by Glyn Iliffe
‘They’re putting the sun behind them,’ Arceisius said in a matter-of-fact tone, his chin resting on his fist as he leaned on the parapet.
‘And drawing them out of range of the walls,’ Eperitus added. ‘Thersites is going to wish he’d picked more archers.’
Then the battle started. The Amazons reined in their mounts, stretched back their bows, and released a shower of missiles at the closely packed infantry. The north wind carried faint cries to the watchers on the walls, and as their countrymen advanced on the waiting enemy they left half a dozen lifeless forms on the ground behind them. Eperitus saw the Amazon leader signal to her left and right and a moment later two groups of her followers had split off and were galloping around the flanks and to the rear of the Greeks. A smattering of arrows sped after them from the knot of armoured men, but none found a target among the fast-moving horsewomen. The Amazons fired another volley in reply – this time from three sides – and more soldiers fell and lay still. The rest of Thersites’s company now stopped moving and turned their shields outwards in a defensive circle, from which a tiny huddle of archers began shooting at the surrounding foes. A single rider was hit and slid from the back of her horse. At another command from their leader, the other Amazons now poured a hail of arrows into the centre of the Greek ring, killing the few bowmen and half a dozen others. With the reply from the soldiers now muted, the women began to circle about the wall of shields and pick men off with impunity.
The spectators on the battlements had barely raised a single voice as they watched their countrymen slowly massacred. Then, when there was but a handful of Thersites’s company left, the survivors suddenly began running as a pack towards the Amazon leader. Their frenzied shouts carried on the wind, exciting a chorus of encouragement from the men on the walls, willing them to close on their tormentors and teach them the true meaning of combat. But they were met with a cloud of arrows, felling all but a handful. Eperitus’s sharp eyes saw Thersites fall, too, though he did not rue the loss of such a fool. Then the Amazon leader screamed out a command and the arrows stopped. Spurring her horse forward, she drew her long sword and rode in among the last of the Greeks. Wielding her blade to left and right, the bright sun flashing from the burnished bronze, she brought all five men down in a matter of moments.
‘By all the gods, I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Arceisius exclaimed, standing.
The bodies of the fallen men lay scattered in a broad circle. A few twitched or tried to crawl towards the now distant walls, but the riders were quick to dismount and cut their throats so that soon every last soldier who had exited the gates with such enthusiasm now lay lifeless, their souls already making the long journey to the Underworld.
The tall Amazon who had single-handedly killed the last of the Greeks now came galloping towards the gates, her horse’s hooves kicking up a trail of dust behind her. Some of the men on the walls called for archers, but Eperitus countermanded their hasty shouts.
‘She’s not coming to fight,’ he announced. ‘Look, she’s alone. She’s come to talk.’
She reined her mount in before the gates and raised her gore-stained blade to the men above.
‘I am Queen Penthesilea, daughter of Otrere and Ares,’ she announced in Greek. ‘My Amazons are not slaves to men as the women are in your lands; we are priestesses of Ares, trained from childhood to fight and kill. Tell King Agamemnon he is a craven coward and I challenge him to come forth and face me in combat: the best men in his army against the best women in mine. We will await him here on the plain.’
And with that she rode away again, her laughter ringing out in mockery of the Greeks.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
QUEEN PENTHESILEA
After agreeing that Nestor and Great Ajax should add their own armies to the force being sent to waylay the Aethiopes, the council settled into a detailed discussion of how the ambush should be carried out. Then, as more wine was brought, another spate of urgent words broke out at the mouth of the tent and Eperitus entered, followed by Arceisius.
‘My lords,’ Eperitus began, ‘your orders have been carried out. A company of men left the gates under the command of Thersites the hunchback.’
‘Good! Perhaps now we can continue discussing a real battle,’ Menelaus said. He turned to Nestor and tapped one of the upturned baskets representing the site of the proposed ambush. ‘What about cavalry, Nestor? Is the terrain suitable for—’
‘Thersites and his men were massacred,’ Eperitus continued. ‘Not one of them escaped alive.’
Heads that had been turned to the table now snapped back to stare at Eperitus with shock.
‘That’s impossible!’ Diomedes exclaimed. ‘Fifty men killed by . . . by a pack of women!’
There were mutterings of agreement, but most were too incredulous to speak.
‘It’s not impossible, Diomedes,’ Achilles announced, turning to the Argive king. ‘Athena herself warned me that female warriors – Amazons – were coming to Priam’s aid, and that they were skilled horsewomen and archers. Are they still waiting before the walls, Eperitus?’
Eperitus nodded and leaned on the table, looking around at the faces of the council.
‘Their leader calls herself Queen Penthesilea and sends a message to King Agamemnon, challenging him and the best men in the army to combat. She says . . . she says the King of Men is a coward and no match for her or her companions, whom she claims are priestesses of Ares.’
Diomedes slammed his fist down on the table.
‘Zeus’s beard! Since when have women been allowed to attend on the god of war? They’re not priestesses at all, they’re perversions of nature! I accept the challenge – who’s with me?’
A clamour of angry voices followed, all of them keen to fight the Amazons. Agamemnon raised his hands, commanding silence.
‘Very well, we’ll go out to face these harpies. But first I want to know what it is we’re going up against. Clearly these aren’t ordinary women – tell us, Eperitus, how did they kill fifty of my seasoned warriors?’
Eperitus explained to them what he had seen, and when he had finished answering their questions, the King of Men looked about at their circle of faces and picked out the leaders who would accompany him on the battlefield.
‘I doubt Queen Penthesilea and her priestesses intend to fight us one against one,’ Odysseus said as Agamemnon finished speaking. ‘Their strengths are with the bow and the horse, not the spear and the shield, and if we let them fight on their terms we will lose. But if you’ll listen to me, I have an idea that will rid them of their advantages.’
A little later the thick wooden gates at the centre of the Greek wall swung open and fifty men moved out on to the sun-baked plain. Agamemnon had insisted that they should match the Amazons warrior for warrior, but Odysseus had also advised at least half of the force should be archers, picked from the best of Little Ajax’s Locrians. The remainder were made up of spearmen, including the men who had been chosen from among the council: Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Diomedes, Machaon, Great Ajax, Odysseus and Medon, the leader of the Malians ever since Philoctetes had been stranded on Lemnos in the first year of the war. They marched across the narrow causeway and formed a line on the other side of the ditch.
Odysseus raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, which had passed its apex in the cloudless sky and was moving towards the ocean. By its unfettered light he could clearly see the bodies of the failed sortie lying in the long grass of the plateau, the tall black stalks of arrows protruding from their still forms. Beyond the litter of corpses and out of range of the walls were the Amazons, sitting patiently on their small horses as they waited for the Greeks to approach. Even among the most wilful and courageous noblewomen he had known – Helen, Clytaemnestra and Penelope chief among them – there had always been something in their expressions that revealed the acceptance, however grudging, that they were socially and physically inferior to men. But these women had none of that. They looked at the grea
test of the Greeks as if they were merely swine to be slaughtered, and about as dangerous.
Agamemnon pushed his hand forward and gave the order to advance. Odysseus lifted his shield and moved in a line with the front rank, while the archers followed close behind, also carrying spears and shields to make it look as if the whole company was made up of spearmen. Eperitus was to Odysseus’s left, his grandfather’s shield covering almost his whole body, and Arceisius was to his right, both men watching the Amazons closely and waiting for them to draw their bows. But the priestesses remained motionless, showing no signs of being drawn prematurely into action.
While they were still within bowshot of the walls, Agamemnon raised his hand again and ordered the company to halt. At a signal from Penthesilea, a score of Amazons rode forward and peppered them with arrows. The Greeks raised their shields and the volley caused no casualties. The Amazons fired again and this time a man cried out as an arrow pierced his forearm, but there were no more shouts of pain and no bodies fell into the dust.
‘Keep your shield up,’ Odysseus snapped as one of the Locrians reached for the bow across his back. ‘They’re testing to see if we have any archers. I’ll tell you when you can shoot back.’
As he finished speaking, Penthesilea barked an order and the party of Amazons returned to the main body. Then she signalled left and right and two larger groups rode out to the flanks of the Greek line, ready to force them into a defensive circle as they had done to Thersites. But the men who had come out to meet the Amazons this time were not fools and as the horses galloped to either side and readied their bows to fire, hundreds of archers stood up on the walls of the camp and sent a swarm of arrows towards them. The Amazons turned away just in time and Penthesilea gestured for them to return to the main body.
‘So far, so good,’ Eperitus muttered, touching his fingers to the image of the white hart inside his shield and raising them to his lips.
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Odysseus replied, looking to where the man who had been hit in the forearm had just fallen heavily on to his back, his dead eyes staring up at the skies above. ‘It looks like they’re using poison arrows.’
‘Here they come!’ Achilles shouted from the centre of the line.
Shields that had been momentarily lowered were raised again as the whole body of Amazons dashed forward and loosed a hail of missiles at the Greeks. Those men who had noticed the death of their comrade drew back from the poisoned tips wherever they broke through the many-layered oxhide; two more were not so lucky and fell back as arrows slipped through the wall of shield and bit into flesh. The Amazons fired another volley, galloping closer this time as they sought to find clearer targets among the Greek line. Two more men fell, one of them dead in an instant as an arrow pierced his eye. The three wounded dragged themselves back from the front line, already weakened by the poison spreading through their veins.
‘Archers!’ Odysseus commanded, raising a hand above his head.
The Locrians threw away their shields and spears and slipped the bows from their shoulders. Two of them fell to the third Amazon volley, but they held their discipline and took careful aim as they waited for Odysseus’s signal.
‘Remember, shoot the horses,’ he shouted, and let his hand fall.
Bowstrings hummed and a score of arrows were sent flocking towards their targets. The distance was still long – Odysseus had predicted Penthesilea would not risk her warriors within range of the Greek spears – so the Locrians had been ordered to aim for the mounts. Eleven horses fell to the first volley, causing shouts of dismay and surprise from the Amazons. A second volley followed in the confusion and a dozen more animals plunged into the dust, bringing their riders down with them. At that moment, Agamemnon punched the air with his spear and the front rank of Greeks charged headlong at the Amazons.
Chaos ensued. With almost half of their number horseless, and many of those trapped beneath the weight of their dead ponies, the mounted Amazons had no intention of leaving their stricken comrades to the oncoming foes. They fired another volley, which fell half among the spearmen and half among the archers behind, but the aim was hurried and only felled two of the now unprotected Locrians. Seeing that her plan to draw the Greeks out and shoot them down at long range had failed, Penthesilea now threw away her bow and drew her sword, screaming for her fighting priestesses to do the same. She was answered by the ringing of blades and shouts of grim defiance as the remaining cavalry cantered forward to form a line. Then their queen kicked her heels back and sent her mount into a gallop, lowering the point of her blade towards the line of Greeks. The others followed and two dozen horses drummed the ground with their hooves, sending up clods of earth as they dashed into battle.
There was no time now for the spearmen to form a shield-wall. Achilles, running ahead of the rest, threw his spear and plucked a screaming Amazon from her mount. The others followed, and though their aim was hasty and poor two other riders and a horse were brought down. Far greater damage was done by the archers, who loosed two rapid volleys into the oncoming enemy so that only nine Amazons remained on horseback to charge down on the Greeks. Penthesilea was the first among them, her sword scything the head from a heavily built soldier as he ran at her with his spear. Driving on into the scattered men, she hewed the forearm from one and stabbed the point of her sword into the face of another. Away to her right, Agamemnon was struggling against one of the queen’s bodyguard, a tall, muscular girl with red hair who reared up her horse to flail at the air above the king’s head, but Menelaus came running up behind and impaled her on his spear. Meanwhile, Evandre drew her bow and sent an arrow into Medon’s throat, killing the Malian captain instantly. She leapt down from her horse, eager to strip the armour from her first kill in battle, when a soldier rushed at her with his sword held in both hands above his head. Her own sword was still in its scabbard, and with no time to draw it out, she threw up her shield and took the blow on the wooden boss. Snatching a dagger from her belt with her other hand, she thrust it into her attacker’s stomach. He fell on top of her, shouting with rage and pain. Then his large hand found her throat, the fingers contracting quickly to squeeze the air from her windpipe. With her strength fast failing, she stabbed again and again until the man’s grip relaxed and he slumped down on top of her, gushing blood from his many wounds.
Achilles, Diomedes and Great Ajax led half the remaining spearmen against the dismounted Amazons, who were now rushing into the fray behind their mounted comrades. The battle was now raging beyond any hope of order or command. Amazon and Greek murdered each other with fanatical hatred, neither side giving any quarter as they threw themselves at each other. A warning shout from Arceisius saved Eperitus’s life as a horse came galloping up behind him and a sword swept down in an arc at his head. He rolled to one side as the rider’s blade cleaved the air above him. A moment later he heard his attacker call out in agony as Arceisius’s spear point caught her in the chest and brought her crashing from her horse. Eperitus had no time to thank him, though; through the dust cloud kicked up by the battling figures, he saw Odysseus struggling to hold back a lone rider whose sword was raining a frenzy of blows down on his raised shield. Eperitus ran to help him, just as an arrow thumped into the woman’s chest and toppled her into the long grass. Looking over his shoulder, Eperitus saw the surviving Locrians running to join the fight, some with bows drawn and others armed with swords or spears.
At the centre of the maelstrom was Penthesilea, the only mounted figure remaining on the battlefield. She withdrew her sword from the throat of the spearman she had just killed and looked around at the chaos that surrounded her. Her plan to decapitate the Greek leadership had failed, and instead she and her Amazons had themselves been drawn into a carefully thought-out trap. As she watched her glorious priestesses battling on every side of her, killing and being killed, she knew there was little chance of any of them ever reaching Thermiscyra again. Their horses were dead or scattered, preventing any quick escape across the plai
n to the safety of Troy, and the Greeks were already gaining the upper hand – thanks in no small part to a man whose magnificent armour could only belong to their leader, Agamemnon. Penthesilea watched him with admiring eyes, almost forgetting that the warriors he was slaying with such murderous efficiency were her own. Turning back to the battle around her, she saw that those who had charged into the enemy line with her were now outnumbered with the arrival of the Greek archers. And yet, had she not told Priam it was more glorious to die in battle than in bed? She grinned at the thought; and if she could take a few more men with her into the Underworld, the greater her glory would be.
She gripped her sword hard. Nearby, a priestess was fending off the attacks of two Greeks. As Penthesilea watched, she plunged her sword up to the hilt in one of the men’s chests. He grunted and fell back, but the other had seen his opportunity and with a backhanded stroke of his blade sliced the Amazon’s head from her neck. With a shout of rage, Penthesilea spurred her horse at the victor.
Machaon, the famed healer, heard the shout and turned to see the queen of the Amazons charging towards him. He parried the swinging blow aimed at his head and spun about as Penthesilea turned and came at him again. Taking his sword in both hands – his shield having been lost in the earlier fighting – he swung the blade at the horse’s face, intending to bring the animal down and its rider with it. But the queen had guessed his intentions and, reining her pony’s head aside at the last moment, lunged with the point of her sword and found Machaon’s chest. His leather cuirass was useless against her sharpened bronze, which found his beating heart and stopped it in an instant. He fell dead and Penthesilea turned again, looking for her next victim.