Once the last arrow was gone and I threw down the useless bow, the leader of the nobles facing me lowered his shield enough for me to recognize his face: handsome young Paris, a sardonic smile on his almostpretty face.
“So the herald is a warrior after all,” he called to me, advancing toward me with leveled spear.
Sliding my sword from its sheath, I replied, “Yes. Is the stealer of women a warrior as well?”
“A better one than you,” Paris taunted.
Stalling for time, I said, “Prove it. Face me man to man, your spear against my sword.”
He glanced past me, at my men battling at the top of our siege tower. “Much as I would enjoy that, today is not the day for such pleasures.”
“Today is the last day of your life, Paris,” I said.
As if on cue, a piercing, blood-curdling war cry screeched from behind me. Odysseos!
Paris looked startled for a moment, then he yelled to his followers, “Clear the wall of them!”
The Trojans charged. They had to get past me before they could reach Magro and my men. A dozen spears against my one sword. I shifted to my left, wishing I hadn’t been foolish enough to throw away my shield. I barely avoided the first spear point aimed at my belly and hacked at another spear, cutting its haft almost in two with my iron blade. I backed away another step and then stepped back once more—onto empty air.
As I tottered on the edge of the platform another spear came thrusting at me. I banged its bronze head with the metal cuff around my right wrist, deflecting it enough to save my skin. But the motion sent me tumbling off the platform. I turned a full somersault in midair and somehow managed to land on my feet. The impact buckled my knees and I rolled on the bare dirt of the street. A spear thudded into the ground scant fingers’ widths from me. I saw a pair of archers aiming their arrows at me and ducked behind the corner of a house before they could fire.
Looking up, I could see, against the brightening morning sky, Paris and his men rushing along the wall toward the spot where the siege tower stood. My undersized squad of Hatti soldiers were battling the Trojans while Odysseos and his men clambered over the wall’s battlements and joined the struggle. But dozens more Trojans, roused so rudely from their sleep, were scurrying up ladders and rushing along the platform to overwhelm them. We needed a diversion, something to draw off the Trojan reinforcements.
I sprinted down the narrow alley between houses until I found a door. I kicked it open. A woman screamed in sudden terror as I stamped in, sword in hand. She cowered in a corner of her kitchen, her arms around two small children who huddled against her, wide-eyed with fright. As I strode toward them they all shrieked and ran along the wall, screeching and skittering like mice, then bolted through the open door. I let them go.
A small cook fire smoldered in the hearth. I yanked down the flimsy curtains that separated the kitchen from the next room and tossed them into the fire. It flared into open flame. Then I smashed a wooden chair and fed it into the blaze. Striding into the next room, I grabbed straw bedding and threadbare blankets and added them to the fire.
Two houses, three, and then a whole row of them I set ablaze. People were screaming and shouting. Men and women alike raced toward the fire sloshing buckets of water drawn from the fountain at the end of the street.
Satisfied that the fire would grow and occupy more and more of the Trojans, I started up the nearest ladder to return to the battle on the platform. Achaians were pouring over the parapet now and the Trojans were giving way. I leaped at them from the rear, yelling out to Magro. He heard me and led what was left of my men to my side, cutting a bloody swath through the defending Trojans.
“The watchtower by the Scaean Gate,” I shouted, pointing with my reddened sword. “We’ve got to take it and open the gate.”
We fought along the length of the wall, meeting the ill-prepared Trojans as they came up in knots of five or ten or a dozen and driving away those we didn’t kill. The fire I had started was spreading to other houses now, a pall of black smoke hid the palace from our sight.
The watchtower was only lightly guarded: most of the Trojans were fighting against Odysseos and his Ithacans on the western wall. We broke into the guard room, using spear butts to batter down the door, and slaughtered the few men there. Then we raced to the ground and started to lift the heavy beams that barricaded the Scaean Gate. A wailing scream arose, and I saw that Paris and a handful of other nobles were racing down the stone steps of the tower toward us.
We had them on the horns of uncertainty now. If they allowed Odysseos to hold the western wall, the rest of the Achaians would enter the city that way. But if they concentrated on clearing the wall, we would open the gate and allow the Achaian chariots to drive into the city. They had to stop us at both places, and stop us quickly.
Archers began shooting at us, but despite them my men tugged and pushed to open the massive gate. Men fell, but the three enormous beams were slowly lifting, swinging up and away from the doors.
I ducked an arrow and saw Paris running toward me across the open square behind the gate.
“You again!” he shouted at me.
Those were his last words. He charged me with his spear. I dodged sideways, forced it down with my right forearm, and drove my iron sword through his bronze breastplate up to its hilt. As I yanked it out, bright red blood spattered over the golden inlays of his armor and I felt a mad surge of pleasure, battle joy that I had taken the life of the man who had caused this war.
Paris sank to the ground. I saw the light go out of his eyes. At that moment an arrow struck me on my left shoulder. I felt a sudden flare of pain. More annoyed than injured, I yanked it out and flung it to the ground.
Even as I did so, more Trojans came at me. But they stopped in their tracks as a great creaking groan of bronze hinges told me that the Scaean Gate was swinging open at last. A roar went up and I turned to see chariots plunging through the open gate, bearing down directly on me.
The Trojans scattered and I dived out of the way. Agamemnon was in the first chariot, spear raised triumphantly over the plume of his helmet. His horses pounded over Paris’ dead body and the chariot bumped, then clattered on, chasing the fleeing Trojan warriors.
I stepped backward, dust from the charging chariots stinging my eyes, coating my skin, my clothes, my bloody sword. The battle lust in me began to ebb as I watched Paris’ mangled body tossed and crushed by chariot after chariot. Magro came up beside me, a gash on his cheek and more on both his arms. None of them looked serious, though.
“The battle’s over,” he said. “Now the slaughter begins.”
12
Suddenly I was bone weary. I leaned my back against the rough stone wall of Troy.
“You’re hurt,” Magro said.
“It’s not serious.” My shoulder was covered with blood, but the wound had already clotted.
The rest of my men gathered around me, each of them bleeding from wounds. There were only six of us now. They looked uneasy. Not frightened, but edgy, nervous.
“Now’s the time when soldiers collect their pay,” Magro said tightly.
Loot, he meant. Stealing everything you can carry. Raping the women and then putting the city to the torch.
“Go,” I said, realizing that I myself had set the first fire. “I’ll be all right. I’ll see you back at camp when the sun goes down.”
Magro touched his fist lightly to his chest, then turned to the four remaining men. “Follow me,” he commanded. “And remember: don’t take any chances. There are still plenty of armed men left alive. And some of the women will try to use knives on you.”
“Any bitch who tries to cut me will regret it,” growled Manetho, the oldest man of my squad.
“Any bitch who sees your ugly face will probably use her knife on herself!” Magro jeered.
They all laughed and marched off together. Five men. Out of my original twenty.
For a while I stood near the wall and watched the Achaian chariots and foot soldiers pour through the open, undefended gate. The smoke was getting thicker. I squinted up at the sky and saw that the sun had barely topped
