Then I saw the blow that ended the battle. Everything still seemed to move in slow-motion for me. Arrows flew through the air so lazily that I thought I could snatch one in my bare hand. I could tell where warriors were going to send their next thrust by watching their eyes and the muscles bunching and rippling beneath their skin.
Still fighting at the narrowing entrance to the gate, I had to turn almost ninety degrees to deal with the Trojan warriors who were battling their way to the doors in their effort to reach safety. I saw Achilles, his eyes burning with bloodlust, his mouth open with wild laughter, hacking at any Trojan who dared to come within arm’s length. Up on the battlements a handsome man with long flowing golden hair leaned out with a bow in his hands and fired an arrow, fledged with gray hawk feathers, toward Achilles’s unprotected back.
As if in a dream, a nightmare, I shouted a warning that was drowned out in the cursing, howling uproar of the battle. I pushed past a half-dozen furiously battling men and reached for Achilles as the arrow streaked unerringly to its target. I managed to get a hand on his shoulder and push him out of its way.
Almost.
The arrow struck him on the back of his left leg, slightly above the heel. Achilles went down with a high-pitched scream of pain.
Chapter 16
FOR an instant the world seemed to stop. Achilles, the seemingly invulnerable champion, was down in the dust, writhing in agony, an arrow jutting out from the back of his left ankle.
I stood over him and took off the head of the first Trojan who came at him with a single swipe of my sword. Odysseus and Diomedes joined me and suddenly the battle had changed its entire purpose and direction. We were no longer trying to force the Scaean gate; we were fighting to keep Achilles alive and get him back to our camp.
Slowly we withdrew, and in truth, after a few moments the Trojans seemed glad enough to let us go. They streamed back inside their gate and swung its massive doors shut. I picked Achilles up in my arms while Odysseus and the others formed a guard around us and we headed back to the camp.
For all his ferocity and strength, he was as light as a child. His Myrmidones surrounded us, staring at their wounded prince with round, shocked eyes. Achilles’s unhandsome face was bathed with sweat, but he kept his lips clamped together in a painful white line as I carried him past the huge windblown oak just beyond the gate.
“I was offered a choice,” he muttered, behind teeth clenched with pain, “between long life and glory. I chose glory.”
“It’s not a serious wound,” I said.
“The gods will decide how serious it is,” he replied, in a voice so faint I hardly heard him.
Halfway across the bloody plain six men carrying a stretcher of thongs laced across a wooden frame met us, and I laid Achilles on it as gently as I could. He grimaced, but did not cry out or complain.
Odysseus put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You saved his life.”
“You saw?”
“I did. The arrow was meant for his heart.”
“How bad a wound do you think it is?”
“Not too bad,” said Odysseus. “But he will be out of action for many days.”
We trudged across the dusty plain side by side. The wind was coming in off the water again, blowing dust in our faces, forcing us to squint as we walked toward the camp. Every muscle in my body ached. Blood was crusted on my sword arm, my legs, spattered across my tunic.
“You fought very well,” Odysseus said. “For a few moments there I thought we would force the gate and enter the city at last.”
I shook my head wearily. “We can’t force a gate that is defended. It’s too easy for the Trojans to hold the narrow opening.”
Odysseus nodded agreement. “Do you think your Hatti troops can really build a machine that will allow us to scale their walls?”
“They claim they have done it before, at Ugarit and elsewhere.”
“Ugarit,” Odysseus repeated. He seemed impressed. “I will speak with Agamemnon and the council. Until Achilles rejoins us, we have no hope of storming one of their gates.”
“And little hope even with Achilles,” I said.
He looked at me sternly, but said nothing more.
Poletes was literally jumping up and down on his knobby legs when I returned to the camp.
“What a day!” he kept repeating. “What a day!”
As usual, he milked me for every last detail of the fighting. He had been watching from the top of the rampart, of course, but the mad melee at the gate was too far and too confused for him to make out.
“And what did Odysseus say at that point?” he would ask. “I saw Diomedes and Menalaos riding side by side toward the gate; which of them got there first?”
He set out a feast of thick barley soup, roast lamb and onions, flat bread still hot from the clay oven, and a flagon of unadulterated wine. And he kept me talking with every bite.
I ate, and reported to the storyteller, as the sun dipped below the western sea’s edge and the island mountaintops turned gold, then purple, and then faded into darkness. The first star gleamed in the cloudless violet sky, so beautiful that I understood why every culture named it after its love goddess.
There was no end of questions from Poletes, so finally I sent him to see what he could learn for himself of Achilles’s condition. Partly it was to get rid of his pestering, partly to soothe a strange uneasiness that bubbled inside me. Achilles is doomed, a voice in my head warned me. He will not outlive Hector by many hours.
I tried to dismiss it as nonsense, battle fatigue, sheer nerves. Yet I sent Poletes to find out how bad his wound really was.
“And find Lukka and send him to me,” I called to his retreating back.
The Hatti officer looked grimly amused when he came to my fire and saluted by clenching his fist against his breast.
“Did you see the battle?” I asked.
“Some of it.”
“What do you think?”
He made no attempt to hide his contempt. “They’re like a bunch of overgrown boys tussling in a town square.”
“The blood is real,” I said.
“Yes, I know. But they’ll never take a fortified city by storming defended gates.”
I agreed.
“There are enough good trees on the other side of the river to build six siege towers, maybe more,” Lukka said.
“Start building one. Once the High King sees that it can be done, I’m sure he’ll grasp the possibilities.”
“I’ll start the men at first light.”
“Good.”
“Sleep well, sir.”
I almost gave a bitter laugh. Sleep well, indeed. But I controlled myself enough to reply, “And good sleep to you, Lukka.”
Poletes came back soon after, his face solemn in the dying light of our fire, his gray eyes sad.
“What’s the news?” I demanded as he sank to the ground at my feet.
“My lord Achilles is finished as a warrior,” said Poletes. “The arrow has cut the tendon in the back of his heel. He will never walk again without a crutch.”
I felt my mouth tighten grimly.
Poletes reached for the wine, hesitated, and cast me a questioning glance. I nodded. He poured himself a heavy draft and gulped at it.
“Achilles is crippled,” I said.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Poletes sighed. “Well, he can live a long life back in Phthia. Once his father dies he will be king, and probably rule over all of Thessaly. That’s not so bad, I think.”