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

‘Keep your shields raised, damn it,’ Odysseus shouted at his countrymen, as more arrows rose into the smoke-filled sky and fell again. More screams of pain rang out and more men fell.

Then one voice rose above all the others. It was a great bellowing shout of rage, a sound that filled even Eperitus with sudden fear. And then, bursting out from the Myrmidon ranks like a raging lion, he saw Achilles. He wore a black-plumed helmet with a bronze visor crafted to look like the face of the war god, its mouth open in a war cry and its eyes frowning in anger. He bore his tall shield before him and in his right hand he carried his fabled ash spear, but no weight of arms could slow the speed of his wrath or his lust for battle. Before his Myrmidons or any of the other Greeks could think to follow, he had sprinted up the beach and leapt through the screen of grass to the plain above. Startled and exhilarated by the ferocity and pace of Achilles’s attack – and desperate to see him in battle – Eperitus forgot the danger of the Trojan archers and raced towards the protective bank. It seemed every other man in the Greek army had the same thought, and the roar of their voices as they charged up the beach was deafening.

Eperitus felt a new surge of energy as he dashed across the sand. Odysseus was at his side – his usually mild features now fearsome to look at – and together they plunged through the tall grass to the plain beyond. Ahead of them, looming like a great cliff in the distance, were the walls and towers of their goal – the city of Troy. In between were the lines of Hector’s infantry, their spear-points bristling as they awaited the heavily armoured Greeks. A great press of archers were behind them, preparing to release a new volley of arrows – this time directly at the front rank of the invaders – while the cavalry had split into two groups and were moving to protect the flanks. Hector sat astride his grey mare behind the rows of waiting spearmen, his burnished armour flashing in the sunlight and his sword raised high above his head. As he saw the mass of Greeks rush out from the cover of the beach, with the lone figure of Achilles sprinting ahead of them, his stern face broke into a satisfied grin. A moment later his sword fell and a thousand arrows carried death to the enemies of Troy.

Eperitus was running with his heavy shield held one-handed before him. Arrows thumped into the thick, four-fold leather; all about him soldiers screamed and crashed to the ground, to be trampled by the men behind. He glimpsed Achilles through the black smoke that rolled across the plain, swatting aside the storm of missiles with a sweep of his shield as if they were nothing more than a cloud of flies. But many more followed, and to Eperitus’s amazement the black shafts broke or sprang away from the prince as if they had hit a pillar of stone. Laughing with the joy of battle and the certainty of his own invulnerability, Achilles charged straight into the Trojan line, to be lost from sight as his enemies closed about him.

The rest of the Greeks followed, hurling their spears before them and bringing many of the Trojans down into the dust. The gaps were closed quickly, though, and as the Greeks drew their swords and renewed the attack – desperate to come to grips with their enemies – Hector boomed out another order. More arrows flew into the press of Greeks, as on their flanks the Trojan horsemen couched their spears under their arms and broke into a charge. At the same time, the infantry ran forward to meet the invaders, their meticulously sharpened spears glinting like points of fire through the clouds of dust.

Many of the Greeks were skewered by the onslaught and carried back into the ranks of their comrades. More fell to the arrows that swept down on them like an unceasing rain, and at the edges of the battle the Trojan cavalry were cutting deep swathes through their disorganized enemy. But if Hector’s force was disciplined, experienced and well led, their numbers were too few to drive the Greek assault back into the sea. Within moments, the shock of their attack had been absorbed by the mass of men still pouring off the ships and up the beaches. Many of the Trojan horsemen had plunged too deeply into the horde of invaders and now found themselves surrounded and cut off from their comrades, where they were killed with spears or pulled from their mounts and butchered. Elsewhere, Podarces had organized a large company of Greek archers who were returning the fire of their Trojan counterparts, killing many and breaking up the effectiveness of their volleys. And where the Trojan spearmen had at first carried their enemies before them, they were now disadvantaged by the length of their weapons against the shorter swords of the Greeks. For all the cleverness and ferocity of Hector’s tactics, the momentum of his attack was being neutralized by the sheer weight of his enemy’s numbers.

Chapter Thirty-two

THE GATES OF TROY

Eperitus and Odysseus had met the assault together, turning aside the Trojan spears with their shields and bringing their swords to bear in the confined press of sweating, heaving bodies. Side by side, they could see fear in the dark faces of their opponents as they struck them down, hacking and slashing indiscriminately with an energy born from the desperate will to survive and the heart-thumping joy of bringing death and destruction. As warrior after warrior fell to his sword, Eperitus felt as if – like Achilles and Ajax – no weapon could harm him. Though soaked in the gore of his victims, he shouted with the elation of battle, baying for more blood as he stood on a knife’s edge, balanced between death and Hades on the one side and Olympian glory on the other.

At Eperitus’s side, Odysseus was also a man transformed. The lust of war had consumed him and with his normally pleasant face now a red mask, he looked more like a savage beast than a man. The experienced, hard-fighting Trojans were unable to withstand the ferocity of his attacks, and many of their number lay dead around the Ithacan king. Beside him was Antiphus, who was proving himself to be as deadly with a sword as he was with a bow, while – to Eperitus’s satisfaction – Arceisius was also in the thick of the fighting, using the skills his captain had taught him with the ability and temerity of a hardened veteran.

The Ithacans were killing and being killed in large numbers, littering the ground with bodies – both Trojan and their own – so that it was almost impossible to move. Those who had an instinct for fighting were realizing the power that a sword or a spear gave to them and revelling in the slaughter of their opponents; those who did not were being killed by the true warriors in the Trojan ranks. On both sides there were men who turned and tried to flee the horror of combat, though few found a passage through the solid mass of men behind them and were quickly brought down by a sword or spear through their unprotected backs. But where Odysseus and Eperitus fought, the Trojan spearmen were laid out in heaps and the line was thinning dangerously. Suddenly the last few soldiers turned and fled, leaving the two Ithacans facing the open plain with only a handful of mounted officers between them and the walls of Troy.

Seeing the danger, three horsemen urged their mounts straight at the gap in the line. At their head was a tall man with a long spear couched under one of his muscular arms. He had cruel eyes and his mouth was drawn back in a hateful sneer that revealed his broken yellow teeth. The two others were on either side of him, yelling furiously with their swords held high above their heads.

Odysseus and Eperitus raised their shields against the attack, but without their spears they knew their defence would be shortlived. Determined to save his king, Eperitus stepped forward to take the full force of the charge, but as the black stallion of the lead rider approached – the heavy fall of its hooves shaking the ground beneath his feet – a gigantic figure lumbered past him, running straight at the charging horse. The stallion panicked and tried to turn away, but Polites threw his great arms about its neck and pushed it into the flank of the horse to its right. Both fell, pinning their surprised riders beneath them and sending up a cloud of dust from the sun-baked earth.