“Our ships!”
Breegis turns to those of us behind him. His wide eyes set deep within his long, gaunt face dart from man to man, searching for an explanation. They find none.
“They’re burning our ships!”
We march along the shore. At our right, men work over bonfires, roasting our ships over the twisting flames like sides of meat on spits. They swing their axes and hammers at the weakened hulls, breaking them down and bundling their pieces with lengths of rope.
At our left a row of high, jagged rocks rise like a wave frozen in time, obscuring our view of the vast stony beach beyond--to where the workers are lumbering with their loads of broken boat.
Breegis’s eyes lock with mine.
“Surely, they don’t mean to strand us here?”
His words seem to linger in the stinging, sooty air, hovering about us as if yearning to be free of their weight.
To his right I see Thanos turn toward him--the heavy brow and strong chin of his unmistakable profile rendered black in the firelight.
“Do not be foolish,” he says. “They could break apart a hundred boats and there’d be plenty left to take us home.”
In a rare hush of quiet, free of the sounds of the men working at their fires, I become aware of a strange drumming--a medley of dull tones and erratic rhythms. At first it appears to be emanating from within the rock. But I quickly realize I am merely hearing echos--that the clamor’s origin is somewhere in the distance, beyond the wall.
“But...why burn them at all?” asks Breegis.
It is not until our company rounds the point where the sun-bleached stone achieves its apex and dives sharply to meet the pebbly sand that Breegis is answered.
*
“Xanthus...”
Theron takes my arm in his huge, calloused hand. His voice is barely above a whisper.
“What is that?”
I do not try to respond. I do not turn to look at his face, for I fear I’ll find the same dread drawing my features taut. I merely pry his fingers loose and take his hand in mine. I squeeze hard against his grip, and hope the pain will wake us both.
“My friend,” he says, breathless. “Tell me what that is.”
Through the haze of smoke and vapor leeching from its charred wooden hide, I make out its neck, thick and strong, rising into the midnight sky, its mane bristling with broken rudders and oars--a stark shadow against the star-flecked blue-black. I see the hard lines of its massive head sloping down from it’s thirty foot summit, the arc running from ears to snout matching that of a ship’s belly. A pair of heavy, arched wings are hinged to the great cylinder of its torso, held outspread by rough hewn struts. Rows of knotted ropes hang like viscera from its open flanks, swaying between its column-sized fore and hindquarters in the sea breeze.
“It’s hollow,” says Breegis. His voice quavers. “They can’t mean for us to climb inside that thing...can they?”
Thanos whips his head around.
“Of course not,” he says. “What good could we do inside it?”
Scurrying like rats beneath the beast, men work, nailing fragments of ships in scale-like fashion over the last bits of naked skeletal frame. For an instant it seems those nearest the thing are much taller than the others. The men carrying boards from the fires heft their bundles above their heads to reach those completing the legs. Through the shifting bodies I see that the thing stands atop a platform--an enormous platform resting on four pairs of massive--
“Wheels!” says Thanos, his voice brightening. “See, it’s got wheels. It’s a ram of some sorts, meant to be pushed. If we were inside, who would do the pushing? The Trojans?”
Some of the soldiers chuckle at the thought, but not me. The growing fire in my gut tells me Thanos is more right than he knows. And the fury in my friend Theron’s grip tells me that he knows it, too.
I look to the left and right of our formation, at the soldiers keeping pace, eyes peering at us from the shadows of their helmets--their swords drawn and shields high.
Immediately my skin goes cold. I am awash in sweat--my body pushing out its moisture as if ridding itself of poison. My heart races, knocking against my ribs like a caged animal. With my blood throbbing in my ears, I realize they flank us not as our fellow soldiers, but as our captors.
Yet still I march, maintaining formation, my legs moving against my will, compelled by some unseen force that drags me toward the monstrous steed.
*
A commander I do not recognize calls us to a halt at the platform. The beast looms above us, smoldering as if newly forged in the fires of Hades--a thing ripped from the scorched fabric of nightmare and sewn recklessly into the waking world.
He walks before us, chest forward, eyes narrowed, sizing up each one of us. When he reaches the end of our line, he whips around, feet first, then body, then head. He faces us. He smiles wryly.
“Fifty of our most fearless,” he says, disbelief coloring his booming voice. “A fine gift you’ll make.”
His men, still poised around us, laugh.
I glance down our line to see the faces of my comrades shifting between one another, brows furrowed, mouths upturned and taut. A few of the men meet my gaze, and it is clear they do not understand.
I want to cry out--to tell my friends to resist. To seize the weapons from our captors and cut them down. To run. But I cannot. It is as though my throat is clenched shut as if by some unseen hand--my body sealed in place by its own sweat.
I turn back to the commander to find that all jest has left his face.
A nearby fire flares as its fed a pile of fresh wood, illuminating his features. Much of his face is streaked with silvery scar tissue and flecked with freshly scabbed wounds. What’s left of his eyebrows clings to his skin in beads of molten hair. His mouth is a crag--the flesh below his nose and above his chin lipless and ragged.
Still holding us in his unthinking gaze, he motions to the beast.
“Climb in,” he orders, “while we still have the cover of night.”
*
We ascend, graceless. The crude ladders raised to either side of the belly are still logged with water and encrusted in tiny creatures and sea scum. Many of us lose our grip and slide down. Our captors howl with glee as they watch our struggle.
From above I hear the commander’s men shouting.
“Tighten it up, soldiers!”
“That’s right--toes to heels, beards to backs.”
“Plenty of room for you all.”
Theron and I are the last to reach the belly and are thankful when Dareios, kind giant that he is, extends his titan-sized hands and pulls us the rest of the way.
Our comrades have lined up in two even rows. Theron takes his place in front of me, leaving Dareios and me the lucky two at the rear. The nature of the beast affords us slightly more room and a fat beam where we can barely rest our backsides. The only such respite for the men before us lies in the crotch to their rear.
We are packed into this festering belly as if we were its entrails. We can’t move, any of us. We are resigned to a slight squat, to constant tension on our thighs and calves--the burn in both already intensifying. I’ve no doubt that when the beast’s flanks are lowered and locked in place, there will be more flesh than air inside.
From a few rows before me, Breegis turns his head to face those of us behind him.
“What is the meaning of this?” he says through his teeth. “Are we to be locked up and left for the Trojans to find? Where is the sense in that?”
Thanos turns to him, his brow scrunched over his eyes, lips pursed.
“A fine gift we’ll make,” he hisses.
“Is that what we are? What this is? Some false offering to lure them in?”
Thanos shakes his head.
“Odysseus has lost his mind,” he grunts.
“Are we nothing more than a trick? Than bait?” says Breegis.
Thanos turns to me, his face reddening.
“How in the name of all the Gods can he call himself our war counselor?” he hisses. “The nerve!”
“Nerve?” says Breegis. “This is beyond nerve. This lunacy!”
I share their awful disbelief. If this ruse is the extent of his craftiness it is a wonder that our army has lasted this long.
“This was to have been an honor,” says Theron softly to himself, his head bowed.
An honor indeed. A chance to show our valor, to achieve a status beyond our meager ranks. To take part in a mission so grave that it would only be revealed to us when it began. The reins to turn the tide of ten blood-drenched years--placed in our hands.
Had I only known. Had any of us known.
Our success rests on wild assumption--on the gullibility of an enemy that has time and again proven shrewder than us. We may succeed in our ruse and deliver this poisoned gift. But we are the fools inside it.
It appears that a power once divine now rests in the hands of a man. Odysseus. Our counselor. And yet would it not be more correct to call him our architect? For he is indeed the architect of all our fates--his cunning driving the bloodlust of Agamemnon and his piggish lout of a brother, Menelaus. That fool, Menelaus. Would that his cock was half as short as his temper and half as hard as the back of his hand. Then he might have kept Helen at bay. And I would be home, my hips pressed firmly into my wife’s backside, instead of my friend’s.
These men are so bent on victory that had they enough black ships to spare, they would have sealed our entire host in an even greater vessel. Fifty. Five hundred. Five thousand. Our numbers do not matter. We ourselves are unimportant. Only our deed will secure our place in the songs of poets. Our names will be lost in the bowels of oblivion, replaced by those of greater men who watch us from afar, stomachs full of wine and lungs of sweet sea air. I am certain they already count themselves among our company.
“Soldiers!” shouts one of the men at the belly’s edge. When he is sure we heed him, he motions to the front of our cabin.
There the commander sits facing us, quite comfortably it seems, in a space much larger than any of us have. Eyes narrowed to slits, he surveys our ranks.
“Warriors,” he intones, “I have but two orders for you. Do not move. Do not speak.” He pauses, his eyes shifting between our two rows. “I will have more when the time comes. Until then, the price for doing anything else...is your head.”
He nods to his men, who sheathe their swords and descend the ladders. When they reach the ground, he orders the two of us nearest him to break from their places and pull up the ropes.
I hear more orders from below, and notice another pair of ropes--tied many times around the thick struts holding the flanks open--are pulled taut.
Knowing what he must be feeling, I bring a hand to Theron’s sweat-slicked shoulder, squeezing tight in a futile effort to reassure him. I hear him faintly whispering, again and again.
“Madness...”
There is a breath of silence. A guttural cry from the soldiers below. A tortured creak as the beams momentarily bow before being wrenched free. A rush of cool air as the flanks fall and enfold us.
Then darkness.
*
We feel them before we hear them. The beast begins to vibrate with their approach. The cabin’s dried-out walls squeak like a flock of angry birds. The thud of a march begins to approach, though not as quickly as we would have expected.
The pace is far to hesitant. On any other day we would take their trepidation for weakness. But today every tentative step means suspicion. A greater chance of our parting gift being investigated and our ruse revealed.
Their pace slows further. We prepare to be discovered. Our minds go to our wives and homes. Our hands to our hilts.
An ear-splitting grunt brings their entire host to halt.
The tension seizing me, I disobey my orders and shift right, bringing my face to rest against the cabin’s wall. Through a gap between two boards, I peer at the world outside.
The commander dismounts his horse, followed by his two captains. They fall in behind him. He stands a full head higher than the taller of the two, and is nearly as wide as both side by side. Atop his broad shoulders, his silver helmet gleams bright as the sun, its shimmering auburn crest shooting toward the sky. As he steps towards us, he folds a pair of arms that look as if they were cut from stone across his barrel chest, tipping his head back. Through the helm’s opening, gilded in hammered gold, I see a dark and deeply lined face that seems too old for its body.
He stops just before he slips from my line of sight. He scrutinizes the structure, his gaze shifting between the platform’s wheels, moving up the hindquarters, tracing the bulging lines of the belly to where they slope to form the neck, finally coming to rest where I know the head hangs.
The captain who had been at his right--richly tanned and sinewy, tidy black curls rimming his sunken, ice-blue eyes--is the first to speak.
“Must have burned and broke fifty of their ships to build this, sir,” he says.
“Fifty? I’d say at least a hundred,” says the second captain, his face pale as the sand at his feet except where it was marred by freckles and sprouting fiery orange hair.
The commander raises a hand to his chin, gently pulling a tuft of wild, coiling hair.
“At least a hundred indeed, Thymoetes,” he says, pausing a moment. “Seems the Greeks had a busy night.”
The captains laugh.
“Left in a hurry, too,” says the dark one, stepping forward to the commander’s right once more.
“Quite so,” says the commander. “But why waste their time fashioning this then?”
For a moment, neither offers an answer. Then Thymoetes steps to his left.
“If I may, sir,” he says, squinting up at the beast. “Perhaps it is an offering of sorts.”
His counterpart laughs.
“Just hear me out, Capys,” he says, grimacing at the dark one. He turns to his commander. “Sir, it has been ten years now and in all that time there’s not been one day’s reprieve from battle--”
“All the more reason to suspect something is amiss,” Capys interrupts. “To suddenly find our shores free of our enemy--their camps broken down, their fires put out--”
“Maybe they finally had enough.”
“Enough? Agamemnon doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
“Perhaps we’ve taught him.”
“You give him too much credit,” Capys grumbles. “And what of this?” He motions to our hiding place. “I assume this means they’ve had enough as well?”
“The Greeks know our reverence for horses,” says Thymoetes. “Perhaps this is how they’ve chosen to concede their defeat--acknowledging our might.”
Capys shakes his head, grunting as he appears to consider the idea.
“So this...hideous thing,” he says, “is a sign of respect?”
“Oh, it’s crude and cumbersome, but...yes.” Thymoetes pauses and looks to his commander. “Even a sign of...peace,” he intones.
As the captain mentions the word, the commander’s face seems to brighten.
“Peace,” the commander says, as if uttering the name of a long-forgotten love. He levels his head, still tugging on his beard, his eyes wide and distant.
“Sir,” says Capys, “Let us not be too hasty. We must remember who it is we are--”
“You have word from your scouts, do you not, Capys?” interrupts the commander.
Capys slowly draws a breath.
“I do, sir.”
“And their report?”
“They report neither Greeks nor the boats that bore them on any stretch of shore in sight.”
The commander nods for a moment, then tips his head back to consider our offering. Suddenly, he whips around to face his men.
“Trojans,” he booms. “Our enemies have fled our shores--and left us a gift.”
The men respond with a deafening hurrah.
“It will make a grand centerpiece at our victory celebration--and we have much to celebrate!”
Their cheers entwine, mesh, become a wall of noise. They hammer the sand and stone beneath them with their weapons.
Inside we take silent delight in our victory--in their mistake that the day belongs to them. Some of us look to the men on either side and grin, others place a reassuring hand on the back of the man before them, as do I to Theron.
Then a lone cry of dissent shatters the celebratory chaos.
*
A hush sweeps over the men.
I look to see where all the enemy’s heads have turned. They watch as a rustling cuts towards us through a phalanx of soldiers in hurried, uneven steps--a shock of flowing, stark white hair jostling the perfect rows of gleaming helmets and spear tips, shifting like an animal through high grass.
He emerges from the sea of Trojan warriors caked in sweat and breathing hard. He lumbers toward the commander, nearly crumbling to the ground. The captains catch him by his an outstretched arms and help him to his feet.
The man is old, but intent--his voice forceful.
“Sir, I halt,” he says to the commander. “You must listen to me.”
The commander steps to him.
“But of course, Laocoon,” he says. “What have you to say?”
Laocoon. The name seems to echo throughout our cabin with a gravity all its own. It is a name we know well, one of fabled proportions, belonging to a seer of incomparable prescience. A name that, given our circumstances, brings new fear to us all.
The seer pulls his arms free, and thrusts them toward our cabin.
“Sir, this is not what it seems,” he says. “This is no gift.”
The commander cocks his head.
Laocoon steps towards him, eyes wide and solemn.
“It is a ruse,” he hisses. “Open it and you will find it carries not respect, not tribute, not peace...but Greeks.”
He knows.
“Greeks,” says the commander, evenly.
“They are inside,” says the old man, raising his voice. “Hidden within these blackened planks, poised to emerge when we are most vulnerable.”
His ravings stir the crowd. Mumblings of Greek trickery spread among the troops.
“You are sure of this?” the commander asks.
“I saw it--clear as day--in a dream,” says Laocoon. “In a vision sent from the Gods.”
The commander shifts his gaze from the seer’s eyes to look up at our gift, again slowly scanning its hide. For a moment it seems his gaze locks on my peering eyes. I feel my body go stiff as a corpse’s.
“Sir, you must heed me when I say there are Greeks inside,” the seer cries. “They will seal the fates of us all.”
Without warning and with surprising speed, the seer whirls and wrenches Capys’ spear from his hand. He draws it back and aims the tip at the horse’s belly. Instinctively, I withdraw my face from the crack.
From below comes a sharp grunt of animal exertion. A solid thunk shakes the planks beneath our feet. A leaf tip of burnished bronze thrusts through the wood. It projects a mere finger's width into our chamber, but hums with barely suppressed rage as the unseen shaft quivers beneath--resonating hollow, as if we truly were but dreams and vapors.
I look back through the planks to find the two captains again propping up the old man.
“We must burn it,” he hisses. “Burn it!”
The words reverberate within the cavity--within the core of each man. To roast confined and helpless and very much alive is a death too honorless to bear throughout eternity.
We ready for our escape. For our end. The cabin’s stillness is punctuated by the faint noises we make. Knuckles crack as grips tighten on hilts. Swords chink and scrape out of scabbards. If we are to die today, it will be by the sword, not the torch.
But it is Capys who draws his sword.
“Commander!” he shouts.
In one fluid motion his sword slips from his scabbard, whistles through the air, and strikes the rocks at the commander’s feet. I wince at the sharp clang of the bronze blade meeting the stone.
Amazingly the commander does not even flinch. He merely looks on Capys as he slowly squats before him, and follows his hand as it extends past his chiseled legs.
A sigh sweeps across the front-most lines of soldiers as Capys slips his hand from the wide gap in the now bloodied rocks, withdrawing from it the fat, shimmering black body of a serpent--blood oozing over his knuckles from the cut that took its head.
The body, thick as a man’s calf at its widest stretch, is so long Capys takes several steps back before the tip of the tail is revealed. As he does, Thymoetes--keeping Laocoon in his grasp--reaches down and retrieves its head. He brings it to his face, then squeezes at the hinges of its mouth to open its jaws. Even from my distance, I can see the slow curve of long, translucent fangs glinting like sap in the strong sunlight.
He turns to his commander.
“An ill omen on this good day,” Thymoetes says. He whips his head to face the seer. “Your spear rouses evil, old man. Your words--,” he thrusts the severed head to within a breath of Laocoon’s face, “poison.”
“Poison indeed,” says Capys. “A bite from this slithering beast would have ended any of us quite quickly...and painfully at that.”
The seer’s gaze shifts among the three men. After a moment, he settles on the commander.
“Sir, I assure you my words had no part in this.” he says. “I beg of you--do not let this lure you from the truth.”
“The truth?” shouts Thymoetes. “Since when does the truth keep such vile company?”
“Sir--”
The commander hushes the seer with a wave of his hand. He takes the serpent’s head from his captain. He appears to study it, gazing into its glassy eyes.
“This might have been my end...seer,” he says, intoning the last word as if it named something as horrible as the thing in his hand.
He throws the head aside and steps toward the old man. He crouches down until their eyes are level.
“They offer peace,” he says, pausing. “And you would set their token aflame. By scorning their gift, freely given, you would replenish their thirst for blood?”
Laocoon’s face slackens. He raises his hands and interlocks his fingers under his chin. His voice is small and faltering.
“Sir, I beg of you--”
“Take him hence,” the commander barks.
A host of men break from formation and fall upon the old man.
“Greeks inside!” he screams. “There are Greeks inside!”
The soldiers struggle and subdue him. His protestations fade into the distance.
As Capys and Thymoetes give their orders, we sheathe our weapons and allow the blood to return to our whitened knuckles. Their men scramble beneath us and take their places.
Capys grunts.
And the beast rolls forward.
*
The gates open, unleashing the roar of the crowd within. Their cheers smash into our hull like a great wave guided by the hand of Poseidon himself. The unimaginable volume intensifies the rattling of the cabin as it is pushed along the stone entranceway. Dozens of horns scream in triumph. A thunderous cavalry charge of drums rattles my heart within my chest, stirs my bowels, loosens the sinew from my bones.
A break in the shafts of sunlight pierces our cabin and moves from bow to stern. The gates shut behind us with a resounding boom.
The festival continues long into the night. The city resounds with merriment, music, the crackle and roar of bonfires. Feet stomp the marble courtyard in dance. The sunlight turns from gold to deep red and dies. Pale blue beams of moonlight illuminate us from above and quivering blades of amber torchlight from below, bathing the cabin in a play of cool and warm hues.
For a moment I enjoy the display of light. I forget the heat, the hunger, the smell, the scorching pain in my thighs. I forget the arrogance and lunacy that placed me here. I consider the moon. The fire. The celestial and material glory residing outside these walls. I am reminded of the love the Gods must have for us, to bless our trivial lives with such splendor.
*
Theron coughs. At first I think he is only shifting his weight to lessen a burn or a cramp. But his movement is too abrupt.
The next shudder comes only moments later, this one accompanied by a muffled grunt.
It is a cough I know well--one of a stubbornness all its own. A cough that robbed us both of countless nights’ sleep as children. That years later earned Theron his share of lashings from captains who found it undisciplined and unfit for their ranks.
He coughs again.
The time between is shorter, the shudder greater, the grunt louder. I begin to see the worried faces of my fellow soldiers staring back in my direction.
Again.
They have reason for concern. The festivities have long since ceased and the city is as quiet as the dead. In the still sea air even the smallest sound rings out like a bell. If Theron coughs when the soldiers making their nightly rounds on the city’s walls and walkways are near, he will betray us all.
I bring my hand to his familiar shoulder. Wordless, I will him to stop.
Again.
The planks beneath him creak. His body tenses against mine as he attempts to squelch his cough. But his exertion only makes matters worse.
I cover his mouth. Press hard against his lips and chin.
Again.
He places his hand over mine, doubling the pressure.
Again.
Across the darkness I find the eyes of my commander, his ruined face lit by a silver shaft of moonlight from above.
Again.
He cannot see me. My face is entirely cloaked in black. And yet his eyes, dark and blazing, tell me he knows he has my attention.
Again.
He nods.
At first I go cold. Then numb. And suddenly it is as though I am a third person, watching myself from outside my body. I wish that it were so--that I might reach out and stay my hand, stop me from doing what I know I must.
My head reeling, my heart threatening to burst within my chest--I obey.
My blade enters at the base of my friend’s skull. I drive it through his brain and stop when I feel the tip bite into his brow.
He does not shudder. He does not cry out. Our bodies, tightly packed, prevent his from dropping. Our tunics, laid on the floor of the cavity, absorb his blood.
His body moves like honey, slipping gently to the floor.
Before my tears can fill my eyes, the man now in front of me steps back, filling the much-coveted space. Each man before him follows in sequence. Theron’s body bleeds into the tunics. And my lap is greeted with a new backside.
In the moments that follow, many of us twist the corks from our satchels. We know we should conserve what little we have, but we drink anyway.
*
I simply cannot weave the words I need to describe the horror of my surroundings. In the span of a single day, our rudderless ship has bore us to a land unfathomable.
The night did not bring respite from the day’s unbridled heat. The air outside, though cool, is perfectly still. It does not enter the gaps and fissures in the planks. The moisture, forced from the waterlogged wood by the sun’s rays, is now a thick vapor.
Our sweat runs freely, falling into the soggy tunics at our feet. Our water is gone.
Some men, parched beyond tolerance, beyond regard for decorum, wrap the tips of their cocks in cloth and piss into their hands so they can drink.
Others, who likely disobeyed our orders to fast for the day before our mission, have soiled themselves, adding more foulness to the already rank air.
I feel myself fading. My legs succumb to the constant burn. My stomach churns, threatening to empty itself with every breath. I search my body and mind for reserves. I return empty-handed.
My vision blurs and I clench my eyelids so hard my face begins to tremble.
I open them to find the cabin expanding. The walls bowing out, rippling, changing color and shape. Fat marble columns explode into the chamber from beneath, rise hundreds of feet to meet an ivory dome above. Soft white light pours into the space. A sliver of black appears at its source. A figure. I try to focus.
*
She glides towards me from across the great hall, feet soundless on the gleaming marble. The light flooding in from behind renders her as a shadow.
She nears, her form taking shape. Her soft perfect curves gently rise, fall, sway. Her impossibly long hair alive in her wake, waving, rippling.
I wait for her in a pool of water, my lower half hidden by the hot mist dancing on the surface. My thirst and hunger are gone. So too is the fire in my thighs and calves.
She reaches the edge and emerges from the shadows. I find myself speechless at the sight of so much beauty.
Her feet disappear into the writhing steam. Faint ripples leave her tanned calves, cross the pool, find my waist, stir my loins. Descending deeper, she comes to me.
Her hands cup my face, draw it to hers. Our lips meet, part, and meet again, her tongue working at mine, pressing deep into my mouth. Perfume rising from her breasts robs the strength from my legs.
She guides me to the edge of the pool. I feel the cool marble lip at my back as I recline. Her hands leave my face, trace the lines of my neck, my shoulders, chest, and stomach. They dip into the pool to ready me.
She rises and descends. She gives me a moment to feel. To revel.
Is this how it feels to be a hero, I muse. To be immortalized in couplets and choruses.
I wrap my arms around her waist and drive my hips into hers.
*
An elbow jabbed into my ribs wrenches me from ecstasy, thrusts me back into the nightmare of the cabin. The soldier before me is not pleased at my pulse and pressure against his rear. A slick of spittle trickling down his back.
All noise from without has now ceased. The sentries have long since completed their watch. The city is asleep. The cabin has dimmed, the beams of moonlight gone, lost in a newly clouded sky. The torchlight has waned to a bloody glow.
It takes time for my eyes to adjust. When they do, they fix on my commander.
“Warriors,” he says, his voice a heavy whisper. “It is time.”
With his words the cabin comes to life. The soldiers emerge from cocoons of stillness. After holding our cramped positions for so long, we move stiffly and deliberately. Joints pop and crunch as we sigh with pain and relief.
The commander gives his orders. Halfway down the cabin, four soldiers crouch out of sight, sliding bronze bolts out of place and releasing the latches they’d clamped down wen we’d started this mission. Ten others line up along each of the belly walls and push. The flanks open, groaning on sets of hidden hinges. When the openings are wide enough, two men slip a pair of short, heavy beams in place to keep them slightly aloft.
The cool clear air rushes into the vacuous cabin as if blown by a wild gale. The foul smells fade as the temperature falls. We fill our lungs.
One by one the soldiers, bow to stern, deftly make their way out of the cabin, descending the ropes.
The moment seems unreal. Bodies glow red in the guttering torchlight. No one hesitates or stops to consider. One by one, we disappear
When my time comes, rain patters on the beast’s wooden back.
Rain, softly falling on the stones below.
Originally published in Tales of the Talisman, Volume 9, Issue 4 - April, 2014