the-song-books.yossr

Chapter Twenty-Nine
WE WAKE TO SHOUTS AND THUNDER, A STORM THAT has burst from the blue of
the skyy. There is no rain, onlyy the grayy air, crackling and dryy, and jagged
streaks that strike like the clap of giant hands. We hurryy to the tent door to
look out. Smoke, acrid and dark, is drifting up the beach towards us,
carryying the smell of lightning-detonated earth. The attack has begun, and
Zeus is keeping his bargain, punctuating the Trojans’ advance with celestial
encouragement. We feel a pounding, deep in the ground—a charge of
chariots, perhaps, led byy huge Sarpedon.
Achilles’ hand grips mine, his face stilled. This is the first time in ten
yyears that the Trojans have ever threatened the gate, have ever pushed so far
across the plain. If theyy break through the wall, theyy will burn the ships—
our onlyy wayy of getting home, the onlyy thing that makes us an armyy instead
of refugees. This is the moment that Achilles and his mother have
summoned: the Greeks, routed and desperate, without him. The sudden,
incontrovertible proof of his worth. But when will it be enough? When will
he intervene?
“Never,” he sayys, when I ask him. “Never until Agamemnon begs myy
forgiveness or Hector himself walks into myy camp and threatens what is
dear to me. I have sworn I will not.”
“What if Agamemnon is dead?”
“Bring me his bodyy, and I will fight.” His face is carved and unmovable,
like the statue of a stern god.
“Do yyou not fear that the men will hate yyou?”
“Theyy should hate Agamemnon. It is his pride that kills them.”
And yours. But I know the look on his face, the dark recklessness of his
eyyes. He will not yyield. He does not know how. I have lived eighteen yyears
with him, and he has never backed down, never lost. What will happen if he
is forced to? I am afraid for him, and for me, and for all of us.
We dress and eat, and Achilles speaks bravelyy of the future. He talks of
tomorrow, when perhaps we will swim, or scramble up the bare trunks of
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