Iron Winter (Northland 3) Read Free Page B

us.’
    Between thrusts and throws the princes had started a conversation in Greek, evidently a common language, which they seemed to imagine the Northlanders would not understand. ‘So you
like the little girl,’ said Arnuwanda, the Hatti.
    ‘Not so little,’ said Mago. ‘Did you notice the udders? She was looking at my tupping tool, that’s for sure.’
    Arnuwanda snorted.
    Mago rolled on top of his opponent and got his arm across his throat. ‘I suppose the boy is more your sort.’
    ‘Yes. Sure. And I’d do to him what a Roman legionary would have done to your Carthaginian grandmother if we Hatti hadn’t saved the day . . .’ And he flexed, flipped, and
managed to roll Mago over so he had him pinned face down, if briefly.
    Alxa murmured to her brother, ‘Romans?’
    ‘Some trading post in Greater Greece, I think.’ Nelo shrugged. He produced a block of paper and began to sketch the wrestling princes, in brisk, confident strokes.
    Mago pushed his opponent off, jumped to his feet, and the two closed again with a shuddering crash. ‘So,’ Mago grunted as he worked, ‘what do you think of these
Northlanders?’
    ‘What am I supposed to think? They have mountains of dried fish, culled from that ocean of theirs. We have famine. So here we are.’
    ‘They also have the bones of your god Jesus stuffed in their Wall. And His Mother.’
    ‘True,’ Arnuwanda said. ‘They pretend to a moral authority which— Get your finger out of my ear, African!’ The Hatti forced Mago’s arm away from his head
by brute force. ‘They pretend to impose peace between warring religions. In fact they draw pilgrims to the relics they have stolen, and milk them of their cash. They are
hypocrites.’
    ‘I agree.’ Mago whirled, tried to get the Hatti in an armlock, but Arnuwanda spun away and Mago ended up face down on the floor again. Spitting out dust, Mago twisted his head to
speak. ‘And they claim to despise farmers. We’re all “cattle-folk” to them. Yet they hire soldiers from the farming lands, the Franks and the Germans and the others, to keep
out the rest of the rabble.’
    ‘Hmm. Well, that might not help them much longer.’ Arnuwanda got one arm free, pinned Mago with the weight of his body, and slammed his forearm down on the Carthaginian’s
head. ‘Had enough?’
    ‘Bugger yourself. What do you mean, not much longer?’ Mago twisted with a mighty heave, throwing the Hatti off.
    ‘The Germans and Franks have been hit by the droughts too.’ They came together again – slam , heads down, arms and legs straining, hands slapping for a hold on flesh
greasy with sweat. ‘And some of them are coming here. The farmers, I mean, abandoning their dustbowl lands and wandering into Northland. Well, you’ve seen it, there’s plenty of
room.’
    ‘Yes.’ Mago snorted with laughter. ‘An empty country. A ghost of a place. The ghost that rules the Continent.’ He turned, dropped onto his back, flipped up his legs,
locked them around the Hatti’s neck, and sent him flying.
    ‘Oof!’
    Mago got to his feet, yelled, leapt cat-like into the air, and would have slammed down on the Hatti – had not Arnuwanda rolled out of the way at the crucial moment, so that Mago came down
hard on the floor. ‘Oh, by the bones of Melqart . . .’
    ‘Always a mistake to rely on mercenaries, I say,’ the Hatti said. He crawled over to the Carthaginian and drove his elbow into the small of Mago’s back. ‘Had enough now ?’
    A horn sounded, distant, carrying.
    Alxa glanced at her brother. ‘The eruptors?’
    ‘Yes. That’s the first call.’ Nelo tucked away his sketches. ‘Come on. Let’s put these two back on their leashes.’
    They walked towards the princes, who broke and stood, panting, sweating, wiping dust and powder from their skins. Mago grinned at Alxa. He said in his own clipped Carthaginian tongue,
‘I saw you watching.’
    She replied in crisp Greek, ‘I saw you lose.’
    Arnuwanda frowned.