Son of Ishtar

by Gordon Doherty

  The three shared a bout of fond, gentle laughter. Soon after, Colta stood to depart and Kurunta followed, leaving Nuwanza alone. As the humour died he felt a niggling sense of untidiness in his thoughts. Something about the conversation just shared seemed askew. He stroked his bottom lip and searched his recent memories until, like a key sliding into a well-oiled lock, he remembered. King Mursili had told him of the elephant hunt after returning to the main army column.

  Zida is lost, the king had said. He charged into the path of the elephant – knowing it would crush him, but knowing also it would buy me a trice within which I might save myself.

  Whatever the Sherden drunks were telling the acropolis harlots was a lie. Zida had not been frozen with fear. And then another memory rose to the surface. It was of the time he and Zida had been on a patrol to the city of Arinna. On the way there, they had come across a bull elephant stricken with sickness, agitated and trumpeting near the edge of a stream to which the approach was rocky and steep. The elephant was trying to step down the uneven surface but for some reason kept pulling back. Zida had approached, slowly, obliquely, not getting too close, then slid down to the stream to fill a leather bucket with water and bring it back up, placing it near the elephant. Now the creature moved closer, plunging its trunk into the bucket and drinking it dry. A few bucketfuls later and the creature was calm. Zida stroked its trunk, then sank to his knees to draw from its foot the long thorn that had prevented it from negotiating the rocky slope to the stream. Many men were overcome with fear on sighting elephants, and rightly so. Zida was not one of them.

  Kurunta’s earlier rant came back to him now.

  It seems he’s impressed the king so much that he and his two cronies have been initiated into the Mesedi. What next?

  The words took root in the Master Archer’s mind. His high forehead furrowed and his pensive eyes stared long and hard into his wine.

  ***

  Another month passed and Hattu ran up the red hills most nights. Someone was leaving the compound gates unlocked, and Hattu found it difficult to resist the call of the night. He took to carrying rocks in his hands to make the scramble tougher at first, then small bags of rocks, then sacks, slung over his shoulders. And once up there, he sought out stretches of scarp and bluff to climb and clamber over, still with the rocks on his back.

  Your limbs will grow sturdier for the repetition and the extra burden.

  ‘Aye, but damn they will,’ he panted, flopping onto the hilltop, barefoot and sweating. His body was like knotted rope in places where muscles had developed. He flexed his shoulders, encouraged by their newfound breadth. He was still lean, but by the Gods, he was getting stronger. Calluses lined his feet and his palms, and his mind too, he was sure, but the challenge of carrying a sack of rocks was not as great as the burden of six full water buckets – not even close. Still, the daily humiliation continued. Today, Tanku had come close to losing his cool again. And the truth was, Hattu wouldn’t have blamed him for it. There had to be an answer, a way of stuffing Kurunta one-eye’s ridiculous Water Ordeal down his throat… there had to be.

  The faintest scratching noise caught his attention. His eyes searched the moonlit dust until he pinpointed it. He laughed once in surprise when he saw there a slim, waist-high mound of earth. The ants’ nest was taking shape. The scratching sounded again and the lone ant scurried over with a piece of red earth on its back, climbed the mound and placed its cargo on the tip. Back and forth the ant went, constructing the final parts of its nest. Hattu watched, enchanted, for some time.

  He approached the nest, beholding it as if it might share its secrets with him. As he drew closer to it, he knelt, tracing a finger through the shallow furrow from which the ant had been lifting earth. The palest sensation on his fingertips triggered a sudden realisation. He looked down, lifting a little in between fingers and thumb, rubbing it, the granules falling away. At once, he was in Ruba’s classroom again, trying to make sense of the old man’s chalky etchings on a slate. The sacred earth itself is alive: veined with life.

  The moonlight caught his eyes as they flicked to the edge of the hill and the academy below. He saw the eternal dung heap, studded with a few spades, then he saw the ring of stone that marked the Soldier’s Spring. Finally, he looked back to the shallow furrow of earth upon which he knelt.

  A broad smile crept across his face.

  ***

  The moon waned, vanished and waxed once more. Another month where every night, Hattu ran to the red heights. Nobody saw what he was doing up there, but some heard faint scraping noises, over and over. And every day under the boiling sun, the recruits ran up the hillside. They trained hard, then watched Hattu struggle and fail in Kurunta’s Water Ordeal.

  One day, Hattu and the hundred Hill Pups spilled from the dormitory at the first wail of the Dawn Call. They snatched up their poles and shields and fell into place on the muster area in moments – even before some of the veterans had done so. And now they were all well-drilled enough to have dressed in time, each in linen kilt and leather boots. A few of the recruits shared triumphant looks. Hattu, however, felt the ache in his back and shoulders from his night endeavours, and his mind was foggy from little sleep. He glanced down, seeing his fingernails were still packed with red earth.

  Stay strong, he told himself.

  Kurunta stomped before them with a face like a dark nightmare, as if angered by their improvement. ‘Dog-ugly curs,’ he muttered under his breath. Hattu wondered if the general even realised he emitted such thoughts aloud. ‘Three months of my life I’ve had to put up with you. Three months of my life I’ll never get back,’ he added, then reluctantly raised a hand and clicked his fingers. An ox wagon emerged from the gated armoury building near the compound’s southern walls, its wheels grinding on the dusty ground as it made its way over to the recruits. Hattu saw upon it heaps of dark, polished leather, bronze studs and off-white cloth.

  ‘Now that I’ve dragged you bastards this far, I am obliged to see how you fare with weapons in your hands.’ He and a pair of Storm soldiers unbolted the back end of the wagon and lifted out a bundle of swords – hilts bound in leather, bronze blades curved like Kurunta’s twin swords but not as long – and tall, honed spears. ‘Real weapons. And because I just know one of you will stab yourself… I must also provide you with armour.’

  Hattu felt his mouth dry out as the general thrust a pair of weapons into his hands, his face uplit by the lustre of a leaf-shaped bronze spearhead. Kurunta hesitated for a moment, not letting go of the arms, emitting a low, grumbling sigh.

  ‘You can trust me, sir,’ he said.

  ‘When you bring water to the hilltop for your comrades, then I will trust you,’ he scoffed, then stepped away.

  Hattu watched him go, eyes narrowed.

  ‘First time you have held a sword?’ Dagon asked, examining his blade.

  ‘Aye,’ Hattu said, gazing at the leather pommel and the blade’s keen edge. It was light but solid in his hand. He slid the blade through his belt by his left hip so it hung to his thigh.

  Another Storm soldier shoved a white linen tunic and a dark leather cuirass into his arms. Dagon had been given a padded linen vest instead – a single, lighter layer, and more supple, providing just as much protection. Hattu pulled on the tunic then the pair helped one another slide the armoured corselets on over each other’s heads, securing them by tying the buckles at the sides. Hattu’s leather vest was stiff, uncomfortable and too big for him, and it bit at his collarbone.

  An instant later he was deafened by a scraping noise as something was thrust upon his head: a toughened leather helmet with a bronze brow band, the leather cheek guards and aventail settling around his face and the nape of his neck. He could smell the old leather and the sweat of men who had worn it before him and a trace of a sickeningly familiar, evil, coppery stench. Blood? He suddenly wondered if it had been taken from a fallen soldier. Indeed, he noticed Dagon’s helmet bore a dark stain and a score that had nearly torn t
hrough the leather.

  The soldiers then handed out savage, fanged maces and small, glinting bronze axes to each man. Hattu received an axe, and eyed it for a moment: the curved head had two large circular holes – a means of sparing every scrap of precious bronze – and the back edge had three jutting prongs.

  Kurunta strode before them, grinning like a glutton locked in a bakery. ‘Now you will experience a true run to the top of the fells. Biting, heavy armour and splinters on the hands, lovely!’ More groans and disbelieving whimpers. Then he smirked at Hattu. ‘And then you can enjoy a nice, refreshing cup of water when we’re up there.’

  The ascent to the top of the fells was every bit as painful as Kurunta had predicted. The armour chewed at their skin and trapped the heat of the day against their bodies. Once up there, they were given but a moment to catch their breaths before combat training began. First, they took to running an obstacle course – leaping over rocks, ducking and rolling under raised logs and dodging around poles, all with their armour and weapons anchoring them. After that, they mock-battled, now clashing bronze weapons instead of wooden poles. Hattu and Dagon partnered-up to spar. The spears were heavier with the additional weight of the bronze tip and tang, and they found that keeping the weapon level was hard enough, let alone manoeuvring it into a position where they might strike. Next, they fought with swords. These were light as air in comparison, and the blades clashed over and over as they and the many other pairs of boys fought to tap the flat of their blade against their opponent’s chest, scoring a ‘kill’.

  ‘Balance, balance,’ Kurunta screamed, striding amongst the sparring lads with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘You can have all the strength in the world, but if you have the spryness of a pregnant elephant your head will end up as an ornament in a Kaskan mud house.’ Hattu felt Kurunta’s eye on him more than once. As much as he loathed the general, his only means of hurting the man was to defy him. And so he marked Dagon with a ‘kill’, then Garin too, then Sargis. At noon, only ten boys were left fighting and not yet ‘killed’.

  ‘Meh,’ Kurunta grumbled and shrugged as he eyed the remaining boys. It wasn’t quite the praise many had hoped for.

  In the noon heat, he then split them into two parties, one ‘patrolling’ a rocky outcrop that rose like a skywards-pointing finger, the other tasked with outmanoeuvring the patrolling lot and claiming the finger for themselves. Kurunta climbed up the finger and sat upon it like a vulture, watching it all.

  Hattu was in Tanku’s patrolling fifty, with Dagon and Garin. It was just like the exercise they had witnessed between the Blaze and the Wrath men on their first day up on the hills, he realised. They shot glances to the rocky finger, then all around. The other fifty remained unseen, so they moved in a tight circle, round and round the finger. The ground nearby was pitted and uneven, and each of them remembered well how the Blaze soldiers had hidden in such a crater before stealing up on the Wrath men’s flank.

  Under the full sun, they were tiring, fast. ‘They’ll never come at us while we move like this,’ Hattu said to Dagon. ‘Wherever they’re hiding, they’ll just wait it out. They’re in the shade and we’re not. When we slow and tire, then they’ll have us.’

  Dagon nodded slowly.

  Hattu flicked a finger to the wide, shallow natural trench in the earth that led right up to the rocky finger. A pile of rocks lay at the near end of it. ‘That’s the easiest approach: the other fifty will come for the rocky finger that way. On the next circuit we’ll pass unseen by those rocks. We should fall in behind them, wait in the shade – turn this exercise on its head.’

  ‘Tell Tanku,’ Dagon said.

  Hattu’s lips shifted to one side. ‘Anything I say to him, he’ll reject out of hand.’

  Dagon smiled wryly, winked at Hattu then jogged forward to mutter in Tanku’s ear. The big recruit’s eyes moved this way and that as if piecing together the idea in his own mind, then he turned round and whispered to the others. ‘On the next pass, we stop by the rocks, aye?’

  ‘Aye,’ the rest said in a hushed agreement.

  Dagon fell back to Hattu’s side, grinning.

  They fell into the shady lee of the rocks. Their parched breaths subsided and then there was a silence. Hattu felt a terrible doubt grip him: what if the other fifty spotted the trap and stole up on the rocky finger from the other side? But then: crunch, crunch, crunch.

  He edged his head from the shade of the rock pile, seeing the shadows of approaching, scuttling men. Tanku saw it too and held up a finger, then swished it down. The fifty burst from the shade by the rocks and fell upon their startled opponents. Weapons clacked on shields and curses mixed with laughter.

  Victory, Hattu mouthed, eager to share the momentary elation with his team. But he felt a molten gaze on his neck and turned, seeing Kurunta glowering down upon him, his silvery braid dancing in the weak breeze atop the rocky finger.

  ‘The shade by the rocks – that was Hattu’s plan,’ Dagon panted as the clamour subsided.

  Hattu swung round, seeing Tanku’s face fall. The big recruit shrugged. ‘Aye, well, good for him. Best he finished this early so he might just have enough energy to bring us our water,’ he said without a trace of humour.

  Kurunta half-climbed down the rocky finger then leapt down onto the hilltop with a dusty thud. ‘Indeed. Thirsty work, that. Prince Hattusili, if you would,’ he gestured from the edge of the hilltop down to the wagon with the water pole. Grunts of dismay sounded from the recruits. They knew what would happen now.

  Hattu eyed them all for a moment. The image of the dauntless ant played over and over in his mind. He glanced past the gathered recruits, seeing the now-complete ants’ nest a little way behind them. No task is impossible, as you have shown me, little friend, he thought.

  ‘Are you awaiting a litter and some slaves to carry you down there, eh?’ Kurunta snapped.

  Hattu carefully set down his spear, shield, helm and sword. He started to untie his armour when Kurunta added: ‘keep the cuirass on – unless it’s too much for you?’

  Hattu bit his lip and re-fastened the leather straps, then turned away to jog down the dusty slope. One-eyed bastard! He growled inwardly as he stumbled down the fells. He kept his footing thanks to his now rope-like hamstrings and bronze-hard quadriceps, and managed to stand tall as he reached the bottom and strode over to the usual two sneering soldiers who had the water pole ready for him.

  The pole was loaded onto his shoulders with three buckets at either end.

  ‘Off you go,’ one of the soldiers said with a lazy chuckle.

  Hattu turned away from them. Up he went, feeling the weighty pole and its six buckets crush down upon his shoulders and steal his breath, trample his spirits. Then he looked up, seeing the baleful looks of the Hill Pups.

  Today, they will drink. Just over halfway up, his feet began to sink deeply into the dust then he stopped, dipping to his knees. The recruits groaned. Tanku spat on the ground and turned away, cursing. Hattu looked up, sweat running across his face. He stepped out of the yoke-pole, lifted one bucket off and poured it into the dust. Then he did the same with the others.

  ‘What in the name of Halki’s arse are you doing?’ Kurunta howled. ‘Start again.’

  Hattu fixed his gaze on his one-eyed tormentor, and calmly lifted the yoke pole and six empty buckets back onto his shoulders, then climbed with ease, up, up and onto the hilltop.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Kurunta screamed in his ear.

  ‘I heard you on that first day,’ Hattu replied calmly. ‘You challenged me to bring water to my comrades.’

  ‘Aye, water, not empty buckets,’ Kurunta roared.

  Hattu walked past him and stopped by a flat, wide rock on the ground, stooping to rummage in the brush at one side of it. Standing again, holding a spade and a length of rope concealed there, he met every pair of eyes. ‘Today, you will drink,’ he said flatly. He dug the spade under the rock and planted a booted foot on its bronze shoulder. Levering hard, the
rock lifted, and with a twist, he shifted it to one side.

  Now the watching eyes grew wide, drawn to the dark hole under the rock. Hattu took one of the empty buckets from the yoke pole and tied the rope to its handle, then lowered it down. As he did so he thought of every night, every moment of back-breaking digging. He thought of the uncertainty: the cool, moist earth he had found in the ant’s furrow suggested water might lie underneath, as Ruba had taught him, but there was no guarantee. A month of doubts and toil, then last night, he had struck water. A splash sounded some way below, scattering his thoughts, bringing him back to the searing-hot day. He drew the bucket back up – brimming with water from an underground vein of the Soldier’s Spring – untied it and walked past Kurunta.

  He heard the one-eyed general grumble: ‘You dirty, devious hurkeler…’ as he calmly handed the bucket to Garin, the nearest of the Hill Pups, then turned back to the well. ‘I will stop if you wish me to, sir,’ he said to Kurunta, ‘but I have completed your orders. The objective was to bring water to the men, wasn’t it? One ascent, six buckets?’

  Kurunta growled like an angered cat and flicked his head towards the well. Hattu drew another few buckets and handed them round, then sat near the rest as they drank. He asked for no water for himself. When Dagon handed him a cupful, Hattu noticed the cold eyes of the others upon him, Tanku’s in particular.

  ‘Drink it,’ Tanku said, looking off past Hattu towards Kurunta, now standing with his back turned, too far away to hear – he hoped. ‘Before Kurunta drowns you in it.’

  A dull rumble of callus laughter broke out at this.

  ‘And if he doesn’t drown me then I fully expect a turd on a plate for my evening meal tonight,’ Hattu said.

  Tanku snorted once in dry humour at this and the others laughed too – guardedly.