The Hittite - Ben Bova [7]
The villagers were indeed grateful, once they realized we intended to return some of their goods to them, rather than cause them more harm. They were a sad and pitiful lot, their young men still sprawled on the blood-soaked earth, their women still kneeling over them, crying and keening. The biting iron stench of their blood filled the air; if the women and old men did not get the corpses buried soon, there would be even worse smells.
The village’s white-bearded headman gladly told me that the right fork led toward Troy, but he had no idea how far the city might be.
“I have heard of it,” he told me, trying to maintain some shred of dignity in his quavering voice. “No one from this village has ever gone there.”
No one from this village has ever gone farther than the wheat fields and dung-spattered sheep pastures of the nearby hills, I thought.
I ordered my men to gather up enough food to feed us for a few days and enough trinkets and baubles to use as trade goods at the next village we came to. The villagers did not object. They could not, even if they desired to.
We left them standing there amid their dead, wailing to their gods.
5
The sun was high and hot as we climbed the wooded slope that led up to the next ridgeline. Suddenly Zarton dropped the loot he was carrying and rested his long spear against a tree.
“I’m going back,” he announced.
The men all stopped. I had been in the lead, so I had to turn around to face our mountain man.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping past half a dozen of the men to stand before Zarton.
He shrugged, a big, slow-witted powerful young ox. “I’m going back to that village. I’m not going on with you.”
I glanced at the men closest to me. Some seemed puzzled by Zarton’s words, but a few were nodding with understanding. Why keep on this grueling trek across the ruins of the empire when we can settle down in that village and be welcomed by the widows and daughters who need men to protect them? I saw it in their eyes.
“You are a soldier, Zarton,” I said evenly. “You follow orders just as the rest do. My orders.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “There’s no empire anymore, Lukka. Why keep up the pretense?”
They all knew why. We were fighting our way toward Troy to find my wife and sons. It was my will that drove us on now, not the emperor’s, but I had to be just as hard and inflexible as he had been. Otherwise we would all be lost and I would never find my sons.
“Pick up your goods and get back on the march,” I commanded.
He actually grinned at me. “I’m not a soldier anymore, Lukka. I quit.”
“You can’t quit. Not unless I allow you to.”
Zarton stood up a little straighter. The other men edged away from us.
“I’m going back to the village,” he repeated, slowly, stubbornly.
“No you’re not.”
Usually he was an easygoing, amiable sort. But like the ox he resembled, he could be obstinate. And dangerous. Yet I knew that if I allowed him to leave, several of the other men would go with him. Discipline would evaporate. My squad would disintegrate before my eyes and I would have no chance what ever of reaching distant Troy.
Zarton gripped his spear in one ham-sized fist. It was more than half again his own considerable height. He looked at me with real sadness in his ice-blue eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Lukka. Don’t stand in my way.”
“I don’t want to kill you, boy, but if you don’t obey me I’ll be forced to.”
I had no spear, only the sword in its scabbard by my side. Being left-handed is an advantage in a sword fight because most men are accustomed to fight against right-handers, and my left-handed stance confuses them. But this would not be a sword fight: Zarton hefted his spear.
Before any of the other men could make up their minds about which of us to back, I said loudly: “Stand back, all of you. This is between Zarton