“Ajax Skull Splitter is here. I saw him in the thick of it,” Banokles said helpfully.
Kalliades nodded. “I saw him, too. Killed two of our men with one sweep of that great broadsword.”
“Still carrying that old tower shield, too.” Banokles’ face, normally grim these days, lightened at the memory. “Big heavy thing. No one else was strong enough to carry it all day. Like an ox, he was. Still is, I suppose.”
Hektor suddenly threw his head back and laughed, and many of the soldiers resting nearby smiled, the sound was so infectious. “I am sure Agamemnon has many champions eager to take me on, Banokles. I have heard of Ajax. He is a mighty warrior.”
Thinking of Ajax brought to Kalliades’ mind the young soldier who had saved his life.
He asked, “Does anyone know the name of a young Trojan who also carries a tower shield?”
Hektor said without hesitation, “Boros. He and his brother are from Rhodos, although their mother was Trojan. The brother, Echios, is dead, I’m told. Both Scamandrians.”
There was no reproach in his tone, but Kalliades felt foolish. He was an aide to the general of the Scamandrians, yet he knew few of his soldiers. Hektor could greet every man fighting for Troy by name, and he knew the names of their fathers. Only the mercenaries from Phrygia, Zeleia, and the Hittite lands were unknown to him.
Lucan pointed up toward the pass and asked impatiently, “When will we strike them, Hektor?”
Kalliades and Banokles glanced at each other. They all had been present that morning in the Amber Room at the palace when Priam had demanded an immediate attack on the pass and King’s Joy.
Hektor, sitting at ease in a great carved chair, a goblet of water in his hand, had said patiently, “Attacking the pass would be suicidal, Father. We could take the earthwork, though it would be costly in casualties, fighting uphill and unable to use the Trojan Horse. Then we could fight our way to the pass. But within the narrowest part of the pass there is only room for swordsmen to fight two abreast. Pitting their best warriors against ours would win a stalemate.”
“Except,” he went on, his words soft but emphatic, “they hold the cliffs above. They would be raining arrows and spears down on our fighters. It would be suicidal,” he repeated.
The king strode up and down the great room, his robes swirling around bare feet.
“Then we must attack from the sea,” he said after a while. “The Xanthos will use its fire hurlers to destroy Agamemnon’s ships.”
“That would indeed be a gift from Poseidon,” Hektor responded patiently. “If we could coordinate an attack from the sea at night, we could send climbers to take the cliffs, then King’s Joy. But this is daydreaming, Father. Our ships are blockaded by Menados’ fleets. They are useless to us in the Bay of Troy. And we do not know where the Xanthos is.”
“Wrecked by Poseidon on some foreign shore, perhaps,” Antiphones added. He was sitting on a couch with one leg raised on cushions. He had suffered a wound to his thigh. His face was pale, and he was clearly in pain, his normally jovial manner subdued.
Priam stopped walking and stood as if deep in thought, his mouth working. Then he said craftily, a gleam in his eye, “We will attack from the sea! The Xanthos will use its fire hurlers. We’ll see how Agamemnon likes that!”
Losing patience at last, Hektor raised his voice. “We do not know where the Xanthos is, Father! And my wife is on board. Would you send the ship into battle with Andromache at risk?”
Priam was startled by his son’s unaccustomed tone, and his voice became querulous. “Where is Andromache? Where is she? Is she here?” He gazed around anxiously as the other men looked away, embarrassed.
Kalliades dragged his mind back to the present. Hektor was saying, “We can keep the enemy bottled up in the bay indefinitely. They cannot fight their way out of the pass any more than we can fight our way in. Agamemnon may call himself the Battle King, but the other kings accept his command only as long as there are battles to fight. As time passes, they will quickly tire of one another’s company, and quarrels will start. They will all be heading home soon if there is no sign of the treasure of Priam they’ve been promised.
“Achilles loathes Agamemnon, I’m told, and is here only to avenge his dead father. Old Nestor is here because he fears Agamemnon’s power. Only Sharptooth and his Kretans can be relied upon.”
“And Odysseus?” Kalliades asked. “What of the Ugly King? He is a man of honor.”
“He is indeed,” Hektor responded heavily. “He has thrown in his lot with the Mykene and will not be moved.”
Banokles had been watching the enemy forces. “Look!” he said suddenly, “what are they doing?”
Fifty or so soldiers had moved some distance out of the pass and were digging feverishly.
“Shall I tell our archers to shoot them?” Lucan suggested.
Hektor shook his head. “They are too far away for accuracy, and it would merely be a waste of arrows. We cannot afford to lose more weapons.” His face became grave, and Kalliades guessed he was thinking about the perilous state of Troy’s armory. Khalkeus of Miletos had been recalled from bridge building at Dardanos to take charge of the smiths laboring night and day to renew bronze swords and spears. Hektor had ordered that every man fighting for Troy should have a bronze breastplate and helm, even though it meant the elite troops had to go without bronze greaves and their shoulder and arm guards.
The shortage of tin meant that most of the forges were dark, and the bronzesmiths were being pressed into duty as stretcher bearers and gate guards. Kalliades knew of a young bronze worker, a master of his craft, who was slaughtering injured horses and butchering the dead ones for meat. The whole city awaited the return of the Xanthos and its hoped-for cargo of tin.
“They’re digging a second earthwork,” Kalliades said, shading his eyes.
“Let them,” Hektor replied, turning away. “They are wasting their time and energy building more defenses. I’m not going to attack them. And it will only hamper any attack they make.”
“But the king,” Lucan said angrily. “He ordered you to attack, lord.”
Hektor looked the old man in the eye until the general dropped his gaze. Then Hektor walked away.
Kalliades mounted his horse and rode slowly around the battlefield. The Ilos regiment was in the front line, drawn up in defensive squares, although the soldiers were relaxing, lying asleep or eating, staring into the flames of their campfires.
Behind them were the Scamandrians. He rode along their lines, looking for the telltale tower shield, but he could not find Boros. He wondered why it bothered him. In each pitched battle of his soldier’s life he had been saved hundreds of times by a comrade’s well-placed sword or shield, just as he had rescued others. Kalliades gave a mental shrug. Perhaps it was simply that he himself once had carried a tower shield, long lost during the palace siege. Now he favored a round leather and wood buckler strapped to his arm, which gave him more flexibility in battle. The front lines of the Mykene phalanx were armed with waisted tower shields of horn and hide, which worked well for them as they attacked like a giant tortoise but gave them less maneuverability when fighting in a melee.
Having toured the entire army, noting Hektor’s deployment of the regiments, the Eagles, and the Trojan Horse, Kalliades returned to the front line of the Scamandrians to find Banokles. His comrade had stripped off his old battered breastplate and was lying on his back in his undershirt, gazing at the darkening sky.