‘From Ilion the wind took me and drove me ashore at Ismaros by the Kikonians. I sacked their city and killed their people, and out of their city taking their wives and many possessions we shared them out, so none might go cheated of his proper portion.”
The Odyssey of Homer, by Lattimore ~ Book IX, 39 to 43
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| I didn't have anything to take a picture with so I just drew this. |
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I woke up to the sound of a chant. LLLL, LLAA, LAANN... Oh, land. Right. I shook off my sleepiness and I was making my way towards Odysseus when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, and it was the cook Stanley. I always thought he had an odd name, though definitely not as odd as Jeremy the Circumsizer. I shudder to even think about how he earned that name.
“Hey, did you hear? Odysseus has a plan,” Stanley said. “It’s pretty dangerous though, but it looks like it’ll be interesting. Wanna hear it?”
“Well of course I want to hear it, what do you think?” I replied. Of course I wanted to hear the plan! I love plans, especially the with the giant horse... Now that was clever.
“Sorry,” he said, a bit hurt. “Well, this one is straightforward. You see that island over there?” I nodded. “It’s called Ismaros. Odysseus’s plan is to just ravage the city and take everything in sight. You in?”
“Oh, yes definitely,” I said confidently. Whenever I get a chance to kick ass, I take it. Did I ever mention that I’m good with swords? Now you know.
As soon as the ship beached on the shore, we (although some had to stay and guard, you know!) stepped off and rushed to the Kikonian city. They didn’t know what hit them.
We rushed into the borders and torched the houses, killed the men, took the women... all that war stuff. It was gruesome but it was FUN. We’d practically decimated the entire city, but there was something wrong. I had a bad feeling about continuing, like there was something tugging at my gut saying, Don’t continue all this or we’ll be fish meat!
Naturally I had to tell Odysseus. I wasn’t afraid of authority anyway. I stepped beside him and just said:
“I have a bad feeling about this.” It was nice to get that off my chest.
The shocking thing is that Odysseus actually agreed. “I know, I saw some of the men escaping, running off to the inland country. I fear they may be calling for reinforcements. We must escape with what we have. Alphaeus, inform the others that we must go,” he stated in a somber tone.
I didn’t hesitate to follow him. I rushed to the town square (that’s where everyone was hanging out) and shouted at the top of my voice, “Hey! Let’s go, the Boss’s orders!”
“Is Odysseus your boyfriend now Alphy?” said one of the warriors, Pellecus, in a mocking tone. Gods, I really hated that guy. “Alphaeus and-”
I cut him off mid-song. “This is serious! Odysseus fears there will be more coming! We must take what we have and leave!” I was getting really annoyed already.
“But we’ve only just started having fun! Come on guys, who’s with me?” shouted Pellecus.
“Yeah!!! We’ve just started!” said the rest of the group in nearly perfect unison.
“Let us drink our wine and have our fun!” shouted an elderly warrior, whose name I’m not really familiar with.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you-” I was rudely cut off by the sound of a battle cry in the distance. It got closer. Suddenly I could hear hooves. And swords. And swear words. Not good.
Let’s just say that in seconds, the Kikonians galloped back in, recaptured the city and either killed or took most of our men. I did my job fighting but the enemy was too large. We were outnumbered by a lot.
I saw Odysseus cornered between two small houses. I had to save him, he was our fearless leader after all. I distracted my man and rushed at the men attempting to kill Odysseus. I swung my sword and one of them fell to the ground, dead. The other two were taken by surprise, giving enough time for Odysseus to bash their heads together.
“Nice fighting, Alphaeus. Let’s go, we have no time!” he said, looking a bit flustered.
“What about the others? And the loot?” I asked back.
“There’s no time for that, it’ll slow us down,” he stated coldly. He hesitated slightly and added, “And the others made their decision already, move.”
That really startled me. I didn’t know Odysseus could throw his men under the chariot like that, and so filled with contempt too! He had his reasons though. I was pretty pissed at them too. I managed to muster a “Got it,” and I ran with Odysseus back to the boat, with a few Kikonians chasing after us.
Unfortunately, by the time we got to the ships (at the time there were more than one, sorry), we made a dreadful discovery. The Kikonians were attacking the ships too! Odysseus and I went our separate ways to defend the ships. We made our stand until the next day, and we were able to drive them off, but our group suffered great casualties. I’m not sure about the figures but I think that slightly less than half of us were lost in the battle.
Almost immediately, we left Ismaros, and we were all eager to do so too. I looked around the ship I was on and could only see faces filled with sadness and grief. I understood; I felt that way too. If only I could’ve convinced them. I glanced at another ship and I saw Odysseus leaning on the railing, looking more wretched than ever. His face looked like it had aged 15 years and under the moonlight, he appeared like an old man, the light dyeing his hair an artificial silvery-white color. He looked at me, if even for a brief moment, and for that moment I knew what he was thinking.
He was blaming himself for all the lives that were lost.
