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Ben Bova - The Hittite

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Ben Bova The Hittite

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This is the tale of Lukka, the Hittite soldier who traveled across Greece in search of the vicious slave traders who kidnapped his wife and sons. He tracks them all the way to war-torn Troy. There he proves himself a warrior to rank with noble Hector and swift Achilles. Lukka is the man who built the Trojan horse for crafty Odysseus, who toppled the walls of Jericho for the Isrealites, who stole beautiful Helen--the legendary face that launched a thousand ships--from her husband Menaleus after the fall of Troy and fought his way across half the known world to bring her safely to Egypt.

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HITTITE BOOKS BY BEN BOVA FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES The Aftermath - photo 1
HITTITE

BOOKS BY BEN BOVA FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

The AftermathPowersat
As on a Darkling PlainThe Precipice
The Astral MirrorPrivateers
Battle StationPrometheans
The Best of Nebulas (editor)The Rock Rats
ChallengesSaturn
ColonyThe Silent War
CyberbooksStar Peace: Assured Survival
Escape PlusThe Starcrossed
The Green TrapTale of the Grand Tour
Gremlins Go HomeTest of Fire

(with Gordon R. Dickson)

Titan
The HittiteTo Fear the Light (with A. J. Austin)
JupiterTo Save the Sun (with A. J. Austin)
The Kinsman SagaThe Trikon Deception
Mars Life

(with Bill Pogue)

MercuryTriumph
The Multiple ManVengeance of Orion
OrionVenus
Orion Among the StarsVoyagers
Orion and the ConquerorVoyagers II: The Alien Within
Orion in the Dying TimeVoyagers III: Star Brothers
Out of SunThe Return: Book IV of Voyagers
PeacekeepersThe Winds of Altair

THE

HITTITE

BEN BOVA

The Hittite - image 2

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATEA BOOK

NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE HITTITE

Copyright 2010 by Ben Bova

All rights reserved.

A Forge Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Forge is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2402-3

First Edition: April 2010

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

TO BRAVE

AND BEAUTIFUL

BARBARA;

AND TO

HAROLD LAMB,

WHO OPENED MY EYES

Zeus now addressed the immortals: What a lamentable thing it is that men should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles when it is their own wickedness that brings them sufferings worse than any which Destiny allots them.

Homer, The Iliad

I

THE PATH TO TROY

The dreadful news reached us when we were less than a days march from the capital, returning home after a long, hard campaign against the wily Armenians, in the mountains far to the north. The gods had turned their backs on our rightful emperor; he had been poisoned by his own scheming sons. Now, lusting for the power their father had wielded, the sons made war on one another.

The empire of the Hatti stretched from beyond the twin peaks of Mount Ararat in the northeast to the shores of the Great Sea. Our armies sacked Babylon and fought the prideful Egyptians at Qadesh and Megiddo in the gaunt lands of Canaan. With swords of iron and discipline even stronger we conquered all that we encountered.

Except ourselves.

Now Hattusas, our capital, had crumbled into chaos. Even before we reached its outer wall we could hear the tumult of terrified voices wailing to the gods for protection. It seemed as if the citys entire population was streaming out of the gates: white-bearded men, aged grandmothers, children wide-eyed with fear, whole families pushing carts loaded with their meager possessions, mothers with crying babies in their arms, all blindly fleeing. Smoke was rising from the citadel up on the hill in the center of the city, an ugly black plume staining the clouded sky.

I knew what each of my men was thinking: whats happened to my family, my wife, my children, my mother and father? I felt that fear clutch at my own heart as we reached the citys main gate.

Stay together, I commanded my squad. March in step.

I knew that we would need iron discipline now more than ever. They obeyed, good soldiers that they were. Instinct born of hard training made us move as one unit, spears at the ready.

Once inside the gates the stream of fleeing populace turned into a torrent of people ashen with panic, all rushing to get away from the city. And we saw why. Gangs of young men were marauding drunkenly through the twisting streets, breaking into houses and shops, stealing all that they could carry, brutally raping any women they found. Screams and pleas for mercy filled the air.

Where are the constables? one of my men cried.

Gone, I realized. With the emperor dead and his sons warring against each other, order and safety had collapsed into lawlessness.

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 youre still alive.

She turned and hurried to rejoin the stream of people fleeing for the citys gates.

Stay in order, I shouted to my squad. We cant 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.

Were 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 emperors 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 emperors leather and iron, smashing and looting alongside the wild-eyed gangs.

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