"You called us, my prince?" asked the first of them, avoiding looking at the body of Patroklos where it lay.

"Search the tent and the camp," Akhilles commanded. "Some intruder has entered unseen and spoke dreadful things to me in the voice of Patroklos. Find him and drag him here - and I will have his eyeballs on sticks to roast! I will tear out his gizzard and fry it before his eyes! I will - but find him for me first!" He shook his fist and the men rushed out.

Her mission finished, Kassandra drifted after them, and heard one of them say, "I knew it. He's been mad since he shut himself up in his tent and it's driven him further out of his senses, it has."

"Do you think there's a spy?"

"I wouldn't wear meself out looking, lad," said the first speaker cynically. "Inside his poor sick brain, that's where ye'll find your ghost."

Kassandra would have laughed if she had been capable of it. Like a wraith of fog she moved up the long hill to the windswept heights of Troy, and silently slipped downward and merged with her body, still wrapped in Aeneas's arms.

She slept without dreams.

Now that she had a man among the warriors, she told herself she understood the impulse which sent the women down to the wall to watch the fighting. She left Phyllida to care for the serpents, and the other priestesses to the task of healing the wounded. This morning the line of chariots seemed more brilliantly painted and polished, weapons shining with a more terrible menace that ever before. Hector was leading, flanked by Aeneas and Paris, armored and imposing as if they were the

Gods of war in person. Behind the line of chariots came long lines of foot-soldiers in their polished leather armor with their javelins and spears. She thought, if she were among the Akhaians and saw this formidable host approaching, she might well run away.

The Argive troops, already lined up along the earthworks they had built between the plain and the shoreline where their ships were beached, did not flinch even when Hector gave the command to charge, and the Trojan war cry rang out. The chariots thundered forward, toward the unbreaking Argive line. The Akhaians loosed a flight of arrows and, as if in one concerted movement, the Trojan shields went up; most of the arrows fell harmlessly on the roof thus formed by the shields of the Trojans. A second flight of arrows quickly followed the first; one or two soldiers in the ranks fell, or stumbled out of line back toward the walls; but this did not interrupt the charge of the chariots.

A great cry went up from both ranks; at the top of the earthworks stood a great bronze chariot ablaze with golden wings and a rayed sun, and in it a glittering figure; Akhilles had joined the battle, dominating the line of Akhaians as a rooster dominates a henyard; everyone on either side of the battle seemed smaller and drabber by contrast.

Shouting, he raised his mighty shield, and charged down the earthworks at Hector like a fury. Jumping out of the chariot he cried his challenge. Hector was ready to oblige him. He cast his javelin which rebounded from Akhilles's shield, then, sword in one hand and shield in the other, swiftly engaged Akhilles in combat. Even where she stood Kassandra could feel the shock of that first blow, from which they both reeled back, staggering, several feet.

She knew that Andromache was beside her, clutching at her arm so strongly that her nails dug into Kassandra's skin. This battle had been inevitable from the moment Patroklos was killed.

Kassandra shrieked with excitement. Behind the foot soldiers, who swept along to catch the Akhaian soldiers between the chariots, came the horses of the Amazons. Their arrows and swords dispatched many of the foot soldiers. Hector, engaged with Akhilles, now seemed taller and more formidable; Kassandra felt it was not her brother, but the shining War-God himself. Hector wounded Akhilles and the Akhaian went down; a cheer from the Trojan ranks seemed to revitalize him, and he was up again, beating Hector back toward his chariot. The Trojan prince jumped up and was fighting Akhilles from the step of the chariot, then pivoted the wheels and knocked Akhilles down as he rode almost over him. Akhilles recovered and flung his javelin. It rebounded from Hector's armor, but he followed it up with a mighty sword-slash that struck Hector in the neck.

Hector slumped in the chariot. Troilus grabbed the reins, and, knocking Akhilles down again, made a dash for the walls. Then the Amazons with their spears swept toward Akhilles but he was surrounded by at least two dozen of his own Myrmidons, who made a solid wall of shields around him. The Amazons were forced to retreat, for although they cut down ten or twelve of Akhilles's men there were always more.

The Myrmidons reached Hector's chariot when it was already under the walls of Troy, then storming after them came Akhilles in his own chariot, with only one horse - he had cut the other loose. He crashed his chariot deliberately into Hector's, spilling young Troilus out on to the ground. The boy landed on his feet and went down beneath the swarming Myrmidons. Andromache was screaming; Kassandra turned to quiet her, and when she looked back again, Akhilles had the reins of Hector's chariot and was racing back toward the Akhaian lines with Hector—or his body—still inside.

Troilus was fighting for his life. One of the Amazons swept up to him, killed three of Akhilles's men and snatched Troilus into her saddle. Paris and Aeneas were in hot pursuit of Akhilles but the men atop the earthworks repelled them with what seemed a wall of javelins on which their horses were impaled. The Amazon charge cut down the javelin wall, and rescued Paris and Aeneas, but their overturned chariots were in Akhaian hands. Akhilles with Hector and his chariot, had vanished from sight.

It took a hard-fought hour for the Trojans to make their way back to the gate, even covered by arrow-fire from the walls; and Andromache met them.

"You couldn't even recover his body?" she shrieked. "You left it in their hands?"

"We did our best," said Paris; he had lost most of his armor, and was leaning on his charioteer, bleeding from a great sword-cut across the thigh. "But with Akhilles leading his men—"

"Akhilles! Curse him forever! May his bones rot unburied on the shores of the Styx!" Andromache broke into a high wild scream of lamentation.

"Hector is dead! Now let Troy perish indeed!"

Hecuba joined in the keening, "He is dead! Our greatest of heroes is dead! Dead or in Akhaian hands—!"

"Oh, he's dead all right," Aeneas said grimly.

"Galls me to admit it, but without the Amazon charge we would all have been dead," said Deiphobos, who had lifted down Troilus from the Amazon saddle and was half carrying him, examining his wounds. Hecuba hurried to him and took him in her arms, beckoning for a healer-priest.

"Ah, my sons! My Hector, my first-born and my last-born in a single hour! Ah, most fateful of all battles! It has begun," Hecuba wailed, and crumpled senseless. Kassandra ran to kneel by her, suddenly terrified that the shock had killed her mother too.

"No, Troilus is alive," said Aeneas, lifting the old woman gently. "You must be strong, Mother, he will need your good care if you are not to lose him too." He turned Troilus over to the healer-priest, who restored him to consciousness with a sip of wine, then examined his wounds. Women were handing round wine; Aeneas took one of the cups and gulped.

"I think tomorrow I will take careful aim at Akhilles from the walls and try to get him off the field before we even venture out."

"He can't be killed that way," Deiphobos said. "That armor of his is God-forged; arrows bounce off it like twigs!"

"Not God-forged," said Penthesilea, "forged of solid iron. Have you any idea what it must weigh? Even my women's metal-tipped Skythian arrows cannot penetrate it."