As it was, Idomeneus, no great horseman, nonetheless put his spear point into the man’s back and killed him.
Then the wave front struck us. There were a dozen of them — more — and they panicked our horses when they struck. My nice mare was an Attic riding horse and she had no notion of staying to fight. I struck one blow, a spear blow that missed my target against a man in the most outlandishly barbarous trousers I’d ever seen — purple and yellow diagonal checks. Perhaps he wore them to confuse his enemies. I certainly missed him and he caught the shaft and pulled and I almost lost my seat. The girl came up on my other side — she threw the open loop of her rope and my lovely mare pivoted on her back feet. The rope slid off my arm and I was free. The man in the foolish clothes slammed his spear sideways into my head and I covered it with my own spear and thrust. My spear went into his horse’s neck.
My horse didn’t stay to let me finish him, which is a pity, because now I know I was spear to spear with Masistius, the commander of all Xerxes’ cavalry.
But even as his horse fell, blocking the road, other Saka were all around us. A blow clipped my back plate and another slammed into my helmet, but my good helmet held the point and I got a hand on my sword. Beside me, Hipponax landed a shrewd blow to a Saka’s head and the man fell, although the blade cannot have cut through his heavy leather hat. Then Hipponax’s horse spooked as mine had, and we were both moving down the road, away from the fight. This is why I have no love for horses. I could not get my horse to turn, and so I was fighting while rotated, trying to thrust over my shoulder and under my arm. Try it.
Two of my better-armed sailors were down. Teucer and another man were still fighting.
I had a pair of Saka racing with me. He was one of the men with the long swords, and his was slightly curved. He cut and I had to cover with my sword — my favourite, my long, straight xiphos.
His friend reached for his bow, a small, vicious recurve that sat, strung and deadly, in its own scabbard. A gorytos.
I knew where this was going to end. I also knew that the opening of the uphill road to the shrine was about to appear on my left. I leaned my weight back to slow my mare, and cut — one, two — at my opponent. Our swords rang together and sparks flew, and then I cut again, at shoulder height, and again.
And then, as he stayed with me stride for stride but seemed unable to regain the fighting initiative, I flicked a thrust overhand, my palm down. It just scratched his face — perhaps I took one of his eyes, or he was blinded by the cut, but he threw his arms up and my full back cut put him down — and then I was sawing the reins to slow my mount and turning hard. My second assailant with the bow vanished — still riding flat out at a gallop, he continued on the main road.
His arrow struck. He’d shot almost backwards over his saddle, but his aim was true, and the arrow dug a ridge in my best helmet and lodged between the crest box and the helmet. He turned his horse, reaching for another arrow, and I lost sight of him.
Idomeneus was emerging from the back of the melee, having left his usual red ruin. Another man in bronze armour was down in the road — Antimenides, son of Alcaeus. I knew him by his crest. Our Olympian.
Teucer’s son was fighting over the body and, as I watched, he too was cut down. They were too many for us and we were bleeding good men — men who would rule them on the deck of a ship.
For a terrible, slow beat of my heart, my head was at war with itself. The hero in me longed to save Teucer. The leader in me — or was it the coward — said run. Indeed, we should never have fought. But the sons of my friends were dying.
In an agony of indecision, my hands pointed my horse up the hill and I rode for it. Styges was with me for ten strides and then his horse pulled ahead.
The Saka followed us.
My little mare took an arrow in the hindquarters and didn’t falter, but we had only heartbeats to live.
Idomeneus was beside me, and he was angry. He hated to run.
I thought of Eualcides. If you live long enough, you’ll run too. The day comes, and the moment, and life is sweet.
It was horrible. When you flee, you have no idea what the man behind you can do — or is doing. Is this your death blow? Is that arrow the one? You see nothing but the trees in front of you and the hope of the sky.
There were five or six of us left in a little pack and the Saka had lost a few strides on us at the turn. But now they were on a good road, headed uphill, and their superior riding skills, their light weight — most of them were small — and let’s be fair, their better horses, began to tell.
Idomeneus took an arrow between the shoulder blades. He leaned forward and the pain showed.
But we had made it to the tomb. I suppose that Idomeneus wanted to die there.
He turned his horse.
‘No, you mad Cretan!’ I roared, and slapped his horse with the flat of my sword.
His horse ambled a few steps and fell against the side of the priest’s house. The horse had six or seven arrows in him. Idomeneus managed to get to the ground without falling and he was hit again, although the arrow shattered against his helmet and I was showered in cane splinters.
He sat suddenly.
I saw the aspis hanging on the wall of the priest’s house. It was Calchus’s old one, and it had seen better days — the bronze face was now brown and green like sun dapple in the wood, and the face was no longer smooth, because a generation of aspiring warriors had used it as the target of their youthful attempts to be spearmen.
It was on my arm as fast as I could get off my mare.
I took the old spear that leaned next to it and stood over Idomeneus. There was a lot of blood.
The first Saka to burst into the clearing rode right past me, up the trail.
The next three all saw me and they all changed direction together, so fast that I almost missed my cast, but I didn’t, and the heavy spear hit a horse and the horse fell. I took the second spear.
One of the Saka leaped the falling horse and one didn’t.
The clearing was suddenly full of mounted men and they were coming both ways around the old priest’s cabin — the Saka can ride through the woods as easily as riding on a road.
An arrow hit my aspis and shattered. And then another, like the blow of a rock thrown by an angry man, and then two together. And then it was like rain and shafts began to penetrate the surface and search for my arm and hand.
I was going to die, and it was just a matter of when. So I slammed my aspis into the man who had leaped the dying horse — into his mount, really. He cut at me and I cut at him, and we both missed, and he was past. I turned and threw my spear into the next man to come at me, and then I put my back against the priest’s house. That bought me a few heartbeats, and then I slipped around the corner — the clearing was full of men on horseback and summer dust.
Just for a moment, the woods beckoned.
But I had made my decision. Briseis was lost. Greece was lost.
I ran in among them. I was not blood-mad — in fact, I was as fastidious as I have ever been. My long xiphos is a wonderful thrusting weapon, a killing tool beyond compare. Cuts are all very well when you are desperate, but when you want to kill, the thrust is the thing. I thrust quickly, putting the tip three or four fingers into a victim and then pulling it out and moving on. I didn’t discriminate — I struck horses and men, whatever offered. I was determined to keep moving, to do all the damage I could.
Truly, I have no idea how long this went on. I took some cuts, and an arrow went right through my shield and struck my left hand in the antelabe, but by some joke of the gods it emerged where my two missing fingers weren’t.