Author's Note:
Next chapter is going to be the last one and the one where we find out where Maggie's going next. I hope that people have enjoyed this story and that some of you will follow Maggie into her fourth night. Thanks for reading and especially for reviewing! Thank you Salsagirl626, Starpossum, LOTRlover1066, Queenofinsanity, Girly.X.Girl, Sekowari, and Nausicaa of the Spirits. Thanks a lot! You are all awesome!
Chapter #11:
Since Achilles had made a deal not to attack Troy for twelve days I had some time to kill while waiting for the battle that I would get to be in now that I'd not left with the Myrmidons. Most of that time I spent walking around in a haze muttering. Some of these mutterings included:
"… don't see how they could miss the fact that I wasn't on the boat. I'm the only girl for crying out loud!"
"Stupid men and their gods cursed fascination with hacking at each other with pointy objects!"
"I will never drink wine again. I will never drink wine again. I will never drink wine again. I will never drink wine again."
Plus a few deranged comments about killing seagulls. All in all I was not a happy camper… (err soldier I guess). Neither, to my great surprise, was Achilles. He spent an annoying amount of time sitting by himself and staring out at the sea with an intense look on his face.
"Why so glum?" I asked him one day. "You get to participate in a battle, you ought to be jumping up and down with joy." Achilles fixed me with a glare. "Or whatever you do to express happiness."
"I care not for the battle anymore," he said, "I'm going into that city for one reason. To save Briseis." I decided that it was pointless to point out that as Priam's niece she had the whole Trojan army to protect her. Then Achilles said something that really shocked me. "I'm also going to die in that city."
"That's two reasons to go into the city," I pointed out. "And you are not going to die."
"You don't know a lot," was all he said. I resented it though he may have had a tiny point.
I also spent a lot of time before the battle talking with Odysseus. He was a really smart guy, even if I wouldn't trust him to watch my back during a fight. He spoke a lot about how much he missed his wife and son.
After what seemed like a year the big day came. The giant horse was finished, bodies of men who had died of disease were left to throw the Trojans off, and the boats were moved to a hidden cove.
"I guess you need someone to guard the boats during this big battle," I said to Odysseus and Achilles, "it would have to be someone really brave. I know! Me!" The two men exchanged exasperated looks.
"You're going to be in the battle," Achilles told me with a grin.
"You can stay with me," Odysseus assured me.
"No offence," I said apologetically, "but last time I fought with you I ended up dead. I'm sticking with Achilles." Achilles sighed as if some great burden had just been placed upon him while Odysseus clapped his back reassuringly.
Being inside of the horse and waiting for the Trojans to come was boring and cramped.
"I don't like this," I whined for about the thousandth time, "it's too small and I'm dieing of sunstroke as we speak."
"Shut up," several people growled. I thought I heard someone mutter that they would love to see me die of sunstroke but I'm sure I was mistaken about that. I sighed and went back to waiting for the Trojans to arrive. Finally we heard people talking outside.
"Plague," one man said, "don't get too close my king." I wondered if the bodies really did have the plague and if I was in danger of getting it. I wanted to ask but I doubted that any of the soldiers would know the answer to a medical question, (or any question that involved things other then how to kill).
"This is the will of the gods," someone else said. Actually it was the will of Agamemnon and he was king but he was not a god. "They desecrated the temple of Apollo, and Apollo desecrated their flesh." I sent up a quick prayer to the sun god to remind him that I hadn't done any desecrating and so there was really no reason to punish little old me.
"They thought they could come here and sack our city in a day," the first man said, "now look at them, fleeing across the Aegean." Wrong! I only wished we were fleeing, hell I would trade anything to travel back in time. I would pick my hung over self up and drag myself onto that ship.
"What is this?" Priam asked.
"An offering to Poseidon," well it took them long enough to get around to the giant horse sitting in front of them, "the Greeks are praying for a safe return home." And how right he was! I'd been praying for that since we started. "This is a gift. We should take it to the temple of Poseidon."
"I think we should burn it," I heard Paris say.
"Oh no," I whispered making to stand up, "I'm getting out of here."
"Be quiet you fool," Achilles hissed.
"They're going to burn us," I insisted coming close to hyperventilating, "we're all going to die."
Suddenly I felt something heavy collide with the back of my head and everything went dark.
When I came to Achilles and Odysseus were talking above me.
"You shouldn't have hit her this hard," Odysseus was saying, "she still hasn't come to and it's time for us to make our move."
"I didn't think I had hit her that hard," Achilles was defending himself, "I figured she probably had a really hard head."
"You hit me?" I asked furiously sitting up.
"Well…"
"He had no other choice," Odysseus explained, "you were going to give everything away. Though it's a shame you missed it. They celebrated us all day."
"But now it's night and we have to go," Achilles said. "Are you ready?"
"If I said no would I be able to skip the battle?"
"No."
"Then I'm ready."
We opened the panels and lowered ropes so that we could get down. Achilles and I were among the first to get down. He led the way and we ran off in the opposite direction, straight towards the palace.
People threw themselves out of our way as we ran up stairs and through crowed streets. Achilles was much faster then me so I was having trouble keeping up. A dull light at our backs told us that the Greek army had started setting fire to Troy.
We reached a wall that was blocking our path towards the palace.
"We'll have to go around," I panted.
"There's not enough time," he said shortly. Then he began to scale the wall.
"Zeus," I groaned as I followed him, "I'm not getting paid enough for this. Wait what are you paying me?"
"Don't ask," he grunted.
Achilles reached the top and, without bothering to lend me a hand, drew his sword. I struggled onto the ground and drew mine as well. A Trojan soldier spotted us, pointing and calling out. Suddenly Achilles grabbed me and threw me into a wall. He pressed himself against the wall as well and held his hand out, a signal for 'wait'.
A second later the first soldier had gone right passed us and Achilles pounced. The next second both of the soldiers were on the ground.
"Briseis, where is she?" he asked pointing his sword at them. "Where!"
"I don't know," the one soldier gasped, "Please, I have a son!"
"Then get him out of Troy," Achilles told the man.
Just then another soldier came through the doorway, heading for Achilles whose back was still turned. But the man hadn't noticed me. Lacking the time for thinking I tackled the man to the ground. Achilles spun and struck the man with his sword.
"How's that for daring?" I asked Achilles as we continued to run.
"You tackled the man when you had a sword in your hand," he pointed out. "I swear I don't know how you survive battles."
"It's a mystery," I informed him cheerfully, "and not one that I ever want to dig into."
We continued to run, Achilles shouting Briseis and me just doing my best to keep up. Now people didn't get out of our way. Chaos was all around and people barely noticed us as we ran through the crowds, clearly going in the wrong direction to escape the burning city.
Just then I ran head on into a fleeing Trojan. Their eyes widened when they saw my uniform and they took off running. I picked myself up off the ground and looked around. I couldn't see Achilles anywhere, he had disappeared in the chaos.
Okay I admit it, I panicked completely. I mean, put yourself in my shoes, (or in this case sandles). I was not that great a fighter and right now I wasn't even sure which side was going to try to kill me. The city was burning and I was lost. They really should have little maps laying around with little stickers telling the reader where they were.
"Achilles where are you?" I shouted as I ran. Hoping that he was close by I ran up a flight of stairs onto an over hanging porch and scanned the area. I saw a familiar figure, no actually two familiar figures. One was Briseis, the person Achilles was looking for. The other was Agamemnon, the evil king himself. He was holding Briseis by the throat.
"Maggie!" It was Achilles, he was at the bottom of the stairs shouting up.
"Briseis is over there," I pointed, "Agamemnon's there too!" He took off. But before I could run after him I saw Briseis pull a knife from somewhere and stab Agamemnon in the neck. He collapsed, kneeling before her and looking up in shock. She removed the knife and tried to run as Agamemnon fell to the ground, obviously dead.
He wouldn't be coming back to life like I had. Now I knew why Achilles liked this girl so much. She had just killed the person he hated most in the whole world. One of the Greek soldiers grabbed her and threw her into the arms of another one.
The soldier pulled his sword back, ready to kill her, and I froze in terror.
… look we've already been over this. I am not a good soldier and thus not a hero!
But Achilles was a great soldier and a pretty good hero. He sliced the one soldier's throat before the guy had even realized he was there. The other he ran right through. Achilles went to help Briseis up. All of the sudden she screamed.
"Noooooo!" I looked around wildly and saw that Paris had come up.
The prince of Troy had fired his arrow before I'd even had a chance to blink.
"Paris no!" Briseis shouted as Achilles looked around. Then Paris fired again. He may be a prince but he did not listen to directions well.
I finally got my legs to move. I ran down the stairs. I heard Briseis pleading with Paris to stop but I still heard the swish and thunk of yet another arrow hitting its target. I came up behind Paris.
"Stop please!" Briseis shouted as she got up off the ground.
Paris fired another arrow.
"Paris don't!" She yelled coming right up to her cousin.
… and of course Paris fired yet another bolt into Achilles' chest.
"Hey," I yelled from behind him, "I think you've hit him already." Achilles fell to the ground and Briseis ran over to him. Paris looked at me with a haunted expression.
"He killed my brother," he said softly.
"And your brother killed his cousin," I countered, "you weren't there, we had this conversation already. The basic conclusion we arrived at was that killing is bad and yet unavoidable."
"I'm not sorry I killed him," Paris told me. I nodded.
"I didn't think that you would be." I could hear screams in the distance and remembered about the whole, city was in the process of burning to the ground thing. "You should take Briseis and run," I told him, "I won't tell the other Greeks which way you went. I'll tell them I didn't see anything."
"Thank you," he said.
"I owed you," I shrugged, "good luck." He took a crying Briseis and the two of them ran off. Less then a minute after they had gone the Greek soldiers came up behind me.
Then everything went black and I woke up back in my bed.
