, the leaf-shaped tips splitting Kaskan armour, plunging into enemy throats and limbs. The Kaskans were no less fierce, their axes swinging rapaciously, crushing Hittite skulls, gouging into shoulders and cleaving men’s bodies deeply – so deep that the blood that spurted from the wounds was black, not red. Pitagga waved more and more warriors onto the bridge. As the Kaskan push intensified, the Storm soldiers suffered, being driven back one step and then another. One Hittite sank to his knees, blood erupting from his nose and mouth and an axe embedded in his forehead. Another toppled like a felled log, sideways, pitching over the side of the bridge and plunging into the Ambar, turning the sacred waters red as he floated face-down towards the culvert by the shattered Tawinian Gates.

  Suddenly, a stray Kaskan arrow skated off the flagstones of the main way, just by Hattu’s ankle. He ducked down behind an abandoned potter’s cart, then edged his head out to glance across the water: Over one hundred Kaskans were wading across the river, under the covering shots of their archers. Hattu’s blood was suddenly laced with cold realisation: the bridge was about to fall and the river was close to being traversed. He edged his head out from the cart again and saw a braid-bearded, wading Kaskan in the near shallows, just a few paces away. The warrior locked eyes on Hattu, turning his blood to ice.

  ‘Loose,’ the Hittite archer captain yelled from the roof of the smith’s workshop. A moment later, a concerted volley spat down upon the near Kaskan and the others following. With a series of thumps, thuds and groans, many slumped into the water and were carried off downriver by the gentle current. The braid-bearded giant took an arrow in the cheek: blood tumbled down his face and beaded in his beard. The huge warrior somehow waded on for a few paces, as if his body was slow to register the mortal strike, before he too succumbed and sank into the water. Suddenly, the few unhurt warriors mid-river slowed, doubting the wisdom of their approach, abruptly deaf to Pitagga’s cries of encouragement from the far bank.