Glyn Iliffe - The Gates Of Troy (Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Nonsense!’ Achilles shouted, giving the Malian prince a hard push on the shoulder. ‘ I was the first out. You were still in the prow of your ship when . . .’

Mnemon, who had been standing behind Patroclus and looking nervously about at the towering cliffs, now reached across and tapped his master’s arm. ‘Sir,’ he said, wracked with anxiety. ‘Sir, I must tell you something.’

‘Damn it, Mnemon!’ Achilles snapped. ‘Can’t you see I’m talking?’

‘Is there anything I can help with?’ Odysseus asked, walking up the shingle towards the crowd of men.

‘Yes! You can tell this fool that I won the race fairly and that the first prize goes to me and my Malians,’ Philoctetes said, crossing his arms and glaring at Achilles.

On seeing Odysseus, Achilles immediately walked forward and took his hand. ‘Thank the gods you’re here, Odysseus. We need a man of intelligence to make this idiot understand the difference between winning and coming second.’

‘My lord!’ Mnemon interjected again. ‘Please, I must tell you something.’

‘By all the gods on Olympus,’ Achilles barked. ‘What is it, man?’

But Mnemon did not get the opportunity to speak. Suddenly there was a shout from the top of the cliff followed a moment later by a shower of arrows and stones. Men screamed out as bronze-tipped shafts tore into their flesh, killing several instantly while others crumpled silently into the shingle, felled by falling rocks. Mnemon was one of these: he was struck on the forehead and slumped to the floor unconscious.

The Greeks stared around themselves in shock, then all looked up as a booming voice shouted down to them in a language none of them understood. A huge, bearded man stood on the cliff top, surrounded by a collection of archers and spearmen, many of whom wore leather helmets and carried rectangular shields made of oxhide. His bare chest was broad and covered in black hair, and above his head – held easily by his thickly muscled arms – was a boulder the size of a young heifer. With a final challenge on his lips, he hurled the stone down towards the startled soldiers below, crushing three of them instantly.

Pandemonium ensued. Soldiers scattered in every direction, looking for cover on the empty beach from the downpour of arrows. More men fell screaming; those that did not die instantly clawed at the shingle in a desperate effort to drag themselves away; some pulled the bodies of dead comrades on top of themselves to act as shields. Only Achilles and Patroclus remained where they stood, contemptuous of the danger all about them. Then, as arrows smacked into the pebbles at their feet, the prince drew the sword from his belt and held it above his head. Turning to the men about him, he gave a deafening cry of defiance that rang back from the cliff face and echoed across the harbour.

‘Come on!’ he shouted, and with a look of terrifying anger and joy in his eyes he sprang across the dead and mangled bodies of his comrades and ran to the foot of the ramp.

In an instant, the fear and panic that had infected the Myrmidons disappeared. As one, they drew the swords from their scabbards and the air was filled with the sound of scraping metal. Then, with Patroclus at their head, they sprinted after their leader. An enthusiastic roar rose from their throats as they charged up the ramp that had been cut out of the cliff face, heedless of the new waves of arrows and stones that poured death on them from above.

‘Zeus’s beard,’ said Odysseus, crouching down beside his comrades. ‘What are we waiting for?’

He tugged his sword from its scabbard and dashed forward, followed by Eperitus, Antiphus and the giant figure of Polites. As they crossed the beach, quickly joined by Philoctetes and his Malians, a great shadow passed over them. They turned briefly to see a second gigantic boulder come spinning down from the cliff top to land on the prow of Philoctetes’s ship with a loud crash of splintering wood.

Without further hesitation, they coursed up the steep ramp shouting loudly in a mixture of exhilaration, anger and fear. Eperitus felt his muscles come alive with a sudden rush of energy as he caught up with his king at the first bend. Together they ran to catch up with the press of Myrmidons ahead of them, passing the fallen and wounded on the way. Despite the whistle of arrows and the thump of falling rocks all around, Eperitus’s spirit was filled with the joyous anticipation of battle. There was nothing like the danger of death and the thrill of facing an armed opponent to make a man feel alive and aware of his own mortality. No other experience could match the marvel of short moments of time stretched out by the sharpening of the senses, the realization of tiny details amidst a blur of movement and sound as each man fought to take the other’s life. He clutched the handle of his sword tighter and grinned at the thought that this was how Iphigenia had always imagined him: charging fearlessly into battle, driven by his lust for glory.

They took the next bend in the climbing road just as a Myrmidon soldier came hurtling down from the cliff above, his bronze sword clanging as it fell from his dead hand. Eperitus stooped and snatched it up as he ran. An arrow tugged at the hem of his cloak and hung there, its barbs snagged in the densely woven wool. Beside him, Odysseus narrowly dodged the fall of a large rock, but together they ran on. Then they heard the twang of a bowstring and a moment later a man fell screaming from the cliff top. He soared over the heads of the Greeks and did not stop until his body slammed into the shingle below.

Eperitus looked back and saw that Philoctetes had drawn his bow and was aiming a second arrow skywards. He released it and another body came crashing down to land beside the dead Myrmidon.

‘Damn it, I wish I’d thought to bring my bow,’ hissed Antiphus. ‘Have you seen the way he’s just plucking them off the top of the cliff like tethered doves?’

As he spoke there was a great shout followed by the clashing of metal, signalling that the Myrmidons had reached the top of the cliff. At the same time the relentless shower of missiles from above petered out, and with a shout of defiance Odysseus and Eperitus led the way up the last two angles of the ramp to join the battle.

Already a line of dead bodies showed where Achilles’s men had pushed their enemies back. Though greatly outnumbered and armed only with swords – their shields and spears were still onboard their ships – they had smashed through the first rank of spearman and were now hacking and stabbing ferociously as the men of Tenedos fell back before them. For the first time, Eperitus spotted his friend Peisandros amongst them, fighting like a lion as he shouted encouragement to the men around him. Yells of triumph mingled with the despairing screams of dying men as black-clad Myrmidons trod on the bodies of the fallen, desperate to come to grips with their opponents. At their centre, beads of gore flicking from his blade as he scythed it repeatedly through the terrified ranks, was Achilles. And though a great press of spears and swords were aimed at him, he drove forward with unquenchable aggression, laughing aloud for the pure joy of battle as he swatted aside his enemies’ attempts to resist him. At his side was Patroclus, defending his companion’s left side with precise thrusts of his long sword, finding throats, hearts and stomachs with unerring accuracy.

And yet the Myrmidons were but a handful – three score at the most – against more than a hundred men led by the fearsome giant who had hurled boulders down from the cliff top. Seeing this, the Ithacans threw themselves into the midst of the melee with the Malians close on their heels, while Philoctetes leapt on top of an outcrop of rock and began sending arrows into the massed defenders.