by Dan Simmons
Then, as I’d seen so many hundreds of times before in my more than ten years here watching, the initiative of battle swung once again, the gods supporting the Achaeans led the counterattack behind goddesses Athena and Hera, with roaring Poseidon destroying buildings in Ilium, and for a while Hector and his men were in retreat to the city again. I’m told that Hector carried his wounded brother, the heroic Deiphobus, on his back.
But two days ago, just as Troy was on the verge of falling yet again—this time to a combined attack of infuriated Achaeans and the most powerful and ruthless gods and goddesses, Athena, Hera, Poseidon, and their ilk beating back Apollo and the other gods defending the city—Zeus reappeared.
Helen tells me that Zeus blasted Hera to bits, dropped Poseidon into the hellpit of Tartarus, and commanded the rest of the gods back to Olympos. She says that the once-mighty gods, scores and scores of them, in their flying golden chariots and in their fine golden armor, went obediently quantum teleporting back to Olympos like guilty children awaiting their father’s spankings.
And now the Greeks are getting their asses kicked. Zeus himself, rising taller, Helen says, than the towering stratocumulus, killed thousands of Argives, drove the rest back to the ships and then burned their ships with bolts of his lightning. Helen says that the Lord of Gods commanded a huge wave to roll in, a wave that sank the blackened hulks of the ships. Then Zeus himself disappeared and has not returned since.
Two weeks later—after both sides lit corpse fires for the thousands of their fallen and observed their nine-day funeral rituals—Hector led a successful counterattack that has driven the Greeks even farther back. It appears that about thirty thousand of the original hundred thousand or so Argive fighters have survived, many of them—like their king Agamem-non—wounded and dispirited. With no ships for escape and no way to get their axemen to the wooded slopes of Mount Ida to cut wood for new ships, they’ve done the best they could—digging deep trenches, lining them with stakes, throwing up wooden revetments, digging a series of connecting trenches within their own lines, building up sand berms, massing their shields and spears and deadly archers in a solid wall around this dwindling semicircle of death. It’s the Greeks’ last stand.
It is now the third morning since my arrival and I am standing in the Greek encampment, a trenched and walled arc little more than a quarter of a mile around with the thirty thousand miserable Achaeans massed and huddled here by the smoldering ruins of their ships. Their backs are to the sea.
Hector has every advantage—an almost four-to-one ratio of men who have better morale and adequate food—the Greeks are beginning to starve even while they can smell the pigs and cattle roasting over the Trojan siege fires. Helen and King Priam had been sure that the Greeks would be defeated two days ago, but desperate men are brave men—men with nothing to lose—and the Greeks have been fighting like cornered rats. They also have had the advantage of shorter interior lines and fighting from behind fixed defenses, although admittedly these advantages will be short-lived with food running out, no permanent supply of water here since the Trojans damned up the river a mile from the beach, and typhoid beginning to spread within the crowded and unsanitary Achaean encampment.
Agamemnon is not fighting. For three days the son of Atreus, king of Mycenae, and commander in chief of this once-huge expeditionary force, has been hiding in his tent. Helen reported to me that Agamemnon had been wounded during the general Greek retreat, but I hear from captains and guards here in the camp that it was only a broken left forearm, nothing life-threatening. It seems that it was Agamemnon’s morale that was critically wounded. The great king—Achilles’ nemesis—had not been able to recover Menelaus’ body when his brother was struck down by the arrow through the eye, and while Diomedes, Big Ajax, and the other fallen Greek heroes received proper funerals and cremations on their tall biers near the shore, Menelaus’ body was last seen being dragged behind Hector’s chariot around the cheering-crowded walls of Ilium. It seems to have been the last straw for the high-strung and arrogant Agamemnon. Rather than being enraged into a fury of fighting, Agamemnon has sunk into depression and denial.
The other Greeks have not needed his leadership to know that they have to fight for their lives. Their command structure has been sorely thinned—Big Ajax dead, Diomedes dead, Menelaus dead, Achilles and Odysseus both disappeared on the other side of the closed Brane Hole—but gabby old Nestor has led most of the fighting for the last two days. The once revered warrior has become revered once again, at least among the thinning ranks of Achaeans, appearing on his four-horsed chariot wherever the Greek lines appeared ready to give way, urging trench engineers to replace stakes and redig collapsed areas, improving the internal trenches with sand berms and firing slits, sending men and boys out as scouts at night to steal water from the Trojans, and always calling for the men to have heart. Nestor’s sons Antilochus and Thrasymedes, who had few valorous moments during the first ten years of the war or during the short war with the gods, have fought splendidly the last two days. Thrasymedes was wounded twice yesterday, once by a spear and again by an arrow in the shoulder, but he fought on, leading his Pylian brigades to push back a Trojan offensive that had threatened to cut the defensive semicircle here in half.
It’s just after sunrise here on the third day—quite possibly the last day, since the Trojans were moving, shifting forces, bringing up more troops, chariots, and trench-bridging equipment all during the night—and more than a hundred thousand relatively fresh Trojan troops are massing around the defensive perimeter even as I speak.
I’ve brought the recorder here to Agamemnon’s camp because Nestor has called a council of his surviving war chieftains. At least those that can be spared from their fighting positions. These tired and filthy men ignore my presence—or rather, they probably remember that I spent much time with and near Achilles during the eight-month war with the gods, so they accept my presence. And the sight of this wafer-sized recorder in my hand means nothing to them.
I no longer know for whom I’m observing and recording these things—I imagine that I would be the ultimate persona non grata if I were to show up on Olympos and hand this recording chip to one of the Muses who sought to kill me—so I will make these observations and record this recording only as the scholar I once was, not as the slavescholic they turned me into. And even if I am no longer a scholar, I can serve as a war correspondent in these last hours of the last stand of the Greeks and the end of this heroic era.
NESTOR What is the news? And do you think your men will hold the line today?
IDOMENEUS (Commander of the Crete contingent. The last time I saw Idomeneus, he had just killed the Amazon Bremusa with a spearcast. Moments later, the Brane Hole closed. Idomeneus was among the last to abandon Achilles.)
The news is bad from my part of the line, Noble Nestor. For every Trojan we’ve killed in the last two days, three more have taken his place in the night. They ready their trench-filling tools and spears for the attack. Their archers are still massing. It will be decisive today.
LITTLE AJAX (As different as the Aeantes—the two Ajaxes—had been, they had been as close as brothers. I have never seen this Ajax of Locris look so grim. The grooves and wrinkles on his face are so outlined in mud and blood that they resemble a kabuki mask.)
Nestor, son of Neleus, hero of these darkest of times, my Locris fighters engaged the enemy through much of the night as Deiphobus’ scouts tried to flank us on the north end of the perimeter. We fought them back until the surf ran red. Our section of trench is filling up with our own and the Trojan dead until they soon will be able to walk across on bodies heaped ten feet high. A third of my men are dead, the rest exhausted. Hector has sent new troops to replace his losses.
NESTOR Podalirius, how goes it with the remaining son of Atreus?
PODALIRIUS (The son of Asclepius is one of the last healers left to the Greeks. He is also co-commander, along with his brother Machaon, of the Thessalians from Tricca.)
Noble Nestor, Agamemnon’s arm has been set in a splint, he has taken no herbs for the pain, and he is awake and rational.
NESTOR Why is it then that he has not emerged from his tent? His corps is the largest left to our army, but they shelter in the center like women. Their hearts are gone without their leader.
PODALIRIUS Their leader’s heart is gone without his brother Menelaus.
TEUCER (The master archer, half brother and dearest friend to the murdered Big Ajax.)
Then Achilles was right ten months ago when he confronted Agamemnon in all our sight and told the great king he has the heart of a fawn. (Spits into the sand.)
EUMELUS (Son of Admetus and Alcestis, commander of the Thessalians from Phereae. Often referred to by the missing Achilles and Odysseus as “lord of men.”)
And where is the accuser Achilles? The coward stayed behind at the base of Mount Olympos rather than face his death here with his comrades. The fleet-footed mankiller turned out also to have the heart—and hooves—of a fawn.
MENESTHIUS
(The huge captain of the Myrmidons, a former lieutenant of Achilles’.)
I’ll kill any man who says that about the son of Peleus. He would never abandon us of his own free will. We all saw and heard the goddess Athena tell Achilles that he had been enchanted by Aphrodite’s spell.
EUMELUS Enchanted by Amazon pussy, you mean.
(Menesthius steps toward Eumelus and begins to draw his sword.)
NESTOR
(Stepping between them.)
Enough! Aren’t the Trojans killing us quickly enough, or do we need to add to our own slaughter? Eumelus, step back! Menesthius, sheath your sword!
PODALIRIUS (Speaking as the Achaean’s last healer now, not as Agamemnon’s personal doctor.)
PODALIRIUS (cont.)
What’s killing us is the disease. Another two hundred dead, especially among the Epeans who are defending the riverbank to the south.
POLYXINUS
(Son of Agasthenes, co-commander of the Epeans.)
This is true, Lord Nestor. At least two hundred dead and another thousand too sick to fight.
DRESEUS
(Captain of the Epeans, just raised to the rank of commander.)
Half my men did not respond to muster this morning, Lord Nestor.
PODALIRIUS And it’s spreading.
AMPHION
(Another recently promoted captain of the Epeans.)
It’s Phoebus Apollo’s Silver Bow striking us down, just as it was ten months ago when the god-spread disease had corpse fires burning every night. It’s what led to the first falling-out between Achilles and Agamemnon—it’s what led to all our woes.
PODALIRIUS
Oh, fuck Phoebus Apollo and his Silver Bow. The gods—including Zeus—did their worst to us and now they’re gone, and only they know if they’re coming back. Personally, I don’t care if they do or don’t. These deaths, this disease, didn’t come from Apollo’s Silver Bow—I think it comes from the foul water the men are drinking. We’re drinking our own piss and sitting in our own excrement here. My father, Asclepius, had this theory of origins of disease in contaminated water and…
NESTOR
Learned Podalirius, we will rejoice to hear your father’s theory of disease at another time. Right now I need to know if we can hold off the Trojans today and what, if anything, my captains advise us to do.
ECHEPOLUS
(Son of Anchises)
We should surrender.
THRASYMEDES (Nestor’s son who had fought so valiantly the day before. His wounds are bandaged and bound up, but he appears to be suffering from them more today than in the heat of yesterday’s long fight.)
Surrender, my ass! Who is in our circle of Argives that so cowers from fear that he suggests craven surrender? Surrender to me, son of Anchises, and I’ll put you out of your misery as quickly as the Trojans certainly will.
ECHEPOLUS
Hector is an honorable man. King Priam used to be an honorable man, and may well still be. I traveled with Odysseus to Troy when the Ithacan came to reason with Priam, to try to get Helen back through talk to avoid this war, and both Priam and Hector were reasonable, honorable men. Hector will hear our surrender.
THRASYMEDES
That was eleven years and a hundred thousand souls sent down to Hades ago, you fool. You saw the extent of Hector’s mercy when Ajax the Great begged and pleaded for his life, his long shield hammered into tin, snot and tears rolling down our hero’s face. Hector severed his spine and hacked out his heart. His men probably won’t be so merciful to you.
NESTOR
I know there has been talk of surrender. But Thrasymedes is correct—too much blood has been spilled on this Trojan soil to hold out any hope for mercy. We would have given the citizens of Ilium none, would we, had we but breached their walls to more success three weeks ago—or ten years ago? All of you here know that we would have killed every man old enough or young enough to lift a sword or bow, slaughtered their old men for spawning our enemies, raped their women, carried all their surviving women and children into a life of slavery, and put the torch to their city and their temples. But the gods… or the Fates… whoever is deciding the outcome of this war, have turned against us. We cannot expect from the Trojans, who suffered our invasion and our ten years of siege, more mercy than we would have granted them. No, tell your men, if you hear these murmurings, that it is madness to surrender. Better to die on your feet than on your knees.
IDOMENEUS Better to not die at all. Is there no plan to save ourselves?
ALASTOR
(Teucer’s commander)
The ships are burned. The food is running out, but we will all be dead of thirst before we starve. Disease claims more every hour.
MENESTHIUS
My Myrmidons want to break out—fight our way through the Trojan lines and make for the south—to Mount Ida and the heavy forests there.
NESTOR
(nodding)
Your Myrmidons are not the only ones thinking about breaking out and escaping, brave Menesthius. But your Myrmidons cannot do it alone. None of our tribes or groups can. The Trojan lines stretch back for miles and their allies’ lines go deeper. They expect us to try to break out. They’re probably wondering why we haven’t tried it before this. You know the iron laws of combat with sword, shield, and spear, Menesthius—all Myrmidons and Achaeans know it—for every man who falls in shield-to-shield combat, a hundred are slaughtered while fleeing. We have no working chariots left—Hector’s chiefs have hundreds. They’ll run us down and slaughter us like sheep before we cross the dried bed of the River Scamander.
DRESEUS So we stay? And die here today or tomorrow on the beach next to the charred timbers of our great black ships?
ANTILOCHUS
(Nestor’s other son)
No. Surrender is out of the question for any man here with balls, and defense of this position will be untenable in a few hours—it may be untenable during the next attack—but I say we all try to break out at the same time. We have thirty thousand fighting men left—more than twenty thousand well enough to fight and run. Four out of five of us may fall, verily—be slaughtered like sheep before we reach the concealing forests of Mount Ida—but at those odds, four or five thousand of us will survive. Half that number may even survive the searches of the forest for us which the Trojans and their allies will carry out, like royalty pursuing a stag, and half that remaining number may find their way off this goddamned continent and cross the wine-dark seas to home. Those odds are good enough for me.
THRASYMEDES And for me.
TEUCER
Any odds are better than the certainty of our bones bleaching on this fucking goddamned motherfucking shit-eating piss-drinking beach.
NESTOR Was that a vote for breaking out, son of Telemon?
TEUCER You’re fucking goddamned right it was, Lord Nestor.
NESTOR Noble Epeus, you’ve had no voice in this council yet. What do you think?
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nbsp; EPEUS (Shuffling his feet and looking down in embarrassment. Epeus is the best boxer of all the Achaeans, and his face and shaved head show his years at the sport—cauliflower ears, a flattened nose, permanant scar tissue on his cheeks and brow ridges, countless scars even on his scalp. I cannot fail to see the irony in Epeus’ position in this council and my own effect on his life and fate. Never famed for his battle prowess, Epeus would have won the boxing matches in Patroclus’ funeral games—held by Achilles—and been the master builder of the Odysseus-conceived wooden horse if I had not begun screwing up the Homeric version of this story almost a year ago. As it stands now, Epeus is in the council of chieftains only because all his commanding officers—up to Menelaus—have been killed.)
Lord Nestor, when one’s opponent is most confident, when he crosses the fighting space toward you with certainty in his heart that you are down for the count, unable to rise, that is the best time to strike him hard. In this case, strike him hard, stun him, knock him back on his heels, and run for our lives. I was at the Games once when a boxer did just that.
(Laughter all around at this.)
EPEUS But it will have to be at night.
NESTOR I agree. The Trojans see too far and ride their chariots too quickly for us to have a fighting chance in the daylight.
MERIONES (Son of Molus, close comrade of Idomeneus, second in command of the Cretans.)
We won’t have a much better chance in the moonlight. The moon is three-quarters full.
LAERCES
(A Myrmidon, son of Haeman)
But the winter sun sets earlier and the moon rises later this week. We will have almost three hours from the beginning of real darkness—the kind of darkness where you need a torch to find your way—and the rising of the moon.
NESTOR
The question is, can we hold through the hours of daylight today and will our men have enough energy left in them to fight—we’ll have to concentrate our attack and hit hard to forge a hole in the Trojan lines—and enough energy left then to run the twenty miles and more to the forests of Mount Ida?