Heroes

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Lamus, son of Onchestus, told them that he had tasted those fruits as a child when a relative of his who traded with the Thracians on the mountains had brought him a sack of them as a gift. Telephus, the Hittite, knew them as well; they grew abundantly in his mountain land where the great Halys river had its source. Certain primitive tribes lived on nothing else. The Chnan had never seen them but he said that the world, all things considered, was much the same everywhere. It was the men who inhabited it who made it different.

  As they moved on, the men tried to procure women for themselves, either buying them or taking them by force. Some of them had even taken young girls, who could serve them until they were old enough to share their beds with them.

  In this way, although many warriors had been lost during the journey, in combat or ambushes, the group making its way through the mountains was no smaller than when they had commenced their upstream voyage on the Eridanus.

  They did not march continuously, because the king did not seem to have a precise destination in mind, nor did the passing time seem to affect him. Whenever they chanced upon a place that offered food and shelter, the Achaeans would stop, even at considerable length. They raised tents using the hides of the animals they had seized in town or had trapped in the forest; their time was spent hunting and fishing. They slept on mats of dried leaves that made a great deal of noise whenever they moved, but their slumber was more tranquil. They had left the swamps and the dying lands along the banks of the Eridanus behind them, and the implacable revenge of Nemro was but a memory. Many of them had women and perhaps, soon, some of them might sire children. But there was not a single man among them who imagined that this might be his life. It was not for this that they had followed the son of Tydeus.

  The king certainly allowed them to live that life so that they might be fortified in body and spirit, so that they might gain new strength. But one day they would reach a rich and prosperous land, inhabited, perhaps, by a strong, numerous people, and they would have to conquer it by spear, or perish.

  Two mules always marched at the centre of the column with the heavy wooden chest that the king had brought from Ilium. This ensured that one day Diomedes would found his kingdom and would make it invincible.

  There was no further fighting for a very long time, because the Achaeans were nearly invisible as they moved through the forest; some of the women had become fond of their men and led the army down safer paths. Whenever they had to cross one of the mountain passes, however, they had to take it by force, because the inhabitants of those places had been warned by Nemro’s allies.

  The Achaeans were journeying up a torrent and had neared the source, at the foot of a great pyramid-shaped mountain, but they found the pass occupied by a numerous group of warriors. The women called them Ambron; they were strong and belligerent, and inhabited a wild, beautiful land made of steep mountains and deep dark sea. They made their living by cutting down trees with heavy bronze axes to clear pastures for their flocks and land for their crops.

  Those who lived on the coast braved the waves to toss their nets; they lived on the fish they caught and drank the water of the torrents that from the mountains descended steeply into the sea.

  Telephus, the Hittite, came forward and asked the king to listen to him, because the Achaeans were not equipped with the proper armour nor were they accustomed to combat in the mountains, while he had fought hundreds of times against the bloodthirsty Kardaka of Mount Toros and of the Urartu Mountains.

  ‘The column must be divided into several parts, and each group must ascend in stealth and silence,’ he advised the king.

  ‘The king of Argos does not hide. I will take on those savages face to face, and my comrades will do the same.’

  ‘If you do, you’ll be torn to shreds. They are numerous, and they know the territory. They are in a favourable position and, above all, they care nothing for glory or honour. All that matters to them is driving you out while losing as few men as possible.’

  ‘How do you know? You’ve never been here before,’ observed the king.

  ‘They are poor and poor people are the same the world over. Heed my words, wanax, for I have fought in Egypt, Amurru and Babel, I have fought on the Toros and the Urartu mountains, and I fought against you at Vilusya. Only rich peoples have chiefs who want to fight on the open field face to face in order to gain glory and prestige. Poor peoples want only to survive. And this is why they are more fearsome: they have nothing to lose. Draw up your men in four files, sound the horns and launch a frontal attack: if you’re lucky, one in five will get to the top. They’ll crush you under an avalanche of boulders, they’ll target you with arrows and javelins and at the end, when they have decimated you, when they are still fresh and you are weary and wounded, then they will face off in hand to hand combat. There is no code of honour here; they make up the rules.’

  ‘The Hittite is right, king. Listen to him,’ said the Chnan. ‘He has fought many times in the mountains. Heed him, for he has already saved you once.’

  Their words sent the king into a rage; although living so closely with his men had diminished his manifestations of rank, the Chnan’s advice stung like a whiplash. He could not tolerate a couple of slaves reminding him that he owed them his life. He dismissed them with a sharp gesture that did not permit further insistence.

  ‘Stay back here with the women if that’s the way you feel,’ he said. ‘I don’t need you.’

  He called Myrsilus and indicated the enemy assembled at the crest. ‘This is the only place we can cross,’ he said. ‘We must take that pass. Draw up the men in four files and make sure the formation is as tight as possible: those savages will see a wall of shields bearing down upon them. They can’t have weapons capable of piercing our bronze. Have the bugles ready. I will lead you myself.’

  The wood thinned out a little past the foot of the slope, leaving sufficient space to form the array, although the mountain meadow beyond was still dotted with trees here and there.

  Myrsilus drew up his men, and when the formation was complete the king took his place on the right side and had the battle notes sounded.

  The bugles blared and the noise echoed through the valleys and the rocky mountain walls. The king shouted: ‘ARGOS!’

  The men echoed: ‘ARGOS!’

  And the army moved forward at a measured step in closed formation towards the pass. Myrsilus noticed a certain wavering of the enemy lines at the crest and said to Diomedes: ‘We have frightened them; they will flee before we reach the top.’

  In fact, many of them seemed to scatter and disappear. The Chnan thought that they were fleeing as well, and said to Telephus: ‘This time you were mistaken, Hittite, look at them sneaking off!’ But the words were not out of his mouth when the crest became crowded with men once again. The Achaeans were close enough to see that many of them were armed with axes. These rushed towards certain points of the pass where dense bushes hid the terrain. They gave violent blows with their axes. A sharp rattling could be heard at first, and then a noise like thunder, and hundreds of stones were liberated all at once from some casing that held them, and plunged downhill.

  Telephus, who had not even answered so as not to miss an instant of what was happening under his eyes, shouted out: ‘Behind the trees! Wanax! Behind the trees! Or on the ground, under the shields!’ And as he shouted, he ran forward.

  Diomedes realized that the men who had followed him all this way were about to be destroyed by his foolishness and he cried out in unison: ‘Behind the trees, men, seek cover behind the trees! Drop to the ground, under your shields!’

  The front dispersed, the men dashing for the nearest tree or reversing at a run to find one. Those who were too far flattened on to the ground, covering themselves with their shields. Those who were not fast enough were mown down and mangled. Others were wounded despite the cover provided by the trees; still others were hit on the rebound by the enormous boulders and were smashed under their shields, like when a tortoise is crush
ed in his shell by the wheel of a cart and his blood and guts squirt out on to the dusty road.

  When the avalanche had passed, the king gave orders to retreat towards the wood and to carry along the wounded. The men obeyed, but the enemy targeted them with a hail of slingshot stones and of arrows. More men were struck, and they hobbled to find shelter as they could, bruised and losing blood. As Diomedes withdrew, he saw Telephus, the Hittite slave, lying on the ground and bleeding from the mouth. He had rushed forward to help the king and his warriors, but one of the boulders loosed by the Ambron had hit him full in the chest. Heedless of the arrows and other projectiles raining around him, Diomedes bent over him and gathered him into his arms, but the man groaned in pain.

  ‘I’m done for. .’ he said, ‘fucked to save a handful of desperate Ahhijawa. . stupid. . stupid. .’ His breath was a rattle.

  The king raised his head: ‘Forgive me, friend. I am the stupid one. Stupid and blind.’

  ‘Commander. .’ said the Hittite. ‘I am the commander of a squadron of Hittite chariots. Call me commander. .’

  ‘Yes, commander,’ said the king. Myrsilus had arrived at his side and was protecting him from the enemy’s shots.

  ‘Do what I tell you to do, Ahhijawa, or they’ll tear you to pieces, and even that god that you’re carrying with you won’t be enough to save you.’ Every word raised his chest and delivered stabbing pain. ‘I’m dying, Ahhijawa, and you must do as I say. I don’t want to die for nothing.’

  ‘You are the commander,’ said Diomedes. And he paid no mind to Myrsilus, who was saying: ‘Let’s go, wanax! If we don’t go, we’ll die ourselves!’

  The Hittite pushed up on his elbows: ‘Call back all your men and pretend to flee, to rout. Make a lot of noise, as if you were marching back down to the valley. .’

  ‘I will,’ said the king. Myrsilus’s shield popped under the slingshots as if hail were rattling down on it.

  ‘Wait until night, and divide up into small groups, then make your way up. . go up towards the pass from every direction towards two. . towards two or three rallying points. . in silence. Observe how the enemy is laid out, and then. . and then. .’

  ‘I understand,’ said the king. ‘I understand. Do not tire yourself, say no more.’ With the hem of his tunic he dried the sweat that dripped down the dying man’s forehead.

  ‘If we had been able to draw up all our chariot squadrons at Vilusya. . we would have chased you back into the sea. . Ahhijawa. .’ he said, wheezing.

  ‘Yes,’ said Diomedes, ‘perhaps you are right, my friend.’

  The Hittite stared at him and a strange smile formed on his face: ‘Your world no longer exists. . Ahhijawa. . do you understand? You must change, or you will perish. . and I will have died for nothing. . I. . I. .’ and he gave himself up to death.

  ‘Let’s go, wanax!’ Myrsilus shouted again. ‘They’ll be upon us.’

  ‘No!’ shouted the king. ‘I will not let the enemies take his body and strip him!’

  ‘Didn’t you understand what he said as he was dying?’ Myrsilus shouted back. ‘Our world is done with! Gone! We have to save ourselves, king, that’s all that is left to us!’ Diomedes saw his eyes filled with despair, for the first time ever. ‘He would tell you to abandon him, if he could, because there’s nothing left to save but your own life, for your men’s sake. We must go, wanax! Now!’

  Diomedes stood and ran for the forest and Myrsilus followed, raising his shield so that the king of Argos would not be struck down, would not breathe his last in a desolate field of stones at the hand of nameless savages.

  The king ordered all his men to hide and then to feign leaving; they shook the bushes along the trail leading down to the valley, to convince the enemy that they were retreating.

  When night fell, the king divided the remaining men into three groups: one under his command, another commanded by Myrsilus and a third under the command of Evenus. They took off their heavy armour and kept only their swords, daggers and bows, with quivers full of arrows. They crept up separately amidst the trees in the forest until the point where it began to thin out. From there they crawled their way up, covering small stretches of ground at a time. They ran when they could, hiding behind a tree or a boulder, always careful not to be spotted, not to make the slightest noise.

  Myrsilus was the first to arrive at the top, followed by Diomedes and then Evenus. When Myrsilus peered over the crest, he saw that they had left ten or so guards at the pass, while the others slept under a big rocky shelter. He motioned to his men and they crawled up behind the guards who were dozing, leaning up against the stone wall. At his signal, each of his men leapt out of the darkness brandishing his dagger; none of the guards survived, not one had the time to let out a groan. Diomedes led his men to the top of the rocky shelter, Evenus shut out the front and Myrsilus posted his men to the sides, to cut off any escape route. At Diomedes’s signal, they all nocked their arrows and let fly into the heap of sleeping men.

  The yells of the wounded awoke the others but the second and the third volleys of arrows were already rending the night and sowing the ground with the dead and wounded. Their cries spread panic and confusion, but the attackers were all under cover and well positioned to take aim. They were helped by a little moonlight that drifted through the clouds. The arrows raining down in every direction, even from above, disoriented the Ambron, who could not understand how to locate their aggressors. The survivors soon took to their heels, running headlong towards the valley and seeking shelter in the forest, but the Achaeans relentlessly pursued them all through the night.

  At the first glimmer of dawn, the Achaeans gathered the bodies of their comrades and gave them burial. Diomedes buried Telephus, the Hittite slave, who had once been the commander of a chariot squadron in the plains of Asia; he had found death in a remote place, far from the homeland to which he had so longed to return.

  The Chnan sat off at a distance on a big boulder, chewing on a blade of grass and watching the sky as it filled with light. When the men had finished burying the dead, the Chnan approached the grave where Telephus had been buried. He picked up a fistful of dirt and let it run through his fingers. ‘You stubborn Hittite,’ he said. ‘Was this any place to die? You had to leave me, just now when I was beginning to have a little hope. .’

  He picked a deep blue mountain flower and laid it on the mound, then reached under his tunic and drew out a bronze clasp with coral and amber beads, and buried it next to him. ‘It’s all I can leave for you; you know how much I need these things. . Sleep, now, Telepinu; sleep, commander. The air is good here, the sun, and the wind; it’s a better place than many others, in the end. I must continue on my road until I find the sea again, and a ship. It was destiny; a mountaineer and a sailor could never stay friends. If I ever reach you where you are now, I’ll be soaking wet and stinking of algae, I can feel it. . stinking of rotten fish and salt water. .’

  Myrsilus gave the signal; it was time to go. The Chnan turned back one last time. ‘You never asked me my name,’ he said. ‘If we should meet up again one day in the dark world, you wouldn’t even know what to call me. . there will be lots of Chnans down there, I guess. . Anyway, friend, my name is Malech. . Malech. Remember that.’

  They resumed their journey, walking at mid-slope on the mountain crest, directed south. One of the women said: ‘It takes thirty days to cover this road; it crosses the Blue Mountain range and leads to the land of the Mountains of Fire.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ one of the men asked Myrsilus, who was marching alongside her and listening attentively.

  ‘I’ve heard,’ said the woman, ‘that there are rivers of fire that pour out of those mountains and devour everything below. Storms of flames are hurled towards the sky, and the sea boils all around like a cauldron bubbling on the fire. Sometimes the earth trembles from its deepest depths and splits open, loosing pestiferous fumes that make the birds fall dead out of the sky.’

  Myrsilus caught up with the king, who wa
s marching at the head of his people in silence.

  ‘Wanax,’ he said. ‘There’s a woman walking at the middle of the column who’s talking about the land of the Mountains of Fire that is found at the end of this trail. At thirty days’ march from here. I think she is speaking of the land of the Cyclops! I have heard it described by men who sailed very far from our land. No one has ever dared approach it; from the sea at night, you can see the Cyclops’ blazing eyes, flaming, you can hear their wild cries. They devour those who the waves cast up on their deserted beaches. I know that you do not fear them, you fear neither gods nor men, nor monsters of the earth or sea, and you know that I am ready to follow you anywhere, even to the Mountains of Fire, even to the land of the Cyclops, but listen to me, I beg of you. I think that the time has come for us to stop, as soon as we find a place where we can live. We have women, and we’ll take others. We can build a city, with walls, we can establish alliances with nearby peoples. We lost more comrades in taking that pass, brave men, skilled with spear and sword. How many more will we lose if we continue on this way? You have your bride. . stop, and generate a child so that this land can nourish him and accept him as its own. . or we will stay foreigners. .’

  The king did not turn and continued on his way.

  They marched along the crest of the mountains all day, until dusk, leaving behind their lost companions, leaving behind Telephus, the slave who died as a warrior, as the commander he had always been.

  The king advanced with his head low, the first of the entire column, and for the first time he looked small to his men against the immensity of the mountains and the sky. He looked lost, in that labyrinthine, wooded land where every valley might conceal new threats. As far as the eye could see, there were no places that could sustain a city, no fields where crops could be grown, no plains that led to the sea, to a port from which ships could depart, making contact with other peoples, striking up trade. All they saw, few and far between, were villages of huts inhabited by shepherds who withdrew fearfully into the forests upon their approach.