We're all mad here.

Prepare to Battle

There have been many wars/battles in history. Choose one that interests you. However, your short story must be a tale of how things escalated to the final event! This can be comedic or serious. (<1000 words)

Inside the horse was dark and close and smelled of battle hardened men—a mix of sweat and bronze and other, more unsavory odors. They clinked, rather, these men who were trying so desperately to be silent, secure (or rather, insecure) in the knowledge that Odyssus had chosen to be part of the attack. He had ordered the building of the horse, and its position, and then climbed up into it with forty men. Warriors who now sat in silence, trying not to breathe as they felt the horse move towards the walls of the town.

They didn't know if it would work, of course. Nothing like this ambush had been tried before. But Troy could not be taken from without. The ten year sage had proven that, if nothing else. Inside the horse, things creaked and rattled, and breathed. Breath feels loud when it is so necessary to be silent.

They could hear their volunteer wail the story to the Trojans. He was abandoned. The Greeks were gone, and this horse an offering for their safe return home. How many of them would not return home? The Trojans laughed when told that the offering was so large so that the Greeks would keep the offering for themselves. Do they think we can't move it? And so the horse was being dragged inside.

But were they convinced? In the horse, the men hold their weapons tighter, expecting at any moment for someone to realize and to attack. They were helpless here, until the dark. Forty men in a cage, and if spears were thrust through the sides of the horse, they would bleed.

They heard the voices of women. Familiar voices, so familiar that mouths opened to respond, to be stopped by heavy hands and silent hushing. Their wives were far away, not in Troy. Laughter drifted in. The smell of feasting. A lamenting woman warned that the horse would mean Troy's doom, and the men inside couldn't believe it, even though they knew that was the idea.

Hours pass. Hungry, silent hours. The air inside the horse grows closer and thicker. Men shift. They breathe. They fart. They hear their hearts thunder in their ears. Surely that drum is audible outside the horse. Swords brush, sheilds touch—so loud. Like bells. It's amazing how loud the brush of a sandal can be against wood. Outside, the feasting is stopped. The women are silent. Outside the walls, the men are returning, waiting. Inside, ears against the walls of the horse, waiting, ready to emerge and let the Greeks in.

word count: 427