Vengeance of Orion Read Free Page B

delegation to Achilles to beseech him to join the battle. I don't think it's going to work. Achilles is young and arrogant. He thinks his shit smells like roses."
    I laughed back at the old man.
    "You there!" The whipmaster pointed at us from the top of the mound. "If you don't get back to work I'll give you something to laugh about!"
    Poletes hoisted his half-filled basket up to his frail shoulders and started climbing the slope. I turned back to my shovel.
    The sun was high in the cloudless sky when the wooden gate nearest me creaked open and the chariots started streaming out, the horses' hooves thudding on the packed-earth ramp that cut across the trench. All work stopped. The overseers shouted for us to come up out of the trench and we scrambled eagerly up the slope of the rampart, happy to watch the impending battle.
    Bronze armor glittered in the sun as the chariots arrayed themselves in line abreast. Most were pulled by two horses, though a few had teams of four. The horses neighed and stamped their hooves nervously, as if they sensed the mayhem that was in store. There were seventy-nine chariots, by my count. Quite a bit short of the thousands that the poets sang about.
    Each chariot bore two men, one handling the horses, the other armed with several spears of different weights and length. The longest were more than twice the height of a warrior, even in his bronze helmet with its horse-hair plume.
    Both men in each chariot wore bronze breastplates, helmets, and arm guards. I could not see their legs but I guessed that they were sheathed in greaves, as well. Most charioteers carried small round targes strapped to their left forearms. Each warrior held a figure-eight shield that was nearly as tall as he was, covering him from chin to ankles. Every man bore a sword on a baldric that looped over his shoulder. I caught the glitter of gold and silver on the handles of the swords. Many of the charioteers had bows slung across their backs or hooked against the chariot rail.
    A shout went up as the last chariot passed through the gate and along the trodden-smooth rampway that crossed our trench. The four horses pulling it were magnificent matched blacks, glossy and sleek. The warrior in it seemed stockier than most of the others, his armor filigreed with gold inlays.
    "That's the High King," said Poletes, over the roar of the shouting men. "That's Agamemnon."
    "Is Achilles with them?" I asked.
    "No. But that giant there is Great Ajax," he pointed, excited despite himself. "There's Odysseus, and . . ."
    An echoing roar reached us from the battlements of Troy. A cloud of dust showed us that a contingent of chariots was filing out of a gate to the right side of the city, winding its way down an incline that led to the plain before us.
    Ground troops were hurrying out of our gates now, men-at-arms bearing bows, slings, axes, cudgels. A few of them wore armor or chain mail, but most of them had nothing more protective than leather jerkins, some studded with bronze pieces.
    The two armies assembled themselves facing each other on the windswept plain. A fair-sized river formed a natural boundary to the battlefield on our right, while a smaller stream defined the left flank. Beyond their banks on both sides the sandy ground was green with tussocks of long-bladed grass, but the battlefield had been worn bare by chariot wheels and the tramping feet of soldiery.
    For nearly a half hour, nothing much happened. Heralds went out and spoke with each other while the dust drifted away on the wind.
    "None of the heroes are challenging each other to single combat today," explained Poletes. "The heralds are exchanging offers of peace, which each side will disdainfully refuse."
    "They do this every day?"
    "So I'm told. Unless it rains."
    "Did the war really start over Helen?" I asked.
    Poletes shrugged elaborately. "That's the excuse. And it's true that Prince Aleksandros abducted her from Sparta while her husband's back was turned. Whether she