Orion and the Conqueror Read online

  Chapter 25

  That night I slept outside Odysseus' tent. Telemakos, seeing that I had nothing except the clothes on my back and the crude spear I had fashioned, ordered his slaves to bring me a cloak and armor and proper weapons.

  Strangely, Odysseus interfered. "A cloak only," he said. "That will be enough for Orion for this night. And tomorrow."

  I did not object. Obviously he had some scheme in mind. Among the Achaians besieging Troy, Odysseus had been the wisest of the commanders. He could fight as well as any man, but he could also think and plan ahead—something that Agamemnon and Achilles and the others seldom did.

  Morning broke and Odysseus summoned his rag-tag army before the main gate of Epeiros. Standing in his bronze armor, bareheaded, he raised his spear to the cloud-dotted sky and shouted in a voice powerful enough to crack the heavens:

  "Men of Epeiros! Kinsmen of the dogs I slew in my home in Ithaca! Come out from behind your walls and fight! Don't be cowards. You mean to make war upon me because I defended my wife and my honor. Here I am! Come and make your war this morning. It is a good day to fight."

  I saw dozens of heads rise up along the wall's parapet, many of them helmeted in shining bronze. But no one replied to Odysseus.

  He raised his voice again to them. "Are you afraid to die? What difference does it make if I kill you here or before the walls of Ithaca? You have declared blood feud against me and my family, haven't you? Well here is your chance to settle the matter once and for all. Come out and fight!"

  "Go away," a man's deep voice shouted back. "We'll fight you when we're ready. Our kinsmen are back at their cities raising thousands of men to come to our aid. When you see their dust on the road as they march here your blood will turn to water and you'll piss yourself with fear."

  Odysseus laughed scornfully. "You forget, coward, that I fought on the plain of Ilios against the likes of mighty Hector and his brothers. I scaled the beetling walls of Troy with my wooden horse and razed the city to ashes. Do you think I fear a bunch of lily-livered milksops who are afraid to face me, spear to spear?"

  The voice answered, "We'll see who's the coward, soon enough."

  Odysseus' lips pressed into a hard angry line. Then he took a deep breath and called, "Where is Neoptolemos, king of this mighty city?"

  No answer.

  "Does Neoptolemos still rule in his own city, or have you taken over his household the way you tried to take over mine?"

  "I am here, Odysseus the Ever-Daring," piped a weak, trembling voice.

  A frail old man in a blue robe climbed shakily to a platform up above the main gate. Even from the ground before the gate I could see that King Neoptolemos was ancient, withered, wizened, more aged even than Nestor had been, his head bald except for a few wisps of hair, a white beard flowing down his frail narrow chest. His eyes were sunk so deep into their sockets that at this distance they looked like two tiny dark pits. He must have been nearly toothless, for the lower half of his face had sunk in on itself as well.

  "Neoptolemos," said Odysseus, "it is a sad day when we must face each other as enemies. Well I remember my youth, when you were like a wise uncle to me."

  "Well should you remember my son, the companion of your youth, whom you have slain in your bloody fury."

  "I regret his death, King of Epeiros. He was among the suitors who tried to steal my wife and my kingdom from me.

  "He was my son. Who will follow me when I die? His own son is only a child, hardly five years old."

  Craning his neck at the blue-robed figure atop the city gate, Odysseus said, "A blood feud between us can do neither of us any good."

  "Bring me back my son and there will be no need for a feud," the old man replied bitterly.

  "Ah," said Odysseus, "that I cannot do. Even though I visited Hades himself during the long years of my journey home, he would not let me bring any of the departed back to the land of the living."

  "You saw Hades?"

  "Neoptolemos, revered mentor of my youthful days, if you knew the sufferings and toils I have had to endure you might forgive me even the death of your son."

  I stood a few feet away from Odysseus, leaning on my knobbly makeshift spear, and watched him charm Neoptolemos into asking for a recitation of his arduous journey from Troy back to Ithaca.

  The sun rose high while Odysseus spoke of the storms that wrecked his ships, of the enchantress Circe who turned his men into animals; of the cave of Polyphemos, one of the Cyclopes, and his cannibal orgies.

  "I had to kill him or be killed myself," Odysseus related. "His father, Poseidon, stirred up even mightier storms against me after that."

  "You know that a father feels hatred for a man who slays his son," said Neoptolemos. But I thought his thin, quavering voice was less harsh than it had been earlier.

  Well past noon Odysseus kept on talking, holding everyone along the wall enchanted with his hair-raising tales. Slaves circulated among us with bowls of dried meat and fruit, flagons of wine. Odysseus took some of the wine, but kept on talking, telling his enemies of the dangers he had risked, the women he had left behind, in his agonizing urgency to return to his home and his wife.

  "When at last I saw blessed Ithaca again," he said, his powerful voice sinking low, "my very own house was besieged by men who demanded the hand of my Penelope, and behaved as if they already owned my kingdom."

  "I can understand the blood-fury that must have seized you," said Neoptolemos. "But that does not return my son to me."

  "King of Epeiros," Odysseus replied, "a blood feud between us will bring down both our households. Your grandson and my son will never live long enough to father sons of their own."

  "Sadly true," Neoptolemos agreed.

  "And the same is true for all of you," Odysseus said to the others along the wall. "You kinsmen of the men I have slain would slay me and my son. But then my kinsmen will be obliged to slay you. Where will it end?"

  "The gods will decide that, Odysseus," said the old king. "Our fates are not in our own hands."

  I was thinking that if Neoptolemos and his grandson are killed in this pointless blood feud, his line will end here in the Achaian age. There will be no descendants to father Olympias, many generations down the time stream. That is why I have been sent here, I realized. But what am I to do about it?

  "Perhaps there is a way for us to learn the wishes of the gods in this matter," Odysseus was saying.

  "What do you mean?"

  "A trial by combat. Single champions to face each other, spear against spear. Let the outcome of their battle decide the war between us."

  A murmur arose among the men on the wall. Neoptolemos turned to his right and then to his left. Some of the men up there gathered around him, muttering, gesturing.

  "A trial by champions would be a good idea, King of Ithaca," the old man finally replied. "But who could stand against such an experienced warrior as yourself? It would be an unequal fight."

  None of the dandies up there dared to face Odysseus in single combat.

  Odysseus threw up his hands. "But I am the one you seek revenge against."

  Neoptolemos said, "No, no, Odysseus. As you yourself said, you faced mighty Hector and broke through the impenetrable walls of Troy. You have traveled the length and breadth of the world and even visited Hades in his underworld domain. Who among us would dare stand against you?"

  Bowing his head in seeming acceptance, Odysseus asked, "Would you have me pick another to stand in my place?"

  I saw Telemakos fairly twitching with eagerness, anxious to fight for his family's honor and his own fame.

  "Yes, another!" rose a shout among the men on the wall. "Pick another!"

  Odysseus turned around as if casting about for someone to select. Telemakos took half a step forward but froze when his father frowned at him.

  Turning back toward the gate, Odysseus called up to Neoptolemos, "Very well. We will let the gods truly decide. I will pick this ungainly oaf here." He pointed toward me!
/>   I heard snickers and outright laughter up on the wall. I must have looked like a country bumpkin in my leather vest and crude wooden spear. No wonder Odysseus had refused me better clothes and weapons. He had planned this ruse from the night before.

  They swiftly agreed, and disappeared from the wall's top while they selected their own champion.

  "Orion," said Odysseus to me, low and very serious. "You can save us all from a blood feud that will end my line and the old man's as well."

  "I understand, my lord."

  He gripped my shoulder hard. "Don't make it look too easy. I don't want them to know that they've been hoodwinked."

  Telemakos, who had looked so disappointed a few moments earlier that I thought he would break into tears, was trying hard now to suppress a grin of elation.

  At length the gates of the city opened and the men who had been lining the wall stepped out before us. Most of them wore bronze armor and kept a firm grip on their spears. Neoptolemos was carried out on a wooden chair fitted with handles for slaves to hold. They placed his chair on the ground and he got out of it, slowly, obviously in arthritic pain.

  Before the fight could begin there were prayers and sacrifices and speeches to be made. It was late in the afternoon before the men cleared a space on the bare dusty ground and their champion stepped forward. He was almost as big as I, with a deep chest and powerful limbs. He wore a bronze cuirass, greaves, and a bronze helmet with nose piece and cheek flaps tied so tightly under his chin that I could see little more of his face than his light-colored eyes gazing out at me.

  A young slave boy stood a few steps behind him, holding with both skinny arms a figure-eight shield of multiple layers of oxhide; it was so heavy it seemed it would topple the poor lad over at any moment. Another youth held a handful of long spears for him, their bronze tips glinting in the late afternoon sunlight.

  His shield bore the figure of a single eye, and I remembered the eye of Amon that adorned the great pyramid of Khufu in distant Egypt. Was there some connection? I decided not. This was merely a variant of the evil eye that supposedly paralyzed opponents with terror.

  I faced their champion with nothing but the crude spear I had hacked from the gnarled branch of a tree. Those pale eyes of his gleamed with the anticipation of easy victory. We circled each other warily, he behind his ponderous oxhide shield, which covered him from chin to sandals. Despite his solid build he was agile, light on his feet. I danced nimbly on the balls of my feet as my senses went into overdrive. I saw him pull his arm back so slowly that it seemed to take forever; then he hurled the spear at me with every ounce of strength in his powerful body.

  I jumped to one side at last instant, and the crowd of men groaned as if disappointed that I hadn't been spitted on the sharp bronze point. My opponent half-turned and his squire handed him another spear. I merely stood my ground until he began to approach me again. Then I jabbed my spear at him, letting its point bang against his oxhide shield.

  He grinned at me as he pushed his shield against my spear, using it like a battering ram, edging closer to me. "Don't run away, Orion," he half-whispered to me. "You can't escape your fate."

  My knees went weak with surprise. Those tawny eyes glinting at me were the eyes of Aten, the Golden One.

  "Don't look so shocked," he said as he jabbed his spear at me. "You've seen me take human form before."

  "Why now?" I asked, backing away from him.

  He laughed. "For sport! Why else?" And he rammed his spear at my midsection so hard and fast that I barely had the reflexes to flinch away. The sharp bronze point grazed my flank. The men crowding around us went "Oooh!" at the sight of my blood.

  I knew that my pitiful tree branch would be no match for him. He had as much speed and strength as I; perhaps more. I danced backward several steps, and as he advanced toward me I lunged forward with all my might and aimed the fire-hardened tip of my spear at his eyes. He raised his shield to catch my thrust and my spear stuck in the layers of oxhide, forcing him backward a few steps.

  Whirling, I dashed to the spear he had thrown at me. Now we were evenly armed, at least, although Aten still had that long shield and I had none. As I looked up I saw that both his young squires were tugging their hardest to pull my rude spear from his shield. It came out at last, sending them both tumbling onto their backs.

  Now Aten advanced upon me again, and I held my spear in two hands. To the watching men it must have , seemed like a moment from the battle for Troy, champion against champion, spear against spear.

  For sport, he'd told me. He'd taken on human form and faced me in combat for sport.

  "Are you prepared to die for sport?" I asked him.

  "You tried to kill me once, do you remember?"

  "No," I said.

  "I thought I'd give you the opportunity again."

  He feinted, then raked his spear point upward, catching my spear and nearly knocking it out of my hands.

  Before I could recover he slashed downward again, slicing a long cut across my chest from shoulder to ribs. The watching men shouted their approval.

  "I'm faster than you, Orion," Aten taunted. "And stronger. Do you think that I'd build a creature more powerful than myself?"

  I jabbed at his exposed left foot, then swung my spear in my two hands like a quarter-staff and cracked him hard on his helmet. The men gasped. Aten staggered backward, his taunts silenced for the moment.

  My mind was racing: If he defeats me, Neoptolemos wins this dispute against Odysseus, and his grandson goes on to father the line that eventually gives birth to Olympias. If I defeat Aten, however, and Odysseus is the victor over Neoptolemos, what will happen to the royal line of Epeiros? Is that why Aten has taken human form and inserted himself into this fight? To make certain that I am killed and Olympias is born a thousand years down the time stream?

  Those were the thoughts running through my mind as we fought. They sapped my confidence, made me uncertain of what I should do. But each time I saw the golden eyes of Aten smirking at me from behind his bronze helmet, hot fury boiled up within me: For sport. He is playing with me, playing with all the mortals here, toying with their lives and their hopes the way a cat torments a mouse.

  It seemed as if we fought for hours. Aten nicked me here and there, until I was bleeding from a dozen cuts and scratches. I could not get past his shield. He truly was as fast as I, perhaps even a little faster, so that whatever I tried to do against him he saw and protected himself against.

  Once I almost got him. I jabbed straight at his eyes and as he raised his shield, covering his vision for an instant, I swept the butt of my spear across his ankles, tripping him and sending him sprawling to the dusty ground. But he immediately covered his body with the long shield, even as I rammed my spear at him. The spear point caught in the shield and we became involved in an almost comical tug of war, me trying to wrestle the spear out of his shield, him struggling to his knees and then finally to his feet.

  The men were roaring with excitement as they crowded close around us. I finally yanked my spear free of his shield, but the effort sent me staggering backwards into the crowd. I stumbled, slipped, and went down.

  Aten was on me before I could blink. And I had no shield to hide behind. I saw his armored form looming over me, silhouetted against the brilliant sky, the sun at his back, his spear raised above his head as he started to plunge it into my heart.

  There was nothing I could do except ram my own spear into his groin while he impaled me. We both screamed in death agonies and the world went utterly black and cold.

  Chapter 26

  Pain woke me. My eyes fluttered open. I was back atop Mount Ararat, lying in the snow, but now it no longer covered me completely. Much of it had melted away. I saw a clear blue sky above me, so bright it hurt my eyes to look upon it.

  A snow-white fox was gnawing on my right forearm—a vixen, I could see from her gravid belly. It must be spring or close to it, I thought, and she is so desperate for food up in this barren
waste at the mountaintop that she will attack a corpse.

  But I was not dead. Not yet. Automatically I shut down the pain receptors in my brain, even as I clutched at the vixen's throat with my left hand so swiftly that she did not have time even to yelp. I ate her raw, unborn pups and all, and felt the nourishment streaming into my blood. My right hand was useless for the time being, although I had stopped the bleeding and wrapped the wound the vixen had made with her own pelt.

  It took me days to get down from Ararat's summit. I had lain there in the snow for most of the winter, suspended in a frozen half-death while Aten or Hera or both of them used me to ensure the line of Neoptolemos so that Olympias could be born in this era.

  Now I proved myself worthy of my name; I lived by hunting, ferreting out the tiny rodents that were just beginning to come out of their winter burrows, tracking down the mountain goats and sheep on the lower slopes, even running down a wild horse over the course of several days until it dropped from exhaustion. So did I, almost.

  By the time I was on the flat land again, with the smoke of distant farm houses smudging the horizon, my arm was healed and I felt reasonably strong.

  I returned to the ways of the bandit. I had no other choice. My mission was to return to Pella, to do Hera's bidding, no matter how I might hate to obey her. I stole a horse here, raided a barn there, broke into farm houses, chased down stray cattle, did what I needed to do to stay alive. I tried to avoid people whenever possible and only fought when I had no choice. Even so, I killed no human—although I left several men groaning with broken bones.

  I pushed westward, toward the setting sun, toward Europe and Greece and Pella and Philip and Alexandros. And Hera. There was no longer the slightest doubt in my mind: Olympias was Hera and had been all along. Her witchcraft was nothing more than the innate powers of the Creators themselves.

  I rode night and day, sleeping only rarely as my strength returned to normal, pushing myself to get back to Pella as quickly as I could. In my dreams, on those rare I nights when I did sleep, Hera kept beckoning me, but no longer with the enticements of her body. She commanded me the way a mistress commands the lowliest of her slaves. She urged me to come to her. She demanded that I hurry.