by John Dolan
Sarpedon leaps from his chariot, spears ready. Patroklas jumps down to meet him. They sprint at each other screaming like eagles fighting in mid-air.
Zeus looks down, groaning, “This is the moment my son Sarpedon dies! I’d like to pick him up and drop him off safe home in Lycia.”
Hera frowns, working her needle: “You want to save a mortal from death? It’s what they’re made for! You know as well as I do that Sarpedon’s death has been arranged for ages! But never mind me, do what you want!”
Zeus says, “It’s just that Sarpedon is such a good man …”
Hera throws down her needlework, hissing, “Husband, you’re talking nonsense! So what if he’s your bastard son? Do you know how many gods’ bastards are fighting down there? You and your randy kin have sired half the warriors on the field! If you take your half-breed brat away from death, everyone in the family will be swooping down on Troy, grabbing their sons born on the wrong side of the bed and spiriting them away! There’ll be no one left to fight!”
Zeus nods, sighing, “Yes, yes … it’s just a shame he has to die.”
Hera takes up her needle again, says, “Well, if you like him so much, once Patroklas has killed him, send Sleep and Death to float him home through the sky to Lycia to his family home, so they can give him a funeral mound, a memorial stone, and the other rites.”
Zeus nods sadly. He mumbles, “But let me give him a memorial of my own, in advance.” He flicks his left hand, and a rain of blood falls on the plain of Troy, Zeus’ sign of grief for Sarpedon.
Patroklas wipes the blood from his face, runs straight at Sarpedon and makes his throw. The spear hits Sarpedon’s driver Thrasidem in the groin, and he falls doubled over.
Sarpedon throws, missing Patroklas but hitting Capture, the only mortal horse on Akilles’ chariot team. The horse screams and falls, kicking out, fouling the chariot. Just as the pole is about to break, Patroklas’ driver cuts the dying horse loose, and the other two, the god-horses, carry the chariot away to safety, staring sadly back at their mortal comrade.
Sarpedon and Patroklas have their second spears up and ready. Sarpedon throws first, misses. Patroklas throws—and doesn’t miss. Sarpedon’s hit dead center, between the heart and the guts.
He falls, groaning. He refuses to die, calling to his brother Glaukas, “Bring all our men to protect my body. Don’t let the Greeks steal my armor. I swear I’ll haunt you forever, brother, if you let the Greeks mutilate my corpse!”
Then he dies. Patroklas walks up and plants a foot on Sarpedon’s chest, pulling out his spear like a man pulls a shovel out of wet ground. As the spear rips out of Sarpedon’s body, his soul comes with it, then begins its long fall to Hades’ country.
Glaukas weeps. He’s wounded; he’ll need a god’s help to avenge his brother. He calls, “Lord Apollo, I have an arrow wound in the hand. My arm is already getting stiff. Your father Zeus let his son—my brother—die here. Please help me defend his body!”
Glaukas feels his hand knitting, as if a thousand tiny needles were darning his ripped hand. And something has been added to his blood, making him fiercer and fresher, ready to fight all day and night.
Glaukas bows his head, whispering, “Thank you, Lord Apollo!” and gathers the Lycian chiefs, calling, “Come with me, fight for my brother’s body!”
Then he finds Hektor and yells, “Hektor, have you forgotten your allies? Sarpedon is dead! Patroklas killed him and now the Greeks will steal his armor and hack up the corpse to avenge all the Greeks he killed. Come help me protect the body!”
Hektor asks, “Sarpedon, dead? Are you sure?”
Glaukas nods, still weeping.
Hektor bows his head and moans. The Trojans loved Sarpedon better than any other foreign prince fighting with them. Truth is, they loved him a lot more than some of their own princes. Hektor leads the Trojans toward Sarpedon’s corpse.
Patroklas orders his men to fan out around the body. “This corpse is Sarpedon, who was first to break through our wall! Strip his armor and hack up his corpse!”
Hektor comes up just in time to see one of Akilles’ men lifting one of Sarpedon’s legs to drag the body away. Without breaking stride, he picks up a big rock and flings it at the Greek’s head. The rock puts a huge dent in his helmet; his brains are all scrambled and he falls dead. Patroklas runs at Hektor, picking up a rock to return the favor. He misses but hits a Trojan standing close to Hektor, crushing the windpipe, breaking all the little bones that connect the head to the shoulders.
Patroklas is so fierce today that the Trojans back away from him. But Glaukas is only pretending to flee, waiting his chance to avenge his brother. He lures Batykles, Akilles’ vassal, into chasing him, then turns suddenly, punching his spear right through the Greek’s chest.
The Greeks do some killing of their own. Meriones gets off a good throw, hitting Laogon, son of a priest, right under the ear.
Aeneas throws at Meriones, but Meriones ducks and the spear goes over his head to land quivering in the dirt. Aeneas calls, “I see you’re a good dancer, Meriones! If that had hit you, you’d be dead!”
Meriones shouts back, “You’d die just as quick if I hit you!”
Patroklas calls over, “Meriones, stop that chatter! Less talk, more killing! Send some of these Trojans to join Sarpedon underground.”
Meriones stops talking, and joins the clash of shields, the clang of swords on armor, and the screams of the wounded as they fight over Sarpedon’s body. The crush of fighters around that corpse is as thick as flies around a pig hanging with its throat cut.
You’d have needed fine eyes to recognize Sarpedon lying there with a dozen spears stuck in him and the blood oozing out, mixed with dust.
Zeus is watching, wondering exactly when Patroklas should die. Should he let Hektor kill him now, quickly? Or let Patroklas kill some more Trojans before Hektor kills him?
Zeus decides to give Patroklas one more moment of glory. He takes all Hektor’s courage away. Suddenly Hektor finds himself running away. The Lycians see Hektor fleeing, all their friends lying dead around the body of their king. They flee too.
Now the Greeks can do what they want to Sarpedon’s corpse. Patroklas rips the helmet off and his men tear off the rest of his armor. When they’ve stripped the corpse, they’ll start hacking it up.
But that’s more than Zeus can bear. He begs Apollo, “Take poor Sarpedon’s body away, clean the blood from it, bring him home to Lycia for proper rites.”
Apollo nods, and stands taller than any mortal over Sarpedon’s body. No one interferes as he lifts the corpse, as easily as a man would pick up a shirt. He steps into the sky and takes the body far away to a riverbank where he washes the dust and blood off. Then he carries it to Lycia.
Patroklas sees Hektor fleeing and loses his head, forgets Akilles’ order to come back as soon as the Trojans have been driven away from the ships. If you’d just withdrawn now, Patroklas, you’d still be alive. But you let pride delude you, as men do.
Patroklas lashes his horses, heading full speed for Troy. He thinks he can take the town, right now, on his own.
And he came close to doing it! Along the way, he kills Trojans and Lycians as easily as a fisherman spears little fish in the surf. Ten or twelve he kills before he reaches the walls.
He pulls up before the gates of the town, jumps from his chariot and runs up the wall of Troy—right up it like a gecko! He would have been over the walls in a second, if Apollo himself hadn’t intervened.
Just as he scrambles to the top, something knocks him back hard, like a mule’s kick. It hits him; he’s not hurt, but thrown back a dozen paces. He can’t see anyone. The wall is deserted, the Trojans have fled in terror. What hit him like that? He can’t figure it out, so he picks himself up and scrambles up the wall again. And once again, as soon as he gets to the top, he’s hit with a blow like a stallion’s kick.
A third time he brushes off the dust, stands up and runs at the wall. And a third time he gets hit
as soon as he reaches the top, even harder this time. The force knocks him off the wall once again.
He lies there, catching his breath. Now he sees someone standing on the wall, taller than any man. The figure doesn’t speak, but Patroklas understands it well enough; Apollo won’t let him take Troy.
He limps away.
Hektor is skulking by the gate. He has never felt fear like this before. Brave men can’t handle fear; they don’t have the practice. As Hektor huddles there, his cousin Asias comes toward him. But then he sees that this isn’t the real Asias. It’s a god, pretending to be his cousin. Its feet aren’t actually touching the ground. It stands beside him and instantly he feels his fear drain away, replaced by courage and energy. He sees what he has to do, and calls to his charioteer Kebryon, “Drive straight at Patroklas! Ignore the rest!” Patroklas sees the chariot coming and stands to meet it, spear in one hand, rock in the other. He throws the rock first; it hits Kebryon right in the face.
His eyes pop out and he falls stiffly as a diver jumping from a cliff. Patroklas yells, “That was a fine dive your driver made, Hektor! That man would be useful on a ship; he could bring up enough scallops to feed the whole crew!”
Hektor jumps off the careening chariot, falling onto Patroklas. They grapple, too close for weapons. Hektor has his arm around Patroklas’ neck and Patroklas is twisting Hektor’s leg. Then they spring apart, feeling for the nearest weapon as their men come up to shield them. They both fall back into the shelter of their men’s shields as spears and rocks fly in both directions.
The Greeks push forward, driving the scrum over Kebryon’s body. They drag it back behind their line and strip the armor. Then they start mutilating the corpse, jabbing it with their spears, spitting on it, kicking it.
Patroklas can’t be stopped today. The Trojans’ shields are no use against him; he runs through their lines as easily as a lion among sheep.
But Apollo has been watching and waiting. He will never forgive Patroklas for trying to push past him over the wall of Troy. Three times this miserable mortal tried to climb past him! It can’t, won’t be forgiven.
In fact, Apollo decides to take his revenge right now. Patroklas sees a blur moving to his side, then feels a huge blow on his back, as if a tree had fallen on him. Apollo only struck him with the flat of his hand, but that blow would have killed anyone else. Patroklas is alive, but badly hurt, lying stunned in the dust. Apollo reaches down to slap him again, this time in the head. He loses consciousness, and Akilles’ helmet rolls away in the dust.
Apollo is playing with him. When Patroklas finally manages to stand up, Apollo takes his spear-arm in one huge hand and breaks the spear in half. Then he tears his shirt off and rips Patroklas’ shield from his hand, flings it away.
Patroklas is standing dazed, half naked, a perfect target. A Trojan named Yuforbas runs up behind him, pushing his spear into Patroklas’ back. But Yuforbas can’t believe he managed to spear the Greek hero so easily, so he runs back behind the Trojan shields.
Patroklas stumbles back to the shelter of the Greek shield-wall, but Hektor has seen that he’s hurt, and smashes his way through to finish him off. He slams his spear into Patroklas’ belly so hard that it punches out the other side and pins him to the ground.
The Greeks flee; Hektor has time to lean all his weight on the spear. He gloats, “You were going to steal our women, weren’t you, Patroklas? But Hektor was hunting you! Where’s your hero Akilles? He can’t help you now. You’ll feed the buzzards out here. Your master Akilles sent you after me. Told you, ‘Don’t come back without Hektor’s bloody shirt.’ Didn’t he, dead man?”
Patroklas whispers, “It was Apollo who killed me, not you. The god hit me first, then Yuforbas. You were only third, Hektor. You, on your own, I could have killed twenty times.”
He coughs up blood, pats the dirt, and whispers, “Besides, soon you’ll be joining me down there.”
He dies. Hektor shouts at the corpse, “How do you know? Maybe I’ll kill Akilles before he kills me!”
He plants his foot on the body, yanks the spear out, and goes looking for Patroklas’ charioteer Otomedon. But Otomedon has already driven off to tell the Greeks that Patroklas is dead.
17
AEGIS
AKILLES’ HORSES WILL not move. The god-horses Dapple and Blondie are weeping huge tears. Otomedon tries sweet-talking them, then cursing them, but nothing works. They won’t move away from Patroklas’ body. They are immortal; death appalls them. They can’t understand why their beloved driver has left them.
Zeus, staring down at the battle, has eyes only for the two god-horses. He moans, “Never love a mortal, noble horses! They just die on you. But I won’t let the Trojans steal you.”
He bends his will; the two horses shake the salt tears from their manes and let Otomedon drive them back into battle.
Hektor has stripped Akilles’ armor off Patroklas, who lies naked in the dust as Trojans and Greeks kill each other over his corpse. It’s a sunny day, but Zeus has sent a dark cloud over the spot where Patroklas died.
Menelaos sees Patroklas lying in the dust, all torn and bloody. He stares at his dead friend like a cow mourning her stillborn calf.
Yuforbas wants to claim the corpse and pushes through the Trojan ranks shouting “Menelaos, get away from that corpse. It’s mine! I was the first to put a spear in him. Step back or I’ll kill you.”
Menelaos says, “You Trojans are always boasting. Aren’t you Panthoos’ son? Your brother Hyperenor was a braggart too. That is, until I killed him.”
Yuforbas yells, “I’ll bring your head home to my parents, to comfort their grief!”
He sprints and throws. His spear hits Menelaos’ shield and bends. Menelaos runs at him, driving his spear through Yuforbas’ neck. He falls in a heap of rattling bronze. His armor is as good as ever, but the man it sheltered is dead meat.
Menelaos jumps on the body like a hungry lion, ripping off the armor and stacking it, piece by piece.
Apollo is annoyed. He takes a business interest in Yuforbas’ family. The father, Panthoos, is one of Apollo’s highest priests. Now the Greeks have killed both his sons. He goes looking for Hektor, who’s foolishly ridden himself out of the fight in a hopeless attempt to steal Akilles’ god-horses. Apollo grabs the nearest human, Mentes, leader of a Thracian tribe, and makes him shout, “Hektor, you’re wasting time! Akilles’ horses are already back in the Greeks’ camp. And Menelaos is stripping Yuforbas’ body!”
Hektor gallops back, sees the Trojan’s body flopping this way and that as Menelaos rips off his armor. He charges, with Apollo’s fire streaming from him and the bravest Trojans close behind.
Menelaos has to make up his mind quickly. He frets, “If I run now, the Greeks will laugh at me again! But if I stay I’ll die; Hektor’s got a whole army with him.”
Menelaos is not the swiftest thinker, but he reaches the correct conclusion, “Death is worse than being laughed at!” and runs away.
As he flees, he has an idea: “What if I get Ajax and bring him here? The two of us might be able to save Patroklas’ body.”
He runs to find Ajax, who’s over on the left flank. The two of them jog back together, their armor clanging, their breath coming hard.
They’re too late to save Akilles’ armor. Hektor has already stripped it. Now he’s dragging Patroklas’ corpse back toward the Trojan shield wall, so he can cut the head off and toss the body to the jackals of the plain.
Ajax charges at Hektor, roaring with rage. Hektor drops the body and retreats behind the Trojan shields. Now Ajax stands over the body, spread out wide and low, like an eagle hissing at a lion who wants her nestlings.
Glaukas, still grieving for Sarpedon, shouts, “I wish my brother had stayed in sweet Lycia, instead of dying for you ungrateful Trojans! If you’d held on to Patroklas’ corpse, we could have traded it to the Greeks for my brother’s armor, and maybe his corpse too. But you wouldn’t even fight Ajax!”
Hektor s
ighs, “Glaukas, you know better than that. Ajax had Menelaos with him; I was right to step back. Two-on-one is bad odds. If you’ll come with me, we’ll face them together!”
He calls to the Trojans, “I’m putting on Akilles’ armor now! Make sure everyone knows it; I don’t want any spears from my own men.”
Hektor runs back to where his slaves have piled Akilles’ armor. He jams it on piece by piece, flinging off his own armor, telling the slaves, “Take this back to the town.”
Zeus watches, shaking his head sadly, muttering, “No, Hektor, you shouldn’t wear poor Akilles’ armor. No good’ll come of it. You mortals should show each other a little respect.”
Hektor pulls Akilles’ helmet on. With it come the thoughts of Ares, god of slaughter and rape and flies. If Hektor had put on his own helmet, his thoughts would have come from a nobler god. Now Ares’ filthy thoughts fill his head, and Ares’ thoughts are all bad. Whatever power they give has to be paid for, many times over.
Thinking like Ares, Hektor shouts savagely, “Lycians, Thracians, allies! You’ve bankrupted Troy with your eating and drinking; now repay us and I’ll make it worth your while. Whoever grabs Patroklas’ corpse and brings it back behind our shield wall gets half of all I’ve grabbed from the Greeks!”
Ares’ vile thoughts spread from Hektor’s head to the Trojans and Lycians. They form up and charge, every man’s mind full of greed and bloodlust.
Menelaos and Ajax watch this snarling horde run at them. Ajax says calmly, “My friend, I don’t think we’ll live through this. I’m not so worried about Patroklas; he’s past helping. I’m worried, to be precise, about this dear head of mine! And yours too, of course. Personally, I prefer my head attached to my shoulders.”
Menelaos, gloomy and slow as ever, answers, “Yes, I suppose we’ll be killed.”
Ajax says patiently, “Yes, but I was thinking, old comrade, that perhaps if we called for help we might be able to avoid dying.”