The spring dragged on into summer, and the Ethiopians drew ever closer. At first, the reports were vague and contradictory; they were here! No, they were on Cyprus! No, they had come through Egypt and were on their way over the sea to the Troad!
Since those concerned are long gone, I can say now that Agamemnon had many faults as a commander. However, let me give the man his due; he did not have to be convinced of the value of reconnaissance, and we always had good reconnaissance and good spies. If not for their tireless work, I do not think we would have had any accurate news about the movements of our enemies—for so they had already become.
Summer always saw the height of battle, because once it started to get dark early, we were reduced to night attacks, and nobody made war during the winter at all, except for isolated skirmishes or discreet cutting of supply lines. By that time, the Trojans had all but run out of supply lines to cut, and they could less easily afford to spare enough men to cut ours. It felt almost as though the long-awaited victory would be a dishonorable one: yes, so we would take the city. To what end? A couple of old men and some skinny women and children.
If one were so cynical, one ought to have enough sense of self-preservation to keep it to oneself. I threw myself into drilling the men under my command with a passion: they were young and green, just out of Pylos a few months back. Most of them were not out of their teens yet, and all of them still harbored romantic notions of warfare. Given that the odd, testing skirmish was not responsible for very many casualties, I was ill-equipped to prepare them for the shock they were due to receive upon fighting a real battle.
Hope rejuvenates people, and if Prince Memnon thought well enough of Priam to lead his men all the way to the Troad, then the Trojans were going to show him that they were, by all the gods, worth the effort. They got so that they believed it themselves.
The skirmishes grew longer; we fought harder, as though this were no longer a child's game or a pretense, but were the real thing again. Often, we still stopped at dusk; sometimes, we did not, and it might be pitch-black before both sides finally retreated. I remember a moment of panic late at night when I suddenly lost sight not only of Antilochus but also of my lieutenant, and had to remember not to fly after both of them shrieking like a woman.
And then one day, the thing that I feared came to pass.
The Ethiopians came.
I saw them first at dawn, which was only appropriate; they said that Prince Memnon was the son of rosy-fingered Eos. I could well believe it. His skin was darker than any I had ever seen, but he was as handsome, in his own way, as Achilles, and his armor was a showy golden affair. I've heard people say that it was pure gold, but I don't believe it; more probably, it was gilt. Whichever it was, it was well-chosen: it set off his dark skin and gave him the look of some beautiful, fierce, wild creature.
"Are you afraid?" my brother whispered to me.
"Yes," I whispered. For all our differences, for all the quarrels we'd had over the years, I could have no secrets from Antilochus, but one: that my fear was not for myself.
He smiled down at me from his chariot, not unkindly. "There's nothing to be afraid of, Thrass. I'm excited."
"You would be," I said, laughing and shaking my head, and for a moment, I forgot my fear. Some daimon put it in me to say, "Antilochus, promise me you'll be careful."
"There's glory to be had, and you talk of care?" He smiled and shook his head. "Of course I will, Thrass. I always am, especially with the horses." He patted Nikanor's rump; the beast whinnied and flicked its tail. "You take care of yourself, too."
"I'll do my best," I said.
"And take care of some Ethiopians."
"You, too." I laughed.
Antilochus swung himself out of the chariot, and, wonderful, unprecedented gift, threw his arms around me. He often did this to Achilles, whom I think tolerated it because he understood that Antilochus was more affectionate than he; he had never done it to me since he was old enough to be a soldier. "We're going to win," he told me. "We're going to mop the field with 'em."
"We sure are." In the blaze of my brother's enthusiasm, it was hard to disagree with him.
"The trumpets are sounding, you two," somebody said. They were indeed. "Take care," I whispered to Antilochus, "and keep an eye out for me, as I will for you. And don't overbook yourself."
"Same to you," he whispered back, climbing back into the chariot just in time for the trumpeters to sound the attack.
I'd been drilling my boys for months. I remember how absolutely clear and fearless I felt that day, how personally invincible, how confident I was in the men at my back. My father used to say, Show them you trust them and they'll repay your trust. They did that day, although at great cost to themselves; we lost two newly promoted officers and my lieutenant, as well as seventeen of the rank and file.
When you are fighting, you reach another place: you learn to recognize when someone is somewhere else, in that strange, gloriously clear space in his mind. Nothing seems real: you're not real, the man you're fighting isn't real, the battle raging around you isn't real. You are transformed. You have become a god, and the act of bloodshed almost seems holy.
I had reached that space. It was almost as though I were a priest, and the man before me was the sacrificial bull; he was so beautiful, in a young and sturdy way, that I felt sorry that it must be this way, but the pity faded and flickered, so that I could cut him down without feeling more than vestigial sorrow. I danced with Ethiopians and Trojans, with vestigial Thracians and Phrygians; that morning was an ecstasy of blood and sweat and dust.
I was a competent fighter. I will give myself that much. I don't have the hubris to class myself with an Achilles or a Diomedes, but then and there, I began to understand what they must feel, and to know a little of what made them what they were. Perhaps even my brother had a little of it in him; I will never know now.
When, finally, the battle-joy faded, I felt tired and sore, and I looked up in time to see my father's chariot collapsed somewhere, within eyeshot but too far for me to easily make the trip. He had managed to get out of it; it seemed that a wheel had come loose. Our father had had trouble with this wheel before and, in the manner of a man fanatically devoted to his chariot despite all evidence that it was no longer trustworthy, insisted that it was just because the stable boys didn't grease the axles properly. We knew better, but we could never convince him.
Ordinarily, I would have smiled and torn over to help our father out of his chariot, making some crack about the thing falling to pieces. Ordinarily, my father did not have a glittering blade poised above his head. Rooted where I stood, I clicked, squeaked, and gaped, glassy-eyed, at the terrible drama unfolding before me. I was vaguely cognizant of the clanking figures around me, the motions of sword and spear, the archers' victims fallen in the dust, but it simply did not register that any of this commotion might have any bearing on me personally.
"DON'T MOVE!" my brother's voice said, and oddly, contradictorily, the spell was broken; I felt my legs move reluctantly, taking weak-kneed steps towards my family gathered in the dust. Of course I couldn't make the journey uninterrupted; the odd spearman, or green Trojan boys who liked the look of my armor and wanted to take it off my dead body, occupied some of my attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I was always mindful of Antilochus' movements; he was busy with someone who seemed to have dark skin, an Ethiopian.
"Dad, I'm coming," I muttered, tossing aside the scrawny, chicken-chested corpse of a Trojan kid no older than my brother.
"Dad, I'm coming," Antilochus panted. Antilochus himself was caked with blood and dust, and when he flung out his arm to parry a blow, I saw the glint of the blade against his opponent's dark skin. "I'm coming. I'm going to fix this for you one more time before I go, and then I'm going to—"
He never finished his sentence.
I saw a flash of black and gold, and then my brother, mouth fallen open, sinking to his knees, the white of his tunic slowly turning red, the leather of his corselet pierced.
Oh dear Zeus, no.
Memnon pulled his blade free, and a river of blood followed; Antilochus leaned unsteadily, mouth working, and toppled to the ground. By the time I sprinted, out of breath, to my father (who was still blinking, dazed) and my brother, Memnon was gone. So was Antilochus; his eyes were still surprised and faintly angry, as though he had realized just what had happened.
No. NO!
I didn't realize I'd said it aloud until Aretus and Echephron found us. Aretus had managed to keep his head and chased Memnon before losing sight of him in a cloud of Thracians; failing the pursuit, he had returned to us. So had a couple of gangly Trojan kids who wanted Antilochus' armor; we held them off, although it meant we had to wait on fixing Dad's chariot. By the time we'd managed to beat the kids away, a few Pylians had found us, and so had a few other Greeks.
"Thrasymedes."
"Achilles," I panted, wanting to take off my armor (which now felt like a portable oven) and not daring. By the tents, it would have been excusable. Thinking about the heat kept my mind off my brother, as though the discomfort killed the numbness.
"Did you get him?"
"No. Aretus chased him, but—"
"Don't worry. I'll get him." The words were a grim promise, but oddly comforting.