Chapter 234: The Price of the Truce

The first arrow struck the watchman before he could shout.

He fell from the wooden platform, taking the torch with him. It landed in the dry grass and rolled beneath a cart.

"Now," Hector said.

The Trojan soldiers moved.

They had approached the Greek supply camp without banners or horns. Their shields were covered in dark cloth, and the horses had been left behind at the final slope. Only a few torches burned among them.

Paris raised his bow.

The first guard reached for his spear. Paris’s arrow struck the ground between the man’s feet. The guard stumbled back, and two Trojan soldiers rushed past him toward the oil carts.

"Cut the ropes!" Hector shouted.

Men ran between the stacked timber and the wagons. Axes struck wood. Knives sawed through thick ropes holding the siege materials together.

Paris released another arrow.

A Greek soldier lifted a horn to his lips. The arrow struck his hand. The horn fell before he could use it.

For a few moments, the plan worked exactly as Hector had intended.

The northern force had drawn part of the Greek watch away. The men left behind were too few to understand what was happening. Some ran toward the burning grass. Others tried to drag the oil carts out of reach.

"Fire!" Paris called.

A soldier overturned the first jar.

Oil spread across the ground and beneath the carts. Another man threw a torch after it.

The flames rose at once.

The Greeks began shouting.

Hector looked toward the eastern road.

The torches Lysander had seen from the wall were no longer distant.

They were moving toward them.

"King Hector," Paris called. "The road is closing."

Hector saw the line of lights beyond the smoke. Greek soldiers were forming across the route they had intended to use for the retreat.

They had not been fooled completely.

"Pull everyone back," Hector ordered.

A captain pointed toward the burning stores.

"We have not finished."

"We have done enough."

The captain hesitated only briefly before repeating the order.

The Trojans began withdrawing through the smoke. Paris moved backward while continuing to fire, forcing the nearest Greeks to keep their shields raised.

Then a different voice rose above the confusion.

"Stop chasing the riders! The fire is the attack!"

Patroclus entered the edge of the camp with a group of Greek soldiers behind him.

He was not wearing the bright armour of a champion. His shield was plain, and his cloak had already been marked by ash. He pushed past two men trying to reach the northern road and looked toward the burning oil.

"Get the wounded away from the carts," he ordered. "Leave the timber."

A soldier pointed toward the Trojans.

"They are retreating."

"Then let them retreat. Save the men."

Patroclus saw Hector through the smoke.

The Trojan king was directing his soldiers toward the western side of the supply camp, where the burning wagons had begun to collapse.

Patroclus understood the danger immediately. If Hector reached the narrow ground behind the stores, the Trojans could disappear before the Greek force closed around them.

He drew his sword.

"Follow me."

The soldier beside him grabbed his arm.

"Patroclus, the road is burning."

"I can see that."

"You will be cut off."

Patroclus pulled free.

"Then keep the road open."

He moved through the smoke.

Hector saw him coming.

For one brief moment, the battle narrowed to the space between them. Around them, men shouted and ran. Oil burned beneath the wagons. Arrows passed through the smoke without anyone knowing where they had come from.

Paris reached Hector’s side.

"The western route is gone."

"I see it."

"The men are waiting for you."

"Take them toward the wall."

Paris looked past him.

"And you?"

Hector drew his sword.

"I will follow."

Patroclus reached them before Paris could answer.

He struck first.

Hector caught the blow on his shield, but the force drove him back against one of the carts. The wood groaned beneath his weight.

Paris raised his bow.

"Go!" Hector shouted.

Paris did not move.

"Take the men!"

Another Greek soldier appeared behind Patroclus. Paris fired, and the arrow drove the man away from the fight.

Patroclus attacked again.

He was quick—not as fast as Achilles, but controlled and precise. Hector blocked the first cut, turned the second, and struck at Patroclus’s shoulder. Patroclus twisted aside. The blade opened his cloak without reaching the flesh.

"You should have stayed behind your walls," Patroclus said.

Hector stepped around the burning cart.

"So should you."

Patroclus came forward.

The ground shifted beneath them as one of the oil wagons collapsed. Flames swept across the space between the soldiers.

Hector moved back.

Patroclus did not.

A Greek soldier cried out near the fallen wagon. His leg was trapped beneath a broken beam.

Patroclus glanced toward him.

Hector saw the decision before it happened.

Patroclus turned away from the fight and seized the beam with both hands.

"Move!" he shouted to the trapped man.

The soldier tried to crawl free.

Hector could have left.

Instead, he stepped closer.

Patroclus lifted the beam far enough for the soldier to drag himself out. The moment the man was clear, Patroclus turned back.

Hector’s sword entered beneath his ribs.

Patroclus stopped.

The blade had gone through the gap beneath his arm. His hand closed around Hector’s wrist, but the strength left him almost immediately.

The two men stood face to face in the firelight.

Patroclus looked down at the sword, then back at Hector.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Patroclus’s grip loosened.

Hector pulled the blade free.

Patroclus fell beside the burning wagon.

A Greek soldier shouted his name.

More men were coming through the smoke.

Hector looked at Patroclus once more, then turned away.

He did not search the body. He did not take the sword. There was no time.

"Withdraw!" he shouted.

Paris seized his arm as an arrow struck the cart behind them.

"This way!"

They ran toward the western slope.

The Trojan soldiers followed in scattered groups, carrying their wounded and leaving the burning supplies behind. The Greek line had closed across the open road, but the fire forced it apart near the ruined carts.

Hector led the survivors through the gap.

By the time the gates of Troy opened, the sun had risen above the walls.

Lysander stood on the battlement, watching the smoke spread across the plain.

He saw the returning soldiers.

He saw the wounded.

He saw Hector’s blood on the king’s arm.

He did not ask whether the attack had succeeded. The burning Greek stores answered that question.

Far below, Hector entered through the gate without looking back.

On the plain, the Greek soldiers gathered around the body beneath the broken wagon.

No one touched Patroclus until Achilles arrived.

He came alone at first, walking through the smoke with his spear in his hand. The men moved aside for him.

Achilles stopped beside the body.

Patroclus lay on his back, one hand still closed around a splinter of wood. His eyes were open.

Achilles knelt and shut them.

He did not ask who had done it.

The answer was written in the blood on the stones, in the direction of the retreat, and in the walls of Troy beyond the field.

Achilles remained beside his cousin for a long time.

Then he stood.

Across the plain, Hector had already disappeared behind the gates.

Achilles looked toward Troy.

The truce had one day left.

It no longer mattered.