They dared not draw water from the cursed river that fled the light of day like a creature of the night, and so they continued inland in search of game and water. The land opening up all around them was quite different from any Diomedes had ever seen; it was covered by stunted, twisted trees and furrowed by deep gorges and wild, overgrown ravines.
A little group of deer appeared and the hunters closed in. The Hittite and the foreigner were armed with bows and hid behind some brambles; Diomedes and Myrsilus took position opposite them with their javelins. A flock of birds took to the air with shrill cries, startling the deer. As they bolted, Myrsilus hurled his javelin but missed the mark, while the Hittite had had the time to take aim and he hit a large male which collapsed to the ground, dead. The others tied him by his legs to a branch and began to make their way back to the ship. Although the territory they crossed seemed deserted and uninhabited, the eyes of the foreigner kept darting here and there, as though he sensed some presence.
He was not mistaken. One of the men suddenly yelled out in pain and dropped to his knees; an arrow had pierced his thigh. They all turned; behind them, just topping a hill, were a mob of wild-haired savages with long beards, wearing goatskins. They were armed with bows and wielded heavy clubs with stone heads. They ran forward, shouting loudly and waving their bludgeons. Diomedes ordered his men to retreat to a gorge where they would have some hope of resisting, although they were so thoroughly outnumbered. Some of the attackers were letting out shrill, high-toned cries, like those of sea birds. Their cries echoed in the distance, bouncing off the rock walls, the precipices and the caverns; they must have been calls for reinforcement, because the enemy strength soon swelled to an enormous number of men.
The Achaeans continued to fall back but shortly found themselves in a deep, narrowing gully. Their enemies were soon upon them, looming from above at the rim of the steep crevasse and pushing huge stones down below. The stones roared down the rock walls, picking up speed and dislodging others on their way to the bottom of the gully. Diomedes ordered his men to flatten themselves against the walls and then to run as fast as they could in the direction of the sea, but some were struck nonetheless by the stones and crushed to the ground, while others met an even worse fate. That cursed gully was rife with pits and swallow holes, covered with thick bushes and brambles. As they ran, many plunged below to their deaths, while others lay helplessly on the bottoms of the pits howling with pain, their bones shattered.
Diomedes took stock of the tremendous danger and, as the enemies rushed to close off every path of escape, he ordered his men to stop and to seek cover among the bushes and the rocky crags of the gully walls. He glanced around and saw that the ground was all scattered with white animal bones. That was how this fierce people hunted game! By herding them towards that gorge and raining down stones on them from above, just as they were now trying to destroy him and his companions. He, King of Argos and son of Tydeus, was forced to scramble like a wild animal being hunted down by savages, was forced to listen to his wounded warriors’ cries for help without being able to raise a hand for them. They hid among the bushes and waited, perfectly still, although the stones never ceased to fall from above, just barely missing them at times. Thus they waited until nightfall. Then the stones stopped falling and fires were lit on the rim of the gully. Their enemies were not going anywhere. They were waiting for the sun to rise and then they would slaughter them all.
One of his men crept towards Diomedes; it was Cleitus, son of Leitus of Las, who had fought at his side at Ilium. He said: ‘This is the fate that has befallen us for following you! To be massacred by ferocious savages without any chance of defending ourselves, to be stoned to death like beasts without ever drawing our swords. If we had remained at Argos we would have at least been able to fight on an open field in the light of the sun, and we would have died in our own land.’
Myrsilus interrupted him: ‘Hold your tongue. No one forced you to follow the king. You did so of your own will. If you don’t stop whining I’ll break your jaw and make you spit blood. What we must do is find a way to escape while it is dark and they cannot see us.’
Telephus, the Hittite slave, approached him as well, and said: ‘The wind is blowing from the sea, and the ground above us is covered with dry grass and branches. Where I come from, when the peasants want to burn the stubble on their fields, they wait until a strong wind picks up from the east; the whole plain soon becomes a sea of flames.’
‘What do you mean to say?’ asked the king.
‘Listen, wanax. While we were running like madmen down this abyss, I noticed that on the left side there was a way of getting back up to the rim. It won’t be easy, but I come from the mountains and I’m a good climber. If any of your men can climb as well, allow them to come with me. When we get up there, we’ll set fire to the grass all around the enemies. The wind will do the rest. There’s no other way, king. If we don’t try it, we will all die and our bodies will lie unburied, like the bones of these animals.’
‘I will come with you myself,’ said the king. ‘As a boy, I often stayed with my grandfather Oineus and my uncle Meleager in Aetolia; I climbed the steep slopes there with no fear. I will take Diocles and Agelaus, Eupitus and Evenus with me; they are Arcadians and lived as boys on the mountains.’
Myrsilus wanted to come as well, but Diomedes ordered him to stay with the others.
They set out and followed the Hittite slave in silence. When they got to the foot of the escarpment, they began their ascent, stopping every time a stone was knocked out of place for fear they would be heard and discovered. As they made their way up, they could hear rowdy laughter and shouting, and the crackling of the fires. When they pulled themselves up over the rim of the gorge, they could see the savages all sitting around the fires, eating roasted meat. They were yelling and belching, throwing bones and pieces of meat at each other.
Diomedes and the others encircled the bivouac and headed for the most isolated fire, slipping behind the men sitting there and killing them before they had even suspected their presence. They seized firebrands then, and spread out. The Hittite slave guided them, just as he had as a boy, helping the peasants set fire to the stubble fields in the immense high plains of Asia. He tested the direction of the wind and touched his brand to the grass and dry branches covering the ground. The flames rose up vigorously and spread, carried by the wind. The other men, lurking in a half circle around the camp, did the same all around their enemies. In mere moments the high plain was a sea of flames and the wind was getting stronger.
The enemies were terror-stricken and yelled out in alarm, as some of them fell, run through by the arrows of invisible assailants. They could see nothing beyond the circle of flames that enveloped them on all sides. Forced back by the unbearable heat, they were soon caught between the yawning chasm and the wall of flames. Some tried to lower themselves down but panic overwhelmed them as they tumbled over and ended up smashed against the rocks, while others tried to run blindly through the fire.
Agelaus caught one of them alive and tied him to a tree, to deliver him over to Diomedes once it was all over.
By dawn the fire had burnt itself out and the ground was covered with scorched bodies. The king leaned over the side of the gorge and shouted to his men: ‘You can come up now! There is no more danger.’
The survivors clambered over the side, but Myrsilus hesitated as he heard groaning coming from the concealed pits. He could barely make out one of the men lying at the bottom of the hole; a fractured leg bone had broken through the skin and gleamed sharp white. His low, constant moaning was laden with pain. Myrsilus cautiously made his way along the narrow-sided gully as far as he could go, bending over the pit as a ray of light illuminated the face of the wounded warrior.