His face hardened, and he tensed to thrust his sword through Kalliades’ neck. At that last moment Kalliades saw Banokles step up behind the boy, sword raised. With one ferocious sweep of his blade he beheaded him. Hitting the gate, the head bounced onto the ground.
Banokles put out his hand and dragged Kalliades to his feet. “He was talkative,” he observed. “Always a mistake. Are you all right?” Kalliades nodded, swallowing blood, still unable to speak.
“Come on, then,” Banokles said grimly. “We’ve got a city to die for.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE LAST BARRICADE
With enemy warriors hard on their heels, Kalliades and Banokles ran up the stone steps to the west of the Scaean Gate. On the top of the wall Banokles nodded to his comrade, then turned and raced away. He was heading for the next steps down so that he could work his way around behind the new barricade. Kalliades would stay and ensure that the wall was secure.
A Mykene warrior, heavily armored, appeared close behind him at the top of the steps. Two Trojan soldiers were waiting, eager for a chance at the enemy. One hacked at the warrior’s sword arm, and the other lunged for his throat. He fell, blood gouting from his neck. He clattered down the stairway, knocking down the man behind him.
Kalliades grinned at the two defenders. “Pace yourselves,” he ordered. “There will be plenty more.”
Looking down from the wall, he surveyed the killing ground inside the gates.
The Trojan generals had been planning this day for a long time. If Agamemnon’s forces won the freedom of Troy’s streets, the only sanctuary for the city’s defenders would be the king’s palace. Because the best hope lay in keeping the enemy confined at the gate for as long as possible, soldiers had labored throughout the summer to demolish buildings high in the upper city, taking them apart stone by stone. The stones had been used to fill in the roads and alleyways all around the Scaean Gate, blocking them to twice the height of a man.
Fire gullies had been dug all around the circle of open ground inside the gate. They had been filled with anything that would burn: brushwood, the branches and twigs of dead plants, and fuel left from Hektor’s funeral pyre. Amphorae filled with the last oil in the city stood ready at points around the killing ground.
As the blood-hungry invaders poured in through the gate, they found themselves trapped in a space less than forty paces across, with the high walls of stone buildings all around. There were just three ways available to them: up the steps to the battlements on either side of the gate, up the steep stairs inside the Great Tower of Ilion, and straight ahead.
Straight ahead was the only road left unblocked, the stone avenue that led to the heights of the city and Priam’s palace. Polites had ordered the entrance to the road barricaded on both sides, with only a central gap remaining for daily traffic.
It was there that defenders were converging from all parts of the city.
Kalliades turned to the battlement door in the wall of the great tower. It would be easy to hold. To get to it the enemy had to climb the steep tower steps in darkness. When they reached the door, they would be emerging from dark into light, through a narrow doorway above a high drop. One steady warrior could defend the door all day, sending enemy after enemy falling to break his bones on the stone floor far below.
There were a hundred men holding that part of the wall. Kalliades knew that not one of them would fall or step back without a fight to the last.
After the long summer of waiting it was almost a relief that this day had arrived. Kalliades looked around him and breathed deeply. The air seemed fresher, the colors clearer. This is what you know, he told himself, the only life you have ever known. If you are not a warrior, what are you, Kalliades?
An enemy warrior appeared at the tower door. A Scamandrian soldier leaped forward and lunged at his chest. The Mykene had his shield up, but the force of the blow unbalanced him. He fell back into darkness with a cry. Any invaders braving the tower steps would have to pass a mounting pile of dead and injured men, Kalliades thought with grim satisfaction. In time that would wear on their resolve.
He surveyed the scene below. More and more invaders were pushing in through the Scaean Gate, eager to get in on the action, and the killing ground was packed with armed men. The Trojan defenders had fallen back, as planned, to the narrowest section of the great road. There just thirty men, Eagles all, were facing the main thrust of the enemy attack. Behind them the gap in the barricade they were defending became narrower as soldiers labored to close it with stones, timber, and rubble.
Kalliades watched with pride as the Eagles battled to hold back the enemy horde. When ordered, one by one the warriors at each end of the line stepped back and slipped through the gap. Finally just three Eagles remained. Kalliades heard the order for them to retreat. Instead, as one, they charged! They were cut down swiftly, but the gap behind them was plugged, and the barricade secured.
Then an order was given. The brushwood was doused with oil, and flaming torches were thrown in from the heights of the surrounding buildings. Within heartbeats the fire had run along the length of the gullies, the oil-fueled flames leaping high and setting alight anything close by. The enemy soldiers nearest to the gullies tried desperately to get back from the flames, but more warriors were pushing in through the gates behind them. The padded linen kilt of a Kretan soldier caught fire, and within moments he was a screaming, writhing human torch, blundering into his comrades and setting them ablaze. Other men near the fire gullies were set on fire as the leaping flames were blown about by gusty winds.
For a moment it looked as though the flames would jump from man to man, dooming them all. But the disciplined Mykene warriors were not to be panicked. Those armed with lances used them ruthlessly to kill the burning men or hold them at bay until they dropped dying to the ground. Dozens of burned and blackened soldiers lay moaning on the stones, but the fires had been stopped.
On top of the buildings all around the Scaean Gate and on the walls behind the invaders, bowmen were gathering. Arrows started to pepper the enemy troops from all sides, and Kalliades saw several go down, hit in neck, throat, or face.
Satisfied that the south battlements were well defended, Kalliades followed Banokles’ footsteps and ran around the wall and down the steps to make his way to the rear of the main barricade. There he found Polites conferring anxiously with General Lucan and Ipheus, the commander of the Eagles.
“Your Eagles are fine warriors,” Kalliades told Ipheus. “Would that we had a thousand of them.”
“Would that they followed orders,” Lucan growled. “Those three at the barricade died needlessly. Three warriors might have made a difference come the last days.”
“They were valiant men,” Ipheus said quietly.
“I’m not denying it,” the old general grunted. “But just as we have learned to conserve food and water and weapons, so we must learn to conserve valor. We have deep reserves of it, but it cannot be thrown away on suicidal adventures.”
Polites pointed out grimly, “We hoped the fires would spread and send the enemy fleeing. What next? How long will this barricade hold?”
Kalliades replied, “They have hundreds of men ready to attack it, but on a narrow front. There are thousands more outside the gate waiting to come in. If they keep throwing warriors at it, which they will, eventually they will break through. We can probably hold the barricade into the night, possibly through tomorrow. I cannot see it lasting longer.”
He glanced at Lucan, who nodded his agreement. At that moment Banokles arrived at a run. “We need more archers,” he demanded. “They’re packed like cattle in there. Good bowmen can pick them off like ticks off a dog.”
Kalliades admitted, “We are short of bowmen.” Then he reluctantly added, “The lady Andromache has been training the Women of the Horse to shoot. Some remain in the city. They might—”
“No!” Polites cut across him with unaccustomed anger. “When the enemy breaks through, those buildings will be cut of
f and the bowmen in them doomed. I will not put the women in danger.”
Kalliades thought that any women still in the city were doomed, anyway, but he responded, “Then I will call on the Thrakian leader Hillas. His archers are the finest in Troy.”
In front of them a burly warrior in Kretan armor was the first to cross the fire gully and clamber over the man-high barricade, killing a Trojan soldier with a massive ax blow to the head. He was cut down immediately, but two more Kretans followed close behind. One slipped and fell on the shifting timber and stone of the new barricade and was lanced in the side by a Trojan warrior. The other managed a wild sweep with his sword before he was stunned by a blow from a shield and then half beheaded.
Kalliades turned away to seek out the Thrakians and found the tribesmen waiting mere paces away. They had painted their faces for battle and were armed to the teeth, including the boy-king Periklos.
“This will not last long,” Hillas commented as he walked up, waving dismissively at the barricade. “When it falls, we will be waiting. A barricade of flesh and bone will be stronger than one of stone and timber.”
“We need more bowmen,” Kalliades told him. “On the killing ground the enemy forces are sitting targets for your shafts.”
Young Periklos stepped forward. “I and my archers will go where we are needed. Where do you want us?”
Kalliades was torn. If he placed the young king and his Thrakians on a building, they would be trapped when the enemy broke through. But if he put them on the wall, along which they could escape if necessary, there would be no cover from enemy arrows.
“Do not fear for my safety, Kalliades,” the young man urged, seeing him hesitate. “Put us where you need us. I will take the same risks as my men.”
“How many are you?”
“Just eight bowmen, plus Penthesileia.”
Only then did Kalliades realize that one of the archers, standing slightly apart from the men, was the stern-faced woman he had seen at Andromache’s first training session. She was wearing a short leather cuirass over her white ankle-length tunic, and a Phrygian bow was slung from one shoulder. In one hand she held two quivers.
“Penthesileia is one of Andromache’s handmaidens. She has a wondrous natural skill with a bow,” young Periklos explained, flushing slightly. “She will be a valuable warrior.”
Kalliades wondered what the other Thrakians thought of the newcomer. He asked the woman, “Why did you not leave the city while you had the chance?”
“My father, Ursos, gave his life for Troy,” the woman told him. Her voice was husky, and he saw she had piercing green eyes under heavy brows. “I can do no less.”
Kalliades was reminded suddenly of Piria. Yes, he thought, she would have been here with her bow. He told Periklos, “Go around to the wall to the east of the gate. If you stand well back, you will have some protection from enemy arrows.”
The battle for the barricade went on all day and long after sunset. Fortunately for the beleaguered Trojan defenders, the night was moonless and starless. Fighting continued by torchlight for a while, but at last the enemy troops were ordered back to the gate. The Trojans immediately set about rebuilding the defenses that had been pulled down during the day.
When they stood down for the night, Kalliades and Banokles walked to the temple of Athene, where food and water were being handed out. They waited in line in the darkness. Around them exhausted men lay sprawled asleep on the ground. Others sat in small groups, too tired for conversation, staring with deadened eyes.
“Weevil bread and a sip of water,” Banokles snorted, dragging off his helm and scratching his sweat-soaked blond hair. “A man can’t fight all day on that.”
“If Agamemnon had held his troops back for another ten days, we wouldn’t even have had weevil bread to fight on.”
“That was a good ploy, though, wasn’t it? The Trojan Horse. Who wouldn’t open the gates for them, riding like that?” Banokles shook his head in admiration.
“I expect Odysseus had a hand in it,” Kalliades replied. “He has a cunning mind.”
“Do you sometimes forget who you’re fighting for?” Banokles asked suddenly.
Kalliades frowned. “No, but I know what you mean. We see Mykene warriors coming over the barricade to be cut down and know some of them were our comrades. If our fate had been slightly different, we’d be the ones on the other side.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Banokles shook his head. “I mean, what are we fighting for? Troy? There’s nothing left of it. The lower town is wrecked, and most of the city. Agamemnon King wants Priam’s treasury, they say, but Polites tells us there’s nothing left in it. So are we fighting to save the king? He doesn’t even know who he is anymore.”
He scratched his head again. “It doesn’t matter, not really. We’re warriors, you and I, and we’ve picked our side, and we’ll go on fighting until we win or we’re killed. I just wondered…” He trailed off.
Kalliades thought about it, standing there in the line for food. They had fled Mykene lands to escape Agamemnon’s wrath, and since then they had taken the line of least resistance. They had joined Odysseus on his way to Troy because he had offered them a way off the pirate island. By the fickle will of the gods they had been there to rescue Andromache when she had been attacked by assassins. That had won them a place in Hektor’s Trojan Horse. Kalliades smiled to himself. And Banokles’ baffling success as a leader of men had rescued them from the jaws of defeat at Carpea, at Dardanos, and outside the walls of Troy.
He shook his head and laughed, the sound echoing across the square and making tired soldiers turn their heads in wonder.
“We are dogged by good luck in battle, you and I,” he answered his friend. “Only the gods know why.”
Banokles was silent, and Kalliades turned to look at him. “I would give it all up to have Red back,” the big warrior said sadly.
There was a stalemate throughout the night, with the invaders holding the Scaean Gate and the defenders holding the barricade forty paces away. There were jeers and taunts in the darkness from Agamemnon’s troops, some of whom had yet to see battle and were raring to go.
With the coming of first light, Kalliades and Banokles took their places behind the barricade. Kalliades checked his breastplate straps, settled his helm more securely, hefted the sword of Argurios, and waited as the blackness gave way to dark gray.
Banokles slashed his swords from side to side, stretching his shoulder muscles, and grunted to his neighbors, “Make room, you sheep shaggers!”
Then enemy warriors were scrambling over the barricade.
Kalliades batted aside a sword thrust, then brought his blade down two-handed on a man’s neck. He dragged the weapon clear in time to parry a slashing cut. A thrown lance bounced off the edge of his shield, missing his head by a hairbreadth. His sword lunged forward and twisted, disemboweling an attacker, who fell screaming at his feet. He threw his shield up to block a murderous cut, and then his blade slashed high in the air, braining a warrior who had lost his helm. He felt a searing pain in his leg and saw that the injured man at his feet, holding his entrails in with one hand, had thrust his dagger into his thigh. He plunged his sword into the man’s neck.
Beside him Banokles suddenly leaped up onto the barricade and with two dazzling cuts slashed the throats of two attackers climbing for the top. He jumped back down again and grinned at Kalliades.
The morning wore on, and defenders on either side of the two friends fell and were replaced, then replaced again. Through his focus on the fighting, as his sword hacked and slashed, cut and parried, Kalliades slowly registered a change happening. He was tiring, and his concentration was starting to fail. His thigh hurt, though it had stopped bleeding. He had other cuts and scrapes. He stole a glance at Banokles. The big man was battling with grim determination, his two swords moving like lightning, seemingly without effort. But Kalliades, who had fought beside him for many years and many battles, guessed he was tiring, too. He was usi
ng his swords economically, with not one wasted flourish, conserving his strength.
And the attackers were getting harder to kill. Kalliades realized he was facing Mykene veterans now. Agamemnon must have kept them in reserve, he thought. He felt a lull in the fighting, as if something had shifted, and he knew it was the battle’s momentum.
The Trojans were losing.
Over the barricade came a giant of a man with a full black beard and a shaved head. He bore a tower shield of black and white cowhide edged with bronze. He dwarfed the men around him, and he grinned with pleasure when he saw who it was he was facing. Ajax Skull Splitter leaped down from the barricade with the grace of a much lighter man.
“Banokles! Kalliades! You soft-bellied sons of whores!” he rumbled with relish.
He leaped to the attack, swinging his great broadsword, clearing a passage toward them. On either side of him other Mykene veterans formed a wedge, driving the Trojan ranks back from the barricade. Banokles attacked, his two swords hacking and plunging. He killed a man at Ajax’s side, but the Mykene champion’s huge tower shield and the power of his great broadsword made him unstoppable.
Kalliades desperately hurled himself backward as an arcing blade from the right sliced through his shoulder guard. He rolled, leaped up, and skewered the wielder through the armpit.
Then he heard the triple blast of the horn ordering retreat to the palace.
Banokles was being forced backward by the power of Ajax’s attack. He had lost one sword and replaced it with a bronze shield. The Mykene champion hammered the other blade aside and stepped in to crash a huge fist into Banokles’ jaw. Banokles staggered but recovered to block the downward sweep of the broadsword on the shield. Kalliades ran in. Ajax raised the broadsword again and brought it arcing toward them both in a massive sweep. Banokles ducked low, and Kalliades swayed backward. Unbalanced, Ajax tried to recover, but Banokles leaped up and brought his shield smashing down on the huge warrior’s head. Ajax was dazed but still stood. Banokles hit him on the head again, then again, and he finally went down, crashing face-first into the blood and dust.