The Lost Army

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  I would have given anything to see the expression on Sophos’s face and I wanted to hug Xeno, to thank him for what he was doing. I was trembling with the cold despite my cloak, but I wouldn’t have left for all the gold in the world.

  His voice rose up again. ‘That’s why the recruiting for this operation was done in secret, in out-of-the way places, signing on small groups of men. Not to keep the expedition a secret from the Great King – that would have been impossible, seeing that Cyrus had his own army of one hundred thousand men. But to keep secret the involvement of the government of Sparta in an endeavour aimed at defeating and assassinating the Great King himself. What exactly did Cyrus promise Sparta? And the Queen Mother? What did she vow?’

  Silence. A silence more eloquent than a thousand words. Then Sophos’s voice, colder than the wind whipping at my face. His words pierced my heart. ‘You’ve put me in a very difficult situation, Xenophon, and I imagine that you’re well aware of this. Let’s admit for a moment that you’re right: what do you expect me to do at this point?’

  Xeno spoke calmly, as if his words did not concern him personally. ‘I imagine that you mean to kill me, and to kill the girl. The latter would be pointless: who would ever listen to her? She’d never run another risk like the one she took. She’s already terrified. She doesn’t represent a danger for you.’

  ‘You’re wrong. She does. As does Melissa, who she confided in, and I can’t exclude Cleanor, either. He’s quite dependent on her for his physical and mental well-being . . .’

  I can imagine his mocking look. Sophos never shed his sarcasm, even in the most dramatic situations.

  Another long silence followed. Although I could see very little, it seemed to me that Sophos had taken a seat. Perhaps he needed a more comfortable position to say what was coming. But Xeno spoke first. ‘I’m unarmed. Do it now. I won’t fight you . . .’ I felt a sword of ice plunging into my heart. ‘. . . but spare the girl. Leave her in the first village you come upon. She’ll never find a way out on her own, and even if she did she’d end up in her dusty little village and fall into oblivion. I’m asking you, Commander, in the name of our friendship, in the name of everything we’ve suffered and been through together. If you allow me to speak with her, she’ll obey me. I’ll order her never to speak a word of this to anyone.’

  Xeno loved me. That was enough for me to face whatever awaited me without regrets.

  I saw Sophos’s shadow leaning forward and I thought I heard a sigh, before he spoke. ‘Have you asked yourself what destiny I’ve carved out for myself, if I manage to execute the task you attribute to me?’

  ‘You’ll die with them,’ replied Xeno. ‘I do not doubt that. I have never thought you would survive your soldiers.’

  ‘This comforts me, in a certain way.’

  Xeno’s voice was trembling now, with emotion, with disdain. ‘But this does not absolve you of disgrace. How can you lead them to their deaths? How can you bear it?’

  ‘A soldier knows that death is part of the life he has chosen.’

  ‘But not like this, Commander. Not this death. Not being led like sheep to the edge of a cliff. A soldier has the right to die on the battlefield, and you who are Spartan know this better than anyone else.’

  ‘And I who am Spartan know that I must obey the orders of my city, at any cost. I know that our lives can be spent so that the nation can survive and prosper. What do you think Leonidas did at the Fiery Gates? He obeyed!’

  ‘But these soldiers are not all Spartans, to my knowledge. You cannot decide for them. They have the right to choose their destiny.’

  ‘Ah . . . democracy!’

  ‘Don’t you see them? Come out of this den, Commander, and take a look at them!’

  Xeno had walked outside. I could hear his voice distinctly now. Sophos came out as well. A sea of campfires stretched out before them, pockets staining the white blanket of snow with red.

  ‘Look at them! They’ve always obeyed you, they have fought like lions in a hundred battles. They’ve lost their comrades, they’ve seen them sinking under the snow, tumbling into rocky chasms, falling into the cold sleep of death while they were out on guard duty, protecting the sleep of the others. They’ve been wounded, maimed, but they have never stopped. They have never given up. Like mules, they’ve climbed the mountains bearing the weight of their arms, their shields, their baggage, their wounded or sick comrades, with never a protest or complaint. When they could they buried them, dry-eyed, shouting out their names, raising them to the sky on the points of their spears. And do you know why? Because they have faith in you. Because they trust you to take them to safety. They knew – and they still believe – that at the end of this endless march they would find salvation!

  ‘Do what you want with me. Blame me for everything. It’s true, after all, that I’m to blame. I’ll face the punishment that I deserve, but Commander, let them go back. Take them back home.’

  A long, tense silence ensued. In that suspended atmosphere, I heard the distant rumbling of thunder – how distant? – and saw sudden flashes of light on the horizon. Gods in heaven! Somewhere, who knows where, a storm was raging and the power of the lightning had reached all the way here to me, penetrating the mute dance of the snowflakes. Somewhere, spring was coming. But would we ever see it?

  I curled up and cried, under the bellies of the mules, wept with all my heart. I felt overwhelmed by such violent emotions that I was sure I would never be able to gain control of myself again, until I heard sudden shouting. ‘Look! Up there! Look!’

  More shouts followed. ‘What is it?’

  Then Xeno’s desperate voice. ‘Oh gods, gods of all the heavens! What’s happening? Did you do this? Answer me, by all the demons in Hades, are you responsible for this?’

  The shouts had died down, giving way to widespread, despondent muttering, and then to utter silence. I came out of my hiding place and what I saw left me speechless and took my breath away. On the mountain rim that completely surrounded the valley we found ourselves in, a multitude had gathered. Each man held a burning torch. An immense snake of fire coiled around the edge of that immense crater, casting a bloody glow onto the snowy slopes below.

  Warriors.

  Tens and tens of thousands of warriors. Still more behind them, like a cascade of fire, descending to block the passes at the entrance and exit of the valley.

  This time it was truly all over. This time there was no way out.

  Xeno grabbed Sophos by his shoulder and shouted again, ‘Did you do this?’

  ‘If I said no, would you believe me?’ Sophos replied.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then think whatever you want to think. It makes no difference.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Xeno demanded, as all the other officers showed up at a run: Cleanor, Timas, Agasias, Neon.

  ‘We’ll die,’ replied the commander darkly. ‘As warriors.’

  ‘Die?’ replied Xeno with a strange expression in his eyes. ‘. . . I have a different idea.’

  26

  IT SNOWED ALL NIGHT. The torches went out up above, and so did the campfires down below. The world was swallowed up in darkness and silence. At dawn, the chiefs of the army gathered at the rim of the great crater had the war horns sounded and began to descend into the valley. Soon the man who seemed to command them all, a blond giant, ordered them to stop, to wait until the light grew stronger. He must not have believed what he saw before him.

  The great basin was empty. The army of invaders had vanished. All that was left on one side was a group of wagons, covered by the tent canvases, joined in a circle.

  Where had they disappeared to? What magic was this? The way in and the way out of the crater were firmly in the hands of his own forces. A whole army couldn’t have just melted away.

  Gripped by superstitious terror, the chief decided not to order the entire army forward, but to send a column of his best fighters in reconnaissance. He lined up more than five thousand men in full battle gear, wea
ring conical helmets and carrying big oxhide shields, in a column formation in ranks of one hundred men. They advanced slowly, gripping their long double-edged swords. They had already covered the slope and were entering the level area in the middle. They were only about two hundred paces from the wagons. Silence reigned over the entire valley because their steps made no sound in the snow. When they were exactly at the centre of the basin, a trumpet blared and, as if by some miracle, an army of ghosts rose up to the right and to the left of the column. They emerged from the snow, shaking its white mantle off their backs. They swiftly drew up side by side and formed ranks, shouldering the shields that had covered them through the night and brandishing their spears. In no more than a few moments the two formations, looming on both sides of the enemy column, were ready for battle; at the second trumpet blare they lowered their spears and charged. Trapped between them, the natives didn’t know which way to turn; they ended up slaughtered between two forests of steel points, crushed between two walls of shields which closed in with irresistible power.

  The others, still at the top of the mountain crest, were so startled and horrified by this vision that they didn’t even attempt to regroup, or to go to the aid of their comrades. They watched dumbstruck as those superhuman beings emerged from the bowels of the earth. They could not begin to imagine what had happened that night.

  Xeno had recalled how some time earlier the soldiers who’d been punished for setting fire to some huts in one of the villages they’d occupied had survived outside the circle of sentries by sleeping under their shields, covered by their cloaks and protected by the snow falling from the sky.

  A roar of triumph burst from the bottom of the crater. The Ten Thousand uttered a victory cry so loud that it rang through the entire valley. At the sound of their cry, the girls who had been hiding in the wagons up until then, myself among them, responded with passionate cheers.

  Xeno ran up to Sophos. ‘See? We can do this. We’ve cut them to pieces. We can break through the circle and get away. We’ve already dealt them a harsh blow.’

  Even in the midst of all that enthusiasm, Sophos was unmoved. He was eyeing the rim of the crater. ‘Look,’ he pointed out, ‘more are coming, the gap has already been filled. They’re laying siege to our camp. Even if they don’t move from where they are, we’ll die of hunger and exposure.’

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ exclaimed Xeno. ‘Can you seriously be thinking of leaving these men – who have given you everything – with no hope? All they want from you is a reason to fight, even if it’s to the last breath. A man can’t live without hope, but you can’t be thinking of letting them die that way!’

  ‘I’ll be with them,’ replied Sophos gloomily. ‘I’ll be the first to descend to Hades.’

  Xeno spun his gaze around the generals who’d gathered near him: Timas, Cleanor, Xanthi, Agasias, along with the captains like Neon, Lycius, Aristeas, Nicarchus and Eurylochus. They were standing there, covered in blood and ice, staring in shock at their commander who was incapable of saying another word.

  They were shaken from their stunned silence by the voice of Aristonymus, one of the boldest and most fearless warriors. ‘There’s no use talking,’ he said. ‘They’re coming this way.’

  Everyone raised their eyes to the top of the crater: there were warriors from many tribes and nations, perhaps some of those we’d defeated, perhaps others that the Great King had sent in pursuit of us. Maybe they were those whose villages we’d sacked. Who knows, perhaps we’d never met up with them before and they simply wanted to stop us from entering their land.

  Or maybe Commander Sophos had called them there somehow, from somewhere, so that we could finally be wiped out.

  But there they were, joined in a ring of iron that was shrinking with their every step and tightening around us.

  Without waiting for anything else, Cleanor and Timas shouted out, ‘Men! In a circle! Closed formation, line up!’ Each went to join his own unit. Agasias and Xanthi did the same, and so did Sophos, each standing firm at the head of his own battalion, outside the curved line of the army, which had closed into itself for the last battle.

  Sophos beheld that close formation, the warriors’ shields high and overlapping, the spears jutting out between them, and his features twisted into a strange expression. His eyes seemed to be looking into a different reality, in another time and another place.

  ‘Careful!’ shouted Cleanor. ‘Archers!’

  ‘Fast,’ urged Sophos, ‘shields up, retreat behind the wagons.’

  The soldiers held their shields high as swarms of arrows were loosed upon them without pause. Many of the men were struck and fell, because the arrows were coming from every direction and at every angle. The others pulled back towards the circle of wagons. They tipped them over and used them as protection against the lethal barrage of missiles. Those who were unable to reach cover behind the wagons protected themselves with their shields. The attack stopped only when the enemy had run out of arrows. Moments of spasmodic tension followed. In the silence of the battlefield the cries of the wounded rang out acutely. Some time passed without anything happening, then, all at once: ‘Look!’ shouted Agasias.

  A group of warriors on horseback, perhaps ten in all, had detached from the rest of the army and were slowly riding towards them, including their chieftain, the blond giant. The rest of the immense army had stopped at a distance of about one hundred paces from our formation. Were they coming to check how many of us had survived their rain of arrows, or did they want to negotiate?

  Their horses sank up to their fetlocks in the snow, and the freezing wind that was blowing in from the north ruffled their manes. They stopped within hailing distance.

  The blond giant hurled his spear at the ground and it stuck deep in the ice. He shouted a few harsh, menacing words.

  ‘What does he want?’ asked Cleanor.

  ‘What did he say?’ repeated Agasias.

  I stepped forward, to the stupor of all those present. ‘I understand his language.’

  ‘Well?’ demanded Xeno.

  ‘He said: “Surrender your weapons!”’ I repeated those words again, shouting at the top of my lungs so everyone could hear: ‘Surrender your weapons!’

  The unthinkable happened. Sophos gave an abrupt jerk, as if he’d been hit by lightning. Distant images danced in his suddenly infuriated gaze. He looked back at his men crouched behind the wagons with their spears posed to strike, then turned around and stared his gigantic adversary straight in the eye. He raised his spear and his shield and thundered out in his sharp Laconian dialect, ‘Molòn labé!’

  I knew what that meant: ‘Come and get them!’

  His words spread like wildfire. The five commanders strode out with their battalions from behind the circle of wagons and repeated, ‘Molòn labé!’

  ‘Molòn labé!’

  ‘Molòn labé!’

  And then they began to bang their swords against their shields.

  All the warriors stood straight as their spear shafts and started to beat their swords against their shields, yelling out those words, each blow, each shout swelling them with energy, with frenzied rage.

  The blond giant and his guard were struck by the shriek of bronze as if by the blast of a tempest.

  Sophos shouted, ‘Wedge formation. Five spokes, each proceeding straight forward, one battalion per spoke. We’ll breach the enemy line at five points, then advance to the crest at the double. We’ll join up at the top. Ready for action! Xeno, with me! Cleanor, Timas, Xanthi, Agasias, ready to move. Trumpets, pipes. Forward!’

  I knew then and there that for us women it was all over; we’d surely be left behind. Instead Xeno’s voice rang out as loudly as Sophos’s had. ‘Women inside the wedges. Don’t miss a step. Keep up or you’re dead!’

  The trumpets sounded and the five battalions charged into the attack. Each general was at the head of his unit, each unit splitting from the others like the spokes of a wheel diverging from their hub. The generals
were joined by the most powerful warriors in the army: Eurylochus of Lusia, Aristonymus with his long, slender legs, Aristeas with his flaming red hair, Lycius of Syracuse, Nicarchus of Arcadia. They were calling all the time for more trumpeters and flute-players. This meant one thing: heads down for an all-out attack, no stopping until the enemy front was fractured beyond repair. The pipes began to sound the marching cadence in unison, the drums rolled, making you feel as though your heart would burst, and the five wedges shot out like rays of light from a star. Their shields were as close as overlapping tiles, with only the massive ashwood spears protruding. Their worn red cloaks still stood out dramatically on the snowy expanse. The enemy continued to loose arrows which stuck into their shields, weighing them down, but not slowing their inexorable advance. When the clash with the enemy was imminent, the trumpets burst out, louder than I had ever heard them. The blast prevailed over the pipes and drums and exploded over the entire valley. At that point the five battalions led by their commanders struck the enemy front with such violence that one line after another of combatants fell and the formation was ruptured.

  The enemy fought back with rabid fury, but even though their front was hundreds of men deep, it was breached at five points as the combatants were overwhelmed and pushed out of the way. But even as they were forced to give ground, they reacted with such savagery and frenzy that a great number of our men were wounded or killed. The Greek war cry sounded continuously, in waves of hundreds, thousands of voices, and that cry throbbed with a miraculous energy that no one had thought they possessed. As our forces showed no sign of relenting, the enemy began to break off in small, panicked, disorderly groups. Their resolve began to flag and they started to collide with each other, soon losing their cohesion and courage.

  When the war cries, the trumpet blasts and the penetrating sound of the flutes had died down, the enemy circle had been broken into five segments. The battalions of Sophos and the other generals were climbing to a dominant position at the rim of the crater. Our Thracian skirmishers in the rearguard were loosing missiles of every type in fast succession on the remaining enemy, backing uphill behind our men, closer and closer to the top of the crest.