The Armour of Achilles (3 page)
‘We weren’t going to let them reach the city alive,’ Achilles continued. ‘And that was when I recognized Aeneas – and
he
recognized
me
. I dug my heels in and set off after him at a gallop, and even with the head start he had he’d never have outrun Xanthus if he hadn’t ordered his escort against us. By the time we’d fought our way through them Aeneas was safely inside the city walls. Safe for
now
, at least.’
Odysseus stroked his beard and looked up at the line of hills, in the direction of Lyrnessus.
‘I don’t like it,’ he muttered, as if to himself. ‘Eperitus is right – what business would Aeneas have out here?’
‘Who cares?’ Achilles said dismissively. ‘The point is we have one of their best fighters bottled up in that city, and before the day’s done I’ll send his cowardly soul down to Hades.’
As he was speaking, Diomedes and Little Ajax appeared at Eperitus’s left shoulder. The Argive king was a tall, muscular figure, dressed in armour that befitted his wealth. He removed the gleaming bronze helmet from his head to reveal long auburn hair and a stern but handsome face, the only blemish on which was the faint trace of a white scar running down from the tip of his left ear and into his thick beard. Little Ajax, on the other hand, was a short, spiteful-looking man with a flat nose and pockmarked cheeks. A long brown snake was draped over his shoulders, its triangular head raised and its pink tongue slithering out from its lipless mouth, sending a shiver of disgust through Eperitus. Ajax’s dark eyes frowned up at Achilles from beneath his single eyebrow.
‘What’s the delay?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been waiting all winter to kill some Trojan scum and my spear arm’s getting restless.’
‘The itching of your spear arm is nothing compared to the suffering of Helen,’ Diomedes rebuffed him. ‘If the fall of this city brings her freedom a step closer, then let’s get on with it. Zeus only knows what she’s gone through as a prisoner of Troy, kept from her husband and children and forced to endure the lustful attentions of Paris every night.’
‘
Forced
?’ Ajax scoffed. ‘That trollop wanted Paris between her thighs from the first moment she—’
He fell silent as the point of Diomedes’s dagger pressed against his throat.
‘If you say another word against the queen of Sparta, it’ll be your last,’ he warned.
Ajax met the cold stare of the Argive king with equal menace, but said nothing.
‘We’ve delayed long enough,’ Achilles said, taking Diomedes’s wrist and easing the blade away from Ajax’s neck. ‘The attack will begin immediately – unless Odysseus has any more misgivings?’
Odysseus shook his head.
‘Same plan as before?’ Diomedes asked, sliding his dagger back into his belt.
Achilles nodded, looking over his shoulder at the ridge. ‘The Argives and Ithacans will scale the western walls while my Myrmidons will take the southern gate. Ajax’s Locrians can hang back and shoot any Trojan who dares show his head above the battlements. There’s still the ditch, but the walls behind it are low and we have the ladders. Even if they’re alerted to our presence, nothing can stop Lyrnessus from being ours by midday.’
Without another word he turned and held his hand out to Xanthus. The horse answered his call immediately and soon Achilles, Patroclus and Antilochus were riding to join Peisandros at the head of the Myrmidon line. As Diomedes and Little Ajax returned to their own armies, Odysseus arched his eyebrows and turned to his captain.
‘I don’t like this, Eperitus. The Trojans have outwitted us too many times over the years, and if Aeneas is here then that spells trouble. He’s one of the best commanders they have – Hector wouldn’t send him down here without a very good reason.’
‘We can hardly turn around and get back in the ships now,’ Eperitus answered. ‘We’ll just have to climb the walls and see what’s inside.’
Odysseus smiled back at him. ‘You’re right, of course, and we might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re at it. Give the order.’
Eperitus turned on his heel and looked at the expectant faces of the Ithacan soldiers.
‘Shields ready. Pick up the ladders.’
Similar orders were barked out up and down the Greek lines, followed by a flurry of movement as shields were taken up, ladders lifted and spears readied. Achilles received his spear and shield from two of his men and moved to the head of the Myrmidon army. Raising the spear above his head, he pointed it towards the line of hills. There was a great cheer from the whole Greek assembly and the Myrmidons began to move.
Eperitus instinctively kissed his fingertips and placed them against the image of a white deer on the inside of his shield. He had painted it there to remind him of his daughter, Iphigenia, and though it was grimed and faded where he had repeatedly touched it for luck he felt reassured by its presence. Odysseus discreetly touched the image of Athena painted on the inside of his own shield, then, after a glance at Eperitus, turned to the ranks of Ithacans and waved them forward.
The long lines of warriors advanced with a steady tramp, the Myrmidons, Ithacans and Argives in the lead with the Locrians forming a wide arc behind them. At first the bronze of their helmets and shield bosses shone fiercely in the sunlight, but as they marched slowly up the hillside the dust raised by their thousands of feet shrouded them in a brown cloud that dulled the glimmer of their weaponry. Soon they were topping the crest of the ridge and looking out over a fertile, lightly wooded plain, dominated by a low hill at its centre. On top of the hill was a walled city, its sand-coloured battlements no higher than the scattering of windswept olive trees that surrounded it. A few two-storeyed buildings stood up above the level of the weathered parapets, but the only tower was at the southern end of the fortifications, guarding an arched gateway from which a narrow track wound down to the level of the plain. Here it met the main route from the city of Troy to its southern provinces, but as the ten thousand Greeks filed out across the western edge of the plateau, not a single traveller could be seen up or down the length of the road.
A handful of sentinels stared silently out from behind the walls of Lyrnessus and a low horn call vibrated out across the plain to greet the newcomers, but no reinforcements hastened to join their colleagues on the battlements. Instead, the sombre noise was followed by a silence, which was quickly devoured by the clanking of the Greek army as it spread across the plain like pitch spilled from a bucket, file after file marching relentlessly towards their objective. Soon the soldiers of Argos and Ithaca were in place at the western foot of the hill, a bowshot from the walls, while the Myrmidons straddled the road to the south, facing the gate. The Locrian archers formed a wide crescent behind them, where they began standing their arrows point-down in the grass, ready to be fitted to their bowstrings and fired at any enemy that dared show themselves above the parapets. As the dust cloud the Greek host had raised was carried forward on a gentle breeze to veil the walls of Lyrnessus, Odysseus looked left to where Diomedes stood at the head of his Argives. Diomedes raised his arm and nodded. In response, Odysseus looked right to Achilles and raised his own arm.
‘Ladders at the ready,’ Eperitus called out behind him, all the time keeping his eyes on the distant, golden-haired figure of Achilles.
S
TORMING THE
W
ALLS
O
dysseus did not cheer. Gritting his teeth behind sealed lips, he waved the Ithacan ladder parties forward. The scrambling of leather sandals on hard earth was followed by the sharp smell of sweat and the sound of cursing as the men ran past him, dashing quickly up the long, stony slope towards Lyrnessus. At their head were the groups led by Antiphus and Polites, the former with his bow slung across his back and the latter striding forward as if he would smash down the walls with his bare fists.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Odysseus said in a low voice as he watched the advance on the walls. ‘There’s not one man on the battlements. Even the soldiers we saw earlier have gone.’
‘They’ve probably thrown away their armour and are cowering in a temple somewhere, hoping their gods will protect them,’ Eperitus replied.
Odysseus shook his head. ‘If we’ve learned anything from this war, it’s that Trojans aren’t cowards. Some of them should be up there at least, trying to save their families from slavery or death. I think they’re not on the walls for a reason – either they’re expecting help from outside, or they’ve a better defence than we’re guessing. Eperitus, go and warn Ajax to keep a close eye on those hills to the north; I’m going to take the army closer in to the walls before—’
At that moment, as the ladder parties were nearing the ditch, a man climbed up on to the battlements and looked down in haughty defiance at the crawling mass of Greeks before the city. That his dark eyes and large, hooked nose belonged to Trojan nobility – if not royalty – was beyond doubt, and every Greek who looked up at his bearded face sensed that his appearance meant an end to their hopes of an easy victory. The man was tall and strong with enormous shoulders and huge fists that hung at his sides, big enough to kill a man with a single punch. As if to prove the point, though he wore a splendid breastplate of bronze scales and a massive helmet with a green plume, he carried no weapon. Instead, he raised a palm towards the advancing foes and called out in a loud voice:
‘Enemies of Troy, go back to your ships. Nothing but death awaits you here. Go back to your ships and sail home to Greece, before the vengeance of Apollo falls upon you. King Sarpedon of the Lycians has spoken.’
‘Told you,’ Odysseus said, arching his eyebrows knowingly at Eperitus. ‘The whole city must be filled with Lycians, just waiting for us to come and throw ourselves on to their spears. Aeneas is in there too, don’t forget, and I’ll stake my kingdom there’s a host of Dardanians with him.’
‘Then Hector must have guessed we’d try to take Lyrnessus,’ Eperitus said, watching the men with the ladders, who had halted their advance and were looking up at the walls as if death would sweep down on them from the battlements at any moment. ‘Either that or the information that the garrison had been stripped was false and we’ve been lured into a trap.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve outwitted us,’ Odysseus replied. ‘And yet our spies told us Aeneas was inside Troy only the day before yesterday. If that’s true then he was sent here on purpose – and that means Hector must have known we were coming.’
As he spoke, Sarpedon stepped back down so that only the upper half of his body remained visible behind the stone parapet. A moment of quiet followed in which the ranks of Argives, Ithacans and Myrmidons shifted restlessly, while some of the Locrians fitted arrows and half drew their bowstrings in readiness. Then a slow, mocking laugh broke the silence. Eperitus looked around to see who among the Greeks could draw amusement from the shock of Sarpedon’s presence, and saw Achilles leaning on his shield and chuckling as he looked up at the Lycian king.
‘Sarpedon, you old fool,’ he called, shaking his head and smiling. ‘Do you really think we Greeks are going to return to our homes before Troy has fallen? And do you think that by standing on the crumbling walls of this old dung heap you’re going to stop
me
from knocking its worm-eaten gates off their hinges and killing every living thing that opposes me? Then let me make
you
an offer: any Lycian inside the walls of Lyrnessus, including yourself, who wants to return to his home now can do so, taking his armaments, his honour and his life with him. All I ask is your word that none will ever come back to the aid of Troy. But any who choose to remain will be slaughtered, without mercy, and his body left as carrion for the birds. Achilles, chief of the Myrmidons, has spoken.’
There was a roar of approval from the Greek ranks, but Sarpedon raised his hand again and they fell silent.
‘I am familiar with your reputation,
Prince
Achilles – as a butcher who knows no restraint, a murdering dog whose excesses are shameful even to the Greeks. You strut around the battlefield as if Hades himself cannot claim you, yet all the time the shadow of death is at your heels. Do you think we haven’t heard of your own mother’s prophecy, that you’ll die here in Ilium? Perhaps today your fate will catch up with you.’
Without warning, a spear flew towards the battlements and split the air where, a heartbeat before, Sarpedon’s head had been. Slowly, the Lycian’s shocked face rose back above the parapet to see Patroclus standing in front of Achilles, his arrogant features twisted with fury.
‘Your own fate will strike you down long before a drop of Achilles’s blood touches Trojan soil,’ he shouted. ‘If you ever see your homeland again, Sarpedon, it’ll be as a corpse, to be wept over by your wife as she curses the gods for their cruelty.’
Achilles placed a calming hand on Patroclus’s shoulder and pulled him back. Stepping forward, he raised his spear above his head then thrust the point towards the walls. Simultaneously, the lines of Greek warriors lifted their shields before them and began to move, closing ranks as they marched up the slope once more. At their head, the assault parties took up their ladders and resumed their advance, while to the rear the Locrians pulled back their bowstrings to their cheeks and waited for the enemy to show themselves.
They did not have to wait long. Sarpedon raised his hand again, but this time it was not to parley. A moment later the city’s defences were crowded with armed men – not the weak and badly outnumbered militia the Greeks had originally expected, but a force many hundreds strong, their spearheads blazing like points of fire all along the battlements.
As the Greeks stared up in awe at the defenders, Sarpedon’s hand fell. An instant later the air above the city walls was filled with a dark, hissing cloud of arrows that arced high above the heads of the assault parties to fall into the massed ranks of the main army behind. Thousands of men who had lowered their guard at the appearance of Sarpedon were suddenly scrambling to raise their shields above their heads again. Many did not succeed.
Odysseus nodded at Eperitus, who turned sharply to the crouching ranks behind him and barked out the order to advance at the double. More arrows dropped among them and more men fell, but the lull was over and their blood was up, so they came on with a grim determination that showed in every sweat- and dust-caked face. Eperitus felt a touch of pride at the sight of them, but his stern grimace did not falter as he turned and broke into an awkward run.
Odysseus was beside him, with his oval shield raised above his head and his spears clutched in his right hand. The two men had been in more fights together than either could remember and they drew confidence from each other’s presence as they ran into battle together, sweating in their armour while dozens of black-shafted arrows fell all around them.
At the top of the slope, the first assault parties had reached the ditch and were raising their ladders against the walls. A deadly rain of spears and rocks were cast down on their heads, felling many as they struggled to plant the feet of the ladders in the base of the ditch. Then, as the first ladders hit the wall, they realized something was horribly wrong.
‘They’ve deepened the ditch,’ Eperitus exclaimed, raising his voice above the whistle of arrows and the shouts and cries of men. ‘The ladders aren’t long enough to reach the tops of the walls.’
Odysseus stared at the tell-tale layer of fresh earth that crowned the top of the slope and watched in dismay as the men of the assault parties poured into the ditch, where only their heads remained visible. He and Diomedes had scouted the walls a few nights before, when the trench that circled the city was silted up by mud brought in by the winter rains. They had built the ladders accordingly, but the defenders had since re-dug the ditch and now the tops of the ladders were falling a spear’s length short of the parapet.
‘Damn it,’ he cursed, suddenly quickening his pace. ‘But by all the gods we’re not turning back now. We’ll take those bloody walls even if we have to climb them on the bodies of our own dead!’
Eperitus followed in the king’s wake, staring ahead at the rapidly approaching fortifications. At every point, desperate men were trying to reach the battlements with their outstretched arms, where the defenders speared them with ease or cut off their hands as they seized the parapets. Only one ladder reached the top of the wall, the foot of which was supported firmly in Polites’s lap to give it the extra height. Men scrambled on to his back and sprang up the thick wooden rungs, but were easily cut down as they reached the mass of defenders at the top. Antiphus had abandoned his own ladder and was crouching behind the cover of another man’s shield, shooting enemy after enemy from the walls.
‘It’s suicide!’ Eperitus protested, seizing Odysseus by his cloak and trying to stop him. ‘We need to fall back. We can attack again tomorrow, after we’ve made the ladders longer.’
‘Fall back yourself,’ Odysseus grunted, pushing Eperitus’s hand away. There was a fierce anger in his eyes, which Eperitus had become more familiar with as the years of the siege had dragged on. ‘I’m sick of the Trojans frustrating every attack we make. If we’re going to return to Ithaca, then we have to keep fighting until every last one of them is dead.’
‘Then join Achilles at the gates, where at least we have a chance of breaking into the city. It’s madness to attack walls we can’t even reach!’
‘To Hades with Achilles!’ Odysseus cursed. ‘And to Hades with you, too, if you won’t come.’
Scowling, he turned and ran the last stretch of the slope, where, with his shield held over his head against the rain of rocks and spears, he dropped down into the ditch beside Polites. A moment later his helmeted head was lost from sight as the ranks of the Ithacan army rushed past the lone figure of their captain, sweeping round him in their eagerness to reach the walls. As the final rank ran by, a sneering voice called out: ‘Lost your nerve, Eperitus?’
If the accusation of cowardice was not bad enough, the fact that it had come from Eurylochus was unbearable. The king’s cousin had never forgiven Eperitus for being made captain of the guard – a position Eurylochus had always coveted for himself, despite the fact that he was a spineless fool who was only ever to be found skulking at the rear of any battle, where the corpses provided rich pickings. Eperitus caught the man’s small black eyes staring at him from over his snout-like nose and multiple chins – maintained along with his ample stomach, despite ten years of camp rations – and felt hot needles of shame driven through his chest. But there were more important things than Eurylochus’s mockery to be concerned about.
Uncertain of how they were to scale the walls, his instinct for command took over and he ran up behind the press of Ithacan warriors.
‘Stay out of the ditch! Front two ranks kneel and raise your shields; rear ranks, throw your damned spears at those bastards on the wall.’
In response to his orders, the Ithacans began casting spear after spear at the defenders, sending many toppling backwards into their comrades. But more took their places, and among them were the archers who had been massed behind the city walls. With the armies of Ithaca, Argos and Phthia smashing themselves against the battlements, they had been ordered on to the ramparts to shoot directly down into the mass of attackers. But at the same time, Little Ajax had brought his Locrians closer up the slope, where they could pour an equally deadly fire into the crowded Lycians and Dardanians. Many fell screaming into the ditch below, where they were quickly silenced by the hacking swords of the frustrated Greeks.
Then a ladder rose up from the ditch where the Ithacan assault parties were massed. To Eperitus’s surprise, as he crouched behind his great shield to avoid the murderous rain of arrows, he saw that the top of the ladder reached just above the parapet. Another ladder of the same length followed it, and then another, and it was only as men began to dash up them with their shields held over their heads and their swords at the ready that Eperitus saw the answer to the riddle: someone was lashing ladders together with leather belts around the middle rungs, giving the extra length needed to reach the ramparts.
‘Odysseus,’ he said with a grin.
T
HE
T
EMPLE OF
A
RTEMIS
F
or a moment Eperitus was aware of nothing but the face of his father watching him. The spears, stones and arrows that were sending men to their deaths on both sides of the struggle were no longer a concern. The clash of weapons and the screams of men faded from his hearing, just as the figures moving all around him and on the walls above became colourless blurs, like shadows in a dream. Now all that mattered was the face on the ramparts, the closeness of the man who had haunted his nightmares for two decades, whose death he had wanted for so long that the desire to kill him seemed to have tormented his thoughts for ever. And now, after ten years of searching for his father across the battlefields of Ilium, he was suddenly and unexpectedly a spear’s cast away. All he needed to do was pull back his arm and hurl his weapon and all the hatred and shame would end.
And yet he was unable to move. For the first time in many years he felt afraid. It was not the churning of his stomach before every battle, which soon disappeared after the first arrow was fired or the first spear was thrown; it was the fear of confronting something so integral to his existence for so many years that in destroying it he might destroy himself. Who would
he
be if his father was gone? Apheidas had murdered his own king to usurp the throne, and when Eperitus had refused to join him he had sent his son into exile. The shame of that treachery was the driving force behind Eperitus’s desire for honour and glory; his anger at his father’s terrible acts gave him his ferocity in battle; and the knowledge that the old traitor had given his service to Troy kept Eperitus’s own loyalty to Greece focused and sharp. Indeed, Apheidas made Eperitus what he was.
He looked up at the battlements and into the dark eyes that had controlled him for so long, and despite the fear and the doubt that were tearing at his insides he knew he must kill his father. It was the only way he could be free to discover his own self, to move on from his dark past and become whatever the gods had intended him to be. With heavy limbs he drew back his spear and threw it at the crowd of defenders on the walls above. The black shaft seemed to quiver as it flew straight at its target. For an unbelievable moment Eperitus thought it would strike home, then Apheidas leaned to one side and the bronze head thumped into the chest of a Lycian archer behind him. It tore through the man’s tunic of layered cloth, split open his heart and came out through his back, just below the shoulder bone. As he fell, one of his comrades stepped forward and aimed an arrow directly at Eperitus, but before he could release it Apheidas grabbed him by his shoulders and threw him from the walls, to be hacked to death by the attackers below.
With his spear cast, Eperitus felt the heaviness lift from his limbs and the old anger return. He drew his sword and barged through the ranks of soldiers who stood between him and the walls. Leaping into the ditch, he ran to one of the ladders and pulled aside a pale-faced soldier who was about to mount. A large stone thumped into the earth beside him and arrows whistled past his ears, but he raised his grandfather’s heavy shield over his head and began to climb.
The rungs were slippery with blood and his progress was awkward without the full use of his hands, but as more stones bounced off his shield and the points of half a dozen arrows nudged through the four-fold leather he felt no fear, only an iron-like determination to reach the top and get among the defenders. On either side of him as he ascended he could see the length of the ditch filled with the dead and the living. Doubled ladders lashed together with belts were being raised at every point now and under the cover of the Locrian archers hundreds of men were renewing the attack on the walls.
‘Eperitus!’ boomed a voice from a neighbouring ladder.
It was Polites.
‘Where’s Odysseus?’ Eperitus shouted back.
Polites shrugged and pointed to the battlements above, before resuming his ascent in silence. Eperitus looked up from beneath his shield and saw the parapet just ahead of him. As he watched, a pair of hands seized the top of the ladder and tried to push it sideways. The flimsy structure wobbled and Eperitus’s body tensed as he struggled to keep his balance, but a moment later he heard a scream and a body fell past him to the ditch below. The ladder straightened again and he quickened his ascent, steadying himself with his sword hand on the rungs before his face. As he reached the top a spear point jabbed through his cloak and scraped across the back of his leather cuirass. Eperitus hooked his shield over the parapet and instinctively lashed out with his sword. The obsessively sharpened edge found flesh and bone and a bitter cry of pain followed; his attacker’s spear fell down to the ditch below, a severed hand still gripping the shaft.
Climbing up on to the top of the wall, he found himself looking down at a dozen dark-skinned, bearded faces, eyes wide with fear and exhilaration and the knowledge that death was close. He kicked out at the nearest and sent him sprawling backwards, then jumped down among the others and buried his sword in the chest of a young spearman, killing him instantly. He tugged his weapon free and advanced. An archer tossed his bow aside and drew his short sword against the fearsome Ithacan, only to have his arm lopped off above the elbow. Eperitus barged him aside with his shield and – sensing that more Ithacans were jumping down on to the wall behind him – pushed forward into the mass of Lycians and Dardanians, all the time scanning for signs of his father.
By now the walls were crowded with men from both sides, jostling against each other in a struggle for mastery. As Eperitus sent another opponent tumbling from the battlements with a heave of his shield, he noticed for the first time the collection of simple, flat-roofed dwellings that both sides were fighting to possess: a homogenous sprawl of dusty houses, brightened here and there by the broader structure of a temple or by an open market square, but otherwise unremarkable and not worth the blood of so many brave men. Then he caught the flash of a bronze-scaled breastplate out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a Lycian noble pushing forward through his men. He carried the tall shield favoured by most high-born Trojans and wielded a huge, double-headed axe, which he swung at Eperitus’s head. Eperitus dodged the blow and punched out with his shield, knocking his attacker back into the press of his men.
‘Where’s Apheidas?’ he demanded, speaking in his opponent’s language.
‘Damn Apheidas! Fight
me
!’ the noble responded angrily, the spittle flecking his beard.
He sprang forward, cleaving the air with his axe. Eperitus ducked aside and lunged with his sword, forcing the Lycian to fall back and draw his shield across his body.
‘Tell me where Apheidas is and I’ll let you live.’
The Lycian laughed and brought his heavy axe down in another attack. The edge sparked against the stone parapet as Eperitus avoided the blow with easy agility. A moment later the point of the Greek’s sword found the Lycian’s groin and he crumpled to his knees, clutching at the wound in a vain effort to stop his lifeblood pouring out of his body. Eperitus kicked him to the stone floor of the battlements and placed his blade against the man’s neck.
‘I can kill you now or leave you to a slow death. Where’s Apheidas?’
The man looked up at him with pain-filled eyes, his warrior’s pride replaced by the humbling certainty that death was near.
‘He went back down into the city,’ the Lycian whispered through gritted teeth. ‘Now keep your promise and send me to Hades.’
Eperitus pushed his sword point into the man’s throat then glared at the remaining Lycians, who looked on in shock at the defeat of their champion. From every part of the wall now there came the sound of bronze beating against bronze, the calls and cries of men and the strange shuffling of leather sandals on stone as crowds of warriors fought desperately to kill each other. Then, as Eperitus raised his shield and readied his sword to attack, an arrow split the air past his right ear and stuck in the throat of a Lycian spearman, who gasped horribly as he struggled to gain control of his dying body.
‘Even you can’t take them all alone,’ said a familiar voice.
Eperitus turned to see the scruffy figure of Antiphus at his shoulder, with the bulk of Polites looming up behind him. A moment later Odysseus joined them, his face spattered with blood and his sword running with gore.
‘I knew you couldn’t stay out of things for long,’ the king said, his earlier rebuke seemingly forgotten. ‘It’s not in your nature.’
Then he raised his shield before him and ran at the Lycians, shouting his defiance. Eperitus and the others followed, sweeping all resistance before them until the will of the defenders cracked and many began to drop their weapons in surrender. The remainder fled back down the steps that led to the city streets, closely followed by streams of Greeks. As Eperitus joined the pursuit he caught sight of a fresh body of enemy spearmen and archers, standing in ordered ranks at the far end of a broad, heavily rutted street that led to the heart of the city. At the head of this unbloodied reserve were Sarpedon and Aeneas, their armour bright in the sunshine as they ordered the stragglers from the walls to join the solid lines of their comrades. Then, just as Eperitus was thinking that the battle for Lyrnessus was far from over, a great crash from the southernmost point of the city signalled the fall of the gates to Achilles and his Myrmidons. Soon the whole of Lyrnessus would be filled with Greeks. Realizing there was no hope of defending the city, Sarpedon and Aeneas suddenly began ordering their soldiers to fall back to the northern gate.
Eperitus jumped down on to the dusty, body-strewn street, closely followed by Odysseus.
‘They’ve given up,’ the king said, watching the hasty but well-ordered retreat. ‘Form the men into lines, quickly – I want to catch them while they’re still inside the city. If they get out on to the open plain most of them will escape back to Troy.’
Eperitus looked at Odysseus, whose stern eyes were determined to kill as many of the enemy as possible, and shook his head.
‘I can’t.’
Odysseus shot him a questioning look. ‘Can’t?’
‘I saw my father on the walls. He’s here, somewhere in the city. I have to find him.’
‘Apheidas is here! Are you sure?’
Eperitus nodded and Odysseus raised his eyebrows.
‘Then I’ll come with you. Diomedes and Achilles can lead the pursuit, and Antiphus can command the Ithacans . . .’
‘No, Odysseus,’ Eperitus replied. ‘Sarpedon and Aeneas will fight a hard rearguard and the men will need you to lead them. Besides, I have to face Apheidas by myself. You understand that.’
‘Of course,’ Odysseus answered. He gripped Eperitus’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. ‘Go and do what you have to, and may Athena protect you.’
With that, he turned and looked up at the walls, where Diomedes was giving orders for the captives to be properly treated.
‘Come on, you old war dog! Leave the prisoners to the guards; there’s still plenty of fighting to be had down here.’
‘And I’ll be in the thick of it before you are, you red-headed laggard,’ Diomedes shouted back.
Eperitus left them and ran after the fleeing Lycians and Dardanians, hoping for a glimpse of his father. The force under Sarpedon and Aeneas had already disappeared from sight, but here and there lone soldiers were still running from the walls, desperate to escape death or capture at the hands of the victorious Greeks. Ahead of him was a stumbling figure, covered in blood and clutching at the stump of his arm. Eperitus caught up with him and grabbed his shoulder.
‘Where’s Apheidas?’ he demanded.
The man stared at him blankly, his brown face pale from shock and loss of blood. Eperitus shoved him aside and ran on to where a young soldier, barely more than a boy, was cowering in a doorway. He shrieked as Eperitus sprinted up to him, sword still in hand, and could only shake his head in terror as the same question was pressed on him.
Cursing, Eperitus left him and ran on down the street, his heart beating fast with the fear that his father would escape. He had waited too long to face him and despite his earlier doubt he was now filled with an urgent need to confront Apheidas. He reached a turn in the street and saw a small market square ahead of him. The tail of the enemy rearguard was marching across it, heading towards the gate in the northern wall of the city. An archer recognized his old-fashioned but unmistakeably Greek shield and called to his comrades, who loosed a dozen hasty arrows towards him. They were hopelessly out of range, though, and the nearest bounced harmlessly off the wall beside his head.
Unfazed, Eperitus scanned the retreating army for sight of his father, but knew in his heart that he was not among them. Seeing a narrow side road, he dashed down it as more arrows sailed down to stick into the earth around his running feet.
Soon he was losing himself among the dark, deserted alleyways of Lyrnessus, hoping beyond hope that he would stumble across Apheidas among the shadows. But every door was closed and the windows he passed revealed only empty rooms, devoid of all removable possessions. The city’s population had abandoned their homes in a hurry, fearful of the slaughter, rape and enslavement that a triumphant Greek army would bring. Even the dogs had gone, leaving the streets and marketplaces temporarily bereft of the signs of civilized life.