The Bronze God of Rhodes
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1963
- Язык: английский
- Год: Bantam Books
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Bronze God of Rhodes». Краткое содержание книги:
From the sea in thousands of ships they came, the brutal legions of Antigonos, a giant lusting for the power of Alexander the Great. For endless weeks and months they battered at the tiny island city, smashing it with monstrous weapons, crushing it with the terrible weight of their numbers.
Among the handful of grim defenders was one man who fought for a dream, a vision of a great statue that would stand above the highest towers as a monument to his city's grandeur.
He was Chares, soldier, adventurer, a man tormented by passion, a wanderer in strange, deadly lands—an artist who lived to see his incredible dream become one of the seven wonders of the world.
I kept on pushing until I came to the square. Here I could see nothing but the backs of our foot, pressing in upon the Antigonians with a deafening din. I worked around until I came to one of the dart throwers. Onas helped me to climb up on the structure, so that I could see over the forest of plumed helmets.
"This is the fourth attack," shouted Onas. "The foot goes in and works on them for a while; then they are withdrawn while we and the Cretans ply them with missiles. There goes the recall now!"
Trumpets blasted, and the Rhodians drew back, breaking up into their separate platoons. Their officers herded them this way and that to get them out of the way of the missile troops.
"Cock your pieces!" said Onas.
The square was littered with bodies and weapons. On the far side, where the old theater had stood before it was demolished to reinforce our walls, stood the mass of Antigonians, clustered close, with their shields in line. Even at this distance I could see that their armor was battered and bloody.
"A most obdurate foe," said Onas. "Shoot at will!"
The dart throwers discharged; their darts whistled on flat courses across the square, to plunge into the packed ranks. There was a movement among the Antigonians as those on the outside knelt and those inside raised their shields to form a tortoise. At the same time came a bark of commands from the roofs around us; hundreds of Cretan arrows streaked towards the invaders. The arrows skipped from shield and helm; here and there one found an opening, and a man fell clanging. Off went the dart throwers again.
"Faster on the cocking!" said Onas. "Had we a hundred of these, Chares, we should have cleaned out the miscreants long since ... Ech! Guard yourself; here they come!"
Suddenly the mass of Antigonians moved, shaking out into a regular formation as it advanced, with spears in the front rank. Our trumpets blasted madly; a platoon of Rhodians ran clattering to take the enemy in flank. In front of the Antigonians trotted an enormous man, six feet tall and built like a Scythian bear, wearing an iron cuirass like that of the king. Over the rising din I heard Onas' shout:
"Chares! Take a shield!"
I darted forward to pick up one of the discarded shields that Uttered the pave. Two Rhodian spearmen rushed against the giant leading the Antigonians. With two swipes of his huge sword he smote them both to earth, and an arm flew off one of them. On came the Antigonians, shouting:
"The Empire! King Antigonos! Eleleleu!"
I ran back to the catapults, just ahead of the Antigonians, who were trying to break out through the Street of the Dyers. The catapult crews clustered around their pieces, lightly armed and not looking too resolute, but held to their posts by Onas' powers of command. Arrows rained upon the Antigonians, and Rhodian footmen hurled themselves upon their flanks with spear and sword; but those in front pressed on, mowing down all who strove to stop them.
I do not know quite how it happened, but I found myself engaged with the giant Antigonian captain all by myself. I had no time to think on the ridiculous spectacle that this fight must present when the giant's sword, striking my shield, hurled me headlong to the ground by sheer impact.
Then the bronze-clad legs of the Antigonians were all around me, as in that fight on the mole. I rolled over and got my shield over me.
Two cubits away Onas and the steel-clad captain traded Homeric blows. Onas, though not so big as his foe, was still one of our largest and strongest soldiers. For three heartbeats they faced each other, their swords clanging like blacksmiths' hammers. Then an Antigonian spear took Onas in the ribs from one side, and down he went.
Blind with rage, I rolled to hands and knees and sent a backhand cut at the Antigonian's ankle. The blade bit into the hamstring. Like a felled oak, the giant tottered, swayed, and toppled. A rush of Rhodians swarmed over him, jabbing and hacking. A body fell across me, and another.
By the time I crawled out from under, the last armed Antigonians had pushed out of the square; the only living foes left were the wounded and the prisoners. The sounds of fighting receded down the Street of the Dyers.
Onas was dead. Blinking back tears for a brave and true comrade, I rounded up the catapult crews and started them hauling the engines back towards the wall. It took an hour because of the press in the streets and the Utter of bodies and weapons.
By the time we reached the wall, the Antigonians who had broken out had long since limped and staggered across the field to their camp. Perhaps two hundred had escaped, compared to three hundred captured and nearly a thousand dead. Of those who got out, nearly every man bled.
On the wall I found Bias with blood on his armor. "General!" I said. "Fie upon you, you've been fighting! Is that any way for a general to act? This isn't the Trojan War, you know."
"Look who's talking!"
"Why, what's wrong with me?"
"Your face!"
I put my hand up and found that my face was covered with blood from a cut that had laid open one cheek. Now I understood why I had found it hard to talk clearly, though I had no remembrance of the blow itself. I was also soaked with the blood of those who had fallen on top of me at the Square of the Theater.
"President Damoteles is dead," said Bias. "Your catapults helped a lot. I don't think the boy wonder will try any more attacks today. His men balked this afternoon, and the sight of those troops that broke out finished off their warlike spirit."
"Have you any news of my father?"
"I wouldn't know about him. Get along home and have that wound sewn up. We can't have the handsomest man in Rhodes going around with his face laid open."
At home I found my father, with a leg wound that lamed him for the rest of his days. My mother and Io were nursing him. The women gave a little shriek at the sight of me.
"It's only a scratch," I said, "but I shall appreciate it if you ladies will wash it off and sew it up." I spoke thickly out of one side of my mouth.
When I had looked into my father's wound, I asked him how the battle had gone with him.
"We broke them!" he said. "It was hard work for us old fellows who hadn't wielded a spear for years, but we did it. A lot of reservists fell besides Damoteles; Giskon's friend Nikolaos, for instance.
"The Antigonians had a captain, Alkimos, six feet tall and wearing one of those iron cuirasses you tell me about. He led his men again and again, roaring and smiting like a lion. But somebody—some little fellow—got him in the leg and brought him down, and then we all surged over him. I wish I could have gotten my hands on that steel corselet, but somebody else made off—why, what's funny?"
As Io was cleansing my face, I could only laugh out the side of my mouth and point to myself.
"Oh," said my father. "So it was you? I wasn't close enough to see. Son, if I've castigated you in the past, forget it. You're the bravest hero we have."
It did not seem politic to argue that I had gotten into handplay with Alkimos because I had been too stupid to get out of his way. I said:
"If those steel corselets become common, it won't be good for the bronze-founding business."
"My thought exactly. I remember when the steel helmet first began to come in, when I was apprenticing to my father in Lindos. He was sure that steel would never prove practical for armor. A steel helmet would be too brittle, or would rust away unless cleaned every day, and so forth. Well, the steel helmet is now common, but we nearly went bankrupt before the old man would admit it was here to stay."
I said: "Oh, well, I suppose we can always sell lamps and trays."
My mother said: "Chares, if you'll stop talking, I will sew up your wound. Hold still; this will hurt ..."