The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

Now Diomedes ran towards the dais, brandishing his sword and snarling with anger at the death of Trechos. The copper light of the torches glittered like fire across the blade as it swept down against the monster’s thigh. The blow would have cut through the flesh and bone of any ordinary man, but the curse that animated Pelops’s remains must also have given them supernatural protection. The sword bounced off the bone without even marking it. Skeletal hands now seized hold of Diomedes as if he were but a child, and with inhuman strength hurled him across the cavern to land with a crash in a pile of spears.

The Argives gave a furious shout and dashed forward. The colossal skeleton moved jerkily down the steps to meet them, knocking aside the first two men as they threw themselves at him. The others quickly formed a circle about it, hacking uselessly at the hard bone or thrusting the points of their swords between its empty ribs. Epaltes, the veteran warrior whose wife had told him long ago about the curse of Pelops’s tomb, ran at the monster with his sword held in both hands over his head. He swung the blade against its neck, but the sharpened bronze sprang back and flew from his grip. The next instant, the skeleton had seized hold of his arm and pulled it clean from its socket, spraying the others with droplets of gore as it tossed the detached limb into a corner of the chamber and let Epaltes fall to the floor.

‘By all the gods!’ Omeros exclaimed.

‘How do we fight that?’ Eurybates asked, slipping his shield onto his arm and picking up a spear.

‘We must try to cut off its arms and legs,’ Odysseus replied, drawing his sword from its scabbard. ‘Strike at the joints – it’s our only hope.’

After a glance at Diomedes, who was groggily raising himself from the pile of spears, he led the Ithacans into the fray. The skeleton had picked up Epaltes’s sword and was fighting the Argives, bronze against bronze. But the superior numbers of the warriors counted for nothing: the stabbing and slashing of their weapons were ineffectual, whereas a single sweep of the fiend’s sword took the head clean off one man’s shoulders, and a second blow – delivered with devastating speed – pierced the heart of another, killing him instantly. Eperitus rushed into the gap left by the slain man and, remembering his king’s words, sliced down at the skeleton’s elbow joint. It was as if he had struck stone. The impact vibrated up his arm and the sword fell from his numbed hand. The monster opened its jaws in a silent cry of hatred, but Eperitus ducked away just in time as its blade cleaved the air above his head.

He leapt back, unarmed and defenceless. Before a second blow could kill him, Diomedes dashed in with his sword and a shield he had taken from among the ancient weapons that littered the chamber, meeting the edge of the skeleton’s sword with the thickly layered oxhide. Eperitus snatched up his weapon and ran to Diomedes’s side as the monster turned upon them with a flurry of blows that, even with their great fighting skill and experience, they were barely able to survive. A moment later, Odysseus was beside them.

‘There must be a way to stop this thing,’ Diomedes shouted over the clang of bronze. ‘If our weapons can’t harm it, how can we hope to take the shoulder blade? Use your brains, Odysseus.’

‘Perhaps we don’t need the bone,’ he replied.

The three men fell back, breathing heavily as the skeleton turned to fend off another attack from the Argives and Ithacans.

‘What did you say?’ Diomedes asked.

‘Perhaps it’s not the shoulder blade that’s the key.’

‘Whatever the gods sent us here for,’ Eperitus said, ‘we won’t get out again until we’ve defeated that thing.’

Another Argive cried out and staggered back against one of the stone columns, blood gushing from a wound on his inner thigh. A moment later he slid to the floor and was still. Diomedes shouted with rage, but before the three men could rejoin the fight there was another roar. Realising bronze alone was useless, Polites cast aside his sword and threw himself against the guardian of the tomb, seizing its wrists and pushing it back against the sarcophagus. The skeleton’s own weapon fell with a clatter and, throwing a foot back against the steps, it fought against the might of Polites. For a while they seemed not to move. Polites gritted his teeth and, with sweat pouring off his face and limbs, tried to impose his flesh and blood strength over his enemy. But the supernatural curse that had taken possession of Pelops’s bones was greater still. The Ithacan’s shoulder muscles strained in protest as, with slow inevitably, his arms were forced back. Omeros gave a shout and ran forward to hack uselessly at the hard bone of the fiend’s arms. Wrenching free of Polites’s grip, it swatted Omeros aside and in the same move seized Polites’s shoulder. Polites threw his head back and screamed in pain as he felt the malicious power tearing at the ligaments in his arm.