Patroclus left Agamemnon's tent and ran back to Achilles’ tent. He could see smoke off near the beach, and he met Odysseus coming back from the battle. He was limping and pale.
“Odysseus? What’s wrong?”
Odysseus stopped outside Achilles’ tent and showed Patroclus a deep gash on his side. A Trojan spear had sliced through his leather cuirass and cut him down to his rib bones. “Ajax and Menelaus are wounded too,” he said, “And the Trojans have started burning the ships. So if you’ve got a miracle, now’s the time to use it.”
The armor, a voice in Patroclus’s mind said, you’re strong enough now.
“The armor…”
“Achilles’ armor?” Odysseus asked, “The armor I gave him decades ago?”
“If I wear it into battle, the Trojans will think they’ve missed their opportunity and run.”
“Patroclus, you can’t wear Achilles armor. You have to have a god’s blood to use it. A fair bit of it – otherwise I would have kept the suit for myself.”
“I don’t have to use it for long. I probably don’t even need to fight in it. As soon as the Trojans see Achilles’ armor the fight will be over.”
“It’s a bad plan.”
“Do you have a better one?”
“I’m bleeding too much to make a better one.”
“Then you get Achilles out of his tent, and I’ll slip in the back and take the suit.” Patroclus circled around the tent while Odysseus started pitching a fit.
“Achilles!” the wounded man shouted, “If you won’t fight, then will you at least come out here and stitch up my wounds before I bleed to death outside of your tent?!”
Patroclus heard Achilles step outside to argue with Odysseus, and he slipped in under the back. Thetis was surprised to see him, but rather than raise the alarm, she got up and quietly left to help occupy her son. Patroclus found the metal cube, and slipped back out of the tent.
Patroclus had watched Achilles operate the armor countless times, so activating it wasn’t a problem. He twisted it around with a clackety clack, depressed the red gemstone at its center, and the cube began unfolding, again and again, spreading golden plates across his body. There was a brief moment of claustrophobia as the metal closed around his body, but then there was a sense of euphoria. He felt tremendous strength, like he could do anything. He waited until he heard Achilles take Odysseus into his tent, and then ran towards the front. The Myrmidons who saw him running didn’t even question, they just followed.
There was an explosion of dirt, wood splinters, and horsemeat at the gate. The Trojans were so desperate, they were sacrificing their remaining chariots, using them as battering rams to smash through the Greek soldiers and the barricades that sheltered them. One of the chariots barreled down on Patroclus as soon as he stepped out of the camp’s defensive perimeter, but as it approached, it felt like time slowed down. Patroclus drew his sword, positioned himself between the two charging horses as they came upon him, and then stepped up on to the front beam of the chariot, calmly walked between the running horses, leapt over the front rail, and beheaded the men onboard before grabbing the reins and casually stepping off the back. He dug his feet into the mud and the reins pulled tight, stopping the horses and dragging them around, the chariot fishtailing and rolling.
The Trojan soldiers who’d seen what happened stopped in their tracks. Many of them hadn’t been fighting when Achilles had left the battlefield, and those men had never seen his armor before, but the feat was clearly superhuman, and that was enough to turn them back. They turned and ran, and before long others were running as well. Patroclus had told Odysseus he simply intended to scare off the Trojans, but then he spotted Hector. There was a little outpost on a nearby hill that overlooked the camp and the nearest of the stranded ships. Hector had captured the outpost, and Artemis had taken the vantage point to start firing flaming arrows at the immobilized ships. Artemis might be too much to handle, but Hector was just a man, and Patroclus was certain that without him, the Trojans would flee – likely surrender.
Patroclus charged, the armor somehow making the action seem effortless, so that the Myrmidons struggled to keep up. Artemis fired at Patroclus, but the arrows zinged off his armor. He plowed through the wooden palisade that shielded the outpost like it was a stack of fruit in the market. He slammed into the observation tower that Hector and Artemis had taken over. Artemis leaped out, landing on the ground as a big cat, but Hector tumbled.
Artemis sprinted at Patroclus, dodged his swing, and then jumped on his back, trying to get her muzzle under his helmet to bite his neck. Patroclus turned his steel sword around backwards and thrust it behind him, inflicting a deep cut on Artemis that sent her running from the battle. The Trojan troops holding the outpost fled as well, leaving Hector alone against Patroclus and the Myrmidons. Patroclus waved the Myrmidons back as Hector staggered to his feet and drew his sword, then raised his hand out to Hector in a taunting gesture.
The fight wasn’t what Patroclus expected. He’d expected they’d clash blades a few times, finally lock them together, and then Patroclus would use the armor’s superior strength and the robust blade to snap Hector’s antiquated bronze kopis, leaving him unarmed. Hector apparently expected this too, so he outright refused to parry or block any of his attacks. Instead, he just dodged, rolling about like an acrobat and exploiting his enemy’s poor peripheral vision. Patroclus spun around in a swing intended to decapitate Hector, but realized too late Hector had ducked low. Hector sprung to his feet and thrust upward with his sword, catching Patroclus’s neck in the gap between helmet and cuirass. He cut deep, nicking one of Patroclus’s jugular veins and releasing a steady surge of blood.
“I knew it!” Hector said, “I knew you weren’t invincible, Achilles!”
Patroclus staggered backwards, clutching his neck and dropping his sword. Something was wrong. The cut, while severe, was survivable if he retreated, but his heart felt like it was trying to break through his chest, and suddenly Patroclus realized he couldn’t breathe. Overruling the voice inside that warned him against it, Patroclus struck the controls that released him from the armor. The armor fell away and Patroclus took a deep breath, but before he could fill his lungs, Hector grabbed Patroclus's shoulder and thrust his sword through the man’s chest, just below the heart.
Patroclus coughed on Hector’s face, spattering him with blood.
“You’re not Achilles,” Hector said, surprised.
“Unfortunately for you… no.”
Patroclus slid off the end of Hector’s sword and tumbled to the ground. Hector saw the Myrmidons advancing on him as the rest of his men fled back to the walls of Troy. For an instant, Hector had thought he’d won the greatest victory possible, but in reality the battle was lost. He snatched up the armor-cube and ran after his troops, Kasios burrowing into his new hosts’ mind.
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