Fall of Kings (30 page)

“They’ll be fresh,” Kalliades said. “Fresh horses, too.”

“Fresh or not, they’ll be dead come nightfall,” Banokles said, stepping down
from his horse. Kalliades followed him.

Antiphones leaned down from his mount. “A general should start a battle at
the rear of his army,” he said tiredly, as he had said each day. “He cannot
judge the disposal of his forces from the front.”

Banokles ignored him as usual and walked along the ranks to his left to stand
at the head of his Scamandrians. The foot soldiers cheered, and Kalliades saw
some of the weariness fall away from them as the chant rippled down the infantry
front line: “Banokles! Banokles! Banokles! BANOKLES!”

Kalliades looked up at Antiphones and shrugged, then went to take his place
beside his friend, drawing the sword of Argurios. Antiphones and Lucan turned
their horses and guided them back through the ranks.

Antiphones had ordered the Scamandrians to take the left of the field, the
Heraklions the right. At the center was the elite infantry, Priam’s Eagles, and
behind them a force of three hundred Phrygian archers, flanked on each side by
the Ilos regiment and mercenaries from Maeonia. The tiny force of surviving
Trojan Horse was left in reserve on the far side of the river. Most carried
wounds, as did their mounts.

Kalliades saw sunlight glittering off armor as the Mykene army began to move
toward them. He settled his helm into place and checked the straps of his
breastplate.

“What are we waiting for, lads?” Banokles shouted. Drawing both of his
swords, he started to run toward the enemy.

At the rear Antiphones waited until he could see the faces of the advancing
Mykene. Then he gave an order, and the Phrygian archers bent their bows to rain
arrows over the heads of their own troops and into the front lines of the
oncoming soldiers. Just three times they shot, and then, as ordered, they
retreated across the wooden bridges to the north bank, ready to halt the enemy
if they reached the river.

Kalliades, running side by side with Banokles toward the phalanx, saw the
arrows soar over their heads and glance off Mykene shields and helms. But some
cut through, gouging into faces, arms, and legs and making the advancing line
falter as men stumbled and fell.

As he ran, Kalliades found new strength. He focused on a gap in the phalanx
where one soldier had been brought down by an arrow, leaving the comrade on his
left unprotected. Kalliades screamed wordlessly as he ran at the man, hacking at
his sword arm. The blow half severed the arm above the elbow. Kalliades ripped
his sword up again, catching the Mykene in the face as he fell forward.

A Mykene warrior swung his sword at Kalliades’ head. It glanced off the edge
of his shield. Kalliades lanced the sword of Argurios at the man’s throat, but
it deflected off his heavy armor. Kneeling, he parried a blow from the man’s
sword, then hacked at his thigh. A bright fountain of blood gouted out. Falling
to his knees, the Mykene desperately swung at Kalliades again. Kalliades stepped
lightly back, leaving the man to die.

For a moment he was clear of the action. He saw that Banokles had fought his
way into the thick of the battle. He was surrounded on three sides by the enemy,
both Mykene and Thessalians.

Kalliades started in that direction, but from the corner of his eye he saw
movement to his right. He blocked a savage thrust, slashing his sword across the
man’s neck in a deadly riposte. Glancing left, he raised his shield just in time
to block a blow from an ax. He lost his footing in the mud, and the axman swung
at him again. He rolled away desperately.

Then a Trojan soldier leaped at the axman, slashing at his arm but catching
him with a glancing blow on his mailed shoulder. The axman turned to the young
soldier and swung the ax at his head. The Trojan carried an old tower shield,
and the ax deflected off its edge. As the axman raised his weapon again,
Kalliades leaped up and thrust his sword between the man’s back ribs. He
wrenched it out as the man fell heavily.

Kalliades nodded his thanks to the youngster with the tower shield and turned
back to see where Banokles was. He could not see him. Kalliades glanced around.
Even in the middle of a battle Kalliades could feel the way it was going, and he
knew the Trojans were making ground.

He swept aside a sword thrust to his belly from the right and killed the man
with a lightning riposte to the throat.

A gap had opened up in front of him, and again he spotted Banokles, fighting
with controlled intensity, his two swords flashing and darting, keeping the
surrounding enemy at bay. Kalliades ran toward him, hurdled a body, and slashed
his sword across the raised arm of a Thessalian soldier. The man stood for a
moment, staring at his ruined arm. Kalliades lanced his sword into the
Thessalian’s throat.

He saw that Banokles had lost one sword, so he picked up the Thessalian’s
sword and yelled, “Banokles!” But in his full-faced helm Banokles did not hear
him.

Kalliades saw a Mykene kill his Trojan opponent, then turn to see Banokles’
exposed back. Grinning, he raised his sword for a killing blow. Kalliades ran
forward. But before the blow could fall, Banokles reversed his sword and thrust
it, without looking, into the man’s belly.

Kalliades hacked his sword into the neck of one of Banokles’ opponents. He
saw Banokles notice him and threw him the new sword. There was a pause while he
looked around for his next target.

Banokles shouted, “Don’t worry, there are enough for both of us!”

Then the two friends were fighting back to back, the pile of enemy corpses
around them growing.

And the long morning wore on.

Kalliades knew that the Scamandrians, fighting furiously, were battling their
way slowly into the enemy ranks. But there lay the problem. The enemy cavalry on
the wings, Thessalians and Kretans, would be trying to get around the sides of
the Trojans and their allies, hoping to encircle them. Antiphones had only the
small force of Trojan Horse and Zeleian cavalry to stop that from happening.

In a lull in the fighting Kalliades paused for breath. His sword arm was
tired, and his legs felt as if they could not carry him another step. He and
Banokles and a dozen or so Scamandrians were deep in the enemy ranks now. Around
them were scores of dead and dying, some Trojans but mostly Mykene and warriors
of Thessaly.

Banokles dispatched a heavily armored Mykene with a deft thrust to the side,
then paused and glanced around to reorient himself. To their left they could see
Trojan troops falling back in disarray. A giant warrior in black armor was
driving into them, his swords moving like lightning, his body moving with
awesome power and grace compared with the tired soldiers around him.

“Achilles!” Banokles shouted to Kalliades, pointing his sword in that
direction. “That’s Achilles!”

Through the eye slits of his helm, Kalliades could see Banokles’ face light
up with anticipation. He nodded to him, and the two set out to fight their way
toward the Thessalian king.

Then there was a deep rumbling sound, and the blood-sodden earth beneath them
started to vibrate.

“Earthquake!” Kalliades heard one man yell, and the cry was taken up all
around them. The fighting started to falter as soldiers on both sides felt the
ground tremble under their feet.

Kalliades found two Mykene corpses fallen one on top of the other. Steadying
himself with a hand on Banokles’ shoulder, he climbed up onto them for a better
view.

In the distance to the south, along the line of the Scamander, he could see a
great dust cloud rising. As it came closer to the embattled armies, the rumbling
in the ground increased. He grinned. Hoofbeats!

“It’s not an earthquake,” Kalliades shouted joyfully to his exhausted men.
“It’s the Trojan Horse!”

Skorpios bent low over his gelding’s neck and felt the fear in his gut
melting away as the Trojan Horse thundered across the plain toward the flank of
the enemy.

Only moments before the riders had trotted their horses out of the tree line
on the north bank of the Scamander where the oak-covered foothills ended and the
river flowed fast toward the Bay of Troy. Then they had stopped, aghast at the
sight of the battle being played out before them. Skorpios had had only
heartbeats to take it in, the plain south of the Scamander filled with battling
warriors, indistinguishable in their blood-and mud-covered armor. Then Hektor
had plunged his great warhorse Ares into the foaming river, and the stallion had
breasted his way across, followed quickly by the rest of the Trojan Horse.

Once on the southern bank, Hektor had not even turned to see if his men were
getting safely across the fast-flowing river before drawing his sword and
kicking his horse into a gallop toward the battle.

Skorpios, with Justinos beside him, was in the fourth rank of riders, bearing
down on the enemy’s flank, his sword in hand. Rubbing the swirling dust from his
eyes, he could see the enemy’s cavalry frantically trying to turn their mounts
to face the new threat, but they were hampered by the bodies of horses and men
littering the ground about them.

Hektor was already far ahead of the rest. His shield bearers Mestares and
Areoan were trying their best to catch up with him, but few horses could keep
pace with Ares at full gallop.

The gallant warhorse hit the panicking line of the enemy with the force of a
battering ram. One horse fell screaming as Ares broke both of its front legs
with the power of his attack. Hektor killed the injured horse’s rider with a
blow to the head, and others fell back in disarray.

Then the shield bearers punched into the enemy ranks, too, followed by the
rest of the Trojan Horse.

Skorpios slowed his mount to wait his turn as the riders in front of him
plunged into the action. Then a Thessalian rider, breaking through the Trojan
line, swept toward him with his lance leveled. Skorpios swayed to the left, and
the lance point slashed to his right, plunging into his gelding’s flank. The
gelding reared in pain, giving Skorpios the height to plunge his spear deep into
the Thessalian’s throat. Maddened with pain, the gelding reared again, then
fell.

Skorpios jumped clear and, rolling, rose to his feet, drawing his sword. He
ran at the first rider he saw, a heavily armored Mykene. The man’s lance thrust
toward him but glanced from his breastplate. Skorpios grabbed the lance and
pulled; caught by surprise, the Mykene slid off his horse. Skorpios killed him
with a lightning sword cut to the throat. Then, sheathing his sword, he grabbed
the man’s horse by the mane and vaulted onto its back, lance in hand.

He looked around for someone else to kill. He saw that the enemy cavalry had
buckled under the attack; some of the wounded riders were trying to make their
way back, away from the field. Snarling, he sighted and threw the Thessalian
lance at a fleeing rider. It hit the man in the center of his back, and he
slumped from his mount. Skorpios punched the air in triumph.

“Skorpios!” He turned to see Justinos, his face and sword covered with blood.
He was grinning. “Still want to be back on your father’s farm herding sheep?”

The red battle fury in Skorpios started to drain away as he saw that the
enemy was fleeing to the west.

In Troy, high on the Great Tower of Ilion, Polydorus watched the battle
unfold with a mixture of pride and deep aching jealousy. His hand itched to hold
a sword, to wield it in defense of his king and his city. He watched his fellow
soldiers far below chasing the enemy and longed to be among them.

After his heroic part in the palace siege four years before, in which he had
aided Argurios, Helikaon, and Dios in the defense of the stairs, the young Eagle
had been promoted quickly, first to Priam’s bodyguard and then, to his initial
dismay, to the position of personal aide to the king.

“I do not want this!” he had stormed to his wife, Casilla. “It is not fitting
for a soldier!”

“Hush,” she had said. “You will wake the babies. It is a great honor, my
husband. King Priam has chosen you himself. That means he trusts you. Perhaps he
likes you. You are very likable, Polydorus.” Then she had smiled and tried to
put her arms around his neck.

But he had pulled away, not to be placated.

“I will be no more than a body servant, bringing him cups of wine, helping
him get dressed.” He hushed his voice. “I am a warrior, Casilla. I have fought
for Troy since I was fifteen. This is… this is…” He lowered his voice again.
“This is an insult,” he whispered, as if someone might be listening in their
small neat house hard by the western wall.

But as time had passed, Polydorus had become used to his role. True, he had
to help the old king with his food and lead him, soused in wine, to his
bedchamber each night. But the young soldier was often privy to the secrets of
the city as he sat in on discussions between Priam and his generals and
counselors, and the king on many occasions had sought his quiet, thoughtful
views on dealings with foreign kings and the progress of the war.

And in the two years he had grown to care for the old man.

Now he turned to look at him. The king, dressed in thick woolen robes and a
sheepskin cloak against the biting wind on the tower, was clutching the
battlement wall with his bony hands and gazing avidly at the battle far below.
His watery eyes were failing, and he often barked a question to Polydorus about
how the fighting was going. The young man saw the pride on his face and the
tears in his eyes as Hektor and the Trojan Horse galloped into sight upon the
plain.

“Hektor, my son,” he whispered. “Agamemnon and his lickspittle kings will
flee like the rats they are now that you’re back. They will be fighting each
other to get back to their ships now, my boy.”