Glyn Iliffe - The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘What about the horsemen?’

‘They’ve more important things than us to worry about, now. The Greeks have fought their way back out of the gates and are counter-attacking, led by Agamemnon and Menelaus.’

‘And my father?’

Odysseus took out his dagger and sliced the flight from the back of the arrow, before cutting off a strip of cloth from a dead man’s cloak. He called to Polites and nodded towards Eperitus. Then, as Polites pinned Eperitus’s arms irresistibly to his sides, Odysseus seized the shaft of the arrow and pushed it through the other side of his thigh. Eperitus cried out as a surge of fresh pain racked his body, and then blackness took him. He was woken again by the slap of cold water on his face and the sight of Odysseus holding the bloodied dart before his eyes. Polites was busily wrapping the strip of cloth about his thigh.

‘It would have caused more damage pulling it out,’ Odysseus said apologetically, tapping the barbed arrowhead with his finger. ‘And now we have to get that wound cleaned and treated, before it gets infected. Can you ride a horse?’

As he spoke, Eurybates appeared leading a tall brown mare, a survivor of the Trojan cavalry charge. Its neck was crimson with blood, but the animal seemed unhurt.

‘Yes – and fight from it, too,’ Eperitus answered, sitting up with a grimace. ‘Where’re my spear and shield?’

‘We’ll find them for you, when the battle’s over,’ Odysseus said. ‘First you need to get into the camp and have that leg properly cared for.’

Polites lifted him easily onto the back of the horse and passed him the reins. Looking quickly about, Eperitus could see the Argives had lost a few men to the attack but were standing firm beneath the command of Diomedes. Meanwhile, the battle around the walls of the camp had grown in fury. The parapet had been cleansed of Trojans and was now manned by Greek archers – led by Philoctetes – who were exchanging fire with the Trojan skirmishers on the plain below. Between them, the Greeks under Agamemnon and Menelaus had temporarily regained the gates, but had been pushed back by the cavalry while Eurypylus and Deiphobus – two figures in flashing armour at the forefront of the Trojan army – rallied their spearmen for another attack. Apheidas was nowhere to be seen, but to Eperitus’s amazement he saw a figure rise from a pile of dead horses and men further back on the battlefield. He was covered in blood and dust, and staggered drunkenly as he searched for something among the bodies around him, but the red plume of his helmet and the gleam of his great shield – despite its covering of filth and gore – put the man’s identity beyond doubt. Somehow Neoptolemus had survived the wall of Trojan cavalry. He plucked his father’s great ash spear from the body of a dead horse and turned to face the struggle before the walls. As he did so, a soldier on the battlements spotted him and called out the name of Achilles. Others joined in the cry and the spearmen under Eurypylus and Deiphobus looked over their shoulders in awe, unable to believe that the man who had struck fear into their hearts earlier had risen yet again from the dead.

The shock did not last long. Hundreds of archers turned their arrows away from the walls of the camp and aimed them instead at Neoptolemus. Before they could loose their lethal darts, though, Eurypylus shouted a deep-voiced command and every bow was lowered. Behind him, the Trojan cavalry broke off their attack on the Greeks and withdrew. The clash of weapons ceased altogether and men fell silent as Eurypylus walked towards the lone warrior. Deiphobus followed him and took him by the arm, speaking quietly but urgently in his ear. Eurypylus shrugged him off with an irritated gesture then strode out onto the empty plain, raising his spear above his head.

‘I am Eurypylus, son of Telephus, of the line of Heracles,’ he announced in Greek. ‘If the voices on the walls are to be believed, you are Achilles, son of Peleus. But Achilles fell to the arrows of Paris and his ghost is condemned to eternity in the Chambers of Decay, so who are you? Declare your name and lineage, so I can know whether you’re worthy of that armour you wear, which I will soon be claiming for myself.’

‘I’ve heard your name spoken back home on Scyros,’ Neoptolemus replied. ‘There they say you are a coward, watching from behind your mother’s skirts as your grandfather’s kingdom is slowly strangled to death. Well, I see the rumours aren’t entirely true: you’ve found the stomach to fight at least, though whether it was your decision or your mother’s I cannot tell.

‘As for me, I am Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. This armour you covet once belonged to him, but now it is mine. Vain words alone will not change that, Eurypylus, so let’s see how well your mother taught you to fight.’

Eurypylus gave a sneering laugh. ‘Better than your father taught you, boy.’

Tossing his spear into the air and catching it, he drew it back and launched it with a single, easy motion. Neoptolemus raised his shield just in time, deflecting the great bronze point so that it skipped over his head and clattered through the parched grass behind. Neoptolemus lowered his shield again and stared hard at Eurypylus, as if the Mysian king had thrown nothing more than an insult. Then, with a cry of pure hatred, he charged.

Eurypylus slid his sword from its scabbard and advanced to meet his opponent. Neoptolemus lunged at him with his father’s monstrous spear, ripping the shield from the Mysian’s shoulder and almost pulling his arm out of its socket. Eurypylus gave a roar of pain, which quickly turned to anger as he swung his sword at the younger warrior’s head. Neoptolemus caught the blow on his shield and the clang of bronze echoed back from the walls of the camp. He stabbed out with the point of his spear, missing Eurypylus’s abdomen by a fraction as the king twisted aside and backed away.

The watching armies, which for a few moments had been awed into silence, now shouted encouragement and cheered as the two men circled each other, seeking opportunities to attack. A Mysian soldier tossed his shield out into the long grass and Eurypylus ran towards it, pursued by Neoptolemus. He snatched up the leather and wicker disc just in time to push aside the thrust of the Greek’s spear, then leapt forward with the tip of his sword. It beat Neoptolemus’s guard, slipping inside the edge of his shield and finding his bronze cuirass. But the armour that Neoptolemus wore had not been forged by men in the fires of an earthly smithy. It was the work of the smith-god, Hephaistos, and had never been pierced by any weapon. It turned the point of Eurypylus’s sword with a flash of sparks and the king stepped away in dismay and wonder. Neoptolemus, too, fell back a few paces, looking down at himself as if expecting to see his life’s blood pouring from him. When he realised the invulnerability of his armour, his shock quickly turned to triumph. Gripping the shaft of his father’s spear with both hands, he lunged at Eurypylus. The Mysian raised his shield in defence, but the layered oxhide was no match for the cruel bronze point or the ruthless strength behind it. The spear punched through the shield and found the base of Eurypylus’s throat, passing through the spinal cord with such force that his head was almost torn from his shoulders. The onlookers fell suddenly silent, and as Neoptolemus withdrew his spear and his victim’s body slumped lifeless to the ground the Trojans cried out in grief, while the Greeks shouted to the skies in exultation. Achilles’s son drew his sword and straddled the body of Eurypylus, taking three blows to hack off the head before lifting it by the plume of its helmet so that everyone could witness his victory.

Now the battle recommenced with a fury. A hum of bowstrings drove away the groans and cheers of the two sides and the air above the Greek walls was momentarily dark with arrows, before the deadly rain fell down among the unprepared ranks of Trojans and Mysians. Many fell, the dead in silence and the wounded in shrieks of pain. Other voices followed, but these were the roars of the Greeks as they charged into their shocked enemies. The Trojan archers released a hurried volley, felling several, but not enough to stop the terrifying assault. Moments later the spearmen of Mycenae, Sparta, Corinth and a dozen other nations were driving the centre of the Trojan line back with great slaughter. From his vantage point, Eperitus could see Agamemnon and Menelaus in the forefront of the attack, with Idomeneus the Cretan and Menestheus the Athenian leading the fight on each flank. Neoptolemus abandoned the armour he had been stripping from Eurypylus, unable to resist launching his own onslaught against the rear of the enemy line. Deiphobus, alone now in command of the Trojans and their allies, could do nothing to halt the inevitable disintegration of his army. At first, small groups broke and fled; then, as the Greeks poured through the rents in their enemies’ ranks, the rest took flight.