David Gemmell - Shield of Thunder

Thoughts swarmed like bats through her mind, images flaring. Helikaon had sent word to beware of traitors, to watch for strangers. But it was no stranger who had opened the Seagate. One of her soldiers had seen Menon walking with Mykene officers.

Menon! It was almost inconceivable that he could have committed such a dark and terrible act. He was always charming and thoughtful, and Halysia had believed he was genuinely fond of her. To sell her for rape and slaughter was beyond understanding.

More than three hundred Mykene soldiers had entered the citadel, scarcely hindered by Dardanos’ depleted garrison. The Mykene had known exactly when to come. They had slipped in on unguarded seas on the one day she had sent—on Menon’s advice—Dardania’s small remaining fleet to Carpea to escort the fleeing Trojan Horse.

Surrounded by her personal bodyguard of twenty, she sat silent as a stone statue in the megaron as they all listened to the sounds of battle outside. Through the high windows she could see the flickering light of flames. She could hear screams and shouts and battle cries. She trembled so badly that her teeth chattered, and she clamped her jaw tightly so that the men would not hear.

The bodyguard, handpicked by Helikaon, waited grimly around her, swords in hand. She shook her head, trying to shake free the terror paralyzing her mind.

A young blood-covered soldier ran into the megaron.

“They have taken the north tower, lady,” he said between labored breaths. “The kitchens have been set afire. The eastern barracks have also fallen. There are more Mykene outside the Landgate, but they cannot get in. We are stopping the invaders inside from reaching it.”

“How many more outside?”

“Hundreds.”

“Where is Pausanius?” she managed to ask, surprised that her voice sounded firm.

The soldier shook his head. “I have not seen him. Rhygmos commands the defense of the megaron. Protheos is holding the invaders from the Landgate.”

“What of the boy?”

“I saw him with Gradion at the stable, but there were Mykene soldiers closing in on them. Gradion took the boy inside. I had to run then. I did not see what followed.”

She stood on leaden legs and turned to the captain of her guard, clasping her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. “Menesthes, we always knew the megaron could not be held. We cannot waste life defending it. We must pull back to the eastern tower.”

Just then the double doors to the megaron crashed open, and Mykene soldiers streamed inside. Menesthes drew his sword and rushed at them, followed by his men. Halysia knew they could not hold for long. Then Menesthes shouted back to her. “Flee, lady! Flee now!”

Halysia gathered up her gown and ran across the great room, pushing open the door to the antechamber, which she barred behind her. It would not stop determined men armed with axes and swords, but it would delay them.

She paused for a moment, fearing she would black out from the terror in her heart. Forcing her legs to move, she ran up the narrow stone staircase to her bedchamber. Its door was heavy and cross-grained. It would take them a while to batter it down. She closed it behind her and placed the solid wood locking bar across it.

The room was lit by low candles. There were soft rugs on the floor and jewel-colored tapestries on the walls. She paused for a heartbeat, breathing in the light perfume of roses on the night air, then walked out onto the balcony.

Helikaon had planned for this moment for three years. He respected her visions, and the warrior within him believed even more in Agamemnon’s desire for vengeance. Shortly after the last invasion, Halysia’s bedchamber had been moved from its old place in the north wing to these rooms high above the sea behind the megaron. It boasted a wide stone balcony overlooking the west.

The queen walked to the end of the balcony and thrust aside a hanging curtain of creeping plants. Looking down, she could see the first of the short wooden bars set into the stone of the outside wall.

Under cover of renovations to her new apartments, lengths of seasoned oak had been set deep into the stone, descending to an overgrown garden overlooking the sea. No guards or palace servants were permitted to enter the garden, and it had been allowed to grow wild with roses and vines. The work had been skillfully done, and it was hard to discern the handholds from the ground even if one knew what to look for.

The craftsmen responsible for the work had returned to her brother’s tribe in Zeleia, heaped with honor and silver and sworn to secrecy.

With Helikaon absent, only two people in the fortress knew of the escape route besides herself: Pausanius, of course, and his aide Menon.

Menon, the betrayer!

She hesitated in an agony of indecision, looking at the escape route into darkness. What choice do I have? she thought. I cannot stay here and wait for them.

She bent over the balcony wall and listened, trying to calm the thumping of her heart. She could hear nothing in the undergrowth below. All was still.

She hurried back to the door of her room and listened there. She heard the distant pounding of metal on wood as they battered down the antechamber door.

Moving to a great carved wooden chest, she yanked open the heavy lid. It thumped against the wall. Pushing aside embroidered shawls and gem-encrusted gowns, she pulled clear an old servant’s tunic of dull blue and a hooded cloak in dirty brown. Rummaging deeper, she found the scabbarded dagger her father had given her on her fifteenth birthday. It had a handle of deerhorn and a curved blade of shining bronze. She slipped off her dress of white linen and donned the drab tunic. Then, taking a deep breath, she unbarred the door to her room and opened it a crack. From below the sound of splintering wood was loud in her ears. She could hear the grunts and shouts of men struggling with broken timbers.

She stood calmly and thought her plan through one more time. Then she carefully placed the locking bar against the wall and opened the door wide.

Pelopidas the Spartan ran up the narrow stairs, his bloody sword in his hand. He knew what he would find. One more locked door, which the axmen following him would splinter in a few heartbeats. The queen would not be inside. She would have taken the secret climb to the garden below, where more of his men were waiting for her. Or, he thought with quickening desire, she would see the men below and climb in panic back to the bedchamber. Pelopidas hoped that was true. Far more comfortable to rape her on a bed. Easier on his aging knees.

A veteran with graying hair and beard in long braids, Pelopidas reached the top of the stairs and saw the door was open. Stupid bitch, he thought. In her terror she had made it all the more easy for them. He was followed by three other men, all sweating and cursing the splinters in their hands from breaking down the lower door. They went straight out onto the narrow balcony. Pelopidas thrust aside the tattered curtain of plants, tearing them down.

“You two,” he said, gesturing at his men. “Follow her down. When you catch her, bring her back here. I want her first.”

The two soldiers looked doubtfully at the narrow handholds and the drop into darkness beyond, but they followed his orders, as he knew they would, climbing swiftly over the stone wall and lowering themselves down.

Pelopidas grunted and returned to the bedchamber. The last soldier was standing by the bedside, rummaging in a jewelry box decorated with ivory. “Leave that, you cur,” Pelopidas said. “You know what the general said about looting. Get below and find that damned child. There’s twenty gold rings for the team that brings his head to Katheos.”