The man looked relieved. The plan had been for archers to kill the Trojan sentries silently—no easy task when shooting arrows at night toward men in armor on a high wall.
“Stay back here with your men until the wall is taken,” Achilles told him.
The sky was starting to lighten, the dawn not far off. Achilles swept his gaze over the waiting warriors. He had handpicked them with care. They were fearless and able.
Gesturing them to follow him, Achilles ran down toward the stockade. The tall lean figure of Patroklos came loping alongside on his right. To his left was Thibo.
As he ran, Achilles continued to scan the stockade wall. Could this be a trap? Might they have a hundred archers lying in wait? His mouth was dry. If so, they would show themselves when Achilles and his men were around thirty paces from the wall. At that point the attackers would be at optimum killing range.
Achilles ran on. Fifty paces to go. Forty.
Thibo cut across him from the left. Patroklos moved in from the right. They, too, had estimated the killing range and were forming a shield in front of him.
For the next few paces Achilles’ heart was pounding. His eyes were raking the ramparts, expecting at any moment to see archers rearing up, bows bent, bronze-headed shafts notched to the string.
But there was no movement, and the Thessalian force reached the foot of the stockade. Achilles swung toward Patroklos, who was standing with his back to the wall. The slim warrior nodded, cupped his hands, and steadied himself. Achilles lifted a foot into the linked hands and levered himself up. Using the wooden wall for balance, he stepped up again, this time to Patroklos’ shoulder.
He was just below the parapet now. Straightening his legs, he glanced over the battlements. Two sentries were asleep a little way to his right. Climbing smoothly to the ramparts, he drew both swords and moved quietly toward the sleeping men. In the last of the moonlight he could see that one of them was little more than a boy.
That was all he would ever be.
Achilles’ sword plunged into the lad’s neck. The dying boy gave a low, gurgling groan. The second sentry opened his eyes. He saw Achilles and tried to cry out. Achilles slammed his second blade into the man’s throat with such force that it cut through the spine and buried itself in the wooden wall beyond.
Dragging his sword clear, Achilles ran down the rampart steps to the gate. It was held closed by a thick bar of timber. Putting his shoulder to it, Achilles lifted it clear and opened the gates.
Silently the warriors entered the barracks building, creeping forward to stand alongside each bed. Achilles waited at the door until all the men were in place. Lifting his hand, he gave the signal for them to ready themselves. Swords glinted in the gloom, blades poised over fifty doomed men.
Achilles’ hand slashed downward. Fifty swords plunged home. Some of the victims died without ever waking; others cried out and struggled briefly. None survived.
Walking from the barracks, Achilles made his way to the gates. He could see sailors from his galley bringing armor, helms, and shields for his warriors. Beyond them more soldiers were gathering on the beach. Two sailors approached him, bearing his armor and shield. Achilles strapped on his black breastplate, settling the shield in place on his left arm.
He glanced up. High on the cliffs above was King’s Joy.
According to the spies, it was still the residence of Paris and Helen. Agamemnon had ordered that Helen be captured, Paris and the children put to death. Achilles understood the need for the children to be slain. If allowed to live, they would, when grown, seek blood vengeance against the men who had killed their father. Killing the children of enemies was therefore regrettable but necessary.
Despite that, Achilles fervently hoped that Helen and her children were absent this night.
High in the palace of King’s Joy, Helen lay awake in her bed, listening to her husband pace the floor. These nights Paris scarcely slept, and she listened to the soft, relentless sound of his bare feet padding back and forth on the rugs of the antechamber.
Helen sighed. She loved her husband dearly but missed the quiet scholarly young man she had married long before this dreadful winter with its constant rumors of war and invasion. Long before the death of Dios, the pressure had changed Paris beyond all recognition.
When they had met four years earlier, Helen had been a refugee from Sparta. Timid and quiet, she had been terrified in this strange foreign city, with its haughty jeweled women who looked with disdain at her plain clothes and plump little body.
Brought up in the harsh life of the Spartan court, raised among boys and men whose only thoughts were of war and conquest, Helen had found Paris delightfully different. His shyness hid a wry sense of humor, and his curiosity about the world was entirely at odds with the young men she was used to. He taught her to read and write, for he was gathering a scriptorium of documents from all the lands of the Great Green. He pointed out to her the various colored birds that flew over Troy and explained how they traveled from land to land with the seasons. He had a water tank made of marble and silver and brought her sea horses to keep in it so that together they could watch the births and deaths and daily lives of those small creatures. When they married quietly, she was full of joy and felt that the rest of her days would be blessed by the gods.
The blackness of night outside was turning to dark gray, and Helen listened for movement in the next bedroom, where her two children were sleeping. Four-year-old Alypius rarely slept past dawn, and once awake, he always woke his little sister, Philea. But the silence now was total apart from the soft padding of bare feet.
Throwing back the covers, she pulled a warm shawl around her shoulders, then stepped out into the antechamber.
Paris was still dressed in the heavy brown robe he had been wearing the previous day. His head was down, and he failed to notice her.
“You should rest, my love,” she said, and he turned around. For a heartbeat his face looked gaunt and gray and exhausted. Then he saw her, and his features lit up.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, coming over to her and taking her in his arms. “I keep dreaming of Dios.”
“I know,” she said. “But the dawn is coming, and you must have some rest. I will sit with you and hold your hand.”
He slumped down on a chair, and she saw with despair his face falling into its familiar lines of grief and guilt.
“I should have done something,” he said for the thousandth time.
Over the winter she had found only three ways to reply: “You are not a soldier.” “It all happened so quickly.” “There was nothing you could have done.” But this time she said nothing, merely held his hand.
She glanced out of the balcony doors, where the darkness was fading toward dawn, and a movement caught her eye. She frowned.
“Look, my love. What’s that?”
Paris followed her gaze; then they both stood and walked, entranced, onto the balcony. The dark sky to the east was alive with hundreds of bright lights dropping toward the land. Each appeared and then disappeared in a flash.
“They are moon fragments,” he told her, his voice full of wonder.
“Are they dangerous?” Helen shot a nervous glance back toward the room where her children slept.
He smiled for the first time in days. “Most people believe the moon is Artemis’ chariot, but I think it is a hot metal disk which throws off these splinters. Sometimes they stay in the sky, and we call them stars, but some fall to earth, as these have. It is a lucky omen, my love.” He put his arms around her, and she could feel the tension easing from him. “They are far away and will not harm us.” He yawned. “Perhaps I will sleep now for a while.”