The Words had been an inspiration of Caxa, the Jaguar-girl sculptor who had memorably carved a sign to the gods outside My Sun — a sign now desecrated by the Trojans who had smashed the place up, but the Annids had promised that some day it would be restored. The Trojans’ advance on the Wall had cut off Etxelur, the Wall and the Annids from the rest of Northland. So Caxa, inspired by the colourful banners that were draped over the Wall’s face on festival days like the midsummer Giving, had suggested painting slogans on the Wall itself: tremendously tall designs, Words that could be seen many days’ travel away. The idea had been accepted with enthusiasm. Soon sections of the Wall’s white face were covered with the ancient ring-and-groove lettering of Etxelur, messages shouting out to all who could see, and read them: THE WALL STANDS! THE LOVE OF THE MOTHERS PROTECTS US ALL! THE TROJANS CANNOT PREVAIL!
Of course the Trojans responded. Even if they couldn’t read such signs they could guess their purpose. So in their assaults on the Wall the Trojans defaced the signs, and built bonfires to smear them with soot. In response the Northlanders had cut the signs deeper into the Wall’s sheer face and painted over the soot. It had become a strange side-battle in this war, a battle over words, symbols, ideas, one side writing, the other side erasing, over and over. And it was a uniquely Northlander battle too. Most Northlanders could read and write, whereas in Troy and Greece and the land of the Hatti, literacy was the province of the scribes — not even the kings could read the proclamations they applied their seals to. Regardless of what the Words said, their very existence were a reminder of the uniqueness of Northland civilisation.
Tibo worked steadily, shifting his position, balancing the weight of his bucket. The work was easy, if repetitive. It seemed to satisfy some corner of his soul to complete such a simple task, just filling a groove with paint. Another way to achieve the calmness Riban had urged him to find within himself. And as he worked on he became aware of the dawn approaching. He worked with his back to the landscape, but gradually he made out the face of the Wall before him in the gathering daylight, a blue-grey wash that picked out the pocks and flaws in the Wall’s growstone surface.
Then there was another wooden creak, louder, and voices calling from the plain.
Tibo turned to see, hanging one-armed from the net. Northland had emerged from the dark, flat to the horizon under a cloudy blue-grey sky. The land was scarred by the Annids’ huge new defensive earthworks, ramparts and ditches, running for long stretches along the face of the Wall. At the base of the Wall itself water stood in hollows, building up against the growstone. Trojan raiders had long ago torched the windmills on the Wall’s roof, so now, in chambers safely tucked deep within the Wall, work gangs were turning great wheels to keep the pumps working — gangs manned by volunteers, it was said. But it was impossible to keep the flooding down completely. Looking along the face of the Wall itself Tibo could see more relics of the Trojans’ many assaults: broken ladders, the wreck of a battering ram that had smashed itself to pieces against the Wall’s growstone face, earthen ramps, even pits where Qirum’s men had tried tunnelling under the Wall.
But this morning, Tibo saw, astonished, Qirum was trying something new.
At first he thought the thing silhouetted against the dawn light was a huge man, a terrifying figure. Then he saw that it was no creature but a man-made thing, a tower of wood and rope roughly nailed and bound together. Platforms stuck out of it like great tongues, protruding towards the Wall. Some of them were surely high enough to be able to reach the galleries, like the one from which he dangled.
And the tower was moving. It was mounted on wheels, thick and solid, that looked as if they had been cut from the trunks of huge, ancient oaks. Teams of oxen dragged this thing over the muddy ground, and it cut deep ruts as it passed. There were so many of the animals that they combined in his view into black slabs of heaving muscle, their breath steaming in a cloud. Men drove the oxen with sticks and whips, and warriors jogged alongside the tower, their bronze armour bright in the gathering light. Chariots followed, perhaps bearing commanders. There were men in the tower itself, dwarfed by its scale. They looked like toys, Tibo thought, toy soldiers that Puli or Blane would play with.
This was the source of the tremendous wooden groans he had heard through the night. It was a siege engine.
‘Father!’
‘I see it.’ Deri was hanging on the net, staring. ‘I heard of such things in Hattusa, but I never saw one before — and I never heard of one so big. But then I imagine no siege in history has ever faced such a barrier as the Wall.’
‘Where did it come from? It wasn’t here yesterday.’
‘They must have brought it up overnight, in pieces, on carts. Then they put it together in the dark, and here it is.’ He shook his head. ‘We must never underestimate the Trojans, son.’
Now the Wall community was waking in the dawn, and cries of alarm echoed in the galleries. Soon the first resistance began. Arrows and stones flew from the galleries above Tibo’s head, some of the arrows burning. Tibo glanced up, and saw Mi with her lethal Kirike’s Land bow firing off shot after shot, one glowing spark sent flying through the air after another.
The first fire arrows fell on the tower. Some sank home in the engine’s wooden frame, but they burned only slowly, perhaps the wood was wet, and there were men with blankets and buckets of water and earth to douse any fires that did catch. Meanwhile, down on the plain, the Trojan warriors raised their shields and fired back in response, but being so far below their arrows fell well short, thumping back into the muddy ground.
And all the while the great engine lumbered ever closer to the Wall. Now it approached the band of ditches and ramparts that had been dug out before the Wall itself. Trojan engineers rushed forward to break the ramparts and lay boards over the ditches. The few defenders stationed there put up some resistance, but when the Trojans arrived, when the swords glittered and the blood splashed, they fell back.
‘We aren’t going to stop it,’ Tibo murmured.
‘There’s a way to go yet. But you and I might have some fighting to do today, son. Come on.’ Deri dumped his jug and brush, letting the paint splash down the Wall’s face, and began scrambling back up the net. ‘Words will have to wait.’
Tibo followed his father up the face of the Wall, staring over his shoulder at the engine’s lumbering advance.
On the balcony, even as she fired her own bow, Mi called out commands, redirecting the arrow fire. Now the defenders began to target the oxen that dragged the tower. Unless you had a lucky shot it would take more than a single arrow to bring down a mature ox, but it was all but impossible to miss an animal in that compressed mass, and the wounded animals writhed and bellowed in distress, disturbing those around them. The drivers had to work hard to keep the beasts moving in formation, with oaths and blows.
And now Mi heard a roar, coming from somewhere below and to her left. A mass of warriors had run out from a concealed entrance in the face of the Wall. They formed up into a rough block and headed straight for the Trojan force, their weapons held aloft, yelling defiance. The units were commanded by officers from Hattusa, but by now Northland’s army contained men from Etxelur and the other Wall Districts, the rest of Northland, and from allies in Albia and Gaira. They sprinted over boards hastily thrown over the ditches, and made for the engine, coming at it from the side. The Trojans formed up in response.
But before that battle was joined there was another tremendous wooden groan, like a huge cry of pain. Mi saw that the engine was leaning. Its front left corner was tipping into a hole that had opened up in the ground beneath its wheels. Faces everywhere turned to the siege engine, the defenders on the Wall, the warriors on the ground, the engineers at their work breaching the ramparts.
‘Ha!’ a man called, leaning over the balcony. ‘I did that! I helped dig that trap! Just brush and a dusting of earth over a hole in the ground. One of Raka’s bright ideas, meant to trap a chariot, but if it catches that monster it will do for me!’
The engine tipped further still. Mi was surprised by how easily it was going over. For all its bulk it had to be tall to reach the Wall’s galleries, and so it must be top-heavy, and once it started to fall it was doomed. The drivers beat the broad backs of their oxen, but the panicking animals could do nothing now. Indeed, Mi saw, some of the bellowing oxen were being dragged backwards as the tower tilted. When their traces broke the animals stampeded, causing more panic among the increasingly disorganised Trojans. Men trapped in the tower itself ran, yelling. Some of them jumped to the ground, arms flailing. The commanders’ chariots turned away sharply, fleeing the disaster.
The end was near. As the engine tipped further and further panels fell away from the tower’s sides, falling to the ground in a hail of wood shards, and Mi heard the pop and crack of big structural beams breaking, like bones
