Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (26 page)

His father nodded.  "But we cannot stand by in the same way."

"What can we do?" Antílok'o asked.  "Agamémnon is our ally, as is Odushéyu.  You cannot be thinking of making war on them and joining the Tróyans."

Néstor's lined face wrinkled in a half smile.  "No, my son, I will not make war on Argo or It'áka, at least, not until Tróya has fallen.  But I can compete with them in other ways.  My reputation is for wisdom and that is what I will use to draw men to me.  Talk to the men at their hearths, my son.  Remind them that Mesheníya's king is renowned for his strategy.  Agamémnon knows only when to send the army forward to fight, not how to fight effectively.  Do you realize what he and Odushéyu have been doing?  They are pushing all the Ak'áyans to begin working together as a unit and not as individual warriors.  Only by combining all our strengths, they say, will we be able to bring Wilúsiya to her knees."

"But that is not right, is it, father?" Antílok'o asked.  He was no longer as certain as he had once been.  "If it were, there would be no reason for any kingdom to follow a wánaks other than Agamémnon."

Néstor's eyes gleamed.  "Exactly!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands to his thighs.  "Now you see his true intent.  He does not care about Tróya or his brother's wife, or Ak'áiwiya's honor.  What he wants is power, the status of emperor of the Ak'áyans.  We must stop him.  I do not know about the island kings, but as for me, I have no intention of becoming a vassal king like Alakshándu.  At all costs, we must defeat his plan.  Lead our loyal Mesheníyans today, my son.  I am too old to fight without a chariot, so I will stay in camp and guard the captives.  But remember what we talked about this morning.  And when the day's battle is over, I will help you begin to sow dissension among the Ak'áyans."

aaa

When morning dawned, Bendisiléya led her pale-skinned warriors in a chanting dance around their small encampment.  With each circuit, their voices grew louder and their chant was interspersed with cries imitating those of carnivorous animals. The Mar-Yandúns howled like wolves and roared like bears, their queen mimicking the screeching of the eagle.  The pace of their dance quickened, the pounding of their feet on the ground rousing their small horses to struggle against the fetters that bound them.  With drums made of hollowed tree limbs stretched with hide, they added to the driving rhythm.  Even the war-weary Tróyans found their pulses speeding to that beat.  As soon as the sun's upper rim cleared the tops of the eastern mountains, the blue-eyed northern warriors leaped onto the bare backs of their ponies and rode toward the Sqámandro River, to the astonishment of ally and foe alike.  They howled and roared their strange cries as they approached the river, brandishing lightweight javelins over their heads.

Close behind Bendisiléya's riders, the longbowmen from Mízriya lined up.  Rows of archers marched southward in neat rows, Amusís riding in a brightly painted chariot in their midst.  Behind this wall of strong and healthy bodies, the remaining Wilúsiyans formed their own, more ragged lines.

The sons of Diwiyána waded across the dwindling waters of the river and drew up to meet their enemies a little north of the banks.  Odushéyu led the center of the line with his spearmen in close rank.  On either side of the island king marched other foot-soldiers, P'ilístas and Zeugelátes intermixed, their ethnic and national differences largely forgotten.  Behind them all came the main body of archers under Idómeneyu's leadership.  Without chariots, the lawagétas from north and south were indistinguishable from their men.  In their captured gear, northerners differed little from southerners.  The old hatreds of their native kingdoms were forgotten in this new drive to extinguish Tróya.  But, despite the impression Odushéyu had made on them all, more clearly than ever, Agamémnon was their common overlord.  His armor alone had been cleaned and polished with oil till it shone.  More men surrounded him than followed any other king.  His booming voice rose above all others, calling, "Díwo!" and repeating the war cry, "Alalá!"

There was no pause in the march that day, no hesitation of opposing lines before the first clash of bronze weapons.  Warriors streamed from Tróya's gate and from the Ak'áyan camp and rushed to meet each other at once.  Roused to near hysteria, Bendisiléya's Mar-Yandúns rode down on the sons of Diwiyána, hurling their spears into Odushéyu's line.  The wild men frothed at the mouth, screamed wild, wordless cries, and, when drawn up in uneven lines, some gnawed on the edges of their shields.  They truly seemed to be maináds, deities of untamed nature.  To the opium-clouded eyes of their enemies, the unfamiliar pairing of man on horseback seemed a single creature.  But the It'ákan's followers were more than equal to the assault.    The careful rows of shield overlapping shield soon dispersed.  But, filled with the spirit of the poppy, fortified by magic formulas, they fought like maddened bulls, charging forward even when mortally wounded, killing even while they were dying.  They surrounded the horsemen as they passed, stabbing the wide bodies of the animals and bringing them to the earth.

The Káushans under Amusís, on the other hand, found themselves unable to use their vaunted skill to full effect.  Their commander called out to his allies to stand back from the Ak'áyans and let the bowmen do their work first.  But neither Bendisiléya's horsemen nor Paqúr's spearmen listened.  Once the Assúwans and Ak'áyans were intermingled, the southern archers could do little more than defend themselves against attack.

Hard-pressed by Wilúsiyan spearmen on their eastern flank, the Mesheníyans under Antílok'o began to retreat almost immediately.  But Odushéyu's battle-hardened islanders, shoring up their courage by touching the backs of their hands to the magic amulets at their necks, prevented a rout.  The It'ákan's native foot-soldiers were as unable to maintain their wall of interlocking shields as the island king's more recent recruits.  Still, they gave their enemies a fight over every inch of ground.  Agamémnon patrolled the back of his army, continually urging the men forward and not backward, occasionally using his sword against one of his own number to impress his command upon the others.

Even without the help of the Assúwan flower’s bitter nectar, Ak'illéyu's fervor for battle matched that of Bendisiléya's wild horsemen.  The P'ilísta prince charged repeatedly into the Mar-Yandún ranks, even when the rest of his T'eshalíyans held back.  Surrounded by the supposed dáimons, Ak'illéyu continued to thrust with his spear and press forward, unaware of his vulnerability.

In the confusion of the battle, he came upon Bendisiléya herself, as she sat upon her stiff-maned horse.  Her right arm raised a spear aloft and she shouted in her strange, wild tongue, unaware of the enemy at her feet.  Ak'illéyu hurled his dagger at her, hitting her just below the exposed armpit.  He leaped onto the little horse's back, behind her, and the animal reared.  The wounded woman fell backward, knocking Ak'illéyu to the earth with her.  The prince scrambled to his feet and the queen tried to rise as well, before her people could come up around her.  Grasping the long braid of gray hair that fell down her back, Ak'illéyu jerked her head forward.  But before he could behead her, a pair of longbow men came upon them, in their white kilts and leather aprons.  The T'eshalíyan was forced to fight for his own life and he flung the northern woman to the ground still alive.  A small cry escaped her lips when she struck the earth, but she did not die immediately.  Sightless, gray eyes stared up at a grim sky of the same color.  Blue lips mouthed the names of the deities of her distant, northern realm.  "Kábeiro," she whispered, "Dánu…"

Unaware of their leader's mortal injury, the Mar-Yandúns continued to fight until the sun reached the peak of the sky's bowl.  The ardor of her fighters cooled in the heat of the day and they realized that Bendisiléya's high-pitched scree no longer soared above the plain.  Individual horsemen made their way out of the press of the fighting.  Leaving their mounts, they climbed the oak tree below Tróya's entrance ramp.  One after another barbarian warrior surveyed the plain, seeking Bendisiléya.  Unable to sight their queen, only a few of the riders returned to the fight, and those who did came with their fervor dampened.  As if comprehension of the fact that they were leaderless came upon them all at once, in a mass they whirled around and fled for the open gates of Tróya.  Flying hooves devoured the plain.  Many died in the first moments of that flight, men and horses alike.  The war-weary Assúwans went after them.

Agamémnon roared out his commands, urging his army to fall upon their enemies, to cut them to pieces and end the war right then.  But Amusís's forces covered the disorderly retreat, each man keeping his shield close to his fellow countryman's, with cries of "Saqmít!" to strengthen his resolve.  Although the Mízriyans followed their allies into the citadel, they lost few men on the way.  It was almost as if they had spied upon the It’ákan king’s practices, some of the islanders’ men whispered to one another, in awe.

aaa

At the shaken walls of Tróya, the pursuing Ak'áyans were stopped in their pursuit by torrents of hot oil and arrows.  Though wave after wave of opium-crazed P'ilístas and Zeugelátes tried to storm the citadel, the defenders on the heights beat them back, again and again.  Every citizen of Tróya aided in the fight, the older boys hurling stones from their slings, old men shooting arrows, and smaller children fetching more from the palace storerooms.  Grown women carried oil and water up the hastily repaired staircases, to heat on crude hearths of brick.  Even the men who had been wounded in earlier battles did their duty, pouring hot liquids down on the Ak'áyans swarming over the fallen masonry below.

In front of the fortress, close to the hastily secured main gate, Diwoméde vented his frustration on the row of sacred pillars.  With his sword and spear, the young qasiléyu attacked the stone obelisks, cursing Dáwan and her spouse who ruled the sea.  The two end columns had shifted during the strong quake.  Weakened and unbalanced, the easternmost pillar fell with a great crash.  In its descent, it grazed the pillar beside it and the second obelisk began to give way.  This one leaned toward the south, resting uneasily against the third column.

The youthful Argive raised his arms above his head, whooping in triumph, and stumbled through a dance about the damaged idols.  "Idé, I have boxed the ears of Dáwan's little daughter!" he exulted.  "I made Assúwan Kórwa fall and scrape her knees.  Now she will run crying to her pappa.  'Owái, look what that warrior did to me,' she will say."  He laughed so hard at the thought that tears ran from his eyes and he could not remain on his feet.

Antílok'o was horrified and gathered several Mesheníyans to drag the Argive away from the six columns before he did any further damage.  "Stop insulting the gods or you will get us all killed," the prince of Mesheníya demanded.

Diwoméde fought free of the hands that wanted to direct him.  But he did not return to the Tróyan pillars.  He continued his dance of victory, flapping his arms as if they were wings, shouting, "I drove away the Kentáuros and the burned faces!  Look at me!  I will kill anything that comes my way, mortal or immortal."

As the qasiléyu skipped over the dry, trampled grass of the field, he kicked at the still bodies in his path.  Bendisiléya groaned when Diwoméde's bandaged foot struck her and he bent down.  "By Díwo!" he shouted, beckoning to his companions.  "I have found a woman warrior here, and she is still alive."

Ak'illéyu and a few incredulous Ak'áyans gathered around the helpless queen.  Her face was ashen.  Her half-opened eyes were glazed.  Blood still trickled from the spear wound in her ribs and her breathing was slow, shallow, and irregular.

"She may be alive now, but she will not live much longer," Ak'illéyu said brusquely, after a brief look.  "Leave her and get the bronze back to the river."

Odushéyu spat on her.  "A woman fighting like a man is unspeakable!"