Mountain of Black Glass (106 page)

The spear struck the fleeing Trojan like a thunderbolt, the impact so great that he was flung forward off his feet. He crashed on his face and skidded; the spearhead that had shoved through his chest gouged the muddy earth like the blade of a plow, making the long shaft waggle. A scream of hungry approval went up from the Myrmidons as they saw what their leader had done, as though deeds of blood had finally sealed the truth of the miracle.

Sam's chariot reached the body so fast that the charioteer made no attempt to swerve. The heavy wheels rolled across the dead man's arm and head with a quick, sickening crunch.

And suddenly Sam Fredericks remembered where she was.

Oh, my God.
In the midst of the triumphant Myrmidon chariots surging across the plain like a riptide, the riders hacking the legs out from under fleeing Trojans and leaving them to the merciless spears of the foot soldiers, Sam felt like she was going to throw up.
Oh, my God, these people are killing each other. What am I doing here?

But it was too late. Even if she screamed to the charioteer to turn back, he would not hear her, and the other chariots were pressed in too close to allow it. Nothing would stop the Myrmidons' thundering, headlong assault until they reached the thickening mass of armored men in the middle of the plain, where the Trojans had finally stopped to face their pursuers, turning murderous spears outward like the defensive spines of some massive creature.

It's too late.
She clung to the chariot as it jounced wildly over the torn ground. Around her, the war cries of Achilles' soldiers rose like the belling of a hunting pack.
Oh, Gardiner, what have I done?

 

“I
T'S hopeless,” Renie gasped. “There must be five thousand men between Orlando and us—I can't even see him anymore.”

The four of them were struggling to catch their breath on the outskirts of the battle. They had traveled far up the beach beneath the slipping afternoon sun, but as the Greeks and Trojans continued to hack away at each other like overwound clockwork toys, Renie and her companions had stopped to rest in this comparatively peaceful spot where there were far more slaves than warriors and more wounded men than healthy ones. If their long-lost friend had not been battling for his life in the middle of the plain, it would have been a good place to be.

!Xabbu had scaled an outcropping of rock. “I think I see Orlando,” he called down. “He is still in his chariot, but he is in a great crowd of soldiers. The chariot is stopped.”

“Jesus Mercy, this is making me crazy!” Renie threw down her spear. “It would be a suicide mission to try to get close to him.”

“Be worse for me,” T4b pointed out. “Least you got your own mamalockin' armor.” He was not happy with the trade of his golden armor for the bits and pieces they had scavenged from the battlefield.

Paul Jonas leaned heavily on his spear, his Odysseus beard dripping with sweat. “So what do we do?”

Renie shook her head, exhausted. Beside enduring several skirmishes in which they had fought off roving bands along the fringe of battle, she and the others also had run the better part of two kilometers in heavy bronze plate, carrying shields and weapons. “Just let me think.” She peeled off her helmet and dropped it, then stooped and put her hands on her knees, waiting until the blood circulating in her head felt like something other than molten metal. She straightened. “One thing we have to do is get word to Martine and the others. We have to do that right now—tell her Orlando and Fredericks are alive, and that we've found you.”

“What good will that do?” Jonas asked. “You said they're being kept in the women's quarters. It's not like they're going to come riding out and save us.”

“No, but what if the battle just goes on? What if Orlando survives and we have to spend another night out here trying to get to him? Martine doesn't even know that !Xabbu and T4b and I are still alive!”

The Bushman had scrambled down from the rock and was catching his breath. He was clearly less weary than his companions, but even he was starting to flag. “Shall I go, then?” he asked. “I can run a long time in a day, Renie, and then run more if I have to—that is one thing my childhood has given me. We are closer to Troy now than we are to the Greek camp. I can reach it in an hour, perhaps less.”

She shook her head. “It's not just getting there, it's getting in as well.” She turned to T4b. “You should be the one, Javier,” she said.

“Quit calling me that!”

“Listen to me. You're the one that everybody recognizes. I don't know who this Glaucus was, but he must have been Troy's version of Miss Congeniality. The best chance of getting in without trouble will be to claim you've got a message for the king or something like that, and you're probably the most likely of us to get a break.”

T4b was sullenly considering it as !Xabbu touched her arm. “But I should go with him, Renie. If they won't open the gate, he may need to climb the wall to get into the city. That may take two people working together.” Especially, he did not need to say, if one of them was T4b.

“Climb? Like, up
that
?” T4b gestured at the distant white stone of Troy's outer wall. He did not look happy.

“But . . .” She realized !Xabbu was right. “Of course. It's safer for two than for one, anyway. It is a battlefield, after all.” She grabbed at her friend's hand, then dragged him to her and hugged him. “God, please just be careful. Both of you. If you can find Martine, tell her what's happened. Her Trojan name is Cassandra, and she's the king's daughter, so you shouldn't have much trouble locating her. Tell her Orlando's in the middle of the battle and we're trying to think of a way to get him out.”

“I just remembered something from the poem, in case you need it,” Paul Jonas said. “There's a place on one of the walls that's easier to climb—I think it's the west wall, beside a fig tree. I remember some teacher of mine making a bit of a fuss about it.”

!Xabbu nodded. “That is good to know.”

“So . . . over the wall?” T4b asked, hesitating.

“If he doesn't want to go, I could do it,” said Jonas.

“No, you wouldn't recognize any of them, and there's not enough time to risk a mistake. Javier and !Xabbu can do it.” Renie reached out and took T4b's shoulders. “You probably won't have to climb anything. Just act important, and if they ask you too many questions at the gate, get scorchy on them. Now take care of yourself.”

He allowed a brief hug before pulling away. “Might as well get going,” he said gruffly, then turned to !Xabbu. “You flyin', too?”

!Xabbu nodded and gave Renie a last smile, then the pair jogged away toward distant Troy, the city's congregated towers pale and perfect as an ivory chess set.

“The Bushman—he's important to you, isn't he?” said Paul Jonas as they watched the two figures obscured by swirling dust.

“Yes. Yes, he is.”

“Oh, God, I've just thought of something else,” Jonas said unhappily. “Where do you think Orlando's friend is? We didn't stop to see if he might still be at the camp.”

Renie shook her head. “I don't believe it. Those two are like Siamese twins—if one of them's out there, the other is bound to be right next to him or right behind.” She squinted, then swore. The windblown dust was spouting from beneath chariot wheels. A ragged arm of Trojan cavalry had swung wide in an attempt to encircle the Greek flank, and Renie and Paul Jonas were uncomfortably close to the line of attack. Already other stragglers from the battle's edge were hurrying toward them, fleeing for their lives. Renie snatched at Jonas' arm and yanked him back toward the sloping beach and its only relative safety.

“Jesus Mercy, I'm an idiot!” she groaned as they stumbled down a slope. “!Xabbu and T4b—we forgot to agree on a place to meet up.” Arrows, fewer now than earlier in the day, but still just as deadly, flew over their heads and dug into the sandy soil.

Jonas was trying to run while keeping his shield over his head, and not doing a very good job of it. “We can worry about it when we get there,” he panted. “If we live that long.”

 

T
O Sam Fredericks, caught in a crush of men and chariots in the middle of the field, the walls of Troy still seemed remote, a dream-castle from a fairy tale standing pale and untouched above the muck. Around her men screamed and died. Most of the Myrmidon heroes and their resurgent allies had climbed down from their chariots to engage the Trojans hand to hand.

“Now is the time, O King,” her driver called above the din. “Now you can break this last stand of Priam's folk and send them fleeing back to the walls, where we will slaughter them.”

Sam felt paralyzed. When she had decided to put on the armor, she had been able to think only as far as keeping the Trojans away from Orlando. She had seen herself making a brave show, perhaps even giving the rest of the Greeks a moment to recover their courage and throw the Trojans back, but she had imagined nothing like this—almost under the walls of Troy, with death all around her and the battle perhaps resting on what she did next. . . .

The charioteer swore an oath as a badly-thrown spear rattled off the body of the chariot and for a moment became tangled in the horses' harnesses. One of the proud beasts stumbled for a moment, and Sam was again almost pitched out, but sheer terror had quickly made her an expert at holding on.

“There,” she shouted, pointing to an open space beyond the stew of men and spears. She had to get out this scanhouse before her nerves failed entirely. “Go there!”

The charioteer gave her a strange look, but lifted the reins and whipped the horses through a gap in the swirl of battle. Even as they burst out to relative safety, the battle behind them broke apart again with the Greeks pressing forward. Dozens of Trojans drew their chariots away and hastened back toward the walls of their home. Seeing the retreat, others broke from the struggle and joined them, and for a moment Sam felt like she was the leader in some strange race, her chariot in front, the fleeing Trojans right behind, with her own allies sweeping along after them, shouting loudly as they sensed victory within reach.

For long seconds she could only cling as they hurtled along over the uneven ground, the chariot bouncing and creaking like the world's most poorly maintained carnival ride, until the huge white walls were only a long stone's throw away. Abruptly, the charioteer yanked hard on the reins and the horses veered sharply to the side, coming around in a broad circle to face the Trojan horde stampeding back toward the shelter of Troy.

“Now they will see you and know fear, my lord!” the charioteer shouted.

“What? Are you scanning
utterly?
”

Sam had put down her spear so she could cling with both hands to the side of the chariot, which was up on one wheel and seemed about to tip over at any moment. The idiot charioteer was about to turn her simple attempt to get out of the fighting into some kind of heroic death-stand against a hundred terrified Trojans. She slipped down until centrifugal force pressed her against the inside of the chariot, then reached out and snatched at his greaved leg, trying to get his attention. They completed their turn, the walls directly behind her now. She thought she could even see tiny figures on the battlements.

“Stop!” she shouted, pulling on the driver's leg. “What's wrong with you? Stop!”

He looked down, clearly astonished to find great Achilles kneeling on the floor of the chariot. An instant later something snapped into his chest. He let go of the reins to grab at the black shaft quivering there, but the chariot bounced and he was gone, hurled away like unneeded ballast.

The one mercy was that Sam had only a moment to think about it. The careening chariot began to wobble, then the wheels struck something solid, which almost knocked the entire car sideways. It bounced, rose, then struck again even harder as something splintered with a terrible, final sound. Another impact sent Sam flying through air.

She struck the ground hard, rolling so fast that her thoughts were like rapidly beating black wings—around and around and around and then she hurtled into nothingness.

 

At first Sam thought she had gone blind. Her eyes stung, and she could see nothing. Her swollen, aching head seemed about to burst like a water balloon.

You're an idiot. You're the uttermost idiot in the world
. . . . she told herself as she struggled up onto her hands and knees. When she wiped at her face, her hand came away slick and wet. Terror made her whimper as she rubbed her eyes.

For a moment she could see only a little shimmer, a smear of gray and brown, but after the momentary blindness it seemed as sumptuous as full-color stereoptic wraparound. She wiped again and now could see her own hands through eyes made cloudy by the same blood that was dribbling from her fingers.

I've ripped my face off. Oh, God, I'm probably all torn up, all ugly.
A thought whisked past—she could die in this network, but what about getting a disfiguring injury?—leaving her with another even more terrible idea.
How do I know I'm not dying anyway?

A bad head injury. Even the words had the stomach-clenching sound of the End of the Road.

She had rubbed away enough blood that she could see around her, although her eyes still smarted. The chariot lay a dozen meters away, or at least the largest piece of it did. One of the horses was clearly dead, the other still kicking fitfully. Men in other chariots were wheeling toward her over the rough ground, but she had no idea which side they were on.

Sam found one of the spears and used it as a prop as she struggled to her feet. A fiercely burning ache ran all the way down her side—only the cracked-eggshell feeling in her head had prevented her from noticing it before now—but as far as she could tell, none of her limbs were broken.