Northeast Amurru, Late Autumn. Reign of Muwatallis, Year 21

Along the line of chariots, torches flared to life. Pinpricks of wavering light spread away into the distance, holding back the ominous, murky depths of Amka's wood. Alone, within his chariot, Urhi-Teshub waited, patient, ignoring the late autumn chill seeping into his limbs. He flexed his fingers on the reins, the quiet clack of his horses' teeth worrying at their bits triggering an old memory from a time when things had been different--when he had belonged in Hatti and would inherit the throne. When Istara had been his and not a hostage of Egypt's pharaoh.

A sharp crack rent the air. Across the muddy, ruined plain the massive cedarwood doors of Ay's gates buckled against his army's battering ram. He let out a slow breath, the air turning white in its wake. Not much longer now.

Under a roiling, heavy sky, the walled city stood dark and silent; the stars of Arinna's crown lost behind swollen clouds eager to lash Hatti's soldiers with icy rain. Long exhausted of arrows and burning oil, the last of Amurru's north-eastern city-states loyal to the pharaoh Ramesses waited, bleak, for its fall. The terror of the people trapped within scythed across the devastated fields, past the once-crown prince of Hatti and into the impenetrable darkness of Amka.

Urhi-Teshub cut a look at the splintered doors, his lips thinning as he considered what his father, the king of Hatti would do if he were here--imagining the destruction. The brutality. The waste. No. Urhi-Teshub was not a murderer like his father. Dead men did not grow crops, smelt metal, craft weapons, or herd livestock. He had a different plan. Mercy. Occupation. Ramesses would hate it.

Another blistering crack snapped across the plain, startling the horses. They blustered and pulled on the reins, agitated. Urhi-Teshub called to them, soothing them with quiet words, even as the memory of the previous evening returned, unbidden, and haunted him.

A wealthy Amurrite trader had come to him bearing a casket of gold ingots, seeking permission to trade in Hatti. Over a cup of spiced wine he mentioned a strange rumor he thought might interest Urhi-Teshub. While in one of the southern cities of Amurru, he had heard a story about the Princess of Kadesh, fallen to an ambush of barbarians in Amka. The trader had made light of it, saying there was no limit to the stories the common folk could fabricate, unaware she no longer resided in Tarhuntassa, but had been taken to Egypt and never returned.

Urhi-Teshub had tossed and turned the entire night, unable to sleep, fearing the pharaoh's oblique message to find another queen had hidden a sinister truth--Ramesses had not returned Istara to Urhi-Teshub because she was dead. No. Urhi-Teshub tightened his grip on the reins. Istara had been surrounded by an army of five thousand men. She lived. He could feel it in his bones. The trader had heard wrong. He had to be wrong. To live without the hope of her--

Another splinter wracked the cooling air, sharp with the tang of falling frost. A section of the door buckled inward. Darkness gaped through the hole. Urhi-Teshub eyed the damage. At least two more blows would be needed to open the way. He drew a deep breath, letting the air's bitter chill invigorate him. He could be patient. His weeks of confinement after Kadesh had hardened him. Sharpened him. Granted him focus.

Never again would he make a reckless mistake like he had done at Karchemish, where he had discovered the extent of his father's tyranny, and the depths of the king of Hatti's deviousness and dishonor. Urhi-Teshub could never win against a man who could murder in cold blood every relative and slave of Asuru's family--his father's once-beloved wife who had died giving birth to Urhi-Teshub--in revenge for Urhi-Teshub's uprising to regain his right to the throne.

His heart tight, he forced his thoughts away from the burden of his guilt, thinking instead of the carts laden with caskets of gold, ivory, silver, and gems, of the raw panels of cedarwood worth a fortune--the spoils of Egypt's vassals, worth more than twice the costs depleted from the treasury for the battle at Kadesh. Urhi-Teshub bit back the nascent hope he had nurtured, fearing if he dwelled upon it too long, he might cause its demise. And yet, this was why he was here, in the cold, laying siege to all of Egypt's vassal cities south of Amka--to win back his father's favor and regain his right to the throne.

Another section of the doors crumpled under the blow of the battering ram. Jagged pieces of wood exploded out from the gap, raining onto the shields of the soldiers flanking the sides of the enormous tree, its weight borne on the trunks of lesser trees beneath. Wails, thin with distance, rose from within the shrouded city--women keening in fear, men pleading to their gods--the city's smooth walls caressed by the light of thousands of flickering torches.

A harsh shout broke through the susurration. One of Urhi-Teshub's commanders bellowed to strike again. The soldiers scrambled to secure the teams of oxen to the rigging lashed to the battering ram--a giant cedar felled, stripped and dragged across the plain from Amka. The men swarmed over the ruins of the tree like locusts, their burnished leather armor gleaming orange in the firelight. Another command. The cracks of dozens of whips. The beasts bellowed, frightened, straining against the weight of the monstrosity beside them, the whites of their eyes iridescent in the torchlight.

Urhi-Teshub rolled his shoulders, the heavy weight of his scabbarded sword across his back dragging on him. Not once had he needed to draw it. One by one, the cities had fallen, grateful for the reprieve of occupation granted at the cost of an emptied treasury. How fast they had succumbed, unguarded and unprotected. No one, least of all Ramesses, could have anticipated another Hittite campaign only four months after the bloodbath at Kadesh. Urhi-Teshub suppressed a ripple of satisfaction, wishing he could be in the room when Ramesses learned he had lost six of his wealthiest vassals within the space of one month--and who had taken them from him. Across the muddy field, the battering ram settled into position, ready to strike again.

A cold wind rose, cutting, raw, warning of rain as the soldiers freed the oxen from their tracings and tugged them away. Night fell in earnest. The chill in the air deepened. Between the scudding clouds, the stars glittered, sharp and cold.

Another terse command, and the soldiers shoved against the shorn limbs of the tree, their feet sliding in the muck, already beginning to harden in the cooling night air. Heaving to the beat of a hundred goatskin drums, his soldiers rocked the felled tree toward the gate, their breath coming out in vapors; murky clouds of white. At the last drumbeat, they let go, the momentum of the monstrosity carrying it the last few spans. It slammed against the crumpled doors with a heavy thud and bounced back. The soldiers scrambled away, tumbling into each other, frantic, desperate to avoid its recoil.

The debris settled. Another section had fallen, but the doors still held. Urhi-Teshub knew they would not withstand another blow. It never took more than three barrages to break through once the wood had been breached. The wails inside the city escalated. Hatti's soldiers roared, eager for the spoils they were permitted to take: food, armor, weapons, concubines. Urhi-Teshub eased on the reins, and let his horses walk forward, restraining them as they bobbed their heads up and down, caught by the fervor of more than ten thousand men beating their swords against their shields.

Soon he would enter the city and claim it in the name of his father; would meet the conquered king, and deplete his treasury. He would drink the king of Ay's wine, eat his roasted meat, and sleep in his royal apartment where he knew his dreams would be haunted by how Istara had looked at him when he had freed her from the blade of the Egyptian queen's Nubian guard--and the act of treason he had committed to protect her. He had kept his end of the bargain. Now he wanted her back, his wife--bound to him in blood before the gods--belonged to him, not Egypt. Not Ramesses.

Across the plain, his men reattached the oxen's harness to the ram's rigging for the last time. It would be another hour before the gates would fall, but it would be worth it. One hour less apart from Istara. One step closer to his throne. He just had to be patient. And he could be. Anything for her. Anything.

❃

"My lord, a courier has arrived. From Tarhuntassa."

Urhi-Teshub sat up, disoriented. He rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. He had been dreaming of Istara. Again. It had to be his proximity to Kadesh. His blanket slid down to his waist, the cold hitting his bare chest, razor sharp. He shot a look at his brazier and cursed himself for forgetting to put more fuel on it before retiring.

Since he had arrived the week before, Rhoha, the usurper queen of Kadesh had sent numerous messages to him, inviting him to leave his camp on Kadesh's muddy plain and stay at the palace while he waited for spring to arrive, suggesting he might want to spend time with his son, the one he had fathered on her whilst possessed by her sorcery. He stifled a shudder. He would never go near that woman again, would rather sleep on frozen ground than enter the gates of Kadesh.

His guard moved nearer, clasping a leather scroll case, his knuckles chapped and white with cold.

"What is the hour?" Urhi-Teshub asked, hauling his blanket up around his shoulders. He took the proffered case.

"Coming up to the third hour, Your Highness," the guard answered, backing away, his fist pressed to his chest. A slice of cold air slid into the tent as he ducked under the leather flap.

Untying the case's leather straps, Urhi-Teshub hesitated, caught by misgiving. To receive a courier in the dead of the night did not bode well. What if the message contained news of Istara? What if Ramesses had sent her back while Urhi-Teshub was away on campaign? His heart clenched. His father would have wasted no time sending her to the gods for her betrayal at Kadesh. He glanced at the scroll. His uncle's seal lay stamped on the rolled papyrus. Hattusilis would not have sent a courier for nothing less than state matters. Praying the message was not about Istara, he broke the seal and unrolled the message. The words assembled in the dim light of the shuttered lamp.

Return to Tarhuntassa at once. Your father is ailing. He asks for you. Make haste. There is little time left.

Urhi-Teshub stared at the improbable words, a guilty flicker of relief whispering through him. Istara was safe.

He poured himself wine and drank deep, seeking to cleanse the staleness from his mouth. He would leave as soon as dawn broke. If he took a small party with him, he could make it to the capital in twenty days if the weather and the horses held and he didn't travel with a supply cart--

He paused, toying with his empty cup. He had heard rumors food had become scarce in Hatti; traders had said they had heard the heartland had become locked deep in famine. He set the cup aside. A supply cart would mean the journey would take ten days more, at least. No, it would take too long. He glanced at the casket by his pallet, laden with gold ingots--his share of the spoils. He would take the chance and gamble on men's greed. He needed to get home, before it was too late. Before his uncle claimed the throne.

Picking up his woolen tunic, he pulled it over his head, the stiff material fell to his knees, cold, its edges rimed with frost. Lifting his leather kilt from the bench, he fastened its straps against his hips, his movements methodical, practiced. As he worked, he eyed his satchel of belongings, hesitating before rummaging through it until he found what he was looking for, a tightly rolled bundle. Holding it under his arm, he went to a stool and sat, the hardened leather strips of his kilt studded with bronze sunbursts clacking against the seat. He unrolled the soft material and lifted it to his nose, seeking to find a remnant of its fragrance, of sun-warmed roses. Of her. His wedding gift, given to Istara two years earlier. He lay the shift on his lap, running his fingers over the delicate embroidery along the neckline, admiring the flowers and bees stitched in golden thread, his hands stopping at the rent she had made, welcoming the familiar drag of guilt, knowing she had torn it away, devastated by his rejection of her on their wedding night.

How short-sighted he had been, how stubborn. And now, she was gone. He cradled the shift against his chest. If not for Rhoha and her dark arts, he would have won his wife back. Istara would never have gone to Ramesses--an incredible, desperate act--but for Rhoha's barely concealed machinations. It was not too late. It could not be too late. He pressed his lips against the material where her heart would have beat.

"Be safe, my love," he whispered. "I am coming for you. Wait for me. I beg you."