It’s just after sunrise here on the third day—quite possibly the last day, since the Trojans were moving, shifting forces, bringing up more troops, chariots, and trench-bridging equipment all during the night—and more than a hundred thousand relatively fresh Trojan troops are massing around the defensive perimeter even as I speak.

I’ve brought the recorder here to Agamemnon’s camp because Nestor has called a council of his surviving war chieftains. At least those that can be spared from their fighting positions. These tired and filthy men ignore my presence—or rather, they probably remember that I spent much time with and near Achilles during the eight-month war with the gods, so they accept my presence. And the sight of this wafer-sized recorder in my hand means nothing to them.

I no longer know for whom I’m observing and recording these things—I imagine that I would be the ultimate persona non grata if I were to show up on Olympos and hand this recording chip to one of the Muses who sought to kill me—so I will make these observations and record this recording only as the scholar I once was, not as the slavescholic they turned me into. And even if I am no longer a scholar, I can serve as a war correspondent in these last hours of the last stand of the Greeks and the end of this heroic era.

NESTOR What is the news? And do you think your men will hold the line today?

IDOMENEUS (Commander of the Crete contingent. The last time I saw Idomeneus, he had just killed the Amazon Bremusa with a spearcast. Moments later, the Brane Hole closed. Idomeneus was among the last to abandon Achilles.)

The news is bad from my part of the line, Noble Nestor. For every Trojan we’ve killed in the last two days, three more have taken his place in the night. They ready their trench-filling tools and spears for the attack. Their archers are still massing. It will be decisive today.

LITTLE AJAX (As different as the Aeantes—the two Ajaxes—had been, they had been as close as brothers. I have never seen this Ajax of Locris look so grim. The grooves and wrinkles on his face are so outlined in mud and blood that they resemble a kabuki mask.)

Nestor, son of Neleus, hero of these darkest of times, my Locris fighters engaged the enemy through much of the night as Deiphobus’ scouts tried to flank us on the north end of the perimeter. We fought them back until the surf ran red. Our section of trench is filling up with our own and the Trojan dead until they soon will be able to walk across on bodies heaped ten feet high. A third of my men are dead, the rest exhausted. Hector has sent new troops to replace his losses.

NESTOR Podalirius, how goes it with the remaining son of Atreus?

PODALIRIUS (The son of Asclepius is one of the last healers left to the Greeks. He is also co-commander, along with his brother Machaon, of the Thessalians from Tricca.)

Noble Nestor, Agamemnon’s arm has been set in a splint, he has taken no herbs for the pain, and he is awake and rational.

NESTOR Why is it then that he has not emerged from his tent? His corps is the largest left to our army, but they shelter in the center like women. Their hearts are gone without their leader.

PODALIRIUS Their leader’s heart is gone without his brother Menelaus.

TEUCER (The master archer, half brother and dearest friend to the murdered Big Ajax.)

Then Achilles was right ten months ago when he confronted Agamemnon in all our sight and told the great king he has the heart of a fawn. (Spits into the sand.)

EUMELUS (Son of Admetus and Alcestis, commander of the Thessalians from Phereae. Often referred to by the missing Achilles and Odysseus as “lord of men.”)

And where is the accuser Achilles? The coward stayed behind at the base of Mount Olympos rather than face his death here with his comrades. The fleet-footed mankiller turned out also to have the heart—and hooves—of a fawn.

MENESTHIUS

(The huge captain of the Myrmidons, a former lieutenant of Achilles’.)

I’ll kill any man who says that about the son of Peleus. He would never abandon us of his own free will. We all saw and heard the goddess Athena tell Achilles that he had been enchanted by Aphrodite’s spell.

EUMELUS Enchanted by Amazon pussy, you mean.

(Menesthius steps toward Eumelus and begins to draw his sword.)

NESTOR

(Stepping between them.)

Enough! Aren’t the Trojans killing us quickly enough, or do we need to add to our own slaughter? Eumelus, step back! Menesthius, sheath your sword!

PODALIRIUS (Speaking as the Achaean’s last healer now, not as Agamemnon’s personal doctor.)

PODALIRIUS (cont.)

What’s killing us is the disease. Another two hundred dead, especially among the Epeans who are defending the riverbank to the south.

POLYXINUS

(Son of Agasthenes, co-commander of the Epeans.)

This is true, Lord Nestor. At least two hundred dead and another thousand too sick to fight.

DRESEUS

(Captain of the Epeans, just raised to the rank of commander.)

Half my men did not respond to muster this morning, Lord Nestor.

PODALIRIUS And it’s spreading.

AMPHION

(Another recently promoted captain of the Epeans.)

It’s Phoebus Apollo’s Silver Bow striking us down, just as it was ten months ago when the god-spread disease had corpse fires burning every night. It’s what led to the first falling-out between Achilles and Agamemnon—it’s what led to all our woes.

PODALIRIUS

Oh, fuck Phoebus Apollo and his Silver Bow. The gods—including Zeus—did their worst to us and now they’re gone, and only they know if they’re coming back. Personally, I don’t care if they do or don’t. These deaths, this disease, didn’t come from Apollo’s Silver Bow—I think it comes from the foul water the men are drinking. We’re drinking our own piss and sitting in our own excrement here. My father, Asclepius, had this theory of origins of disease in contaminated water and…

NESTOR

Learned Podalirius, we will rejoice to hear your father’s theory of disease at another time. Right now I need to know if we can hold off the Trojans today and what, if anything, my captains advise us to do.

ECHEPOLUS

(Son of Anchises)

We should surrender.

THRASYMEDES (Nestor’s son who had fought so valiantly the day before. His wounds are bandaged and bound up, but he appears to be suffering from them more today than in the heat of yesterday’s long fight.)

Surrender, my ass! Who is in our circle of Argives that so cowers from fear that he suggests craven surrender? Surrender to me, son of Anchises, and I’ll put you out of your misery as quickly as the Trojans certainly will.

ECHEPOLUS

Hector is an honorable man. King Priam used to be an honorable man, and may well still be. I traveled with Odysseus to Troy when the Ithacan came to reason with Priam, to try to get Helen back through talk to avoid this war, and both Priam and Hector were reasonable, honorable men. Hector will hear our surrender.

THRASYMEDES

That was eleven years and a hundred thousand souls sent down to Hades ago, you fool. You saw the extent of Hector’s mercy when Ajax the Great begged and pleaded for his life, his long shield hammered into tin, snot and tears rolling down our hero’s face. Hector severed his spine and hacked out his heart. His men probably won’t be so merciful to you.

NESTOR

I know there has been talk of surrender. But Thrasymedes is correct—too much blood has been spilled on this Trojan soil to hold out any hope for mercy. We would have given the citizens of Ilium none, would we, had we but breached their walls to more success three weeks ago—or ten years ago? All of you here know that we would have killed every man old enough or young enough to lift a sword or bow, slaughtered their old men for spawning our enemies, raped their women, carried all their surviving women and children into a life of slavery, and put the torch to their city and their temples. But the gods… or the Fates… whoever is deciding the outcome of this war, have turned against us. We cannot expect from the Trojans, who suffered our invasion and our ten years of siege, more mercy than we would have granted them. No, tell your men, if you hear these murmurings, that it is madness to surrender. Better to die on your feet than on your knees.