Waking up was remarkably painful.
A good dose of wine, which yesterday was drunk not for water purification purposes but purely to get wasted, was now hammering at my temples and asking to come out.
I still didn't know how to drink, as evidenced by father's reproachful look as he sat across from me.
He was fresh and vigorous, unlike me.
"Want to talk?" he asked.
"What did I even do?"
I sat up in bed and, as all teenagers who'd come home tipsy for the first time should, looked stubbornly at my parent, expecting a belt.
"You promised yesterday to burn the Danaans' ship," father answered. "Forgot?"
"Oh! That's what you're talking about?"
I fell back on the mattress with relief, observing the phenomenon of stunning beauty called the spins.
I'd last experienced such sensations in my first year of college. How much of that sour stuff did I have to drink to get so hammered.
"Doesn't this bother you?" father raised an eyebrow—he couldn't care less about my condition.
"Nope," I answered and rolled on my side. "Right now only the hangover bothers me."
"And I'm bothered by the family honor," father frowned. "I don't want my son to become a laughingstock."
"Then have the potter come here," I groaned, barely restraining the desire to hug some basin. "And you go find me a boat, a coil of rope, two fishermen for oars and fifty guys who run a bit faster than a pregnant woman."
"When do you want to do this?" Anchises asked without even changing his expression.
"Tomorrow morning," I answered, closing my eyes. "Not today. Sorry, father, I feel like absolute crap."
"Alright, you'll get everything," I heard. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Yeah... amazing guys here. Concrete and straight as a crowbar.
A summer night on the coast of Dardania, always so serene, was filled with anxiety this time.
The air, usually warm and gentle, seemed heavy and somehow saturated with storm charges. The sea breeze that brought coolness was now gusty and sharp, as if warning of something ominous.
The wind drove ragged clouds across the sky that kept covering the moon, throwing bizarre shadows on the earth.
And the sea was restless today. Waves beat against the shore with a dull roar, as if angry at something. Their crests, white with foam, seemed higher and angrier than usual.
I stood knee-deep in water and breathed in the salty moisture of the night with full lungs.
Look what I'd gotten myself into—making promises while drunk. And what the hell was I thinking with?
I'm still amazed at myself. I've been amazed since the alcoholic haze cleared from my stupid head.
The shore was unusually empty.
No lights from fishermen's fires, no conversations of people going at dawn to their trade. They were now sitting behind the wall eating grain from the royal reserves, and here only the wind walked among the hills, raising sand and making the grass burned by the fierce sun rustle.
Only cicadas chirped as usual—they weren't aware we were under siege.
By the way, the reinforcements coming to us had been late by just an hour and were now sitting in the fortress. They were the ones who'd help me.
There were plenty of those who ran like frightened deer.
The amazing poverty of local siege craft was wonderfully described by Homer in his Iliad.
I remembered how the Greeks sat for nine years in a fortified camp, and the besieged Trojans harassed them so much with their sorties that once they almost burned the ships.
You had to understand that for all ten years grain was properly harvested around Troy and somehow got into the sizable city. Otherwise what did they eat all that time?
Though a ten-year siege was nonsense, of course. Economically impossible.
But something similar was starting here, because the Achaeans were settling in thoroughly.
They were cutting down trees and building something like barriers, but they hadn't even thought to block the roads leading to the city.
However, only a day had passed and they'd probably still do it. They weren't complete morons.
A light blinked on the tower, and I nodded to two fishermen who'd agreed to risk their hides for a small fee.
We got in the boat and they struck the water with oars, trying to go as quietly as possible.
We'd come down from the Strait side, do the job and sail away immediately. The raiders wouldn't come after us—they simply wouldn't have time to push the ships into the water.
We only needed to fear arrows, and for this two simple wicker shields lay in the boat. They'd be quite enough if the guys from the fortress didn't let us down.
"Noise, young master," said the elderly fisherman with a face like a mask carved by knife from bog oak. "In the camp."
"I hear it," I answered.
Fifty warriors from the younger ones had crept up close to the fence in the darkness and pelted the sleeping with arrows and stones.
Must be great when you're dreaming and a two-hundred-gram boulder shot in an arc falls on your head.
A remarkably pleasant sensation, and I even understood the Achaeans who indignantly yelled and began forming up near their crude fortifications.
"Row!" I commanded and dealt with small pots filled with smoldering coals.
I'd woven a rope basket with handles for each of them, turning all this into a throwing projectile.
"Head bow to shore!" I told the fishermen. "When we run away, we'll cover ourselves with shields."
After brief thought the men nodded and laid in a steep arc.
This boat's bow was no different from the stern—you could row in any direction.
And I really hoped the sentries were now expecting the enemy from the front, not from behind, and I'd have time for at least a couple aimed throws.
I had a whole five pots, because I was quite the optimist.
For the non-optimistic variant I'd put a strung bow and five arrows nearby, each of which I'd carefully examined before leaving.
The flat bronze arrowhead inflicted terrible wounds, wide and bloody. How expensive it was to shoot such beauties!
A serious fight had started at the camp fence.
Our guys were shooting from the darkness at the Achaeans, who were visible as if in the palm of your hand in the firelight.
The Achaeans themselves were observing some dark spots that only occasionally caught the light of the waning moon.
The shore was getting closer, and I fanned the coals, throwing a piece of resin into each pot.
"Well, Lord, help me," I whispered when almost nothing remained to the target. "Ah, damn! Not relevant! He hasn't been born yet. Shanta, god of warriors, strengthen my hand! I'll sacrifice a ram and a goat to you! Yeah, that's right!"
We approached the shore between two extreme ships. About ten meters to each.
I spun my homemade sling and threw the first pot, which broke against the deck with a sad clink.
In the chaos that was happening now in the camp, nobody even noticed. If they didn't notice for at least a couple more minutes, I'd succeed.
The heat was extraordinary, and the deck wood should be dry as a bone. Plus there was rigging and sails.
Second pot went. Third! Fourth!
Done, luck limit exhausted.
They'd spotted me, and a half-naked warrior ran ashore holding a sling.
He swung, tracing an intricate loop, and threw a stone that hit me in the chest, covered by eight layers of glued fabric.
The blow was so strong it even knocked me off the bench. Something crunched in my chest and I could barely breathe.
If it had hit my head, brains would've just splattered.
How good there weren't any there!
"Move!" I wheezed and fumbled beside me, trying to take the shield.
Wanted to shoot from a bow, boy? Thought this was a shooting range! Better get the hell out!
"Pick up the shield, kid!" yelled the fisherman, who struck with the oars so hard a vein the thickness of a finger swelled on his forehead. "They'll kill you!"
I raised the shield woven from wicker, just in time.
An arrow immediately dug into it. A second stuck into the side next to me, and a third hit the old fisherman under the shoulder blade, and he fell down with a groan.
I grabbed his oar from him and began rowing, taking the boat away from the shore where two huge bonfires were blazing.