Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium)

by P. K. Lentz

  Princess or slave, Persian or Greek, her presence was an ill omen, and ill omens sapped men's confidence, which in turn made them more likely to die. Already the Helot who'd discovered the corpse in the surf had suffered a slit throat in the night, and hungry as they were, the soldiers had decided to burn as an offering to Zeus and Artemis a third of the good barley cakes the unlucky slave had brought.

  In that impractical action the men had been unanimous, but they were split on whether to bury the woman's body properly or cast it back into the sea. Until the matter could be decided, it sat on the ground outside the bounds of their encampment. Helots had been assigned to watch over it and keep the crows away, but strangely they had not been forced to cast a single stone, for no crows came. This was seen among the ranks as an even worse omen, notwithstanding that crows themselves were harbingers of doom. Still, Helots continued to watch the body in case any birds did come, not so much for the sake of preserving the corpse, but because birds could be cooked and eaten.

  Styphon rounded a great stone outcropping on his descent of the mountain and caught first sight of the moss-encrusted stone fort which was the camp under his command. Its roof had long ago collapsed, making the structure more stockade than fort. The walls that remained were hardly the height of a man. It was said that old Nestor had built the thing, and perhaps he really had, but whoever had put it there had positioned it sensibly on the highest part of the island where the sheer cliffs were impassible on three sides. Should the worst come to pass, Epitadas, the pentekoster in charge of the island and currently commanding the main body of troops at the island's center, had designated Nestor's fort as the site of their final stand.

  Whatever fate lay ahead for the Spartans besieged on Sphakteria, victory or death, it would surely arrive soon, for atop the mount which he now descended, Styphon had witnessed a sight which made it all but certain: seventeen Athenian heavy triremes spilling fresh troops onto the beach at Pylos. A runner would bear the news on to Epitadas, who would say something on the order of, "Let them come."

  Indeed, let them, Styphon agreed. Far better to face one's fate head-on than to sit hammered by the sun against an anvil of barren stone, sipping brackish water by the handful, breathing clouds of oily soot and forever waiting. Sphakteria by now would have broken a less disciplined force. The womanly Athenians wouldn't have lasted a week, let alone three months at the height of summer's scorching heat.

  Before Styphon completed the trek into camp, a scream reverberated over the rocks. The screamer appeared below, a Helot running toward the camp from the south. Styphon quickened his pace, hurtling over loose rocks and flirting with a neck-breaking spill while in his pounding ears rang the mad Helot's persistent shrieking. Hardly a minute later, Styphon arrived at the rear wall of Nestor's fort, nearly slamming into it, then raced around the corner to where the camp's entire population, forty men and slaves in all, dressed like Styphon in ragged chitons that clung with sweat to their chests and sunburned thighs, had gathered around the wild-eyed screamer.

  Styphon penetrated the human curtain just as another Spartiate belted the Helot in the face, silencing his crazed shouts and sending him sprawling. When the slave managed to drag his head upright, it was to cry out, face twisted in terror, "She moved!"

  There was no need to ask who, for there was only one female on this cursed rock, and she was stone dead. Knowing that, the twenty Spartiates who had just been grumbling or laughing at the slave's fright fell instantly to silence.

  "Someone is playing a trick on you, donkey!" Styphon hissed.

  The look of terror on the Messenian's face did not fade. He insisted again in a whisper, "She moved..."

  Styphon was drawing back a sandaled foot to kick the man in the head when he froze and realized in the same instant as did his comrades that the slave had not lied at all. If trick this was, it was an elaborate one, for there at the crest of the ridge, not thirty paces off, the woman stood, naked but for a scrap of black cloth over her left breast.

  Staggering, she fell hard onto her knees, set one hand on the earth and rose again. The men gasped and invoked the names of gods, and Styphon barked at them, without taking his eyes from the risen corpse, "Spartans, are you men or little girls!?"

  The woman, or shade, or whatever it was, having regained its feet, stood swaying gently, arms held out in a search for balance. Its head was bowed, tangled dark hair hiding its face.

  Some citizen or slave whispered, "We must leave this place."

  Styphon bellowed, "Lashes and demotion for any Spartiate who runs!"

  The warning was meant for his men, but theirs were not the only ears to hear it. Up on the ridge, the dead thing picked up its head and turned eyes toward them. A score of grown Spartan citizens, death dealers all, gasped. Styphon himself, whose faith in the creatures of legend was not strong, half expected to see under the black hair a grinning skull or harpy's beak, but there was only a face. Its expression could not be read from this distance, but Styphon sensed on it an emotion he had witnessed many times before and knew well. Fear. The shade was afraid.

  Styphon ordered over the muttered prayers of others, "Catch her!"

  As if she had heard, which perhaps she did, the corpse-woman turned and made to flee the camp. She stumbled, knee striking the rocky soil, but she bounced to her feet again in a flash and ran.

  Still, no Spartan moved. No wonder, since neither had their leader. Styphon remedied the lapse by taking off at a full run. As he went, he pointed and shouted out the names of his men in small groups and told each where to go. For a moment they all stood bewildered, but soon enough they became Spartans again. A superior had spoken and could not be disobeyed. The hunt was on, its aim to prevent their quarry from reaching the wall of trees (blackened stumps, mostly, since the cursed Athenians had lately set fire to the island) which marked the arbitrary southern boundary of their mountain encampment. In the end it could hardly matter if she made it there, of course, for there was no true escape to be had for anyone on tiny, besieged Sphakteria. If only.

  Stumbling every five steps, the corpse-woman proved easy to catch. Rather, she proved easy to surround; after that, no man was willing to go near her. Thus what resulted was a sort of moving cordon, within which the prey was free to move about as it wished.

  After some minutes at this impasse, Styphon called out, "Kneel and let us approach!"

  The she-thing's head whipped round to face him. Hardly a spear-length away, Styphon looked straight into eyes that were the pale blue of a winter sky and deeply frightened. Her bare female form seemed a delicate thing, with slender limbs and nary a dimple of excess fat, but when she moved, muscles rippled under skin the color of summer barley. The features of her oval face were finely wrought, from pointed chin to wide, dark lips to thin brows arching over those pale eyes. Many men, in vastly different circumstances, and if their tastes ran to the exotic (which Styphon's, like those of most Spartans, did not) would have counted her as attractive.

  Her lips made an omicron shape in Styphon's direction, but if she had been about to speak nothing came of the effort, for before any sound could emerge, her well-formed legs buckled, sending her once more to the rocky ground. She raised a bare arm with palm open and fingers spread wide in a warding sign. Styphon saw her limbs subtly tense like those of a runner on a starting line, saw that the fear in her eyes had faded and become calculation. He gleaned her intent and cried to his men, "Back! Back!"

  Too late. The animated corpse whirled and lunged like an animal at a man standing opposite Styphon in the cordon. Her chosen target backpedaled, but the undead assailant was too swift and succeeded in her aim of snatching his shield.

  None of the men in camp had been armed at the time the woman appeared, yet during the chase some had managed to grab a short sword or hoplon, and because of that, now their quarry had a shield, too. She crouched behind the stolen, bowl-shaped barrier in the center of the cordon, turning every few seconds to present the hoplon's crimson lambda blaz
on in a new direction. The icy eyes that peered over its rim issued silent challenge which none were inclined to accept.

  Styphon stepped forward, unarmed, open palms upraised. The she-thing faced him. Stopping well out of her reach, he met her gaze steadily, endeavoring to betray no trace of the unease which the gods knew he felt.

  "Who are you?" he demanded. He held his breath for a moment to listen intently, and in doing so he noticed that the woman's own breath was inaudible, even after the considerable exertion of her flight.

  "What do you want?" Styphon tried next, but again there came no reply. Perhaps she could not speak, or spoke only the tongue of some far-off homeland. "We do not mean to harm you," he offered anyway.

  That reassurance, spoken in slow, clear syllables, won him a reaction of sorts. Her blue eyes flicked away from him to left and right, scanning the audience of soldiers and Helots that watched in rapt silence. Styphon squatted to bring his face level with hers. Her knuckles remained white on either side of the shield rim, but her eyes had calmed.

  "I command these men," Styphon said, "and I swear you will come to no harm by them."

  Until Epitadas orders it, he thought but opted not to add.

  The woman's gaze sank groundward and for a moment appeared empty, like that of some old man whose body was sound but whose mind had gone to pasture. She maintained that attitude for a few beats, looked up again, and spoke at last. Her voice was not the cackling of a harpy or the moan of a restless shade. In fact it was barely a voice at all, more like the croaking of a tiny frog or the last rush of air from the lips of the dying.

  "Lak—" the woman said, and choked. "Lak...e...dai...mon?"

  No doubt she had recognized the crimson lambda emblazoned on their shields. That didn't mean much, for one could scour the land between Babylon and the Pillars of Herakles and hardly find a place where that symbol was not known and feared.

  "Yes," Styphon confirmed. "We are men of Lakedaimon. Spartans. I am Styphon. Where is your home?" She stared. "What is your name and who is your lord?"

  No hint of understanding lit her pale eyes. Styphon's hope for a reply was waning when the woman surprised him.

  "In the name of... Zeus Hikesios..." she said in her raking voice, proving that she knew at least a little Greek.

  "I have no power to accept you as a suppliant," Styphon answered. "The pledge already given will have to suffice. What say you lay down the shield?"

  Very slowly, with much hesitation on her part and patience on Styphon's, she lowered the hoplon. Only then did Styphon remember that behind it she was stark naked.

  "Bring a cloak!" he called to any Helot. Shortly a tattered red garment was placed in his waiting hand. He held it open and advanced cautiously on the corpse-woman, whose wary eyes held fast to him the whole way. Reaching her, he draped it over her bare, golden shoulders before stepping back and addressing the dumbstruck wall of flesh surrounding them.

  "She is not a shade or a daimon! Any man who does her wrong will answer to me!"

  At length the soldiers muttered their assent, if reluctantly. If there had been any doubt as to whether the sudden appearance of a woman's corpse on the island was an ill omen, now that said corpse walked and talked, all doubt was erased.

  "Disperse," Styphon commanded. Picking up the stolen hoplon (on most days, he would punish the man who had lost it, but not today), he faced the she-thing. "The gods and I must know who it is I am bound to protect," he said.

  She croaked three strange, harsh syllables which Styphon presumed must comprise her name. "Geneva."

  I. PYLOS 3. Sea-thing

  A curtain of rags was hung in the rear of Nestor's fort to afford the risen corpse, a lone female in the company of men, a modicum of privacy. Behind it she had sat all morning, muttering rapidly in what seemed to be Greek, even if the words were too swift and her voice too soft to allow for proper eavesdropping. From her tone, she seemed to be conversing idly with herself, or else with spirits.

  It had been a year at least since the softness of a woman's voice had last filled Styphon's ear. His wife Alkmena had died long enough ago that even though he had loved her in his youth, the sting of her absence had dulled to vanishing. Strangely, this female made him think of Alkmena for the first time in an age, even though the two were as different as day was from night. His present company was the prettier by far, in spite of her foreign complexion, but Styphon would never choose her, even had he not seen her rise from the dead. There was some repellent aspect to this creature's perfection.

  The woman was mumbling softly as Styphon pushed the veil aside and entered her feeble sanctuary. On seeing him, she fell silent and looked up from the bed of leaves on which she sat, legs hugged to bare breasts inside the encompassing cloak. Her delicate foreign features were relaxed, sky-colored eyes devoid of fright. She had raked fingers through the black, salt-stiffened hair that fell barely past the nape of her flawless neck. A Spartan woman's hair would only be so short after she had cut in mourning, or after her wedding night, of course, when she symbolically mourned the loss of her maidenhead.

  The look she gave Styphon as he knelt to come level with her was, like his own, a measuring one. Pale, cold eyes made him all but forget why he had come. Summoning his will, he shook himself free of their enchantment and found voice with which to deliver his message.

  "Our commander has ordered you thrown from the cliffs."

  The heights in question dominated the northern sky. The woman's head half-turned to direct a casual glance in their direction, and then her eyes were again an unwelcome burden on Styphon. The unearthly creature asked, in a feminine voice very different from the dry rasp it had been earlier, "You are... to agreeing with he?"

  "It is not my place to agree," Styphon said, understanding in spite of her broken Greek. He hardened his black eyes. "Only to obey."

  Shockingly, her thin lips pressed together in a tight smile. "You come now for taking me to cliff?"

  The Greek which the creature spoke (if only just) was Attic in dialect. That was not unusual for foreigners who had not known the language from birth but rather been compelled to adopt it, usually through slavery. Even if her grammar was imperfect, sounds dripped from the tip of her tongue like the very honey which lent its color to her flesh.

  "No," Styphon said. "Only to inform you, so that you might—" He cut himself short, unable to finish for embarrassment.

  "Might what?" It seemed more idle curiosity than real concern.

  With a scowl Styphon admitted the thinking that had driven him here. "Our commander was not witness to your... rising. He assumes we are mistaken and that you are a mortal woman. But an Equal is familiar with death before he can walk, and you were dead. I am no superstitious fool, but I thought that if you knew his intention, you might... return of your own accord to..." Styphon grit his teeth in displeasure at being forced to speak such nonsense. He forced himself to finish, "...to wherever it is you came from."

  The men had reached consensus on where that was, but Styphon had little regard for their baseless conjecture. The name for her that had stuck around camp was Sea-thing.

  Her thin brows arched in... amusement? "That is many kindness of you." She glanced around her. "This place am Sphakteria."

  It was not quite a question, but Styphon answered it anyway. "Yes."

  "How much days you have been here?"

  "Seventy, give or take."

  Sea-thing's lips pursed as if in thought, and she asked next, "You have seen Athenian refin... reinforcements come?"

  "This morning." He shook his head. "Why should any of this concern you?"

  She chewed her lip briefly before answering, "I only wish to be knowing how long before falls the hammer."

  "Hammer?" Styphon echoed. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Sorry, maybe you are not having that expression." She lapsed into a pensive silence, during which one hand rose slowly up from inside her cloak and toyed with a tendril of her tangled hair.

  "W
hat do you mean?" Styphon repeated.

  Sea-thing's gaze rose and met his. "Styphon," she said heavily, "how do you wish for your name to be remembered?"

  It seemed a strange thing to say, but then she had said nothing thus far which was not strange. Anyway, the answer was simple enough. "I would have said of me what any Equal would. He died in battle."

  Sea-thing leveled a grave look. "I do not knowing how you die, but I do know one thing about you, Styphon, son of Pharax. In two days' time, when the Athenians invade this island, you will surrender to them and make every Equal here an apricot."

  Seeing Styphon's heavy brow furrow, she chuckled humorlessly.

  "I'm sorry," she amended. "Wrong word. After what I've been through, I am very hungry. I meant prisoner."

  I. PYLOS 4. Thalassia

  Styphon stared at her, stunned. When his wits returned a moment later, he said, "Not only would that action be an affront to all I believe, I lack the power to make such a choice."

  "At present," she said. "But you would have it if Epitadas and Hippagretas were to falling. Which they will."

  With this, her latest in a string of impudent remarks, the frustration welling in Styphon's breast suddenly exploded into his sword arm, which lashed out at the speaker's flawless mouth.

  The blow never landed. Instead, Styphon's fist stopped inches from Sea-thing's cheek, held there fast in a set of swift-moving golden fingers which might as well have been iron rods. Thus did a Spartan Equal, peerless among the fighters of Hellas for strength of limb, find himself at the mercy of a barbarian female. He struggled in vain, while from behind the binding hand, pale blue eyes watched with no sign of strain. Only when Styphon let the tensed muscles of his arm go slack did the grip holding it ease.

  To block his attack, Sea-thing's right hand had shot out from inside the tattered red cloak in which she huddled. Now, adder-like, it slithered back into hiding.