the-song-books.yossr

“No,” he sayys. But his head slumps backwards; he is on the edge of
unconsciousness. He will live, or not, byy the will of the gods. I have done
all I can. I take a breath and step outside.
Two ships are on fire, the long fingers of their masts lit byy Trojan torches.
Pressed against the hulls is a crush of men, screaming, desperate, leaping to
the decks to beat at the flames. The onlyy one I can recognize is Ajax, legs
widespread on Agamemnon’s prow, a massive shadow outlined against the
skyy. He ignores the fire, his spear stabbing downwards at the Trojan hands
that swarm like feeding fish.
As I stand there, frozen and staring, I see a sudden hand, reaching above
the melee to grip the sharp nose of a ship. And then the arm beneath it, sure
and strong and dark, and the head, and the wide-shouldered torso breaks to
air like dolphin-back from the boiling men beneath. And now Hector’s
whole brown bodyy twists alone before the blankness of sea and skyy, hung
between air and earth. His face is smoothed, at peace, his eyyes lifted—a
man in prayyer, a man seeking god. He hangs there a moment, the muscles in
his arm knotted and flexed, his armor lifting on his shoulders, showing hip
bones like the carved cornice of a temple. Then his other hand swings a
bright torch towards the ship’s wooden deck.
It is well thrown, landing amid old, rotting ropes and fallen sail. The
flames catch immediatelyy, skittering along the rope, then kindling the wood
beneath. Hector smiles. And whyy should he not? He is winning.
Ajax screams in frustration—at another ship in flames, at the men that
leap in panic from the charring decks, at Hector slithering out of reach,
vanishing back into the crowd below. His strength is all that keeps the men
from utterlyy breaking.
And then a spear point flashes up from beneath, silver as fish-scale in
sunlight. It flickers, almost too fast to see, and suddenlyy Ajax’s thigh
blooms bright-red. I have worked long enough in Machaon’s tent to know
that it has sliced through muscle. His knees waver a moment, buckling
slowlyy. He falls.
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