CHAPTER 1
SEIGE
Helen trudged up the canyon path among streaming refugees, each step heavier than the last. Memories of the Greek landing came to her: dark ships in the harbor, painted sails bright against the sea, the rush of oars toward the beaches, the splash of leaping men, arrows arcing toward them, voices screaming.
The Luwians abandoned the port first, fleeing to the capital up the river valley. The narrow valley had seemed invulnerable, its diverted streams forming layered defenses. Now the living choked the roads, leaving the dead behind.
The river crashed southward, swollen with tangled snowmelt. Spray caught the sun and threw rainbows across the rocks as the water tumbled toward the west Anatolian Aegean coast. Dust rose and settled on the long column snaking up the twisting road in the heat, moving so slowly it wasn’t clear they would reach the mountain citadel before nightfall. A bridge ahead narrowed the column as the road crossed to the canyon’s right side.
A donkey carrying an enormous pack slowed progress. It brayed and kicked, narrowly missing a passing man, who swore and struck it. The donkey’s owner hit him back. A blade flashed from the first man’s robe.
Helen stepped forward. “Let me have a look.” The late‑summer sun stretched Helen’s shadow behind her, mirroring the tall, slender profiles common in her clan. At twelve, she stood tall for her age.
The man with the blade shifted, eyeing her, the dust muting her blond hair. “At the donkey?”
Helen placed a calm hand on the donkey’s neck. Its breathing slowed. “Yes. He’s alright, just frightened.”
Two soldiers policing the column rushed over. “It’s difficult enough for us. Give us a hand. Let the man pass.”
The donkey’s owner motioned forward while stepping back. Relief swept over Helen.
At the rise, she glanced back, her blue eyes taking in miles of the winding column, stragglers drifting at the edges, moving with the same lost, circling steps as the injured animals she used to soothe at home.
Clytemnestra stepped close. Two years older and a head taller, she moved with the quiet authority of a captain’s daughter. Prisms formed over the cascading river. “Good luck for us, bad for the Greeks, isn’t it?” Her long dark hair and deeper skin tone marked her as unusual among Luwians.
“And my horses? Will they be alright too?” Helen pointed at the string of cripples she had taken pity on and healed as best she could. She insisted they come when her parents evacuated. She and her three friends each led one by a bridle. “Why are they attacking?”
Iris wrapped her hands around her imaginary swollen belly. Iris’s father stargazed for a living, one of the few who could read the sky’s signs. Her mother, his partner in reading omens, kept her voice for private discussions. Like many Luwians, her family believed divinities spoke to kings through the movement of stars across the polar sky.
Calliope raised one finger, then strode over to an imaginary crib, placing a baby in it.
“How many?” asked Helen
Clytemnestra raised her eyebrows, placing her palm at her knees, thighs, and hips.
Calliope, named for the muse of poetry but usually quiet, spoke. “And women for working.”
Helen nodded. “Thank you for helping with the horses. I couldn’t have managed alone.”
Ahead, an angry crowd shouted at a man fixing a broken wagon wheel, more successful at cursing than repairing. Traffic narrowed to a single lane, slowing the refugee stream as it squeezed together. His family stood shuffling their feet, avoiding eye contact as if that might shield them. He had tossed their remaining possessions to lighten the wagon. Helen wondered what she would toss first and whether she would have time to choose.
Behind them, Luwian troops engaging the Greeks in a rearguard action fought from a narrow spot where the river’s curves favored defense. Peaks rose like impenetrable stone walls ahead. The road climbed toward steeper ground as it approached the mountain fortress and its defenses. The Luwian forces could buy time, perhaps enough to stave off disaster.
***
News of the fighting arrived in broken pieces at the mountain fortress, enough for the king to grasp the danger closing around them. Reports of panic along the road followed soon after. By the time his council gathered, he was already pacing the circular Chamber of the Scribes.
Constellations blazed across the arched ceiling; stars shone in sweeping arcs above the Luwian lands. Fading daylight fell through the oculus, striking the hearth at the room’s center. Along the walls, four murals traced the kingdom’s long journey: a people crossing a high desert, caravans threading mountain passes, herds spreading across new grasslands, and the labor of miners, weavers, and shipwrights. As the sun dipped, torchlight brightened, and the frescoed heavens seemed to shift in the flicker of fire.
The king rubbed his temples. “Gentlemen, we have an urgent task before us. We must get troops from Hattusa, and quickly. Our plea to the emperor must be effective. It must bring soldiers, not excuses.”
Clytemnestra’s father had arrived with the stream of refugees. He slammed his fist against the bench. “My King, we shouldn’t have to beg. We send taxes. We send troops. And what do we receive? Nothing. Nothing! His soldiers should be here already, fighting the Greeks alongside us.”
Helen’s father kept his voice steady. “Your anger is justified, my friend. But the emperor has not sent them. That is the reality. We might as well deny the stars circle in the northern sky. We are far from Hattusa, and matters here rarely reach Our Lord’s ear unless we deliver them with care.”
“Our war god, Santa, knows Greek troops are nearly here. Our men fight hard, bravely,” Clytemnestra’s father said, jabbing a finger at Helen’s father. “Gods, they fight. I was there. On the front line. Too many Greeks.” His head bobbed while he paused. “And did you hear what they did to their prisoners? Threw them off a cliff. In full view. Women and children were watching. Barbarians. Santa will repay them.”
“I know. Other incidents have come to my attention. We should remember Tarhunz, god of weather and storms, is with us,” the king said.
Helen’s father moved his hand forward. “As are Arma, the mood god, and Tiwaz, god of the sun. But these incidents show why our letter must be completely successful.”
“Diplomacy and flattery,” Clytemnestra’s father scoffed. “Your answer to everything. And where has it brought us?”
“To this letter,” Helen’s father said. “Our chance of being heard.”
The king exhaled. “You have drafted a letter?”
“Yes.” He unfolded the cloth, revealing the inscribed clay tablet.
The king stepped toward the hearth. “Please read it now, so I might hear how it sounds.”
My father: I trust the gods keep you well and the Hittite imperial city, Hattusa, safe. My Lord’s attention has been fixed upon dangers rising in the south. But danger now also rises from the west. We beg My Father’s aid without delay. The raiders grow bold and unrestrained, showing no fear of your name.
Six Greek kingdoms arrived suddenly by sea, capturing many of your children and carrying them off to toil in bondage. We now await your troops in our mountain fortress. My people look to me for protection, and I fear failing them.
The Hittite storm god walks among our soldiers, fighting at our side as shown in the stars of the polar sky. Without him, we would have already fallen. We ask you to send your ships to strike the Greek raiders from the rear. Let us hem them in between our armies. Your children are in great need of this aid.
As always, I remain your faithful son, eternally grateful for My Father’s protection.
The king inhaled sharply, his gaze drifting to the murals of his people’s long journey. “Yes,” he said. “That captures the tone. Attach my seal. Dispatch it immediately.”
***
Smoke clung to the valley below, warning of Greek troops now roaming without opposition. The Luwians had escaped to their mountain redoubt hidden among the clouds, waiting for the Greeks to become sated and return to their ships. Wounded moved up the road from skirmishes below. The silent dead arrived in carts.
The redoubt’s walls towered above the terraces; ancient blocks fitted so tightly no blade could slip between them. Helen’s family enjoyed a privileged place on the western side of the outer wall, exposed to the cool mountain wind. Energy pulsed through the crowd gathered to view the fall equinox sunset. They lined the walls and packed the courtyard, waiting in awe; singing, chanting, dancing. The sun would set over a stone marker embedded in the west wall on this Luwian holy day.
A priest moved to the marker, facing the crowd as the sun neared the horizon. An incantation rose from his lips, invoking the gods. The crowd joined in, knowing the rhythm and words. Sunlight streamed over the stone, brilliantly lighting the shrine window across the courtyard. The weather god’s statue flared into view. For a heartbeat, silence held them.
“He is with us, his power is here!” Voices rose from the crowd, to the priest, to the heavens.
The priest paused as light streamed past him, gazing over the crowd, raising his hands, imploring the gods. Ripples ran across Helen’s limbs as her arm hair lifted.
“We call upon our gods to bring justice to our fight with the savages. Runtiya, god of hunting, bring strength to our shields and armor; guard our troops from the invaders. Let their children taste fear. Arma, come in golden light, skewering the Greeks, guiding our weapons to weak points in their armor. May Greek soldiers fall left and right, smashed by the axe of Tarhunz, when he descends from the heavens.
“Make their populations suffer more pain than they inflicted upon our innocents. Gulza, bring disease to them, spreading from man to man. Make them gasp as life slips out with their last breaths. Hear us, Santa, bring death to them, feeding them to dogs—only what they deserve. Grant us victory in this fight to the death; bring death to the Greeks. Drive them into the waves, drowning all who reach their ships. Wash their bones out to sea, never to return.”
The priest’s last words hung in the air. Silence broke into a roar, chants rising into cries of vengeance. Some wept; others lifted their arms skyward. The priest lowered his gaze from the blazing shrine window, hands still raised. He looked with satisfaction at the frenzied crowd, bodies swaying and stamping. The frenzy crashed and swelled, but the massive stone walls held firm, holding them safe from the Greeks, at least for now.
***
Helen touched the cold stone of the ramparts, feeling its steadiness. Her friends, Clytemnestra, Calliope, and Iris, stood with her, witnesses to terror. Darkness hid the attackers, but flaming arrows cast enough light to reveal their shadows. The besiegers, in contrast, couldn’t see the arrows whizzing down. The continuous twang of bowstrings suggested a deadly stream of arrows.
Helen and her friends climbed the inner wall’s stairs in the morning to view the battlefield. To the west, the road twisted down the mountain for ten miles. Ravines and narrow ridges guarded the side approaches. The dead sprawled haphazardly, bodies at odd angles, made stranger by protruding shafts. One man’s hand reached upward, as if asking for help. Indifference ruled the field; no one buried the fallen. Days passed, and no one came to remove them. The freshest dead lay motionless before the wall.
Helen also climbed in the fall darkness. Shapes below, lit by moon and stars, seemed to move as mist rolled over them. Figures rose and wheeled through the swirling night air, the rising wind harmonizing with wolves howling as they crept to feast on fetid flesh. Night after night the remains repeated their ghostly procession until they rotted away, leaving only disease and pestilence. The Luwians were little better, flinging carcasses off the back wall, where their ghosts held their own moonlit dances.
Midafternoon light washed the mountains in an autumn blue. The mass attack screamed out of the woods toward the east outer wall, and civilians scattered for the inner gates, dropping gear and shouting. Greeks slaughtered those caught in the attack’s pincers, a single blow bringing them down. The Greek charge pulsed past them, focusing on the military moving forward to blunt and slow the attack.
Helen and her friends climbed. Iris’s hand was cold in hers; Calliope whispered a prayer she couldn’t finish. Greeks burst through what had been the outer defenses, trampling their own dead, nothing more than footing for the next wave. Helen’s stomach tightened.
Luwian troops fought desperately along the outer wall, knocking down ladders as fast as the Greeks raised them. Spears thrust downward, and Helen flinched each time a Greek face vanished beneath the blows. The alarm bell shook the air, calling reserves to the inner wall. Helen’s ears echoed the tolling as Iris pressed closer.
The assault thickened. Hundreds died trying to get over the outer wall. The Greeks forced the outer gates open. More poured in, weapons upraised, clusters of two, three and four shouting. Suicide squads rushed the inner wall with rams, only to fall beneath missiles, fire, and boiling liquid. The first splash hit the attackers with a hiss. A warm breath of steam rose to the battlements. It wasn’t oil, just water hauled up in great bronze cauldrons. A man clawed at his face, skin reddening, eyes squeezed shut. Cauldrons tipped down the line, each causing screaming.
Arrows with fire struck targets below. Burning logs crushed the chests of Greeks climbing the ladders. Hair erupted into shooting flames; burning men collapsed. Curses rose, hurled at commanders, gods, all of existence. Calliope’s prayer broke into a sob she tried to hide. The shouting diminished as the Greeks pulled back, leaving their dead in heaps against the wall. By nightfall, many more would dance the ghost dance.
Massive blocks quarried in forgotten ages rose from the earth, glinting white in the sun. Helen tried to draw strength from them, but the truth pressed in: the kingdom had shrunk to a few thousand square yards. The fortress walls, built for protection, now formed a prison.
An older woman pulled her cloak tighter, looking directly at Helen. “We need help. There are too many wounded. We won’t reach them all. Don’t worry, you’ll be assigned to one of us. Our goddess of healing, Kamrusepa, is with us. We call upon her to use us as instruments to heal.”
Helen nodded, now part of the nursing corps. “I can do better. My friends will come too. They’re brave.” She had gained a reputation as a nag, always pursuing information from the older healers. They had taken her on as a project, teaching her anatomy, plants, and remedies.
First light found the nurses sallying forth, applying potions and poultices to the wounded, even the Greeks. Their cries were heartbreaking, rising over the buzzing of flies that lifted in clouds as the nurses passed. A paste of dirt, blood, and crushed grass covered the ground, tugging at their feet. Helen recognized some of the dead, now ripped open, bled out, and cold. The stench forced them to cover their noses, gagging anyway. The older women debated how best to help the gravely afflicted. Some plants could send them to oblivion; some potions could snuff life quickly. The thought made Helen’s stomach churn. Iris steadied Calliope as she kneeled, retching. Clytemnestra shifted from mumbling aimlessness to hard composure. Orderlies hauled the Luwians most likely to survive toward safety, leaving the Greeks for their comrades to carry off later.
When it was over, the friends walked slowly toward the walls in stunned silence. Iris rested a hand on Helen’s shoulder. Calliope stopped to retch, Clytemnestra watching without a word. Questions rattled through Helen’s head. How would it end? When would the Greeks come again?
