Stephen Baxter - Bronze Summer

The women and children huddled, shivering from the cold, naked, bloodied, hungry, thirsty. Nobody spoke. Hadhe longed to know what had become of her own children. She wondered if she would ever find out.

Later in the day, as the evening drew in, Hadhe heard gruff voices, a clink of metal, leather sliding, sighs of relief, and she smelled meat cooking. She imagined men loosening their armour, taking their boots off after the day’s work of killing — just another day for them, the end of a unique existence for each of their victims.

The light was dying when men came to the house again. Two of them this time, more grandly dressed, heavy in bronze armour and with elaborate conical helmets. One carried a sword in his hand. Hadhe thought the other might have been Qirum himself, but his face was obscured by his armour.

The man with the sword walked among the women, inspecting them. The women, naked, their legs up to their chests, quailed back against the wooden walls. He handled them roughly, lifting faces, pulling back hair, pinching breasts. At length he selected one, a young mother called Sila, and another, Sila’s younger cousin Leb — and, at last, Hadhe. He chose these three by tapping their shoulders, and beckoned them to stand. The others looked away.

Hadhe felt numb. This was unreal. Why me? Why not her, or her? She stood tall, hoping her pregnant belly would show, and put them off. But then Qirum looked at her more closely — yes, it was him — and yes, he recognised her. He said a couple of words to the other man, who shrugged, and drove Sila and Leb out of the house. Qirum himself grabbed Hadhe by her wrist.

Once outside, Hadhe wrapped her free arm around her body in the chill as Qirum dragged her down the mound. My Sun was all but unrecognisable from the home it had been just that morning. Only three houses still stood; the rest had been burned, the storage pits broken open and robbed. Even the rampart had been smashed down in a dozen places. In one corner men and boys huddled, Hadhe saw, naked too, roped together at hands and feet. And a stack of corpses had been heaped up, all stripped.

The soldiers in the hearthspace seemed oblivious to all this. They tended their feet and inspected damage to shields and armour. The ground was scuffed and littered with their armour and boots, with their turds and pools of their piss, with splashes of drying blood. Some men were wounded, with cuts and burns salved with potions, honey, grease, mashed-up roots. A surgeon with a kit of bronze tools — forceps, chisels, a saw — prepared to set a broken arm. The man was held down by his companions, a bit of wood between his teeth.

There were some Trojan dead. They had been set out respectfully near the gate through the rampart, and covered with blankets stolen from the houses. Hadhe found no joy in seeing that some Trojans, at least, had fallen today.

Sila was dragged off to one of the surviving houses, and Leb to the next, and Qirum took Hadhe to the third. A skein of geese crossed the sky. Greylags, perhaps.

Qirum pushed her inside the house. The floor was littered with furs, there was a heavy wooden couch, and a serving girl, barefoot, stood by a low table laden with food, water and wine. As it happened this had been the house of Sila’s family. Qirum clapped his hands to send the girl away. He kicked off his boots, threw himself back on the couch, and considered Hadhe.

Hadhe stood in the middle of the floor. She was tempted to cover her body with her arms, but she stood tall, still hoping she might be spared because of her pregnancy.

‘Speak to me,’ he said, in heavily accented Etxelur-speak. ‘You hear me? I know Milaqa.’

‘She…’ Hadhe hadn’t said a word since the morning, and her throat was dry as dust. She tried again. ‘She is my cousin.’

‘You want water?’ He threw over a sack.

She grabbed it and gulped it down.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Hadhe.’

‘ Haa-thee. I saw your face before.’

‘I’m Milaqa’s cousin,’ she repeated.

That word baffled him, but he seemed to get the idea. ‘The battle. What did you think?’ He sought for the words. ‘Frightening? Like wild animals, were we?’ He growled and made mock-claws with his fingers. ‘I want to make your Annids frightened. That way they won’t fight. That way people won’t have to die. They have to learn. I offered peace; they rejected it. This is what happens when you reject peace.’

‘I have children,’ she blurted.

He pointed at her belly. ‘In there? I don’t care.’

‘No…’ She saw no point in telling him other than the truth. ‘Three. Three other children. Two have been taken away to the Wall.. The third. A boy. He fought.’

He shrugged. ‘If he lives, he is with the slaves. You will never see him again.’

‘Only yesterday I did not believe you would come. Not like this.’

‘You were wrong.’

‘I even argued against preparing, defending ourselves.’

‘Wrong.’

‘What will happen to us?’

He shrugged. ‘The men will be slaves. But we are a long way from those who buy slaves. We may have no use for them. The women will be sold as slaves too. Or, if you are not sold, you will cook, clean, spin, draw water for my soldiers. Or’ — he patted the couch — ‘you may keep my bed warm.’

Anger flared. She took a step forward, almost stumbled. ‘You slaughter our children. Murder our husbands. And you expect us to sleep with their killers? What horror is this?’

He laughed at her. ‘It is our way. All across Greece, Anatolia, Egypt, the whole of the east. Women are booty.’ His face hardened. ‘If you don’t stay with me, I will give you to the Spider. You’ll be dead by morning. With me, maybe you’ll live. Your baby inside you will live.’

‘Why? Why do you want me?’

‘For your cousin. For Milaqa.’ He lifted his tunic, revealing an erection. ‘I’m being kind to you.’

She hesitated. Then she knelt beside the couch.

In the morning, it did not take long to organise the march back to New Troy. A few carts were laden with what loot there was to be had. The booty people, all naked, those who could walk, were roped together and hobbled, and shoved into rough columns. Those who could not make the march, including most of those used as the night’s camp whores, were swiftly dispatched, and added to the pile of corpses. The pyre was then set alight and burned with a greasy stink.

Torches were applied to the surviving houses, and dirt was kicked on the big central hearth. Then the column formed up, and Protis led the march south, out of the smashed community.

But Qirum lingered, along with the Spider, and a handful of picked men. The Spider, in his days before joining Qirum, had developed a particular trick in these situations that Qirum never tired of watching.

The men stayed just out of sight of the ruined village, as the sounds of the marching column slowly receded, and waited. The sunless sky brightened slowly. From the forest, a wild pig came rooting in the ruined hearthspace, looking for scraps. Qirum noticed a strange sign in the Etxelur script, loops and lines, cut into the hillside. Idly, he considered sending a man up there to break it up. Something to be done later. He began to feel sleepy, after the hard work of yesterday.

And then the Spider grinned and pointed at the acorn pit, beside the ruined fire. Qirum saw one hand emerge, then a blond head, and a slim body. Soon a boy climbed out of the pit, bloodstained, bewildered.

For a while the watching men allowed the boy to wander around the ruined village. Nobody else came out. Then the Spider unsheathed his sword. This was his speciality — to return to devastated farms and villages and cities, to wait until those who had hidden away came stumbling out into the ruins, and then to slaughter them in turn. It was the exquisite shock on the victims’ faces that seemed to thrill the Spider, the sudden horror of one who had thought he was saved.