The Golden One took her hand and kissed it. “You see, Orion,” he said to me, “you are dealing with forces far beyond your scope. Perhaps it would be better if I eliminated you now, once and for all.”
“As you eliminated the one called Athene?” I snarled.
“More insolence!”
“Destroy him now and be done with it,” said one of the other males.
The Golden One nodded, a half-reluctant smile on his lips. “I’m afraid you’ve outlived your usefulness, Orion.”
“Leave him alone.”
The words were spoken in a hissing, rasping whisper, but they froze all the gods and goddesses ringed around me.
They stepped aside to make room for a burly, massive figure who walked slowly toward me. It was as if they were afraid to touch him, afraid that his powerful arms would crush them if he merely reached out. His shoulders were rounded, but broad and thick with muscle. His body was heavy and deep, his legs shorter than I would have expected, but equally massive and powerful. His face was wide, with eyes that burned red beneath thick brows.
Unlike the others in their splendid robes, he wore a black leather vest and knee-length kilt of forest green. His skin was gray, the hair of his head black and pulled straight back. Despite his slightly bent posture he loomed over me and all the others there.
He came straight up to me, glowering before me like a smoldering volcano.
“Do you remember me?” His voice was a harsh, labored whisper.
“Ahriman,” I said, awed by his presence.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Then, “We have been enemies for long, long ages, Orion. Do you remember that?”
I looked deep into those red burning eyes and saw pain and hatred and a hunt that spanned fifty thousand years. I saw a battle in the snow and ice of a bygone era, and a struggle between us in other places, other times.
“It’s… all confused,” I said to him.
“Go back to your world, Orion,” said Ahriman. “Once you did me a good turn and now I repay the debt. Go back to your world and don’t tempt your destiny any further.”
“I’ll go back to my world,” I said. “And I’ll help the Achaians to conquer Troy.”
The gods and goddesses remained silent, although I could feel the anger radiating from the Golden One.
Chapter 18
I awoke with the first light of day, as one of the camp’s roosters raised his raucous cry of morning. As I went to pull my gray linen tunic over my head, I noticed the long thin slice of a cut oozing blood down my chest. I willed the capillaries to clamp themselves down and the bleeding stopped.
So the physical body is actually transported to the other realm, I said to myself. It’s not merely a trick of the mind, a projection of one’s mentality. The body moves from one universe to the other, as well.
Lukka and his men were already heading off toward the river to cut down the trees from which they would build our siege tower. I spoke briefly with him before he left, then went to Odysseus’s quarters, up on his boat, to learn what had transpired in the council meeting.
The Trojans had sent a delegation to ask for the return of Hector’s dismembered body. Try as they might to keep Achilles’s death a secret, the Achaians were unable to prevent the Trojan emissaries from finding out the news: The whole camp was buzzing with it. The council met with the Trojan delegation, and after some debate agreed to return Hector’s body, and suggested a two-day truce in which both sides could properly honor their slain.
Once the Trojans had departed with the corpse of their prince, Agamemnon told the council about the siege tower. They swiftly decided to use the two days of truce to build the machine in secret.
I spent those two days with my Hatti troops, on the far side of the Scamander river, screened from Trojan eyes by the riverbank’s line of trees and shrubbery. Odysseus, who above all the Achaians appreciated the value of scouting and intelligence-gathering, spread a number of his best men along the riverbank to prevent any stray Trojan scouts from getting near us. I hoped that our hammering and sawing, which I was certain the Trojans could hear when the wind blew inland, would be taken as a shipbuilding job and nothing more.
We commandeered dozens of slaves and thetes to do the dogwork of hewing trees and carrying loads. Lukka was a born engineer, and directed the construction with dour efficiency. The tower took shape swiftly, and on the evening of the last day of truce Agamemnon, Nestor, and the other leaders came across the river to inspect our work.
We had built it horizontally, laying it along the ground, partly because it was easier to do that way but mainly to keep it hidden behind the tree line. Once it got dark enough, I had several dozen slaves and thetes haul on ropes to pull it up into its true vertical position. Agamemnon peered up at it. “It’s not as tall as the city walls,” he complained.
While Lukka and his men had been building, I had been planning how best to use the tower. We had time only for one of them, if we were to strike as soon as the truce ended. So we needed to strike where it would do us the most good.
“It is tall enough, my lord king,” I replied, “to top the western wall. That is the weakest section. Even the Trojans admit that that section of their walls was not built by Apollo and Poseidon.”
Nestor bobbed his white beard. “A wise choice, young man. Never defy the gods, it will only bring you to grief. Even if you seem to succeed at first, the gods will soon bring you low because of your hubris. Look at poor Achilles, so full of pride. Yet a lowly arrow wound has been his downfall.”
As soon as Nestor took a breath, I rushed to continue, “I have been inside the city. I know its layout. The west wall is on the higher side of the bluff. Once we get past that wall we will be on the high ground, and very close to the palace and temple.”
Odysseus agreed. “I too have served as an emissary, if you recall, and I studied the city’s streets and buildings carefully. Orion is right. If we broke through the Scaean gate, for example, we would still have to fight through the streets, uphill every step of the way. Breaking in over the west wall is better.”
“Can we get this thing up the hill to the wall there?” Agamemnon asked.
“The slope is not as steep at the west wall as it is to the north and east,” I said. “The southern side is the easiest, where the Scaean and Dardanian gates are located. But it’s also the most heavily defended, with the highest walls and tall watchtowers alongside each gate.”
“I know that!” Agamemnon snapped. He poked around the wooden framework, obviously suspicious of what was to him a new idea.
Before he could ask, I said, “It would be best to roll it across the plain tonight, after the moon goes down. There should be a fog coming in from the sea. We can float it across the river on the raft we’ve built and roll it over the plain on its back, so that the mist will conceal us from any Trojan watchmen on the walls. Then we raise it…”
Agamemnon cut me off with a peevish wave of his hand. “Odysseus, are you willing to lead this… this maneuver?”
“I am, son of Atreus. I plan to be the first man to step onto the battlements of Troy.”
“Very well then,” said the High King. “I don’t think this will work. But if you’re prepared to try it, then try it. I’ll have the rest of the army ready to attack at first light.”
We got no sleep that night. I doubt that any of us could have slept even if we had tried. Nestor organized a blessing for the tower. A pair of aged priests sacrificed a dozen rams and goats, slitting their throats with ancient stone knives as they lay bound and bleating on the ground, then painting their blood on the wooden framework. They fretted that there were no bulls or human captives to sacrifice; Agamemnon did not think enough of the project to allow such wealth to be wasted on it.