David Gemmell - Shield of Thunder

Helikaon wandered down to the central deck, where some twenty of the wounded were sitting beneath canvas canopies. The raid on Pylos had been brutal and swift, and though the defenders had been few, they had fought hard to save their homes and their families. Helikaon’s force had overcome them swiftly and burned the settlement, destroying the dams built to service the flax fields. His men had then stormed through the palace of Nestor, plundering it.

Nestor’s youngest son, Antilochos, had fought well. Helikaon would have let him live, but he had refused to surrender, leading a last desperate charge in a vain attempt to reach Helikaon himself. He and his few soldiers had been cut down and hacked to death.

It was the fourth successful raid Helikaon had led during the current season, his troops invading Mykene islands and then the mainland. A Mykene fleet had come against them off the coast of Athens, but the fire hurlers of the Xanthos had sunk four of them. Others had been rammed by his war galleys. By the day’s end eleven enemy ships had been sunk for the loss of one Dardanian galley. More than six hundred Mykene sailors had died, some in flames, others shot with arrows or drowned.

But the strategy of raiding settlements had proved less effective than had been hoped. Priam had believed the attacks would force the invaders to pull troops back from the front lines in Thraki and Lykia to defend their homelands, and at first it had seemed his plan was working. Reports from the front lines suggested that some regiments were being withdrawn in Thraki, but they were replaced by mercenary armies from lands to the north.

Helikaon walked among the wounded men, most of whom were recovering. A young warrior with a bandaged forearm looked up at him but said nothing, his eyes empty of emotion. Helikaon spoke to the men, who listened attentively but said little in return. There was a distance now between Helikaon and his warriors that he could not cross. As a merchant he could laugh and joke with them, but as a battle king, with the power of life and death over them, he found they drew back from him, wary and careful.

“You all fought well,” he told them. “I am proud of you.”

The warrior with the wounded forearm looked up at him. “You think the war will end this season, lord?” he asked. “You think the enemy will realize they are beaten?”

“That is something to hope for,” Helikaon told him. Then he walked away from them.

The truth was that the enemy, far from being beaten, was growing in strength.

In the first year of the war it had seemed that the plans of Agamemnon were turning to dust. The war against Troy could never be won unless the Mykene controlled the lands of the Thrakians. Seeking to cross the open sea all the way from the western mainland would leave them prey to the Dardanian war fleet. With Thraki under Mykene control, there would be no such danger. From there they could mass their ships and bring their armies across the narrow straits into Dardania and then down to Troy.

Initially the Mykene invasion of Thraki had been repulsed, Hektor and the young Thrakian king, Rhesos, winning a decisive battle close to the capital, Ismaros. But that had been followed by a rebellion among the eastern tribes, reinforced by barbarians from the north. Hektor had moved swiftly to crush the rebels, only for a second Mykene army to advance from the west, through Thessaly.

Losses had been high, and the following year Priam had reinforced Hektor with two thousand men. Three major battles had been won, but the fighting still raged. And the news now coming from the war-torn land of Thraki was grim indeed. Rhesos had been defeated and driven back to his capital, and the eastern rebels had declared their own nation-state under a new king. Helikaon had traveled through Thraki and knew the land well: towering mountain ranges with narrow passes, vast areas of marshy flatland, and verdant plains flanked by huge forests. It was far from easy to move armies through such terrain and even harder to find suitable battlegrounds to win decisive victories. Enemy foot soldiers and archers could take refuge in the forests, where cavalry was useless, or escape through marshes and bogs, where infantry could follow only at its peril. Hektor’s early victories had all come because the enemy, with the great advantage of superior numbers, had believed they could crush the Trojan Horse. They had met him on open ground and seen their arrogance washed away in the blood of their comrades.

They were wiser now, launching lightning raids or hitting the supply caravans.

On the southern mainland below Troy matters were almost as bad. The Kretan king, Idomeneos, had led an army into Lykia, defeating the Trojan ally Kygones in two battles. And Odysseus had led a force of twenty ships and a thousand men, raiding all along the coast, plundering three minor cities, and forcing the surrender of two coastal fortresses, which were now held by Mykene garrisons.

Pushing such pessimistic thoughts from his mind, Helikaon moved on to the prow, where Gershom was leaning on the rail and staring out over the sea. The big man had joined the fleet just before the last raid on the mainland. Since then his mood had become increasingly gloomy, and he spoke rarely.

“Where next?” he asked now.

“We’ll sail up the coast then head west and down to the lands of the Siculi.”

“Are they allied to the Mykene?”

“No.”

“That is good. And then we head home?”

“No, first we sail north and west to the lands of the Seven Hills. It is a long journey but necessary.” He looked hard at Gershom. “What is troubling you?”

Gershom shrugged. “I am beginning to hate the word ‘necessary,’” he muttered. Then he sighed. “No matter. I will leave you to your thoughts.”

Helikaon stepped forward as Gershom swung to leave the deck. “Wait! What is happening here? A wall has come between us, and I cannot breach it. I can understand it with the other men, for I am their king and their leader, but you are my friend, Gershom.”

Gershom paused, and when he spoke, his voice was cold, his eyes hard. “What would you have me say?”

“From a friend?” said Helikaon. “The truth would be good. How can I heal a rift when I do not know what caused it?”

“And there is the problem,” Gershom said. “The man I met three years ago would have understood in a heartbeat. By the blood of Osiris, I would not be having this conversation with that man! What is wrong with you, Helikaon? Did some harpy steal your heart and replace it with a rock?”

“What is wrong with me ? Has everyone been moonstruck? I am the same man.”

“How can you think that?” Gershom snapped. “We are sailing the Great Green in order to terrorize the innocent, burn their homes, kill their menfolk. War should be fought between soldiers, on a chosen battlefield. It should not visit peasant homes where people struggle daily just to fill their bellies.”

Anger swept through Helikaon. “You think I desire such slaughter?” he said. “You think I revel in the deaths of innocent villagers?”

Gershom said nothing for a moment, then drew himself up and stepped in, his dark eyes gleaming. For only a heartbeat Helikaon thought he was about to be struck. Then Gershom leaned close. Helikaon felt a shiver go through him. It was as if he were staring at a stranger, a man of almost elemental power. “What difference does your joy or guilt make to the widow?” said Gershom, his voice low but the intensity of his words plunging home like daggers. “All that she loved is still dead. All that she built is still ash. You were a hero once. Now you are killing husbands and old men and children barely old enough to lift a sword. Perhaps Odysseus will spin a tale one day about the yellow-haired child on Pylos with his little fruit knife and his gushing blood.”