And at last, only a little before the dawn, Qirum stood before a Northland community, a king with his army at his back, and Protis and the Spider at his side, his basileis. They were here in force, for Qirum was determined to make this first serious assault a statement of intent.
Not that the prize they had come so far to take looked like much in the blue-grey dawn light. Just a rough earth rampart and ditch around a huddle of houses, with that one big dwelling up on its mound. But you could only fight what the enemy put in front of you; you could only take what he had to lose.
First they had to cross that ditch. Qirum turned and murmured a command to Erishum. The sergeant gathered half a dozen engineers. They moved forward, dragging logs and sections of a wooden platform.
In response a gate in the rampart opened, and men came filing out. It was too dark to see clearly, but Qirum thought there could be no more than fifty of them. All seemed armed, though, and some were armoured, in leather or bronze. They lined up on the far side of the ditch, and shouted threats and launched the odd arrow at the engineers. But the Trojans were already in the ditch; they raised their shields and kept working. Soon the bridge would be ready.
‘So here we are,’ murmured Protis, standing by Qirum. He had learned to speak a coarsely accented Trojan, as an honour to his new king. But his voice was as expressionless as his eyes, even as they were about to give battle. The man made Qirum shudder. ‘We have no element of surprise. We came walking in by the most obvious route, straight up the road from the south that runs through the heart of this country. We could split our forces and come in from the back, the sides…’
‘Or the chariots,’ murmured the Spider. ‘Get them across that ditch and let them run at the defences.’
Qirum snorted. ‘You Hatti love your chariots. Look at this place. We don’t need chariots, or subtlety of tactics. Do you really think we need more than a frontal assault to finish off this lot?’
Erishum hurried back and reported that the engineers had completed their work.
‘No more talk.’ Qirum pulled his sword from its scabbard with a ringing sound, and he raised his voice so the men could hear. ‘Let’s get this done. Are you ready to live like men, or die like heroes?’ In response Erishum slammed the shaft of his spear against his leather shield, over and over. Soon all the men were banging their shields, stamping their feet, yelling. Qirum raised his sword. ‘Onwards!’ And he marched forward, closely flanked by the Spider and Protis, with the best of their men following. The heroes always led the charge.
Immediately there was a whoosh and clatter, and the blue-grey sky above the settlement darkened. Arrows and stones, hurled from within the settlement. The defenders weren’t entirely unprepared, then. Good — it would make for a better fight, and the men needed it.
Protis roared, ‘Shields!’ He raised his own shield, as did Qirum, as they marched. The order was repeated up and down the line, but Protis’s bellow had been so loud there was scarcely a need; like most successful commanders he had lungs like an iron smelter’s leather bellows.
The arrows and heavy stones clanged against the bronze face of Qirum’s shield, making him stagger. But he kept advancing. And javelins were thrown from the ranks behind him; they fell on Northlander flesh, and there were screams and cries.
Now there was a roar ahead. The Northlanders outside the rampart were coming forward. Evidently they meant to meet the Trojans as they reached the bottleneck of the engineers’ bridge. Better not to have let the bridge be built in the first place, Qirum thought; it showed the typical indecisiveness of the untrained, the inexperienced. No matter.
Suddenly the Northlanders were only paces away. Qirum saw their strange red hair, their faces pale with anger or fear.
The two sides closed in a hail of slingshot and arrows. At first it was just the three of them, Qirum, Protis and the Spider, side by side on the bridge’s rough panels. The first man Qirum faced was tall, young, healthy-looking, with an odd little beard around his mouth. He looked astonished when Qirum thrust the tip of his own sword into his throat, almost delicately, as a surgeon would lance a wound. Here was the benefit of training, which beat the hesitancy out of a man; it was easier to die than to kill for the first time, as the man was no doubt already explaining to the little mothers, his feeble goddesses. Qirum got his boot on the man’s chest and shoved him back, thus retrieving his sword, and he surged forward once more, laying into the next man, and the next. Beside him, Protis swung his sword and the Spider stabbed with his spear, flesh was broken and blood spurted. Protis especially was extraordinary in such a situation, a whirl of slashing blades.
Surrounded by roars, in a mist of blood, the three companions slew and maimed, driving on as the defenders fell back before them. Soon the three of them, just three against fifty or so, had driven a deep hole into the ranks of the defenders. Behind them, Erishum led more men over the bridge to pour into the attack, hacking, screaming, driving the foe back.
A cry went up from the defenders, in their own strange tongue. Fall back! At the rear, men streamed back through the rampart gate. Those at the front had to scramble backwards, fighting as they went. Erishum and the other sergeants yelled encouragement at the Trojan forces, to keep pushing, keep killing.
It didn’t take long for the Trojan surge to reach the gate. There was a final brave stand by a handful of Northlanders, who held the Trojans back long enough for the gate to be slammed shut, before they died in their turn. The commanders would not allow any pause, any falling back, any break in the assault now it had begun. Protis called, ‘Shields up! Bring the ladders! Come on, you lazy slugs, do I have to do it myself?’
Handfuls of men carried the stubby siege ladders forward from the little army’s short train, protected from the arrows by the raised shields of others who ran alongside. Good training paying off again, Qirum thought, watching from under his shield.
The Spider turned his own shield over and pulled out an arrow with some difficulty. It had penetrated bronze plate. ‘Iron,’ he said, turning the arrow’s head before his king’s eyes. ‘Good stuff too.’
‘Well, we knew they had it,’ Qirum said. ‘From what they stole in Hattusa.’
The Spider glanced at the rough rampart. ‘It will make no difference. Iron or not, these savages don’t know how civilised men fight.’
‘Well, they know now.’
Soon the first ladder, rough steps hacked into a halved tree trunk, was up against the wall. This time Protis was the first to charge. ‘Let’s get this over.’ He took the ladder at a run, not using his hands, sword in one hand and shield strap in the other, relying on sheer momentum to keep from falling as he climbed. He slammed the shield into the face of a defender at the top, who fell back screaming, his face a bloody mass. Then Protis was up and over the rampart, sword swinging, and he dropped out of sight on the far side. His men followed in his wake.
All along the wall more ladders had been propped up, more Trojans were pouring over. The defenders were already falling back.
Qirum roared, ‘Let me at them!’ But he had to push his way through the men to get to the ladder, and clamber his way to the top.
Standing near the central hearth — there were still piles of acorns beside a half-filled pit, from the work abandoned yesterday — Vala saw the Trojans break over the rampart, and the men of My Sun falling back, only to be cut down as they fled. One man — she knew him well, a fatherly fellow of about forty called Maos — slithered screaming down a rampart wall that was already slick with bright blood. At the bottom of the wall he rolled over, and from a great gaping slash in his belly snake-like entrails spilled and dragged on the ground.