by Glyn Iliffe
‘Why? So you can raid more towns? Kill more old men and boys and take their womenfolk into slavery?’
‘Are there more Cicones nearby?’ he asked again, this time raising the tip of his sword to the base of her throat.
She swallowed, then seemed to remember her pride and raised her chin a little higher.
‘They will not be as easy to conquer as we were,’ she answered. ‘Their towns are bigger and their walls higher, and the king of Ismarus did not send all his fighting men to Troy. If you attack, they will defeat you.’
Selagos lowered his weapon and slid it into its scabbard.
‘Good. Do you want to avenge your dead sons and fathers?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then come with me.’
The woman wore a light dress, but its rich material was stained and torn. He threw the bloodied cloak about her naked shoulders and took her by the upper arm, almost dragging her from the portico.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she insisted, struggling against his grip.
‘Up to the hills. There are men with horses, keeping watch for enemies. I’m going to kill one of them and you’re going to take his mount and ride to the city of your king. When you get there you will raise the alarm and bring an army back here to rescue the other women. Is that clear?’
She looked into his hard face and knew he was not lying.
‘Find me a horse,’ she said, ‘and I can have the king’s army here by sunrise.’
Chapter Eleven
CHARIOTS IN THE FOG
Eperitus sniffed at the cold air: lingering woodsmoke and roasted meat; wine; fresh sweat mingled with old from the mass of sleeping men; the blood of wounds; the sea; the aroma of pine trees on the hillsides; and the dampness of the mist. He had left Astynome asleep on the beach as soon as he sensed the fog approaching, fearing what might be hidden within its thick white fronds as they crept over the plain and around the city walls. The perimeter guards would be blinded by it and vulnerable to a knife in the dark, leaving the camp open to attack. So he had walked beyond the picket line to familiarise himself with the smells of Ismarus at night, letting them form a background against which he could search for anything new. The noises, too, of waves lapping over the beach, tired men snoring heavily and the pop and hiss of the handful of watch fires had faded to a low hum in his mind. Instead, his ears were attuned to the irregular sounds that sometimes broke through the softening effect of the fog: animals moving, the rustle of bat wings or the squeaking of a mouse. At each small noise his mind would instinctively calculate whether the fall of a stone on the hillside was from the light tread of a goat or the heavier footfall of an armed warrior, or if the repeated hunting calls of an owl were in fact imitations sending a different kind of message. And most of all he listened for anything from the men posted on the hilltops. Though they were above the ocean of mist, they would see little moving beneath it until it was too late. A shout of sudden fear or the last cry of a dying man was all Eperitus could hope for in such an event. But he had heard or smelled nothing alien, and now his instincts were telling him that dawn was not far off.
After finishing a fourth circuit of the town walls, he approached the glow of a watch fire at the edge of the plain and coughed.
‘Who’s there?’
The voice was forceful but controlled.
‘It’s me, Eperitus.’
The figure of a man stepped before the fire, his silhouette limned by the flames. A bow was ready in his hands.
‘You may be able to see through this cursed fog, Eperitus, but I can’t. Now come closer before I put an arrow in you to be safe.’
Eperitus laughed and moved into the glow cast by the fire.
‘Lower that arrow, Antiphus. I’m soaked through and chilled to the bone with this fog; all I want is a bit of warmth.’
Antiphus unfitted his arrow and beckoned him forward. Together they stood with their palms held out to the flames, occasionally rubbing their hands or stamping their feet.
‘Hear anything out there?’ Antiphus asked.
‘Not a thing. I’d have been better off staying under the furs with Astynome.’
‘Can’t beat another warm body on a cold night. But you’ve reassured me, at least. If you can’t sense anything then there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I wouldn’t say nothing,’ Eperitus cautioned. ‘It’s the old soldier’s instinct that kept me from sleeping in the first place. You know, that sense you get before something happens. It’s probably just this fog and the fact three-quarters of the army is asleep with a hangover on a hostile shore when we should have been away before sunset.’
‘That’s most likely it,’ Antiphus concurred. ‘Odysseus fell asleep the moment his head touched the sand. And if anyone worries about the fate of these damned fools it’s him.’
Eperitus took a few logs from a pile and threw them on the fire, causing a swarm of glowing embers to rise up and swirl away in the chill air.
‘But that’s the problem. He’s exhausted. Now the war’s over it’s started catching up with him. He hides it well, of course, but I can see it. If you asked me I’d say we can’t get home soon enough.’
‘So why did he take us north when the route south is so much quicker?’ Antiphus said. ‘I don’t know a single man who wouldn’t give his share of the plunder we’ve taken from the Cicones just to be back home.’
‘Fatigue can do strange things to a man. I can’t count how many times I’ve taken needless risks in battle just because of some perverse urge to test my luck. Perhaps it’s something like that.’
‘Perhaps,’ Antiphus replied, scratching his large nose with the stumps of his missing fore and index fingers. They had been cut off in his youth as a punishment for poaching, but he had simply learned to shoot with his other hand. ‘The war is over, though, and the time for taking risks is too. We’ve all done things during the past ten years, things we’d never have dreamed of doing on Ithaca – some of them to our glory and some to our shame. But now I’m ready to go home. I want to see my father, again – if the gods have spared him. And it’s time I got myself a wife. A man needs someone to bear his children, someone…’ he looked Eperitus in the eye, ‘…someone to make him feel human again. Do you think that’s possible for us? After all we’ve done? All those years of killing. Can we ever find peace and go back to a normal life again?’
It was a question Eperitus had asked himself many times. All through his youth he had dreamed of going to war and creating a name that would be remembered long after his soul had descended to Hades. And for a while war had excited him. But the siege of Troy had lasted too long. There was no honour left in it by the end, just suffering and treachery. They had all done so much to be ashamed of that he wondered if any of them could ever find happiness again. But then he remembered how he felt when Astynome was in his arms and when she told him that she loved him. If a woman like that could love him, then there was hope. There was something worth living for.
‘Yes, Antiphus, we can. I know it in my heart. Gods willing, we’ll be home soon and you’ll find yourself a wife to bear lots of little Antiphuses. And we’ll all be able to sleep again at night.’
‘I hope so,’ Antiphus said.
Eperitus looked to the west. The fog was beginning to thin, and somewhere in the distance he could make out the sable bulk of the hills against the lightening sky. And then he heard the sound he had been dreading all night long: the soft clank of armour, the tread of cloth-covered hooves and the trundle of wheels sheathed in sacking. It was the noise of an army approaching by stealth, using the cover of night and the fog, and Eperitus could tell they were already moving through the trees that covered the hills around the town.
‘Zeus’s beard, Antiphus. While we’ve been talking about peace another battle has crept up on us. Run back, man, and wake Odysseus. Tell him we’re being attacked!’
‘Are you sure?’ Odysseus a
sked.
‘Certain,’ Eperitus replied. ‘They’re on the other side of the town.’
‘How many?’
‘It’s hard to say but they’ve got plenty of chariots.’
‘They’re not just scouts, then,’ said Eurybates. ‘It’s an army.’
The three men were crouched on the damp grass of the plain, looking out into the treacherous curtain of fog that still hung over the land. The walls of the town were visible as a dark presence a spear’s throw away and the dozen fires of the picket line burned like orange flowers in between. The Ithacan army had been hurriedly roused from their sleep and were lying on their stomachs in two rows facing the town. Most were still groggy from the night before and few had been able to don their full armour in the rush, but they were armed and ready for whatever would soon emerge from the mist. The picked veterans of the royal guard were formed into a phalanx behind their commanders, ready to reinforce any weaknesses in the line once the mysterious enemy showed themselves. On Odysseus’s orders, every man was to remain prone until told. Their attackers were expecting them to be asleep, and he wanted to maintain that illusion for as long as possible.
‘There!’
Eperitus pointed to figures emerging from the fog near the town walls. They were moving slowly and at a stoop, creeping towards the nearest watch fire. More groups appeared, each one converging on the different points of the picket line where the Ithacan sentries should have been keeping watch. In the scramble to wake everyone up and prepare for the attack, Omeros had shown his intelligence by suggesting they throw blankets over piles of firewood to make it look as if the guards were asleep. The ruse had succeeded and the attackers drew their weapons, the blades gleaming orange as they plunged them into the blanketed shapes around the fires. They knew at once they had been fooled and looked out into the mist beyond the firelight, the uncertainty in their faces visible to Eperitus’s eyes.
He raised his hand, and scores of Ithacans clambered up from where they had been lying. They fitted arrows to their bows and took aim at the figures silhouetted against the watch fires. There was a hiss as they loosed their strings, followed by the cries of several men as the missiles found their targets. One man fell into the flames and screamed horribly as he pushed himself free and ran blindly towards the Ithacans, his whole body alight. Antiphus fitted a second arrow and brought him down into the grass, where he lay like an abandoned torch. His surviving comrades had already disappeared back into the mist.
‘Stand!’ Odysseus ordered.
The Ithacans shambled to their feet, turned their shields to face the fog and lowered the points of their spears. They did not need Eperitus’s ears now to hear the thunder of hooves and wheels approaching from the darkness. Dozens of chariots now burst from the milky vapour, drawn by two horses apiece with nostrils wide and teeth bared as their drivers whipped them on. Orders were shouted along the Ithacan ranks. Men instinctively drew closer to their neighbours for protection. Then the chariots veered left and right, driving along the face of the line as archers in each car loosed arrows rapidly into the closely packed soldiers. Eurybates raised his shield at the last moment as an arrow sailed over the men in front, catching its bronze head in the fourfold leather. Others were not so lucky. Here and there men cried out or fell heavily into the grass.
‘Archers!’ Eperitus shouted, but the chariots had already slipped back into the mist.
The sky was now dark blue above the hills to the east. In the woods beyond the town a few birds were greeting the coming day, but Eperitus did not share their joy. Instead his thoughts strayed to the beached galleys behind, where Astynome would be anxiously staring into the fog and wondering what was happening. He did not know what the daylight and the lifting of the fog would reveal, but by the number of chariots that had attacked he knew the attacking force was large. They would be hard pressed to defeat them, or even escape with their lives. If they were defeated that would mean rape, a life of slavery for Astynome, even death. This was why the Trojans had fought so hard to defend their city.
The sound of hooves beating the ground, the squeal of wooden axles and the rattle of iron-shod wheels warned him of the next attack.
‘Take aim!’ he shouted, as the chariots sped free of the fog and raced down the slope to where the Ithacans were waiting.
Again they veered left and right, the bowmen in the back firing with speed and skill as they passed, felling more Ithacans. Antiphus and his archers returned fire from behind the shields of their comrades, but without effect. The arrows that did not fall into the long grass simply bounced off the wicker cabs and yokes of the chariots, or sprang back from their wooden wheels. As quickly as they had appeared they were gone again.
‘Word must have got out to the towns and cities inland,’ Odysseus said.
‘They’re no militia, either,’ Eperitus added. ‘Not with this many chariots. There’ll be hundreds of spearmen waiting in the mist. We need to launch the ships and get away while we still can.’
‘They’ll massacre us as we push off from the beach. No, we have to teach them to fear us before we show our tails and run. But as long as those chariots can keep picking us off from out of the fog their main force won’t come anywhere near.’
‘Then we use the fog to our own advantage,’ Eperitus said.
He ran back to where the royal guard were waiting.
‘First four ranks, step forward,’ he ordered.
Behind him he heard the rumble of the chariots and the twanging of bows as the Cicones delivered more volleys into the helpless Ithacans. Again Antiphus’s archers fired back without result, and again the chariots disappeared into the mist that covered the battlefield.
‘Follow me,’ Eperitus ordered the sixty men standing before him.
He turned and ran past Odysseus and Eurybates, through the line of spearmen and onto the empty plain. The first hint of light was in the sky now, but the fog remained stubbornly thick. He sprinted towards the watch fires, conscious of the heavy footsteps following behind. Signalling for the guards to spread out, he had almost reached the old picket line when he heard the sounds of horses and chariots approaching once more through the fog. He dropped to one knee and readied his spear. Two men fell in on either side of him, their breathing heavy and fast as they adopted similar poses. From the corner of his eye Eperitus could see the beginnings of a skirmish line forming, which he could only hope was stretching along the length of the plain. The royal guard were the best men in the army; they did not need to be told what was on their captain’s mind.
He felt the pounding of the hooves through the ground, smelled the breath of the horses and the sweat on their flanks, heard the snapping of the drivers’ whips across their backs. He had picked a spot behind one of the watch fires, knowing the chariots would pass on either side of it. Then a pair of black horses charged out of the fog, pulling a bouncing chariot behind them. By the time the driver and bowman had spotted the waiting Ithacans it was too late. Eperitus ran forward and rammed his spear into the chest of the archer, sending him tumbling from the back of the car. The driver tried to steer to the right, but as he turned two guardsmen hurled their spears into his back and he fell dead into the grass. The panicked horses ran into the path of another chariot and both were brought to the ground in a tangle of splintered wood and screaming animals.
Eperitus could not see far in the fog, but he could hear the sounds of men dying and the crash of more chariots coming to grief. He did not know how many they had killed, but he knew the Cicones would not dare ride their chariots into the mist again without the support of their spearmen.
‘Back to the lines,’ he shouted, hoping his voice would carry in the damp air.
As they sprinted back, they were greeted by a cheer from the waiting Ithacans. Odysseus took Eperitus’s hand and patted him excitedly on the back.
‘They won’t come again,’ he enthused, ‘not while this fog lasts and they don’t know our numbers.’
‘Then we should s
pare some men to get the galleys into the water. If the gods are with us we might be able to slip away before they know we’re gone.’
Odysseus nodded.
‘Eurybates, take one in five men from the line and get the ships into the sea. We need to leave before this fog lifts.’
‘It might be too late for that, my lord,’ Eurybates replied, pointing at the plain.
They looked back towards the watch fires, where a long line of armoured men was emerging from the mist, their spear points gleaming in the grey dawn.
‘I think you’ve underestimated their resolve, Odysseus,’ Eperitus said. ‘They’re not going to let us go without a fight. And there’s a lot more of them than there are of us.’
The Cicones continued to pour into view, rank after rank with unknown numbers behind. All were men of fighting age and well armed, nothing like the collection of old men and boys they had defeated the day before.
‘Eurybates, pick some men from the guard instead – take the ones who fought the chariots – and have them push the galleys out one by one. Be as quick as you can about it.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Eperitus looked along the line of Ithacans and spotted Polites’s great bulk standing head and shoulders over the rest. He had followed Eperitus up the slope to attack the chariots, but rather than rejoining his comrades in the reserve phalanx he had taken a place beside Omeros and Elpenor. Elpenor looked up as Eperitus pushed in to the shield wall beside them.
‘Odysseus has sent men to push the ships back into the water,’ Eperitus told him. ‘Once that’s done we’ll be away from this place and heading home again.’
‘I’m not a child,’ Elpenor replied, staring straight ahead. ‘I don’t need reassuring. And I know the Cicones won’t let us go without a fight.’
‘They won’t. But if you’re going to correct a captain of the guard, you should at least call him sir.’
A horn sounded from the enemy army and their ranks began to move.
‘You don’t need to be here with me, sir. I can look after myself.’
