"Didn't want to wake you, sugar," she murmured in the darkness.
"I can feel your spirit," Swindapa said. "And the knots in your back. There's nothing you can do about the weather that you haven't done! Turn around so I can get at it, then let all the thoughts go, and sleep."
She obeyed, sighing slightly as slender fingers kneaded her neck and shoulders and down along her spine, then up to massage her scalp through the inch-long cap of tight wiry curls. When they had finished she felt as if her head was floating on the pillow, instead of being tied to her shoulders with heated iron rods.
"Sleep, bin'HOtse-khwon," her partner's voice murmured in the darkness. The lack of light was like black velvet pressing against her eyes now, and the other's breath went warm across her cheek. "Sleep now."
Damn, Alston thought, on the soft creamy edge of unconsciousness. But it's nice to be… settled. Gives a center to your life. And you can feel really close snugglin'.
Baaamm.
Princess Raupasha of Mitanni swayed backward slightly as the shotgun punched at her shoulder. The sharp thudump of the second barrel's buckshot was nearly lost in the hammering of hooves, the crunching whir of the tires over sandy dirt, the creak of wood and leather and wicker.
"Aika-wartanna!" she cried. One turn.
Her driver pulled the horses into a turn so tight that the right wheel came off the ground. The whole crew leaned in that direction, to put their weight against the force trying to overturn the war-cart. The wheel thumped back down and she snatched out the next weapon from the leather bucket fastened to the chariot's side and turned to keep the target in view. It was straw lashed to a pole amid a forest of others, each shaped roughly like a man and each with clay jugs of water inside. That leaked out where the lead balls had scourged the straw, making a dramatic stain on the dried grain-stalks.
Thudump.
"Tera-wartanna!" Three turns. Thudump.
Straw and pottery and water flew out. She handed the shotgun off to her loader with a show of nonchalance. Inwardly she exulted as the driver pulled the team aside, slowing them from the pounding gallop to a trot and then to a walk, soothing them as he reined in.
As I dreamed, Raupasha thought, looking behind her at the watching teams of her squadron. As I dreamed, but never hoped…
Her foster father Tushratta had hoped the child beneath the heart of King Shuttarna's wife would be a son, to avenge his lord; that was why he'd smuggled her out, rather than dying by Shuttarna's side in battle with the Assyrians. Instead the royal woman had borne a daughter and died herself. In the lonely desert manor to which he'd fled he had raised Raupasha much as he would have that longed-for son, and her bedtime stories had been of Mitanni's ancient glories. How often in the chariot beside him, hunting gazelle or lion in the wastelands, had she dreamed herself as a great King like Shaushtar or Parsatatar in the epics! Bending the bow and scattering the enemies of her people like the lightning bolts of Indara Thunderer.
I do not have the strength of arm to bend the bow of a mariyannu warrior, she thought. But I can pull the trigger of this gun as well as any. True lightning, as I dreamed.
The other chariots gathered around at her gesture. She looked at them with pride. Such a little while ago her Mitannians had come to war in creaking chariots with warped wheels, relics hidden for a generation from the Assyrian overlords. The hand of Asshur had lain heavy on the Hurrian folk, and still heavier on their onetime lords. The artificers and silver of the Eagle People had given her two hundred sound chariots-with iron-rimmed wheels, and collar harnesses and iron shoes for the horses themselves. Each war-cart held three, Hittite-fashion; a driver, a warrior, and a loader for the firearms that replaced the horn-backed bows of old. The foot soldiers now had rifles, and drilled under the critical eye of Marine noncoms.
"You see," she said, when they were gathered around. "The shotguns and the rifles hit further and harder than bow or javelin."
Just then a young spotted hound leaped into her chariot; she ruffled its ears absently, and it put its paws on the railing, waiting eagerly for a run to drive the wind into its nose.
"Down, Sabala," she said sharply.
The dog let his ears droop and curled up out of sight on the wicker-and-lath floor of the chariot with a deep sigh.
A warrior spoke; a lord named Tekhip-tilla who had much gray in his black beard, a man who had fought in the last wars of the old kingdom. "Princess, they do." He looked at the fire-weapons racked snugly in leather scabbards on the rail of his chariot. "But I have already seen that this means a man on foot with a rifle is a much smaller target than a chariot… and he can shoot more steadily. Can chariots go near such, and live?"
Raupasha nodded. "But most of the enemy host will not have rifles," she said. "Only the…" She thought, searching for a Hurrian phrase that would match the English concept of a standing army. "Only the… household troops of the Wolf Lord. His barbarian allies, the Ringapi, they will fight mostly with spear and sword and bow, in chariots and afoot. Them we will strike. Also, there are other weapons that our allies the Eagle People will give us-stronger weapons."
A murmur of awe at that; everyone here had seen the Nantukhtar ship of the air and their other wonders.
"Here is a handfast man of the Nantukhtar lord Kenn'et. He will tell you of the mortars and rocket launchers…"
When explanation was finished and the cheering had died down, Raupasha flung up her arms. "Yes, we shall have weapons of great power-like the Maruts of Indara Thunderer-or the sons of Teshub," she added, switching the metaphor to a God more familiar to ordinary folk. "But no weapon is mighty without the skill and courage of the warrior who wields it! Are your hands skilled to war, your hearts full of Agni's fire?"
"Yes!" they roared.
"Good, for this is not a war of a day, of a week, or a season. This is a war where only men fit to bestride the universe may hope to conquer. Our allies-those who freed us from the yoke of Asshur-fight across the wide world and call us to fight at their side. Shall they call in vain?"
"No! No!"
When they left the practice field for camp, it was as a proud column of twos, stretching back in a plume of dust and a proud glitter of arms. Sabala stood proudly, too, basking in her reflected glory, paws on the forward railing of the chariot and ears flapping as arrogantly as the banner above her.
Now, if only you were Kenn'et, she thought a little desolately, resting her hand on the hound's skull and looking northward; it would be weeks before she could rejoin the Nantukhtar lord. His tail beat happily against her leg and the side of the chariot. Never would she forget the sight of Kenn'et, bending above her; when she'd lost consciousness dangling by her thumbs with her feet six inches over the Assyrian preparations for a hot low fire.
I did not know, then, she thought. Then she had only thought him handsome, and brave, and a warrior-wizard. But now I know. Whatever King Kashtiliash thinks, you are my lord. And I will have you for my man as well, though I die for it.