"Bova, Ben - Orion 07 - Vengeance of Orion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bova Ben)

"Not even to help us dig?" I joked.
Poletes cackled with laughter. "The High King Agamemnon has sent a delegation to
Achilles to beseech him to join the battle. I don't think it's going to work.
Achilles is young and arrogant. He thinks his shit smells like roses."
I laughed back at the old man.
"You there!" The whipmaster pointed at us from the top of the mound. "If you
don't get back to work I'll give you something to laugh about!"
Poletes hoisted his half-filled basket up to his frail shoulders and started
climbing the slope. I turned back to my shovel.
The sun was high in the cloudless sky when the wooden gate nearest me creaked
open and the chariots started streaming out, the horses' hooves thudding on the
packed-earth ramp that cut across the trench. All work stopped. The overseers
shouted for us to come up out of the trench and we scrambled eagerly up the
slope of the rampart, happy to watch the impending battle.
Bronze armor glittered in the sun as the chariots arrayed themselves in line
abreast. Most were pulled by two horses, though a few had teams of four. The
horses neighed and stamped their hooves nervously, as if they sensed the mayhem
that was in store. There were seventy-nine chariots, by my count. Quite a bit
short of the thousands that the poets sang about.
Each chariot bore two men, one handling the horses, the other armed with several
spears of different weights and length. The longest were more than twice the
height of a warrior, even in his bronze helmet with its horse-hair plume.
Both men in each chariot wore bronze breastplates, helmets, and arm guards. I
could not see their legs but I guessed that they were sheathed in greaves, as
well. Most charioteers carried small round targes strapped to their left
forearms. Each warrior held a figure-eight shield that was nearly as tall as he
was, covering him from chin to ankles. Every man bore a sword on a baldric that
looped over his shoulder. I caught the glitter of gold and silver on the handles
of the swords. Many of the charioteers had bows slung across their backs or
hooked against the chariot rail.
A shout went up as the last chariot passed through the gate and along the
trodden-smooth rampway that crossed our trench. The four horses pulling it were
magnificent matched blacks, glossy and sleek. The warrior in it seemed stockier
than most of the others, his armor filigreed with gold inlays.
"That's the High King," said Poletes, over the roar of the shouting men. "That's
Agamemnon."
"Is Achilles with them?" I asked.
"No. But that giant there is Great Ajax," he pointed, excited despite himself.
"There's Odysseus, and..."
An echoing roar reached us from the battlements of Troy. A cloud of dust showed
us that a contingent of chariots was filing out of a gate to the right side of
the city, winding its way down an incline that led to the plain before us.
Ground troops were hurrying out of our gates now, men-at-arms bearing bows,
slings, axes, cudgels. A few of them wore armor or chain mail, but most of them
had nothing more protective than leather jerkins, some studded with bronze
pieces.
The two armies assembled themselves facing each other on the windswept plain. A
fair-sized river formed a natural boundary to the battlefield on our right,
while a smaller stream defined the left flank. Beyond their banks on both sides
the sandy ground was green with tussocks of long-bladed grass, but the