Defying Fate

Chapter 1-p3-The Battle

For three agonizing heartbeats, nothing happened. Then there was a click and a BANG, and the sides of the horse flew open as if the air inside them had been compressed. Some of the soldiers shouted in surprise and reached for their weapons, but the men from inside the horse were already leaping down upon them.

One man leapt from the horse, but instead of joining the fight, he ran for the gates, throwing his weight against the lever that kept them closed. Weights shifted, and wheels turned, and the gates opened in their agonizingly slow way, to reveal the army that had moved into position in near silence.

Odysseus joined the fight as Diomedes caught up with him through the gates, and they slew Trojans where they lay. Someone had thrown torches, and the city began to burn around them.

"Watch out!" Diomedes shouted as a squad of men appeared on the roof above them, but a wave of arrows slew them before they could attack from the higher ground. Tuecer had set up on the city walls some ways along from the gate, and he saluted Odysseus with his bow as he was spotted. Odysseus signaled his thanks.

"Where's Helen?" An older man came alongside them. Nestor had been tasked with the rescue. He may have been older, over sixty now, but he was still able-bodied and keen-minded.

Odysseus pointed in the direction that Helen had gone, and Nestor was gone with a squad of men behind him, like an honor guard.

Odysseus saw a shock of red hair as the son of Achilles ran past him, shouting a war cry, to avenge his father. He wasn't quite as fast or as strong as Achilles had been, but, he was keen and young. More than ready to do his share of damage.

"What do you fight for?" Diomedes asked him as they stood back to back. It was something Odysseus himself asked his men often, to keep up morale and encourage them to keep going.

"I fight for us," Odysseus said, but in his head he amended it. 'I fight for my family. I fight to get home to them.'

Fresh troops poured in from elsewhere in the city and the fighting began anew. Odysseus fought with sword and shield, sometimes slinging those on his back and fighting with the fallen spears of the enemy. Only Diomedes could keep up, but soon the two were separated as the fighting forced Odysseus into an alleyway. He fought like a madman, and soon those who had redirected him lay dead at his feet.

But he didn't see the assassin coming until it was too late.

Odysseus felt the hand on his shoulder and turned to see angry grey eyes and a shock of curly blonde hair, cut short, military style. The knife in the stranger's hand slipped between his ribs and pierced his lung before Odysseus could even cry out. He sank to his knees, and the assassin was gone once again, silent as if he'd never been.

Odysseus reached for the wound, gasping for air and cursing soundlessly. How could he let this happen, he was going to die here, at the end of all this, after he'd come so far, and done so much.

But the pain was gone. Odysseus felt at his side, but there was no rip in his chiton, no hole in his skin, no blood, nothing. He got to his feet, confused, then felt the odd change in the atmosphere that signaled a god was nearby.

"Athena?" He asked, but, no, this was different. Athena usually slowed his sense of time and delivered a message or granted him knowledge. She didn't spend much time on theatrics like this.

An eagle's cry sounded overhead, and he looked up to see a massive golden bird circling over his head, silhouetted against the moonlight, and lit by the fires below. Eagles did not normally fly at night, but as he spotted it, it took off in the direction of Hector's palace.

He followed it through narrow, empty streets, with sounds of the battle all around them. He passed openings that led to where men were fighting and dying, but he continued forward, into the darkness.

Finally, he stood at the top of the hill, at the unguarded gates of Hector's palace, which stood wide open, like a gaping maw. Few torches were lit inside, and all was in shadow beyond the gates, but the eagle screamed again and flew over the gates and into the palace.

It led him down darkened hallways and through pillared courtyards until they came to a room in a tower high above the western cliffs, overlooking the farmland-turned-battlefield, and the sea beyond.

There was very little furniture in the room, but a gauzy curtain hung from the ceiling, nearly obscuring the unique piece in the center. As the eagle landed on it, the curtain blew back in a strong breeze, revealing a bassinet, carved elaborately from fine wood, and inlaid with gold and ivory.

"A baby?" Odysseus went closer, and the door closed behind him, and he heard a footfall.