The Awakening of Wrath
The Price of Pride
The news of Patroclus’ death reached Achilles like a spear to the heart. Not even the armor of pride he had worn for so long could shield him from this pain. His closest companion, the one tethering him to humanity, was gone—stripped of life and dignity, his body left to rot under the Trojan sun.
Achilles wept. Not like a warrior, but like a man broken. His cries echoed beyond the Greek camp, reaching even the ears of the gods. Thetis, his divine mother, rose from the sea to comfort him, but her words were salt to his wounds.
"I warned you," she whispered, "that your fate was tied to this war."
But Achilles no longer feared death. His heart was hollow, filled only with the fire of vengeance. He would return to battle—not for glory, not for Agamemnon, but to carve Hector’s name into the grave alongside Patroclus’.
The Wrath Unleashed
The God-Killer Among Men
Clad in new armor forged by Hephaestus himself—armor that gleamed like the sun and bore the weight of destiny—Achilles returned to the battlefield. His presence alone turned the tide.
The Greeks rallied behind him. The Trojans, once fearless, faltered.
Achilles was no longer a man; he was rage incarnate. His spear struck down warriors as easily as cutting wheat. Blood painted the earth, and the river Scamander grew choked with the bodies of the fallen. Even the gods trembled at his fury.
Seeking revenge, Achilles tore through the Trojan ranks until he stood face-to-face with Hector, the prince of Troy—the slayer of Patroclus, the city’s last hope.
Hector knew his fate. Yet honor demanded he face it.
They circled the walls of Troy three times, predator and prey locked in a deadly dance. Then Hector stopped running.
"Let us not leave our bodies for the dogs," Hector pleaded, "but grant each other honor in death."
Achilles’ response was cold and final:
"There are no pacts between lions and men."
With a thrust swift as fate, Achilles drove his spear through Hector’s heart. The prince of Troy fell, his last breath stolen by the very wrath he had ignited.
The Hollow Victory
The Heart of Darkness
But death was not enough. Achilles, consumed by grief and rage, desecrated Hector’s body. He tied the fallen prince to his chariot and dragged him around the walls of Troy, dust and blood trailing behind like the echoes of a curse.
The Trojans watched from their walls—Priam, Hector’s father, his heart shattered beyond words; Andromache, Hector’s wife, clutching their child as her world crumbled.
Yet even the gods were horrified. Zeus, watching from Olympus, decreed that Hector deserved honor in death.
So, under the cover of night, Priam, the aged king of Troy, did the unthinkable. He entered the Greek camp alone, slipping past enemy lines to kneel at the feet of the man who had killed his son.
"I have done what no man has done before," Priam whispered, his voice trembling, "I have kissed the hands that killed my child."
Achilles, faced with a grief that mirrored his own, felt the rage within him break. In that fragile moment, not as warriors, but as fathers, as men—Achilles wept.
He returned Hector’s body to Priam.
But the war was not over. The walls of Troy still stood. And Achilles’ fate still waited, just beyond the horizon.
—To be continued in Chapter 6: The Death of Hector.