Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (19 page)

Diwoméde stared at the small, bony prophet.  "No, surely the god understands.  Ai, there were so many dead!  There was no time to dig proper tombs.  Go and take your omens to someone else.  As soon as the pain in my foot dulls, I will be at my overlord's side in the battle."  He moved toward the north wall of the camp, trying to see how the fight was going.  Arrows still rose high in the air and came down near the edge of the encampment, falling on the huts with a light clatter.  But the darts were scattered and came in small spurts now.  More numerous were the spear-points visible above the rampart.

"Idé, the land of the dead is crowded with souls."  Qálki shook his head, following Diwoméde.  "Consider how the wounded have been dying.  The boatmen on the Stuks are busy these days, ferrying souls to the halls of 'Aidé.  Still Préswa's greedy heart is not satisfied.  A battle on a holy day, a funeral day, is a most evil omen.  I fear Agamémnon may be called upon to make yet another sacrifice to save his men."

Diwoméde was troubled.  He stopped where he was, measuring what he saw in the seer's narrowed eyes.  The qasiléyu took a swallow from his small jug and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, the spear in his other hand resting, butt-end on the ground.  "Meneláwo says it is common for more of the wounded to die than to live.  My father used to say that, too.  Agamémnon has already given up his best war-prize, the captive woman, and later he gave back her replacement.  He even sacrificed his own daughter for this expedition, and that was right at the start.  That makes three sacrifices.  Surely that is enough for any god.  No, I cannot believe anything more can be demanded of the high wánaks."  He gulped down the last of the bitter liquid in his juglet.

Qálki squinted hard, black eyes at the younger, taller man.  "Are you so sure, Diwoméde?  Listen to the gods, boy," the seer whispered loudly.  He pointed out toward the sea, repeating, "Listen to the gods."

A distant rumble came to their ears, so deep and low they felt it in their very bones.  For a moment, the qasiléyu was filled with a sense of foreboding and dread.  But the poppy began to work its magic, washing away his doubts and the pain of his unhealed wound.  No thoughts of unseen dáimons troubled his mind as he drew on a heavy set of chest armor from the store by Agamémnon's great tent.  He selected a bronze helmet from the same stack, headgear decked with a pair of bull's horns and the tail of a horse.  With the emblems of the great gods on his head, he felt strong again.  His heart beat faster, his blood warming to the task ahead.  The din of the nearby struggle beckoned to his spirit.  He could not wait to take up his spear and send more Assúwans to the dread queen of 'Aidé.

At Ak'illéyu's feet a wounded Wilúsiyan embraced his knees, tears of pain and fear dripping from eyes that saw death perched on the T'eshalíyan's shoulder.  "Do not kill me, please!" the young man begged, "My father will pay you any ransom…"

Without pausing to consider that plea, the Ak'áyan prince sliced open the man's side so that blood and entrails poured into his lap.  Other men just as quickly lost their lives, until Ak'illéyu's pitiless sword was hot with blood.  The polished bronze of his gear was soon darkened, his arms blackened to the elbows.  With untiring limbs, he waded on into the thick of the fighting, slashing, thrusting, shouting hoarsely, insatiable.  His fellow P'ilístas felt honor bound to follow the mad, northern prince, despite the danger of his exposed position.  Under such an assault, Assúwan discipline cracked and men began to fall away, running north toward the river and the citadel beyond.

The earth shook with savage force, knocking the men off their feet.  The fighting stopped for a moment, as the warriors looked around in sudden terror.  The ground had shuddered before, but never had it moved so powerfully.  The waters of the Inner Sea now rose in violent waves and in the earth's rumbling the men of Ak'áiwiya thought they heard the bellowing of the Divine Bull.  "Díwo!" they called out, raising their weapons to the sky in an abbreviated salute.  But they remained on their knees, unsure whether the sign meant the god was with them or against them.

Equally confused, Wilúsiyans knelt before the thundering hooves of the Divine Horse.  Stunned Lúkiyans shouted the name of the storm god whose voice they were sure they heard, but they, too, made no move to resume the battle.  Several huts in the Ak'áyans' encampment collapsed in a clatter, dust rising along with the screams of captive women struck by the falling debris.  All eyes turned south, to see chunks of the earthen wall of the rampart tumble down on either side.  Their eyes turned north, next, toward the besieged capital of Wilúsiya.  Tróya's high, rounded battlements began to crack beneath invisible blows.  Sun-baked bricks rained down the sloping, stone faces of the city's massive walls.  The six slender columns before the main gate shivered on their stone bases.  Inside the fortress walls, roofs of plastered wood and bricks from the walls of the upper stories shook down from the houses of the rich to crush the shacks of low-born farmers in the wide streets.  Screams rose from the shaken citadel.  Saucer-shaped lamps overturned and the spilled oil flamed brightly.  The supporting timbers of houses great and small began to burn.  Huts flared up quickly in the dry heat, and, as one shelter was consumed by flame, the fire spread easily to its neighbors.  The people rushed about the crowded streets in a panic.  But there was nowhere to go.

In the Ak'áyan camp, Qálki began to shout, dancing on feet made suddenly limber by excitement.  "It is the end of the world!" he cried, climbing up to straddle the earthen wall of the encampment.  "Warriors battle for a stolen queen.  Díwo's chosen marches out to war.  Look, men, can you see the shining dáimons stalking the battlefield?  The gods themselves have taken up arms beside the warriors.  The Divine Horse and the Great Bull are at war.  It is the end of the world, the end of the age of Bronze!"

Wounded Ak'áyans with rotting limbs crawled from their collapsed tents and dug their way out of fallen huts, not knowing what to do.  "Where is Agamémnon?" they asked each other.  The noncombatants knelt, navigators and carpenters shouting frantic prayers to every god whose name they knew, Ak'áyan or Assúwan.

Meneláwo did not look for his brother as he limped from his tent.  The king of Lakedaimón quickly downed a cup of poppy-tinged wine, gripping the festering wound at his hip.  He poured himself a second portion, but dropped it as the sounds of combat resumed.  He did not bother to search for armor but simply took up the nearest spear and shield and made for the gateway, giving the ululating call to battle.  Those of the wounded who could followed suit, while others dragged themselves to the Lakedaimóniyan's tent to help themselves to his poppy-shaped flasks.

About the gently rolling plain the armies fought, the T'eshalíyans in the forefront, pushing the Assúwans slowly but inexorably toward the low waters of the Sqámandro.  On the banks of the sluggish river, the two sides battered each other with renewed vigor.  King Sharpaduwánna's men, having begun this fight for the sake of glory, were determined not to die a coward's death by drowning.  The Lúkiyans stayed close to one another, no longer wasting their time and energy trying to collect booty from the fallen.  Ak'illéyu in his blood-darkened gear drove hard through the less organized Wilúsiyan ranks.  His T'eshalíyans followed closely behind him, followed by the other northern troops, splitting their enemies into two groups.

Half the men of Assúwa retreated around their cool-headed leader.  Sharpaduwánna moved them along the riverbank, toward the shore of the nearby sea, and away from the greatest concentration of fighting men.  The Lúkiyan's progress was slow, inching westward little by little, standing to fight again and again.  Agamémnon directed the bulk of his forces against the king in the conical, felt hat.  "We have them on the run," the overlord shouted to his men.  "We will corner them on the beach where the river is the widest and throw their bodies into the Inner Sea.  They are food for fishes now!"

The other Assúwans ignored the call of areté and Paqúr's invocations.  They turned into the Sqámandro River in panic, abandoning Tróya's princes.  Ak'illéyu leaped in among these terrified men, chasing them across the shallow, muddy waters and cutting them down.  Smacking the water as they fell, Wilúsiyans stained the river with their life's blood.  The living tried to swim, but, in the wild eddies of the shaken stream, many drowned, pulled down by their heavy gear.

"Stay by the bank, Automédon," Ak'illéyu ordered his qasiléyu.  "I will collect my three sacrificial victims today."  The T'eshalíyan prince ran into waters that were choked with bodies, striking to the right and left with his sword.  When his arm burned with weariness from the butchery, Ak'illéyu took captive a high-born Tróyan who clasped his knees and begged for his life.  The prisoner's eyes were as wide and startled as those of a fawn, the whiskers on his chin still sparse.  Trembling in every limb, the youth waded from the water at sword-point to where Automédon stood.  Stripping the young man naked, Ak'illéyu used the captive's own sword belt to bind his hands behind his back and ordered Automédon to take the Tróyan back to the encampment.  Three times he led such a man ashore, sending the bound prisoner back to his camp under T'eshalíyan guard.  Each time, the northern prince turned again to furious battling.

A fourth Wilúsiyan dragged himself from the river, unarmed, just as Ak'illéyu sent the third away.  Gasping and choking, the half-drowned Tróyan fell to his knees at the sight of the Ak'áyan's upraised sword and begged the warrior to think of ransom.

Ak'illéyu stared in disbelief.  "Lupákki!" he exclaimed, recognizing the Tróyan.  "I could have sworn it was you I ransomed on Lámno."

Lupákki yelped, seeing the yellow blade coming down at him.  Scrambling on all fours, he dodged the blow.  Still crouching at Ak'illéyu's knees, he clasped the Ak'áyan's sword arm with both his hands.  "Yes, you pitied me once, Ak'illéyu.  I earned you a bowl worth ten bulls that day.  My father is the king of Tróya, the richest man in all of Assúwa.  He will give you twice that amount for my life this time."

Ak'illéyu kicked the man away and pitilessly raised his weapon again.  With quick strokes he slashed away the young man's frantically grasping fingers.  "This is not a game, Tróyan!"

"Three times that amount!" Lupákki screamed, in terror and pain.  "Please!  I have only had ten days of freedom…."  Opening his arms wide, he collapsed in terror on the ground and received Ak'illéyu's blow on the back of his neck.  Blood and clear spinal fluid poured from the wound.  The Tróyan prince made no further sound as he died.

Ak'illéyu stabbed the body repeatedly, exulting.  "Your mother will not bury you, dog!  The Sqámandro will have that pleasure."

Again the ground shook under the unseen hooves of the Great Horse.  Ak'illéyu fell on his back at Poseidáon's blow, and about him others did the same.  Scrambling to his feet again, the T'eshalíyan prince struggled to leave the riverbank, slashing at any Wilúsiyans who lost their footing close by him.  The River Sqámandro rose and fell, spilling across its banks and pouring over the low-lying ground.  The smaller stream of the Simóye washed over the land, north and east of Tróya, as the Sqámandro ejected pale corpses in its rush toward the Ak'áyan camp.  Frightened cries rose from men of both armies, "The gods are against us!"  From the shore, Agamémnon's men began to run, with the sea at their backs, Lúkiyans racing alongside them.

Ak'illéyu ran, too, now using his sword only to keep away the blows of those who came too near him, his legs pumping as fast as they had ever gone.  How could a man fight an angry river?  The ground rumbled again briefly and a wave crashed against Ak'illéyu legs, knocking him down.  He was washed away for several yards, unable to regain his footing.  A bushy tamarisk met his back and he threw his arms around it, struggling to keep his head out of the flowing water.  Choking and spitting mud, he saw men’s flailing limbs all around him.  The river's rage overcame the little tree, tearing at the dirt enclosing its roots, forcing it to bend low over the swirling waters.  The Sqámandro's passion subsided and Ak'illéyu let go of the trunk.  He struggled on through the knee-deep flood, his greaves chafing his shins, the pressure of the water wearing out the strength in his legs and threatening to wash the ground from under his feet.  Each man was on his own, in the confusion.  Those with enough presence of mind crawled toward higher ground.  Others madly tried to outrun the river and ended up washed away, drowning in the attempt.