Stephen Baxter - Bronze Summer

And then above the screams and battle cries he heard a new sound, like thunder, rolling across the field. Some of the more experienced men recognised it. ‘Chariots!’

Standing on the flood mound with the commanders, supporting a battered and dizzy Mi, Milaqa saw the Trojan chariots coming from behind the enemy’s right flank. There were dozens of the charging vehicles, pulled by swiftly running horses, the sound of their hooves loud even over the battle’s din, and bells clanged noisily. They were a shocking sight, a mass of spinning wheels and rearing animals driving at the Northlanders’ left flank where the Spider’s advancing Hatti units had been met by Gairan priest-warriors, strange silent men who fought ferociously. Now the fighting men were distracted by the noise, and the sergeants bellowed for them to hold their shape, to keep fighting.

Kilushepa pointed. ‘A mix of Greek and Hatti types. Look, can you see, Raka? The fleeter ones are Greek, lighter, with two men — four-spoked wheels. The Hatti are the big ones with three men, and their six-spoked wheels…’

Milaqa murmured hasty translations.

‘They are running better than we supposed they would,’ Raka said. ‘We had hoped the ground would be too soft.’

Teel said, ‘Qirum had the initiative. The weather has been dry, the groundwater low, the ground reasonably firm. He knew that. This was a good day to fight, for his purposes.’ He let the criticism hang in the air, unspoken. We should not be fighting the man at all. And if we must fight, not today.

And Milaqa watched, astonished, as the chariots slammed into the Gairan lines, huge masses of hurtling wood and straining animals that cut a bloody swathe through the ranks of men, like blunt blades passing through flesh. The big three-man Hatti chariots were the most effective, each with a driver and shield-bearer accompanying an armoured warrior who shot arrows from a distance, and stabbed and slashed when his chariot closed. As the chariots spread chaos and panic through the Northlander lines, the Trojan infantry pressed with renewed vigour. The fighting became even more intense and chaotic.

Now the surviving chariots emerged from the crush, having passed right through the Northlander phalanx, and they drew up, preparing for a fresh strike. Hasty cries went up from the commanders for the archers to reform and take on the chariots. ‘Aim for the horses!’

Hunda clambered up the mound. He was bloodied and panting; he had been in the thick of the fight, but Milaqa knew that Muwa had sternly ordered him to make sure the person of the Tawananna was safe. ‘Madam. This position may be threatened. Please fall back.’

Kilushepa knew better than to argue. She began to help Hunda lead the Annids down off the mound.

Mi lunged forward, as if trying to get off the mound and back into the fray. But she staggered, still dizzy from the blow to the head she had taken on the field.

Milaqa grabbed her arm. ‘No, you don’t. Besides, you lost your bow.’

‘We must do something…’

One more chariot, a big Hatti three-man vehicle, belatedly broke out of the crush. The crew looked around for a fresh target. They spotted the commanders on the flood mound, pointed up. The driver hauled on his reins and the chariot veered that way.

Heading straight for Milaqa on the mound.

‘We can take it,’ Mi said suddenly. ‘That chariot coming.’

‘What? How?’

For answer Mi slithered down the slope, to the edge of the tide of battle, where broken corpses lay unmoving. She grabbed a sword and spear — but as she straightened up she staggered again, the bruise on her head purpling.

‘You are insane.’ But Milaqa saw there was no other choice than to follow her. She scrambled off the mound, found a spear, and stood by her cousin.

And the chariot charged towards them. The driver was dragging at his reins, trying to control the horses, and the warrior and shield man were looking up at the notables on the flood mound. None of them seemed to notice the young women standing before them.

Mi began running before the chariot reached them. Milaqa joined her, spear in hand. Mi jumped first, grabbed the chariot driver by the neck and fell back, pulling the astonished man off the chariot with her. Milaqa managed to leap up on the platform itself. Without thinking, she swung her spear and caught the warrior with its shaft. He fell from the chariot before he even saw her. But now the plummeting chariot, out of control, was tipping over. The last man, the shield bearer, yelling in fear and anger, swung his shield at Milaqa. She ducked, but the shield caught her on the back of the head, and she fell out of the chariot onto a mound of bodies, warm and slippery. She heard a splintering crash as the chariot went over — and then a huge weight fell on her back, knocking the air out of her.

She sank into a dream of stone and bronze and iron.

‘You idiot.’

The words were in Hatti. That was the first thing Milaqa was aware of, that the language was Hatti.

And then, that she was still alive. She opened her eyes. The daylight was fading from a clouded-over sky. Smoke billowed. She smelled grease, like meat burning. She tried to sit up, and pain banged in her skull.

An arm around her shoulder lifted her to a sitting position. She turned her head cautiously. Kilushepa sat with her. They were back on the flood mound, she saw, sitting on a blanket spread on the bare earth.

And on the plain before her, bodies lay strewn. People moved among them, some stripping the bodies of armour, clothes, boots, others hauling naked and broken corpses onto carts. Occasionally a wounded man would be found, and surgeons would be called. Many of the surgeons were Egyptian, brought in from that country by the Annids for their expertise, especially in the kinds of injuries to be expected in battle.

Away from the battlefield pyres burned. And to the south, far off, more pyres.

‘That’s the Trojans,’ Kilushepa said. ‘Honouring their own dead. Since the fighting stopped for the day, behaviour has been civilised. The living have been returned on either side; the dead are not being dishonoured. Not that I’ve seen anyhow, despite the precedent set by that animal the Spider, and may he rot in the underworld for it.’ She glanced at Milaqa. ‘I take it you can understand me. That you remember your Nesili. The knock on the head-’

‘I’m fine.’ Although she wasn’t. Her body was a mass of bruises, and her aching head wasn’t even the most painful spot. Yet she wasn’t bleeding anywhere, at least not much, nor was any bone broken. She stretched, gingerly. ‘I’ve been lucky.’

‘You have.’ Kilushepa pointed to the wreck of a chariot, just below the mound. ‘Only heroes take on chariots on foot. Heroes and idiots, like you.’

The memory returned sharply to Milaqa. ‘What about Mi?’

‘Worse off than you. She is back behind the lines. Your uncle Teel is caring for her. She will recover. She is with the rest of the soldiers, who are tending their wounds, eating their soldier-bread and drinking their wine, consuming the barley and goats’ cheese that they believe kills pain and restores strength. And you were left to my care.’

‘I’m grateful.’

The queen stroked Milaqa’s hair. ‘I do marvel at you, child. What a mixture of rebel, hero and genius you are! I never saw the like. But you only did it because your cousin went first, didn’t you? I understand, you know. There have always been plenty of people like you in the Hatti court. You don’t really know what other people are feeling. You can only guess. So you do what they do without ever quite understanding why. It’s a flaw in your heart, child. And your uncle Teel shares the same flaw, I sense — or it’s a strength, depending on how you look at it. Depending on how it is used.’