struggle. Trojan chariots were milling about, the warriors jabbing at the Achaians with their long spears.
Like a machine we marched toward the boat and the chariots attacking it. We were a wall of shields, with bristling spears taking the blood of any man foolish enough to come near us. A chariot wheeled about, the warrior in it looking surprised at the sight of us advancing upon him. His charioteer urged the matched pair of roans at us, but they balked at our spear points. He swerved them to our right and I led my men into a charge. We killed the closer horse and slammed into the chariot with our shields. I myself dispatched the warrior with a spear thrust to his unprotected side. The charioteer leaped out of the chariot and ran away into the milling, roaring, fighting mass.
With our backs to the boat’s curving black hull, we joined the defensive line and killed any fool who came within the length of our spears. But their sheer numbers forced us back, slowly, inexorably, until my feet were splashing in the water.
The women were behind us, screaming and wailing. The Trojan chariots dared not approach us as long as we held our line of shields with our blood-soaked spears leveled. Even the footmen kept their distance, pelting us with javelins and arrows. Two more of my men went down. It was only a matter of time before we were all killed.
And then a roar shook the camp.
“Achilles!”
“The Myrmidones!”
The Trojans looked to their right, their faces white with sudden fear. I urged my men forward and the footmen before us melted away. As we rounded the prow of the boat I saw down the beach that a formation of chariots was charging against the Trojans. Standing in the foremost chariot was a man in splendid golden armor who could only have been Achilles.
The Trojans ran. They broke before the spearpoints of Achilles and his Myrmidones and ran like mice. Footmen scrambled back over the palisade. Chariots raced for the gate. One of the Trojan warriors tried to rally the chariots and make a stand but it was useless: Hector himself could not stop the sudden panic that raced through them.
“It’s Achilles!” said a joyful voice. I turned and saw Odysseos standing beside me, his helmet and armor grimed with dust and blood, his shield split and battered, a broken spear in his free hand.
“Achilles has saved us,” Odysseos said gratefully.
But the battle was not yet over. The retreating Trojans were still hurling arrows and javelins at us as they scrambled up the rampart. A chariot raced past us and I recognized Hector standing in it, spattered with the blood of his victims. He half-turned and looked straight at me.
The world seemed to slow down. Even the roar and groans of battle dwindled as if my head had been ducked under water. Time itself seemed to stretch out like soft taffy. I could see Hector standing in his chariot, his eyes focus on me; see him raise his heavy, bloody spear; see him hurl it at me. I tried to raise my shield but it was as if it weighed a hundred times its normal weight. Hector’s heavy spear soared languidly through the air, directly at me.
I ducked, but everything went black.
3
When I opened my eyes again I saw nothing but the clear blue sky. Am I dead? I wondered.
Then Poletes’ scrawny face slid into my view, with his mangy beard and bulging eyes. I realized that I was lying flat on my back.
I heard myself ask, “What happened?” My throat felt raw, burning.
Poletes grinned at me and held out my helmet in both his bony hands. I saw a dent in it that had not been there before.
“Your iron helmet saved your life,” he said, looking amused at it all. “Not even mighty Hector’s spear could penetrate it.”
I tried to sit up, but the world went spinning and I sagged back onto the sand. I waited until the spinning stopped, then tried again.
“You took a hard knock,” Poletes said, helping me to a sitting position.
My head thundered. I looked around. The battle seemed to be over, or at least it had moved away from Agamemnon’s boats. The beach was littered with the bodies of the slain. I saw several of my men sitting not far off. Magro was awkwardly winding a strip of gray cloth around his sword arm; it seeped blood.
Sitting there, still feeling woozy, I called him to me.
He sank to his knees beside me, looking grim. I realized that it had been a long time since our squad’s clown had cracked a joke. Or even a smile.
“I saw Karsh go down,” I said.
“He’s dead. The Hurrian, too.”
“Your arm?”
“Took an arrow. It’s not deep.”
“Any others killed?”
He shook his head. “Nicks and cuts, that’s all. The gods were with us.”
But not with little Karsh, I thought. Not with the quiet, uncomplaining Hurrian.
“The battle?”
“It’s over. The Trojans are back behind their own walls again.” Yet Magro did not look happy.
“What happened?”
Poletes interrupted Magro. “A fantastic day! A day that even the gods will long remember.”
Before I could shut him up, the old storyteller exclaimed, “The Myrmidones came boiling out of their camp like a stampede of stallions and slew hundreds, thousands of the Trojans!”
I knew he was exaggerating, but I heard myself say, “They were terrified of Achilles.”
“And well they should be,” Poletes went on, “but it was not Achilles who led the charge.”
“Not Achilles?”
“Even with Hector and his brothers ravaging through the camp, the mighty Achilles stayed in his hut and refused to fight.”
“But who—”
“Patrokles!”
“That tender-faced boy?”
Nodding eagerly, Poletes said, “Patrokles put on his master’s golden armor and led the Myrmidones in the counterattack. Hector and his brothers must have thought it was Achilles, the magnificent slayer of men. The Trojans were shocked and ran out of the camp, back to the very walls of Troy.”
“They thought they faced Achilles,” I muttered.
“Of course they did. A god filled Patrokles with battle fury. Everyone in the camp thought he was too soft for fighting, yet he drove the Trojans back to their own gates and slew dozens with his own hand.”
I cocked an eyebrow at “dozens.” War stories grow larger with each telling, and this one was already becoming overblown, scarcely an hour after it happened.
Magro spoke up, “But then the gods turned against Patrokles. Hector spitted him on his spear, in front of the Trojan gates.”
“And stripped Achilles’ golden armor from his dead body,” Poletes added. “The Myrmidones retreated back to camp while the Trojans slipped behind their high walls and barred their gates.”
My head was buzzing as if some muffled drum was thumping away in my ears. The gods play their games, I thought. They give Patrokles a moment of glory but then take their price for it.
“Now Achilles sits in his hut and covers his head with ashes. He swears a mighty vengeance against Hector and all of Troy.”
“So now he’ll fight,” I said.
“Tomorrow morning,” Magro said. “Achilles will meet Hector in single combat. The heralds have arranged
