具体描述
He is a man of many names. Some call him the Golden One; others, the Lord of the Silver Bow. To the Dardanians, he is Prince Aeneas. But to his friends, he is Helikaon. Strong, fast, quick of mind, he is a bold warrior, hated by his enemies, feared even by his Trojan allies. For there is a darkness at the heart of the Golden One, a savagery that, once awakened, can be appeased only with blood.
Argurios the Mykene is a peerless fighter, a man of unbending principles and unbreakable will. Like all of the Mykene warriors, he lives to conquer and to kill. Dispatched by King Agamemnon to scout the defenses of the golden city of Troy, he is Helikaon’s sworn enemy.
Andromache is a priestess of Thera betrothed against her will to Hektor, prince of Troy. Scornful of tradition, skilled in the arts of war, and passionate in the ways of her order, Andromache vows to love whom she pleases and to live as she desires.
Now fate is about to thrust these three together–and, from the sparks of passionate love and hate, ignite a fire that will engulf the world.
Readers who know the works of David Gemmell expect nothing less than excellence from this author, whose taut prose, driving plots, and full-bodied characters have won him legions of fans the world over. Now, with this first masterly volume in an epic reimagining of the Trojan War, Gemmell has written an ageless drama of brave deeds and fierce battles, of honor and treachery, of love won and lost.
From the Hardcover edition.
The Bronze Shield: A Chronicle of Aegean Shores Book One of The Bronze Age Echoes Series The year is 1250 BCE. The Aegean Sea, usually a highway for trade and cultural exchange, has become a labyrinth fraught with suspicion and simmering hostility. Across the turquoise waters, the great city-states, bound by intricate treaties and ancient feuds, watch each other with hawk-like intensity. This is a world sculpted by bronze, powered by the capricious will of Olympian deities, and haunted by the prophecy of necessary destruction. Our story begins not in the grandeur of fortified palaces, but in the sun-baked dust of the plains bordering the mighty kingdom of Mycenae. Here lives Kreon, a young man whose lineage grants him a place within the court’s rigid structure, yet whose spirit yearns for the untamed horizon. Kreon is the son of a minor governor, raised amidst the strict martial discipline that defines Achaean aristocracy. He has mastered the spear and the chariot, but his true passion lies in the subtle art of diplomacy and the forgotten lore of the sea routes. He understands that the peace maintained by Agamemnon, the Lion of Mycenae, is a brittle façade, held together by gold, threats, and shared fear of the rising power in the east. The narrative quickly shifts focus to the island of Kea, a crucial strategic outpost whose loyalty is perpetually tested. Lyra, a woman raised among the island’s navigators and priestesses, possesses a keen, almost unnerving, understanding of the winds and the currents—both maritime and political. Her family safeguards secrets pertaining to older gods, traditions that the mainland kings increasingly view as dangerous superstition. Lyra is pragmatic, fiercely protective of her people, and she views the increasingly heavy tribute demands from Mycenae not as necessary contribution to defense, but as a slow strangulation. When a peculiar shipwreck deposits a stranger onto Kea’s shores—a man speaking a dialect no living Achaean recognizes—Lyra finds herself drawn into a mystery that threatens to expose the vulnerability of the entire island network. The central conflict begins to crystallize around the growing tension between the powerful Achaean coalition, led by the fiercely ambitious and increasingly paranoid kings, and the expansive, wealthy trading empire centered around the impenetrable walls of Ilium, far to the north. For decades, trade flowed freely, enriched by the unique metalworking skills of the Trojans and the vast agricultural yield of their hinterlands. Now, however, the flow is restricted. Rumors abound: of seized cargo, of insults delivered in council halls, and most dangerously, of a crucial figure disappearing during a supposedly safe passage between islands. Kreon is reluctantly thrust into the role of envoy. Tasked by his father to investigate the stalled negotiations regarding a critical shipment of obsidian glass—a material vital for the finest armor—he must travel across waters increasingly patrolled by aggressive vessels claiming to enforce the King’s Decree. His journey takes him first to the sun-drenched mercantile hub of Corinth, where corruption festers beneath polished marble floors. Here, he encounters Demetrios, a shrewd merchant whose alliances shift faster than the tide. Demetrios possesses the intelligence Kreon needs, but extracting it requires navigating a deadly game of favors, hidden debts, and the constant threat of betrayal by rival Minoan-descended houses seeking to undermine Achaean dominance. The political landscape is further complicated by internal strife within the Achaean alliance itself. Certain peripheral kingdoms, resentful of Mycenae’s perceived dominance and unwilling to commit men and resources to what they view as a distant quarrel, are subtly signaling their desire for neutrality. Kreon's mission becomes twofold: secure the obsidian and, more critically, reaffirm the wavering loyalty of these peripheral lords before they break ranks entirely. Lyra, meanwhile, driven by the strange survivor's cryptic warnings and her own growing unease regarding the mainland’s militarization, begins covertly charting alternative routes—ancient, forgotten pathways through the archipelago that bypass established naval choke points. She discovers that the missing figure Agamemnon so desperately seeks might not be a mere political hostage, but someone holding knowledge key to unlocking powerful—and potentially devastating—ancient weaponry supposedly hidden since the age before the sea gods established their dominance. As the season shifts toward autumn, the stakes escalate dramatically. A minor skirmish erupts near Tenedos, escalating rapidly into a full-blown naval confrontation involving vessels from three different kingdoms. This event is the first open crack in the long-standing peace. Kreon witnesses the brutal efficiency of this new, more ruthless form of warfare—a stark contrast to the formalized duels of the training grounds. He realizes that diplomacy is rapidly giving way to brute force, and his own subtle methods may be insufficient against the rising tide of martial fervor sweeping the courts. The climax of this volume centers on a clandestine meeting orchestrated by Demetrios, intended to broker a temporary truce regarding the trapped trade routes. The location is a neutral, desolate shrine island dedicated to a forgotten earth deity, a place where the laws of the mainland kings supposedly hold no sway. Kreon and Lyra, independently pursuing different facets of the unfolding conspiracy, converge there. They uncover evidence suggesting that the true instigator of the escalating conflict is not simply a misunderstanding between Mycenae and Ilium, but a calculated external manipulation—a shadowy faction within the Achaean elite seeking to provoke a massive war, believing it the only way to consolidate absolute power under a single, unchallenged ruler. The tension culminates in a tense standoff at the shrine. Kreon must decide whom to trust: the established authority he serves, whose leadership is clearly compromised by ambition and paranoia, or the outsider, Lyra, whose knowledge of hidden paths and ancient warnings might hold the key to preventing a regional catastrophe. The bronze shield he carries, a symbol of his fealty, feels increasingly heavy, reflecting the terrible weight of the choices that will determine the fate of the Aegean. This first chronicle ends not with victory, but with a fractured alliance, a clearer view of the true enemy lurking within the shadows of the palace halls, and the chilling certainty that the fragile age of tentative peace is over. The gathering storm is visible on the horizon, demanding a different kind of heroism than the age has previously known.
