Northland #02 - Bronze Summer by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter [Baxter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General, Historical, Alternative History
ISBN: 9780575089259
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-09-15T14:51:02+00:00

As the Trojan walked boldly through the camp, the Spider’s warriors watched them pass. They were Hatti warriors, Milaqa saw, or a semblance of them. They were relaxing, and many had their boots off, their black-dyed tunics loosened, their long hair worn loose rather than plaited. They sat around the fires, worked at their weapons with sharpening stones, rubbed their feet with bits of rough rock. There were neat heaps of spears, leather helmets, shields of leather and wood. Subdued-looking women, many very young, prepared food and brought the men drink. Milaqa was selfishly glad they were here. She would not have liked to have been the only woman in the camp.

As they neared the watchtower they saw stranger sights. In a cage of wood and rope a group of women, girls and boys sat in the dirt, many naked, waiting in silence. A few warriors were gathered around another cage, laughing and shouting, gambling with bits of gold and precious stone, goading the cage’s occupants with shouts and waved fists. Milaqa got close enough to glimpse what was going on inside the cage: two men, both naked, both without feet, their legs crudely wrapped in bloody cloth, were crawling in the dirt, dragging their bodies, trying to fight each other.

They came to the watchtower itself. Kilushepa pointed up at a standard of wood and bronze that had been fixed to its roof: an eagle, once apparently two-headed, now headless altogether. ‘A sacred symbol,’ Kilushepa murmured. ‘Mutilated. How the world has fallen into decay . . .’

A hefty guard stood by a narrow doorway. He recognised Qirum, ushered him through. Milaqa and Kilushepa followed. The watchtower was half-wrecked, Milaqa saw, peering around in the reduced light. On the ground floor there was a space for a hearth, heaped up with wood, unlit. A set of steps carved into the stone wall led up to the remains of a platform where, in more orderly times, soldiers of the King at Hattusa would have watched over the roadway. Now a loose canvas had been stretched over the open roof.

‘To keep out the rain,’ came a voice from the shadows, speaking precise Hatti. ‘Should it ever fall again . . . Come forward. You. The girl. I won’t bite; I’ve already eaten today.’

Milaqa glanced at the others. Both Qirum and Kilushepa seemed utterly calm. She, however, was trembling. She took a step forward, then another. She had never felt so far from home. She kept seeing the pirate in her mind, his cleft tongue.

As her eyes adapted to the dark she saw a man sitting on a tall chair, his back to the stone wall. He was slim, not bulky, but she sensed he was strong, whip-like. He wore a black-dyed tunic like his soldiers, but embroidered with gold thread. His hair was long at his back, in the Hatti fashion. Clean-shaven, no older than his mid-thirties, he might have been called handsome. But one eye was a blackened ruin.

‘What is your name?’

‘Milaqa.’

‘You are a Northlander, I am told.

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