The approaching army’s cavalry broke into a gallop, riding straight for the unprotected flank of the Trojan infantry, lances down. Now aware of the threat, the battle-weary Trojans desperately tried to reform to face the attack, but the shock as the armored riders hit them was devastating. Scores of men fell under the trampling hooves of the horses.
Hektor reacted quickly. His Phrygian archers, at the rear of the battlefield, started loosing volley after volley into the coming infantry. Arrows deflected off shields and conical helms, but some men crashed to the ground, tripping others as they came.
The Trojan Horse was isolated on the wrong side of the field, but at an order from Hektor half of them peeled away and galloped to counter the new threat. Hektor dug his heels into his great warhorse and charged at the enemy cavalry. As he reached them, several horsemen rode against him. His sword lanced out, spilling the first rider from his mount; the second fell as Hektor’s sword, wielded with awesome anger, crushed his skull. Then a lance drove into the chest of the stallion Ares, and he fell, throwing Hektor to the ground.
Odysseus could see him no more. Frustrated, he turned his gaze to the leader of the newly arrived army, who, surrounded by his bodyguard, rode up the slope toward him.
“Well, Kygones,” he commented as the Lykian king drew his horse to a halt, “you are not joining the battle today?”
The Fat King pulled off his helm and smiled coolly.
“You should have more gratitude, Ithaka,” he said. “When last we met, you acted with great moral outrage at the death of one man, a simple sailor. Now you and your fellow kings ask me to help you kill thousands. Where is your thanks?”
He dismounted and handed his horse to one of his men.
“All our actions have consequences, Odysseus. By barring your ships from my beaches over the death of this sailor, you and Helikaon dealt a body blow to Lykia, crippling trade and draining its lifeblood. My people have suffered, and for the first time in a generation children have starved in wintertime. When Agamemnon sought me as an ally, are you surprised that I felt no loyalty to Helikaon and his kinsman Priam?”
Odysseus had no answer for him. He turned back to the battlefield, then heard Hektor’s horn blowing: two short blasts repeated over and over, signaling retreat. Good, he thought. You cannot win the day, Hektor. The Scamander plain belongs to us. Retreat in good order while you can.
But the Trojans were fighting every step of the way, protecting their wounded as they backed slowly toward the river and its four bridges to an ephemeral safety.
No more than a hundred soldiers had retreated across one of the wooden bridges when a bright flame like a huge torch erupted among them. Suddenly the entire bridge was ablaze, setting fire to the men on it. They screamed and thrashed in agony. Many jumped into the Scamander, but their flesh kept burning and their cries were awful to hear. Then a second bridge caught fire. Within moments all four bridges, the Trojans’ only way to retreat, were burning ferociously.
Stunned by the sight, Odysseus turned to Agamemnon. “Is this your work?” he asked, but the Mykene king just shook his head, as surprised as he was.
They watched as desperate Trojans, trapped between the advancing enemy armies and the river, started throwing themselves into the fast-flowing water, some helping the wounded cross, others just swimming for their lives. Injured men were being pulled under and swept down toward the bay, too weak to struggle against the powerful current.
Then Agamemnon gasped and pointed as Hektor, mounted again on gallant Ares, walked the stallion into the Scamander high above the blazing bridges. He reined the warhorse in the center of the river and stood there as the waters crashed around them. Others of the Trojan Horse joined them, guiding their horses to stand by Ares, reducing the force of the water. Soon thirty warhorses stood in the river, enduring as the waters struck them. The riders had only shields to protect themselves and their mounts from the arrows and lances of the enemy, and three fell in the Scamander and were swept away, but most of them stood firm, allowing the Trojan injured to make their way across to safety. The Phrygian archers ran along the riverbank to help protect the horses with a rain of arrows at the advancing enemy.
Odysseus wanted to cheer, and he smiled to himself to see the anger on Agamemnon’s face.
“Hektor lives,” the Mykene king hissed. “Can nothing kill him?”
“He charged an army, and yet he survives,” Odysseus said happily. “That is why Hektor is Hektor and we kings are just standing here watching.”
Sick of Agamemnon’s company, he set off toward the battlefield, limping heavily on his injured leg. Stretcher bearers were on the field, carrying wounded men away. He saw healers and surgeons helping injured warriors of the western armies and soldiers dispatching wounded Trojans. The ground was heavy with churned-up mud and blood, and Odysseus felt himself tiring quickly.
Then he saw a figure he recognized, a fat warrior in outsize armor lying in the mud, his back resting against the flank of a dead horse. Odysseus stomped over to him.
The prince was bleeding from a score of cuts. “Well, well, Odysseus,” he said, his voice a weak rasp, “have you come to finish me off?”
“No, Antiphones,” the Ithakan king said, sitting down beside him, suddenly weary. “I just wanted to talk to an old friend.”
“Are we friends, you and I?” the prince asked.
Odysseus shrugged. “At this moment we are. Tomorrow is another day.”
“Tomorrow I shall be dead, Odysseus. This will be the death of me.” He gestured to a deep wound in his side where dark blood was pumping out onto the ground. “A thinner man would be dead already.”
The Ithakan king nodded. “What happened at the bridges?” he asked.
Antiphones scowled, and his ashen face darkened a little. “My fool of a father, Priam, had secretly instructed his Eagles to torch the bridges using nephthar if our forces started retreating. Trojans do not retreat, he says.”
Odysseus felt a wave of revulsion. “Is he quite insane now?” he asked, shocked by the ruthless cruelty of the Trojan king to his own troops. “It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between insanity and cold-blooded brutality.”
Antiphones tried to lift himself up into a sitting position, but he was too weak and sank down again. Odysseus saw that the flow of his wound had lessened. He knew the man did not have much longer to live.
The prince said, “He is the cruel and selfish king he always was.” He sighed. “He has times of confusion. We thought it was the wine, for he hardly eats. Then he has insane ideas like this one. Hektor just ignores them. But this…” He gestured toward the river. “He is cunning still, you see. He told no one except his Eagles. And they would all kill themselves for him on his command.”
A Mykene soldier walked over to them, his sword red with blood, looking for enemy wounded. Odysseus waved him away.
Antiphones was silent for a while, and Odysseus thought he had died. Then the big man said, despair in his voice, “Troy will fall. She cannot be saved.”
Odysseus nodded sadly. “Agamemnon will win, and the city will fall. Once we reach the great walls and the city is under siege, it is only a matter of time. There will be a traitor. There always is.”
Antiphones said weakly, “I thought she would last a thousand years. There is a prophecy…”
Odysseus said irritably, “There is always a prophecy. I do not believe in prophecies, Antiphones. In a thousand years the Golden City will be dust, its walls ruined, flowers growing wild where Priam’s palace once stood.”
Antiphones smiled weakly. “That sounds like a prophecy, Odysseus.”
The king leaned toward him. “But she will not die, Antiphones. I promise you this. Her story will not be forgotten.” Already in his mind a tale was forming of a warrior’s wrath and the death of a hero.