Traitor
A/N: This is just a sad, angsty fic I came up with in English class. It's Hector's POV, and I would really love feedback on this one.
I am not worthy of my title.
Commander, they call me. They worship me as if I were Ares himself; they tell stories of Apollo and the war god fighting at my side. They soldiers obey me because they feel I deserve to instruct them. For years I have held this position and we have never lost a battle. We've lost more men that I cared to lose, and at times fought desperately on the very brink of defeat, but in the end, it is always the Trojans who claim victory. Not the Hittites, not the Cicones, nor anyone else who has challenged us.
Except for today. The raiders who attacked today nearly beat us down. And no one has said it, but I am to blame. I am their commander, and I've failed them, although not in the way any of us expected.
I led my men as I usually do against raiders. I would love to say that the attack was a rare one, but Troy is challenged by greedy pirates frequently. No one has made it past the army to the gate in years. At the first report of enemy ships, I had the warning bell sounded and assembled the army outside the walls. As one being, the military moved across the plain, over the narrow parts that are so good for defense. There is one slim path that we block from raiders. To attack the city, they'd have to cross the narrow plain or try to cross the rushing Scamander River. And then they would have to find the farmer's gate, the only weak gate of the city. No army had succeeded in either way.
When they were still far away, small black dots scurrying toward us from the beach, I shouted out orders and scanned the men, re-arranging their positions. Andromache likes to boast to any guest that will listen about my battling skill. "He never forgets a single man," I remember her saying to a guest of my father's at supper one night, the torchlight caressing her beaming face.
Forgive me, Andromache. I have failed you. I forgot one man, and it could have cost you your life, and the life of our child.
He seemed ordinary enough, from what I saw of him. I confess that I barely paid him any heed. All that mattered to me was that he was young. At first he stood in the fourth rank from the back, among men slightly older than him. He couldn't have been more that thirteen years old, too young for the horrors of war. "You," I said, looking down from my horse. He looked up into my eyes nervously. "To the back line," I ordered. It is usually the safest place to be, and so it is where I place the youngest soldiers. He pulled his spear out of the sand and hurriedly moved out of his position, heading to the back of the army, closest to the small gate used by farmers.
Then I forgot about him. He wasn't important. It was probably his first battle, and he was probably as terrified as I was during my first battle. But there was simply no time to prepare him. Most of the men were barely ready. Their armor had been put on hastily; some ties were left undone, some greaves and armguards rested crookedly on their owner's limbs. I said a silent thanks to Andromache, who had helped me with my armor, even though she had been feeling ill.
And then the enemies were closer, close enough so I could see the color of their clothes and hair. I saw that they had a battering ram, to break open the Scaean Gate, but it did not worry me. We would drive them back to their ships, and they would get nowhere near enough to the city to use the weapon. I would never let them get close enough to put their filthy hands on the walls of my city.
Lightning coursed through my veins as it always does during a battle. I was overcome by a hot rage. Some of the men who have fought beside me joke about my mood during fights. "Your face grows dark as the night, and your eyes- I would not want to look into your eyes as an enemy, for I would know I see my end!" Aeneas has said, on more than one occasion. That must have been what I looked like then. I was furious that our enemies had come to attack Troy, my beloved Troy, and endanger everyone in it, down to the last child, for nothing more than riches and power. There was no thought in my mind except defeating them, and protecting my home.
"On my command!" I bellowed to my warriors. Some of the younger ones flinched, but there was no time for comfort. "Attack!"
From my battle cry sprung hundreds of others, soaring over the thunder made by feet and horses' hooves. Then the screams of metal as the armies crashed into each other with no hesitation, then a feeling of sickness as the metal's cry gives way to the screams of agony only a dying man can make.
The boy must have been frightened. I did not think of him then. My mind in a battle is only alert to my enemies, my men, the sword, spear, and shield I hold, the flesh and weapons of my opponent. But I had forgotten the boy. I had forgotten how scared I was at my first battle. It is impossible to block out the vileness of a battle, but I think I may have grown accustomed to it. That thought scares me more than you know.
"Forward! Keep the lines!" I shouted. We were moving away from our position at the mouth of the narrow pass to the city, but their army was too large to pass through it. One of the raiders was determined to fight me. He wore ornately decorated armor; he must have been royalty or a general. As he swung at my leg, I leapt down from my horse and engaged him in hand-to-hand combat. It didn't take long. He fought well, bestowing me with a slice from his sword on my shoulder that still stings, and a blow to the chest from his shield. But once he swung his sword too high. I ducked and plunged my sword into his ribs and he slipped forward on my sword. Just as quickly I slid my blade from his body and he fell to the sand on top of another raider. His blood was warm, and it clung to my arms, staining them in a bizarre crimson pattern. Fleetingly I longed for the battle to be over, to be in my chambers, having the dead man's dried blood scrubbed off my arms by Andromache.
But I was no coward. I kept fighting until every sharp detail was one unending chain of death, injury, wails of the wounded. And I forgot the boy.
It was almost like a lull in the battle, a lull that no one quite understood. We had all been so immersed in the fight. There were far too many raiders in front of us. We had not killed that many.
Then from behind us there came the dull pounding, and my heart sank like a stone. I knew exactly what it was, in some part of me, before I ever turned. We were so close to their ships. And they were even closer to our city.
"Back! Back to the gate!" I cried, angrier than I had ever been in any battle. I was still denying the fact. We had attacked perfectly. No other enemy had even considered crossing the Scamander. But these had. I had thought, like an idiot, that they wouldn't try to cross over the narrow banks, as their army was too large. But they had. And where a group couldn't fit through the pass, they had crossed in the river. They must have been good swimmers.
And they had avoided the Scaean Gate altogether. They had found the farmer's gate.
Now we were slow getting over the banks. I could see them battering at the gate. My family! My people! I remember my mind screeching. I was at the head of the army, willing my horse to move faster so I could somehow prevent the enemies from entering the city.
I think every man in the army had the same idea. We rushed over the burning plain, and once we reached the men, it was a massacre. They had opened the gate, and some men were in the city, but they had not gotten far. I stormed in with a few other warriors behind me. The raiders had no chance against our fury. I cut four of them down, hacking away at their flesh. They had entered Troy, the place I risked my life to keep a sanctuary, and they paid with their own lives. Then we went back to the front of the gate to continue our revenge. There was nothing polite or glorious about it. Every move was faster, every scream louder, until every enemy in the area was dead. I know some got away. Maybe they had enough men to sail one ship home, but the rest of their people died. It was no honorable battle, nothing to be sung about by poetic bards. And the massacre wasn't the worst part, not for me.
I had seen the boy I had forgotten among the raiders, the only Trojan in the crowd around the battering ram. When the bodies were piled around the broken gate, I stormed over to where he stood next to the wall. "Give me your name," I growled.
"Aeschylus," he said slowly. His eyes were darting around everywhere, the carnage, the blood, my face.
"Aeschylus, can you explain to me why you were among the enemy's soldiers?" I asked, in almost a shout. Some of the other soldiers were circling us in they way they usually circled dueling warriors. I clenched and unclenched my fist, not caring how frightened he was as his gaze lingered on my hand.
"I was- I showed them the farmers gate," he confessed. He was shaking uncontrollably.
"And why would you do that?" I yelled. I could feel the tension in the men around me. We had seen traitors dealt with before, when my father still commanded the army.
"I thought if they just got our treasure they would leave us alone," Aeschylus said in a whisper. He was crying by then, as if he couldn't hold his tears in no matter how childish they were.
I was moved by his words. I must be the most horrible commander in the history of Troy, because he was a traitor, he had betrayed my country, and yet I pitied him. I remember wanting to somehow end the vicious fighting during my first battle.
"You know the laws, lad," one of the men said to Aeschylus. "You betrayed us. You could have gotten us all killed- or worse, all our wives and children."
He was older than I, and far wiser. I stared at the boy. The man was right. The laws had been in effect since my grandsire was commander. I could not change them.
"I know, my lord," Aeschylus whimpered. He was shaking so hard his armor was clanging. It was too big for him. The tears raced frantically down his red face, and he kept sniffling. He had given up every thought of bravery. He had somehow banished every thought of glory.
"The punishment for betrayal is immediate death," I said softly. Every soldier knew it; the boy did too. He nodded and raised his head to look me in the eye. I hope my face was kind. More than anything, I hope the last thing he ever saw was peaceful. I hope he is at peace now.
The burden of Troy sat so heavily on my shoulders. I had a choice. I did the wrong thing. I did what Troy demanded. Slowly, painfully, I grasped the hilt of my bloody sword and drove it through his stomach,thrusting it upward until it reached his heart. In the instant before the metal pierced his skin, his brown, fearful eyes showed peace.
I killed a boy. I was the one that should have been killed. I am the enemy here, for I forgot the terror of war. I forgot compassion. They should have killed me instead.
I bent down and gently scooped up his body, too aware of his blood soaking my arm and my hair. It was I who bore his body back into the city. His parents were already there. His father was ranting about his son, the traitor. His loving mother took his body from me and embraced it. She couldn't have cared if he was a murderer or something worse. He was her son.
I will never forgive myself.
And now I walk alone to the citadel, to my bedchambers. Andromache is waiting, and she is crying. She opens her arms to me and I bury my head in the crook of her neck, with one of my bloody hands resting on her swollen belly. Already the hand of war has touched our unborn child. I can hope in vain that he will never feel the pain of a warrior.
"I killed a child," I sob into her hair. I have never cried in her presence. "He was a traitor, but he was a child."
"I know," she soothes, rubbing my arm with one hand. "I saw. You did the right thing, Hector. You obeyed the laws of Troy."
But she is wrong. The laws are wrong. And if I must follow the laws of killing, I no longer wish to obey. No, Aeschylus was not innocent. But neither am I.
The sun is disappearing, leaving us all in an endless night. No one can escape. Andromache slowly rinses the blood of the men I've killed off my arms, but it is no use. She can scrub forever, but a trace of the boy's warm crimson will always remain with me.
If you could leave me a review, I'd really appreciate it, because this isn't exactly what I usually write. Thank you for reading!