He picked up the Eagle’s sword and plunged it into the man’s neck. Then, screaming his battle cry, “Ithaka! Ithaka!” he powered into the Trojan ranks, cutting and cleaving, an awesome fury upon him, his injured shoulder forgotten.
An unarmored Trojan warrior ran forward, ducking under Odysseus’ plunging sword and stabbing his blade toward the Ugly King’s belly. Odysseus leaped backward and tripped over a body. He rolled and came up swinging his sword two-handed, half beheading the warrior.
He glimpsed a movement to his right and blocked a lightning attack from a sword. Twisting his wrists and returning the blow, he cleaved the attacker from neck to belly.
There were Trojans all around him now. His sword rose and fell in the melee, cutting through leather and flesh and bone. He twisted and swung and then, too late, saw a sword slashing toward his neck. Another sword flashed up to block it, parrying the death blow. Odysseus recognized the braided red beard and grinned at Achilles’ shield bearer.
“Be careful, old man,” Thibo shouted. “I can’t watch out for both of us.”
Odysseus ducked under a two-handed cut from his right and drove his sword home in the man’s chest. Beside him Thibo leaped and twisted, slashing and killing. Odysseus saw dawn light gleam off his bloody blade and realized that the night mist was starting to clear.
Two Trojan soldiers ran at Thibo. He blocked a blow from the first, gutting the man with a reverse stroke. His sword stuck in the man’s belly. The second warrior’s sword arced toward his head. Odysseus parried the blow, chopping his sword through the man’s neck.
“Where is Achilles?” he asked, panting. “You’re supposed to be watching out for him.”
Thibo shrugged. “Achilles can take care of himself.”
Daylight was clearing the mist quickly, and Odysseus could see warriors struggling and dying all around him.
Three Trojans came at him at once, and he cursed aloud as he cleaved one neck and ducked under a slashing blade. Then, dropping to his haunches, he charged into the two other soldiers like a bull. He caught one in the belly with his injured shoulder and grunted in agony. The other fell back, stumbling over a body, and was disemboweled by a slashing sword.
Odysseus saw Achilles standing over him, his two swords dripping blood.
“Go back, Ithaka,” the Thessalian king shouted above the noise of battle, “or that wound will kill you. Only the dagger is saving you.”
Odysseus looked down and saw a knife blade stuck in his thigh. Blood had drenched his leg. In the fury of battle he had not noticed it.
“And get yourself armored,” Achilles ordered. Swaying to one side as a sword scythed past his chest, he chopped his attacker down with a blow to the neck.
Odysseus shouted back, “You have no armor, Achilles!”
Achilles grinned at him and charged back into the fray.
Odysseus realized he felt dizzy from blood loss, and he cursed. As he stepped forward, he felt his knees give way. Hands grabbed him and pulled him upright, and then he felt a powerful shoulder lift him up under the arm. The sounds of fighting receded as, cursing, he was dragged from the battlefield.
He was on the Penelope again, the wind in his hair, the fresh sea air filling his chest. A huge flock of gulls was flying over the ship, darkening the sky with their wings. The clamor of their cries was deafening. Stupid birds, gulls, he thought to himself. Then he saw that the birds had the faces of women, contorted with hatred and spite. Harpies, he thought, coming to rend his flesh.
The sharp pain of teeth tearing his leg brought him around, and he found himself lying on muddy ground clear of the battlefield. One of his crewmen, the powerful fighter Leukon, was stitching the wound in his thigh, his thick fingers clumsy on the blood-soaked thread. Leukon’s leg had been broken three days before, and he could not fight. Now he sat awkwardly and was clearly in agony from the splinted leg.
Odysseus sat up. “Give me wine, someone,” he demanded, and was handed a goblet. He drank it down, asked for another, and watched impatiently as Leukon tied off the stitches. The blood had stopped flowing, and he felt the wine reviving him.
“Back to the battle, Leukon,” he said.
“Aye, my king,” said the huge warrior, and struggled to stand up.
“Not you, you fool. Me!” Odysseus made to rise, but a hand on his shoulder held him down and a cold voice said, “The battle is over for you today, Odysseus.”
He looked up to see Agamemnon. With a massive effort Odysseus levered himself up, trying to ignore the torment in his shoulder and the pain of the stitches pulling in his leg. The Mykene king was right. He felt as weak as a pup, and it took all his willpower to stay upright.
They were looking over the battlefield from a vantage point in front of the main earthwork. The early sun had burned off the mist, and he could see clearly the battle on the plain before them. It was a melee, foot soldiers on both sides fighting desperately, neither side giving any quarter. Agamemnon’s cavalry had deployed to the left, hitting the right flank of the enemy, forcing Hektor to bring the bulk of his Trojan Horse to that side in a ferocious counterattack. Odysseus could see that the Trojans had the upper hand, forcing Agamemnon’s riders back from the river. Enjoy your success while you can, Hektor, my friend, he thought.
Amid the sea of fighting and struggling men, he could see a group of black-clad warriors forging an arrowhead into the Trojan infantry.
“Achilles and his men are fighting without armor,” he said angrily. During their long night of planning, the western kings had agreed that once the alarm was raised, the elite killing forces would fade back and armor themselves. Achilles, with the battle fury upon him, had ignored that agreement and fought on.
“He can never survive,” Odysseus muttered. “And his Myrmidons will not leave him. He is condemning them all to death.”
“That would be a shame,” Agamemnon said flatly.
Odysseus looked at him, fury rising in his chest. “Have you no loyalty to anyone, Mykene?” he asked angrily. “Achilles is fighting your war.”
Agamemnon turned and gazed at him, his dark eyes as cold and empty as a winter sky. “Achilles fights for the glory of Achilles,” he said, and Odysseus knew it was true.
The battle raged on as the sun climbed in the sky. Odysseus could see that the western armies were being pushed back slowly, and Achilles and his band were in danger of being surrounded. He glanced at the sun, standing proud of the horizon now, and started watching anxiously southward, along the river valley. Finally he saw a distant speck, a horseman riding with all speed toward them. The scout edged his way around the rear of the fighting, galloped up, and threw himself off his horse before Agamemnon.
“They are coming, lord!” he gasped.
“About time,” the Battle King said with satisfaction.
Sunlight glinted off the spear points of hundreds of marching men flanked by cavalry as a new army marched toward Troy. Odysseus looked back to the battle before him. The Trojans, lower down, had not seen the threat yet.
The approaching army’s cavalry broke into a gallop, riding straight for the unprotected flank of the Trojan infantry, lances down. Now aware of the threat, the battle-weary Trojans desperately tried to reform to face the attack, but the shock as the armored riders hit them was devastating. Scores of men fell under the trampling hooves of the horses.
Hektor reacted quickly. His Phrygian archers, at the rear of the battlefield, started loosing volley after volley into the coming infantry. Arrows deflected off shields and conical helms, but some men crashed to the ground, tripping others as they came.
The Trojan Horse was isolated on the wrong side of the field, but at an order from Hektor half of them peeled away and galloped to counter the new threat. Hektor dug his heels into his great warhorse and charged at the enemy cavalry. As he reached them, several horsemen rode against him. His sword lanced out, spilling the first rider from his mount; the second fell as Hektor’s sword, wielded with awesome anger, crushed his skul
l. Then a lance drove into the chest of the stallion Ares, and he fell, throwing Hektor to the ground.
Odysseus could see him no more. Frustrated, he turned his gaze to the leader of the newly arrived army, who, surrounded by his bodyguard, rode up the slope toward him.
“Well, Kygones,” he commented as the Lykian king drew his horse to a halt, “you are not joining the battle today?”
The Fat King pulled off his helm and smiled coolly.
“You should have more gratitude, Ithaka,” he said. “When last we met, you acted with great moral outrage at the death of one man, a simple sailor. Now you and your fellow kings ask me to help you kill thousands. Where is your thanks?”
He dismounted and handed his horse to one of his men.
“All our actions have consequences, Odysseus. By barring your ships from my beaches over the death of this sailor, you and Helikaon dealt a body blow to Lykia, crippling trade and draining its lifeblood. My people have suffered, and for the first time in a generation children have starved in wintertime. When Agamemnon sought me as an ally, are you surprised that I felt no loyalty to Helikaon and his kinsman Priam?”
Odysseus had no answer for him. He turned back to the battlefield, then heard Hektor’s horn blowing: two short blasts repeated over and over, signaling retreat. Good, he thought. You cannot win the day, Hektor. The Scamander plain belongs to us. Retreat in good order while you can.
But the Trojans were fighting every step of the way, protecting their wounded as they backed slowly toward the river and its four bridges to an ephemeral safety.
No more than a hundred soldiers had retreated across one of the wooden bridges when a bright flame like a huge torch erupted among them. Suddenly the entire bridge was ablaze, setting fire to the men on it. They screamed and thrashed in agony. Many jumped into the Scamander, but their flesh kept burning and their cries were awful to hear. Then a second bridge caught fire. Within moments all four bridges, the Trojans’ only way to retreat, were burning ferociously.
Stunned by the sight, Odysseus turned to Agamemnon. “Is this your work?” he asked, but the Mykene king just shook his head, as surprised as he was.
They watched as desperate Trojans, trapped between the advancing enemy armies and the river, started throwing themselves into the fast-flowing water, some helping the wounded cross, others just swimming for their lives. Injured men were being pulled under and swept down toward the bay, too weak to struggle against the powerful current.
Then Agamemnon gasped and pointed as Hektor, mounted again on gallant Ares, walked the stallion into the Scamander high above the blazing bridges. He reined the warhorse in the center of the river and stood there as the waters crashed around them. Others of the Trojan Horse joined them, guiding their horses to stand by Ares, reducing the force of the water. Soon thirty warhorses stood in the river, enduring as the waters struck them. The riders had only shields to protect themselves and their mounts from the arrows and lances of the enemy, and three fell in the Scamander and were swept away, but most of them stood firm, allowing the Trojan injured to make their way across to safety. The Phrygian archers ran along the riverbank to help protect the horses with a rain of arrows at the advancing enemy.
Odysseus wanted to cheer, and he smiled to himself to see the anger on Agamemnon’s face.
“Hektor lives,” the Mykene king hissed. “Can nothing kill him?”
“He charged an army, and yet he survives,” Odysseus said happily. “That is why Hektor is Hektor and we kings are just standing here watching.”
Sick of Agamemnon’s company, he set off toward the battlefield, limping heavily on his injured leg. Stretcher bearers were on the field, carrying wounded men away. He saw healers and surgeons helping injured warriors of the western armies and soldiers dispatching wounded Trojans. The ground was heavy with churned-up mud and blood, and Odysseus felt himself tiring quickly.
Then he saw a figure he recognized, a fat warrior in outsize armor lying in the mud, his back resting against the flank of a dead horse. Odysseus stomped over to him.
The prince was bleeding from a score of cuts. “Well, well, Odysseus,” he said, his voice a weak rasp, “have you come to finish me off?”
“No, Antiphones,” the Ithakan king said, sitting down beside him, suddenly weary. “I just wanted to talk to an old friend.”
“Are we friends, you and I?” the prince asked.
Odysseus shrugged. “At this moment we are. Tomorrow is another day.”
“Tomorrow I shall be dead, Odysseus. This will be the death of me.” He gestured to a deep wound in his side where dark blood was pumping out onto the ground. “A thinner man would be dead already.”
The Ithakan king nodded. “What happened at the bridges?” he asked.
Antiphones scowled, and his ashen face darkened a little. “My fool of a father, Priam, had secretly instructed his Eagles to torch the bridges using nephthar if our forces started retreating. Trojans do not retreat, he says.”
Odysseus felt a wave of revulsion. “Is he quite insane now?” he asked, shocked by the ruthless cruelty of the Trojan king to his own troops. “It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between insanity and cold-blooded brutality.”
Antiphones tried to lift himself up into a sitting position, but he was too weak and sank down again. Odysseus saw that the flow of his wound had lessened. He knew the man did not have much longer to live.
The prince said, “He is the cruel and selfish king he always was.” He sighed. “He has times of confusion. We thought it was the wine, for he hardly eats. Then he has insane ideas like this one. Hektor just ignores them. But this…” He gestured toward the river. “He is cunning still, you see. He told no one except his Eagles. And they would all kill themselves for him on his command.”
A Mykene soldier walked over to them, his sword red with blood, looking for enemy wounded. Odysseus waved him away.
Antiphones was silent for a while, and Odysseus thought he had died. Then the big man said, despair in his voice, “Troy will fall. She cannot be saved.”
Odysseus nodded sadly. “Agamemnon will win, and the city will fall. Once we reach the great walls and the city is under siege, it is only a matter of time. There will be a traitor. There always is.”
Antiphones said weakly, “I thought she would last a thousand years. There is a prophecy…”
Odysseus said irritably, “There is always a prophecy. I do not believe in prophecies, Antiphones. In a thousand years the Golden City will be dust, its walls ruined, flowers growing wild where Priam’s palace once stood.”
Antiphones smiled weakly. “That sounds like a prophecy, Odysseus.”
The king leaned toward him. “But she will not die, Antiphones. I promise you this. Her story will not be forgotten.” Already in his mind a tale was forming of a warrior’s wrath and the death of a hero.
The prince’s eyes had closed. He whispered, “I was the traitor…” Then he died.
Weary, Odysseus stood. He saw the soldier he had sent away find another Trojan soldier who was gravely wounded and unable to save himself. The Mykene warrior thrust a sword through his heart cleanly, then moved on. His eye was caught by the body of a young man lying in the mud, and he walked toward him. Odysseus saw that the youngster had red hair and was without armor. One arm moved feebly as if he were trying to turn himself over. As the Mykene soldier raised his sword, Odysseus said, “Hold!”
The man paused and looked at him doubtfully.
“He is one of mine, soldier. Do you know me?”
“You are Odysseus, king of Ithaka. Everyone knows you.” The man lowered his sword and moved away.
The boy was plastered with mud and blood and seemed dazed by a blow to the head. Odysseus knelt beside him and helped him turn over.
“Xander! I never thought to see you here,” he said. “Being a hero again, lad?”
Xander awoke with a start to find that it was evening and he was on a sandy beach. He could hear the sound of waves crashin
g against rocks, the distant sound of lyres and pipes, and low voices murmuring close by.
“Lie still, you fool,” said a deep voice, “and give that wound a chance to heal. It may have pierced your vitals.”
“Then I am a dead man,” another man said irritably. “If I must walk the Dark Road, I do not plan to do it sober. Give me that jug.”
Xander’s head hurt abominably, and as he tried to sit up, the world lurched around him. He lay down again with a groan.
“How are you feeling, Xander?” a voice asked.
He opened his eyes a crack and was surprised to see Machaon looking down at him, his face in shadow as the sun fell at his back.
“Where are we, Machaon?” he asked. “Why are we on a beach?” He tried to sit up again and this time succeeded. He found that his leather satchel was lying by his side.
“Drink this,” the healer said. Kneeling alongside him, he brought to Xander’s lips a cup of delicious-smelling liquid. The boy sipped it, then drank it down greedily. It was warm and tasted, he thought, of summer flowers. He had never tasted anything so good. He found his head clearing a little, and he looked around.
From where he sat, all he could see was soldiers, some wounded and lying down, others sitting around campfires, laughing and joking. The black hulls of ships pulled up on the sand hid his view of the sea, though he could smell its salt air. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he realized where he was.
“We are on the beach you call the Bay of Herakles, and I am not Machaon,” said the healer. Sitting down, he poured thick liquid from a clay pot into a cup of water warming over a fire. He looked up. Xander could see now that it was not the face of his mentor, though the two men were very alike. This man was older and nearly bald, and one of his eyes was strange, the eyeball pale and pearly.
“My name is Podaleirios, and Machaon is my brother,” the healer said. “You clearly know him, Xander. Is he well?”