Golden Mukenai (The Age of Bronze)

by Diana Gainer

  Diwoméde's heart and limbs were on fire and he tore into the thickest part of the fight, where the Assúwan line had fallen back but still held the Ak'áyans from the gates. There a few heavily armored Lúkiyans kept the poorly-equipped P'ilístas at bay, sickle-shaped Assúwan swords whipping around their native, conical headdresses. One warrior held the center of the resistance, a man with short, powerful limbs, protected by a bronze-plate tunic. Though his driver had fallen and the wheels of his chariot were shattered, still the troop leader remained upon the cart and cut down all who came to possess his horses.

  "There!" Diwoméde cried to his Lakedaimóniyan driver. "That way!"

  St'énelo, as inflamed as the younger man, whipped the horses into a run. The armored Lúkiyan thrust his spear at the shoulder of the approaching Ak'áyan horses. But his blade missed its mark. In the next moment, the qasiléyu's spear drove through the Lúkiyan's chest-armor, tossing the man backward to the ground. Around the fallen Assúwan, resistance melted away almost immediately. Wilúsiyans turned their backs to the fight and ran for the wide southern gate of their fortress, Ak'áyan spears and arrows pursuing them.

  An ass-drawn chariot entered the breach, the Pálayan in the cart shouting, "Stand and fight!" As the command left the warrior's lips, Diwoméde's spear burst through his chest from behind. The easterner fell, his half-tamed onagers running wild.

  The retreat became a rout, as the sons of Dáwan ran from their attackers, turning their backs to the field. Diwoméde's lance was buried deep in Assúwan flesh and the qasiléyu would spare no time to work it free. Before all other the sons of Diwiyána rode Diwoméde in Meneláwo's blood-spattered chariot, slashing at the running foot-soldiers with his sword, reaping a grim harvest. The wounded fell, their spines snapped beneath the wheels of his onrushing chariot, as the wheels miraculously held together over that uneven path.

  "Stand and fight!" Qántili raged, turning his spear on those Assúwans who were making for the safety of the citadel's walls. "Turn back, you sheep!" Beside him, the archer Qándaro stood his ground and turned his bow against Diwoméde. The arrow sped to its target, stabbing into the flesh of the young man's right arm. Diwoméde cried out. His sword dropped from fingers that suddenly became numb.

  In triumph Qándaro shouted, "Poseidáon!" His comrades took notice and others halted their retreat to fight anew. "Die, Ak'áyan dog!" the archer cried, drawing his bow again.

  St'énelo shouted to his team and cracked his whip. The horses reared, nearly upsetting the cart. Diwoméde lost his balance and fell against his driver. But the movement spoiled the Tróyan bowman's aim and the dart passed beside Diwoméde's head. With difficulty, St'énelo turned the horses and drove the wounded lawagéta from the field. Around the victorious archer and the Wilúsiyan prince, the sons of Dáwan rallied, remembering their honor. Agamémnon's men could not penetrate that living Assúwan wall.

  By the Sqámandro River once more, behind the mass of fighting men, Diwoméde's driver stopped. The qasiléyu stumbled down from the cart, clasping his wounded arm. "Pull the arrow out," he gasped.

  Island boatmen toiled on the riverbank and in the shallow water, loading captured bronze onto the boats. They stopped in their work to watch the charioteer, but St'énelo waved them away. "I will deal with this," he said simply.

  His eyes closed and grinding his teeth with pain, Diwoméde braced himself against the cart. With a single tug, St'énelo yanked the barbed arrow from Diwoméde's shoulder, widening the wound. Bright blood poured over the qasiléyu's arm and his battered, over-sized chest-armor. The wounded man sank to the ground. "Lady Diwiyána," he groaned, "if you ever answer a man's prayer, let me kill the dog who shot me."

  To the qasiléyu's side came the boatman who had earlier tended Meneláwo. "Drink from this," he said, holding out his poppy juglet. Diwoméde grimaced at the bitter taste but he swallowed, his eyes still closed.

  St'énelo shook his head, hands on his hips, "Ai, you are still a child, just as I heard. Look at how you behave, boy. A man would think you had lost an arm, when you have taken only a scratch. Go on back to your tent. You do not deserve to fight with true men."

  Diwoméde's rage boiled upward in spite of the pain in his shoulder. "No, by the gods, I will not return to the camp! Back to the fight! I will get that son of a dog now." At the aging boatman's insistence, he paused long enough to accept a strip of linen, torn from St'énelo's kilt, to bind his wound. But then the qasiléyu demanded that the driver return him to the battlefield. The charioteer wheeled the cart around again and drove back into the thick of the fighting. Diwoméde wielded his short dagger in his uninjured left hand, lion-like savagery in his plunge toward the Assúwans. He slashed into the neck of the first Wilúsiyan he met, severing the man's jugular. As the man fell, calling in a high, desperate voice for mercy, Diwoméde hopped from the chariot to take up the man's fallen sword and spear. As soon as the young Argive was back at St'énelo's side, the chariot moved on.

  A gilded cart passed beside Diwoméde's, bearing two finely clothed Mírans, still calling for peace. Diwoméde leapt from his chariot to theirs, pulling down the driver with the weight of his body. The man fell backward, hands in the air, and Diwoméde slit his throat as easily as a sacrificial lamb's. The qasiléyu followed the erratic chariot on foot as St'énelo stripped the dead officer. As rapidly as he had finished the first man, Diwoméde slaughtered the Míran driver. The fine armor was soon off both bodies, loaded into Diwoméde's chariot, their long-limbed horses tied behind. In a short time, St'énelo delivered the booty to the riverside and once more returned the qasiléyu to the battle.

  Ainyáh spotted the havoc about the young Argive and searched out Qándaro. "Where are your famous arrows?" he asked, not expecting an answer. "Shoot at that wild man, whoever he is, before he routs us again." He pointed out Diwoméde, as the young man tore back through the lines, downing Kuwalíyans with a Míran king's spear.

  Qándaro's mouth fell open as he sighted along his commander's arm. "I thought I had killed that one. I could have sworn I shot him in the sword-arm. There must be a god behind him."

  "Never mind that. Get into my chariot," Ainyáh ordered, with some alarm, as Diwoméde approached. "I will take the reins while you fight. Together we must take this man down." Qándaro stepped eagerly into the Kanaqániyan's blue-painted cart and they hurtled toward Diwoméde.

  St'énelo saw them coming and shouted over the din of battle, "Look, a chariot is coming at us. We must turn back."

  But Diwoméde pointed the bloody lance in his hand toward Ainyáh. "Forward!" the qasiléyu shouted, and, when St'énelo hesitated, wide-eyed, he struck his driver with the shaft of his spear. "Go!"

  The charioteer urged his tired horses onward in awed obedience. He wiped his bleeding nose with the back of his wrist, glancing fearfully at the maddened warrior beside him. Diwoméde called into St'énelo's ear, "I will kill the men. You catch the horses and drive them back to the ships." St'énelo nodded, shaken at the transformation of the young man. But there was no time to stand in wonderment.

  The Tróyan chariot was upon them. Qándaro lost his balance as he released his arrow and he bent double over the side of the chariot. Ainyáh grasped the archer's belt to keep him from toppling head first to the ground. The two carts passed each other as Qándaro's arrow tore through the qasiléyu's chest-armor.

  Struggling upright, Qándaro whooped in triumph, "I got him!"

  But Diwoméde hardly felt the glancing blow, as it was slowed by the thick bronze and the leather behind it. He plucked the arrow from his corselet and hurled his dagger at the archer. The blade drove into Qándaro's nose and downward to shatter his teeth and pierce his tongue. The bowman collapsed backward, falling from the blue chariot, his leather armor darkly stained. The Wilúsiyan horses reared and shied at the sudden shift in the weight in the cart, and Ainyáh could not keep his footing. Tumbling from the cart, the commander found Qándaro beside him on the ground. The archer clawed at his face with one hand and at
the earth with the other. But his struggled lasted only for a moment. Soon he lay still, blood bubbling from his open mouth. The Kanaqániyan scrambled to his feet. Knowing the Ak'áyans would return to the archer's body, Ainyáh spared no thought for his horses, letting the panicked mares run where they wished. He stood over the fallen bowman, protecting the body from plunder with his spear and shield, calling on his kinsmen to support him.

  Diwoméde howled in frustrated rage. In his headlong rush through the lines, he had not retrieved a single weapon, leaving each in the body it had felled. His spear was gone, his sword shattered, his shield ruined, and his knife buried in blood and bone. In desperation, the qasiléyu left his chariot, picking up stones to hurl at the Kanaqániyan who guarded the archer. Ainyáh dodged the first rock, but the second struck his hip, beneath his bronze-plate armor. The commander fell to his knees, his sword-hand bearing his weight. His shield remained high in his left hand, fending off what he expected to be the final blow.

  St'énelo jumped down from Diwoméde's chariot and sought a driver from the tiring foot-soldiers who now took cover behind the cart. "T'érsite, into the chariot," he cried and gave his team a blow with the whip. "Back to the ships, with you!" he shouted. As the qasiléyu had instructed him, he fell upon Ainyáh's larger horses. With his whip St'énelo turned them from the battle, back toward the collection point on the bank of the river.

  Close by the Sqámandro River, T'érsite stopped and waited, completely winded and not the least bit eager to find another spear. St'énelo was equally exhausted, but left the captured spoils in the hands of the noncombatants and immediately remounted his own chariot. Ignoring T'érsite's invitation to rest, he drove his own team back to the field, toward where Diwoméde stood, shouting curses and throwing stones at Ainyáh.

  The Kanaqániyan struggled to regain his feet, battered back time and again by Diwoméde's blows. But, his right arm weakened by the profusely bleeding wound, his aim inaccurate with his left, the qasiléyu could not finish his larger and stronger adversary, not without a decent bronze weapon. At last, the Kanaqániyan regained his footing with a bloodcurdling cry of renewed vigor and ferocity. "Astárt!" Ainyáh shouted and he sprang at the young Argive.

  Diwoméde, taken by surprise, scampered clumsily backward, acutely aware of his vulnerability without a weapon besides a rock or a shield. "The gods are with him," the qasiléyu despaired, turning gratefully from the combat as St'énelo drew up, just at that moment. Grasping the driver's outstretched hand, the young man flung himself into the passing chariot. Ainyáh took only a few steps after the departing cart, hurling imprecations, but, in his heart, he was desperately happy to be rid of the madman who had confronted him.

  As if the rest of the warriors had come to the same conclusion as the fleeing Argive, Wilúsiyans and allies began to rally around Ainyáh. They saw the Kanaqániyan commander, Ainyáh, on his feet again, as if by a miracle, and took heart. "The gods are with us!" Assúwans shouted to each other. Indeed, the unseen realm seemed to favor the men of Náshiya's empire. Qántili had marched constantly up and down at the back of his troops, urging them forward, forcing would-be deserters back into the fight, preventing the rout that would have finished them. Now, as Assúwans gathered in strength and pushed back the Ak'áyan tide, men from eastern Pála rode their heavy, ass-drawn chariots once more into the center of the battle. The thought of these foreigners gaining more glory than they did spurred on the native Wilúsiyans to greater efforts.

  Diwoméde withdrew in the Lakedaimóniyan chariot, letting St'énelo carry him back behind the Ak'áyan lines. But he had no intention of resting beside the Sqámandro's muddy waters. As boatmen paddled or poled back and forth across the river, the young warrior drew from the stacks of loot taken from the dead and dying. Meneláwo, squatting by the water with his hand at the wound in his side, caught sight of the blood-washed qasiléyu and hailed him. "Owlé, Diwoméde! How goes the fight?"

  "They need me," brusquely answered the young Argive, his arms full of bronze. St'énelo looked toward his king, hopefully, but Meneláwo offered him no reprieve. Soon armed and armored once more, Diwoméde hurried to take his place in the fight with the other Ak'áyan lawagétas, the tall Aíwaks, and glory-hungry Odushéyu. Stirred by the sights and sounds of battle, Meneláwo stiffly dressed on the riverbank and he, too, took up arms to join the fight. The boatmen tried to dissuade him, but, fortified by the black syrup in the poppy jar, he would not listen. Alongside Lakedaimón's spearmen, the injured king pushed his way to the thick of the fighting. With strong leaders at the front and Agamémnon tirelessly touring the back, urging the men on with a combination of insults and praise, the sons of Diwiyána met the onrushing tide of Dáwan's warriors and held firm.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ANDROMAK'E

  Men died all around Ainyáh, spraying him with their blood. But the Kanaqániyan held his position in the Assúwan vanguard, easily felling young men not yet skilled enough to ward off his well-aimed blows. Faced with such determined resistance, the Mesheníyans allowed Néstor to prevail upon them at last. They withdrew from the fight and encouraged their kinsmen from neighboring kingdoms to do the same, in turn.

  Ainyáh shouted in triumph as the Ak'áyans retreated and he called over his shoulder to his countrymen. With renewed confidence, Wilúsiyans came forward and retrieved their dead, pulling them back behind the lines to the safety of Tróya's gates. There they rested and called for water, reluctant to return to the battle. In the heat of the afternoon sun, the fighting began to wind down. Men of all nations remembered the oaths they had sworn that morning and, seeing their enemies holding firm, concluded that the gods were displeased. Calls for a truce began to sound over the din on all sides of the field.

  Still, Agamémnon's Argives would not leave the battle. Neither would the Lúkiyans, following the example of their king, Sharpaduwánna. The sons of Diwiyána continued to fall, pierced by the spears and swords of these battle-hardened men of southern Assúwa. When Lúkiyan weapons broke or were lost, the fierce warriors did not retreat, but targeted the Ak'áyan chariots, upsetting the light carts as they passed by, tossing both the fighter and the driver to the earth. Leather reins trailed on the ground, their inset ivory decorations trampled beneath men's feet and the hooves of donkeys and horses. The felt-capped warriors prized horses more highly than bronze, and the empty chariots were eagerly righted and mounted, the animals driven to the rear as prizes.

  "Powolúdama," Qántili shouted, his voice growing hoarse, "the men are wearing out. We must make one final push and rout the Ak'áyans." Their spears raised, the two Tróyans rallied the Wilúsiyans who remained on the field, determined to break the Ak'áyan lines. Diwoméde backed away from the approaching enemy, calling to his companions to do the same. "Fall back," he shouted. "But keep your face to the Tróyans."

  Qántili's advance continued pitilessly, tearing into the invaders' forces. Ak'áyans fell and their countrymen could do nothing to prevent them from being stripped. Assúwans went down as well, and the forest of oncoming spears kept the Ak'áyans from taking their share of bronze. Bodies pressed close against bodies. Even great Aíwaks was hard pressed. He turned away from the fray, shaken.

  In the crush, the Lúkiyan ruler, Sharpaduwánna, downed a high-ranked Ak'áyan with a spear that pierced the man's neck. The wounded officer fell without a sound, blood bubbling over his lips. But as the spear from Sharpaduwánna's hand met its target, the Ak'áyan's did the same, striking the Lúkiyan king in the thigh. Screaming in agony, Sharpaduwánna fell, his bright blood pouring onto the already blood-dampened ground. Calling on the storm god, Lúkiyans streamed forward to save their leader, drawing him back from the heat of battle. The trailing spear shaft caught on the feet of fighting men, drawing cries of agony from the stricken king. Disheartened by this sight, the leaderless Mírans and Kuwalíyans suddenly turned and fled.

  For a moment, it seemed that Agamémnon would ride into Tróya unopposed. But the Ak'áyans were unable to take adv
antage of the Lúkiyans' retreat. Qántili entered the breach almost immediately in his chariot and bore down on the battling Argives and It'ákans. With arms as yet unwearied from fighting, the Tróyan prince made quick slaughter of the front ranks. Even Meneláwo and Diwoméde, fortified by the poppy, were halted in their tracks.

  aaa

  Two loyal Lúkiyans carried their leader away from the fight, back into the high-walled citadel. They laid Sharpaduwánna in the shade of the gate and stood beside him, biting their thumbs with anxiety.

  "Pull the spear, Tushrátta," begged one without armor. He dabbed at the fallen leader's pale, damp face with a shred of linen torn from the kilt beneath his leather apron.

  But his bronze-breasted companion was afraid. "He is the king. What if he dies?"

  "He will surely die if you do not pull it," said the first, hoping to sound encouraging.

  At last, Tushrátta summoned the courage to pull at the embedded spear. As the barb ripped free, Sharpaduwánna cried out once more and fainted.

  "Will he die?" asked the man of low rank.

  "Is he already dead?" asked Tushrátta, nervously dabbing at the ruler's bleeding leg.