Shouting, he raised his mighty shield, and charged down the earthworks at Hector like a fury. Jumping out of the chariot he cried his challenge. Hector was ready to oblige him. He cast his javelin which rebounded from Akhilles's shield, then, sword in one hand and shield in the other, swiftly engaged Akhilles in combat. Even where she stood Kassandra could feel the shock of that first blow, from which they both reeled back, staggering, several feet.
She knew that Andromache was beside her, clutching at her arm so strongly that her nails dug into Kassandra's skin. This battle had been inevitable from the moment Patroklos was killed.
Kassandra shrieked with excitement. Behind the foot soldiers, who swept along to catch the Akhaian soldiers between the chariots, came the horses of the Amazons. Their arrows and swords dispatched many of the foot soldiers. Hector, engaged with Akhilles, now seemed taller and more formidable; Kassandra felt it was not her brother, but the shining War-God himself. Hector wounded Akhilles and the Akhaian went down; a cheer from the Trojan ranks seemed to revitalize him, and he was up again, beating Hector back toward his chariot. The Trojan prince jumped up and was fighting Akhilles from the step of the chariot, then pivoted the wheels and knocked Akhilles down as he rode almost over him. Akhilles recovered and flung his javelin. It rebounded from Hector's armor, but he followed it up with a mighty sword-slash that struck Hector in the neck.
Hector slumped in the chariot. Troilus grabbed the reins, and, knocking Akhilles down again, made a dash for the walls. Then the Amazons with their spears swept toward Akhilles but he was surrounded by at least two dozen of his own Myrmidons, who made a solid wall of shields around him. The Amazons were forced to retreat, for although they cut down ten or twelve of Akhilles's men there were always more.
The Myrmidons reached Hector's chariot when it was already under the walls of Troy, then storming after them came Akhilles in his own chariot, with only one horse - he had cut the other loose. He crashed his chariot deliberately into Hector's, spilling young Troilus out on to the ground. The boy landed on his feet and went down beneath the swarming Myrmidons. Andromache was screaming; Kassandra turned to quiet her, and when she looked back again, Akhilles had the reins of Hector's chariot and was racing back toward the Akhaian lines with Hector—or his body—still inside.
Troilus was fighting for his life. One of the Amazons swept up to him, killed three of Akhilles's men and snatched Troilus into her saddle. Paris and Aeneas were in hot pursuit of Akhilles but the men atop the earthworks repelled them with what seemed a wall of javelins on which their horses were impaled. The Amazon charge cut down the javelin wall, and rescued Paris and Aeneas, but their overturned chariots were in Akhaian hands. Akhilles with Hector and his chariot, had vanished from sight.
It took a hard-fought hour for the Trojans to make their way back to the gate, even covered by arrow-fire from the walls; and Andromache met them.
"You couldn't even recover his body?" she shrieked. "You left it in their hands?"
"We did our best," said Paris; he had lost most of his armor, and was leaning on his charioteer, bleeding from a great sword-cut across the thigh. "But with Akhilles leading his men—"
"Akhilles! Curse him forever! May his bones rot unburied on the shores of the Styx!" Andromache broke into a high wild scream of lamentation.
"Hector is dead! Now let Troy perish indeed!"
Hecuba joined in the keening, "He is dead! Our greatest of heroes is dead! Dead or in Akhaian hands—!"
"Oh, he's dead all right," Aeneas said grimly.
"Galls me to admit it, but without the Amazon charge we would all have been dead," said Deiphobos, who had lifted down Troilus from the Amazon saddle and was half carrying him, examining his wounds. Hecuba hurried to him and took him in her arms, beckoning for a healer-priest.
"Ah, my sons! My Hector, my first-born and my last-born in a single hour! Ah, most fateful of all battles! It has begun," Hecuba wailed, and crumpled senseless. Kassandra ran to kneel by her, suddenly terrified that the shock had killed her mother too.
"No, Troilus is alive," said Aeneas, lifting the old woman gently. "You must be strong, Mother, he will need your good care if you are not to lose him too." He turned Troilus over to the healer-priest, who restored him to consciousness with a sip of wine, then examined his wounds. Women were handing round wine; Aeneas took one of the cups and gulped.
"I think tomorrow I will take careful aim at Akhilles from the walls and try to get him off the field before we even venture out."
"He can't be killed that way," Deiphobos said. "That armor of his is God-forged; arrows bounce off it like twigs!"
"Not God-forged," said Penthesilea, "forged of solid iron. Have you any idea what it must weigh? Even my women's metal-tipped Skythian arrows cannot penetrate it."
Paris said in disgust, "There's an old tale that Akhilles is protected by spells so that no wound inflicted by a mortal can bring him down."
"Let me but get a weapon into his flesh," said Aeneas. "I'll guarantee to kill him. But we must go up and break the news to Priam; the worst news of all this year."
Kassandra said between her teeth, "We should have expected this. Hector killed Patroklos; Akhilles was ready for him the minute he put a foot outside the wall. This was not war but murder." And silently she wondered if there was that much difference.
"We must go to Akhilles at once," Aeneas said, "perhaps even before we tell our father; and ask a truce to bury and mourn our brother."
"Do you really think they will give it?" asked Paris sarcastically. "You think too well of them."
"They must grant it," said Aeneas. "We gave a truce for Pat-roklos's funeral games."
"If it comes to that," said Andromache, "I will go myself and kneel to Akhilles and beg back the body of my husband."
"They will return it," said Aeneas. "Akhilles is always talking of honor."
"Only his own, I notice," Kassandra said.
"Well then, his own honor will prompt him to do the honorable thing," Aeneas said. "They know me; let me go then with a delegation of Hector's own guard to bring home his body."
"We must tell Father first," said Troilus, rising from the healer's ministrations, very pale, his head wrapped in bandages. "If you wish it, I will tell him; I am to blame; I let him fall into Akhilles's hands—"
Hecuba embraced him fiercely. "No blame to you, my love. I rejoice that you did not follow him into death." She added, "But yes, go to Priam; nothing could comfort him for the loss of our first-born but the knowledge of the son we still have to bless us—"
"I will go and tell him," Paris said. "But first gather all my brothers; all of us who live still shall stand before him and be ready to comfort him."
"And I," said Kassandra, "I will go to the Maiden's Temple, and tell Polyxena; she and Hector were close in age and they loved each other well."
They had begun to set off on their various errands when Andromache went to the wall and let out a high wild shriek.
"Ah, the fiend, the monster! What is he doing now?"
"Who?" Kassandra asked, but she already knew; fiend, monster could be only one person. She rushed to the wall.
The sun was high; it was not yet noon. It had only seemed that they had watched the great battle for half of a day. There was a great cloud of dust on the plain before Troy; it cleared a little and she could see the chariot of Akhilles, with Akhilles himself standing upright, driving his matched horses. And in the dust at the tail of the chariot, a figure whose armor revealed clearly its identity.