Achilles saved

Ten years at Troy. You have never held a spear. You carry water, and you have gotten very good at it.

Which means you are always at the edge of things, looking in. Which means this morning you saw it first.

A man crouched in the shadow above the Scaean Gate. Not a guard. Guards stand. This one was folded small.

A bow across his knees. And below him, walking toward the gate like it owed him money, Achilles.

You told the line captain. He laughed. You told a Myrmidon. He told you to go and fetch more water.

Doros is seventeen. He is in the third rank, holding a spear he can barely keep level.

He is behind Achilles because everyone is behind Achilles. That is the whole plan. That is how the line holds.

Then you are close enough to smell the heat coming off his bronze. He turns. Up close he is younger than the songs.

Water.

Not a question. He does not look at your face. Nobody has looked at your face in ten years.

Above him, on the wall, the folded man unfolds.

You have one second. It is the only second of your life that will ever matter.

You move. Later you will not be able to remember deciding to.

The shove lands. Achilles goes sideways into the dust, furious, whole, alive.

The arrow passes through the air where his heel was. It does not stop there. Arrows never stop there.

Behind him, in the third rank, a boy of seventeen sits down in the dirt, looking surprised.

Achilles stands up. He is looking at you. For the first time in ten years, someone is looking at your face.

Your name.

Doros is still sitting down. He is trying to say something. The line closes over him and moves forward.

You saved the man the songs are about. The songs will not have room for the rest of this.

Your name.

You tell him your brother's.