/lit/ - Literature

"Sing to me of the man, O muse, the man of twists & Turns
driven time & again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy."

Three nights later he went into Achilles’ tent in the small hours and crouched by his cot. “Achilles, wake up. I’m setting an ambush for the Trojans by the Scamander and I need you,” he whispered. Achilles shrugged off sleep and, laughing at Father Odysseus’s sudden boldness, buckled on his armor.
They went silently over the white starlit plains to a hive-shaped tomb on a hill over the river. The tomb’s door was open. Achilles reluctantly followed Odysseus into the low cool earthy room where pale bodies lay wrapped in flame-colored cloth, from which Achilles averted his eyes. “Wait here,” Odysseus said, “I will call like an owl when they’re coming.” “I will go with you,” said Achilles. Odysseus said, “No. You can break men but lack subtlety. I will go hide and watch and when the time comes for killing, then you join me.” Achilles’ eyes glowed like a cat’s in the faint light as Odysseus shut the tomb’s door and barred it behind him.