Rage of Queens (Homeric Chronicles Book 3)

by Janell Rhiannon

  Achilles’ grace and speed in battle was legendary. He easily avoided the spear as it whizzed past his head, skidding to the ground behind him. He laughed wickedly and pulled his shield from his shoulder. Raising the blinking bronze blade of Hephaestus, he barreled straight for Hektor, shield tipped. As he closed in for the death blow, a mist rose, confusing him of any direction. He skidded to a stop, blindly slashing about. “Fuck!” he yelled. “What god steals my revenge?”

  “It is I, Achilles. Apollo. You are a wraith walking among the living.”

  Achilles groaned and screamed again, “You fucking gods! You will not take this revenge from me.”

  “I have already done so … for now.” The mist cleared, and Hektor was gone.

  Achilles’ anger cracked his spirit open. He pressed dozens of Trojans to the Xanthos River nearby. Trapping them in the cold water, he slashed and decapitated every last one of them. The river ran red with Trojan blood as if Gaia herself were mortally wounded. A man with curly, dark hair thrashed in the tainted water, desperate to escape the wrath of Achilles. But the mad warrior grabbed him by the head, yanking him back. He bent the man’s head, exposing his throat, and looked down into his wide, bulging eyes. “You.”

  “Please,” the man begged, his arms flailing about.

  “I remember you. Patrokles sold you years ago.”

  “I beg you, let me go. My father will pay for my life.”

  Achilles sneered. “A son of Priam. The man is a whore-king. What is your name?”

  “Lykaon. Please, I beg you. I have only returned to my father’s house—”

  He thumped his chest with the pommel of his sword. “You think I care when the gods returned you? Mercy does not live here.”

  “Please, please—”

  Achilles’ blade flashed like a star across Lykaon’s neck. A thin line of blood opened to a gaping, gory hole. Lykaon’s eyes rolled back in his head and his arms went limp at his sides. Crimson gurgled and gushed over his chin. Achilles roared with the power of killing. He tossed the body aside, and the spirit of Priam’s son drifted to the Underworld, finally freed of war as only the dead can know its end. As Lykaon’s body floated away, many less fortunate Trojans struggled against the current, scrambling to reach the opposite side and run for the city.

  Achilles yelled, “Myrmidons! Seize a dozen of these pathetic Trojans. Take them back to camp.” His men obeyed without question. His return on the battlefield had made all the difference. Achilles refused to stop until every last one of them was dead or enslaved.

  High above the melee, Apollo watched Achilles slaughtering his favored people. He narrowed his flaming eyes to mere slits. His lip curled up in an evil grin. Achilles was a challenge, but no match for him. He flew down to the plain with a plan to thwart the Golden Warrior right beneath the other gods’ noses.

  A mist twisted around Achilles, squeezing his arms and stealing his breath. He dropped his sword to the ground. “By the gods!” He writhed against the cloudy fingers. “Show yourself!” And just as suddenly, the binding air released him to face the figure of Agenor, a Trojan warrior, emerging from the haze.

  “You will not take Troy so easily, Achilles, Sacker of Cities. Prince Slayer. Murderer.”

  Achilles laughed in his face. “You dare to challenge me? Alone?”

  “I do.”

  “Draw your weapon and steady your shield. We will see what your bones are made of, Trojan dog.”

  Agenor disappeared into the mist. “Catch me if you can, Achilles of the Iron Foot.”

  Achilles roared in frustration, but took off with the speed of a god, his sword slashing indiscriminately at the air. Agenor’s laughter spurred Achilles on, until his legs tired.

  “Achilles.” A voice floated about his ears.

  “Fuck!” Achilles skidded to a halt. “What trick is this?”

  Apollo’s laughter spiraled around Achilles’ head. “Your rage will be your undoing.” For a brief flash, Apollo revealed his sacred form. Flaming hair and eyes, beautiful, yet terrifying to behold. “You are too easily led by your heart, Son of Thetis.”

  Achilles seethed and ground his teeth. “Apollo.” He was no match for the Sun God. With a growl, he said, “You cannot stop fate.”

  “Nor do I wish to. Not on your account, at least.”

  Achilles sped back to Troy, cursing himself that he’d allowed the god to deceive him and take him so far from the fighting.

  RAMPARTs OF TROY

  THIRTY-THREE, the undefended

  1238 BCE

  Queen Hecuba’s fingers burned with small abrasions from gripping the rampart edge. The distant dust cloud drew closer. “Priam, what is happening?”

  “The fighting is moving toward us.”

  She noted the dismay on his face. “What should we do?”

  “Open the gates,” he called down to the guards. “Open the gates on first sight of Hektor. Or any of my sons.”

  Priam moved to Hecuba’s side and put an arm around her shoulders. In a rare display of acceptance, Hecuba reached a hand to his. “I never believed we would live to see the end of Troy.”

  “There’s still time, Hecuba.”

  The cloud was moving quickly now. A few horses appeared ahead of the main army. As they drew nearer, the watchers on the wall could hear the riders screaming, “Achilles is coming!”

  Hecuba’s eyes filled with tears. She leaned into her estranged husband’s chest. “Hektor must live.” She turned in Priam’s arm to gauge his face. “Can he defeat Achilles?”

  The king’s eyes saddened. “I don’t know.”

  Chariots raced through the gates followed by men on foot. Women and children who’d been out gathering wood and hunting small game ran frantically alongside the army, desperate to find safety behind the Great Wall. Bringing up the rear, Hektor shouted for men to hurry inside. Hecuba prayed thanks to Apollo for bringing her eldest son safely back to the city.

  “By the gods,” Priam whispered with horror in his voice.

  “What?” Shielding her eyes, Hecuba looked in the direction of Priam’s gaze. “It cannot be.” She held out a shaking hand, but her voice was as steady as a cold stone. “They were right. Achilles is coming.”

  Squinting onto to horizon, Priam watched the blinking flash draw nearer. “Quickly,” he yelled at Hektor below. “Quickly,” he yelled again, but his eldest son was too far away. “Come, Hecuba. He can’t hear us from here.” He practically dragged her to the lowest guard tower. Hanging over the rampart, Priam hollered, “Hektor! Achilles is coming!”

  Hektor looked up and waved.

  “Get behind the wall! I beg you!”

  Hektor took off his helmet, cocking his head toward his parents. A nearby soldier approached him, and they spoke briefly. Hektor nodded.

  “Is he refusing to come within?” Hecuba asked, confused. “Why would he refuse?” She dug fingers into the king’s arm. “Make him listen, Priam.”

  “How?” Priam hit his head in frustration. “Is he determined to die today? Of all the sons I have lost, his death will break me.” He screamed again with his ancient voice, its power already faded with years. “Hektor! Hektor!” As Priam’s voice reached him, Hektor looked up.

  Hecuba was desperate to reach him, reach his heart. Was it just a moment ago he was a babe nursing at her breast? A boy learning to walk and ride a horse? When did he become this man, hard and distant? “Come behind the wall,” she screamed frantically.

  Hektor shook his head, the wind catching his long horse tail crest. She remembered the boy who loved his horse, Ares, and the man who wept when that horse died in his arms. Hektor had the hair of Ares’ tail set into a new helmet crest. In all his life, he’d never battled without some part of his beloved warhorse. Now, she could not watch him die at the hands of Achilles. Alone. Where was Apollo? She despaired for everything.

  Out of sheer terror and desperation, Hecuba ripped open the front of her gown, exposing her naked breasts. “Please, I beg you, Hektor!
My son!” She sobbed uncontrollably. “I nursed you my son, gave you life! A mother’s sacred bond is forever. Do not break it now, like this. Please, please, come to safety.”

  Hektor shouted up at his parents, “I must face Achilles. We all know I must.” He put his helmet back on and snapped the chin strap.

  Hecuba pulled the front of her garment closed and wept for so many reasons. When she beseeched Apollo to bring down Achilles in revenge for Troilus, she did not think to beg for Hektor’s protection. She’d somehow believed him invincible against Achilles. If any of her sons could survive against him, she thought it would be Hektor. Now, she knew she was wrong. How could I have been so blind to this? “He may be ready to die, but I am not ready to let him go.”

  Priam wept beside her as well. “We cannot change what fate has set into the stars. No matter what we say or how we entreat him, Hektor is right. He is the one to face Achilles. All the years have come to this moment. I can hardly bear to watch.”

  Achilles’ blood-curdling screams carried on the wind. The killer rapidly advanced. Without warning or shouted word, Hektor bolted, disappearing from sight around the curved tower wall and into a tree line.

  Hecuba pointed. “Where’s he going?”

  “I don’t know,” Priam answered.

  By now, the Myrmidons were straggling in from the plain, having followed Achilles. They stood leaning on their spears or sat using their shields to block the heat of the day.

  Everyone, Trojan and Greek alike, waited to see what would happen. A long while passed before Hektor came running swift as the wind directly toward the city gates.

  Priam yelled down, “Open the gates if he gets close.”

  But before Hektor could get close enough, Achilles cut him off, not once but twice. After three passes around the city walls, Hektor unexpectedly stood still.

  “Why has he stopped? Achilles will catch him.” Hecuba tugged at her veil. “What is he doing?”

  They watched as their son and Achilles exchanged words. Achilles’ golden armor flashed like a silver star in Apollo’s light, and his angry words floated up to the rampart. “There can be no promises between lions and men.” Hecuba wilted against Priam, but he caught her before she hit the ground.

  “What’s wrong, Hecuba?”

  Clinging to Priam and the rampart edge, she asked, “Do you remember the nightmare I had before Paris was born?” She’d almost forgotten it herself, until Achilles’ threat pulled the memory to light. “This is the battle from my dreams. Lions and men. How could I forget?”

  “By the gods,” Priam whispered. “By the gods.”

  Hecuba cried miserably. Her body shaking to the core. “It was always meant to be Hektor and Achilles.”

  Priam clutched his chest and ripped the silver and gold hanging from his neck, tossing his regalia to the ground. “It has all come to pass, Hecuba. We tried to defy the gods, but … Hektor was always meant to die and Troy will fall. How many sons have we lost because we could not let one go?”

  Hecuba wheeled on Priam, her face contorted in rage and grief. “It was never a choice to kill any of our children. Don’t you understand? The gods have cursed our house from the beginning.” She turned her eyes to the fight below, brushing aside the horror that would come after. Achilles and Hektor circled each other. Achilles cast his spear. Hecuba held her breath, as Hektor ducked. Hecuba watched wide-eyed as Achilles charged with shield tilted and spear leveled for a fatal strike against her son. The men crashed into one another, splintering their shields and tossing the remnants to the ground. With a roar, Achilles circled and attacked like a lion. The song of the God of Death rang out with their silver swords clashing. The queen’s heart pounded, knowing it was Hektor’s day to die. Any warning dusted on her tongue. The macabre dance of death continued, until with a graceful lunge Achilles’ spear found the soft flesh of Hektor’s neck. Hecuba shrieked.

  ✽✽✽

  BELOW THE WALL

  Hektor’s eyes widened in shock seeing his blood splattered across Achilles’ armor. His legs buckled. He collapsed to his knees, his chin bobbing precariously close to his chest. Blood gurgled up his throat as he tried to speak. The bitter taste of death was undeniable. “I beg you. Allow my father the right to ransom me.” He coughed up more blood. “Give me proper rites.”

  Achilles spat into the dirt. “Your body will rot in the sun. No one will mourn you or give you the sacred rights. What mercies did you show Patrokles, my kin, my beloved? The dogs will rip the meat off your bones and the seabirds will pluck your eyes from their sockets.”

  “But my mother—”

  Achilles laughed then. “I do not care about your mother’s pain. She will never see you properly mourned. There will be no honor for you in death. If the gods allowed, I would rip the flesh from your bones and eat it raw just to shit you out as the stinking fuck you are.”

  Coldness spread through Hektor. Until this moment, he had not allowed himself to think about what would happen if he fell. Death was inevitable now. He gasped for air, even as Andromache’s sweet singing filled his head. Here at the end of all things he could find no lingering regrets. “I will die at peace. My song will be one of honor, but yours, Achilles, will not. Apollo will help Paris cut you down. Even you can’t stand alone against a god.” Hektor, the Golden Prince, breathed his last and toppled over.

  Achilles kicked the corpse. “I welcome death whenever the gods wish it.” He turned his attention to the watchers on the wall. “Here is your prince!” he yelled up to them. “He took the best of us and I have paid the debt in kind. You Trojans will remember it was Achilles who brought down your mighty Hektor.”

  Myrmidons and Greeks circled the dead body of Prince Hektor like vultures and wolves. One of them stripped Hektor’s armor—Achilles’ armor—from the body. Dead, the prince posed no threat to them, so they took turns stabbing the corpse with their spears and swords. Achilles grabbed one of Hektor’s feet and pressed his sword tip through the heel tendon. He did the same to the other foot. He dragged Hektor’s body to his chariot where he threaded leather thongs through the fresh cuts. He tied the straps to his chariot. And when he struck the lash on the horses’ backs, they bolted straight across the plain, Hektor’s body bouncing on the hard ground and his head bashing against every rock and dip.

  ✽✽✽

  On the wall, everyone stood in stunned silence, horrified by what the gods had allowed. Hecuba was the first to cry out, “No! No! Nooooo!” She screamed and ripped at her hair; clumps tangled in her fingers. Leaning over the rampart’s rail, she cast her arms out, shrieking for Achilles to bring him back. To bring back the boy who used to sit beside her and comfort her with his smile. A smile she would never see again. Her son who loved horses. Who had a son of his own. A loving wife. Hecuba shrunk under the pain. She could not unsee what she had seen. It was not enough time. She pulled her headdress off and flung it from the wall. It fluttered to the dust below.

  “My son,” Hecuba wept, over and over. “My son.” She collapsed with one arm still clinging to the rail. The anguish of the moment pushed a gush of warmth between her legs, reminding her that the gods would steal every piece of joy she clung to in this life. “It is wrong that I lived to see this day. Better that I was dead already. Hektor was everything to all of us.” She pulled herself up with some difficulty. The blood flowed down her inner thighs. The queen walked stoically from the wall, leaving a thin trail of blood behind her.

  Hecuba’s grief had ignited the wailing of other women, and soon the citadel was filled with the high-pitched songs of mourning. The city had grieved before, but this was a darker sorrow. Hektor had been killed, and without him, Troy was doomed. If anyone had ever doubted the rumors swirling about Paris’ curse, they did not do so now. The city had lost its champion, because a babe was allowed to live a life span ago.

  Priam threw himself at the rampart’s edge, but his men grabbed his robes, pulling him to safety. “Let me go!” He struggled against the hands h
olding him back. “I must go to Achilles. Beg him to return my son.” He groaned and cried aloud, his pain shaking the bones of everyone around him. “No father can bear this torture. Of all my sons, I cannot bear the loss of this one.” He pulled his beard out in bloody chunks. “We are cursed. My house is cursed. We are lost now. Troy is lost.”

  ✽✽✽

  From her weaving chamber, Andromache caught the shrill sound of women’s sorrow through the window. She dropped the needle from her hands. The air stilled, and the fine hairs on her arm rose with knowing. Tears stung her eyes. “By the gods, no … not Hektor. Not my love.” Throwing her threads to the floor, she raced to the wall. Rounding a corner, she slipped on an uneven cobblestone. Skidding hard into the ground, she cried out. Blood oozed from a gash on her palm. She scrambled ungracefully to her feet, running until her legs ached and her lungs burned. Her veil billowed behind her like a sail caught in a strong wind.

  Andromache stopped at the gate tower wall above the lower wall where she saw Priam weeping and wailing. She scanned the faces below for Hecuba, but the queen wasn’t there. A distant roar drew her attention to a dust cloud moving quickly around the city. She grabbed the edge of the wall, leaning out to see more clearly. Achilles was dragging a body behind his chariot. The terrible truth crashed in on her. “No!” she screamed. “Noooo!” She ripped her veil from her head and tossed it over the wall and fainted.

  She woke with her household women surrounding her, tears in their eyes. “I wish I had never been born. What will happen to my son now? My love will be eaten by worms.”

  Andromache pulled herself up with her women steadying her on her feet. She stumbled down to Priam in her disbelief and shock. “Father, what will happen now? How could you let Achilles take my husband’s body? You must make him return Hektor to us. For proper rites.”

  “No matter the cost, I will convince Achilles to return what belongs to Troy. To us. To the gods. Achilles has brutalized my sons and shredded my legacy before my eyes. I will, on whatever honor I have left, bring Hektor home for you to mourn … before the end of all things.” The king was once again lost in his grief; his eyes unseeing and his voice crying out to the gods.