Vengeance of Orion

by Ben Bova

  A flash of cryogenic cold swept through me and then, with the abruptness of a light being switched on, I felt a gentle warming glow.

  I opened my eyes and saw myself standing in the middle of a circle of the same gods and goddesses I had met before. But this time I was on their level, in their midst. And they looked shocked.

  "How dare you!"

  "Who summoned you?"

  "You have no right to intrude here!"

  I grinned at their surprise. They were truly splendid, robed and gowned in rich fabrics and glittering metallics. I had on nothing except my leather kilt, I realized.

  "The insolence of this creature!" said one of the women.

  I searched their faces for the Golden One. He pushed past two other men and confronted me.

  "How did you get here?" he demanded.

  "You showed me the way."

  Anger flared in his gold-flecked eyes. But the older, bearded one I thought of as Zeus stepped forward to stand beside him.

  "You show remarkable abilities, Orion," he said to me. Then, turning to the Golden One, "You should be congratulated for making him so talented."

  I thought I saw a trace of an ironic smile on Zeus's bearded face. The Golden One bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment.

  "Very well, Orion," he said, "so you've found your way here. To what purpose? What do you want?"

  "I want to know if you have decided to make Troy win this war or not."

  They glanced back and forth at one another without answering.

  "That's not for you to know," said the Golden One.

  I looked around at all their faces, so flawlessly beautiful, so unable to hide their inner feelings.

  "By that," I said, "I take it that you are still arguing among yourselves about what the outcome should be. Good! The Achaians will attack Troy one more time. And this time they will take the city and burn it to the ground."

  "Impossible!" snapped the Golden One. "I won't permit it."

  "You think that by killing Achilles you've ruined any chance the Achaians had of winning. Well, you're wrong. We'll win. And on our next attack."

  "I'll destroy you!" he raged.

  I regarded him calmly. Strangely enough, I actually felt serene within myself. Not a trace of fear.

  "You can destroy me, certainly," I said. "But I have learned something about you self-styled gods and goddesses. You cannot destroy all of your creatures. You can influence us, manipulate us, but you haven't the power to destroy us, one and all. You may have created us, but now we exist and act on our own. We are beyond your control—not totally, I know, but we have much more freedom of action than you like to admit."

  Zeus said softly, like the warning rumble of distant thunder, "Be careful, Orion. You are tempting a terrible wrath."

  "Your powers are limited," I insisted. And suddenly I understood why. "You can't destroy us! If you did, you would be destroying yourselves! You exist only as long as your creatures exist. Our destinies are linked throughout time."

  One of the goddesses, a cruel smile on her beautiful lips, stepped toward me. "You flatter yourself, arrogant creature. You can be destroyed utterly, and very painfully, too."

  The Golden One agreed. "We don't have to destroy all of you creatures. Merely striking a city with plague or sending a devastating earthquake is usually enough to get what we want from you pitiful little worms."

  The goddess reminded me of what the Achaians had said of Hera, the wife of Zeus: beautiful, wily, and a relentless, implacable enemy.

  "Personally, I favor the Achaians," she said, tracing a fingernail down my bare chest hard enough to draw blood. "But if your conceited interference is what we have to look forward to, I will gladly switch my loyalty to agree with our Apollo, here."

  The Golden One took her hand and kissed it. "You see, Orion," he said to me, "you are dealing with forces far beyond your scope. Perhaps it would be better if I eliminated you now, once and for all."

  "As you eliminated the one called Athene?" I snarled.

  "More insolence!"

  "Destroy him now and be done with it," said one of the other males.

  The Golden One nodded, a half-reluctant smile on his lips. "I'm afraid you've outlived your usefulness, Orion."

  "Leave him alone."

  The words were spoken in a hissing, rasping whisper, but they froze all the gods and goddesses ringed around me.

  They stepped aside to make room for a burly, massive figure who walked slowly toward me. It was as if they were afraid to touch him, afraid that his powerful arms would crush them if he merely reached out. His shoulders were rounded, but broad and thick with muscle. His body was heavy and deep, his legs shorter than I would have expected, but equally massive and powerful. His face was wide, with eyes that burned red beneath thick brows.

  Unlike the others in their splendid robes, he wore a black leather vest and knee-length kilt of forest green. His skin was gray, the hair of his head black and pulled straight back. Despite his slightly bent posture he loomed over me and all the others there.

  He came straight up to me, glowering before me like a smoldering volcano.

  "Do you remember me?" His voice was a harsh, labored whisper.

  "Ahriman," I said, awed by his presence.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. Then, "We have been enemies for long, long ages, Orion. Do you remember that?"

  I looked deep into those red burning eyes and saw pain and hatred and a hunt that spanned fifty thousand years. I saw a battle in the snow and ice of a bygone era, and a struggle between us in other places, other times.

  "It's . . . all confused," I said to him.

  "Go back to your world, Orion," said Ahriman. "Once you did me a good turn and now I repay the debt. Go back to your world and don't tempt your destiny any further."

  "I'll go back to my world," I said. "And I'll help the Achaians to conquer Troy."

  The gods and goddesses remained silent, although I could feel the anger radiating from the Golden One.

  Chapter 18

  I awoke with the first light of day, as one of the camp's roosters raised his raucous cry of morning. As I went to pull my gray linen tunic over my head, I noticed the long thin slice of a cut oozing blood down my chest. I willed the capillaries to clamp themselves down and the bleeding stopped.

  So the physical body is actually transported to the other realm, I said to myself. It's not merely a trick of the mind, a projection of one's mentality. The body moves from one universe to the other, as well.

  Lukka and his men were already heading off toward the river to cut down the trees from which they would build our siege tower. I spoke briefly with him before he left, then went to Odysseus's quarters, up on his boat, to learn what had transpired in the council meeting.

  The Trojans had sent a delegation to ask for the return of Hector's dismembered body. Try as they might to keep Achilles's death a secret, the Achaians were unable to prevent the Trojan emissaries from finding out the news: The whole camp was buzzing with it. The council met with the Trojan delegation, and after some debate agreed to return Hector's body, and suggested a two-day truce in which both sides could properly honor their slain.

  Once the Trojans had departed with the corpse of their prince, Agamemnon told the council about the siege tower. They swiftly decided to use the two days of truce to build the machine in secret.

  I spent those two days with my Hatti troops, on the far side of the Scamander river, screened from Trojan eyes by the riverbank's line of trees and shrubbery. Odysseus, who above all the Achaians appreciated the value of scouting and intelligence-gathering, spread a number of his best men along the riverbank to prevent any stray Trojan scouts from getting near us. I hoped that our hammering and sawing, which I was certain the Trojans could hear when the wind blew inland, would be taken as a shipbuilding job and nothing more.

  We commandeered dozens of slaves and thetes to do the dogwork of hewing trees and carrying loads. Lukka was a born engineer, and direc
ted the construction with dour efficiency. The tower took shape swiftly, and on the evening of the last day of truce Agamemnon, Nestor, and the other leaders came across the river to inspect our work.

  We had built it horizontally, laying it along the ground, partly because it was easier to do that way but mainly to keep it hidden behind the tree line. Once it got dark enough, I had several dozen slaves and thetes haul on ropes to pull it up into its true vertical position.

  Agamemnon peered up at it. "It's not as tall as the city walls," he complained.

  While Lukka and his men had been building, I had been planning how best to use the tower. We had time only for one of them, if we were to strike as soon as the truce ended. So we needed to strike where it would do us the most good.

  "It is tall enough, my lord king," I replied, "to top the western wall. That is the weakest section. Even the Trojans admit that that section of their walls was not built by Apollo and Poseidon."

  Nestor bobbed his white beard. "A wise choice, young man. Never defy the gods, it will only bring you to grief. Even if you seem to succeed at first, the gods will soon bring you low because of your hubris. Look at poor Achilles, so full of pride. Yet a lowly arrow wound has been his downfall."

  As soon as Nestor took a breath, I rushed to continue, "I have been inside the city. I know its layout. The west wall is on the higher side of the bluff. Once we get past that wall we will be on the high ground, and very close to the palace and temple."

  Odysseus agreed. "I too have served as an emissary, if you recall, and I studied the city's streets and buildings carefully. Orion is right. If we broke through the Scaean gate, for example, we would still have to fight through the streets, uphill every step of the way. Breaking in over the west wall is better."

  "Can we get this thing up the hill to the wall there?" Agamemnon asked.

  "The slope is not as steep at the west wall as it is to the north and east," I said. "The southern side is the easiest, where the Scaean and Dardanian gates are located. But it's also the most heavily defended, with the highest walls and tall watchtowers alongside each gate."

  "I know that!" Agamemnon snapped. He poked around the wooden framework, obviously suspicious of what was to him a new idea.

  Before he could ask, I said, "It would be best to roll it across the plain tonight, after the moon goes down. There should be a fog coming in from the sea. We can float it across the river on the raft we've built and roll it over the plain on its back, so that the mist will conceal us from any Trojan watchmen on the walls. Then we raise it . . ."

  Agamemnon cut me off with a peevish wave of his hand. "Odysseus, are you willing to lead this . . . this maneuver?"

  "I am, son of Atreus. I plan to be the first man to step onto the battlements of Troy."

  "Very well then," said the High King. "I don't think this will work. But if you're prepared to try it, then try it. I'll have the rest of the army ready to attack at first light."

  We got no sleep that night. I doubt that any of us could have slept even if we had tried. Nestor organized a blessing for the tower. A pair of aged priests sacrificed a dozen rams and goats, slitting their throats with ancient stone knives as they lay bound and bleating on the ground, then painting their blood on the wooden framework. They fretted that there were no bulls or human captives to sacrifice; Agamemnon did not think enough of the project to allow such wealth to be wasted on it.

  Lukka supervised rafting the tower across the river, once the night fog began blowing in from the sea. We waited, crouched in the chilling mist, the tower's framework looming around us like the skeleton of some giant's carcass, until the moon finally disappeared behind the islands and the night became as black as it would ever be.

  I had hoped for cloud cover, but the stars were watching as we slowly, painfully, pulled the tower on big wooden wheels across the plain of Ilios and up the slope that fronted Troy's western wall. Slaves and thetes strained at the ropes, while others slathered animal grease on the wheels to keep them from squeaking.

  Poletes crept along beside me, silent for once. I strained my eyes for a sight of Trojan sentries up on the battlements, but the fog kept me from seeing much. Straight overhead I could make out the Dippers and Cassiopeia's lopsided W. The constellation Orion, my namesake, was rising in the east, facing the V-shaped horns of Taurus the Bull. The Pleiades gleamed like a cluster of seven gems on the Bull's neck.

  The night was eerily quiet. Perhaps the Trojans, trusting in the truce the Achaians had asked for, thought that no hostilities would start until the morning. True, the fighting would start with the sun's rise. But were they fools enough not to post lookouts through the night?

  The ground was rising now, and what had seemed like a gentle slope felt like a cliff. We all gripped our hands on the ropes and put our backs into it, trying not to cry out or groan with the pain. I looked across from where I was hauling and saw Lukka, his face contorted with the effort, his booted heels dug into the mist-slippery grass, straining like a common laborer, just as all the rest of us were.

  At last we reached the base of the wall and huddled there, waiting. I sent Poletes scampering around to the corner where the wall turned, to watch the eastern sky and tell me when it started to turn gray with the first hint of dawn. We all sat sprawled on the ground, letting our aching muscles relax until the moment for action came. The tower lay lengthwise along the ground, waiting to be pulled up to its vertical position. I sat with my back against the wall of Troy and counted minutes by listening to my heartbeat.

  I heard a rooster crow from inside the city, and then another. Where is Poletes? I wondered. Has he fallen asleep, or been found by a Trojan sentry?

  Just as I was getting to my feet, the old storyteller scuttled back through the mist to me.

  "The eastern sky is still dark, except for the first touch of faint light between the mountains. Soon the sky will turn milk-white, then as rosy as a flower."

  "Odysseus and his troops will be starting out from the camp," I said. "Time to get the tower up."

  We almost got the job done before the Trojans realized what we were about.

  The fog was thinning slightly as we hauled on the ropes that raised the tower to its vertical position. It was even heavier than it looked, because of the horse hides and weapons we had secured to its platforms. Lukka and his men stood on the other side, bracing the tower with poles as it rose. There was no way we could muffle the noise of the creaking and our own gasping, grunting exertions. It seemed to take an hour to get the thing standing straight, although actually only a few strenuous minutes had elapsed.

  Still, just as the tower tipped over and thumped against the wall in its final position, I heard voices calling confusedly from the other side of the battlements.

  I turned to Poletes. "Run back to Odysseus and tell him we're ready. He's to come as fast as he can!"

  The plan was for Odysseus and a picked team of fifty Ithacans to make their way across the plain on foot, because chariots would have been too noisy. I was beginning to wonder if that had been the smartest approach.

  Someone was shouting from inside the walls now, and I saw a head appear over the battlements, silhouetted for a brief instant against the graying sky.

  I pulled out my sword and swung up onto the ladder that led to the top of the tower. Lukka was barely a step behind me, and the rest of the Hatti soldiers swarmed up the sides, unrolling the horsehide shields to protect the tower's sides against spears and arrows.

  "What is it?" I heard a boy yelling from atop the wall.

  "It's a giant horse!" a fear-stricken voice answered. "With men inside it!"

  Chapter 19

  I reached the topmost platform of the tower, sword in hand. Our calculations had been almost perfect. The platform reared a foot or so higher than the wall's battlements. Without hesitation I jumped down onto the parapet and from there onto the stone platform behind it.

  A pair of stunned Trojan youths stood there, mouths agape, eyes bulging, lon
g spears in their trembling hands. Lukka rushed past me and cut one of them nearly in half with a savage swing of his sword. The other dropped his spear and, screaming, jumped off the platform to the street below.

  The sky was brightening. The city seemed asleep. But across the angle of the wall I could see another sentry on the platform, his long spear outlined against the gray-pink of dawn. Instead of charging at us, he turned and ran toward the square stone tower that flanked the Scaean gate.

  "He'll alarm the guard," I said to Lukka. "They'll all be at us in a few minutes."

  Lukka nodded wordlessly, his hawk's face showing neither fear nor anticipation.

  It was now a race between Odysseus's Ithacans and the Trojan guards. We had won a foothold inside the walls; now our job was to hold it. As Lukka's men swiftly broke out the spears and shields that we had roped to the tower's timbers, I looked out over the parapet. Fog and darkness still shrouded the plain. I could not see Odysseus and his men in the shadows—if they were there.

  Trojan guards spilled out of the watchtower, an even dozen of them. And I saw more Trojans coming at us from the other side, running along the north wall, spears leveled. The battle was on.

  The Hatti were professional soldiers. They had faced spears before, and they knew how to use their own. We formed a defensive wall by locking our shields together, and put out a bristling hedgehog front with our long spears. I too gripped a spear in my right hand and held my shield butted against Lukka's. My senses went into overdrive once more and the world around me slowed. Still I felt my heart pounding and my palms becoming slippery with sweat.

  The Trojans attacked us with desperate fury, practically leaping on our spear points. They fought to save their city. We fought for our lives. I knew there was no way for us to retreat without being butchered. We either held our beachhead on the wall or we died.

  Our shield wall buckled under their savage attack. We were forced a step back, and then another. A heavy bronze spear point crashed over the top of my shield, passed my ear, and plunged into the man behind me. As he died I thrust my spear into the belly of the man who had killed him. His face went from triumph to surprise to the final agony of death in the flash of a second.