Mountain of Black Glass (107 page)

She watched the distant chariots speeding toward her and wondered what to do next. She did not realize that others had been closer until the voice spoke from behind her.

“So we will test our arms after all, son of Peleus. I see you have lost your chariot. What else will you lose this day, I wonder?”

Sam Fredericks turned so fast a jolt of dizziness nearly knocked her down. The man standing before her seemed impossibly large despite his perfect proportions. His eyes glared from the slot of his helmet. “Who . . . ?” she croaked.

The man banged his long spear against his shield; the noise made Sam's head feel like it was collapsing in on itself. “Who?” he roared. “You have slaughtered my kinsmen, sacked my father's cities, and yet you do not know Hector, son of Priam, when you meet him face-to-face?” The man pulled off his helmet, setting free his thick knot of black hair, but even as he did a peculiar look came over his handsome, scowling features. “You look strange to me, Achilles. Has falling to the ground changed you so much?”

Sam tried to back up and found herself teetering on the edge of a shallow ditch. “I'm . . . I'm not . . .”

“By Olympian Zeus, you are not Achilles at all, but Patroclus in his armor! Has all this rout then been in fear of something that was not so?” He snorted like an angry horse. “Have you put Troy's power to flight with naught but the effigy of Achilles?” His expression hardened as though a cold wind had blasted it to freezing. He raised his massive spear. Sam stared at its huge bronze point with horrified absorption. “Well, you will not live to enjoy your joke . . .”

Her shield was out of reach. She almost thought she heard someone call her name—a distant voice, like the last words of a dream heard while waking up—but it was meaningless now. Sam could only cringe back, raising her hands to her face as Hector took a few running steps and sent the black spear whistling toward her.

 

T
HERE were moments, as he urged his horse across the plain, that he seemed to be riding through some ancient tapestry from a museum, past frozen vignettes of men struck down while fleeing and of fallen warriors locked with enemy soldiers in mutally fatal embraces—dozens of small but varied illustrations of the Folly of Mankind. He skimmed above it all, still seeing with some of the strange, high clarity with which he had awakened, but intent on hurrying forward.

Even in the spots the active battle had left behind, it was hard to make really good time through the corpses of men and horses and the clouds of crows and other scavengers. Although Thargor was one of the finest bareback riders in all the Middle Country—and Orlando, to his gratitude, had apparently retained some virtual command of those skills—he still found himself wishing desperately for a saddle.

Beggars can't be choosers,
he reminded himself. It was not a very inspiring war cry.

Orlando thought he could see Fredericks in the distance now, the polished bronze armor—Orlando's own armor—glinting in the occasional spray of sunlight. The wind was growing stronger. Whirling horizontal dust clouds sprang up and rushed past him as he dug in his heels and leaned forward over his straining horse's neck. The morning's clarity was beginning to fade, leaving him with only a dogged sense of the task in front of him. At times it seemed like the fever had returned and he thought he could hear whispering voices all around him.

Although there were more men here on the fringes of combat than he had encountered on his ride across the plain, few raised a hand against him. Some clearly mistook him for the man whose armor he wore; he ignored their cries of recognition as he galloped past. Here and there others who wished to challenge him rose up in his path, both Greeks and Trojans, but Orlando did his best to ride around them, not wanting to waste time on meaningless combat. When forced, he used the momentum of his horse and his long spear to shove them away; if he killed one or two, it was more by accident than design. But for the most part the survivors who had made their way to the battle's edge, or had been left there when its strongest tide swept past, seemed to have little wish to oppose the lone rider in golden armor. Most hurried to get out of his way.

This much was familiar to Orlando. By the time Thargor had fought in his last great battles, at Godsor Rim and in the Pentalian Swamps, his reputation was such that only the most famous heroes or a few suicidal overachievers hoping to make a reputation of their own would fight him on open ground, one-to-one. It was strange, as he floated along almost separate from his own body, to remember those make-believe wars. In the Middle Country he had been full of adrenaline and roaring good humor, the barbarian lord of the battlefield, cutting down men by the dozens and leaving a wake of mangled bodies all across the field—fighting two, three, even four men at once just for the glory of the challenge. Now he wanted only to survive long enough to accomplish a single small task.

He was closing on the thickest part of the battle, which had crawled across the plain like a living organism until it was almost within bowshot of Troy's mighty walls. As he jerked the horse's harness to avoid a wounded man crawling on the ground, he caught a glimpse of something shiny bursting free from the middle of the conflict, heading for the walls as though bearing some crucial strategic message for Troy's defenders. It was Fredericks, he felt sure—the gleam was his friend's figure crouched low behind the charioteer—but Orlando could make no sense of what was happening. A few of the nearer Trojan chariots sped in pursuit, and two or three more curled out from another part of the chaos as though to catch Fredericks in a pincer, but they were all too far behind to catch up.

But what was Fredericks doing?

Ever more desperate now to reach his friend, Orlando saw open ground before him and dug his heels into his horse's sides. Fredericks' distant chariot suddenly veered away from the walls in a wide circle, curling back on its own path.

Doesn't she see those men are after her?
Orlando reached back and spanked his horse's flank hard with the butt of his spear, then let the reins go slack as he leaned in and grabbed a fistful of braided mane, clinging as the animal belted toward a gap in the fighting.

Something had happened to Fredericks' chariot. It rose for a moment, cresting a bump, then smashed down and rose again, but this time only one on side. For almost three full seconds it careened on one wheel, then suddenly chariot and horses were down in a single confused mass, tumbling over and over. A wheel flew up into the air and spun several times like a flipped coin before falling away to one side. Orlando's view was blocked by the chariots now wheeling toward the wreckage.

He screamed his friend's name, but only a few heads even turned—the battle around him had become a grim, final struggle, and no man's life was safe. A helmeted man stumbled out of a clump of soldiers right into his path. He did not even see Orlando before the horse ran him down.

Within moments the dense mass of the battle's center was falling away behind him and he was again speeding across open plain. As he passed the first of the chariots that had been pursuing Fredericks, Orlando raised his spear to skewer either the crouching driver or his armored passenger.

No, they're just Puppets,
he told himself and veered away.
Like windup toys. Don't waste energy getting angry.
But he was angry. Instead of the laughing excitement of Thargor's Middle Country battles, he was full of cold, detached fury.

He could see the wreckage of the chariot clearly now, only a few hundred meters away; his heart stuttered as he saw a body crumpled grotesquely beside it, but a moment later another figure crawled out of the high grass and lurched up onto its feet. The armor it wore was his own. Before he could even feel relief, a huge bronze chariot wheeled to a skidding stop and a tall man jumped out of the cart and jogged toward Fredericks.

“Stop!” Orlando shouted, but the wind snatched his words away. “It's me you want!”

Fredericks was hobbling badly, and made no attempt to flee the armored man. Orlando kicked at the horse's ribs, reaching toward the two small figures as though a few more inches could allow him to stop what was about to happen. The larger man raised a spear, then skipped forward and heaved it at Fredericks.

Orlando's friend took a helpless backward step and tumbled into a ditch. The spear sliced through the spot where she had stood and flew another twenty meters before it hit the ground and dug deep into the earth.

Other chariots were pulling up as Fredericks struggled up onto the edge of the ditch and crouched there on hands and knees. Orlando kept his head against the horse's neck, closing the distance, but slowly, so slowly . . . ! The man who had missed his throw returned to his chariot where he snatched another spear from his driver.

Orlando could faintly hear the man's voice now. “The gods have saved you, Patroclus. You have your own spear—try your arm, and see if it is strong enough to dent my shield.”

Fredericks wavered, but did not stand up. Only the armor made Orlando certain it was his friend, since her face was a mask of blood.

“It's me!” Orlando screamed. “You want
me,
you bastard!”

The man turned. For a moment, seeing the stranger's thick black hair and powerful muscles, Orlando thought he was looking at his own Thargor sim. “Glaucus?” the man called. “Why do you shout at me, noble Lycian? Is your house not bound by love and blood to that of my father Priam?”

For the first time, and with a sinking heart, Orlando knew who he faced. He had heard enough stories in the last two days about Hector to know he could not have picked a worse enemy, but things were too far gone to stop now. He reined up the horse and swung down. The ground felt strangely unsolid beneath his feet, as though he walked on clouds.

The two tall men faced each other across the hummocky ground, each clutching a long spear. Other chariots had pulled up, but the occupants seemed to sense the momentous nature of what was happening and merely watched in gaping silence.

“I'm not Glaucus.” Orlando pulled off his own helmet, letting the golden hair spill free. “And I'm not going to let you kill my friend either.”

Hector did not react. Instead, a curious stillness seemed to flow through him, a stillness so complete that for a long moment Orlando wondered if the Trojan would ever move again.

“You are here, then,” Hector said slowly. He picked up his helmet and pulled it on, so that his eyes were invisible in the blackness of the slot. “Raper of cities. Murderer of innocents. Great hero of the Greeks, more anxious to listen to songs of your own glory than to come out and fight. But finally . . . you are here.” He clanged the shaft of his spear against his shield. “One of us will be carried from this field, his life smashed out of him. This the gods decree!”

“Gardiner, don't!” Fredericks shouted. “You're not strong enough. You're sick.”

She was right, but a look around showed Orlando that although the largest part of the Greek force was now moving in their direction, the nearest Greek soldiers were still long minutes away. Much closer, a dozen Trojan soldiers and charioteers had formed a sort of gallery; they might be content simply to watch this exciting moment, but Orlando knew they wouldn't allow him to run away.

He walked with as much calm as he could muster to the wreckage of Fredericks' chariot. Achilles' shield lay on the ground beside it, wedged beneath the mutilated driver. Orlando rolled the man to one side, a little heartened to realize he had some strength after all, that even a sick Achilles was at least as strong as an ordinary mortal. He slid the shield over his forearm and curled his fist around the handle, then turned back to Hector, his heart beating so fast his head hurt.

I don't know enough about spear fighting. I've got to get him in close so I can use a sword, where all that Thargor experience might pay off.
But he knew even as he thought about it that he could not trade blows long with this strapping, godlike figure. Just riding most of the way across the plain of Troy had left him exhausted, his muscles trembling.

“Gardiner! No!” Fredericks shouted again. Orlando did his best to ignore it.

“Right,” he called to Hector. “Bring it, baby.”

How well that antique Americanism translated to the world of Homer, Orlando could not know, but Hector seemed to understand it perfectly well. He took a few running steps, drawing his spear back, then sent it hissing toward Orlando. It was on top of him so quickly he barely had time to throw up his shield before it struck, a shocking impact that knocked him backward off his feet. As he tumbled, he felt a scalding pain in his ribs.