Against the Tide of Years (31 page)

A figure emerged from the forward companionway, naked except for a pair of shorts and covered in oil, water, and swollen barley. Swindapa walked across the deck, plunged off the windward bow—there was a slick of sesame oil stretching downwind from the ship on the other side—and came up a line seconds later, glistening and reasonably clean.

“We’ve got most of the whole jars out,” she said to Alston as she walked up, drying herself. “But there’s just too much of the barley and it keeps
shifting
. The reed baskets it was in are all ruptured, and it’s sludging around the ballast and
everywhere
.”

Alston nodded soberly. They needed to get in to shore, maybe even beach the ship. That would be risky—this hull wasn’t made for it—but it should be possible if they could get the right ground, soft sand or, better still, mud. Then they could recaulk, replank the smashed-in section of hull on the port bow, and
really
clean out the hold.

Hmmm. If worst came to worst, we could break up the hull, use the materials to build a couple of sloop-rigged pinnaces, and just sail down the coast to Mandela Base.
She hated the thought of losing the ship, but they could salvage the cannon and come back for them later. Walking was out of the question; according to their best estimate, they’d make shore nearly two thousand miles from the Cape.

A belch of air came up the companionway, smelling of rancid sesame oil and spoiled barley. Her lips thinned.

“Quartermaster, have you finished checking the stores?” she said.

The warrant officer nodded. “Eight thousand gallons of fresh water in the intact tanks,” she said. That sounded like a lot, until you considered how much two hundred thirsty humans could use in a day. “The others are repairable, if we can water somewhere. About half the dry provisions are salvageable, if you don’t mind a little mold on the edges.”

“On deck, there!”

Everyone not doing something that required close attention looked up. The lookout continued his hail: “Ship ho!”

Alston cupped her hands around her mouth. “Where away?”

“Three points on the starboard bow. Hull down. No masts!”

“I’d better take a look,” Alston said. “Ms. Alston-Kurlelo, you have the deck.”

 

“There,” Prince Kashtiliash said softly into the hot stillness of the morning. “There, see? Where the reeds move against the wind.”

The horses sensed it too, snorting a little in the chariot traces, the sound of their hooves on dirt sharp through the endless rustling murmur of the ten-foot sea of reeds. Kashtiliash shifted automatically and brought up his bow as their stamping hooves shifted the war-car. It wasn’t rigged for war, now, of course, but hunting lions wasn’t all that different. There was a quiver of arrows with broad-bladed, barbed heads strapped to the frame, and a bucket of javelins, plus a long spear and a hunting shield. His robe was plain wool, kirted up to let his hairy muscular legs have full play, with a new steel sword and dagger at his waist and leather bracers on his forearms.

The Kassite prince bared his teeth in sheer happiness. There was no better sport than marsh lion, unless it was elephant, and hunting lions was a royal man’s duty as well as pleasure, so he needn’t even feel guilty at neglecting affairs of state.

You will deal with the Nantukhtar all your life
, his sire had said.
These warriors of theirs are young men, however eldritch they may be and whatever their powers. Drink wine with them, hunt with them—thus you will know them as men, and they you.

It had been good advice. Except, of course, that some of them
weren’t
men. They were women, something so strange that it slipped out of the grasp of the mind sometimes, like a fresh-caught fish out of a fisherman’s hands.
Warriors in truth, not camp-followers.
It was like something out of a tale, of the ancient days of gods and heroes, of a piece with the eerie strangeness of the newcomers. He felt an excitement like a child’s at the New Year festival when the images of the gods traveled to Babylon, swaying through the streets amid the throngs, and all things became possible.

“I see it, by God,” one of the Nantukhtar said—O-Rourke, he was called, a man with the copper-colored hair you saw sometimes among the northern hill tribes in the Zagros. It seemed to be much more common among the strangers.

Which god does he swear by?
Kashtiliash wondered.

The Nantukhtar pulled their
rifles
—how he longed to possess one, as he already possessed a pair of the marvelous far-seeing
binoculars
—from leather scabbards by the saddles of their horses.

He glared eagerly across the twenty yards of damp earth that separated the hunting party from the first of the reed thickets that stretched on southward out of sight, but out of the corners of his eye he watched the Nantukhtar general, Hawlahard. No, Holl-ard; Kenneth-Hollard. Instead of riding back toward the rump, the Nantukhtar rode on the middle of the horse’s back, on a padded, built-up seat called a
saddle
. As well, they had metal loops—
stirrups
—on either side, where they could brace their feet. He marveled at the cleverness of that, and even more than at the iron horseshoes on their mounts’ feet. Big horses, too. Shoulder-high on him, a good double handspan taller than the best chariot team he’d ever seen. Much heavier than Babylonian horses, yet long-limbed and swift. Kenneth-Hollard had promised him the stallion’s services for his mares.

The reeds moved again, and the horses laid their ears flat. Kashtiliash’s attention came back to the matter at hand with a snap. His nostrils flared, taking in the damp, beer-smelling scent of the marsh. Then it faded as the wind backed and came around into the north.

“They come!” he said.

Kenneth-Hollard and his officers swung down from their saddles and handed the reins to soldiers of theirs, readying their rifles. Then the roar came, shatteringly loud; the Nantukhtar beasts reared against the hands on their bridles, unaccustomed. The chariot teams of the prince’s party were trained, but their glossy hides were damp with terror. More of the grunting-moaning sounds of big-cat anger, and then more roars . . .

Two males first, full-grown but young, thickly maned—brothers, probably, joint lords of the pride. Seven lionesses; some with swollen dugs, so they would have cubs back further in—sure to make them fierce. There was a confusion of tawny hides and glaring amber eyes, great, graceful forms eeling among the edges of the reeds, milling among themselves.

Kashtiliash shouted his pleasure and heard it echoed by the nobles behind him. The animals roared again, paced, snarled, bristled at the intruders in their territory.

“Mine is the one on the right,” he called to the Nantukhtar as it suddenly lowered its head and fixed unwinking eyes upon him, moved its haunches, stiffened the lashing tail to stillness—sure signs of a charge.

As he spoke he brought the bow up and drew smoothly to the ear, until the keen bronze of the arrowhead brushed the gloved fingers of his left hand on the grip of the bow. Muscle bunched in his arms and shoulders, horn and sinew and wood creaked, and he gloried in his strength. The release was sweet, his mind following the arrow as it met the lion’s bounding rush. It took the animal behind the right foreleg; another was on its way before the first struck, and the nobles in the other chariots were shooting as well.

Hollard took one step forward and knelt, bringing up his rifle.
Crack.

The chariot teams surged aside at the unfamiliar noise; Kashtiliash cursed and grabbed the edge of the war-car with a hand as the motion threw off his third shot. When he looked up, the other male lion was tumbling, its smooth, lunging charge broken by the impact of the bullet. His eyes went wide with surprise; an angry lion was
hard
to stop.

He grabbed the long spear and the hunting shield from the chariot and jumped down with a shout; his driver followed with another spear.

Crack.
O’Rourke whooped as he fired, an exultant sound that made Kashtiliash laugh in admiration.
A man of spirit, with fire in his liver.

The horses started again, but this time it didn’t matter. A lioness went down, then came up again and dragged herself aside, moaning, her hind limbs limp—broken spine. That was Hollard’s second-in-command, the woman Kat’rin.

Kashtiliash took a fractional second to look at her; he’d wondered how a female would do in a lion hunt—that was as close as you could get to a battle without fighting one. She seemed calm; the face beneath the cropped hair was impassive under the sweat of a hot day in the marshes, and the startling blue eyes narrowed as she scanned for another target and brought the weapon to her shoulder. The smooth motion was unfamiliar in detail, but his warrior’s eye recognized long training.

Then his lion arrived, and he swung the shield around. It had two large, staring eyes painted on it, sure to draw the attention of one of the big cats. This one was no exception. It leaped for him with a roar that seemed to shake the earth, but the beast was slowed by the loss of blood and the pain of the arrows. The long, keen bronze of the lance took it in the chest. The prince let the impact shove the butt-spike of his spear deep into the soft earth, then released it as the lion kicked, moaned, and died. His sword came out, the Nantukhtar metal balanced and deadly sharp in his hand.

This time Hollard’s bullet broke a charging lioness’s hind leg, but she was up and coming in swiftly. Kashtiliash crouched and presented his shield to draw her, stumbling backward as a great paw smashed the wicker-and-leather surface back against him. The beast reared, and the gravemouth reek of its breath swept over him as it snarled. He struck underarm, and the steel sword slid into its belly with a soft, heavy resistance; he twisted it free and jumped back, landing with legs spread and feet at right angles, ready to move him in any direction.

The woman warrior fired again, this time at less than five paces, and the lionesss died at her feet, a last savage reflex driving it to bite the dirt.

Perhaps she has a man’s soul
, he thought. It would be intriguing to bed such a woman . . .

With the lions safely dead, the hunting party drew aside to a place where a few wild palms gave some shade. Servants watered the horses and fed them, set up an awning for shade and passed around the contents of baskets and flasks. Kashtiliash took a glass bottle from the strangers’ stores and sipped, raising his brow. To begin with, it was
cold
—almost ice cold. That was a great luxury; the king had an ice-house in his palace, filled with blocks brought down from the mountains in winter, and perhaps a few great nobles and rich merchants had likewise.

Kat’rin-Hollard leaned on her elbow on a blanket nearby and wiped at her face and neck with a cloth, resting the cool bottle against her cheek for a second and sighing. Kashtiliash watched out of the corner of an eye, fascinated, as she sprawled at ease.

I have never seen a woman who
moves
like that
, he thought. Not with a harlot’s brazenness, although that was how it appeared at first.
As if she moves her limbs and body without
thinking
of them—as a man might
.

“Your land of Nantukhet is colder than Kar-Duniash? Like Hatti-land, or the mountains.”

Kenneth-Hollard nodded. “Somewhat colder, in summer—a warm night here would be a hot day there. Much colder than your land in the winter—cold rain that turns to ice, and much snow.”

Kashtiliash had campaigned along the edges of the Zagros in winter, and he shivered a little inwardly at the memory. “Great forests, too, I hear.”

“Not Nantucket on,” Kathryn said—her Akkadian wasn’t as good as her commander’s—“On mainland not far away, yes. Trees half as tall as ziggurat of Ur, cover land many thousand . . . how do you say ... thousand day walks. We cut, cut fuel, cut timber, cut for farms, still always more.”

“All the logs you want, for the cutting—it seems unnatural, like picking gold up off the ground,” Kashtiliash said. Kar-Duniash grew nothing but poplar and palm and had to buy abroad for anything that required large, strong timbers, or hard and handsome ones. “But doubtless you need the fuel.”

“We show, you have the black oil that burns?” Hollard said.

He puzzled at that for a second, then realized she meant the black water; he’d never thought to call it “oil,” as if it were sesame pressings or pig lard.

“Yes, that will burn, but only with a stinking smoke,” he replied.

“If you—” she hesitated, frustration on her face, and talked with the other two Nantukhtar. “Our word is
distill
. . . distill it, parts burn clean, it will. For lamps, for make . . . for making bricks. And for firing our steam boats.”

He hid a slight shudder. Many had gone on their faces—or screamed and run—when the first of those came walking upstream without oars or sails. It still caused uneasiness, fear of ill luck. Yet already some of the merchants of the
karum
had hired those boats to haul cargo upstream. And—

“Those could be very useful to us when it comes to war against the Assyrians,” he said.

Kathryn and the others nodded. “A road for supplies right into the heart of the enemy’s country,” she said.

“We have a saying, O Prince,” Kenneth-Hollard said. “ That . . . ah, novices talk of the clash of arms, and experienced warriors speak of supplies.”

“That is true; it cannot be denied!” Kashtiliash agreed.

They not only have wonderful weapons, but they understand how weapons should be used
, he thought with relief—he must tell his father of this. That was the difference between a civilized realm like Babylon and mountain tribesmen or Aramaean sand-thieves; the scribes and storehouses and skilled men to keep bread and beer and salt fish, fresh horses and arrowheads, flowing out to the armies in the field.
And the silver to keep soldiers longer than the smell of loot, and the engineers to build fortresses and bridges.