Their blades met time and again, with Patroklos constantly being forced back. But the Myrmidon grinned arrogantly. Again Hektor attacked, and Patroklos sent back a lightning riposte that opened a wound in Hektor’s cheek. Now it was Patroklos pushing forward, but Hektor parried each stroke. Suddenly Hektor stepped in. Their blades clashed, and Hektor sent a mighty punch to Patroklos’ jaw. Patroklos grunted and went down. Hektor swept his sword at Patroklos’ head. Patroklos rolled, then lanced his sword up at Hektor’s groin.
As Hektor’s blade blocked the thrust, he twisted his wrist and the sword flashed back at Patroklos’ belly. The blade deflected off the black breastplate but lanced into the Myrmidon’s side. Patroklos scrambled away and got up, then circled to the left, trying to guard the wound.
Hektor surged forward into a riposte that all but tore the helm from his head. Still, he knew Patroklos was weakening. He saw the blood streaming from the man’s side and down his leg and knew it was only a matter of time. The Myrmidon had only one chance: a lightning attack and a killing blow to the head or neck. Hektor gave him the opening. Patroklos’ sword flashed forward. Hektor ducked and rammed his sword up under Patroklos’ breastplate, driving into the heart.
Before Patroklos hit the ground, Hektor was turning, checking the thrust of the battle. Donkeys were dragging their carts away frantically, throwing up great dust clouds. Many riders still were mounted, but some of the horses had walked clear of the battle and were standing waiting, as they had been trained to do. Hektor ran to one and leaped onto it. All he could see around him was clouds of dust. The battle was a melee. It was impossible to see who had the upper hand.
Hektor saw a movement at the corner of his eye and got his shield up just in time to block a sword cut to the throat. The enemy rider hacked at him again. Hektor dodged the blow, then thrust his sword into the man’s side. The weapon got stuck and was ripped from Hektor’s grip as the rider’s horse reared. Weaponless, Hektor saw another Mykene rider bearing down on him, sword raised. He put up his shield, but a Trojan rider appeared beside the enemy horseman and plunged his sword into the man’s unprotected armpit.
Justinos dragged his sword out, and the enemy rider slumped from his horse. Justinos grinned at Hektor, who nodded his thanks.
Just then an enemy horseman rode out of the dust cloud, his lance leveled at Justinos’ back. Hektor shouted a warning. Justinos half turned, but it was too late. The lance plunged through his back with such force that it exited in a bloody eruption at his belly. Justinos gave one agonized look at Hektor, then slumped over his horse’s neck. His mount trotted away into the dust.
With a roar, Hektor pulled out his dagger and launched himself at the enemy rider. The man, having lost his lance, scrabbled desperately for his sword. He was too late. Hektor grabbed him by his breastplate and pulled him in, slicing his throat with the dagger. He took the dead man’s sword, then heeled his horse and galloped around the battlefield, peering through the dust, counting corpses and wounded. An enemy rider spotted him and came after him, lance leveled. Hektor swayed his body at the last moment, and the lance went by him. He beheaded the rider with one sweep of the sword.
Out of the dust came Mestares on his mount Warlord. His shield bearer was leaning heavily to one side, guarding a wound.
“They have us, Hektor!” he shouted. “We are outnumbered. We cannot win!”
Cursing, Hektor dragged his battle horn from his back and put his lips to it. He blew the short notes to signal retreat. For a few heartbeats no one seemed to have heard; then Trojan riders started appearing out of the dust, some injured, some helping wounded colleagues. Within moments they were streaming away, heading back toward the river. Hektor gathered the uninjured riders and forged his way into the chasing enemy horsemen, forcing them back, making space for the Trojan Horse to get away.
Finally Hektor heeled his mount and galloped back toward the wooded hills.
The next morning at dawn Skorpios sat in the tree line at the point where the Scamander broke out of the woods and dipped under a wooden bridge before joining the flat plain.
He was supposed to be scouting, but his eyes kept misting up. He had always feared for his own life before battles, but never for that of Justinos. The big man had seemed indestructible. The two had ridden together for years, first with Ennion, Kerio, Ursos, and Olganos, now all dead. He was the only one left of the six.
The power of his grief had unmanned him. He could not sleep in the night. As he listened to the other riders snoring around him, he kept going over and over in his mind how that last battle should have gone. Justinos always had looked out for him, watched his back, yet he had failed to do that for his old friend. The thought churned around and around until his brain was worn out; then he fell into a shallow troubled sleep.
He woke before dawn, his body weary, his mood melancholy. Hektor sent him back to the site of the battle to see if the enemy forces had taken away their dead and wounded. They had. Even the broken wagons had been carried away for firewood.
In the night Skorpios had decided that when the war ended, he would return to his father’s farm. A veteran soldier now, with years in the Trojan Horse behind him, he no longer would be afraid of the old man. With the gold Hektor would give him for his loyal service he would buy a small house and help his father with the cattle and sheep. The settlement lay far to the east, on the edge of Hittite lands. Now, for the first time, he wondered whether the farm was still there, his father and brothers still waking in the dark each morning to start work or sleeping out in the fields to guard the livestock from predators, his mother working from dawn to dusk to keep the family fed. His youngest sister would be twelve now, he thought, almost a woman. He shook his head sorrowfully. He knew nothing about them anymore. Perhaps his brothers had left to become soldiers. If they had, maybe they were dead, too.
Suddenly Skorpios felt very much alone. The last image of Justinos kept flashing into his mind. He found he could not visualize his friend’s face smiling or in repose, just in the agony of death. He closed his eyes in pain.
When he opened them again, he saw the small dot of a rider in the distance, coming from the direction of Troy. The horseman stopped and got off his mount. Skorpios thought he could heard the man shouting something, but he was too far away to hear.
After a while the rider got back on his horse and continued along the bank of the river. As he got closer, Skorpios could see that he was garbed in black armor. The young Trojan gazed at him in bemusement. A single armored soldier all the way out here. He must be one of ours, he thought. Surely he could not be an enemy warrior, riding on his own in such hostile land.
The horseman stopped again. This time Skorpios could hear the words he shouted, borne on the northerly breeze. “Hektor! Hektor! Come down and fight! Come and fight me, you coward!”
Skorpios watched for a long time as the rider worked his way down the river, stopping every few hundred paces. He wondered what to do: go back and report to Hektor or keep his eye on the warrior. There were other scouts out, so he settled down to watch, his back against a tree, assuming others would be telling the strange news to Hektor.
He was observing the rider still when he heard a whisper of movement behind him and turned to find a sword at his throat.
“You would be a dead man now,” Hektor said, sheathing the sword and emerging from the undergrowth.
“I’m sorry, lord,” Skorpios replied, his face flushing. “I let you down.”