Heroes

When the avalanche had passed, the king gave orders to retreat towards the wood and to carry along the wounded. The men obeyed, but the enemy targeted them with a hail of slingshot stones and of arrows. More men were struck, and they hobbled to find shelter as they could, bruised and losing blood. As Diomedes withdrew, he saw Telephus, the Hittite slave, lying on the ground and bleeding from the mouth. He had rushed forward to help the king and his warriors, but one of the boulders loosed by the Ambron had hit him full in the chest. Heedless of the arrows and other projectiles raining around him, Diomedes bent over him and gathered him into his arms, but the man groaned in pain.

‘I’m done for. .’ he said, ‘fucked to save a handful of desperate Ahhijawa. . stupid. . stupid. .’ His breath was a rattle.

The king raised his head: ‘Forgive me, friend. I am the stupid one. Stupid and blind.’

‘Commander. .’ said the Hittite. ‘I am the commander of a squadron of Hittite chariots. Call me commander. .’

‘Yes, commander,’ said the king. Myrsilus had arrived at his side and was protecting him from the enemy’s shots.

‘Do what I tell you to do, Ahhijawa, or they’ll tear you to pieces, and even that god that you’re carrying with you won’t be enough to save you.’ Every word raised his chest and delivered stabbing pain. ‘I’m dying, Ahhijawa, and you must do as I say. I don’t want to die for nothing.’

‘You are the commander,’ said Diomedes. And he paid no mind to Myrsilus, who was saying: ‘Let’s go, wanax! If we don’t go, we’ll die ourselves!’

The Hittite pushed up on his elbows: ‘Call back all your men and pretend to flee, to rout. Make a lot of noise, as if you were marching back down to the valley. .’

‘I will,’ said the king. Myrsilus’s shield popped under the slingshots as if hail were rattling down on it.

‘Wait until night, and divide up into small groups, then make your way up. . go up towards the pass from every direction towards two. . towards two or three rallying points. . in silence. Observe how the enemy is laid out, and then. . and then. .’

‘I understand,’ said the king. ‘I understand. Do not tire yourself, say no more.’ With the hem of his tunic he dried the sweat that dripped down the dying man’s forehead.

‘If we had been able to draw up all our chariot squadrons at Vilusya. . we would have chased you back into the sea. . Ahhijawa. .’ he said, wheezing.

‘Yes,’ said Diomedes, ‘perhaps you are right, my friend.’

The Hittite stared at him and a strange smile formed on his face: ‘Your world no longer exists. . Ahhijawa. . do you understand? You must change, or you will perish. . and I will have died for nothing. . I. . I. .’ and he gave himself up to death.

‘Let’s go, wanax!’ Myrsilus shouted again. ‘They’ll be upon us.’

‘No!’ shouted the king. ‘I will not let the enemies take his body and strip him!’

‘Didn’t you understand what he said as he was dying?’ Myrsilus shouted back. ‘Our world is done with! Gone! We have to save ourselves, king, that’s all that is left to us!’ Diomedes saw his eyes filled with despair, for the first time ever. ‘He would tell you to abandon him, if he could, because there’s nothing left to save but your own life, for your men’s sake. We must go, wanax! Now!’

Diomedes stood and ran for the forest and Myrsilus followed, raising his shield so that the king of Argos would not be struck down, would not breathe his last in a desolate field of stones at the hand of nameless savages.

The king ordered all his men to hide and then to feign leaving; they shook the bushes along the trail leading down to the valley, to convince the enemy that they were retreating.

When night fell, the king divided the remaining men into three groups: one under his command, another commanded by Myrsilus and a third under the command of Evenus. They took off their heavy armour and kept only their swords, daggers and bows, with quivers full of arrows. They crept up separately amidst the trees in the forest until the point where it began to thin out. From there they crawled their way up, covering small stretches of ground at a time. They ran when they could, hiding behind a tree or a boulder, always careful not to be spotted, not to make the slightest noise.

Myrsilus was the first to arrive at the top, followed by Diomedes and then Evenus. When Myrsilus peered over the crest, he saw that they had left ten or so guards at the pass, while the others slept under a big rocky shelter. He motioned to his men and they crawled up behind the guards who were dozing, leaning up against the stone wall. At his signal, each of his men leapt out of the darkness brandishing his dagger; none of the guards survived, not one had the time to let out a groan. Diomedes led his men to the top of the rocky shelter, Evenus shut out the front and Myrsilus posted his men to the sides, to cut off any escape route. At Diomedes’s signal, they all nocked their arrows and let fly into the heap of sleeping men.

The yells of the wounded awoke the others but the second and the third volleys of arrows were already rending the night and sowing the ground with the dead and wounded. Their cries spread panic and confusion, but the attackers were all under cover and well positioned to take aim. They were helped by a little moonlight that drifted through the clouds. The arrows raining down in every direction, even from above, disoriented the Ambron, who could not understand how to locate their aggressors. The survivors soon took to their heels, running headlong towards the valley and seeking shelter in the forest, but the Achaeans relentlessly pursued them all through the night.

At the first glimmer of dawn, the Achaeans gathered the bodies of their comrades and gave them burial. Diomedes buried Telephus, the Hittite slave, who had once been the commander of a chariot squadron in the plains of Asia; he had found death in a remote place, far from the homeland to which he had so longed to return.

The Chnan sat off at a distance on a big boulder, chewing on a blade of grass and watching the sky as it filled with light. When the men had finished burying the dead, the Chnan approached the grave where Telephus had been buried. He picked up a fistful of dirt and let it run through his fingers. ‘You stubborn Hittite,’ he said. ‘Was this any place to die? You had to leave me, just now when I was beginning to have a little hope. .’

He picked a deep blue mountain flower and laid it on the mound, then reached under his tunic and drew out a bronze clasp with coral and amber beads, and buried it next to him. ‘It’s all I can leave for you; you know how much I need these things. . Sleep, now, Telepinu; sleep, commander. The air is good here, the sun, and the wind; it’s a better place than many others, in the end. I must continue on my road until I find the sea again, and a ship. It was destiny; a mountaineer and a sailor could never stay friends. If I ever reach you where you are now, I’ll be soaking wet and stinking of algae, I can feel it. . stinking of rotten fish and salt water. .’

Myrsilus gave the signal; it was time to go. The Chnan turned back one last time. ‘You never asked me my name,’ he said. ‘If we should meet up again one day in the dark world, you wouldn’t even know what to call me. . there will be lots of Chnans down there, I guess. . Anyway, friend, my name is Malech. . Malech. Remember that.’

They resumed their journey, walking at mid-slope on the mountain crest, directed south. One of the women said: ‘It takes thirty days to cover this road; it crosses the Blue Mountain range and leads to the land of the Mountains of Fire.’

‘What does that mean?’ one of the men asked Myrsilus, who was marching alongside her and listening attentively.

‘I’ve heard,’ said the woman, ‘that there are rivers of fire that pour out of those mountains and devour everything below. Storms of flames are hurled towards the sky, and the sea boils all around like a cauldron bubbling on the fire. Sometimes the earth trembles from its deepest depths and splits open, loosing pestiferous fumes that make the birds fall dead out of the sky.’

Myrsilus caught up with the king, who was marching at the head of his people in silence.

‘Wanax,’ he said. ‘There’s a woman walking at the middle of the column who’s talking about the land of the Mountains of Fire that is found at the end of this trail. At thirty days’ march from here. I think she is speaking of the land of the Cyclops! I have heard it described by men who sailed very far from our land. No one has ever dared approach it; from the sea at night, you can see the Cyclops’ blazing eyes, flaming, you can hear their wild cries. They devour those who the waves cast up on their deserted beaches. I know that you do not fear them, you fear neither gods nor men, nor monsters of the earth or sea, and you know that I am ready to