Fall of Kings

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT THE TROJAN HORSE

The horse was swimming. Skorpios knew the beasts could swim. Indeed, he had seen many swimming for their lives in the Hellespont after the battle of Carpea. But he had never sat astride a swimming horse. It was very peaceful. The sea was blue, although above them the sky was as black as pitch, and the moon hung on the horizon like a hole in the heavens. It was bigger than Skorpios had ever seen it, and his mount was floating toward it along a path of silver moonlight.

Looking about curiously, he saw that there were fish all around him. They were very big and were flashing past close to his legs. He wondered nervously if fish had teeth. He was answered when one swam up to him and nibbled his knee. It did not hurt, but it tickled him. He kicked out, and it darted away.

He noticed that Mestares was riding alongside him. His handsome face was corpse gray, and one arm appeared to be missing.

“The sea is red,” said the warrior.

Skorpios was surprised to see that it was red.

“Go back, Skorpios. Go back while you can,” said Mestares, smiling at him kindly.

Skorpios realized his leg was hurting now from the fish bite. And there was a pain in his side. He had been riding for too long. He was very tired. He turned his mount and headed away from the moon as Mestares had ordered, but it was dark that way, and he felt very much alone.

When he awoke, he did not want to move. He was lying on the ground with his back against something warm. He opened his eyes and saw his comrades sleeping around him. He realized it was full daylight and, with a groan, sat up.

Then he remembered. They had come in the night, an army of Mykene soldiers, hundreds of them. Caught by surprise, the Trojan horsemen had leaped quickly to defend themselves, and the battle had been vicious. But there had been too many of the enemy, and the Trojans had been unprepared. Skorpios had been gashed in the knee by a lance but had managed to kill the wielder, slicing his sword into the man’s inner thigh. He thought he had killed four or five of the enemy soldiers before he turned to see the pommel of a sword crashing toward his head.

His head still ached because of the noise of horses screaming. There was a pain in his side as well as in his knee, and one eye was gummy with blood. Moaning, he rolled over and got to his knees, then vomited on the ground. He looked around. It was still and silent in the woodland glade. Everywhere there were dead men and horses. He had been lying with his back to a bay stallion. It seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He could not see a wound. He thought it was Mestares’ mount, Warlord. Then he recalled his dream. He saw Mestares’ body lying close by, a broken sword through his belly, his open eyes full of dust.

Skorpios stood, clutching his side. He pulled aside his bloody shirt to look at the wound. A sword had gone cleanly through the flesh, and he could see the neat shape of the blade on his white skin. It was bleeding, but not much. He could not remember being wounded in the side. He checked his leg. It was a nasty gash and had bled heavily. But most of the blood on him seemed to have come from his head. He felt a clot of blood above his right ear. He tried to remember what his friend Olganos once had told him about bandaging wounds. Some had to be bandaged heavily, some left free to drain. He could not remember which was which.

His throat was parched, and he started looking for a water skin. It was only then that he realized that all the Trojan bodies, including his own, had been stripped of armor. They thought me dead, he said to himself.

He frowned. Looking around, he started to count the bodies of his comrades. There were not enough. Some got away, he thought, and his heart lifted.

Staggering around among the corpses of friends and foes, at last he found his own belongings, including a half-full water skin. He threw his head back and drank deeply. The taste was like nectar, and he felt strength flooding back into his body. The pain in his head receded a little.

Skorpios found bandages and wound one around his leg, sloshing some water onto the wound first. He looked at his side again and decided it would be impossible to bandage. He delved into other men’s bags until he had gathered some food. He found a full water skin. His best find was an unbroken sword hidden under the body of a Mykene soldier. He thrust it into the scabbard still hanging from his waist and instantly felt stronger. He picked up a bronze knife. It was blunt, but he took it anyway.

Then, with a last look at his dead comrades, he set out for the north, limping on his injured knee.

He had been traveling for some time, and his strength was failing, when he saw a stray horse cropping dry grass under a tree. It was trailing its reins and still had a lion-skin shabrack over its back. He whistled to it, and, well trained, it trotted over to him. From the decorative plaiting of the reins Skorpios thought it was a Mykene mount.

With effort he climbed onto its back, then turned again in the direction of Troy. He would meet the enemy soon, and when he did, he would kill as many of them as he could before he died.

He felt no fear.

“Great Zeus, I’m hungry!” Banokles complained. “My belly thinks my throat’s been sliced.”

“You’ve said that every day since we got here,” Kalliades pointed out.

“Well, it’s been true every day since we got here.”

They stood on the south wall of Troy, gazing down on the enemy armies. The ashes from Hektor’s funeral pyre still were floating by on the breeze. The massive pyre had burned all night, fueled by wood brought by Trojans from all parts of the city. Kalliades had seen young men carrying costly furniture to chop up for firewood and old men bearing armfuls of twigs from dead plants. Everyone wanted to play his part, however small, in the death rites for their hero.

Scented branches of cedar and fragrant herbs had been placed on top of the pyre, followed by Hektor’s body in a richly embroidered robe of gold, his dead hands clasped around his sword hilt, a gold ring in his mouth for the ferryman.

As the huge pyre blazed, Kalliades saw King Priam being helped out onto the balcony of the palace to watch. He was too far away to see the old man’s face, but Kalliades felt a stab of pity for him. Hektor had been the king’s favorite son, and, Kalliades believed, Priam loved him as much as he was capable of loving anyone. Now all his sons were dead except Polites. Priam had the boy Astyanax close by his side on the balcony. The child had cried out in excitement and clapped his hands as the crackling flames had climbed high into the night sky.

After the funeral rites, back on the walls the familiar lethargy had returned. The duel and the death of Hektor had angered the men, and the coming of rain had refreshed them. For two days they had walked with pride. Like Hektor, they were warriors of Troy and would fight to the last for the city. But quickly the lack of food and the long uneventful days had taken their toll, and they had lapsed into idleness and boredom again.

Kalliades was watching a dust cloud in the far distance. The dry earth had sucked all the rain into it, and the ground was as dusty now as it had been before the storm.

Boros the Rhodian was standing alongside Kalliades and Banokles. “Can you see what that is?” Kalliades asked the flaxen-haired lad. “Your eyes are younger than mine.”

“I’m not sure, sir,” the soldier admitted. “Is it a cow?”

Banokles looked at him in amazement. “Is what a cow, you moron?” he asked.

“Over there.” The young soldier was pointing toward the tomb of Ilos, where a stray bullock, destined for sacrifice, was chewing grass.

“I meant in the distance beyond the Scamander,” Kalliades said. “There is a cloud of dust, probably riders, maybe a battle.”

The soldier squinted his eyes and confessed, “I don’t know.”

Banokles suggested, “Perhaps it’s a herd of pigs being driven to Troy for roasting.” He frowned. “They’d have to be invisible pigs to get past the enemy. But,” he argued with himself, “we cannot open the gates, so how will they get in? Then they must be invisible poxy pigs with poxy wings, ready to fly over the walls straight onto spits.”

Kalliades smiled. Boros, apparently encouraged by his ramblings, said to Banokles, “General, I have a request.”

“What?” Banokles grunted without interest.

“When we have won this war, I would like to return to my family in Rhodos.”

“Why tell me? I don’t care what you do.” Banokles scowled at him.

Boros regarded the general uncertainly as he would an unknown and possibly dangerous dog, then said, “But I have no rings, sir. I have been with the Scamandrians more than a year, but I have only been paid once, at the Feast of Persephone, when I received three silvers and six coppers. That is all gone now, and my brother’s rings were plundered from his body. I cannot return to Rhodos unless we are paid.”

Banokles shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re worrying about getting home. We’ll probably all die here, anyway,” he said. “Of hunger,” he added gloomily.

Kalliades grinned and clapped his friend on the back. “What have I told you about motivating the men, General?” he asked.

Banokles grunted. “Well, there’s no point worrying about poxy rings when we’ve got these goat-shagging lumps of cow turd to deal with first.” He waved at the enemy camps below them.

Banokles was right. Besides, Kalliades knew there was nothing left in Priam’s treasury for the regular troops. The mercenaries from Phrygia, Zeleia, and the Hittite borders had been paid. Trojan troops, he thought, are expected to die for Troy without pay.

“If we live, I will see you get rings enough,” he promised Boros, knowing his promise was probably meaningless.

“More of the enemy have left,” the lad commented. “That is a good sign, isn’t it?” he asked hopefully.

“It is not a bad sign” was all Kalliades could say. They had watched as the Myrmidons had marched out along with two other armies, but he could not tell whose. He wondered at the political infighting between the western kings that had brought this about. Achilles had been poisoned, but by whom? It certainly had not been Hektor. Even the enemy did not believe that. His body had been returned to the city with honor by the soldiers of Thessaly. Had Achilles been murdered by someone on his own side? It was a mystery Kalliades knew he was unlikely ever to solve.

“What will you do if you return to Rhodos?” he asked Boros.

“I will join my father, who is a goldsmith. He will train me in his craft.”

Kalliades raised his eyebrows. “Great Zeus, lad, if my father were a goldsmith, I would have stayed at home and learned his trade and not sold my skills with a sword.”

“My mother is a Trojan woman, and she told me I must fight for the honor of our city. And she wanted me to find out if Echios was still alive. He was her firstborn, you see. She had not seen him for fifteen years.”

Banokles narrowed his eyes against the sunlight and commented, “Horsemen.”

The far dust cloud had resolved itself into two dust clouds, and both were heading for Troy. They were moving fast, as if one group of horsemen were chasing the other. Kalliades leaned forward on the battlement wall, frustrated by his inability to see more clearly at that distance. He glanced at Boros and saw that the young man was peering in the wrong direction. Kalliades moved as if to hit the lad on the left side of his face, pulling his punch at the last moment. Boros did not even flinch.

“Boros,” he said. Boros turned his head, then jumped when he saw Kalliades’ fist close to his face.

“Can you see anything out of your left eye?”

The lad shook his head. “No. I used to be able to see light and shadow, but that has gone now. Everything is dark. I was injured in Thraki, you see.”

Kalliades knew that a one-eyed soldier could not last long in a pitched battle. It was remarkable the lad was still alive.

He turned his attention back to the horsemen in the distance. There were two groups of riders. In front were about fifty men being chased at a furious pace by maybe two hundred. They had crossed the Scamander and were racing across the plain toward the city. The men on the walls shouted to their comrades to come and watch the race, and below them enemy soldiers were being ordered from tents and from the shadows of ruined houses. They were arming themselves quickly, putting on sword belts and helms, collecting lances and spears, bows and quivers of arrows.

Then someone cried out, “The Trojan Horse!”

Now Kalliades could see that the riders in front bore the black-and-white crested helms of Hektor’s cavalry. They were lying low on their horses’ necks, urging their mounts on with whipped reins and shouts. The chasing horsemen were hampered by the dust being thrown up by their quarry and had fallen back some way as both groups galloped up the slope from the plain toward the city.

As the front riders thundered across the wooden bridge into the lower town, enemy soldiers started loosing arrows at them, and from all sides lances and spears were thrown. Some appeared to hit their targets, and two horsemen on the edge of the group went down. The soldiers watching from the walls were yelling to urge their riders on.

Kalliades found his heart in his mouth as the leading horsemen galloped up through the ruined town. Come on, he thought. Come on, you can make it! The enemy riders seemed to have slowed further.

“Open the gates!” someone shouted, and the cry was picked up all along the walls. “Open the gates quickly. Open the gates! Let them in!”

Then realization hit Kalliades like a blow to the face. His blood went cold. “No!” he shouted. Pushing desperately through the ranks of cheering soldiers, he raced along the wall to the battlements above the Scaean Gate. Below him men were gathering eagerly to lift the massive locking bar and open the gates.

“No!” he bellowed down at them. “Stop! Don’t open the gates!” But his voice could not be heard above the shouts of hundreds of men, and he ran down the stone steps, waving his arms and yelling frantically.

“Don’t open the gates! By all the gods, don’t open the gates!”

But the massive oak doors already were groaning open, and with split-second timing, the riders thundered through the gap. There were more than fifty of them, garbed in the armor of the Trojan Horse and armed with spears. Their horses’ hooves kicked up a storm of whirling dust as they slowed and circled inside the gates. Behind them the guards started to close the gates again.

They were heaving the locking bar back into place when one of them fell with a spear in his belly.

Kalliades drew his sword and ran for the nearest rider. He shouted, “Kill them! They’re the enemy!” and lanced his blade into the man’s side, behind his breastplate.

He saw a sword sweeping toward his head from another rider. He ducked under the horse’s belly and leaped up to spear the man from the other side. As the rider fell, Kalliades grabbed his shield.

He glimpsed Banokles beside him. His friend powered into the enemy horesemen, slashing and killing. Kalliades shouted to him, “Defend the gates!” But both of them were blocked from reaching the gates by the press of horses and riders.

Kalliades gutted one enemy warrior and parried a blow from a second, backhanding his shield into the man’s face. He glanced desperately at the gates again. Enemy warriors in the stolen armor of the Trojan Horse had their hands to the locking bar and were attempting to lift it. Kalliades slashed and cut, pushed and shoved his way toward them. He brained one of the men with his shield and threw his weight onto the locking bar.

He realized that young Boros was at his side and yelled, “Help me here, soldier!”

Boros grinned at him, then punched him hard on the jaw.

As Kalliades staggered back, Boros kicked him in the face. Kalliades went flying, dazed, barely holding to consciousness. Bright lights were whirling around his head. He lay stunned, watching in horror as more of the enemy horsemen grabbed the great oak locking bar and heaved it off its brackets. The high gates started to open slowly and then more quickly as they were pushed from the outside.

And the enemy poured in.

Kalliades, lying shielded in the space behind one of the open doors, tried to get to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. Then he realized that the flaxen-haired soldier was standing looking down at him. As Kalliades tried to rise, the young man placed the point of his sword at Kalliades’ throat, pushing him back to the ground.

“Boros!” he whispered.

“Boros died long ago, at the battle for the Scamander,” the soldier replied triumphantly. “I am Asios, first son of Alektruon, loyal servant of Agamemnon King, and I am here to avenge my father and bring the proud Trojans to their knees.”

He leaned forward, pressing on the sword at Kalliades’ throat. Blood started to flow. Kalliades could not speak or move.

“It was so easy to take that idiot’s place when his entire company had been wiped out and when the general of his regiment couldn’t even be bothered to learn his soldiers’ names. And it amused me to fool the great Kalliades, the thinker, the planner—the traitor to Mykene. Die, then, traitor!”

His face hardened, and he tensed to thrust his sword through Kalliades’ neck. At that last moment Kalliades saw Banokles step up behind the boy, sword raised. With one ferocious sweep of his blade he beheaded him. Hitting the gate, the head bounced onto the ground.

Banokles put out his hand and dragged Kalliades to his feet. “He was talkative,” he observed. “Always a mistake. Are you all right?” Kalliades nodded, swallowing blood, still unable to speak.

“Come on, then,” Banokles said grimly. “We’ve got a city to die for.”