by Glyn Iliffe
‘I expect you can,’ Eperitus said, ‘but this is as good a place as any to die so I’ll stay. You can move if you want to.’
Elpenor shook his head.
‘No thanks. I like it here just fine.’
The disciplined tramp of feet echoed through the mist. It was an ominous sound, as if the relentless beat would roll straight over the ranks of the Ithacans and on to the galleys behind. Eperitus wondered whether Astynome was worrying about him as she sat among the Trojan slaves on deck. He heard the grunting of men behind him, followed by the soft splash of a ship sliding into the waves. The Cicones were closing fast when a voice called out and they came to a sudden halt.
A shout of ‘Spears!’ was repeated along the Ithacan line and men crouched as best they could behind their leather shields. Seeing Polites standing with his shield held nonchalantly at his side – knowing it would provide minimal cover for his vast torso – Eperitus decided to do the same. Strangely, he realised his bravado was as much about impressing Elpenor as it was the rest of the men. The volley came quickly. Hundreds of spears darkened the grey air, punching trails through the vapour and sounding like a great wind rather than the hiss that arrows made. It was a sound Eperitus had heard many times before, and as the missiles began to fall, again he whispered a prayer to Athena for protection.
The goddess must have heard him, for a wind began to blow, tearing the fog to rags and lifting the volley of spears so that they carried over the heads of the Ithacans. And yet many still fell and the air was assailed with their cries. A spear landed with a thump between Eperitus and Elpenor. Eperitus plucked it from the dry earth, pushed his own weapon into the ground, and called out in a loud voice.
‘On my command!’
The Cicones began to jog down the slope towards the foreigners who had invaded their land and slain their countrymen. As Eperitus took aim he could see their faces clearly. They were hard faces, experienced in battle, and yet that very experience had taught them to fear the moment of vulnerability when a massed volley of spears fills the air and rains destruction.
‘Now!’
He cast his weapon at a man in splendid armour, but so many spears fell among the Cicones and so many were brought crashing into the grass that he could not tell whether his throw had counted. But the slaughter did not stop the attackers. Many hundreds came charging down the slope towards the Ithacan line, driven by a fury that was written into their bearded faces. Eperitus gave a last, sidelong look at Elpenor, noted with satisfaction that he was sufficiently frightened – though not terrified – then drew his shield across his body, plucked his spear from the earth and took aim. All around him men whispered prayers to Ares, asking for his protection in the coming fight or a death with honour. Then the Cicones were upon them.
Eperitus put a foot back to brace himself as a thickset man with dark, unintelligent eyes rushed at him. He charged through the hedge of spear points and drove his shield against Eperitus’s with a brutal jolt. Eperitus pushed back, testing the man’s strength and finding it a match for his own. All around them the sounds of battle filled the air. Men grunted or shouted insults in their different languages. Some cried out as weapons tore at flesh and took life. Oxhide shields ground against each other and below the heaving mass of bodies came the scuffing of feet scrambling for footholds in the dew-damp grass. It was a familiar sound, both terrifying and exhilarating to Eperitus as he sensed the nearness of death and with it the immediacy of life. He felt his heart beating hard, the sweat running in rivulets beneath his armour and the tension in his muscles that turned soft flesh to rock. With it came a passion to cling on to his precious existence; that overruling desire to survive and destroy anyone who threatened to take it from him. He stared into the eyes of his opponent and hated him, knowing the Cicone felt the same. They strained shield against shield, swearing at each other and stepping on each other’s feet in the tussle for the small patch of earth that was theirs to dispute. Realising the other man was not wearing greaves, Eperitus raised his foot and scraped the leather sole of his sandal down his unprotected shin and onto his foot. The man’s face contorted with sudden pain, but he held his position and pushed harder in response, trying to employ the same trick against Eperitus but failing against his bronze greaves.
‘Move your head!’ a voice behind him commanded.
Eperitus ducked aside and watched his opponent’s expression change to horror. An instant later the point of a sword was pushed into his neck above the protection of his breastplate, opening the flesh and releasing the dark blood within. The man choked and fell, opening a gap in the ranks of the Cicones. Another man moved to fill it, but Eperitus pushed the point of his spear into the gap below the rim of his shield, piercing the soft flesh between his thigh and his groin. He screamed horribly and fell backwards into his comrades. Hands pulled him out of the way and more shields rushed into the hole that had been created. Desperate to widen the small breach in the enemy wall, Eperitus met two of the shields with his own and pulled out his sword. A spear stabbed at him from the mass of Cicones, but an Ithacan sword from the rear rank hacked at it and split the shaft.
‘Help me,’ Eperitus grunted to the soldiers behind him.
Two men squeezed themselves into the narrowing gap and began to push the Cicones back. From the corner of his eye, Eperitus watched Polites throw a punch at one of the two Cicones who were struggling to hold him. The man fell and was trampled beneath the mass of struggling feet. The other man’s strength gave before the colossal Ithacan and he stumbled back. Though they were four or five ranks deep, the Cicones’ line began to bend. Eperitus threw his weight behind his shield and pushed, opening the flank of the man fighting the Ithacan to his right. He stabbed up into his armpit, almost severing his arm at the shoulder. The man roared with pain and fell beneath the feet of the Ithacans, to be speared through the stomach by a man in the second rank.
With their shield wall perilously close to breaking, more Cicones launched themselves into the fray. Eperitus looked back and saw Odysseus at the head of the royal guard. But the king had already seen what was happening and understood at once what was needed. With a loud command he led the reserve into the fight. Scores of heavily armoured men threw their weight behind the thin ranks of their countrymen and, heaving and grunting, began to push the Cicones back. The man opposite Eperitus shouted and spat at him in frustration, his face filled with rage as he tried to resist the momentum behind the Ithacan shields. With the spittle running down his cheek, Eperitus pulled his sword free from the crush of bodies and sank it into his opponent’s neck. As the man fell, the point of a Cicone spear thrust into the gap and caught Eperitus in the shoulder. His leather armour held it for a moment, then with another push from the unseen spearman the point broke through and tore into his flesh.
A burning sensation raced through his chest and arm. His vision darkened and he shouted at the pain that threatened to undo him. Twisting away from the spearhead so that it slipped from his shoulder, he hacked at the wooden shaft with his sword and broke it. The wound continued to send an almost unbearable fire through his flesh, but rather than weakening him it filled him with rage. He slammed the pommel of his sword into a snarling face, knocking the man’s eye from its socket. He swung the blade at another enemy’s head, feeling the force of the blow dampened by the man’s leather helmet but seeing him go down nonetheless. Then the Cicones’ resistance broke like a dam before a swollen river. Men were suddenly running back into the mist, some throwing away their weapons or shields, others pausing to turn and ward off blows from their attackers. Now was the time when men would die. In the confines of the shield wall few fell, but once the struggle was won and one side cracked under the pressure, then swords and axes could be swung with malicious freedom and spears could find their victims with impunity. As one section of the Cicones’ line gave way, so the rest quickly fragmented and the whole army began retreating back up the slope towards the town walls. The Ithacans followed, shouting triumphantly
and striking down every man who was not quick enough to flee.
Eperitus raised his sword to join the rout but felt his body weaken and his arm fall to his side. As the sounds of the battle faded, a calm voice – his own, he thought – told him that he must not succumb. He blinked, felt the sharpness of the pain and allowed it to bring him to his senses again.
‘Hold your positions!’ Odysseus shouted. ‘Remember the chariots.’
As if he had summoned them himself, gaps formed in the fleeing ranks of the Cicones and a dozen chariots came racing down the slope. This time the men in the cars did not carry bows but long lances. Eperitus watched three or four Ithacans charged down beneath the hooves of the horses or thrust through by the lances before the remainder fled back to the safety of the lines.
As the army reformed and the chariots retreated, he moved to the rear and knelt by the body of an Ithacan. Tearing off a strip of his cloak, he folded it and slipped it under his leather armour to cover the wound.
‘You’re hurt,’ said a voice behind him.
Eperitus turned to see Elpenor. His sinewy limbs and armoured chest were spattered with gore, and though a beardless youth, his eyes were confident and unafraid. There was a hint of arrogance in them as he regarded his wounded countryman.
‘I’m amazed you’re even alive,’ Eperitus returned.
‘That’s more than can be said for the man who faced me in the shield wall.’
Elpenor raised his sword, which was dark with blood. Eperitus looked at it and nodded.
‘Good work. Who taught you to use a sword?’
‘My uncle back on Ithaca. He’s a fine swordsman, but I’m better.’
‘Did you get your pride from him too, lad? What’s his name, this uncle of yours?’
‘Eperitus!’ Odysseus appeared, helmetless and with his shield strapped across his back. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I’ll live. I was caught in the shoulder and it stings like Hades, but it’ll heal quickly enough. What about the Cicones?’
‘They’re forming up again,’ Odysseus answered, untying his friend’s cuirass and lifting it away from his torso. The tunic beneath was sodden with blood and the king gave an involuntary frown as he peeled away the makeshift bandage. ‘The moment we try to board the ships they’ll attack again, I’m sure of it. Not that it matters to you what they do: you’re going back to the beach to get this looked at. The Trojan women are tending to the wounded there –’
‘I’ll stay and command the reserve.’
Odysseus ignored him and turned to Elpenor, who had barely taken his eyes from the king since he had arrived.
‘Help the captain back to the beach, lad. You can carry his armour for him.’
But Elpenor simply turned and ran back to the waiting Ithacans.
Chapter Twelve
THE ESCAPE
The fog dissipated quickly as the sun rose above the hilltops. Blue cloudless skies stretched from the edge of the sea to the peaks of the northern mountains. From where he sat on the beach, having his wound cleaned by a Trojan slave, Eperitus could see the Cicones mustering their strength in the shade of the city walls. The casualties they had taken in their first attack had not deterred them from throwing themselves at the Ithacans a second time soon after. Odysseus had just pulled a further hundred men from the line and ordered them to help the guards push the galleys back into the water, but they were forced to rejoin their comrades as the Cicones came yelling down the slope. The assault had been beaten off, but the king would not risk pulling men from the army again, leaving the handful of guards to complete the task themselves. So far they had only succeeded in getting four ships into the water.
The old nurse muttered something in her native tongue and indicated for Eperitus to sit down. Placing his folded cloak beneath his head, she produced a bone needle threaded with animal gut and began to close the wound. He winced as she tugged the edges of broken skin together, but it was over quickly. Moments later she was sitting him back up and wrapping a clean bandage around the cut. As she knotted it – none too gently – a female voice called Eperitus’s name. He turned to see Astynome running across the sand towards him.
‘How bad is it?’ she asked, kneeling beside him.
‘It’s nothing.’
Astynome shook her head and put the same question to the nurse, who called her a traitor and walked away. Astynome watched her go, then turned and placed her lips on Eperitus’s cheek.
‘I looked for you in the fighting but couldn’t see you. Then a man told me you had been wounded. Will this killing ever stop, my love? I thought we were going to Ithaca to make a home of our own, not raid more towns and kill more people.’
‘There’ll be no more raids,’ he answered, stroking her hair. ‘In a few days we’ll reach the Peloponnese and then we’ll be almost home.’
‘Home,’ she repeated, savouring the word. ‘I can hardly bring myself to believe it, as if doing so will just push it further from my grasp. After all these years of war I can’t imagine peace.’
‘As a boy I used to hunger for stories of war told by my grandfather or the travelling bards. Now war is normal and peace is the thing we dream of.’
She sat beside him on the sand, hugging her knees to her chest while he placed his arm around her. A strong breeze pulled her clothing tight about the contours of her body. For a moment his desire for her made him forget the irritation in his shoulder.
‘It’s as you say, though,’ she said. ‘In a few days we’ll be home. I’ve never seen Ithaca, but I know I’ll be happy there. How can I not when I have you?’
But whenever Eperitus thought of Ithaca he remembered Theano’s warning that their return would see many trials. The Cicones, he sensed, were not the last ordeal they would face before they reached home.
A whisper of arrows shook him from his thoughts. The volley fell among the line of Ithacans and was returned almost instantly. Then the Cicones let out their war cry and charged down the slope for a third time.
The Cicones quickly learned that the Ithacans were stubborn, hard-fighting men. But the Ithacans, too, realised that their opponents were just as obstinate and would not give up the fight until every one of the invaders lay dead. Despite the carpet of their own slain, which thickened with each assault as the day dragged on, the Cicones were ready to launch a fresh charge every time the Greeks showed any sign of retiring to their ships. Sometimes Odysseus would feign a withdrawal to provoke an attack, in the hope their enemies’ casualties would break their resolve to continue the fight. But like vultures eyeing a wounded animal, they refused to leave. The bloody nose Odysseus had intended to scare them off with had been delivered time and again as morning gave way to afternoon, but each blow just seemed to increase their determination. And so he and his men had been forced to hold fast and wait.
Odysseus watched the chariot of the sun sinking towards the west. Being trapped at the head of a narrow beach with no room for manoeuvre and in full sight of the enemy, there was no trick he could play to make good his escape. The only hope would have been to run for the ships and count on the rearguard to hold the Cicones while the rest of them boarded and slipped away. But that would require sacrificing at least a hundred men on top of the thirty who had already fallen. So he had waited, letting his mind stray time and again to Penelope and Telemachus. He pictured them standing hand in hand as they watched him bring the fleet safely into anchor. His wife was as beautiful as the day he had left her all those years ago, while his ten-year-old son was smiling as he waved to him from the shore. They seemed so agonisingly close and yet as distant as if the walls of Troy still stood between them.
With the twelve galleys now laying at anchor in the water – manned by skeleton crews of mostly wounded men – he settled on a plan and gave out his orders. After night fell the Ithacans would be able to slip away unseen, so the Cicones were certain to attack before last light. They would throw everything they had at their enemies, and if the Ithacan line broke then the surviv
ors would have to make the ships as best they could in the twilight. It would be a massacre, and so Odysseus had decided on an orderly withdrawal before sunset to shorten the distance to the fleet. It might also draw the Cicones out before they were ready. The disadvantage was that the nearer his men were to the safety of the galleys, the stronger the temptation would be to run if the Cicones pressed them hard. And if just a few men left the shield wall then they would all be in danger.
‘Eurybates, on my command we will march back to the water’s edge. If the Cicones launch an attack, every man is to turn and fight. We have to hold them until dark and then I’ll give the order to board, but no-one puts a foot in the water without my permission. Understood?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
The double rank of the army began their march, crossing the plain with only an occasional glance over their shoulders to see whether the Cicones were following. They were not. Instead, the densely packed enemy remained beneath the town walls, staring over the rims of their shields at the backs of the retreating invaders. Perhaps, Odysseus thought, he had misjudged them. Perhaps they had suffered enough and were content to let the Ithacans go without a fight. How he wished Eperitus were with him, whose far-seeing eyes would tell him what the Cicones were doing.
‘Shorten the line. Form three ranks,’ he called out.
The order was followed in a stumbling fashion, but soon the line was only a little wider than the stretch of beach where the galleys were waiting. The army was still on the grassy plain, though, with its flanks exposed. Now would be the moment for the Cicones to commit their chariots, forcing the Ithacans to turn and defend while they brought their spearmen down upon them. But still the Cicones did not move.
More men were glancing over their shoulders now. The gap between them and the beach was closing rapidly, and with no sign of pursuit their anxiety was giving way to relief and hope.
