Disclaimer: Troy is not mine.
A/N: Yes, I finally got off my butt and updated again. There is one more chapter, which I will finish . . . sometime. Meanwhile, Achilles is having a tantrum, and will no doubt be most gratified if you give him your undivided attention.
The Fox and the Lion
IV: A Heart of Dust
"Hectooooorrrrrr!"
Salt blurred his vision, but Achilles blinked away the stinging tears, unashamed. Shame found no place in his heart, nor ever would again: that beating, aching vessel was claimed and consumed by anger alone. Rage had seared through him until he felt it had burned away all his excess emotions, stripping him to a vessel existing only to house it. That tempestuous anger dwarfed even sorrow. As for love, a mere shadow of it remained, driven into hiding by more violent humors. Unburdened by surplus feeling, he might have floated away in the Trojan wind, had anger not weighed on him like Sisyphus' stone. A tiny part of him remembered Briseis' wails as he vaulted into his chariot, but his own murderous screams drowned them out.
"Hectooooorrrrr!"
The walls trembled before his fury. The earth shivered beneath his feet, coughing dust. The great expanse of the Trojan plain stretched out behind him, no more desolate than his heart. The sky hovered blindingly overheard. He hoped the gods were watching. He wanted Apollo to watch the humiliation of Priam's son, favorite of the gods, the champion of Troy. Hector, who had murdered Patroclus. It was not the dead boy's youth that drove Achilles to such a rage, nor the kinship between them. It was the simple fact that Patroclus had been his, under his protection and honored by his love. Hector had stolen something dear to Achilles, and, like a thief, Hector would pay.
"Hectooooooorrr!"
He did not care that the doomed man's family watched from the city walls. He did not care that the outcome of the duel was predetermined. He cared least of all that his own death had been predicted, his shade fated to follow Hector's to Hades. Vengeance waited for him, and he would sink his teeth into it like a lion.
His horses snorted nervously as the minutes dragged. Hector came slowly, craven as his brother. Achilles laughed in his head. No doubt the weak-willed people of Troy were wailing over their hero, knowing him dead even now. Let them weep! When the city was taken, their tears would provide the salt that would sterilize their own land. He would watch them from the underworld, and know it was his doing. History would remember him: the man who brought down Troy. Odysseus would compose his poem on the heroes of the greatest war in all the ages, and Achilles would stand foremost among them.
His anger cooled and crystallized. Odysseus would write no odes in honor of Achilles. The Ithacan had come to his tent, behind the bier of Patroclus. They had spoken angrily.
"Why did you not stop him?" Achilles had sobbed. The servants had fled, cowed before his madness. Only one lamp remained alight; the others, overturned, had been extinguished in his fury. In a frenzy, he had trampled on the spoils of war, crushed the prized armor with his bare hands, broken spears and arrows to kindling. He hated them all, useless things which had not saved Patroclus' life. "Why?" Achilles repeated wildly.
Odysseus, unmoved, stood his ground. Wariness sat on his brow, but he gave no other sign of agitation. He was familiar with Achilles' tantrums, and though the guilt for this one rested partly on his own shoulders, he did not let the knowledge disturb him. "I did not know of this beforehand."
Achilles paused and rounded on him, face contorted. "You did not? You? You who know of all things afoot in the Achaean camp, and like the Trojan one as well? This, then, was the one and only secret you could not uncover?"
"It is no use blaming the boy's death on me," Odysseus said sharply, "Your own obstinacy has killed him. Had you not been too proud to fight, he would not have been driven to."
Lethal ire flamed in Achilles' eyes, and he spoke through gritted teeth. "I shall tear out your clever little tongue for those words."
"Hold, O Achilles!" Odysseus said, deftly evading the other man's grasp. He seemed to have no regard for his safety; mockery dripped from his voice, unconcealed and unapologetic. His taunts were cruel, but Achilles, too used to respecting that authoritative tone, faltered and listened despite himself. "My clever little tongue has not done. Your obstinacy killed the boy, and you know it, else you would not be bent on preventing me from saying so. Now, I shall tell you other things which will be unpleasant to your ear. The gods have had enough. You may well be the greatest warrior in the world, but you are not more important than the entire Greek army, nor are you an Olympian. Hubris brings down the anger of the immortal ones, Achilles! You thought your dignity more important than the lives of your fellows; now you have paid for it with the life of him you loved best."
"I will avenge him," Achilles whispered, tensed, bursting with an agony that sought to break free.
"So you will," Odysseus agreed, "but not upon my flesh."
"No!" The golden-haired man paced furiously around the tent. "Upon Hector, who demonstrates his prowess by murdering young boys! Hector, who took him from me!"
"It is meet," Odysseus said reflectively, "to avenge the death of a kinsman. However, I will give you one last word of advice: beware, lest you lose also her whom you love best."
And with that, the Ithacan swept through the tent flap and into the pale light of dawn. Achilles stared after him, his insides churning. But the words had not penetrated; they had fallen and glanced off, like rain on oiled cloth. Only anger remained, and the need to strike back at the one who had hurt him.
"Hectooooooooorrr!"
His throat had grown raw with wrath and dust, no more so than his heart. His fingers on the reins itched to hold a sword. Soon blood would soothe the chapped skin, burned by this cursed foreign sun.
He did not think of the blood already staining his hands. The marks were still there, dried. No doubt the complementary marks remained on her face as well. Briseis, the foolish girl, had tried to stop him, begging for the life of her cousin. She had clung to him with her soft hands of a priestess, like a servant of Aphrodite holding him back, making him weak. He had spun and struck her in the face, walked on without looking back. He did not notice the blood until he leaped into the chariot and grabbed the reins. By then, it was too late, and he cared for only one thing.
"Hectooooooorrrrrrr!"
And, at last, the gates of the city opened. The quarry had shown itself. Now it would die.
Achilles did not remember the battle very well, afterwards. Traces of his own voice, rude and sneering, echoed distantly. The movement of his hands and feet, the arc of sword and spear, the dance of the duel were vague shapes like shadows on the surface of water. A bright blankness seemed to blot out the memory, accompanied by a whispering as of the ghosts of Hades. Only the sense of purpose remained, single-minded and ruthless, and then the moment when it dissolved and Hector's dying breath whispered across his skin.
Yet the dissolution brought no peace. Hector's body lolled, lifeless clay, in the unforgiving dust, but the anger lingered, bereft now of an object on which to vent. Suddenly alone and conscious of himself once more, Achilles raised his eyes to where the king of Troy stood watching, safe behind the walls of his as yet untaken city. The sun shone serenely overhead, baking the bodies of the men, living and dead, as indiscriminately as the earth and desiccated tufts of vegetation on the plain. All was silent. There was nothing, nothing else which he might destroy. Nothing whose pain might heal his own pain at the loss of Patroclus.
He had only a corpse.
Stooping grimly, Achilles tied the feet of Hector's carcass to the back of his chariot. Let them see the price of challenging Achilles! Their greatest warrior was as dust to me; I shall drag him among his brethren. He thought suddenly of Briseis and Penelope, wine and blood but, snarling, tore the offending notions to shreds.
He drove three times around the walls of Troy, hauling the body of its most beloved son in the dirt. And now, finally, the anger ebbed away; but it did not leave peace in its wake. A cold, stark emptiness suffused him, as if it were he, and not Hector, who lay defiled on the plain. There was no warmth in his heart, only a terrible bleakness. Love had deserted him. The gods, Patroclus, Briseis, Odysseus had left him, repulsed by his pride and hatred. He was a shade already, drifting aimlessly through the dreary halls of hell. Odysseus.
Achilles turned from the city and urged the horses more quickly. He sped towards the camp with the trophy of his triumph behind him, vindicated, victorious. Yet Achilles felt it was not his enemy, but his own heart which lay, abandoned, in the dust.
A/N: Sorry it's so short. I'll try harder next time. :)