Shield Of Thunder Part 37

"Your name, soldier?" the leader demanded.

"Kleitos of the Panthers, sir," Kalliades replied, slurring a little. "This is Thoas. He's drunk."

"We are hunting for children," the leader told him. "Agamemnon King wants any brats still in the city found and taken to him."

"We're looking for women, not their brats." Kalliades laughed.

The leader grinned. "Of course you are, soldier, but the two often come together. And Agamemnon is offering a silver ring for any child brought to him. A silver ring will buy you as many women as you need when we get home."

"I'll bear it in mind," Kalliades said cheerfully. "But better to ride one woman now than ten as a promise. And tonight's will cost me nothing!" He turned to Polites. "Keep up, you drunken sot," he shouted, and they hurried on.

The area by the Scaean Gate, a killing ground only the day before, was empty of life. A few blackened corpses lay in the wetness, but no one living could be seen. The great gate was closed and the heavy locking bar in place, trapping them inside the city as effectively as it once had kept the enemy out.

Polites looked up at the tower and for a moment thought he saw movement at the battlement door. He pointed, and Kalliades narrowed his eyes.

"Are you sure?" the warrior asked, doubt written across his face. Polites nodded, and they both made for the stone steps. Kalliades ran up lightly despite the heavy armor and his injured leg. Polites followed more slowly.

Inside the tower it was pitch black, but it was a relief to get out of the wind. The only sound now was the drumming of rain on the wooden roof far above. They no longer had to yell to each other.

Polites advised the warrior, "Stay to the left, as close to the wall as you can. The steps are well worn, but they should not be slippery."

The climb in total darkness was terrifying even for Polites, who had been this way by torchlight so many times. He was a.s.sailed by doubts now. Could Priam have gotten this far? Could he have taken Astyanax up the steps in total darkness? He realized they should have checked at the bottom of the tower first to see if there was a small body there. By the time they reached the top, Polites had convinced himself they were chasing chimeras.

At last he felt the clean night air on his face and the rain, and he saw Kalliades step out onto the roof ahead of him. The sky had lightened, and he realized it was almost dawn. The thunder and lightning went on unabated. A new fear struck him. He had heard of men in armor being struck by lightning.

He stepped onto the roof. For a heartbeat he could see nothing, his senses blunted by the wind whipping rain across the high tower. Then the thunder rolled overhead, and a brilliant flash of lightning forked down through the sky. By its light they could see Priam standing on the parapet on the far side. His long white hair and gray robe were flying behind him in the wind, as if he were falling already. He held the child out in front of him, motionless in his arms.

His heart hammering in his chest, Polites stepped toward his father, fearing he would plunge out of sight at any moment.

Priam turned and saw him.

"What are you doing, Polites, you fool?" The king's voice, loud and rich with contempt, was carried toward them on the wind. "I did not order you here."

"I came to find the boy, Father. Andromache was concerned. She did not know where he was." Polites could see the child's face now. His blue eyes were open, and he stared at Polites in terror.

"He is with his father," the king told him. "Who else can keep him safe, Polites? Not you, you fool. Nor his wh.o.r.e of a mother. I am showing him to great Zeus. He is the Eagle Child and precious to the All-Father."

His father? Polites wondered what he meant. Beside him Kalliades asked him with wonder, "How did he manage to get here without being captured?"

Polites replied, "The king knows his city better than anyone. And when he is lucid, he is as cunning as three foxes."

As they spoke, Priam looked down at the child, and confusion appeared on his features. They saw his pale face fall into its usual picture of fear and despair.

Polites stepped forward quickly, fearing that the old man would drop the boy in his panic. "Let me take baby Hektor," he offered. "The queen is asking for him."

Priam looked down at the child. "Hektor," he crooned. "My best boy."

Polites reached out, and Priam handed Astyanax over. Only then did the boy begin to cry quietly. Polites thrust him at Kalliades.

"Take him to his mother," he ordered.

Kalliades looked at him and then at the king, hesitating.

"Go now, Kalliades. He must be saved. He is the Eagle Child."

Kalliades frowned. The words clearly meant nothing to him, but he nodded. "Yes, lord," he said, and in an instant he was gone, disappearing swiftly down the steps, the boy in his arms.

"Come, Father, you must rest," Polites said gently, taking his father's hand and drawing him down from the parapet.

"Where am I?" the old man cried fearfully. "I don't know where I am."

"We are on the Great Tower of Ilion, Father. We are watching for Troy's enemies. When they come, we will destroy them."

The old man nodded and slumped to the floor. Polites could see that he was beyond exhaustion. Polites sat down as well and started removing some of his armor. He knew they both would die there.

When at last the enemy came, there were just two of them, Mykene soldiers. One was big, with long unkempt red hair and a full beard. The other was thin and small. They climbed up onto the roof, and both grinned, exchanging feral glances as they saw the sick old man and his son.

Polites stood wearily, dragging out his sword and trying to remember the lessons he had been taught in the long-distant past. Two-handed, he held the blade up before him and stepped in front of his father.

The redheaded soldier unsheathed his sword and walked toward him. The other stood and watched, smiling in antic.i.p.ation.

The soldier lunged at his chest, but Polites skipped nervously back, and the sword glanced off the bronze disks of his breastplate. The soldier feinted to the left, and as Polites moved slowly to block the move, he stepped in and sank the blade into Polites' side. It felt like the blow of a hammer. His legs crumpled, and he went down on the rain-soaked roof, agony coursing through him.

Polites looked up as the soldier raised his sword for the killing blow. Then he suddenly was showered with blood as the man's throat was ripped open by an expertly thrown dagger. Priam stepped forward, growling, "Die, you dogs!" and picked up the dead man's sword.

The other Mykene ran in, fury on his face. "By Hades, you'll pay for that, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he shouted, and swung his sword at the king in a ferocious arc. Priam got his sword up, and the blades clashed, sparks flying in the half-light.

The king stumbled back; then his old legs failed him, and he went down on one knee.

As the soldier loomed over him, Polites s.n.a.t.c.hed the dagger from the dead man's throat and lunged at the attacker's inner thigh. He was too weak and missed his target, merely cutting the skin. But as the soldier swung around at him, Priam hefted the sword and plunged it into the man's back. The Mykene fell to his knees, his eyes staring, then toppled forward, dead.

Drowning in a sea of pain, Polites dragged himself over to the king. "You killed them, Father," he panted weakly. "But there will be more."

Priam bared his teeth in a confident grin. "My son will save us," he promised. "Hektor will arrive in time. Hektor never lets me down."

Polites nodded, clutching his side and watching the blood pumping through his fingers. "He is a good son," he agreed sadly. Then he closed his eyes and slept.

It was full daylight when he opened his eyes again. More than a dozen Mykene warriors were walking toward them across the roof. Polites sighed and tried to move, but his limbs would not work, and he lay there helpless. He was terribly tired, but he felt no fear. He turned his head and saw that his father somehow had climbed back onto the parapet. The words of Ka.s.sandra came to him: "Priam will outlive all his sons." He thought of her and smiled.

"Goodbye, Father," he whispered as the old man threw himself from the tower. The last thing he saw was a sword swinging at his neck.

The storm had swept in from Thraki, from the cold heights of the Rhodope Mountains. Its burden of icy rain did little to slow the north wind, a wind strong enough to flay the roofs from peasants' homes and fishermen's huts and tear stout branches from trees. Centuries-old oaks, their deep roots loosened in the bone-dry summer, toppled under its might on the slopes of Mount Ida, and wild animals ran for shelter from its howling fury.

The gold roof of Priam's palace clattered in the gale as the wind tried to pry its precious covering free. All across the city terra-cotta roof tiles were flung about the streets like leaves, and the walls of ruined palaces collapsed.

On the steep hillside outside Troy, Khalkeus the bronzesmith looked into the teeth of the gale and rejoiced.

"Boreas, the north wind. The Devourer, they call him," he muttered to himself happily. "Let the Devourer eat up the star stones and spit them out for me!"

He gazed up proudly at the towering furnace, the biggest he had built after many failed attempts. The stone tower was square at the base, just two paces to a side, yet it was as high as the walls of the city. His first attempt had toppled over, confounding his calculations of the necessary thickness of the walls. The second and third had been torn down by enemy soldiers while he had hidden close by in the woods, seething with fury at their casual destruction of his labor. But he had braved the Mykene camp and spoken to Agamemnon. Since then the soldiers had left him alone. His last two attempts had been successful in their way. They had built up the necessary heat, but both had burned down, taking the remaining structures on the hillside with them. Khalkeus simply had started again.

"Patience, patience," he told himself aloud. "Nothing useful was ever wrought without patience."

He regretted that he had no one to discuss the project with. The Golden One would have been interested, would have understood the construction of the furnace and praised Khalkeus for the valuable work he was doing. With the metal of Ares, Khalkeus would make the perfect sword, one that would not bend or break and that never would get dull.

He had been pleasantly surprised by his conversation with Agamemnon. Khalkeus loathed the Mykene as a race. They were plunderers, pirates, and murderers. He always had imagined that their king would be a brute without intelligence or imagination. But he had asked thoughtful questions about Khalkeus' work and promised to fund his experiments once the war was over. Khalkeus did not trust him entirely, but the bronzesmith certainly could expect no more support from the Trojans.

A tiny flicker of doubt entered his mind. Another weapon, Khalkeus? he asked himself. After seeing so many men die because of your inventions, do you really want to create another weapon to put in the hands of violent men? He shook his head, shaking free the annoying thought.

Khalkeus had forecast the storm as early as the previous day, and to heat up the furnace he had worked all night and all day. Like a madman, he chortled to himself, the Madman from Miletos!

The furnace had been filled with dry olive branches and white limestone chips for purity. Then he had piled in the batches of gray sponges that were all he had succeeded in making from smelting the red rocks. At the bottom of the furnace was a square door, and inside the door was a shallow pottery bowl to receive the molten metal. At the base of the bowl a tube ran out of the furnace to the sword-shaped casting mold. The door controlled the updraft. It was now fully open, and the ferocious wind gusting around the plateau had built up the heat far beyond what he had achieved before.

Nervously, Khalkeus stepped back a few more paces from the intense heat. I cannot stop it now, he told himself. It is in the hands of the G.o.ds. Rolling thunder overhead scarcely could be heard above the deafening roar of the furnace. The howl was like the voice of Cerberus in the gathering darkness.

Then, just as he had feared and dreaded, the huge furnace trembled and suddenly shattered. A roaring blast of heat ripped across the hillside, knocking Khalkeus over. As the fire leaped out from its confines, rocks and debris rained down, narrowly missing him. Half-dazed, he cried out in frustration and beat feverishly at his singed hair and beard.

Rolling over, he crawled on trembling limbs to the edge of the hill and looked over, s.h.i.+elding his eyes from the blaze. Only paces from where he lay, in the middle of the debris, he saw with amazement that the furnace had fulfilled its task before its destruction. The furious heat had turned the star metal to liquid, and it had poured, as intended, into the sword mold even as the chimney had collapsed. The cover over the casting had been torn away, and rain was quenching the red-hot metal.

Hope surged in the old man's breast. There was a sword, but was it the perfect sword he had dreamed of?

As Khalkeus watched, unbelieving, the last section of chimney toppled slowly toward the sword mold. The smith cried out in an agony of fear as it hit the edge of it, flipping it over, throwing the red-hot sword sizzling into the mud.

Khalkeus scrambled down toward it, struggling to put on the heavy leather gauntlets that hung around his neck. As he touched the glowing sword, the glove instantly smoldered, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away. He sat gazing greedily at the weapon, only half-aware that the fire had spread to the remaining trees and shrubby undergrowth unscathed by previous blazes.

Slowly, very slowly, the light in the sword died as it cooled under the relentless rain. Khalkeus reached forward and cautiously picked it up.

It was just before sunrise and the storm was past when Kalliades returned to the palace with Astyanax. As he had left the great tower, it had dawned on him how Priam had gotten there: He had walked along the walls. This must be the first time in generations, he thought, when the walls are not manned. Striding swiftly along them, he had met only a couple of soldiers. Both had been drunk, and on this night no one questioned a man in Mykene armor carrying a child.

When he came within a bowshot of the palace, Kalliades started shouting. "Open the gates! It is Kalliades!" He did not want an overenthusiastic archer shooting him down. He heard his name yelled on the wall. The high bronze-reinforced gates slowly opened, and he slid through the gap. Andromache and Banokles were waiting for him on the other side. He handed the child to the princess, who clutched him close to her.

"Mama," the little boy said sleepily.

Tears of relief and joy ran down Andromache's face. Gently she kissed her son's cheek. "I am in your debt, Kalliades. Be certain I shall not forget," she said gravely. "But what of Priam and Polites?"

"I left them together." He was unwilling to give her false hope. "I do not expect them to live. Even now this child might be king of Troy."

She nodded sadly, then turned and walked back to the palace, holding her son tightly.

Banokles asked, "Are you going to keep that on?" pointing at the distinctive Mykene armor. "You don't want one of our lads killing you by mistake. That would be annoying."

Kalliades grinned and sent a soldier to fetch his own armor. Then he wearily followed Banokles up the steps to the top of the ramparts. The palace walls were twice the height of a man. The attackers would need ladders, but they had had plenty of time to make them.

"Well, strategos, strategos," he commented to Banokles, looking at the waiting soldiers. "What is our plan?"

"I spoke to the men," Banokles replied, "and told them to kill every b.a.s.t.a.r.d who comes at them and keep on killing until they are all dead."

"Good plan," Kalliades answered. "I like it. It has the advantage of simplicity." He smiled and felt all his tension ease away. Banokles was right. They had reached the end now, and there were no more decisions to make. They would fight, and they would live or die.

Banokles grinned back at him and shrugged. "Everyone likes a plan they can understand."

"How many are we?"

"Fewer than three hundred now, mostly with wounds. Fifty or so Eagles still. And some Trojan Horse. We could do with Hektor here now."

He lowered his voice to a loud whisper. "And there's that woman." He nodded his head, looking along the wall to where Penthesileia stood, bow in hand, staring out at the city. She was wearing a high helm as well as the breastplate. Gazing at her profile, Kalliades thought she looked like the G.o.ddess Athene garbed for war.

"Hillas reckons she's a wonder," Banokles confided. "Can shoot the b.a.l.l.s off a flea at fifty paces."

"Hillas does? This is the same Hillas who thinks women warriors should be buried alive for their insolence?" does? This is the same Hillas who thinks women warriors should be buried alive for their insolence?"

"I know. I wouldn't have believed it, either. Perhaps he's in love," Banokles mused. "Though she's plain as a rock and thin as a blade. I don't like bony women. I mean, what's the point?"

Only half listening, Kalliades sat down with his back to the wall and yawned. He was tired beyond reason, his wounded leg ached, and he was heavy of heart. He never had wished to be a Trojan. The warriors of the Lion's Hall always had despised the armies of the City of Gold. True warriors were lions among the sheep, they believed, taking the battle to the enemy in the name of the war G.o.d Ares. The soldiers of Troy hid behind their high walls, resting on the riches of Priam.

Banokles had been right to ask, Who are we fighting for? There was no treasure and no king, and the high walls had been rendered meaningless.

Kalliades thought back to the day when, as a child, he had hidden in the flax field as brutal men had raped and killed his sister. On that day he had vowed to avenge her by seeking out such men and killing them. He had joined the forces of the Mykene still firm in his intention. Yet somehow over the years his vow had been forgotten, and he had found that he was fighting side by side with such brutes. Kalliades never had raped a woman or killed a child, but many of his comrades had, men he was proud to call friends.

Rescuing Piria from the pirates had changed his life in many ways. It had made him remember his pledge in the flax field. And he knew he could never turn away from it again.

"In answer to your question-" he said to Banokles.

"What question?"

"You asked me what we are fighting for. That little boy. Astyanax is king of Troy now. We're fighting for him. But not because he is the king. We fight today for all the women and old men relying on us in the palace, people who cannot fight for themselves. We will use our swords to protect the weak, not to kill them and take what they own. That is for lesser men."

Banokles shrugged. "If you say so," he answered. Then he squinted into the growing light. "Here they come!" he said.

Kalliades rolled to his feet and risked a glance over the crenellated wall. His heart sank. They were still facing a horde. It seemed like the hundreds they had killed at the Scaean Gate had counted for nothing. At least most of the defenders had had a night's rest while the attackers had been carousing and killing.

He heard the clatter of ladders. .h.i.tting the other side of the wall.

Suddenly Banokles stood up and roared at the enemy, "I am Banokles! Come at me and die, you sc.u.m!" A volley of arrows soared over the wall. One shaft grazed his ruined ear, and he ducked down quickly, grinning.

Looking at each other, they both waited a few heartbeats, then as one leaped up to face the enemy. A huge Mykene warrior had reached the top of the ladder, and the sword of Argurios ripped into his face. Kalliades sent a reverse cut into the bearded face of another attacker, then glanced along the outside of the wall. There were only twenty or so ladders to this section. All we have to do, he thought, is kill twenty warriors, then keep on doing it until the attack fails.

To his right Banokles swept his sword through the throat of an attacker, then brained another. A warrior with a braided beard came over the wall, an ax in one hand. Banokles let him come and then, as he cleared the ramparts, ducked and plunged a sword into the man's belly. As he fell, Banokles stabbed him in the back. He grabbed the man's ax and swung it at the next attacker, smas.h.i.+ng through his shoulder and breastplate.

Arrows soared over the wall. Most were too high, and they flew harmlessly into the courtyard, but two defenders went down, and one shaft stuck high in Banokles' breastplate.

To his left Kalliades saw that three Mykene warriors had forced their way to the ramparts, giving the enemy a foothold and allowing more to follow. Kalliades charged the group, cutting one down instantly and shoulder charging the second, who crashed down, his head bouncing against the ramparts wall. The third man lunged with his sword at Kalliades' belly. A Royal Eagle blocked the blade and slashed his sword through the attacker's neck. The second man tried to rise, and Kalliades plunged his blade down through his collarbone and into his chest. He glanced at the Eagle who had helped him and saw it was Polydorus.

"For the king!" the young aide shouted, gutting another attacker and hacking at the neck of another.

And the battle raged on.