Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [201]
I saw his eyes then, and he knew he was a dead man. He would have run, but I’d cut the artery in the neck. He wasn’t dead, but he let his limbs go loose – a final cowardice. He might have cut me one more time, but he gave up.
I like to think he knew it was me. But I don’t know that for certain.
My sword glanced off his neck guard, where the yoke of his corslet rose to cover his back, and I lifted it high in the ‘Harmodius Blow’, an overhand back cut with the legs reversed and the whole weight of a man’s body and hips behind it, and I cut his head right off his body – no easy feat with a short sword. Try it the next time you sacrifice a calf.
The stump of his neck jetted blood like a newborn volcano, and he fell.
I won’t lie. It was a sweet moment.
Herk caught my wounded left shoulder, and the pain brought me to my senses. ‘Well done, lad!’ he said. ‘Now get out of here, before one of his men fingers you for it.’
The fighting was fading away. It was the ugly part of a fight – when the brave men find how bad their wounds are, and the cowards push forward and bloody their weapons on dead and wounded men, as if anyone can be fooled by such stuff. I had a dozen cuts, and my arms were both hurt.
Hermogenes had to prise the vambrace off my arm. It was twisted, the cut that had numbed my arm had deformed the surface, and he had to deform the metal to get it off me, putting the flat of his eating knife against my skin and using it like a crowbar. But my right hand and arm felt better immediately.
My left arm wasn’t so easily fixed. I had four different cuts, and Hermogenes pulled his old chiton out of his pack, ripped it in four pieces and used one of them to wrap my arm. ‘This is no life for a man,’ he said, out of nowhere. ‘Your friend Lekthes is dead.’
That was the first I’d heard, although I’ve already told you the manner of his passing.
Idomeneus had as many cuts as I had, and a deep gash on the outside of his thigh that wrapped around his hip and on to his buttock. You could see white at the bottom of the wound, where the deep fat was.
‘That’s not good,’ Idomeneus said, looking at his hip, and fainted.
Hermogenes shook his head. ‘This is no life for a man,’ he repeated. ‘Look at yourselves. And this for gold? Who needs fucking gold?’ He laid out his leather bag, lit a lamp – he was a monster of efficiency, our Hermogenes, even then – and wrapped Idomeneus, even stitching his arse, which woke the poor bastard. He woke with a scream, but by then Herakleides and Nestor had his arms and he fainted again.
Herk came back with Agios and a wineskin, attracted by the lamp. There was no breeze, and the wounded were calling for water, and the night things were coming.
He handed me a cup of wine, but Hermogenes intercepted it and drank it. Fair enough – he was the one doing all the work.
‘Still Thracians in the town,’ Herk said. ‘Miltiades is anxious to get off.’
Paramanos came up with Stephanos. Paramanos had a bandage around his head, and he sighed and pushed the wineskin away. ‘One drink and I’ll be out,’ he said. ‘I owe Lekthes’ widow,’ he said. ‘He traded his life for mine.’
‘He was a good man,’ I said. The wine cup had come to me, and I poured a libation to his shade. ‘Apollo light him to Elysium.’
‘Aye, he went down like Achilles,’ Herk said.
I handed the cup back to Hermogenes. ‘I’m going for the town,’ I said. Stephanos stepped forward and I shook my head. ‘You gather up the wounded,’ I said to him. ‘Make sure men go aboard the right ships. Herakleides – I’ll bring Briseis to her namesake. Be ready.’
I embraced them all, one