‘Follow them!’ Odysseus shouted, pointing across the sea of helmeted heads to where Paris and Deiphobus were turning their chariot about and driving back to the Scaean Gate.
Eperitus flicked the reins across the backs of the horses and sent them springing forward. The heavy wheels bounced across rocks and the softer bodies of dead men beneath the water, before biting into the mud of the far bank and driving up on to the sun-baked plain. All around them Trojans were running in headlong panic, no longer concerned with fighting but only with reaching the safety of the city walls. Some fell beneath the speeding chariot, while others were caught by the pursuing Greeks and cut down without mercy. Then Paris turned and saw Eperitus and Odysseus gaining on him. With a quick word to his brother, who gave a shout and drove the tired horses even harder, Paris fitted an arrow to his bow and took aim. Odysseus quickly threw up his shield, catching the bronze-tipped shaft in the upper rim. Paris fitted another arrow and Eperitus wrenched the reins to the left, running down a group of Trojan spearmen as the second shaft flew past his right ear.
‘Get after them!’ Odysseus hollered, watching in angry dismay as Paris and Deiphobus escaped towards the Scaean Gate.
Eperitus steered the chariot back round to the right, just as a series of shrill horn calls announced the opening of the Scaean Gate. In the same moment he heard Achilles’s loud voice booming over the din of battle.
The gates are opening! To the gates! To the gates!’
He swept past them in his chariot, his immortal horses riding down any man in his way as he dashed headlong towards the yawning gap opening up in the Trojan walls. He drove forward with such speed that, for a moment, Eperitus thought he would reach the gates and take them single-handedly, overturning all the prophecies of doom, and with one act of courage and shining skill eclipse the feats of every warrior who had lived before him, even Heracles himself. Men fled as he bore down on them, or leapt aside and threw their arms over their heads in fear. But as Paris and Deiphobus disappeared through the gate a new series of horn calls sounded from the walls above. They were followed by loud cheering as hundreds of heavily armed men came rushing out to meet the Greeks.
Paris jumped down from the back of the chariot, followed by Deiphobus. All around them the streets were packed with soldiers and civilians, mingling chaotically as the panic of war took hold of the city once more. In one direction, massed companies of fresh troops marched out to meet the encroaching enemy, while in the other the survivors of the battle were trickling in through the gate to slump exhausted against the cyclopean walls, there to have their wounds treated by the flocks of anxious-looking women who were waiting for them. Again, Achilles had helped the Greeks turn defeat into victory and Paris felt his frustration turning to anger.
‘Apheidas!’ Paris called, seeing the tall captain leading the reserves. ‘Apheidas, keep the Greek infantry away from the gates – the archers on the walls will help – but let Achilles push in closer. He’ll not wait for the rest and I want him to be separated from them.’
Apheidas frowned down at the prince.
‘That’s too risky, my lord. If he reaches the gates it could mean the fall of Troy.’
‘Apheidas is right, Brother,’ Deiphobus agreed. ‘Let’s just get as many men as we can back inside the walls before—’
‘No!’ Paris snapped. ‘Achilles killed Hector and I’m going to avenge his death with my own hands now. If I fail and Troy falls, what of it? She’ll succumb sooner or later anyway, if Achilles isn’t killed.’
Apheidas’s gaze remained on Paris for a short while, then without a word he turned and rejoined the stream of spearmen flooding out of the gates, the hooves of his horse echoing loudly between the high walls. As he went, Paris selected a particular arrow from the leather quiver at his hip and turned its long, black shaft between his fingers. The tip had been smeared with a dark grey paste that had dried to a textured hardness. What was in the paste Paris did not know; but when he had requested the arrow from Penthesilea – having heard of the deadliness of Amazon barbs – she boasted it would kill any man, woman or beast, however great, if it so much as pierced their flesh. And there was only one man he intended to use the arrow on.
He ran up a flight of steps to the top of the walls, followed closely by Deiphobus. The battlements were filled with archers, pouring a deadly fire into the horde of Greeks beyond the line of the sacred oak tree, where the Trojans were barely managing to keep their onslaught at bay. Paris shouldered his way between them and, fitting the arrow to his bow, peered down into the morass of struggling men below.
The sound of the battle washed over him like a strong wind and for a while he could barely identify any individual among the closely fought press. Then he noticed Apheidas directing more reserves towards the fight with the Greek infantry, while ordering others on his right to move back. And then, following the direction of Apheidas’s orders, Paris saw him – the hated figure of Achilles, now dismounted from his chariot and fighting in the shadow of the walls. He was alone in the midst of a crowd of Trojans, who refused to attack or retreat as they formed a circle about the most feared of all the Greeks.
Paris sneered with hatred as he fitted the well-made arrow to his bow.
‘Lord Apollo, hear my prayer. If you will make my aim straight – if you will aid me in killing Achilles this day – you shall have the fat and thigh bones of twenty calves before darkness falls.’
As the words left his lips he heard a rushing of wind coming, it seemed, from a great distance. He closed his left eye and took aim down the shaft of the arrow, letting the bronze tip wander this way and that until he found Achilles again, causing murderous havoc with his sword among the Trojan spearmen. His heart quickened in his chest and at the same time the firmness of his grip wavered, letting the point of the arrow drift alarmingly away from its target. He felt the sweat on his fingertips and knew his grip on the base of the arrow was beginning to slip. Unless he regained command of himself the shot would be wasted. And then the wind grew louder and a moment later he felt it fanning his hair and cloak as a great shadow fell over him.
The noise of battle raged about Odysseus and Eperitus. Having seen Achilles leap down from his chariot and plunge into the thick of battle, they had followed the prince’s example and rushed in after him on foot, only to be held back by the fleeing Trojans as they turned and fought, heartened by the arrival of reinforcements from the gate and supporting fire from the archers on the battlements. The Greek infantry caught up and charged into the hastily formed Trojan line, but were greeted by a hail of arrows that stopped them as effectively as if they had run into a stone wall. They charged again and the struggle that followed was as frenzied and confused as any battle Eperitus had ever known. The Trojans fought with a fury Eperitus had rarely seen before, and which was only matched by the determination of the Greeks to follow Achilles through the Scaean Gate and into the streets of Troy.