The Pillars of Hercules (17 page)

“More Macks,” said Lugorix. “Trying to seal off this corner of the city’s defenses.”

“Let’s take ’em,” said Matthias.

“Thought we were here to find Barsine.”

“We need to let the Athenians in here or we’ll never reach her alive.”

Lugorix nodded. They reached the wall and turned toward the closest of the doors. Lugorix charged forward while Matthias halted and began firing arrows. They whizzed past Lugorix and buried themselves in backs.

The men holding the wall-gate turned, just as Lugorix reached them and swung Skullseeker, taking off two heads with the first blow. The Athenians on the inner wall just outside the barbican-fortress began cheering. The remaining Macedonians had their swords out and began swiping at the Lugorix, who used his axe to stave off their blows while Matthias kept on firing.

It wasn’t the first time the Gaul had trusted himself so totally to Matthias’ razor-sharp precision—an arrow passed so close to his head he could feel its breeze; blood sprayed against his face as that arrow found its target in a man’s throat. He used the space that bought him to step back and swing the axe again, curving it low, slicing through a leg, then pulling the blade back to block another flurry of blows aimed at his chest. He shouldered into the man opposite him, knocking him to the ground—kicking in his head as he brought the axe down on the rope that held the ramp to the rest of the inner wall up.

That ramp came down with a crash; the Athenians outside clustered forward, pressing up against the iron-wrought door, shoving their spears through the bars at the Macedonians battling Lugorix. That did it: the Macedonians fled, two of them leaping down to a platform just below the summit of the inner wall, a third racing to another staircase that led along the nearest arch, back up to the outer wall.

That last man was the only one to make it—Lugorix’s axe caught one of the men as he leapt to the platform; Matthias’ arrow hit the other in the leg, causing him to trip as he landed—stumble, fall screaming off into space. Even before he hit the ground, Lugorix was already opening the gate, letting in the Athenians, who charged past him and Matthais. An officer bringing up the rear stopped to acknowledge the two.

“What’s the situation elsewhere?” asked Matthias.

“The Macks are concentrating on this corner of the wall,” said the officer. “Just bombardment so far, but they obviously planned to open the barbican’s gates from within.”

“Still might,” said Lugorix. As he spoke, he was scanning along the structures around them, looking at all the gates and ramps and arrow-slits set into the walls. He realized that Matthias was doing the same—

“Zeus,” said Matthias, pointing. Lugorix followed his gaze, down to where a group of men had emerged from a small door at the very bottom of the inner wall, right against the moat. They looked like ants down there. But two of them carried a carpet-sized bundle.

“Must be them,” said Lugorix. Which was when a chorus of trumpets sounded from the Macedonian lines—followed by an almighty yell that echoed, intensifed, was taken up by far too many voices. The shouting carried in across the plain, but already the source of it was becoming visible.

“By Taranis,” muttered Lugorix.

“Here they come,” said the officer.

“I don’t believe this,” said Hephaestion.

“Believe it,” said Alexander. “It’s how the king thinks. Always in search of a bargain.”

That was putting it mildly, thought Eumenes. It was a truism that in war one used mercenaries for the dirty work, but this was taking that maxim to new heights. Philip’s recruiters had hired more than fifty thousand barbarians from the tribes of northern Thrace—had promised those barbarians first crack at ransacking Athens once they’d breached the walls, along with a hefty bonus for doing so, and all the loot they could haul out of there. Undoubtedly it was an offer that sounded great in the huts along the Danube—but in practice it meant that they were cannon fodder, intended to give the Athenian defenses something to shoot at besides the Macedonian machinery that would comprise the main thrust of the assault. And even if not a single one of them made it to the walls, that was still all to the good.

“The king has depopulated the entirety of the eastern Danube,” said Eumenes. “The figures are all in those scrolls, but it’s all the tribes. Triballians, Getae, Serdae, the lot: when we march through the region, we’ll face almost no resistance. Even if the barbarians manage to break down the walls of Athens, their numbers will be so thinned down as to be laughable.”

“Not a very sporting way to win war,” said Hephaestion.

“You don’t win wars by being sporting,” replied Alexander.

The room shook as though the place was being hit by an earthquake—a rumbling that became steadily louder. Alexander led Eumenes and Hephaestion over to the window-slit, the officers standing there stepping aside to let the three men through. The rumbling kept on building in intensity. It seemed to Eumenes like the sky was falling in—like the earth was about to swallow them all up. A vast shadow fell across the window.

The ground was black with men moving toward the walls—many of them pushing mantlets ahead of them for added security as they closed on the Athenian defenses. There were thousands of them, and they kept pouring out from behind the Macedonian lines, boiling up like ants whose nest had been disturbed. Battle-cries echoed across the plain, drifting among the listeners who stood atop the walls.

“Let’s move,” said Matthias.

They raced along the battlements and down the first staircase they came to. That led to a passage, which ended in a trapdoor—they hauled it open and clambered down a ladder as fast as they could, reached another passage that led along the very edge of the inner wall, past a series of arrow slits. Lugorix didn’t bother to look out those slits.

Matthias did.

“Fuck,” was all he could manage. Lugorix skidded to a halt, glanced out. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was like the horizon itself had come alive, raised itself up toward the skies. Then his eyes focused.

Much as he wished they hadn’t.

“What the hell are
those?”
he muttered.

They looked like the titans themselves had returned to earth: gigantic man-shaped figures stalking across the landscape toward the city. There were three of them, the carpet of men around each parting as massive feet lifted into the air and shook the earth with their impact. Lugorix looked up at Matthias, his eyes wide with astonishment.

“They’re some kind of siege machinery,” said Matthias. “Probably a few hundred mules in each one, with levers and gears to amplify everything. Look, their feet are hardly rising. What counts is forward momentum—”

“Don’t care
how
they’re doing it, said Lugorix. “I care about beating them to the bottom of the wall.”

There was a noise all around them like a thousand birds alighting. The Athenian defenses were swinging into action. They’d endured the bombardment in silence until now, waiting for the actual assault to start. As Lugorix dashed past more arrow-slits, the view blurred as the walls unleashed thousands upon thousands of projectiles of every shape and size. Moments later, the missiles began striking home, scything great swathes into the Macedonian onslaught. Lugorix caught a glimpse of a rock bouncing through the first wave of men, smashing them each time it made contact with the earth; he saw another projectile impact and detonate with a force that sent soldiers flying in every direction. The defenders were causing frightful damage to the oncoming infantry; the mantlets behind which that infantry was cowering didn’t seem to be having much effect on the stones heaping up such slaughter. But the gigantic machines were a different story. Lugorix saw huge bolts smash into the side of the foremost one—but it just kept coming.

Matthias stuck his head out an arrow slit. “Those Macedonians are at the edge of the moat,” he said. “Wait a minute—
oh shit
.”

“What?” asked Lugorix.

“They just got picked up by a ship.”

“Athenian?”

“It flies that flag. But I’m sure that’s about it.”

Lugorix nodded. He and Matthias raced along the corridor and practically threw themselves down the stairs at the end of it. Now they were on another of those platforms; this one was enclosed, and contained several large bolt-throwers, each one positioned in front of a large aperture to allow for a wide field of fire. The quarter-mile wide moat glimmered beneath them. Flotsam scattered across the water testified to the relentless efficiency of the Macedonian fire. The ship was moving steadily away from the shore.

“They’re getting away,” said Lugorix.

Eumenes stared out at the plain. The Athenian defenses had timed it well—had waited till the oncoming assault had closed to a mere several hundred yards before they let them have it. The slaughter going on out there was frightful. But the Leviathans were continuing implacably toward the walls, shaking the ground with every stride, surrounded by a sea of barbarians that kept rippling outward to avoid those feet. For those mercenaries, the dilemma was palpable—cluster around the Leviathans for shelter, but not so close that you got stomped. The bolt-throwers atop the shoulders of the Leviathans fired back, but there was so much smoke hanging over the walls it was hard to see what was going on.

“This’ll help,” said an officer, passing Eumenes a thin metal cylinder. And then, off his quizzical look—“they’re farseekers, my lord. Put it to your eye. You focus it by turning this dial.”

Eumenes nodded. He understood now—he’d actually seen the plans for these earlier, back in Aristotle’s lab, though he hadn’t realized they’d already been constructed. It made him wonder just how much else had. Were the Leviathans a design of Aristotle as well? He lifted the farseeker to his eye, and suddenly his vision was transformed. Suddenly it was like he was at one with the object of his attention: as he scanned the plain, he could make out the fur worn by the barbarians—could make out their individual weapons, could see the blood that flew in all directions as a stone crashed down amidst them. Yet still those barbarians kept coming—more of them pouring in from the siege-lines with every minute. But this second wave simply looked more scared than savage—as though they were just as afraid of what lay behind them as the walls that sprawled ahead.

“The Persians had whips at Thermopylae,” said Alexander, another farseeker in his hands. “To drive their masses into battle. We’ve got something even better.”

Eumenes nodded. He’d seen the devices on the road into camp—gigantic bellows pumping toxic fumes at those who were about to charge, ensuring that they charged all the faster. The chemicals involved dissipated quickly into harmless smoke, though it was still taking one hell of a chance with the wind. But the barbarians thought they were dealing with the breath of dragons, and preferred a clean death on the walls of Athens to a last few minutes writhing on the ground and puking so hard one’s bones broke. Eumenes turned his attention back to the walls and focused the farseeker on the corner-barbican that the commandos inside the city were supposed to be capturing. Getting them in there had been no easy task; it had involved a great deal of captured weapons and armor from Egypt, not to mention plenty of bribery of various harbor-masters.

Yet it didn’t look like they’d been successful. He could see Athenians clustered atop the battlements of both inner and outer walls, manning the siege engines that kept on firing out at the waves of mercenaries. He could see every detail of those siege-engines; as he watched, a steam-powered chain spun around a rotating drum, dropping bolt after bolt into that drum and flinging them out at high speeds. Just next to that was another device—just a piece of glass, it seemed, until Eumenes followed the direction it was pointing and saw barbarians literally catching fire as the sun’s concentrated rays hit them. He swung his farseeker back toward the wall, lowered it just enough to take in the moat.

And stopped.

“Alexander,” he said. “That ship—”

“I know,” said the prince.

“You should take another look,” said Eumenes.

Matthias stared out at the ship that was making a beeline for the far side of the moat. He turned to one of the bolt-throwers, began loading it—slotted in an arrow-projectile easily half his own length, then pulled back some latches and—

“Start winching,” he yelled to Lugorix. The Gaul stared for a moment, then bent to the task, letting his muscles pour tension into the super-attenuated strip of leather he was winding back. He kept on winding, till it seemed like the cord must snap—like any moment it would break and take his nose off in the process. Meanwhile, Matthias was busy slotting a rope onto the end of the bolt now encased within the machine. Lugorix suddenly realized what he was planning.

“You are
not
serious,” he said.

“If you’ve got a better plan,” said Matthias, “now would be a good time to name it.”

Lugorix didn’t. So he just kept on winching—the resistance against him increasing until he could barely turn the screws any further. Matthias finished attaching the rope—looked up at him.

“That’s enough,” he said, locking in the springs. “Now let’s aim this thing.” He moved behind the device and proceeded to rattle off a series of directions to a bemused Lugorix, who turned the contraption leftward on its hinges and shoved its nose downward in accordance with Matthias’ instructions.

“Further left,” said Matthias. “No, a little bit more to the right. Okay, let’s pull up the nose. No, back a bit more the other way—”

“Will you make up your mind?” said Lugorix.

“I’m trying to allow for the speed of the ship,” replied Matthias, looking through the sites. “So shut up and move it downward. No, that’s too much. There—that’s it—now to the right… a little further. A little more…okay, here we go.”

He pulled on a lever; there was a clanging noise and Lugorix cursed as the back of the machine slammed against him—the bolt hurtled away, trailing rope behind it, arcing down toward the lone trireme, finally burying itself in ship’s rigging. The rope sagged toward the ground, but the ship’s forward motion was drawing it ever more taut.