The Hittite - Ben Bova [80]
Instead of being unnerved by these barbarities the Trojans seemed infuriated. They fought with a rage born of desecration and battled fiercely to recover Hector’s body before it could be dragged back behind our rampart.
While the struggle grew wilder I realized that none of the Trojans were protecting their line of retreat or even thinking about guarding the gate from which they had left their city.
I rushed to Odysseos’ chariot and shouted over the cursing and clanging of the battle, “The gate! They’ve left the gate unprotected!”
Odysseos’ eyes gleamed. He looked out toward the city walls, then back at me. He nodded once.
“To the gate!” he called in a voice that roared across the plain. “ To the gate before they can close it.”
Screaming his blood-curdling battle cry, Odysseos fought his way clear of the struggle around Hector’s corpse, followed by two more chariots. I ran after them, slashing my way clear until there was nothing between us and the walls of Troy but empty bare ground.
“ To the gate!” I heard another voice bellow, and a chariot clattered past, its horses leaning into their harnesses, nostrils blowing wide, eyes white and bulging.
Within moments Hector’s corpse was forgotten. The battle had turned into a race for the Scaean Gate. Odysseos led the Achaians who were trying to get there before the Trojans could close it. The Trojan army streamed toward it so they could get inside the protection of the city’s walls before the gate was closed and they were cut off.
Achilles was back in his chariot, cutting a bloody path through the Trojans, hacking with his sword until the foot soldiers and chariot-riding noblemen alike gave him a wide berth. Then he snatched the whip from his driver’s hands and lashed his horses into a frenzied gallop toward the city gate.
I saw Odysseos fling a spear into the chest of a Trojan guarding the gate. More Trojans appeared in the open gateway, graybeards and young boys armed with light throwing javelins and bronze swords. From up on the battlements that flanked the gate others were firing arrows and hurling stones. Odysseos was forced to back away.
But not Achilles. His long hair streaming in the wind, he drove straight for the gate, oblivious to the bombardment from above. The rear guard scattered before him, ducking behind the massive wooden doors. From behind, someone started to push them closed. Seeing that the gap between the two doors was too small for his chariot to pass through, Achilles jumped to the ground, his bloodstained great spear in his hands, and charged at the gate while his charioteer tried to regain control of the frightened horses. Achilles met a hedgehog of spear points but dived at them headlong, jabbing and slashing two-handed with his own spear.
Odysseos and another chariot-mounted warrior rushed up to help him, their great shields strapped to their backs to protect them from neck to heel from the stones and arrows being aimed at them from above. I saw the main mass of the Trojans not far behind us, a wild tangled melee battling with the rest of the Achaians, fighting to reach the protection of the city’s walls.
I pushed my way between Achilles and Odysseos’ chariot, hacking with my sword at the spears sticking out from the gap between the doors. I grabbed a spear with my right hand and pulled it out of the hands of the frightened boy who had been holding it. Flinging it to the ground, I reached for another. I grasped the spear and pulled on it, dragging the graybeard holding it until he was within reach of my sword. He saw the blow coming and released the spear, raising his arms over his head and screaming, as if that would protect him. I hesitated for just a heartbeat, but that was long enough