The Armour of Achilles (40 page)

A
chilles dumped Memnon’s armour on to the ground and joined the others as they turned to face the swarm of approaching Aethiopes. But the southerners were not interested in fighting any more; their leader was dead and with him their brief allegiance to Troy. They were not Priam’s vassals, like the Dardanians, the Zeleians or the Cilicians, but had been persuaded to fight by ancient friendships and promises of Trojan gold. These no longer mattered, and so they swept around the small knot of Greeks like a stampede of wild horses avoiding an outcrop of rock, following in the wake of their countrymen who were already in retreat across the plain.

With their left flank now gone, the Trojans broke off the fighting and began to fall back. Menelaus, Idomeneus and Ajax – his pride getting the better of his exhaustion – led their armies in pursuit, while Diomedes and Odysseus prepared their men to go after the Aethiopes.

‘Let the cavalry hunt them down,’ Achilles said. ‘I came here to take the city. The moment the Scaean Gate opens for the Trojan survivors, we’re going to follow them in.’

He turned to the lines of spearmen and raised his sword in the air.

‘Listen to me! You men fought hard and suffered while I let my pride keep me in my hut. But since my return I’ve killed Hector, Penthesilea and now Memnon, and today I will lead you into Troy itself! Every man here who does his duty and fights well can take all the women and gold he can lay his hands on – and if Agamemnon or Menelaus tries to stop you then they’ll have
me
to answer to. We’ve waited many years for this day to come; now’s the time to make names for ourselves that will linger on men’s lips long after our ghosts have gone down to Hades. To Troy!’

‘To Troy!’ they echoed, punching the air with their spear points.

Eperitus took the reins of Odysseus’s chariot while Eurybates and Arceisius joined the Ithacan ranks. As the many wounded began to trail back to the Greek camp – Nestor among them, still unconscious from his wounds and unaware that his son was dead – the rest of the army chased the Trojans back across the grassland. Their pursuit was slowed by the delaying tactics of the enemy cavalry, who wheeled and charged again and again to prevent the Greeks from coming to grips with the retreating infantry. But as the pursuit passed over the temple of Thymbrean Apollo and down the slopes beyond to the Scamander, the Trojan horsemen had no choice but to join the rest of the army as they forded the river. Suddenly Achilles, who had bided his time for this very moment, gave the order for every man to throw himself into the attack. With a great roar, the Greeks splashed through the shallow water and fell upon the Trojans. The ringing of bronze and the screams of injured men mingled with the gentle babbling of the water and the call of the gulls overhead; all around, men fell by the score and fed long streamers of blood into the fast current. The Trojan resistance was ferocious but short-lived. Dispirited, outnumbered and outfought, their line wavered and broke.

‘Follow them!’ Odysseus shouted, pointing across the sea of helmeted heads to where Paris and Deiphobus were turning their chariot about and driving back to the Scaean Gate.

Eperitus flicked the reins across the backs of the horses and sent them springing forward. The heavy wheels bounced across rocks and the softer bodies of dead men beneath the water, before biting into the mud of the far bank and driving up on to the sun-baked plain. All around them Trojans were running in headlong panic, no longer concerned with fighting but only with reaching the safety of the city walls. Some fell beneath the speeding chariot, while others were caught by the pursuing Greeks and cut down without mercy. Then Paris turned and saw Eperitus and Odysseus gaining on him. With a quick word to his brother, who gave a shout and drove the tired horses even harder, Paris fitted an arrow to his bow and took aim. Odysseus quickly threw up his shield, catching the bronze-tipped shaft in the upper rim. Paris fitted another arrow and Eperitus wrenched the reins to the left, running down a group of Trojan spearmen as the second shaft flew past his right ear.

‘Get after them!’ Odysseus hollered, watching in angry dismay as Paris and Deiphobus escaped towards the Scaean Gate.

Eperitus steered the chariot back round to the right, just as a series of shrill horn calls announced the opening of the Scaean Gate. In the same moment he heard Achilles’s loud voice booming over the din of battle.

The gates are opening! To the gates! To the gates!’

He swept past them in his chariot, his immortal horses riding down any man in his way as he dashed headlong towards the yawning gap opening up in the Trojan walls. He drove forward with such speed that, for a moment, Eperitus thought he would reach the gates and take them single-handedly, overturning all the prophecies of doom, and with one act of courage and shining skill eclipse the feats of every warrior who had lived before him, even Heracles himself. Men fled as he bore down on them, or leapt aside and threw their arms over their heads in fear. But as Paris and Deiphobus disappeared through the gate a new series of horn calls sounded from the walls above. They were followed by loud cheering as hundreds of heavily armed men came rushing out to meet the Greeks.

Paris jumped down from the back of the chariot, followed by Deiphobus. All around them the streets were packed with soldiers and civilians, mingling chaotically as the panic of war took hold of the city once more. In one direction, massed companies of fresh troops marched out to meet the encroaching enemy, while in the other the survivors of the battle were trickling in through the gate to slump exhausted against the cyclopean walls, there to have their wounds treated by the flocks of anxious-looking women who were waiting for them. Again, Achilles had helped the Greeks turn defeat into victory and Paris felt his frustration turning to anger.

‘Apheidas!’ Paris called, seeing the tall captain leading the reserves. ‘Apheidas, keep the Greek infantry away from the gates – the archers on the walls will help – but let Achilles push in closer. He’ll not wait for the rest and I want him to be separated from them.’

Apheidas frowned down at the prince.

‘That’s too risky, my lord. If he reaches the gates it could mean the fall of Troy.’

‘Apheidas is right, Brother,’ Deiphobus agreed. ‘Let’s just get as many men as we can back inside the walls before—’

‘No!’ Paris snapped. ‘Achilles killed Hector and I’m going to avenge his death with my own hands
now
. If I fail and Troy falls, what of it? She’ll succumb sooner or later anyway, if Achilles isn’t killed.’

Apheidas’s gaze remained on Paris for a short while, then without a word he turned and rejoined the stream of spearmen flooding out of the gates, the hooves of his horse echoing loudly between the high walls. As he went, Paris selected a particular arrow from the leather quiver at his hip and turned its long, black shaft between his fingers. The tip had been smeared with a dark grey paste that had dried to a textured hardness. What was in the paste Paris did not know; but when he had requested the arrow from Penthesilea – having heard of the deadliness of Amazon barbs – she boasted it would kill any man, woman or beast, however great, if it so much as pierced their flesh. And there was only one man he intended to use the arrow on.

He ran up a flight of steps to the top of the walls, followed closely by Deiphobus. The battlements were filled with archers, pouring a deadly fire into the horde of Greeks beyond the line of the sacred oak tree, where the Trojans were barely managing to keep their onslaught at bay. Paris shouldered his way between them and, fitting the arrow to his bow, peered down into the morass of struggling men below.

The sound of the battle washed over him like a strong wind and for a while he could barely identify any individual among the closely fought press. Then he noticed Apheidas directing more reserves towards the fight with the Greek infantry, while ordering others on his right to move back. And then, following the direction of Apheidas’s orders, Paris saw him – the hated figure of Achilles, now dismounted from his chariot and fighting in the shadow of the walls. He was alone in the midst of a crowd of Trojans, who refused to attack or retreat as they formed a circle about the most feared of all the Greeks.

Paris sneered with hatred as he fitted the well-made arrow to his bow.

‘Lord Apollo, hear my prayer. If you will make my aim straight – if you will aid me in killing Achilles this day – you shall have the fat and thigh bones of twenty calves before darkness falls.’

As the words left his lips he heard a rushing of wind coming, it seemed, from a great distance. He closed his left eye and took aim down the shaft of the arrow, letting the bronze tip wander this way and that until he found Achilles again, causing murderous havoc with his sword among the Trojan spearmen. His heart quickened in his chest and at the same time the firmness of his grip wavered, letting the point of the arrow drift alarmingly away from its target. He felt the sweat on his fingertips and knew his grip on the base of the arrow was beginning to slip. Unless he regained command of himself the shot would be wasted. And then the wind grew louder and a moment later he felt it fanning his hair and cloak as a great shadow fell over him.

The noise of battle raged about Odysseus and Eperitus. Having seen Achilles leap down from his chariot and plunge into the thick of battle, they had followed the prince’s example and rushed in after him on foot, only to be held back by the fleeing Trojans as they turned and fought, heartened by the arrival of reinforcements from the gate and supporting fire from the archers on the battlements. The Greek infantry caught up and charged into the hastily formed Trojan line, but were greeted by a hail of arrows that stopped them as effectively as if they had run into a stone wall. They charged again and the struggle that followed was as frenzied and confused as any battle Eperitus had ever known. The Trojans fought with a fury Eperitus had rarely seen before, and which was only matched by the determination of the Greeks to follow Achilles through the Scaean Gate and into the streets of Troy.

Eperitus pushed the head of his spear into a Trojan’s chest, only for another to leap into the gap and swing at him with a double-headed axe. Eperitus met the shivering blow with the boss of his shield, before despatching his attacker with a rapid thrust of his spear as he pulled back his axe for a second time. Stepping over his body, he was met by a young lad armed with nothing more than a crude leather shield and a dagger.

‘So this is the level Troy has been lowered to,’ he said, staring at his enemy. ‘Sending boys on to the battlefield with nothing more than knives.’

There was no fear on the lad’s face, only angry determination as he rushed at Eperitus with his blade held before him. Almost without thinking, Eperitus reached across and grabbed the boy’s wrist, twisting his arm aside until, with a shout of pain, he dropped the dagger into the trampled grass. Eperitus kicked the weapon away just as Odysseus appeared at his side. Eurybates, Polites and Antiphus were with him.

‘Come on,’ the king shouted over the din of battle. ‘We’ve got to reach Achilles before the Trojans overpower him and drag his body into the city walls.’

He plunged into the press of Trojans, followed by the others.

‘Go home to your mother,’ Eperitus said, releasing the lad’s wrist.

He shoved him forcefully back towards his comrades, then followed the giant form of Polites into the fray. The Ithacans were cutting their way man by man through the swarming Trojans, and as their enemies were slowly pushed back, Eperitus caught a glimpse of Achilles ahead of them, fighting alone against a press of spearmen. Any other man would have fallen beneath such numbers. And yet no other man possessed Achilles’s all-consuming lust for glory, a lust that could only be satisfied by taking the gates of Troy and denying the doom his own mother had laid on his shoulders. But his savage fury was met with equal determination on the part of the Trojans, who were prepared to sacrifice everything in the defence of their homes and families, even to the point of sending boys into battle. Watching them throw themselves at the unstoppable Achilles, Eperitus realized that such men could never be defeated by the Greeks. They had a cause worth dying for, whereas Agamemnon’s army had forgotten why it had come to Ilium in the first place. Its leaders cared for nothing more than their own personal quests for glory, and pride alone would never give them victory.

Then Eperitus sensed a shadow fall across the battle. Others felt it too and looked up, only to see clear blue skies overhead. But as Eperitus lifted his gaze to the crowded battlements, he thought he saw a giant presence warping the air above the archers there, distorting the emptiness over their heads so that it seemed to shimmer like the heat haze on a distant horizon. No physical form was visible, but Eperitus knew a god was standing on the walls of Troy and casting its shadow over the fighting below. Then his eyes fell on Paris, who was leaning over the parapet with his bow pulled back, and suddenly Eperitus could see the shadowy outline of a tall figure standing over him, moving back its right hand as the Trojan prince drew the bow, and bending its head just as Paris bent his own head to take aim along the line of the arrow. Then the bowstring sang out and the missile struck its target.

Achilles cried out in pain. It was a sound Eperitus had never heard from Achilles before, nor had he ever expected to: high and clear and filled with extraordinary anguish, then slipping into despair as the great warrior knew his end had finally come, just as his beloved mother had warned him it would. He staggered, clutching at the long black arrow that had buried itself in his right heel, then fell.