Fall of Kings

CHAPTER SIXTEEN BATTLE FOR THE SCAMANDER

Kalliades leaned against a dripping tree trunk and peered into the darkness in the direction of Troy. The rainy night was as thick as a blindfold around his eyes. He turned back to where he could just see the hundred warriors sitting gloomily around sputtering campfires. Having ridden from Dardanos with all speed, they were merely half a day from the Golden City but had been forced to halt by the moonless night. They were all frustrated and angry and consoled only by the fact that there would be no fighting at Troy until the dawn.

Kalliades had been a soldier since he was fifteen. He had been in hundreds of battles, had suffered the dry mouth and full bladder before a fight, had seen friends suffer a slow agonized death from a belly thrust or the poison of gangrene. It was the same for every man waiting in that woody glade. Yet they were all, to a man, desperate for the first glimmer of dawn so that they could mount up, ride to Troy, and take on the Mykene army. Many of them would die.

Perhaps they all would.

The messenger from Priam to the Dardanos garrison had arrived tired and travel-stained at Parnio’s Folly. Banokles and Kalliades had ridden down to speak to him where he stood on the other side of the chasm. Banokles had ordered him to cross, and the man had looked doubtfully at the single narrow span Khalkeus’ workers had erected so far. But he was a Royal Eagle, and his head was high and his stride confident as he crossed the narrow bridge. Only as he stepped on to safe ground could they see the fear in his eyes and the sweat on his brow.

“General,” he said to Banokles, who scowled, “Troy is under attack! Agamemnon has landed hundreds of ships at the Bay of Herakles. King’s Joy is taken, and Prince Paris is dead. Our infantry is trying to stop them at the river Scamander. King Priam commands you to ride to the city’s aid.”

Kalliades glanced at his friend and saw the excitement on his face.

“We’ll ride immediately,” Banokles replied, not trying to conceal his delight. “We’ll leave a small force here and take my Thrakians.”

“Not the Thrakians,” the messenger said, lowering his voice as both Trojan and Thrakian soldiers started to gather. “The king wants only loyal Trojan soldiers to come to the defense of the city. He said the Thrakians were to guard the fortress of Dardanos.”

Kalliades snorted. Had everyone in Troy forgotten that he and Banokles had been Mykene soldiers only a few years previously? He gave orders that the messenger be given food and water, then said to Banokles, “It is all very well to say ‘ride immediately.’ But how? A man can walk across this bridge, but we cannot take horses across. And it is an extra day’s ride to go around.”

The stocky figure of Khalkeus, who had been hovering within earshot, pushed forward and said impatiently, “It is a simple problem, easily solved. My workmen will fix a line of sturdy planks crosswise along the length of the bridge, widening it to the pace of a tall man. Then the horses can be blindfolded and led across in single file. It is quite simple,” he repeated.

“Will it take their weight?” Banokles asked doubtfully.

“Of course,” the engineer said irritably. “It will take whatever weight I choose it to take.”

Kalliades glanced at the sky. “How long will it take?”

“As long as it takes to stop answering stupid questions.” The redheaded engineer turned on his heel and started hurling orders at his workmen. Within moments, men were sawing planks and others were running to fetch more timber.

Kalliades and Banokles walked back to where Tudhaliyas waited quietly with his men, already dressed to ride.

“Will you join us in the defense of Troy?” Kalliades asked, though he could guess the Hittite’s answer.

Tudhaliyas shook his head ruefully. “No, my friend. And you would not want me to. If my men and I were to fight for Troy, then my father could never agree to come to the city’s aid. As it is, I shall return and send word of your plight, and maybe the emperor will send an army.”

“Priam might well prefer the aid of your three hundred men now than a Hittite army camped at his gates some day in the future,” Kalliades said. “That might seem more like a threat than the helping hand of an ally.”

Tudhaliyas smiled. “Perhaps you are right. War makes friends of enemies and enemies of friends, does it not, Mykene?”

With that he turned and mounted his horse, and the Hittite warriors set off toward the north.

Banokles hawked and spit on the ground. “Good riddance,” he said. “Never liked the cowsons.”

Kalliades sighed. “Those three hundred cowsons would have been very useful,” he said. “As it is, it’s just you and me and our fifty of the Horse.”

“I will ride with you, General, with my fifty,” said a voice.

The Thrakian leader Hillas, Lord of the Western Mountain, strode down the defile toward them. His hair and beard were braided, and his face was adorned with blue streaks in the Kikones fashion.

“Priam says the Thrakian warriors should stay here and defend Dardanos,” Banokles said reluctantly. “I don’t know why. Any one of you Kikones boys is worth two of his poxy Eagles.”

Hillas chuckled. “We all know that if Troy falls, Dardanos is lost. Then the Kikones will never regain their homeland. I have pledged my allegiance to King Periklos, and I will fight for him in Troy. My men will ride with you whether we’re wanted or not. Priam will not reject our aid when we stand before him with Mykene heads on our lances.”

Now, in the rain-dark wood, Kalliades gave up wishing the dawn would come and returned to the campfire, where Banokles was lying on his back in his armor.

“We’ll be in Troy tomorrow,” Banokles said happily. “We’ll have a good fight, kill a hundred of the bastard enemy, then I’ll go home and see Red and have a few jugs of wine.”

“The perfect day,” Kalliades remarked.

Banokles lifted his head and turned to him, firelight glinting on his blond hair and beard. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

Kalliades lay down beside him on the wet grass. “Nothing,” he said, and he realized it was true. He was cold and rain-soaked and hungry, facing a battle the next day against overwhelming odds, yet he felt a rare sense of contentment.

He smiled. “I think we’ve spent too long together, Banokles,” he said. “I’m getting more like you every day.”

He saw his friend frown in the firelight and open his mouth to reply, but suddenly there was a commotion of stamping and neighing among the tethered horses. Some of the men climbed wearily to their feet to calm the horses.

Banokles said, “It’s that big bastard black horse again, causing trouble. I don’t know why we brought it with us.”

“Yes, you do,” Kalliades told him patiently. “You were there when Hektor said the horse should be treated with honor as a hero of Troy. We couldn’t leave a Trojan hero with Vollin and his Thrakians.”

As well as their own mounts, the small force from Dardanos was leading the last twelve of Helikaon’s golden horses, three of them pregnant mares, and the great horse that had jumped the chasm with Queen Halysia and her son on his back.

“We ought to call it something,” Banokles said thoughtfully. “We can’t just keep calling it ‘that big bastard horse.’ It ought to have a name.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Ass Face.”

There were quiet chuckles from the listening men around the campfire. “You call all your horses Ass Face, Banokles,” said the rider sitting next to him.

“Only the good ones,” Banokles said indignantly.

“We should call it Hero,” Kalliades suggested.

“That’s it, Hero,” Banokles said. “Good name. Perhaps he’ll be less trouble now that he’s got a name.” He shifted uncomfortably where he lay and with a grunt of satisfaction pulled a small branch out from under him.

“By Ares, that was a leap, though, wasn’t it?” he went on. “Would you have made it, do you think?”

Kalliades shook his head. “I wouldn’t have even tried.”

“I wish I’d seen it,” Banokles mused. “That must have been a sight. With the queen and the boy on his back.”

He was silent for a moment. “Shame she died. That queen, I mean. After a jump like that.”

Kalliades thought how Banokles had changed over the years. In the days when they first had fought together, he had talked only of drinking, rutting, and battles he had fought. His proudest boast was that he could piss up a tree higher than any man.

But the last few years had mellowed him. Kalliades knew that his marriage to Red was responsible. He adored his wife and made no secret of it. His ambition now, he often told Kalliades, was to win the war and retire with honor from the Trojan Horse and start a small farm with Red. Kalliades could not see him as a farmer, but he never told his friend that.

When the priestess Piria had died, Banokles had been genuinely saddened. He rarely mentioned her, though once, when Kalliades did, Banokles said shortly, “She died in battle saving her friend’s life, didn’t she? What any warrior worth the name would do.” Then he would say no more.

And here he was, Banokles One-Ear, speaking with respect of a dead woman he never had met.

“General!” Kalliades was pulled from his reverie by a soldier’s shout. “Dawn’s coming! We can ride!”

Echios the Rhodian hated blood. Mixed with mud on the flat plain of the Scamander, it was slippery and treacherous. Drying on the hilt of a sword, it stuck like horse glue and made the weapon hard to handle.

A fifteen-year veteran of Troy’s Scamandrian regiment, Echios had fought in the distant south in Lykia, as far east as Zeleia, and in the snowy northern mountains of Thraki, but he never had thought he’d be facing an enemy army in front of the Golden City.

A sword flashed toward his face. Swaying to his right, Echios swept up a vicious two-handed cut that glanced off the edge of the enemy’s shield and smashed into his face. The soldier was punched from his feet. Echios stepped over him.

At first light the Scamandrians had engaged the Mykene phalanx south of the river. The Mykene veterans were heavily armored and in a tight formation. There was no give in them, and step by step through the long morning they had pushed the Trojan forces back toward the riverbank. The Scamandrians were fighting on the right, the Heraklion regiment to the left. The bastard Heraklions were the first ones to give, Echios thought, and the day would have been lost except for a nearly suicidal cavalry charge. A hundred Trojan Horse, the last in the city, smashed into the flank of the Mykene phalanx, a huge man on a great charger at their head. Echios and the beleaguered defenders had cheered as they saw it was Antiphones, the king’s fat son. That side of the phalanx crumpled, and the Trojan infantry rushed in, hacking and cutting. Since then it had been steady hand-to-hand slaughter. The Trojans were gaining ground step by bloody step.

A Mykene warrior slashed wildly at him, off balance in the mud and blood, and Echios dodged the cut, deflecting it off his shield. Mykene armor rose high around the throat, and so the Trojan dropped to one knee under his shield and speared his sword up into the man’s groin. As he fell, his helm came off. Echios, leaping up, chopped him across the brow, scattering his brains. Echios then stepped over him.

He risked a glimpse to his right, where his little brother, Boros, was fighting. He could not see him, but it was hard to tell one blood-covered warrior from another. Echios worried about his brother. He had suffered a sword cut to the head in a skirmish in Thraki and could not see well out of his left eye. Boros had told no one, fearing losing his place, and so Echios had found him a tower shield. It was an old-fashioned piece of equipment, and the other men laughed at him, but it protected his left side better than any round buckler could. He wondered if the boy was still alive.

A blood-drenched figure stepped in front of him, a Thessalian by his fancy armor. Echios deflected the sword thrust on his shield, then drove his sword into the Thessalian’s neck. Fancy armor but no neck protection, he thought as the man fell in front of him, his lifeblood gouting out of his throat.

An enemy stumbled to the mud in front of him with a great wound in his thigh. Echios plunged his sword into the man’s face. He shuddered and lay still.

A huge Mykene ran at him. He was fast and powerful, and the speed of his attack surprised Echios. Their blades met time and again, and Echios was forced back. The Mykene grinned at him arrogantly. Again he attacked, and Echios sent back a savage riposte that opened a wound in the man’s cheek. Now it was Echios pushing forward, but the Mykene parried each stroke. Suddenly the Mykene stepped in, their blades clashed, and the Mykene sent a right hook at Echios’ face. Echios grunted and fell back, stumbling in the mud. The Mykene swept his sword at Echios’ head. Echios dodged and lanced his sword up into the Mykene’s belly. As the enemy soldier fell, Echios paused for a breath, then stepped over his body.

He realized his sword was getting blunt. He always carried a spare on his back, but he’d used that one already. He’d have to watch out for a sharper one. After all, there was a chance he’d meet Achilles the Slayer. Everyone knew he was out there somewhere. Look for the thick of the fight, they said; that’s where he’ll be. Just like Hektor, Echios thought. And we could do with him right now. He’ll be here in five days, General Thyrsites said. With the Trojan Horse. Then these pigging Mykene won’t know what hit them.

In front of him a Trojan rider he knew called Olganos had been unhorsed. He was bleeding from several wounds and seemed dazed. Two enemy soldiers ran at him. Echios hurdled the horse’s dead body and lunged at one of the soldiers. His sword skewered into the man’s armpit and broke. He dived forward and swept up the man’s fallen sword, rolling to his feet. The second man lanced his blade into Olganos’ chest before Echios could hammer the sword into his skull. Olganos fell facedown in the mud and lay still. Echios stepped over the bodies.

Above the clash of battle and the screams of the dying he heard the sound of hoofbeats. There was no enemy soldier facing him, so he risked turning to look back toward the river.

Galloping over the plain and thundering across one of the temporary bridges toward them came a troop of riders led by a big warrior with golden hair and beard. He was waving two swords, and his mouth was open in a battle cry as he rode. Behind him Echios could see Trojan Horse and painted tribesmen.

Reinforcements, Echios thought. About pigging time!

He turned back to the battle just in time to glimpse the killing blow that took out his throat.

Later that afternoon Banokles sat on the south bank of the Scamander, washing blood and mud out of his hair and beard. The water trickled under his armor, and its coldness felt good against his hot skin. He had no wounds except for a nick on the arm from a deflected arrow. He was tired and hungry.

The river was red with gore, and men and horses floated there, moving swiftly down toward the bay. On the other bank he could see the figure of Kalliades walking among the wounded, dispatching enemy soldiers with his sword, calling stretcher bearers to Trojans and their allies. Youngsters were running among the wounded and dead, collecting arrows and abandoned swords and shields. Overhead, carrion birds gathered.

Nearby six men were trying to drag a dead horse out of the water. Banokles stood up angrily. “Our men first, you morons!” he shouted. “Not the poxy horses!” The soldiers hurried to obey, and he slumped down again. His back ached, and his stub of an ear itched intolerably.

I’m getting too old for this, he thought.

A vast shadow fell across him, and he looked up.

“Well done, Banokles,” said the king’s son Antiphones. Despite his bulky frame, he also seemed to be carrying no wounds. “Your ride was well timed, thank the war god Ares. We had the enemy on their back foot already. Your charge was the straw that broke the donkey’s back.”

“Some donkey,” Banokles grunted. “Best soldiers in the world, Mykene infantry.”

“Nevertheless, General, we were the better men today.”

“Not a general anymore,” Banokles said happily. “I was ordered to leave my Thrakians in Dardanos.”

“Yet some came with you, regardless,” the prince said, amusement in his voice.

Banokles shrugged. “I’m no good as a general, then. So dismiss me.”

Antiphones laughed then, and his bass bellow rang out rich and clear over the battlefield.

“To me you are a hero, Banokles,” he said. “I would grant any wish for you that was in my power. But I fear the king may see things differently.”

“The king?”

“We are commanded to attend King Priam at his palace immediately, you and I. So find a horse and come with me.” He turned away.

“Not me,” Banokles said stubbornly, staying where he was. “I’m going to see my wife first.”

Antiphones turned back. “Ah, yes, I remember. You are married to Big Red, the… former whore.”

“That’s right,” Banokles told him proudly. “She’s a good wife. She’ll be missing me and wondering where I am with all this fighting going on down here.”

“Kings take precedence over wives,” the fat man said impatiently. “Come with me,” he repeated.

“What about Kalliades?”

“By Hades, man,” Antiphones exploded in exasperation. “Who is Kalliades?”

“He’s my fr—my aide. Over there.” He pointed in the direction of the battlefield.

“You can send for your aide when you have spoken to Priam. Now, come with me before I have you arrested and brought to the king in chains.”

During the slow ride up to the city Banokles looked longingly down the Street of Potters where his small white house was situated. He wondered if Red was there now, waiting.

At Priam’s palace he and Antiphones dismounted and entered the megaron. Banokles looked around with interest. It was the first time he had been there since the palace siege when he and Kalliades had been among the besiegers. He remembered with nostalgia the battle on the stairs, the great Argurios, unconquerable, turning back the Mykene invaders with relentless strength and skill. Banokles rubbed the scar on his arm where Argurios’ sword had punched through it. He remembered the arrival of Hektor, godlike in his power, and the shield wall where the invaders had planned to make their last stand, then their mysterious retreat to the ships and the screams of Kolanos.

Banokles smiled grimly. That was a day to remember, all right.

When the king came down the stairs, Banokles’ eyes narrowed. He last had seen Priam in a parade at the summer’s end. Then he had looked strong and powerful, waving to the troops from his golden chariot. The change in him was shocking. Priam was a frail old man, leaning on his aide’s arm on one side and a wooden staff on the other. His face was as white as papyrus, and his steps uncertain. His aide, Polydorus, helped him to his throne, and the king sat down wearily, staring at the stone-flagged floor. Behind him stood a scrawny man Banokles knew was the chancellor Polites. Six Royal Eagles flanked the throne.

Finally Priam looked up. When he spoke, his voice was cracked and feeble.

“So this is the great Banokles, the hero who never loses, who turns the battle with every charge. Do you not kneel before your king, General Banokles?”

Banokles stepped forward. “I was taught soldiering as a Mykene, Priam King. In Mykene lands we do not kneel before our kings. We show our loyalty in our every action.”

The king smiled thinly. “It might not be wise to remind me you once fought in this megaron with every intention of killing me. But for the hero Argurios you would have been slaughtered where you stood, along with your fellows.”

“Well,” Banokles said, “you see, Argurios was Mykene, as you know.”

“Enough!” The king’s voice thundered out, suddenly full of power. “You are not here to debate me, soldier!”

“Now,” Priam said, leaning forward in his throne, “my son Hektor gave you leadership of the Thrakians because you gathered a loyal army in your retreat across Thraki. It seemed to me then a mistake to put a fool in charge. But now it appears Hektor was right and you are a lucky fool.”

Banokles opened his mouth to speak, but Priam silenced him. “Be quiet and listen, soldier! My general Thyrsites, the idiot, got himself killed in the battle today, so I need a new general for the Scamandrian regiment. I’ll take a lucky fool before an unlucky genius any day. So you are a general again, Banokles, general of the finest infantry force in the world.”

“Yes, but I think—” Banokles started.

The king stood up angrily. His anger had rejuvenated him, and Banokles could see the powerful man he once had been. “If you argue with me again, General Banokles, I will have my Eagles kill you where you stand!”

There was an angry silence, and then Banokles said mildly, “What about Kalliades?”

The king frowned. “Kalliades? I know that name. Ah, yes, the tall soldier who took command of the Mykene invaders after the arrest of Kolanos. What of him?”

“He’s my friend.”

Antiphones stepped in hastily. “He is the general’s aide, Father.”

“Then he will continue to be his aide. Now”—he turned to his son—“Antiphones, report.”

“The enemy has been forced back again to the earthwork they erected at the foot of the pass, Father. We calculate they lost at least a thousand over the two days of battle on the plain.”

“And our own dead?”

“Slightly less. Maybe seven hundred dead and two hundred so grievously wounded that they will not fight again soon, if ever. A hospital has been set up on the edge of the lower town, in the Ilean barracks. Many of our physicians and healers have moved there from the House of Serpents.”

“And the Ilos regiment?”

Antiphones shrugged. “They are soldiers. They will rest wherever they can.”

Priam looked around him. “And where is General Lucan? The Heraklions are not represented here.”

“The Heraklion regiment is still on the field. I thought it best to leave one general at the Scamander in case of a further attack tonight.”

“Do you expect such an attack?”

“No.”

Priam nodded. “My Hektor will be here in three or four days. We have only to hold until then. When the main force of the Trojan Horse arrives, these western jackals will be driven back to the sea, their tails between their legs.”

Banokles saw Antiphones and Polites exchange a glance. Priam saw it, too.

He leaned forward in his throne. “I know you think me an old fool, my sons. But my confidence in Hektor has never been misplaced. The Trojan Horse always prevails. It won at Kadesh, and it will win here. Agamemnon and his lackeys will be driven back to the pass. We will retake the pass and King’s Joy. Then the enemy will find itself trapped in the Bay of Herakles, with Hektor on one side and our ships on the other. We will pick them off like fleas off a dog.”

“At present, however, our fleet is trapped in the Bay of Troy, with Agamemnon’s ships holding the Hellespont,” Antiphones pointed out. “The Dardanian fleet was crippled in the sea battle off Carpea. And we don’t know where Helikaon is.”

Priam dismissed this impatiently. “When the Xanthos returns, Aeneas will deal with the enemy ships. All fear his fire hurlers. He will destroy the fleet as he destroyed the one at Imbros; then he will break the blockade of the Hellespont.”

Antiphones shook his head. “We cannot be sure the Golden Ship even survived the winter,” he argued. “We have heard nothing since the turn of the year. We cannot rely on Helikaon.” He paused. “You expect a lot from two men, even heroes like Hektor and Helikaon,” he added with a hint of impatience.

The king rounded on him. “Two men like them are worth a thousand of the likes of you! I despise you, all you naysayers and doom-mongers. My Hekabe warned me against you. Remember the prophecy, she said. Troy will prevail and be eternal.”

He sat back exhausted and for a while seemed deep in thought. The silence stretched, and Banokles shifted on his feet, anxious to be off.

When Priam spoke at last, his voice had become sharp and querulous. “Where is Andromache? Bring her to me. I have not seen her today.”

Polites spoke for the first time. He placed his hand on his father’s shoulder and said in a voice of great gentleness, “She is not here, Father. She is aboard the Xanthos with Aeneas.” He glared at Antiphones, then said, “Come, Father, you need your rest.”

“I need some wine,” the old man retorted, but he stood up uncertainly and allowed himself to be led back to the stone staircase.

Antiphones turned to Banokles with a sigh. “By the war god Ares, I hope Hektor gets here soon,” he said.

Free at last, Banokles hurried from the megaron, climbed on his waiting horse, and galloped back down through the city. The Scaean Gate, now closed all day as well as at night, was opened for him, and he sped toward the Street of Potters, his heart full. His mind already had shrugged off the problems of the day, the burdens of leadership, and the battles that awaited tomorrow in his eagerness to see Red.

He threw himself off his horse as he reached his home and only then realized that a crowd had gathered at the small white house.

A neighbor, a potter called Alastor, ran up to him, his face pale. “Banokles, my friend…”

Banokles grabbed him by the front of his tunic and looked around at the men’s anxious faces, the women’s red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

“What’s happening?” he thundered. He shook Alastor. “What in Hades is going on?”

“It’s your wife, Red,” the man stuttered.

Banokles threw him to one side and rushed into the house. Lying on a sheet of white linen in the center of the main room was Red. Her body had been washed and clothed in a white gown, but no one could hide the blue sheen to her face or the dark bruises around her neck.

Banokles fell to the floor beside her, his mind in shock, his thoughts in turmoil.

“Red.” He took her shoulders and shook her gently. “Red!” But her body was stiff and cold under his trembling hands.

Banokles stood, his face white with fury, and the people crowding around him moved back nervously.

“What happened? You, potter! What happened?” He advanced menacingly toward the frightened man.

“It was the old baker, my friend,” Alastor told him. “The one who made the honey cakes she loved. He strangled her, Banokles, then opened his own throat with a knife. He is out there.” He gestured to the courtyard.

“He told his daughter he loved Red and couldn’t live without her. He was leaving the city and wanted her to go with him, but she refused him. He asked her over and over, but she laughed at him.”

But Banokles wasn’t listening. With an anguished roar he threw himself into the paved courtyard, where he found the small form of Krenio lying on the ground, one of Red’s gowns tightly gripped in one hand, the other holding a knife. His blood had soaked the ground around his head.

Banokles tore the dress from the man’s hand and flung it furiously to one side. Then he drew his dagger and drove it into the baker’s chest. Shouting incoherently, tears running down his face, he plunged the knife over and over into the dead man’s body.