Greek Warriors

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His furry face sparkled with frost and his red eyes glowed hot, melting all the frost and ice in an instant. He let out a long, low growl.

“A-Anubis,” Isis said. “Nice of you to drop by.”

“Are you ready to begin your next adventure?” Anubis shouted.

“But we haven’t been up the sweets aisle yet,” Tom moaned. “Mum always lets me open a family-sized chocolate bar before we get to the till. I was looking forward to it!”

“Silence!” Anubis shouted. “Prepare to leave immediately!” A tornado of icy wind and frozen peas whipped up round Tom, Isis and Cleo. Tom felt himself being sucked into the tunnels of time. They were on their way to a whole new place and era.

Tom, Isis and Cleo shot out of the time tunnel. They floated down, down, down… it was as if they had jumped out of an aeroplane wearing invisible parachutes.

I love this bit, Tom thought.

The air that whooshed past his cheeks was hot. Through barely open eyelids, Tom spied the ground below rushing up to meet them.

Thump! Flump! Kerplump! The three travellers landed on something hot and soft.

Tom sat up. The sunlight was blinding. The heat was fierce. Their last two time-travelling adventures had taken them to cold places – King Arthur’s medieval England and Scandinavia in Viking times.

“Where are we?” he asked, shielding his blue eyes from the glare. The fingers on his left hand pushed down into powdery white sand. He and Isis were both wearing short tunics and sandals.

“I don’t know, but it’s glorious!” Isis said, leaping to her feet and jumping up and down with glee. “It’s the first time I’ve been warm since we went to Ancient Rome!” She stretched out her arms and kissed the bronze skin that now covered them. “Hello, body! So nice to have you back.”

Cleo mewed loudly and rubbed up against Isis’s legs. She was covered in the furry stripes of a tabby cat once more.

“We need clues,” Tom said.

He looked round. To his right, as far as he could see, were pale stone walls reaching up to the blue sky. To his left, the green sea was fringed by dazzlingly white sand. The beach was teaming with…

“Soldiers!” Isis cried.

Tom held his hand over her mouth and dragged her behind a sand dune. “Shh!” he said. “Not so loud. Let’s work out who these guys are before—”

“First of all,” Isis scoffed, “it’s my job to talk loudly. I’m a princess! Second of all, they might be able to tell us where my amulet is.”

Tom squinted at the soldiers’ uniforms. On top of bright red tunics they wore bronze breastplates that made them look as though they had rippling muscles. On their legs, they wore sandals with straps that held metal shin pads in place. They carried round shields with pictures on the front – some showed winged horses and some had the letter V upside down. But best of all…

“See those plumed helmets?” Tom said. “I’ve seen those in Dad’s museum. They’re Ancient Greek army helmets. And that upside-down V was the symbol of the Spartan army.” He peered up at the pale stone walls. “Those look like the walls to some ancient city. But the Greeks are on the outside, so—”

“They’ve got lovely horses,” Isis said. She climbed on to Tom’s back for a better look. “Stallions!” she said. “And they’re tied together in groups. I think these soldiers are getting ready for battle.”

Tom nodded. He looked up at a tall wooden contraption that loomed high above the soldiers. It looked like a giant catapult made from enormous planks of wood, levers and ropes.

“What’s that ugly thing?” Isis asked.

Tom racked his brains for the name. He had seen a diagram of one in his history books. “It’s a trebuchet!” he said, suddenly remembering. “They plonk massive boulders into the hammock thingy on the end of the rope and catapult them against the city walls.”

“The Greeks are planning an invasion,” Isis said, stroking Cleo as she scanned the beach. “So it’s going to be chaos at any moment. We’d better find out where to look for Anubis’s amulet quick!”

Isis looked down at the magic gold scarab-shaped ring that she’d worn throughout her life. It had a hieroglyph of her namesake on it, the goddess Isis.

“Oh, lovely goddess Isis! Please, please, pretty please, help us find the next amulet!” she said.

The scarab ring began to make a whirring noise… and silvery-coloured words flew out of the ring and started to arrange themselves into lines. Soon the riddle was hanging complete in mid-air.

Tom read it aloud to Isis:

“The horse that roars a battle cry,

A wooden gift from the Greeks,

Will breach the walls that reach the sky,

Lead to the jewel she seeks.

The Trojan folk are under siege

Inside old Priam’s city,

Seek the prize upon the liege!

Set in his ring so pretty.”

“I’ve got it!” Tom said. “Or at least part of it.”

Isis looked hopefully at him. “It sounds like a pile of nonsense. Go on. Explain it to me and Cleo.”

Tom could just about contain his excitement. “Well, it mentions Trojans and Greeks and a horse. Have you heard of the Siege of Troy?” he asked.

Isis cocked her head to one side and frowned. “I’ve heard of Greece, obviously. But I can’t remember much about Troy.”

“Well, Troy was a really powerful nation too,” Tom said. “About one thousand six hundred years after you died, the Greeks went to war with the Trojans. I’m pretty sure that’s what the riddle’s talking about.”

Isis snorted. “Sounds like the Greeks were always waging war with someone. What were they fighting over?” She asked, stroking Cleo’s silky fur.

Tom chuckled. “You’ll love this! The different Greek armies sailed across the Aegean Sea with a massive fleet of ships… and all because Helen left her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta – a city in Greece – to be with Prince Paris. He was the son of Priam, the king of Troy.”

“They started a war over a girl?!” said Isis. She shook her head and laughed.

As Tom tightened his sandals’ laces, he explained. “Helen was meant to be the most beautiful woman in the world. So when she left Menelaus, she broke his heart. Menelaus went bonkers and demanded that Paris give Helen back. But Paris wouldn’t, so the Greeks declared war. Simple!”

“Egypt would never wage war over anything that silly,” Isis said. “Mind you,” she added thoughtfully, “I was the most gorgeous princess that Egypt had ever seen. If I’d been kidnapped, Father definitely would have sent his army after me!”

She started to stroke her plaits, and Tom noticed a dreamy look in her eyes. He clicked his fingers in front of her face.

“Wake up!” he said. “If you ever want to get into the Afterlife, we’ve got an amulet to find. And judging by the riddle, it’s behind those city walls. We’d better start coming up with a plan to get inside, because the Trojans kept the Greeks out for ten years!”

Boink! Doink! Rattatatatat!

A strange banging noise interrupted Tom. He and Isis crept along the sand dunes until they came to a dense clump of fir trees. A band of workmen was hammering away at an enormous sculpture made from tree trunks. Some of them were arguing with a group of soldiers.

“Whatever is that thing?” Isis asked, pointing to the looming object.

Tom grinned with delight. “It’s a horse. Can’t you see? Legs, head, tail!” Tom had read about the legendary battle of Troy. Could this possibly be the wooden horse that had changed the course of the Trojan War?

Isis squinted at the pile of trunks. “That’s a horse? The Greeks weren’t very good with a hammer and chisel, were they? Not a patch on the Egyptians.”

Before Tom could plan their next move, Isis and Cleo were strutting towards the craftsmen.

“You lot!” Isis shouted, hands on hips. “You’ve done the horse’s legs far too short. And what’s with the wheels? Horses don’t have wheels! Can’t you see that the head makes it look like a giant cow?”

The workmen turned round to face Isis with confused faces. They looked as though they hadn’t understood her. But Tom knew that, thanks to Anubis’s magic, everyone could understand them wherever they went.

One of the men stooped down and stared at Isis.

“A cow?!” he said. “It looks nothing like a cow! There must be something wrong with your eyes if you can’t see that it’s a horse. You got a fever, son?” He slapped a rough hand on to Isis’s forehead.

Isis batted the man away. “Ugh! Leave me alone! What is this… thing?”

The man looked proudly up at the wooden horse. “This is an offering to the gods, of course!” he said. “The siege is going so badly, we thought we’d make something to tip things in our favour.”

Suddenly, the squabbling soldiers rounded on Tom, Isis, Cleo and the workmen. Their daggers were drawn and pointing right at them.

The ringleader picked out Isis. “The boy with the stupid hair is right,” he growled. “If you lot had made the horse better, we might have broken down those walls by now!”

“I’m not a bo—” Isis began to protest.

Tom nudged her. “Shh! Don’t let them know you’re a girl,” he whispered in Isis’s ear. “We might need to pass ourselves off as soldiers.”

Isis nodded and held her tongue.

Another angry soldier poked one of the workmen in the chest. He had a sweaty face and fierce, dark eyes. “It’s your fault we’re losing the war,” he snarled.

The band of soldiers waved their fists in the air at the carpenters.

“We blame you!” they yelled.

“Get them, boys!” shouted the ringleader.

There was a swoosh by Tom’s ear as a sword cut through the air. Then a deafening clang as it clashed against a carpenter’s saw.

“You have displeased the gods!” the sword-wielding soldier cried. “Your wooden cow is terrible.”

“It’s not a cow. It’s a horse, you idiot!” the workman shouted, waving his saw. “We’re going to win the war with that!”

The group of soldiers and workmen were locked in a tussle that would have had Ares, the Greek god of war, in a spin.

No wonder they’re losing the war, thought Tom. They’re too busy fighting each other.

Tom looked for Isis and Cleo in the fray. Cleo was darting through the men’s legs and digging her claws into their shins. But where was Isis?

“Let me through, you big, sweaty brutes!” Tom heard her cry.

Finally he caught sight of her, kicking out at the men as they rained punches down on each other.

“Isis!” Tom shouted, elbowing a soldier in the belly. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

He held out his hand towards her. Isis was just about to take it when Tom spotted a tall, muscly carpenter holding a hammer above his head.

“Out of my way, Spartan child soldier!”

Tom squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the hammer to attack him. But the blow didn’t come.

“Stop this fighting at once, you mules!” a commanding voice bellowed.

Tom opened his eyes to see his attacker being pushed to the ground by an older man. He wore a fine breastplate and a helmet topped with a red plume.

“Commanders! Come to my aid!” the man shouted.

As Tom and Isis finally managed to prise themselves free, three important-looking men ran out of a large red tent pitched nearby.

Tom could see the outside was decorated with the upside-down V symbol.