by Glyn Iliffe
‘Mercy!’ he shouted in Greek, as Odysseus raised his sword for the killing blow. ‘Have mercy, my lord, I beg you. My father is rich and will pay any ransom you demand of him for my return. Spare me and I will honour your name among my fellow Trojans, so that not only wealth but also glory will be yours.’
Odysseus looked at the man kneeling before him and hesitated. There were tears of pain and despair in the Trojan’s eyes as he held his maimed hand into his body, but he had fought well and perhaps deserved life more than many who would survive that day.
‘What’s your name, lad?’ he asked.
‘Adrestos, my lord. My father is a merchant who traded goods with Greeks from Mycenae and Crete; that’s how I learned your language. I hold no grudge against the Greeks. If Paris hadn’t taken Helen, this war would never have happened.’
‘It would have happened all right, one way or another,’ Odysseus replied. ‘And now it’s up to us to finish it. But if I ransom you, you will rejoin the fight. Perhaps you will kill Greeks who would otherwise have lived – you’re no mean warrior, Adrestos – and perhaps you will make this war last a little longer. I cannot allow that to happen, not for all the gold and glory in Ilium if it means even one more day apart from my wife and son. I’m sorry.’
He raised his sword again, but was stopped by a shout.
‘Odysseus!’
The two men turned to see Eperitus running towards them. His eyes were burning with the ferocity of battle and the rain that ran from his armour and sword was pink with the gore of his victims.
‘What are you doing? You can’t kill an unarmed man, especially one who’s thrown himself at your mercy. It’s nothing less than murder!’
An angry flicker crossed Odysseus’s features. He had never been the most principled of men, but he did not need to be reminded of the ruthlessness of his intentions – least of all by a man who did not have a family and a kingdom to influence his high-minded notions.
‘He’s my prisoner, Eperitus,’ Odysseus warned his captain. ‘And if you think we’re ever going to win this war by sparing our enemies to fight another day—’
‘You’re letting your desire to go home cloud your judgement,’ Eperitus interrupted, his sodden clothes clinging to him as more rain beat against his armour. ‘First the prisoner at the ravine, then Palamedes, and now this. Cruel logic isn’t the way to defeat Troy. There’s no honour in it.’
‘Honour means different things to different men,’ Odysseus informed him coldly, sheathing a sword and plucking a spear from the body of a dead Ithacan. ‘And your old-fashioned notion of it has no place in this war.’
As he spoke, Adrestos sprang up and made to run. A moment later he was face down in the thick mud, Odysseus’s spear protruding from his back.
‘Let that be an end to the matter,’ the king growled, retrieving the weapon. ‘Come on. This fight is far from over yet.’
All around them were dead and dying men and yet the battle lines had hardly shifted from where the two sides had first clashed. Though the Greeks were gaining ground in some places, in others it was being taken from them by the resolute Trojans. Odysseus and Eperitus rejoined the battle side by side, angry with one another and yet not so angry that they did not seek the safety and comfort that the other man’s presence offered. Again they fought until their muscles ached, with arrows flying over and around them and the heavens above rumbling and flashing with a sound like a thousand drums beating together at once. Strangely, the storm did not move on, and those that were not in the forefront of the fighting began to say that it was sent by the gods to increase their torment and fill men with fear. And then, as the morning wore on towards another deadlock, men sensed a change in the air. The clouds rose higher, but instead of breaking up or moving south, driven away by the north wind, they grew darker and seemed to churn with an inner anguish. Then a loud crack sundered the sky and a bolt of lightning flashed downwards into the terrified ranks of the Greek army. A man was struck dead, while those around him clapped their hands to their eyes and staggered away from the blast. Then a second strike followed, overturning a Greek chariot and sending its crew spilling to the ground. After that, no man was in doubt that the favour of Zeus had been given to the Trojans.
Suddenly the stalemate was broken. The Greeks began to fall back, some even tossing their weapons aside and fleeing headlong in the direction of the camp, which was still a long march across the plains to the rear. Odysseus and Eperitus looked around at the chaos of running men and speeding chariots then, realizing that widespread panic could mean the destruction of the entire army, began ordering the Ithacans to re-form the line. Further along Idomeneus was doing the same with his Cretans, but the two armies were only small islands of discipline among a sea of anarchy. What was happening beyond the sheet rain even Eperitus’s eyes could not see.
For a moment the Trojans seemed too shocked to press home the attack and allowed their enemies to retreat before them. Then shouts and horn calls filled the air and, with a roar of triumph, the long ranks of warriors surged forward, hurling their spears at the tattered Greek line. Many fell beneath the deadly hail, while many more simply broke and fled in the face of the charging Trojans. A handful of Ithacans ran, Eurylochus and his cronies foremost among them, but the remainder stood firm beneath the dolphin banner of their king.
The Trojan spearmen fell on their retreating enemies with the ferocity of men who had been kept too long behind the walls of their city. They wanted revenge for years of siege and bloodshed, and though the Greeks fought hard they were pushed inevitably back in the direction of their camp. Then, as Odysseus fought with Eperitus and Arceisius at his side, horn calls sounded behind them and a dozen chariots came driving out of the rain and crashed into the enemy ranks. At their head were Diomedes and Nestor. The younger man was leaning over the chariot rail and beheading terrified warriors with his long sword, while the older cut down several more with thrusts of his spear as the Trojans were thrown into disarray.
‘Form a rearguard,’ Nestor shouted to Odysseus, spotting him in the thick of the fighting. ‘That fool Agamemnon’s ordered the army back to the wall, but it’s a long way back and someone has to keep the retreat from becoming a rout.’
As he spoke, an arrow hit one of his horses in the forehead. It fell heavily, pulling the other horse and the chariot over with it and throwing Nestor and his driver to the ground. Diomedes ordered his chariot around and went to the old king’s aid, just as Hector came dashing out from the thick curtains of rain on the Trojan side. He saw the overturned chariot and with a howl of triumph steered his horses towards it.
‘Help us, Odysseus!’ Diomedes cried, leaping down from his chariot and running to Nestor’s side.
The king of Pylos lay on all fours, his helmet lost and blood in his grey hair. As he heard Diomedes’s shout for help, he threw out his hand and shook his head.
‘No, Odysseus. Form the rearguard or the army is doomed. Everything depends on you.’
Odysseus stared wild-eyed at the scene before him, the indecision contorting his face. Men and chariots were in full flight before the Trojan onslaught, but there were still whole companies of warriors who had not lost their nerve and were making a fighting withdrawal. If there was a leader who could pull them together, they could keep their pursuers at bay while the rest of the army sought the safety of the Greek walls. And yet if he abandoned Diomedes and the stricken Nestor then Hector and his victorious Trojans would quickly overwhelm them. He was also mindful of Athena’s order not to face Hector.
‘Eperitus; Arceisius,’ he said, ‘give all the help you can to Diomedes and Nestor – and don’t be drawn into a fight with Hector, if you can avoid it. I’ll take charge of whoever is left and form a rearguard.’
He clapped a hand on Eperitus’s shoulder, then with a brief smile and a nod he moved into the lines of Ithacans, shouting for them to fall back. Whether he would be able to knit together a body of men who could hold off the Trojans – and most e
specially their cavalry – Eperitus did not know, but if any man in the army could do it, that man was Odysseus. Then he turned and saw Diomedes helping Nestor towards his own chariot, where Sthenelaus waited at the reins. Nestor’s driver had regained his feet and, though dazed, had seen Hector approaching rapidly across the battle lines, a spear balanced in the palm of his right hand. He scrambled to pick up a discarded shield and spear from the many dead that lay all around.
‘Come on,’ Eperitus said.
He sprang forward, closely followed by Arceisius, knowing at a single glance that they would never cover the ground to Diomedes and Nestor before Hector reached them. Then Nestor’s driver dashed forward and threw his spear with reckless aim. It crossed the path of the Trojan chariot, narrowly missing the horses and causing them to turn aside. A smack of the reins and a harsh shout from their driver pulled them back on course. Then Hector hurled his own weapon and Nestor’s charioteer fell back into the mud. An instant later, Hector’s second spear was in his hand as his chariot now charged headlong at the kings of Argos and Pylos.
Eperitus knew there was but one chance to save them. He stopped and pulled back his spear, taking aim along its black shaft. Then a shout to his right announced the approach of a group of enemy soldiers, who had spotted the lone Ithacans and were running at them with murderous intent.
‘Arceisius!’ Eperitus barked.
The young warrior nodded and ran to meet the new threat, somehow slipping between the hedge of spear points and bringing his sword to bear on the disadvantaged enemy. Eperitus watched him cut down his first opponent, then turned his attention back to Hector’s speeding chariot. The Trojan was almost upon the stricken forms of Diomedes and Nestor, the former trying desperately to drag his wounded comrade towards his waiting chariot. Eperitus took aim again, lining up the point of his spear with the galloping horses, just as Hector pulled back his own weapon. Drawing on all his experience and instinct to judge the throw, Eperitus uttered a prayer to Athena and launched his heavy spear. It caught Hector’s unarmoured driver in the chest and sent him crashing backwards from the car. Panicked by the loss of control, the horses saw the wreck of Nestor’s chariot before them and veered aside, almost spilling Hector into the mud. Then the chariot disappeared into the thick rain, Hector desperately hanging on to the rail with one hand and reaching for the reins with the other.
Eperitus did not spare himself a moment to exult over the small victory. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and ran to where Arceisius was struggling to fight off his attackers. Already two lay dead, but four still lived and were trying to form a circle around the reckless but skilful Greek, whose wildly swinging blade kept them at arm’s length. Then Eperitus was upon them, burying his sword into the liver of the left-most Trojan and killing him instantly. The others, already dismayed by Arceisius’s ferocity and seeing Diomedes’s chariot approaching, quickly turned and fled.
‘I’m taking Nestor back to the camp,’ Diomedes announced as Sthenelaus reined the pair of horses in beside the Ithacans. ‘Join Odysseus with the rearguard and tell him I won’t abandon him. He just needs to hold on until I can organize a counter-attack.’
Sthenelaus gave a tug on the reins and the horses kicked forward. As they broke into a gallop, Diomedes turned back to Eperitus and cupped his hands around his mouth.
‘And thank you for saving our lives,’ he shouted before vanishing into the sheet rain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE REARGUARD
The Greek camp was in turmoil. Beneath the wind and rain, the bellowing thunder and staccato flashes of lightning, thousands of exhausted men stood or sat, many wounded and many more leaderless and confused. Some were without their weapons, which they had discarded on the battlefield, while others had run down to the ships in blind panic, expecting the walls to tumble and fifty thousand Trojans to come rushing in on them at any moment. But in the thick of the chaos order was being restored. Kings, princes and captains shouted orders and marshalled what was left of their armies, sending some to man the walls and others to defend the gates, through which a constant stream of stragglers was pouring into the relative safety of the camp. The fact that they were able to do so was down to the fighting rearguard that had been organized from the broken units of a dozen Greek states and were at that moment repelling wave after wave of Trojan infantry. It was only a matter of time, though, before their resolve collapsed and they, too, were driven back to the walls.
Agamemnon stood in his chariot and looked around in anger and despair. He did not blame himself for what had happened – it was clearly the work of the gods – and yet he burned with shame that, not so far away, Achilles would be sitting in his hut laughing at his misfortune. He would no doubt be boasting to his Myrmidons that the Greeks were nothing without him, and that the great King of Men himself was unable to stop Hector and his allies.
He surveyed the chaos with as much restraint as he could muster, his eyes offended by the sight of soaked and bedraggled soldiers and his ears assailed by the groans of the wounded. How could his splendid army have been reduced to this? Then he saw the once-proud kings who had sworn to help him raze Troy to the ground: Menelaus, brooding and sulky at the defeat; Diomedes, tending to Nestor’s wounds as if he were the old man’s nursemaid; Idomeneus, busy organizing the defenders on the walls in an effort to cover his disgrace on the plains; and the two Ajaxes, who dared to look at Agamemnon with disdain, though they were clearly incapable of stemming the Trojan victory themselves.
‘Shame on you!’ Agamemnon shouted, succumbing to his wrath at last. ‘Shame on you all! Call yourselves Greeks? Greek women, perhaps! I remember your boasts at Aulis, when you feasted night by night in my tent and said that each of you was worth a hundred Trojans. It seems to me the whole crowd of you couldn’t stand up to Hector alone.’
‘I can and have!’ Great Ajax shouted, drawing the sword Hector had given him after their duel and holding it aloft as evidence.
‘It wasn’t any of us who ordered a retreat,’ Diomedes added, furiously. ‘But I promised Odysseus I would go back for him, and now I’ve brought Nestor to safety I intend to keep my word. My Argives will ride out to help the rearguard, but who will come with us?’
‘We will,’ Great Ajax answered, indicating Little Ajax and Teucer.
‘And I will,’ said Menelaus, leaping up into his chariot and turning to the soldiers around him. ‘Spartans! Now is not the time to sulk over a setback or mourn the day’s dead. If any of you still call yourselves men, then take up your spears and follow me.’
And with a roar of anger the Greeks followed their kings back to the causeways.
By the time Diomedes had left Eperitus and Arceisius, the tide of battle had already washed over them and left them behind the main force of Trojans. But the gods had not abandoned them and somehow – perhaps mistaken for Trojans by the companies of enemy spearmen and cavalry they passed through – they found their way across the field of bodies to the last wall of Greek shields. There were but two or three thousand of them, flanked by troops of horsemen on either side who struggled to master their mounts in the intense storm. But even here the two Ithacans were almost killed by a volley of their countrymen’s spears as they approached, only saving themselves by waving their arms and calling out in Greek.
They joined a group of Euboeans as a shower of arrows and spears fell among the rearguard, felling several and announcing a new attack. Moments later a horde of Trojans came screaming at them. The Greeks stood their ground and drove their assailants back again after a short but ferocious fight that left many dead on both sides. Then Eperitus heard the familiar voice of Odysseus over to their right, ordering the ever-dwindling force of men to resume the steady march back to the camp. As the rearguard lifted their shields and shouldered their spears, many casting anxious glances over their backs, Eperitus gestured to Arceisius and ran to the centre of the line where he had heard Odysseus. The king saw them approach and greeted them both with an embrace, giv
ing Eperitus a look that told him their earlier argument was forgotten. Then the recently constructed ramparts around the Greek camp came into view through the squalls of rain and the men gave a cheer. This was immediately followed by another hail of arrows falling out of the rain-filled skies and tumbling more men into the thick mud. A new attack followed and was repulsed again, but before long as they recommenced the march towards the walls – which were now tantalizingly close – they heard the snorting of a large number of horses, followed by the shouts of men and the tramping of hoof beats behind them.
‘This is it,’ Odysseus announced. ‘They’re sending the cavalry to break us.’
The Greeks had faced the Trojan cavalry on many occasions over the years of the war and had learned to fear them. But they had also learned how to fight them. Odysseus shouted orders for the front rank to kneel and the second and third ranks to create a wall of spears – an obstacle that only the most disciplined animal would attack. The order was relayed along the line and Odysseus shouldered his way into the front rank, with Eperitus and Arceisius flanking him. Kneeling and planting the butts of their spears into the soft ground, they looked into the pelting rain and saw the long lines of horsemen approaching at a disciplined canter. Eperitus’s keen eyes could see the fear on the animals’ faces as the thunder ripped open the sky above and bolts of lightning tore down into the sea away to their right. Any moment now the riders would stab their heels into the horses’ flanks and goad them into a charge; the thunder above would then be matched by a thunder in the earth itself as thousands of hooves tore up the ground in a frenzied sprint towards the lines of bronze spear points. Whether they would carry it through depended on their training, the command of the rider, the storm-induced panic and the discipline of the tired spearmen, for if any of the Greeks broke and fled, the horses would herd into the gaps and bring a terrible destruction upon them.