“Stop!” I ordered my men.
There was another group of people coming from over a hill, heading for the beach from the safety of chariots of some kind. As they neared, I could see that they were of the same dress as the others. This new party was at least 40 strong. I held my breath, hoping we were out of reach of their arrows.
The first enemy to swim to shore turned to glare at us. I was surprised to discover that it was a woman. Even from such a distance, I sensed a regal essence about her, much like my concubine Matanaza when we first encountered each other. And much like my honorary queen still, this woman sported oily dark hair, hers ending in curls just below her shoulders. Her complexion was olive, also like that of my Hittite woman.
A man rode forward from the land party. His hair and skin tone were similar to hers, but his complexion was rugged and weathered. He stood at least as tall as I, if the men around him were any comparison, and wore his muscles with the unmistakable proudness of a battle-hardened warrior. I could not help but think of my late Thirian friend, Artession. It was immediately apparent that there was a lot of him in this man. The two exchanged words and watched us, their eyes filled with rage barely held at bay.
What intrigued me the most about the whole scene were the chariots the land party rode in on. There were no horses leading them. I squinted, trying to make sure that my eyes were not deceiving me, but I only came away more confused. It seemed as if there were indeed reins that reached out into open air. I had no idea what I was looking at and thought it best to exercise caution.
“Troy.” Caria leaned in and was whispering into my ear. “Do you see those chariots?”
“Yeah—is that a breed of horse you’re familiar with?” I forced a laugh.
“No, I am not familiar with horses made of air.”
“I didn’t think so. It’s probably best that we head back while we still can.”
“I was thinking the same thing, Love.”
I called my men off, and the enemy silently watched us depart. I could only hope that they would go back the way they came, or at least set up camp for the evening. It would take a little time for me to gather more men and decide on our next moves.
7
The moment we touched down in Port Superior, I set to work rounding up several squads of Thirians that would serve as scouting parties. With three to a group, they would scour the peninsula keeping tabs on our mysterious enemy. I did not want those people taking a shit without my knowledge of it.
I sent another messenger to the King and Queen to provide an update and request any assistance they were willing to provide. Later that night, Helen returned with the messenger I had sent earlier in the day. Worried for my well-being, she had opted to be at my side while we dealt with the menace. Her eyes went wide when I told of the scene we had just come from.
“This is all so sudden,” she said. “What are we to do, Troy? It sounds as if these people could be at our door any minute.”
“We’ll just have to hold down the fort for now and see what they throw our way.”
Luckily, they allowed us to sleep through the rest of the night, during which I received several updates from my scouts. It turned out that a few hours in bed with an exquisite queen or three really does wonders for my attitude. I woke up with half-smile and dreams of soft skin and Helen’s sweet breath close to hand, echoes that made me damned glad to be a man.
It seemed as if they had retreated a little further north and away from the shore and setup camp with several watchmen posted along the coast. I hoped they would stay put for a day or two, giving us enough time to scrounge up more warriors and head back to face them in force.
The coming dawn was a blessing to our cause. The last messenger I had sent to Illium returned with a hundred skilled Trojan rangers to supplement our troops. From what we had seen, those reinforcements alone should have been enough to get the job done, but I did not want to take any chances. I wrung out every drop of capable men my humble settlement would provide for the effort, leaving behind only the bare minimum needed to keep the place running smoothly and guarded. Even Teucer offered to accompany us, but I insisted he stay with his family, protesting that it would be too much too soon for his loved ones to risk losing him after already facing such drastic changes to their lives.
In total, we had a group of 183 strong, composed of the 100 rangers, 40 Thirians, and 40 other citizens of Port Superior, plus Helen, Linos, and me leading the way. Caria wanted to come again, but I urged her to stay behind and rest while Helen joined me on this little excursion. I thought she might be put to better use for the time being to continue establishing a rapport with Teucer and his family.
We divided ourselves into three groups, each lead by my queen, the Chief, and me, and spread out to cover as much ground as possible, staying just within each other’s view on the horizon. The Thirian scouts accompanied each of us to lead us to where they had last spotted the enemy. Though these men had a solid idea of where the camp was, I thought it might be advantageous for our party to split into three as it did, so that we would have a better opportunity to flank the foreign army.
We had traveled a great deal over the course of the day but still did not come across the camp. This was the furthest north I had ever traveled on the peninsula. The grassy plains with the occasional smattering of woodlands thinned until we found ourselves in a dry rocky wasteland full of steep ledges and canyons. Not long after the change of scene I realized what a mistake it was to divide our forces.
Linos’s party was met by a large force to the east. My group was in the middle of our three subgroups, so Helen’s party could not see what was happening to the Thirian’s little army. We blew the war horns to make her aware, and then took off to aid our allies, galloping at full speed.
I was at a loss for ideas. There were at least a hundred of them, probably more. By the time we came close enough to assist, Linos’s men had already been cut down by more than half, and they were too intermingled with the enemy for our archers to get an accurate shot. It was total pandemonium and I found myself cursing my stupidity, once for dividing our army and once more for blindly charging in to help my suffering brothers in arms.
They had come again with those bewildering chariots. The hairs on my arms reached for the sky as I took in the sight, plowing forward to help in whatever way I could. I didn’t know how to approach the war vehicles and was hesitant to draw too near to them out of fear of being stomped by some ethereal steed.
Fucking ghosts. My own corporeal mount echoed similar sentiments, reeling away as we came within yards of the first chariot, its reins reaching over to us like viscous tentacles ready to constrict and squeeze the life from whoever came near. One of the two men steering this vehicle pointed to me in challenge. It was time to really wet my feet with this strange new kind of foe.
My horse leapt to the side as the chariot charged us, its hull missing us by little more than a foot. I held on for dear life as if my mount was no less than an enraged bull. I had clearly lost control of it. I couldn’t blame the damn thing, but I did not have to be happy about it. It bucked wildly, and I felt myself inching further down its back. The odds were growing that, in a moment or two, my face would meet the iron of its shoes. I had to think fast.
The chariot swung back around to finish what it had started, and in a desperate attempt to save myself, I pushed off from my horse as it reached another crescendo, using its momentum to my advantage. I sailed overhead, far higher than I would have thought possible. My head began to spin as I flew upward, and panic started to take hold of me.
I looked down to find the chariot passing beneath me, its crew staring up at my airborne figure as if I were some bird of prey. This was my chance. As I plummeted down, I stuck out an arm and grabbed one of the men by the hem of his vest. He yelped as his body jerked backward and he was ripped from the protective embrace of his vehicle. His brother looked back, still wide-eyed as ever, and the chariot carried him away without its rider having
the presence of mind to protest.
The man and I slammed into the dirt, sending a cloud of dust flying. My side felt as if it had collided full-speed with a brick wall, but he still got the worst of it, having landed head-first on the packed dirt. The man was unconscious, possibly dead on impact, but I drew my blade for good measure and jabbed it into him.
The other guy had regained his senses by then and veered back around to greet me again. This time I was ready.
When he came within throwing distance, I chucked my sword at him, sending him to the ground as the chariot hurled itself forward. I slid to the side to avoid whatever invisible mass might be propelling the thing and grabbed onto its metal edge. It pulled me with it, the sudden force barely giving me time to hop aboard and take the reins.
Driving a chariot was a new experience for me, especially a horseless one. The concept seemed simple enough. If I wanted to steer it one way, I yanked that way. The harder the yank, the quicker the turn. If wanted it to speed up, I performed a kind of whipping action, and if I wanted to slow down, I simply pulled back. It was fairly intuitive, and I picked it up in a matter of seconds.
My first deliberate action was to spin around and retrieve my sword. It stuck up out of the man’s chest waiting for me to come back by and reclaim it, which I did with relative ease. The trick was to not bend too far over the edge and lose my balance.
Just as I was about to turn my full attention back to the battle, a spear sailed overhead. My heart skipped a beat, and I spun my head around to see the shocked expression of a Thirian who had almost taken the life of his ally. Commandeering an enemy vehicle would undoubtedly pose such a problem. I sent a stern look his was and returned to the task at hand.
Helen’s group had not yet come to join us, and I feared the battle may well be over by the time they could make it. Our guys were dropping left and right, but not without the enemy suffering their fair share of casualties.
Another chariot spotted me, one of its riders wielding a long lance. I once again found myself at a bit of a disadvantage. The glinting tip came near, and I barely managed to turn to the side and push the pole away. The other guy manning the vehicle-- a short, muscly grey-haired individual—spat a string of vicious curses as the two of them passed by. That was a man I would not want to play bumper cars with, but a part of me relished the challenge.
Not far to the port side, I saw Scander swiping at an enemy foot soldier. I saw that his trusty bow was slung on his back, adjacent to the dozen arrows he carried on him at all times. His penchant for ranged attacking was something I could make use of in my present situation.
“Scander!” I called.
He broke his focus for a split second to acknowledge my greeting.
“Hop on!”
I charged forward, thinking this would be the perfect time to test my invisible horse’s trampling power. I whipped the reins, and Scander’s opponent hardly had time to acknowledge what was happening before he was under the wheels of my ride. It was not the mass of some invisible beast that forced him down, but the hull of the chariot itself. It defied all logic that the reins were clearly attached to something physical, something powerful enough to bring this massive hunk of metal forward with its riders, yet this invisible force appeared to be nothing more than open air when meeting the screams of a surprised soldier in the heat of battle.
I meant to extend a hand to Scander as I came by, but the situation proved too much of a distraction for me to take my attention from it. The Thirian managed well enough without my assistance though and was standing at my side before I even realized my mishap. His hand clapped down hard on my shoulder, and he was shouting with the glee that only war could bring out in his people. “What now, Troy?”
“Shoot the fuck out of ‘em!”
His bow was in hand in the next breath, and I drove us around the field, Scander letting loose arrows as quickly as his arms would allow.
“Got one!” he shouted. “Another!”
“Yessss!” I cheered, whipping the reins several times over.
The wind was in my hair and, for a moment, I felt like a champion. But that feeling was short-lived as an opposing chariot collided with ours from the starboard side, sending both Scander and I to the dirt.
“Fucking ghosts!” I jumped to my feet.
A quick glance to my side showed me that my ally was all right, save for a few minor scrapes on the coarse ground. The culprits’ own chariot had come to a sudden stop and both men were dismounting.
“Say goodbye to this world!” one of them shouted in the same rough accent I had heard from the man at Teucer’s estate.
They did not take a step closer before Scander sunk an arrow into the other man. It had been a perfect shot to the throat. The warrior hastily grabbed at the wound as blood trickled down his neck, and then he fell to his knees and kissed the ground.
This did not deter the other.
As a matter of fact, it served to bolster him, and in the next breath he was charging me full speed, sword held high. Scander could just as easily have put an end to him right there, but I was not about to let him have all the fun.
I drew my blade and laid into the assailant with a blinding combination, but he was an excellent swordsman. Sparks flew as my weapon met his, both the physical embodiments of our opposing wills vying for domination. Our blades were inches away from our faces, and we locked eyes with a primal intensity known only to men in the midst of combat. Rather than becoming enraged, I turned inward, letting my eyes watch the man with a fevered intensity as I sought an advantage.
A flash in his expression betrayed his intentions, and I was able to act preemptively, pushing his blade to the side and closing in so that my body was pressing directly against his. Dropping my sword, I slammed a fist into his stomach and held the wrist of his dominant hand with the other. He was forced to drop his own weapon to try and counteract my moves, but it did him little good. I felt his arm tighten, and I met it with greater force, strengthening my grip on his wrist as we danced. Scander was cheering me on some distance behind.
I brought a knee up into his gut and he bent over, wheezing and gagging. Next, I grabbed a clump of his hair with my free hand and brought his face down to meet that same knee. He groaned and then yelled, so I did it again, and then again until I saw blood. When I decided he’d had enough, I tossed the bastard back and let him fall to the dirt. He didn’t move, and I decided to just let him be, though that did little to prevent my Thirian friend from rushing in to finish the job.
I heard a sudden thundering of hooves approaching from behind and turned to see that Helen and her men had finally caught up. But it was too late. Upon seeing them, the enemies took off further north, leaving behind a sea of dead men and blood-soaked ground. There would be crows here later, and they would feed well.
We decided to set up camp a little further south, just out of sight of the battlefield. The final tally informed me that I had lost 25 of the 60 men I brought, and Linos lost a substantial 49, leaving him with only eleven. Poor Ogma had perished in the struggle as well, and many of those who remained were severely wounded.
I sent word back to Port Superior asking for medical assistance and for half of the men guarding the town to join us. From there, my messenger would turn to Illium for additional assistance, first to fortify my town and then to join us as we pressed the enemy.
Just as I finally lay my head down to rest that evening, I received word from a Thirian watchman that several enemy scouts had been spotted. To the best of the man’s knowledge, the enemy was not aware that they had been seen. I gathered eight rangers and Linos, and the ten of us set out on horseback to chase the men down.
They saw us before we were within firing range, and we proceeded to tail them for a solid hour before chasing them into a canyon where the only way out was the way they came in. The same applied to us, and I only realized my mistake when we were too far in to do anything about it.
A horn wailed behind me and I saw a massiv
e gathering of chariot riders spread out at the top of the gradual slope that led to the bottom of the canyon. Their sinister eyes watched us in the flickering light of the torches they carried. Among them, at the group’s center, was the man I had seen from sea—the one who came to meet the woman from the second ship we sank. I could only imagine how much he was enjoying the scene from his vantage.
He raised his sword high and dropped it, leading the charge as he and his entourage descended upon us. My mind raced. I looked all around for a way out but could find none. There was nothing behind us but the wall of a canyon too steep to climb in the short breath of time allotted to us. The scouts we had chased there were backing away toward the wall, laughing at the irony. I was tempted to go in and kill them just because of how pissed off I was, but I had more things to focus on that were in immediate need of my attention.
They had made it halfway down the slope when I noticed that something was wrong. Several men in the front line of the wave were thrown from their vehicles, trailing to the ground to be trampled a moment later by those who followed behind. Their allies tried to swerve to avoid running over those who had fallen, but this only forced them to collide with the chariots at their sides, multiplying the chaos tenfold. Many of these men were then subsequently flung from their vehicles and run over or dazed.
Some of the survivors who had fallen were scrambling to their feet, only to be knocked back down by some unseen force. I scanned them over for arrows, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, but the light was either too dim to reveal them to me or there was simply nothing to see.
Then one of them shouted and pointed to the cliffside. There were some two dozen figures standing in the starlight looking out over us. I could see no distinguishing features in the darkness. One after the other, they raised some whip-things over their heads and slapped them down. Following that, a man on the field would fall. They must have been assaulting them with some kind of sling, but at such a range . . . at such a range and in the dimmest of lighting it was difficult to believe they had any success.
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