Heroes

assembly chamber, banquet hall and bedroom for the entire family, usually very numerous.

Lamus, son of Onchestus, told them that he had tasted those fruits as a child when a relative of his who traded with the Thracians on the mountains had brought him a sack of them as a gift. Telephus, the Hittite, knew them as well; they grew abundantly in his mountain land where the great Halys river had its source. Certain primitive tribes lived on nothing else. The Chnan had never seen them but he said that the world, all things considered, was much the same everywhere. It was the men who inhabited it who made it different.

As they moved on, the men tried to procure women for themselves, either buying them or taking them by force. Some of them had even taken young girls, who could serve them until they were old enough to share their beds with them.

In this way, although many warriors had been lost during the journey, in combat or ambushes, the group making its way through the mountains was no smaller than when they had commenced their upstream voyage on the Eridanus.

They did not march continuously, because the king did not seem to have a precise destination in mind, nor did the passing time seem to affect him. Whenever they chanced upon a place that offered food and shelter, the Achaeans would stop, even at considerable length. They raised tents using the hides of the animals they had seized in town or had trapped in the forest; their time was spent hunting and fishing. They slept on mats of dried leaves that made a great deal of noise whenever they moved, but their slumber was more tranquil. They had left the swamps and the dying lands along the banks of the Eridanus behind them, and the implacable revenge of Nemro was but a memory. Many of them had women and perhaps, soon, some of them might sire children. But there was not a single man among them who imagined that this might be his life. It was not for this that they had followed the son of Tydeus.

The king certainly allowed them to live that life so that they might be fortified in body and spirit, so that they might gain new strength. But one day they would reach a rich and prosperous land, inhabited, perhaps, by a strong, numerous people, and they would have to conquer it by spear, or perish.

Two mules always marched at the centre of the column with the heavy wooden chest that the king had brought from Ilium. This ensured that one day Diomedes would found his kingdom and would make it invincible.

There was no further fighting for a very long time, because the Achaeans were nearly invisible as they moved through the forest; some of the women had become fond of their men and led the army down safer paths. Whenever they had to cross one of the mountain passes, however, they had to take it by force, because the inhabitants of those places had been warned by Nemro’s allies.

The Achaeans were journeying up a torrent and had neared the source, at the foot of a great pyramid-shaped mountain, but they found the pass occupied by a numerous group of warriors. The women called them Ambron; they were strong and belligerent, and inhabited a wild, beautiful land made of steep mountains and deep dark sea. They made their living by cutting down trees with heavy bronze axes to clear pastures for their flocks and land for their crops.

Those who lived on the coast braved the waves to toss their nets; they lived on the fish they caught and drank the water of the torrents that from the mountains descended steeply into the sea.

Telephus, the Hittite, came forward and asked the king to listen to him, because the Achaeans were not equipped with the proper armour nor were they accustomed to combat in the mountains, while he had fought hundreds of times against the bloodthirsty Kardaka of Mount Toros and of the Urartu Mountains.

‘The column must be divided into several parts, and each group must ascend in stealth and silence,’ he advised the king.

‘The king of Argos does not hide. I will take on those savages face to face, and my comrades will do the same.’

‘If you do, you’ll be torn to shreds. They are numerous, and they know the territory. They are in a favourable position and, above all, they care nothing for glory or honour. All that matters to them is driving you out while losing as few men as possible.’

‘How do you know? You’ve never been here before,’ observed the king.

‘They are poor and poor people are the same the world over. Heed my words, wanax, for I have fought in Egypt, Amurru and Babel, I have fought on the Toros and the Urartu mountains, and I fought against you at Vilusya. Only rich peoples have chiefs who want to fight on the open field face to face in order to gain glory and prestige. Poor peoples want only to survive. And this is why they are more fearsome: they have nothing to lose. Draw up your men in four files, sound the horns and launch a frontal attack: if you’re lucky, one in five will get to the top. They’ll crush you under an avalanche of boulders, they’ll target you with arrows and javelins and at the end, when they have decimated you, when they are still fresh and you are weary and wounded, then they will face off in hand to hand combat. There is no code of honour here; they make up the rules.’

‘The Hittite is right, king. Listen to him,’ said the Chnan. ‘He has fought many times in the mountains. Heed him, for he has already saved you once.’

Their words sent the king into a rage; although living so closely with his men had diminished his manifestations of rank, the Chnan’s advice stung like a whiplash. He could not tolerate a couple of slaves reminding him that he owed them his life. He dismissed them with a sharp gesture that did not permit further insistence.

‘Stay back here with the women if that’s the way you feel,’ he said. ‘I don’t need you.’

He called Myrsilus and indicated the enemy assembled at the crest. ‘This is the only place we can cross,’ he said. ‘We must take that pass. Draw up the men in four files and make sure the formation is as tight as possible: those savages will see a wall of shields bearing down upon them. They can’t have weapons capable of piercing our bronze. Have the bugles ready. I will lead you myself.’

The wood thinned out a little past the foot of the slope, leaving sufficient space to form the array, although the mountain meadow beyond was still dotted with trees here and there.

Myrsilus drew up his men, and when the formation was complete the king took his place on the right side and had the battle notes sounded.

The bugles blared and the noise echoed through the valleys and the rocky mountain walls. The king shouted: ‘ARGOS!’

The men echoed: ‘ARGOS!’

And the army moved forward at a measured step in closed formation towards the pass. Myrsilus noticed a certain wavering of the enemy lines at the crest and said to Diomedes: ‘We have frightened them; they will flee before we reach the top.’

In fact, many of them seemed to scatter and disappear. The Chnan thought that they were fleeing as well, and said to Telephus: ‘This time you were mistaken, Hittite, look at them sneaking off!’ But the words were not out of his mouth when the crest became crowded with men once again. The Achaeans were close enough to see that many of them were armed with axes. These rushed towards certain points of the pass where dense bushes hid the terrain. They gave violent blows with their axes. A sharp rattling could be heard at first, and then a noise like thunder, and hundreds of stones were liberated all at once from some casing that held them, and plunged downhill.

Telephus, who had not even answered so as not to miss an instant of what was happening under his eyes, shouted out: ‘Behind the trees! Wanax! Behind the trees! Or on the ground, under the shields!’ And as he shouted, he ran forward.

Diomedes realized that the men who had followed him all this way were about to be destroyed by his foolishness and he cried out in unison: ‘Behind the trees, men, seek cover behind the trees! Drop to the ground, under your shields!’

The front dispersed, the men dashing for the nearest tree or reversing at a run to find one. Those who were too far flattened on to the ground, covering themselves with their shields. Those who were not fast enough were mown down and mangled. Others were wounded despite the cover provided by the trees; still others were hit on the rebound by the enormous boulders and were smashed under their shields, like when a tortoise is crushed in his shell by the wheel of a cart and his blood and guts squirt out on to the dusty road.