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.