Chapter 209: The Second Duel

The Greek champion was named Euryalus.

He came from Salamis. Not a nobleman — a professional fighter who had won games in six cities and never lost a duel. He was tall, lean, and moved like water. No wasted motion. No wasted breath.

Hector sent a man named Damastus. A garrison veteran. Thirty years old. Scarred hands. He had killed nine men in his life and did not remember the first one because it had been dark and he had been afraid.

Damastus walked out of the gate at dawn. Same plain. Same sun. Same silence from both armies.

Euryalus waited at the centre. No shield. No armour except a light breastplate and greaves. Two short swords — one in each hand.

Damastus carried a spear and a shield. Trojan standard. Heavy.

They did not speak.

Euryalus moved first.

Not a charge. A step. Then another. Measured. Closing the distance without committing. Damastus held his ground. Spear forward. Shield high.

Euryalus feinted left. Damastus turned. The right-hand sword came low — under the shield, toward the thigh. Damastus stepped back. The blade missed by a finger’s width.

Fast. Euryalus was fast in a way that large men were not supposed to be. His footwork was silent. His balance never shifted before the strike — it shifted during.

Damastus thrust. Long. From the shoulder. Euryalus sidestepped, caught the shaft between his two blades, and twisted. The spear snapped.

Damastus dropped the broken shaft and drew his sword. Shorter now. Closer range. He was not as fast as Euryalus. He was not as precise. But he was heavier, and heavier meant harder to move.

Euryalus struck. Left blade high. Right blade low. Damastus blocked the left with his shield and caught the right on his sword. Metal on metal. The sound rang across the plain.

For thirty seconds they traded blows. Damastus held. His shield took three hits. His sword took two. His footwork was wrong — too slow, too rooted — but his guard was solid.

Then Euryalus changed the rhythm.

Left. Right. Left. Left again. The same pattern three times. Damastus read it. Expected the fourth left. Moved to block it.

Euryalus went right.

The blade found the gap between the shield and the breastplate. The ribs. Damastus felt it go in. Not pain — not yet. Pressure. Then heat. Then his legs stopped working.

He went down on one knee. Shield up. Still fighting. Still swinging.

Euryalus stepped back. Not out of mercy. Out of range. He waited.

Damastus tried to stand. His left leg held. His right did not. He dropped the shield. Grabbed his sword with both hands. Swung from the ground — a wide, desperate arc that Euryalus dodged without moving his feet.

The second strike was clean. The left blade found the neck. Above the breastplate. Below the helmet.

Damastus fell.

He did not get up.

The plain was quiet.

The Greeks did not cheer. They watched. Their faces were still. Not triumphant. Not grieving. Watching.

On the wall, four thousand Trojans stood in silence. Damastus was dead. Their champion had lost.

Hector’s face did not change. He stood at the parapet and watched the Greek camp the way he watched everything — completely, without reaction.

Euryalus turned and walked back toward the Greek line. His swords were sheathed. His walk was unhurried. A man who had done his job and was going home.

No one on the Greek side cheered.

Lysander watched. He had not watched the fight. He had watched the Greek camp. Every man in it. Every face. Every movement.

They had not reacted.

A thousand ships. Fifty thousand men. Their champion had just killed a Trojan in single combat, and the response was nothing. No roar. No chant. No pounding of spears on shields.

They did not care.

"This was not about winning," Lysander said.

Hector was beside him. "No."

"They won and they do not care. Because the duel was never the point."

"No."

"The point is tomorrow. And the day after. And whatever comes after that."

Hector looked at the Greek camp. At the shapes under the canvas behind the horse lines. Twelve of them. Still covered. Still hidden.

"Send a runner to Damastus’s family," Hector said. "Tell them he fell cleanly. Tell them he did not beg."

The runner went.

Lysander stayed on the wall. He looked at the Greek camp and counted the things he could not see.

In the lower town, the whispers had started.

Not in the streets. In the corridors. In the rooms where councillors gathered after the formal sessions ended. Where men who had survived the purge of Akastos and the priest still sat and still talked and still feared.

Lysander heard it from Fylon.

"They are saying the offer was reasonable," Fylon said. He stood in the supply office doorway, his voice low. "The terms Agamemnon sent. Return Helen. Pay tribute. Keep the crown."

"Who is saying this."

"Three of the surviving councillors. Not publicly. In private conversations. In the corridors near the eastern archive."

"Names."

Fylon gave them. Lysander knew two of the three. The third he did not.

"What are they saying exactly."

"That refusing the offer was pride, not strategy. That Hector put honour above survival. That the walls will not hold forever and when they fall, everyone who refused the offer will be killed alongside the royal family."

"And the people who accepted the offer would be spared."

"That is what they believe. Agamemnon’s terms said the House of Priam continues to rule. The councillors believe that means they keep their positions."

"They are wrong. Agamemnon’s terms mean Troy becomes a vassal. The councillors do not keep their positions. Agamemnon replaces them with men he trusts."

"They do not see that."

"They do not want to see it. Fear makes men believe what they need to believe." Lysander looked at the tablets on his desk. "Is it spreading."

"Slowly. A few families. A few merchants. Not soldiers. The soldiers trust Hector."

"But the civilians are afraid."

"Yes."

Lysander was quiet. Fear in the city was not a military problem. It was a political one. And political problems could not be solved with spears.

"Watch them," he said. "Not the councillors — the people they talk to. Who listens. Who nods. Who walks away and who stays."

"Yes."

Fylon left.

Lysander sat at the desk. The numbers on the tablets stared back at him. Grain. Oil. Water. Days remaining. The arithmetic of survival.

He thought about the whispers. About the men who believed Agamemnon’s offer was mercy. About the difference between fear that sought safety and fear that sought someone to blame.

Hector was right. The enemy outside the walls was dangerous. But the fear inside the walls was worse. A wall could hold back an army. It could not hold back doubt.

Hecuba sat in the courtyard. Fifth day.

Her weaving had grown. The pattern was complex now — she had started it weeks ago, before the siege, and it had become the thing she did when she needed to be invisible. A woman weaving in a courtyard was furniture. No one looked at furniture.

She had seen the pattern four times now. Same person. Same corridor. Same window. Same four minutes between the ninth and tenth hour.

Today she saw something new.

The figure walked to the corridor. Paused. Looked left. Looked right. Then walked in.

Hecuba’s hands stopped on the shuttle. The look. Left, right, then in. That was not the walk of a person going about their business. That was the walk of a person making sure they were not seen.

She waited.

Four minutes. The figure came back. Walked north toward the supply office. Same pace. Same posture.

But this time, the hands were different.

When the figure walked in, the right hand was closed. A fist. Holding something small.

When the figure walked out, the right hand was open.

Hecuba picked up her shuttle. Started weaving again. Her face did not change.

The figure had carried something into the corridor and left it there. Or placed it somewhere. Or given it to someone who was already there.

A window that faced the harbour. A person who carried something small in their fist. Four minutes. Always between the ninth and tenth hour.

Hecuba did not go to the corridor. She did not search it. She did not tell anyone.

She waited. One more day. She needed to see the hand again. Closed going in. Open coming out. Once was observation. Twice was evidence.

She wove. The shuttle moved. The pattern grew.

Under the earth, Deia found it on the fifth tablet of the seventh stack.

She had been comparing panels for three days. Cross-referencing symbols. Looking for the one thing she had missed — the connection between the inverted root on the metal wall and the symbols on the panels above.

It was on panel fourteen.

The panel showed people descending. Walking down. Into the earth. Into the blue light. The circle-and-line symbol with the downward root marked the transition. She had seen this before. Dozens of times.

But beside it — smaller, almost invisible, carved into the border — was another symbol. The inverted root. Curving upward.

And next to it, a figure. Climbing. Going back up.

Deia’s stylus stopped.

She pulled panel after panel. Checking borders. Checking the small carvings that filled the edges where the main images ended.

Panel seven. People descending. Inverted root in the border. Figure climbing.

Panel twelve. People arriving. Inverted root. Figure climbing.

Panel nineteen. People settling. Inverted root. Figure climbing.

Every panel that showed descent also showed return. The inverted root was not just "close" or "seal." It was "return." The way back up.

She wrote: The inverted root means return. Every panel that shows people going down also shows them coming back up. The metal wall is not a permanent seal. It is a gate for the return.

She looked at the metal wall at the end of the corridor. The blue light reflected off its surface.

Miros came up behind her. "What did you find."

"The wall is not a boundary. It is a passage. The builders planned to come back up."

"Come back up from what."

"From whatever is behind that wall." She held up the tablet. "Every descent panel shows a return. The inverted root marks the return point. The wall is the gate."

Miros looked at the metal. At the symbol carved into it. The circle, the line, the root curving upward.

"If it is a gate," he said, "it opens."

"Yes."

"How."

Deia looked at the symbols carved into the metal. Dense. Repetitive. A language she could not read.

"The language," she said. "The answer is in the language. When I can read the words on the wall, I will know how to open it."

"How long."

"I do not know. Weeks. Maybe longer."

Miros was quiet. He looked at the wall. At the blue light. At the symbol.

"Keep working," he said. "But do not touch the wall. Do not try to open it. Not until we understand what is behind it."

"I know."

He turned and walked back toward the training corridor. His boots scuffed the stone. His left hand rested on his sword. His right arm hung dead at his side.

Deia looked at the wall one more time. At the symbols she could not read. At the gate she could not open.

She picked up her stylus and went back to work.

In the Greek camp, the fires burned low.

Agamemnon stood at the palisade. Odysseus beside him. The stars were out. The Trojan walls were dark.

"Send another tomorrow," Agamemnon said.

"One more."

"One more. Then we are done with duels." He looked at the shapes under the canvas. "Two more days. Then the platforms come out."

Odysseus studied the walls. "They are watching the plain. Every Trojan eye is on the duels. Nobody is watching the camp."

"Good." Agamemnon turned. "The moment the third duel ends, pull the canvas off. Wheel them forward. I want twelve platforms at the base of the northern wall by noon."

"And the men."

"Six hundred per platform. Shields locked. Spears forward. They walk up the slope, set the platform against the wall, and the men pour over the top." He looked at Odysseus. "The kill zones kill one man. They do not kill six."

Odysseus nodded. "And after the platforms."

"After the platforms, the wall is just stone." Agamemnon looked at the dark shape of Troy against the stars. "Two more days of games. Then the real war begins."

He walked to his tent. The flap closed.

Odysseus stood alone.

Two days.

He looked at the walls. At the parapet where the defenders stood. At the gaps that had cost him three hundred men. At the archers behind the line. At the oil cauldrons. At everything Lysander had built.

Two days. Then twelve platforms. Six hundred men per platform. Shield walls walking into the kill zones.

He did not smile. He did not frown. He calculated.

Then he turned and walked to his tent. The lamp was still burning. The wooden shape on the table was finished. He did not look at it.

He lay down and closed his eyes.

Two days.