Kalliades started in that direction, but from the corner of his eye he saw movement to his right. He blocked a savage thrust, slashing his sword across the man’s neck in a deadly riposte. Glancing left, he raised his shield just in time to block a blow from an ax. He lost his footing in the mud, and the axman swung at him again. He rolled away desperately.
Then a Trojan soldier leaped at the axman, slashing at his arm but catching him with a glancing blow on his mailed shoulder. The axman turned to the young soldier and swung the ax at his head. The Trojan carried an old tower shield, and the ax deflected off its edge. As the axman raised his weapon again, Kalliades leaped up and thrust his sword between the man’s back ribs. He wrenched it out as the man fell heavily.
Kalliades nodded his thanks to the youngster with the tower shield and turned back to see where Banokles was. He could not see him. Kalliades glanced around. Even in the middle of a battle Kalliades could feel the way it was going, and he knew the Trojans were making ground.
He swept aside a sword thrust to his belly from the right and killed the man with a lightning riposte to the throat.
A gap had opened up in front of him, and again he spotted Banokles, fighting with controlled intensity, his two swords flashing and darting, keeping the surrounding enemy at bay. Kalliades ran toward him, hurdled a body, and slashed his sword across the raised arm of a Thessalian soldier. The man stood for a moment, staring at his ruined arm. Kalliades lanced his sword into the Thessalian’s throat.
He saw that Banokles had lost one sword, so he picked up the Thessalian’s sword and yelled, “Banokles!” But in his full-faced helm Banokles did not hear him.
Kalliades saw a Mykene kill his Trojan opponent, then turn to see Banokles’ exposed back. Grinning, he raised his sword for a killing blow. Kalliades ran forward. But before the blow could fall, Banokles reversed his sword and thrust it, without looking, into the man’s belly.
Kalliades hacked his sword into the neck of one of Banokles’ opponents. He saw Banokles notice him and threw him the new sword. There was a pause while he looked around for his next target.
Banokles shouted, “Don’t worry, there are enough for both of us!”
Then the two friends were fighting back to back, the pile of enemy corpses around them growing.
And the long morning wore on.
Kalliades knew that the Scamandrians, fighting furiously, were battling their way slowly into the enemy ranks. But there lay the problem. The enemy cavalry on the wings, Thessalians and Kretans, would be trying to get around the sides of the Trojans and their allies, hoping to encircle them. Antiphones had only the small force of Trojan Horse and Zeleian cavalry to stop that from happening.
In a lull in the fighting Kalliades paused for breath. His sword arm was tired, and his legs felt as if they could not carry him another step. He and Banokles and a dozen or so Scamandrians were deep in the enemy ranks now. Around them were scores of dead and dying, some Trojans but mostly Mykene and warriors of Thessaly.
Banokles dispatched a heavily armored Mykene with a deft thrust to the side, then paused and glanced around to reorient himself. To their left they could see Trojan troops falling back in disarray. A giant warrior in black armor was driving into them, his swords moving like lightning, his body moving with awesome power and grace compared with the tired soldiers around him.
“Achilles!” Banokles shouted to Kalliades, pointing his sword in that direction. “That’s Achilles!”
Through the eye slits of his helm, Kalliades could see Banokles’ face light up with anticipation. He nodded to him, and the two set out to fight their way toward the Thessalian king.
Then there was a deep rumbling sound, and the blood-sodden earth beneath them started to vibrate.
“Earthquake!” Kalliades heard one man yell, and the cry was taken up all around them. The fighting started to falter as soldiers on both sides felt the ground tremble under their feet.
Kalliades found two Mykene corpses fallen one on top of the other. Steadying himself with a hand on Banokles’ shoulder, he climbed up onto them for a better view.
In the distance to the south, along the line of the Scamander, he could see a great dust cloud rising. As it came closer to the embattled armies, the rumbling in the ground increased. He grinned. Hoofbeats!
“It’s not an earthquake,” Kalliades shouted joyfully to his exhausted men. “It’s the Trojan Horse!”
Skorpios bent low over his gelding’s neck and felt the fear in his gut melting away as the Trojan Horse thundered across the plain toward the flank of the enemy.
Only moments before the riders had trotted their horses out of the tree line on the north bank of the Scamander where the oak-covered foothills ended and the river flowed fast toward the Bay of Troy. Then they had stopped, aghast at the sight of the battle being played out before them. Skorpios had had only heartbeats to take it in, the plain south of the Scamander filled with battling warriors, indistinguishable in their blood-and mud-covered armor. Then Hektor had plunged his great warhorse Ares into the foaming river, and the stallion had breasted his way across, followed quickly by the rest of the Trojan Horse.
Once on the southern bank, Hektor had not even turned to see if his men were getting safely across the fast-flowing river before drawing his sword and kicking his horse into a gallop toward the battle.
Skorpios, with Justinos beside him, was in the fourth rank of riders, bearing down on the enemy’s flank, his sword in hand. Rubbing the swirling dust from his eyes, he could see the enemy’s cavalry frantically trying to turn their mounts to face the new threat, but they were hampered by the bodies of horses and men littering the ground about them.
Hektor was already far ahead of the rest. His shield bearers Mestares and Areoan were trying their best to catch up with him, but few horses could keep pace with Ares at full gallop.
The gallant warhorse hit the panicking line of the enemy with the force of a battering ram. One horse fell screaming as Ares broke both of its front legs with the power of his attack. Hektor killed the injured horse’s rider with a blow to the head, and others fell back in disarray.
Then the shield bearers punched into the enemy ranks, too, followed by the rest of the Trojan Horse.
Skorpios slowed his mount to wait his turn as the riders in front of him plunged into the action. Then a Thessalian rider, breaking through the Trojan line, swept toward him with his lance leveled. Skorpios swayed to the left, and the lance point slashed to his right, plunging into his gelding’s flank. The gelding reared in pain, giving Skorpios the height to plunge his spear deep into the Thessalian’s throat. Maddened with pain, the gelding reared again, then fell.
Skorpios jumped clear and, rolling, rose to his feet, drawing his sword. He ran at the first rider he saw, a heavily armored Mykene. The man’s lance thrust toward him but glanced from his breastplate. Skorpios grabbed the lance and pulled; caught by surprise, the Mykene slid off his horse. Skorpios killed him with a lightning sword cut to the throat. Then, sheathing his sword, he grabbed the man’s horse by the mane and vaulted onto its back, lance in hand.
He looked around for someone else to kill. He saw that the enemy cavalry had buckled under the attack; some of the wounded riders were trying to make their way back, away from the field. Snarling, he sighted and threw the Thessalian lance at a fleeing rider. It hit the man in the center of his back, and he slumped from his mount. Skorpios punched the air in triumph.
“Skorpios!” He turned to see Justinos, his face and sword covered with blood. He was grinning. “Still want to be back on your father’s farm herding sheep?”
The red battle fury in Skorpios started to drain away as he saw that the enemy was fleeing to the west.