He shook his head and laughed, the sound echoing across the square and making tired soldiers turn their heads in wonder.
“We are dogged by good luck in battle, you and I,” he answered his friend. “Only the gods know why.”
Banokles was silent, and Kalliades turned to look at him. “I would give it all up to have Red back,” the big warrior said sadly.
There was a stalemate throughout the night, with the invaders holding the Scaean Gate and the defenders holding the barricade forty paces away. There were jeers and taunts in the darkness from Agamemnon’s troops, some of whom had yet to see battle and were raring to go.
With the coming of first light, Kalliades and Banokles took their places behind the barricade. Kalliades checked his breastplate straps, settled his helm more securely, hefted the sword of Argurios, and waited as the blackness gave way to dark gray.
Banokles slashed his swords from side to side, stretching his shoulder muscles, and grunted to his neighbors, “Make room, you sheep shaggers!”
Then enemy warriors were scrambling over the barricade.
Kalliades batted aside a sword thrust, then brought his blade down two-handed on a man’s neck. He dragged the weapon clear in time to parry a slashing cut. A thrown lance bounced off the edge of his shield, missing his head by a hairbreadth. His sword lunged forward and twisted, disemboweling an attacker, who fell screaming at his feet. He threw his shield up to block a murderous cut, and then his blade slashed high in the air, braining a warrior who had lost his helm. He felt a searing pain in his leg and saw that the injured man at his feet, holding his entrails in with one hand, had thrust his dagger into his thigh. He plunged his sword into the man’s neck.
Beside him Banokles suddenly leaped up onto the barricade and with two dazzling cuts slashed the throats of two attackers climbing for the top. He jumped back down again and grinned at Kalliades.
The morning wore on, and defenders on either side of the two friends fell and were replaced, then replaced again. Through his focus on the fighting, as his sword hacked and slashed, cut and parried, Kalliades slowly registered a change happening. He was tiring, and his concentration was starting to fail. His thigh hurt, though it had stopped bleeding. He had other cuts and scrapes. He stole a glance at Banokles. The big man was battling with grim determination, his two swords moving like lightning, seemingly without effort. But Kalliades, who had fought beside him for many years and many battles, guessed he was tiring, too. He was using his swords economically, with not one wasted flourish, conserving his strength.
And the attackers were getting harder to kill. Kalliades realized he was facing Mykene veterans now. Agamemnon must have kept them in reserve, he thought. He felt a lull in the fighting, as if something had shifted, and he knew it was the battle’s momentum.
The Trojans were losing.
Over the barricade came a giant of a man with a full black beard and a shaved head. He bore a tower shield of black and white cowhide edged with bronze. He dwarfed the men around him, and he grinned with pleasure when he saw who it was he was facing. Ajax Skull Splitter leaped down from the barricade with the grace of a much lighter man.
“Banokles! Kalliades! You soft-bellied sons of whores!” he rumbled with relish.
He leaped to the attack, swinging his great broadsword, clearing a passage toward them. On either side of him other Mykene veterans formed a wedge, driving the Trojan ranks back from the barricade. Banokles attacked, his two swords hacking and plunging. He killed a man at Ajax’s side, but the Mykene champion’s huge tower shield and the power of his great broadsword made him unstoppable.
Kalliades desperately hurled himself backward as an arcing blade from the right sliced through his shoulder guard. He rolled, leaped up, and skewered the wielder through the armpit.
Then he heard the triple blast of the horn ordering retreat to the palace.
Banokles was being forced backward by the power of Ajax’s attack. He had lost one sword and replaced it with a bronze shield. The Mykene champion hammered the other blade aside and stepped in to crash a huge fist into Banokles’ jaw. Banokles staggered but recovered to block the downward sweep of the broadsword on the shield. Kalliades ran in. Ajax raised the broadsword again and brought it arcing toward them both in a massive sweep. Banokles ducked low, and Kalliades swayed backward. Unbalanced, Ajax tried to recover, but Banokles leaped up and brought his shield smashing down on the huge warrior’s head. Ajax was dazed but still stood. Banokles hit him on the head again, then again, and he finally went down, crashing face-first into the blood and dust.
“Is he dead?” Banokles asked, panting.
Kalliades brought the sword of Argurios up two-handed, prepared to drive it into the Mykene champion’s back. For a heartbeat he paused. The sword of Argurios, he thought. If it were not for Argurios’ loyalty and Priam’s mercy, they would not be there. Loyalty and mercy. He glanced at Banokles, who shrugged. Kalliades lowered his sword. He heard the horn again ordering retreat, and they both turned and raced for the palace.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE ADVICE OF ODYSSEUS
Late on the second day a great cheer rose from the soldiers waiting patiently outside the walls for their comrades to break the Trojans’ barricade. The young healer Xander shivered in the hot afternoon as he watched the thousands of warriors rush in through the Scaean Gate.
He remembered the first time he had arrived in Troy, in a donkey cart with Odysseus and Andromache. He had been a child of twelve and had left his grandfather’s goat herd on Kypros to go on a great adventure. He had felt that same shiver of fear as the cart had trundled through the great gate and he first had glimpsed the city of gold with its bronze-roofed palaces, verdant courtyards, and richly dressed people.
He thought of his father, who had died fighting the Mykene pirate Alektruon, and Zidantas, who had been a father to him for a few brief days. He wondered what they would think of him now, giving aid and comfort to the armies of Agamemnon that were pouring into that city to rape, plunder, and kill.
He turned and walked slowly back to the barracks hospital. From beside his pallet bed he fetched his old leather satchel and delved in the bottom of it. He pulled out the two pebbles he had carried with him since he had left Kypros to remind him of home. He weighed them in his palm for a moment, then walked to the door and threw them out into the street. Then he started packing the satchel with his potions and herbs.
“Remember the advice of Odysseus, young Xander.”
The boy looked up and found the surgeon White-Eye standing beside him. He was watching anxiously as Xander carefully wrapped bunches of dried herbs in scraps of cloth and placed them in the satchel.
“Run to the bay, son,” the older man urged him. “Take ship to Kypros and return to your mother and grandfather. These people are past help now.”
“You are still here, White-Eye,” Xander answered, not looking up from his task, “though the Myrmidons have left.”
“Some of our ships are still loading their final cargo, mostly horses. When the last galley sets sail for Thessaly, I shall be on it. There is nothing we can do here, lad. Troy will be a charnel house full of death and horror. Walk through those gates and you will die; that is as certain as sunset follows day.”
Xander continued packing his bag. “I must help my friends,” he whispered.
“You make friends wherever you go, boy. It is your nature. I am your friend. Do this for your friend White-Eye.”