The Hittite - Ben Bova [1]
A woman with a baby in her arms and two more little ones trailing behind her rushed up to me, her face twisted by fear.
“Soldiers! Help us! Protect us!”
My instinct was to fight these drunken looters, to safeguard the defenseless people they were preying upon. But all I had was my squad of twenty. Twenty men against hundreds, one squad of soldiers against a city in anarchy. It was hopeless.
“Leave the city while you can,” I told her. “Get away until this madness burns itself out.”
She stared at me, disbelieving. Then she spat on me. My hand flew to the pommel of my sword. I told her through gritted teeth, “Get away while you can. Leave while you’re still alive.”
She turned and hurried to rejoin the stream of people fleeing for the city’s gates.
“Stay in order,” I shouted to my squad. “We can’t fight them all.”
The men grumbled but we marched on, eyes forward, shields on our arms and spears upright, up the narrow street that led to the citadel and to the home of my father, where my wife and sons lived. Three of my men had family in the city, I knew. The rest came from elsewhere in the empire.
“We’re going to the citadel. From there you can go to your families or to the barracks,” I told my men.
We marched toward the citadel, toward the house of my father.
The gangs gave us wide berth as we marched in step up the cobbled main street toward the citadel. Twenty men in the emperor’s gear, each armed with a nine-foot spear and killing sword were enough to make most of them melt away from us. Someone threw a rock that bounced off my shield. When the twenty of us wheeled and leveled our spears in that direction, the looters scattered away like the vermin they were, scurrying for safety.
“Stay together,” I repeated, resuming our march up the street. As usual, I stayed on the right end of our line, since I am left-handed and wear my shield on my right arm. Thus we presented a solid line of shields from end to end.
It was hard to watch the rioters looting and roaring, staggering from house to house, dragging out shrieking terrified women, and do nothing. Dead bodies lay in the street. Blood ran in the gutter down its middle. Young toughs in knots of four and five lurched from shop to shop, flagons of wine in their blood-soaked hands. I even saw bands of soldiers, still wearing the emperor’s leather and iron, smashing and looting alongside the wild-eyed gangs.
“We’ll tend to our own families,” I repeated to my men. “There’s nothing we can do for the others.”
Truly, the city was in anarchy. Twenty soldiers would not be able to restore order. Twenty hundred were needed. The streets smelled of blood and panic. Smoke was thickening in the sky.
The stone tower of the citadel, up atop the hill, was in flames. Fire and death are ever the twin sons of war, and the black smoke rising from the royal palace told me that the gods had turned their backs on the Hatti. My home was hard by the high wall that encircled the citadel. My father, my wife, my two little sons were there. So I hoped.
“Stay in order,” I called to my men. “I’ll drub the man who breaks ranks.”
We marched onward toward the burning citadel. None of the drunken looters came near us. Brave they were with their clubs and daggers against cringing women and quaking old men; against a disciplined squad of armed spearmen they made no opposition. We marched upslope along the cobbled street and everyone gave us a wide berth.
Most of my men were too young to be married. They lived in the barracks inside the citadel wall. The three who had homes to go to I released once we reached the wall, with orders to rejoin the squad before nightfall. The others milled about uncertainly.
“Stay together,” I told them. “Go to the barracks and save what you can. Then form up again here, by this house.”
It was the house of my father, the house where I had been born. And my sons, as well.
Like all the others along the street, my father’s house was braced along the citadel wall. Built of well-fitted stone, it