Achilles darted forward, but too late.
Helen closed her eyes and fell backward into the void.
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.