Vengeance of Orion o-2

by Ben Bova

  In the distance I could hear women’s screams and crying. Apparently the soldiers were not taking female captives with them; they raped them and left them to their lamentations.

  The commander was a short, swarthy, thickset man, more like the Achaians than Lukka and his men. His hair and thick beard were so deeply black that they seemed to cast bluish highlights. A brutal white scar slashed down the left side of his face from cheek to jawline, parting his beard. Like the other Hatti soldiers, he wore chain mail. His leather harness, though, was handsomely tooled, and the sword at his side was set with ivory inlays along its hilt.

  Lukka stood at a respectful distance with me at his side and Poletes behind me, while his five men limped off to tend to their bruises and wounds. The commander glanced our way questioningly, but continued dividing the loot his soldiers brought before him: About half of everything went into a growing pile at the foot of his chariot; the soldiers carried away the other half for themselves. I folded my arms over my chest and waited, the stench of burning huts in my nostrils, the wailing of the women in my ears.

  Finally the last clay jugs and bleating goats were parceled out, and the commander gestured to a pair of barefoot men dressed in rough jerkins to pick up his share of the loot and load it onto the nearby wagons. Slaves, I thought. Or possibly thetes.

  The commander stepped tiredly down from his chariot and summoned Lukka with a crook of his finger.

  Watching me as we approached him, he said, “This man isn’t a shit-eating farmer.”

  Lukka clasped his fist to his chest and replied, “He claims to be a herald from some High King, sir.”

  The commander looked me over. “My name is Arza. What’s yours?”

  “Orion,” I said.

  “You look more like a fighter than a herald.”

  I tapped the wristband on my left arm. “I carry a message from the High King of the Hatti to the High King of the Achaians, a message of peace and friendship.”

  Arza glanced at Lukka, then focused his deep brown eyes back on me. “The High King of the Hatti, eh? Well, your message isn’t worth the clay it was written on. There is no High King of the Hatti. Not anymore. Old Hattusilis is dead. The great fortress of Hattusas was in flames the last time I saw it.”

  Poletes gasped. “The Hatti have fallen?”

  “The great nobles of Hattusas fight among themselves,” said Arza. “Hattusilis’s son may be dead, we’ve heard rumors to that effect.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” I asked.

  He snorted. “Surviving, herald. As best we can. Living off the land and fighting off other bands of soldiers and marauders who try to take what we have.”

  I looked around the village. Dirty black smoke stained the clear sky. Dead bodies lying on the bare ground drew clouds of flies.

  “You’re nothing but a band of marauders yourselves,” I said.

  Arza’s eyes narrowed. “Harsh words from a herald.” He sneered at the last word.

  But my mind was racing ahead. “Would you care to join the service of the Achaian High King?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I’ll serve no barbarian king or anyone else. Arza’s band serves itself! We go where we want to go and take what we want to take.”

  “Mighty warriors,” I replied scornfully. “You burn villages and rape helpless women who have no soldiers to protect them. Very brave of you.”

  From the comer of my eye I saw Lukka pale and take half a step away from me. I sensed Poletes backing off too.

  Arza wrapped his hand around the ivory-inlaid hilt of his sword. “You look like a soldier,” he snarled. “Do you want to protect what’s left of this village? Against me?”

  Lukka said, “Sir, I should warn you — this man is a fighter such as I’ve never seen before. He serves Athene and…”

  “The bitch goddess?” Arza laughed. “The one they claim to be a virgin? My god is Taru, the god of storm and lightning, and he’ll conquer your dainty little virgin goddess every time! She won’t be a virgin for long if she fights against Taru!”

  He was trying to goad me into a fight. I shook my head and turned to walk away.

  “Lukka,” he commanded loudly. “Slit his cowardly throat.”

  Before the agonized Lukka could reply, I wheeled back to face Arza and said, “Do it yourself, mighty attacker of women.”

  He broke into a wide grin as he pulled his sword from its well-worn scabbard. “With pleasure, herald,” he said.

  I took out my sword, and Arza laughed again. “Bronze! You poor fool, I’ll slice that toy in half with my iron.”

  As he advanced toward me, holding his sword in front of him, my senses went into overdrive again. Everything slowed to a dreamlike pace. I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the trickle of a bead of perspiration forming on his brow and starting down his cheek. Lukka was standing like a statue, unable to decide whether he should try to stop his commander or join his attack against me. Poletes was wide-eyed, his mouth slightly open, his hands clutching the air at his sides.

  Arza advanced a few steps, then retreated back to his chariot and, without taking his eyes from me, reached back and took up his shield with his left hand. I stayed where I was and let him fix the shield on his arm. He grinned at me again and, seeing I was not moving to attack him, he grabbed his iron helmet and pulled it on. It was polished to a brilliant gleam, and its flaps protected the sides of his face. I could see that his scar ran exactly along the edge of the iron flap.

  He was a professional soldier and he would take any advantage I allowed him. For my part, I had no real desire to kill him. But if the only way to gain his respect was to best him in a fight, I was more than ready to do that.

  He advanced on me confidently, crouching slightly, peering at me through the narrow gap between the rim of his helmet and the top of his shield. It bore a lightning flash symbol crudely painted on its stretched hide. I waited for him, watching. The shield covered most of his body when he crouched, making it difficult to see which way he intended to move. Still, I waited.

  He feinted with the shield, jabbing it toward my face and simultaneously starting a sword cut at my midsection.

  I parried his swing with my bronze blade, then slashed backhand and cracked the metal frame of his shield. But the blow snapped my sword in half.

  With an exultant cry Arza flung his broken shield away and leaped at me. I could have spitted him easily on the jagged stump of my blade, but instead I stepped into him, grabbed his sword wrist in my left hand, and rapped him sharply on the head with the pommel of my broken sword.

  He went to his knees, rolled over, and shook his head. I saw a nice dent in his polished helmet.

  Arza got to his feet and lunged at me again. I dropped my sword, took his arm in both my hands, and twisted the weapon out of his hand.

  With a snarl of rage he yanked his dagger from his belt and came at me again.

  I backed away, open-handed. “I have no desire to kill you,” I told him.

  He bent down and scooped his sword from the dusty ground. By now more than a dozen of his troops had gathered around us, gaping.

  “I’ll kill you, herald, despite your tricks,” he growled.

  He came at me again, sword and dagger, slashing and cursing at me, spittle flying from his mouth. I danced away lightly, wondering how long this game could last.

  “Stand and fight!” he screamed.

  “Without a weapon?” I smiled as I said it.

  He charged again and, instead of running, I ducked under and tripped him. He fell heavily.

  But got to his feet, snarling, “I’ll kill you!”

  “You can’t,” I said.

  “I will! You men — hold him fast!”

  The soldiers hesitated just a moment, long enough for me to decide that if I did not kill this maddened animal, he would have me killed.

  Before they could lay hands on me, I picked up the shattered stump of my bronze sword and advanced toward Arza. He grinned wic
kedly at me and lunged with his sword, ready to counter with the dagger once I tried to parry the sword thrust. Instead of parrying, I sidestepped his lunge and drove the jagged end of my blade into his chest just below the armpit.

  Arza looked very surprised. His mouth dropped open, then filled with blood. For a moment I carried all his weight on my extended sword arm. I let go of the weapon and he dropped to the dusty ground, his hands still clutching his useless sword and dagger.

  I looked toward Lukka. He gazed down at his fallen commander, then up to me. A word from him and the entire squad of soldiers would be on me.

  Before he could speak, I shouted to the soldiers, “This man led you to little victories over farmers’ villages. How would you like to join in the loot of a great city, filled with gold? Who will follow me to help conquer Troy?”

  They raised their hands and cheered. All of them.

  Chapter 14

  THERE were forty-two men in the Hatti band, and I led them back across the Scamander and down toward the beach where the Achaians were camped — if they had not been wiped out in the meantime by Hector and his Trojans.

  Lukka accepted me as their leader. He kept his hawklike face impassive, but I thought I saw a hint of awe at my fighting prowess glimmering in his dark eyes. The others went along with him. There was no great affection for the fallen Arza among them. He had been their commander when the civil strife had broken out among the various Hatti factions. Like professional soldiers everywhere, they had followed their commanding officer even though they thoroughly disliked him. As long as he kept them together, and ensured their survival by raiding helpless villages, they were willing to put up with his petty tyrannies and nasty disposition.

  “We’ve been living like dogs,” Lukka told me as we climbed across the wooded ridges that ran between the high road and the river. “Every man’s hand is raised against every other’s. There’s no order in the land of the Hatti anymore, not since the old king died and his son was driven off by the nobles. Now they fight for the kingdom and the army is split into a thousand little bands like ours, without discipline, without respect, without any pay at all except what we can steal from farmers and villagers.”

  “When we get to the Achaian camp,” I promised him, “King Odysseus will be happy to welcome you into his service.”

  “Under your command,” Lukka said.

  I glanced at him. He was completely serious. He took it for granted that the man who slew Arza would take command of the troop.

  “Yes,” I said. “Under my command.”

  He grinned wolflshly. “There’s much gold in Troy, that I know. We guarded a tribute caravan from the Troad to Hattusas once. A lot of gold.”

  So we marched toward the plain of Ilios. I was now the leader of a unit of professional soldiers who dreamed of looting the gold of Troy. The army that Hector expected to come to Troy’s rescue no longer existed; it had split into a thousand marauding bands, each intent on its own survival.

  Lukka became my lieutenant automatically. He knew the men and I did not. He regarded me as little less than a god. It made me feel uneasy, but it was useful for the moment. He was a strong, honest professional soldier, a man of few words. Yet his hawk’s eyes missed nothing, and the men respected him totally.

  We slept in the same woods where Poletes and I had spent the previous night. I stretched out, sword and dagger on either side of me, and willed my mind to make contact with the gods. No, they are not gods, I reminded myself. Creators, yes. But not gods.

  I closed my eyes and strained with every nerve and sinew in me to see them again, speak with them. Utterly in vain. All I got for my effort was a set of tension-stiffened muscles that made my back and neck ache horribly and kept me awake through most of the night.

  The next morning we found a ford in the river, crossed it, and marched toward the sea.

  It was well past noon before we saw the beetling walls of Troy, up on its bluff. Trojan tents no longer dotted the plain. Instead, the debris of battle littered the worn ground between the Achaian rampart and the walls of Troy. Broken chariots and tattered remains of tents were scattered everywhere. Black-clad women and half-naked slaves moved slowly, mournfully, among scores of bodies lying twisted and stripped of armor under the high sun. Vultures circled patiently above. Dark humps of dead horses lay here and there. The battle must have been ferocious, I told myself.

  But the Achaian ships were still lined up along the beach, I saw, their black hulls intact, unburnt. Somehow, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and the others had survived Hector’s onslaught.

  Poletes stared at the carnage across the river with wide, tearful eyes. Lukka and the other Hatti soldiers seemed to be giving the area a professional evaluation.

  “That is Troy,” Lukka said, pointing, as we marched along the riverbank.

  “That is Troy,” I agreed.

  He eyed the high walls appreciatively. “It won’t be easy to breach those defenses.”

  “Can it be done at all?”

  He smiled grimly. “If the great walls of Hattusas could be overthrown, that city can be taken.”

  We waited in the shade of the trees along the river’s edge while Poletes and one of the Hatti soldiers rowed the leaky little reed boat across the current and beached it in the Achaian camp. My orders to Poletes were to report to Odysseus and no one else.

  An hour passed. Then two. The sun glittered on the sea; the afternoon was hot and still. Finally I saw a dolphin-headed galley gliding toward us, its oars moving in smooth rhythm. We splashed out waist-deep in the cool water and clambered aboard the Ithacan warship. Lukka insisted that I go first. He brought up the rear.

  Poletes was at the gunwale, reaching out his skinny arms to help me aboard. His scraggly bearded face was grim.

  “What’s the news?” I asked, dripping water onto the deck and the rowers.

  “A great battle was fought yesterday,” he said.

  “That I can see.”

  He took me by the elbow and led me back toward the stern, away from the rowers. “Hector and his brothers broke through the defenses and into the camp. Still Achilles refused to fight. Patrokles put on his master’s golden armor and led the Myrmidones in a counterattack. They drove the surprised Trojans out of the camp and back to the very walls of Troy.”

  “They must have thought it was Achilles,” I muttered.

  “Perhaps they did. A god filled Patrokles with battle frenzy. Everyone in the camp thought he was too soft for fighting, yet he drove the Trojans back to their own gates and slew dozens with his own hand.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at “dozens.” War stories grow with each telling, and this one was already becoming exaggerated, scarcely twenty-four hours after it had happened.

  “But then the gods turned against Patrokles,” the old storyteller said mournfully. “Hector spitted him on his spear and stripped Achilles’s golden armor from his dead body.”

  I felt my own face harden. The gods play their games, I thought. They let Patrokles have a moment of glory and then take their price for it.

  “Now Achilles wails in his hut and covers his head with ashes. He swears a mighty vengeance against Hector and all of Troy.”

  “So he will fight,” I said, wondering if one of those who opposed the Golden One had not arranged all this, manipulated Patrokles into his death as a way of making Achilles return to the battle.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Poletes told me, “Achilles will meet Hector in single combat. It has been arranged by the heralds. There will be no fighting until then.”

  Single combat between Hector and Achilles. Hector was much the bigger of the two, an experienced fighter, cool and intelligent even in battle. Achilles was no doubt faster, though smaller, and fueled on the kind of rage that drove men to impossible feats. Only one of them would walk away from the fight, I knew.

  Even before our galley was beached I could hear the wailing and keening from the Myrmidones camp. I knew it was a matter of form, that Prince Achilles had orde
red the women to mourn. But there were men’s deep voices among the cries of the women. And a drum beating a slow, unhappy dirge. A huge bonfire blazed at that end of the camp, sending a sooty black smoke skyward.

  “Achilles mourns his friend,” Poletes said. But I could see that the excess of grief unnerved him slightly.

  Yet despite the mourning rites among the Myrmidones, the rest of the camp was agog with the impending match between Achilles and Hector. There was almost a holiday mood among the men. They were placing bets, giving odds. They laughed and made jokes about it, as if it had nothing to do with blood and death. I realized that they were trying to drive away the dread and fear that they all felt. The lamentations from the Myrmidones’s camp continued unabated. It sent shivers up my spine. But slowly it came to me that the others all felt that this battle between the two champions would settle the war, one way or the other. They thought that no matter which champion fell, the war would be over and the rest of them could finally go home.

  Odysseus inspected the Hatti contingent as soon as they disembarked from his galley. Lukka drew them up in a double line, while I stood at their head, the throb of the funeral drum and the keening of the mourners hanging over us all like the chilling hand of death.

  The King of Ithaca tried to ignore the noise. He smiled at me. “Well, Orion, you have brought your own army with you.”

  “My lord Odysseus,” I replied, “like me, these men are eager to serve you. They are experienced soldiers, and can be of great help to you.”

  He nodded, eyeing the contingent carefully. “I will accept their service, Orion. But not before I speak with Agamemnon. It wouldn’t do to make the High King jealous — or fearful.”

  “As you wish,” I said. He knew the politics and personalities of his fellow Achaians much better than I. Odysseus was not called “the crafty” for nothing.