Just as the Greeks had been laying Patroclus to rest, the Trojans had been outside their walls celebrating Hector’s life and sacrifice, enjoying the breeze and the first of what they assumed would be many food shipments. Their men were at ease, relatively speaking, and wholly unprepared for Achilles – a man who was known for pathologically keeping his word – to apparently break their truce, rushing out of the dark on his chariot and driving straight into their feast.
Women screamed and grabbed their children. Many failed to escape his path of destruction, and were caught beneath hooves and wheels. Priam cried for Achilles to stop, trying to reason with him, but Achilles ignored him, his rage beyond reason. The Trojan soldiers tried to stand up to him, eventually killing one of his horses. His chariot overran the dead horse and flipped end over end, crashing into one of Troy’s walls, but Achilles, back in his seemingly impervious armor, burst from the wreckage and summoned his broken spear. He began hacking at men and women alike madly, crushing Trojan children with his shield. Voices in his head screamed at him.
Ten points for the soldiers! the oldest voice, Kasios’s voice cried.
You’re butchering innocent people! cried the voices of Typhon and Ares.
Achilles, this is wrong! pleaded the voice of Patroclus.
And then Achilles came upon a familiar woman, clutching her son.
Andromache! Scamandrius! Achilles heard Hector’s voice, and his muscles suddenly became rigid, as if they had all tensed at once, freezing him in place. Andromache shielded her child, expecting this to finally be the end, but a sharp whistle came from behind Achilles, and a sudden sharp pain penetrated the back of his right leg, where the armor plates met at his ankle. The force holding him released him, and he staggered to face his enemy, his foot growing numb.
Paris stood, bow drawn, with Aphrodite at his side.
“I told you,” Aphrodite said, “My ex-husband could never get the ankles right.”
“Will your poison kill him?” Paris asked.
“If you shoot him enough times, of course,” Aphrodite said as she strolled over to the wreckage of Achilles's chariot and began rummaging about for something, “Now, do what you do best and show this troglodyte the future of warfare is not swords and spears.”
Achilles threw his spear at Paris, but Paris dodged and fired again. Achilles raised his shield, expecting the shot to come at his head, but instead Paris aimed wide and shot Achilles open hand in the unarmored palm. Achilles pulled out the arrow, and tried to recall the spear, but he couldn’t snap his fingers. He felt the poison leech up his arm towards his chest. He tried to stun Paris with his shield, but Paris looked past it – as with the spear, he’d seen the trick before, and had spent hours thinking about what Hector could have done differently.
Achilles tried to rush him, shield raised, but the poison in his leg had reached his thigh – his foot dragged in the dirt. Paris strafed around him, firing again and again. Most of the arrows pinged off the metal plates, but a few stuck in the softer parts that connected them, their steel tips scratching Achilles's skin and spreading Aphrodite’s poison. At last, Paris got directly behind Achilles and fired a shot into his other ankle, sending the mortal god to his knees. Achilles collapsed forward onto his shield, and then rolled onto his back.
"You... you kill me?" Achilles cried in disbelief.
Paris shot him one final time through the throat and walked away. No pithy last words, no looting, no desecration or honors. He turned and walked back through the gates of Troy. Aphrodite snatched the golden cube from the remains of Achilles’s chariot, and followed her champion.
Achilles watched them walk away, sputtering and coughing as the poison reached his heart. He heard the red doors of Troy slam shut, and the locks fall into place. He turned his head as much as he could trying to see… anything worth seeing before he died. He looked at the gates, and their vibrant color seemed to drain away as the Trojan fires dimmed. He looked to the west, hoping to see a beautiful sunset, but then he remembered it was night, and he’d already seen his last sunset at Patroclus’s funeral. The moment was still sharp in his mind’s eye, and tears rolled down his cheeks as he gasped for breath. He reached up with what little strength he had left and deactivated the armor. It clanked and clattered away from his body as Briseis walked up to him awkwardly, her imminent motherhood undeniable behind the fine summer clothes she’d worn to Patroclus’s funeral.
Achilles coughed as he struggled to breathe, “My heart… it's black,” he said deliriously.
“No Achilles, no it’s not,” Briseis knelt down beside him and took his bloody hand, “but it’s done now, Achilles. It’s time to go see Patroclus.”
“He won’t be there,” Achilles said, “No one will.”
“Of course they will,” Briseis said, tears welling in her eyes, “A new day always comes, even if you don’t believe it will. Your end in this world is the beginning of your adventures in the next. And you will be a wiser man in the next world. You will love Patroclus with all of your heart, and nothing else will sway you from that. No war, no king, and no woman.”
“Thank you,” Achilles barely managed to get out as his voice trailed into a gurgle. Briseis put her hand on Achilles’s chest and felt his heart slow to a stop. She leaned over and gently kissed his lips, “You weren’t the men I wanted you to be when we met,” she whispered, “but thank you, both of you, for trying to be.”
The legacy of Kasios, though now weighed down with the memories of Typhon, Ares, Patroclus, Hector, and Achilles, gently wound its way through Briseis’s lungs into her blood stream.
Briseis had a strange feeling for a moment, but it passed quickly. She couldn’t carry Achilles body back to the Greek camp. Soon she would be strong enough, thanks to the power coursing through her veins, but today she was still a mortal. A notion compelled her, though – she shouldn’t leave the weapons of the gods lying in the dirt before the gates of Troy. She picked up the silver ball that contained Achilles’s last suit of armor and tucked it into her traveling bag. Then she picked up his shield, and slung it across her back. Finally, she pulled the ring from his mangled hand and placed it upon her own. She snapped her fingers and brought the spear to her hand without ever sparing a thought as to how she knew to do so.
“Goodbye, Achilles,” she said, “And gods’ speed to you.”
Briseis turned and disappeared into the darkness. She couldn’t save her home – it had long since become someone else’s – and she couldn’t save Troy. With the truce broken, and no more food coming in, it was surely doomed. But there would be chaos towards the end, and amidst the chaos, there would be survivors. There were always survivors – men and women like her who endured when others succumbed to despair or rage. When the time came, those survivors would need a means of escape, and right now, she was the only one who could give them that.
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