THE WAR
The generals of Priam wanted my Amazons to throw ourselves headlong into battle with the Argives with no thought to strategy or careful plotting. But what did they know? They had been losing a siege for almost ten years. I ignored them and climbed the never ending stairs to the top of Ilium’s battlements. Some of the men with me wheezed and coughed at the exertion. No wonder they could not beat the Argives. These men had grown weak since I had last been here, what seemed like another lifetime ago.
My sister had been there too, and Hector. And Paris had seemed not quite so foolish as the lovestruck man who had started a war.
But none of that mattered now.
My warriors had stayed off the walls. As I mounted yet another stone step, I pondered at the city’s inability to trust women warriors, though they had set much of their hopes on our slim shoulders. One warrior woman on the walls would be enough; they did not need to see more of us arrayed in our battle-hardened armor. I had left off my armor as it was, wearing only the familiar leopard skin at my back and short chiton, like the ones worn by the generals and princes beside me. It was too hot for more than that, although, of course, I wore my sword at my belt. Though I was among allies, I knew better than to trust so many rough, war-angered men.
Priam met me at the top of the wall, along with the searing blaze of the summer sun. Dust rose in great clouds from the churning killing-ground at the foot of the walls, sending curtains of haze high into the sky, almost as high as the impenetrable walls of Ilium. The king inclined his wizened head to me, a meeting of equals.
His wife, Hecuba, stood at the edge of the battlements. Younger than Priam but still wrinkled with age and sorrow, she rested her hands against the stone balustrade, peering out at the plain before the city. Once a lush, grassy meadow leading down to the long beaches below, the greenery had been churned away by boots and sandals, hooves and chariot wheels. All had been stained with the blood of those killed in the long war.
I stepped to the edge of the wall and looked down. Where had the great Hector been killed? Was it there, by the destroyed stump of a once-great tree? Or further down, where scavenger birds tore apart some poor, forgotten foot soldier’s corpse?
Would I meet my own death somewhere down on the killing fields?
The deep chasm of grief yawned within me then, making me wish for a quick death. The suffering would only stop after my own life was taken. I could march outside these thick walls, armed with nothing but my sadness, and let some lucky Argive strike me down. He could count a queen among his death tally, and I could finally be at peace.
Suddenly, another figure on the wall caught my attention and pulled me from my dreams of death. Clad in black, the young widow of Hector joined me at the edge. Andromache was her name. I knew of her. She was beautiful, as Hector had been, but her face was lined now with tears, her soft eyes rimmed with red instead of kohl, her hair pinned haphazardly around her crown instead of curled and twisted to perfection. Here was another broken soul, like Priam and myself.
But not like us. The sun glinted off the bits of gold jewelry at her neck and wrists. And I stared at her. She was breathtaking in the glory of early morning, despite all the sadness that clung to her like mist. The world had taken her husband from her, yet still, she held her chin high as though that small defiant act might change the fate of this doomed city. But no, Andromache was not like me, nor was she like Priam. She had lost her beloved husband, as we had lost sister and son, but her hand had not thrust the sword nor wielded the scepter of a king. No part of Hector’s death had been her fault. If rumors could be trusted, the woman had begged her husband not to fight Achilles.
But I had led my warriors to battle against Theseus. I had forced Hippolyta to join us, though she never stopped loving the wretched king of Athens, and I had endangered his life and caused her to defend him. And Priam had let Hector fight—not just his son, but a whole city!—because Paris and Helen refused to concede their little farce of love.
“It was there,” said Andromache, her voice low, almost a whisper. She pointed to the narrow gates of Ilium, not far from our position on the city’s wall. “He stood against Achilles and made to charge, sword in hand, but Achilles had a spear and….” Her voice faltered. “He was a good man,” she added at last.
I nodded and looked away from the widow, not wishing to see the tears that flowed fresh down her cheeks. “I knew him when he was a lad,” I said, hesitating. Surely, this woman had heard the rumors about Hector and me, and I had no wish to cause her further suffering. But I continued anyway. “He was the most honorable fighter I ever knew. He was fair and strong and brighter than the full moon.” How I wished to see his smiling face one last time! “And he would do anything to protect those he loved, even if it meant dying for his city. And his family.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Andromache bite down on her trembling lip. “I wish this war would end.” All the bitterness, the weariness of a lifetime of fighting filled her slender form. “This city has stood for so long, unchallenged. But now we live our every day in fear. It isn’t right.” She clenched her fists. “I wish I could do something.”
“You would make a good warrior,” I said.
That astonished her, and she turned to me sharply.
I smiled at her and said, “You are fierce as any fighter, and you care about your family. If you were a man, you would be out there too, defending Ilium with your life and your sword.”
Andromache frowned. “If I were a man, I would never have let this absurd war drag on so long. Ilium is doomed. Now we simply prolong what is inevitable.”
“That may be true.” I knew she was right. There was very little hope for this city, for these people. I already knew now that my Amazons would not be enough to stem this tide. I would try to slay Achilles, but though great and ferocious, he was only one man in a sea of Argive warriors. Was I dooming my own warriors by joining this battle?
At that moment, Priam decided it was time to discuss military matters. He moved away from his wife and gestured to the assembled generals, who swelled around him like bees in a hive. Andromache lowered her gaze and drifted off to join Hecuba, two women brushed aside now that plans were to be made. How different I was from them to be included in this man’s talk. But how similar as the men sneered down their noses at me, how they smirked when they thought I did not see them, how they spoke of me and my women as if our ears could not hear. At least they had some fear of me, and it kept them just far enough away so my blade could not swipe off any roving hands or ill-considered gestures. I would rather have them fear me than ignore me as they did Hecuba and Andromache. I would rather have them bow to me than call me a whore like they did Helen.
The women gone, we warlords looked out over the battlefield. One of them pointed out the camp of the Argives, though it was clear enough who lived in the overflowing tents encamped along the vista of beaches to the west. The morning was still young, and the men from the enemy camp had not yet ridden out against our city. According to the generals, this would start soon.
Priam tensed as the Argives began to chant, their voices raised in bone-chilling cheers. One among them moved. The armored figure strode along the edges of the camp until he reached a gleaming chariot pulled by two white horses. Taking no second rider in the chariot, the man whipped his horses into action, and they emerged from the Argive camp like dolphins from the sea. Something dragged behind his chariot.
The old king paled, though surely he had watched this sight many times by now. Farther down along the wall, Hecuba and Andromache sagged into each other, though still, they watched. Some of the king’s advisors turned away. So these women were not so weak as all that.
The chariot drew closer to Ilium’s walls, and the thing that dragged behind it resolved itself into what we all expected—Hector’s body. Achilles had strung rope through Hector’s bare ankles, and the corpse’s arms flopped behind it. The dead hero’s face stared blindly up towards the yellow sun.
The men in the enemy camp gave up a loud roar as Achilles neared Ilium. Along the walls, men and women watched in silence as their prince’s corpse was tossed like a sack behind the monster’s chariot, flung about in the dust and the dirt without a shred of reverence. Only I, standing fresh to this indecent sight, snarled wolf-like and clenched my fist around the hilt of my sword.
Achilles rode closer, almost within bowshot of the walls. My fingers itched for my bow, the curved wood I myself had fashioned, dreamt of letting one single arrow fly into Achilles’ muscular neck and slaughtering this arrogant beast of a man. Once he reached his chosen distance, the Argive wheeled his horses so they rode parallel to the walls. He slowed them to a trot and turned his face to those of us standing atop the battlements. None of us could see his face through the ebony glint of his helmet, but I imagined dark eyes gleaming up at us with hate and fury like an evil monster from legend.
I could tell this ritual had occurred many times before my arrival. How irreligious and disrespectful could these Argives be if they let this man perform such vile acts on an enemy corpse? How could the kings of the Argives allow this? How could the camped men cheer on their monstrous hero? And how could Achilles live with his own dishonor?
Finally, the sight of her son’s broken corpse brought out a little scream of pain from Hecuba. Andromache clutched the sobbing queen in her arms, and the two clung to each other. None of the men, not even Priam, went to them. The king remained staring out over the battlements, watching his dead son get dragged through the dust. Hector’s slayer stared back, a demon in armor without any honor and with the blood of princes on his hands.
Then the killer shouted to us, and his voice was clear over the wind and the rattle of his chariot harness, “Send out your soldiers, Ilium, so that I may have more corpses to decorate my chariot.”
My fists clenched so hard they hurt. Had I been out there on the sands with him, I would have ripped out his throat with my bare hands. But I was on the wall with the king, destined only to watch the tactics of the Argives this day. Below us, the gates creaked open, and Ilium’s chariots rode out in defense of the city. At this, I let myself smile. Ilium would defend itself today, and the city would defend Hector’s corpse forever.
Achilles had already turned his own chariot, thrown back his head to laugh as he thundered back to the massing Argives. He would not be killed this day. I knew that for certain. His hubris glowed about him like a shield—maybe his mother really was a goddess, as some claimed. But I knew that, while not today, the Argive beast could be killed. I had sent enough men to their tombs who thought themselves invincible. All men can die. And so would Achilles.
The chariots of Ilium drove forwards just as the Argives’ own spurred to meet them. Behind the chariots, both sides sent up several ranks of infantry, lightly harnessed foot soldiers to wade in after the rumbling chariots. Unlike my Amazon forces, none of the fighters here rode on horseback, and the men churned the sand and dirt with their own sandalled feet as they charged. From both sides, archers in the chariots rained iron-tipped arrows into their opposition. Men toppled, men screamed, and men writhed as the pain of the swift darts sent them to the ground to be trampled by following chariots. Blood fell to the sand, sizzling in the heat.
By the time the chariot lines clashed, Achilles had turned again and dismounted. He gripped a gleaming spear in one hand and a fearsome shield in the other and charged the men of Ilium. His Argive allies parted before him, and he let loose his wrath upon the men of Priam’s city. Archers took aim at him, but always he diverted their arrows against his gold-colored shield. Some proud men, wishing to make themselves legendary, stood against him, but his swift spear thrust at them, finding the chinks in the armor, tearing through their soft bodies, leaving them forgotten upon the sands.
All eyes atop the walls fixated on the monster below.
“Only Hector could equal him,” breathed one man, too old to join the fighting and too cowardly to try.
“Maybe among men,” I countered. No one looked at me, but I could tell none believed my boast.
No, not a boast. A threat.
Tomorrow my Amazons would ride against the Argives, and we would see who would win that battle.
Hours later, when the setting sun shaded the sky purple, I approached the Skaian Gates. Others stood with me, feeling the hot sand through our sandals—men whose jobs it was to collect the dead from the field of battle. Above us, in the walls, teams of men cranked the massive gates open with much sweat and strength. These gates had stayed sealed against the invaders for ten years, only opening for Ilium’s forces. I stared up at the gargantuan doors as they swung open and felt a breeze strike my face. The air within the citadel had been stifling and still, but from beyond came the cool breeze off the sea.
The corpse-collectors trudged ahead of me, dragging their empty wagons behind them. I held my breath for a moment, waited, then strode to join them on the killing field. Now I wore all my armor, my helmet pushed back from my brow like the other men, but still, I had the leopard skin wrapped over my shoulders. I wanted to stand out to any watching Argives.
I watched the corpse-men go about their business with silent alacrity. There was a feeling on the battlefield, an aura that made words seem inappropriate. As several of them worked to separate bodies whose limbs had become tangled, I ambled past the other dead. To my right lay a youth, newly-bearded. Both his wrists had been hacked through, and a deep gash in his chest had probably killed him. His eyes were scrunched shut as though he had squeezed them tight in his final moments so as not to see death coming. On my left, a grizzled, older warrior lay face down in the sand. A spear head protruded from his lower back, having torn through his poorly-fashioned cuirass. Not far off lay the corpse of a horse, a great dark stallion. Spikes from an opposing chariot wheel appeared to have torn through its legs and sent it down to bleed to death.
All this death, all these nameless corpses, brought my sister to mind. Her graying face, her bloodstained chiton, her lips parted with the whisper of unspoken words. I saw Hippolyta lying in the sand under the remains of a shattered chariot. There she was again, an arrow piercing her shoulder and another deep in her gut. For a moment, I thought I might cry, even imagined the sting of tears against my cheeks. But nothing came. No tears fell, no breath hitched in my throat. How was it that I could see so many dead Hippolytas and feel nothing?
But the empty chasm in my chest did not surge this time with sadness or fear or loss. It remained cold and dark and empty.
When the men were done loading corpses into their wagons and turned back to great Ilium, I knelt in the sands, pushing my fingers into the sifting grains. These were the sands on which I would die. Or where I would slay Achilles. Then the gods would be at peace, and the death of my sister would be balanced out in the heavens.
For a time, I knelt alone. I could sense men from the Argives’ camp watching me, but I did not meet their gaze. Then, their eyes still upon me, I unslung my bow, pulled an arrow from their quiver at my hip, and drew. They tensed, thinking I meant to break the nightly truce and shed their blood. But I drew back and aimed my arrow skywards, then released. The slim shaft flew into the sky, arcing gently as it ran out of momentum. I stared directly ahead at the watching Argives. Their eyes followed the curve of the arrow, staring as it finally reached its apex and began its descent. Still, I watched them and not the arrow.
Finally, the iron arrowhead drove itself into the sand, not two paces from where I stood. The shaft was buried halfway up its length.
“Argives!” I shouted. “The next one is for Achilles.”
Then I turned and strode back to the gates of Ilium.