BOOK OF ASTYANAX
CHAPTER 4
“THE INFANT”
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“Argh! You’ll die here, bastard!”
Steel clashed against steel. Immediately following that ‘declaration’, A Trojan soldier’s blade, thrust forward while his footing was unsteady, stabbed into Odysseus’s shield and was stopped without the king of Ithaca having budged as much as an inch.
Unlike his opponent, Odysseus’s feet remained steadily planted on the ground, and he maintained a balanced posture that only the most skilled of swordsmen could keep under such duress. In a way, a man like him whose tricks served as unparalleled weapons had the best makings of a swordsman; after all, It was in his cunning nature to pick up on every detail, large or small, and adapt as quickly as possible in response.
That was why the moment the Trojan’s sword made contact with his shield, Odysseus was already prepared for his next move. Each and every movement was accounted for. Planned. Calculated. The second steel met steel, before a sound could even be produced, Odysseus counterattacked. His shield rotated, spinning his enemy’s strike out of his control. He was sent off-kilter; his unsteady footing would be his undoing.
The Trojan tried to recover. It was too late. Odysseus drove his blade into the man’s torso, stabbing through his armored plating like a knife through butter with some effort and a good amount of momentum. The king’s sturdy hold on his weapon prevented the Trojan from falling for a short moment, during which he could only stare in shock. In war, death never struck when or where it was expected the most, and every soldier had their own delusions of grandeur. Very few of them anticipated such a mundane end.
Odysseus pulled his blade from the Trojan’s body, and his period of grace from the fall came to a sudden end. With a stumble, as if to preserve his footing as long as possible—a futile attempt to remain in the fight—he toppled backwards and landed with a heavy thud. Underneath him, blood quickly began to pour from his wounds to form a puddle.
“Who’s next?” Odysseus taunted. He directed the end of his still-bloodied blade at his remaining enemies. Like most of his moves, it was a calculated effort.
With two of those Trojans down, that left three survivors. Three dead men walking.
Spurred on by his words, as well as their ally’s violent demise, two of them rushed forward. One held a sword and the other a spear; both were armed with a shield. Odysseus counted the seconds before they reached him; he measured the distance between them and planned his own movements and attacks accordingly.
The one with the sword charged in front. The one with the spear was hanging back slightly. The third had a bow, but he seemed to be watching for the right moment. From their movements, Odysseus could tell their next course of action. One will attack my flank, he predicted. They were relying on their numbers. Against a superior opponent, that wasn’t the best strategy; Odysseus was quick to react, readying his sword.
The first one was cut down before his raised sword could even pose a threat to the Ithacan. Odysseus felt his own travel horizontally through his adversary’s abdomen for a well-aimed, clean strike. The Trojan staggered, his movements unsteady and his balance destroyed by the attack. He wasn’t dead, but he was about to collapse.
The other soldier approached from the back. His spear was thrust forward—an inevitability Odysseus was counting on. His grip loosened, allowing his sword to fall. In the same instant, he grabbed the first man before he could topple over.
“—Gh!” – a single grunt escaped. Red blood spewed.
The spear stabbed through the swordsman, whose body Odysseus used to shield himself, and protruded through to the other side. Its end stopped only inches away from Odysseus’s body. He looked and saw that the third soldier was preparing to aim now.
“You fucker—!” the spearman sputtered, but his words were cut off as Odysseus, once again grasping the hilt of the sword he dropped moments before it could hit the ground, drove his blade into his throat. The soldier fell back, still grasping the handle of his spear, as the sword remained embedded in his body. There was no hope for his survival.
One enemy remained, who was in the process of drawing his bowstring back. But Odysseus was quicker; he ripped the spear from his opponent’s grasp as he stumbled, letting go of his own weapon once more, and their battle of wits and swiftness came to a sudden end. With a whistle, an arrow stabbed through the air and whizzed right by Odysseus’s helmeted ear, missing by a hair’s breadth as he strafed to the side.
His enemy wasn’t so fortunate. Through his back, a blood-tipped spear jutted out. As evidenced by the battle’s conclusion, Odysseus’s aim was truer, and his enemy died.
Finally, he allowed himself to breathe. He was surrounded by the corpses of his enemies—fools who apparently thought death was better than fleeing with their lives, and wondered for a moment if their families waited for them outside Troy. They wouldn’t show; they would never return to their loved ones. They would never reunite.
I will, he decided. No matter what Trojans blocked his way, Odysseus would fight tooth and nail to kill them—all so that he could return home. To Penelope and Telemachus, he would return. But before he could set sail for Ithaca, he had something he had to do. One last objective had to be cleared, and there was one last enemy he had to slay.
× × × ×
“Finally,” he muttered to himself. He arrived.
In front of him, the mighty palace of Troy stood tall. Traveling from the gate to the palace was a tougher ordeal than expected, especially with those Trojans who lied in wait, ambushing those they thought they could take on. It was their own misfortune that led them to encounter one of the few soldiers their numbers failed to outmatch.
But he was there now, and as expected, the palace was already theirs. Greek soldiers were stationed outside the palace’s doors. Judging by that, Odysseus could only assume their invasion went well, and if he had to guess, that meant the royalty were among the dead. I’d expect nothing less from Neoptolemus, he thought, knowing the concept of ‘mercy’ was not one that was within his nature.
“You! Stop there!” A Greek soldier shouted as he approached. A few of them, armed with swords and spears, cautiously inched closer to him to get a better look.
“It’s only me,” Odysseus stated calmly.
“King Odysseus. He’s good,” one of them said. With a few murmurs, they dispersed and returned to their duties, leaving Odysseus to do whatever he wished.
Among the Achaeans, Odysseus was well-known. Even by their enemy, he was feared, and as Agamemnon’s greatest general who was instrumental during the siege of Troy, there was nowhere he wasn’t allowed to be. Perhaps that was why he was charged with this duty… although someone like Neoptolemus, who inherited his father’s talent and thirst for blood, was certainly a better candidate for the trial that lied inside the palace.
Odysseus couldn’t help his own confusion. If there was a powerful enemy hiding within the palace, why weren’t they already discovered? What kind of threat did they pose?
It was then that he spotted something interesting. A few Greek soldiers, charged with the responsibility of escorting a prisoner of war, exited from the palace almost as soon as he arrived. As he got closer, he took note of the prisoner’s appearance.
She was a woman of exceptional beauty, with long wooly, blondish-brown hair that reached down to her upper back and piercing brown eyes. Her height was above average, her complexion fair, and rather memorable freckles lined her cheeks. From the moment he laid eyes upon her, he was certain of it. He’d definitely seen her before.
“Wait a moment,” he said, interrupting the escort, and he addressed the woman directly after they stopped. “You were there, weren’t you? When Hector and Achilles fought.”
He remembered. Atop the gate of Troy she was there, standing side by side with King Priam and his queen Hecuba. He assumed she was royalty of some degree.
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Despite the horrors she likely witnessed that night, the woman remained stoic. Not a single bit of emotion—not grief, or anger, or even confusion—was written on her face. Her eyes met Odysseus’s, and yet she offered his inquiry no response.
The answer to his question came from behind him. “That’s Andromache, wife of Hector,” someone’s voice stated. “Hector’s brother, Helenus, survives as well.” Despite the war-torn setting they met in, the tone was rather boyish and, put bluntly, immature.
Odysseus turned to the one who made his appearance. Without even having to see him, he knew who it was. “Neo,” he greeted; it was Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.
Even with his armor and helmet, Neo’s features were especially distinct from the other Greek soldiers. He was much shorter and thinner due to his young age. The boy was sixteen; six when the war began and his father left to fight. In many ways, he also resembled the late Achilles, as he shared his messy hair, only shorter and red-colored, and had his striking green eyes. At each of his sides hung a small axe.
Like his father, Neo was a nigh-unrivaled warrior, greater than most—even greater than him, perhaps, although Odysseus didn’t quite see the purpose in a duel between the two of them. They had no qualms, and Odysseus’s respect for his father was far too great. That very respect was the reason he entrusted the boy with Achilles’ armor.
“So, then, what happened to Priam and the others?” Odysseus asked.
Without shame and without a second of hesitation, Neo said, “They’re dead. I killed Priam’s sons to draw him and his wife out of hiding, then killed him.”
“I see. And Hecuba?”
“Captured,” he answered quickly. “She was taken to Agamemnon.”
Andromache’s expression shifted at that; her facade cracked, her hard exterior replaced by something else—something far more visceral. “Monster,” she uttered, her barbed tongue directed at Neo. “What kind of man takes pleasure in such a massacre? How many widows have you created now? How many families have you reunited in Hades?”
“My revenge has nothing to do with you, woman,” he snapped back bluntly. Odysseus noticed his hand grasping the hilt of his axe as his brow furrowed and his anger rose.
“—But it does! It was my family you slaughtered, none of whom ever did you any wrong!” she shouted. Her mask now completely shattered, Andromache’s raw emotions could only flood out, washing away all calm that might have existed before. “If anything,” she continued, “it’s your family that owes more in blood than you can ever pay!”
Neo’s grip tightened. Odysseus noticed quickly.
“That’s enough. Get her out of here,” he said to Andromache’s escorts out of fear that if he didn’t intervene, things would go very, very wrong.
Neo clicked his tongue at the Ithacan’s intervention, but didn’t argue. “Just tie her up,” he said. “Don’t let her escape; I plan on taking her back to Phthia with me.”
Despite his words, Andromache refused to say anything more. Her escorts quickly dragged her away, leaving Odysseus and Neo alone. When they were out of earshot, Neo turned to Odysseus and in an accusatory tone he asked, “Why are you here? Did you not trust I could handle Priam’s sons? —You were the one who made this plan.”
“It isn’t that.” Odysseus shook his head, denying the boy’s words, and continued. “You fulfilled your duties perfectly. I’m here for something else; I fear it’s more serious.”
“More serious? What could possibly be more serious than this?” Neo asked.
“It concerns me,” Odysseus answered.
“Well, do what you wish then,” Neo sighed. He began to walk away and, with a single wave over the back of his head, said, “Good luck with whatever it is you’re here for.”
With Neo gone, Odysseus’s attention returned to the matter at hand. His eyes settled on the kicked-in door to the palace, without a doubt destroyed during their invasion. His legs moved before he could fully think, and in seconds he was already there. But as he approached, before he could even walk inside—
“Odysseus of Ithaca.” Zeus’s voice once again echoed through the world with a thunderous boom, and atop the destroyed palace door, Odysseus saw a perched eagle for the second time that day. It was then he knew, the moment of truth was upon him.
“I’m here,” he said. “What do I do now? Where do I go from here?”
“Inside, he awaits. You can still turn back, if you so choose.” Words of warning. The god was lending him one final decision, but Odysseus knew he had only one choice.
“I’m ready.” His words were reinforced with sheer conviction.
“I don’t believe you’re ready, but the choice is yours to make. I’ll guide you there.” Even though Zeus didn’t seem to believe he had the mettle for what lay ahead, for Odysseus there was only one thing he could do. To abandon his family and his kingdom out of fear for his own survival was the most shameful thing he could imagine.
The eagle faded into nothingness and became one with the wind before his very eyes. Behind him, he felt a gentle breeze that should not have existed in the burning Troy, subtly but eagerly pushing him to move forward. The divine guidance, he assumed.
He breathed in deeply, then out, and then commanded his legs to move with every bit of strength he could muster. Zeus’s guidance directed him; he was simply a vehicle of his will now, maneuvering through the unfamiliar palace as though he was its architect, as if he knew every nook and cranny, every corner of the massive castle, like the back of his own hand. With a certain knowledge he couldn’t even begin to explain, he kept on trudging forward, turning corridors and ascending stairs with a resolute intent.
× × × ×
“That bookshelf. It’s out of place,” he said out loud.
He didn’t know why, but his legs stopped moving the moment he saw it. He didn’t even know how he noticed it in the first place, but the bookshelf was leaned against a hallway wall. He got closer to it, inspecting it, and quickly realized the truth of the matter.
There’s something behind it. He grabbed one side of the bookshelf and pulled it away from its space with all the required strength. It budged easily and when Odysseus had fully moved the shelf from where it was located before, he understood.
“—So that’s where you’re hiding, then.”
…For in front of him, once hidden cleverly behind the bookshelf, was a door. The second he laid eyes upon it, he realized this was where his enemy hid.
“This is your last chance,” the god’s voice echoed in his mind. “Turn back now, or go inside. But if you enter, you’ll find more than you’ve ever bargained for.”
“For the last ten years, I haven’t shied away from a fight. This war is almost over; I can’t just give up and run when its end is almost in sight,” he declared. “I’m going in.”
“Very well. Be prepared to face the consequences then, Odysseus of Ithaca.” He’d already resolved himself to pay whatever price had to be paid. Since then, nothing changed. From his goal of saving his family, nothing would deter him.
Penelope, Telemachus… I’ll be home soon. I promise. It was an oath, both to himself and them. He hoped that somehow, across the sea, they heard his words.
He grabbed the hilt of his sheathed sword, still hung at his side, and pulled it from its scabbard as he steeled himself for the imminent battle that was to come. With his other hand he grasped the door handle and, gritting his teeth, he pushed it open and entered with a vengeance. Sword raised and at the ready, he charged—
“…Huh?”
—into an empty room.
No. That wasn’t quite right. There were no warriors and no soldiers in the room, but something else was in there. The moment his eyes settled on what lay within, his confusion turned to something else entirely. It could only be described as a bottomless ‘dread’, a void from whence nothing could ever escape that was comparable to the darkest pits of Hades. Tartatus, even, could not compare.
There was no more need for his sword. He returned it to its proper place at his side and, walking further into the room, he approached the thing that lay before his eyes.
More specifically, the object of his interest was what was inside that ‘thing’. The moment he looked inside and his deepest fears were realized, his heart froze in his chest. No longer did it beat; no longer did he feel the pulsation of life and love within himself.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. This… this was something he could never, in a thousand years, anticipate, beyond his wildest imaginations.
“…It’s just a boy,” he muttered.
The ‘thing’ in question was a long crib, rectangular in shape and elevated off the ground by four legs. Inside, the infant was draped in a white blanket, and stared back into his widened eyes with long, curly blondish-brown hair as well as brown irises of his own. The moment their eyes locked, what sounded like the embers of a cry sounded from the boy, taking Odysseus by surprise as he stumbled back. He’s afraid, he quickly realized.
“Are you afraid of me…? Ah—of course.” He pinpointed the source of the infant’s fear and grabbed at his helmet, pulling it off his head. “It’s okay,” he shushed, setting it down on the ground right next to the crib. “My son was scared of my helmet too…”
He wasn’t sure what else to do, so he began to comfort the boy who should not have been there. But this was not the way a soldier was to behave. “What am I doing…?” he asked himself, bewildered. “More importantly… Why is this boy here, and why was I brought to this place? I thought my enemy was waiting for me, but it’s…”
The sound of thunder accompanied his answer. “This is Astyanax,” Zeus declared. “Know this; he is the son of the late Hector, and one of the last surviving members of the royal family. Your quest has led you here; the enemy you seek—the one who stands in the way of you and those you cherish—is the very boy you’re looking at right now.”
Odysseus spun around, the breath caught in his throat. “…What?” he barely mustered, his eyes locked on the source of the voice: the eagle once more, which now perched through a nearby window. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “What kind of threat could an infant like this possibly pose? Surely we can avoid it?”
“Right now he’s just a boy, but understand this. He will grow and one day, fueled by hatred for all those who destroyed his homeland, he will become an avenger. He will seek retribution against the kings responsible, and you’ll be counted among the dead.”
…No. That can’t be. He rejected the words; he couldn’t fathom them… and yet they began to sink in. He turned back around and stared at ‘Astyanax’—the small and innocent boy who couldn’t have even been a year old, in disbelief. If he was really the cause of Ithaca’s inevitable destruction—if he was the one who would one day burn his kingdom to the ground, slaughtering all those he held dear, then Zeus was saying…
“If you don’t end him now, you’ll have nothing left to save.”
That declaration hit him like a bolt of lightning, launched by the God King himself. With an audible smack his hand was cupped over his mouth, his palm covering it in a desperate bid to quench the sickness that was steadily intensifying within his stomach. He stumbled a foot back; his legs nearly buckled for the second time, just barely supporting the weight that pushed him down and compelled him to his knees.
Faced with such an awful ultimatum, Odysseus could do nothing but stare. The feeling welling up inside him was unmistakable, but he could do little to resist it. It was no mere sickness; it was the disease known as ‘despair’, for which no cure existed.
And suddenly, Odysseus understood every one of Zeus’s words and twisted premonitions. There was no imminent danger; his foe ‘would not run’ because he couldn’t even stand. He was innocent—an enemy beyond his comprehension, which he never faced before. Much like the god predicted, his only recourse was to curse fate and the divine both for the tragedy that was about to unfold.