Spartan Beast (The Hellennium Book 2)

by P. K. Lentz

  The development brought Styphon some personal satisfaction, but far more importantly it raised the possibility that the coming invasion would not run afoul of Thalassia. With Demosthenes prisoner, it seemed likely that his protector was dead—for now, at least. Barring that, she might be headed to Sparta to rescue her lover, or whatever he was.

  Styphon also learned in Corinth, by means of slipped tongues and half-mentions, that some of the Equals present, mostly drawn from units reckoned most loyal to Brasidas, had been recipients of special training. Having been in Brasidas' confidence for a few seasons, it was not hard for Styphon to guess that these men were meant to form the core of Brasidas's transformed Spartan army, one which was not dependent on the cohesion of a phalanx, but could fight equally well in mountains and forests and marshlands as it could on level plains. With the eastern seas virtually ruled already by the new navy, such a transformation would give Sparta the world.

  Hearing of such grand plans, Styphon could not help but feel excluded. Had he not put his faith in Agis—

  But then, he wanted to be left out of grand plans, he reminded himself. Today, leading a few dozen freed slaves would serve as sufficient opportunity for glory. He had learned the hard way that too much glory could be a heavy burden.

  Two days after Styphon's arrival, Brasidas came at the head of the last of the troops who were to participate in the assault. The ships came, too, from the east, landing at Corinth's port on the Saronic Gulf, so that they remained always in friendly waters—the only other option being a course which took them directly past Naupaktos. It must have been for that very reason that the ships were shallow-keeled triremes, which could be hauled overland across the isthmus, and not the new breed which never left water.

  Styphon and his Helots, like every man of the army in Corinth, lent their backs to the task of dragging the ships and their cargo from port to port. Among the latter were a large number of plain, sturdy amphorae which were treated with extra care, tended only by those men, mostly Helot slaves, who had arrived with them. It was on this trek that Styphon saw Brasidas for the first time since the trial of Agis. The polemarch was no horseman, but he rode one up the length of the caravan, informally inspecting his army on the wide, flat road over the isthmus.

  Brasidas rode up alongside Styphon, who sweated despite the winter's chill beneath the thick tow-rope which stretched over his bent back to the trireme rumbling behind on its timber rollers.

  “Are you pleased with your new posting?” Brasidas asked.

  “As I said in the past,” Styphon answered, “it is not my place to be pleased or displeased.”

  The polemarch let out a sharp laugh. “A safe answer,” he said jovially, “even if it is a load of shit.”

  His mount twisted as if to veer off the road. With a faint frown, Brasidas jerked the reins to bring it back in line.

  “I want to tell you that your past is just that,” he went on. “Agis used you. I used you. That is the end of it. Look forward now, not back. Your future will be what you make of it.” He laughed through his teeth. “Unless you are not careful, in which case it will be what Eris makes of it.”

  Brasidas rode off up the lumbering column, leaving Styphon to throw his shoulder against the tow-rope with a renewed sense of purpose. This simple reassurance from Brasidas, rightly or wrongly, held more meaning to him than any promotion in rank or commendation from the elders.

  The warning about Eris was worrying, but no surprise. Almost involuntarily, as the polemarch departed, Styphon cast looks in every direction in search of a telltale glint of sunlight on golden hair, but found nothing. If she was in Corinth, or any place where this army would pass, she likely would not be seen. The knowledge she had given Brasidas had been of unquestionable value to him in his ascent to regent, and it served him still, but as a physical presence, Eris almost had to be reckoned a liability. Even before her slaughter of thirty-six elite Spartiates, she had been only been tolerated. It probably would serve Brasidas best for her to remain far from Naupaktos during the attack, lest he come to appear as her puppet. He could not be unaware that powerful men in Sparta, as anywhere, tended to fall more quickly than they had risen.

  * * *

  The ships and men reached the port of Corinth on the west coast of the isthmus, and the next day before dawn they took to oar on the Corinthian gulf. Sailing season was over and the waves high, but by hugging the coast the fleet made land as intended on a beach just east of Naupaktan territory, in Phokis, where the people had for years already been docile Spartan allies. They were met there by a dozen members of the elite Arkadian light infantry, the Skiritai, who had been sent ahead by land days earlier to perform reconnaissance. They reported, Styphon heard third-hand, that the Naupaktan defenses only began (as expected) at the river Mornos.

  Landing unopposed, the invasion force disembarked and drew up into formations along plans drilled in Corinth. Katapeltai and rams and towers rolled down ramps from triremes modified to carry them and then were unlimbered on the beach. Unloaded, too, with great care, were those mysterious amphorae which all present suspected by know must comprise the new weapon expected to make its debut at Naupaktos. Unlike the machines, the amphorae did not remain long on the beach; they were removed to some location unseen, away from the main body of troops.

  When the forces were arrayed, less than an hour after landing, Brasidas, in all his war gear apart from helmet, climbed onto a rocky projection that put him ten feet above the sea of bronze-clad heads, upright spears, red cloaks, and lambda-blazoned shields. In all, twelve hundred men stood on the sands, half of them Equals, the rest Helots and Arkadians and others.

  From the rock above, Brasidas addressed them:

  “Brothers, friends, cousins!” he said. “You already know why we are here. To teach a city the lesson that no one sinks our ships and kills our men without paying dearly. You need no fiery words from me to set your blood burning for retribution. What I stand here to offer you instead is a choice. You have all heard the talk of a new weapon to be employed today. The talk is true, but I shall be honest with you. Like stones and arrows, it is what any man of honor would call a coward's weapon.

  “I count myself an honorable man, and count every man here the same. Our city is an island of honor in a vast sea that teems with base creatures lacking in spine and unable to do harm without aid of dart and stinger and paralyzing venom. Virtue is the most blessed of possessions, but alas, it is no shield against the scorpion's sting. We, I believe, as men of honor, face a choice. We can let the edges of our island slowly recede until it is swallowed by the surrounding sea of ignominy. Or we who are virtue's defenders can fight to push the edges outward, using whatever means are needed, to secure for all men a brighter future.

  “I confess that I have brought with us a coward's weapon such as that which our enemies might have used against us. Nay, one which they would not have hesitated to use, were it theirs and not ours. This weapon can help to give us Naupaktos with little blood shed—beyond that already lost under Agis's command. I would not dare suggest that even a single man here is unwilling to spill his blood today, to lose a limb or an eye or his life. No, we are not cowards! But there will come better days to shed our blood, and better places than this wretched little town. Your noble blood and strong arms will see no shortage of fighting so long as I am regent!

  “Regent,” Brasidas scoffed at himself. “I dislike the sound of it. Call me polemarch, for that is what I am, your leader in war. At the front, fighting by your side, giving my life if need be to spare yours. Because every life here is essential to winning for Sparta far greater glory than we can possibly win here today. Naupaktos is not worth your blood, or your lives, and that is why I would have us today resort to methods we rightly despise.

  “However, I am no emperor, ruling by fiat without regard for what others think. And so, in a moment, I will put the choice to you whether we march forth and test our virtue against the waiting defenses of an enemy who is ready f
or us ... or swat them like the shit-feasting flies they are. I have told you where my mind lies, but the final decision I hand to you, and I will gladly abide by it.”

  Brasidas fell silent, and for the space of a few breaking waves, the water on the shore was the only sound.

  “Use it!” someone cried out from the ranks of the Spartiates. Possibly, but not necessarily, he was a plant. Surely, he was one of Brasidas's confidantes.

  Then more cries went up, echoed and repeated until all were shouting:

  They are dogs, not men! They are not worth our blood! Our spears are too good for them!

  A smile splitting his hawkish features, Brasidas urged them back to silence with an upraised palm. “The right choice!” he exclaimed. “But before we march, I would speak to you briefly of witches!”

  “Brasidas!” A bellowing voice, resounding off the rocks, soaring over the crash of surf.

  All eyes flew upward in search of its source, which was swiftly found. High on the rocks, the figure stood upright, defiant, wanting to be seen. It was clad from head to toe in dull leather and bright bronze, with no skin visible but for a face partly obscured by the cheek pieces of an Attic-style helmet. At its hips hung two sheathed blades, but its right hand held one of those weapons which Brasidas had just decried as fit for cowards, a cross-bow.

  The tall figure might have been that of a slender male, but it was not. There was only one fighter who would dare to appear alone in front of this army, and it was no man. It was the very thing about which Brasidas had been about to speak.

  A witch, armed for battle.

  * * *

  12.The second battle of Naupaktos - (ii) The breath of the Hydra

  As if to extinguish doubt, Thalassia yanked off her helm. Sea wind raised hair like a black banner hoisted by the hordes of Erebos. It had been cropped since Styphon had seen her last. Perhaps she had given up Demosthenes for dead and was in mourning. But then, she had worn it even shorter on the day his men had first dragged her corpse from the sea on Sphakteria, the black day she had sprung to life to begin meddling in the affairs of men.

  Would that he had ordered her hacked into a thousand parts and every morsel fed to the sea birds. But how could he have known?

  On his lower perch opposite her, Brasidas stood fast, calling out, “Bowmen, draw!” while three of his loyal men clambered up the rocks to cover the regent's body fully with their bowl-shaped shields. Brasidas made no move to dissuade them.

  “Any man who fires an arrow gets one back in the eye!” Thalassia admonished. “I come to warn you. You will not win this battle. Every one of you will die.”

  Brasidas cackled. “Name a battle before which the losers did not make that very boast!”

  “In fact, I lie,” the witch returned. “I will not kill you, Brasidas, because your life belongs to him.”

  “Ha! The man of whom you speak is my prisoner. For the moment, he lives. You know I speak truly. Stand against us this day, and he dies!”

  “He died on the same day you doomed your city!” Thalassia shouted back, and next addressed the whole army: “Cross this river, and I will kill every man of you, just as I have already killed the men who carried these gifts you brought for Naupaktos.” She bent and picked up from an unseen place behind her a clay pot—one of the very same which had been so carefully transported alongside the invasion force.

  “Shall we open them now?” Raising the pot, she casually tossed it down from the rocks toward the massed men standing below.

  Above the rims of his protectors' shields, Brasidas's jaw fell open and eyes went wide in an expression which Styphon had never seen upon the polemarch's face, and indeed was rarely to be seen on the face of any Equal.

  It was fear.

  “Do not breathe the gas!” Brasidas screamed. “Move away! Do not breathe! Distribute the cloths! The cloths! Cover your faces!”

  The clay pot shattered on the rocky beach at the feet of the army of revenge, and from its broken shards billowed forth a faintly yellowish fog

  Leaping from his perch in a direction opposite the cloud, Brasidas continued to cry out urgent warnings to the army he had kept too long in the dark. Now, as another pot smashed in another location, and another, and yellow gas spread in wispy tendrils, ordered ranks descended into chaos. At once, every man tried to run from the nearest impact only to have another pot land in front of him, sending him in a different direction, where he collided with another fighter doing the same.

  Where the yellow cloud enveloped the faces of men, they collapsed in a fit of retching, unable to rise, barely able to crawl over their comrades likewise afflicted.

  Styphon and his formation were among those fortunate enough to be far from the initial impacts. However, he had little doubt of Thalassia's ability to cast pots over greater distances than this, and so he did not stand idle but barked orders at his Helots. True to his assessment of their ability, they pivoted, keeping formation, their faces stony, and moved east in an orderly advance, putting their backs to the chaos. Other surrounding formations did the same.

  Then the death groans began, rising up over the hacking coughs. Styphon looked back to see through a yellow haze that the witch had begun firing her cross-bow down into the mass of crawling soldiers, loading and loosing and reloading time and again.

  Styphon knew without needing to see that not a single bolt failed to steal a man's life.

  While his unit fast-marched to relative safety, a scrambling slave handed Styphon a handful of small squares of sackcloth which were filthy with what looked like soot. Gathering their intended purpose, Styphon halted his men to distribute the cloths among them.

  “Breathe through the cloth!” he commanded, putting one over his nose and mouth.

  None too soon, for more pots were sailing up into the air and falling further east, and these too were followed by a barrage of bolts from Thalassia's cross-bow. Styphon's unit presently stood out of range of that weapon, or so Styphon judged, but fingers of yellow mist drifted on the wind in their direction. To be safe, he moved his men further back rather than rely fully on the supposed protection of the cloths.

  Back at the site of the attack, through a yellow haze, Styphon saw the tiny figure of the witch vanish behind the rocks. She had cast down upon the army at least a dozen pots and fired many times that number of bolts.

  She was given no pursuit, of course. She had already promised to be waiting beyond the river Mornos, if they yet dared to cross it.

  The sounds of men gagging and retching and moaning en masse persisted. Perhaps the gaseous weapon had not been lethal, but only a choking mist. That was odd for an invention of Eris.

  Before the wind had fully diffused the yellow clouds hanging over the broken army of revenge, the men around Styphon had a name for it.

  Hydra's Breath.

  * * *

  13. The frogs

  Another endless day passed, a day of physical anguish and mental decay, a day made harder by something Eurydike had instilled in him. Not guilt, although there was that. She had given him a new cause for hope. Andrea wished to help him.

  But on the stauros, Demosthenes had found, it was easier to be hopeless.

  Another night fell, and once more he slept intermittently, drifting in and out of consciousness.

  Somewhere in between the two, he began to hear frogs croaking loudly and deeply. He had heard the sound of frogs in the nights prior, but it had been distant then, surely from the woods beyond the city limits. Now the frogs seemed much closer.

  He felt rather than heard gentle movement behind him. Something brushed one of his hands, or so he imagined; secured above his head, they were all but numb.

  “Andrea?” he risked whispering.

  “Shh,” a hushed voice returned. “Yes. Do not move. I must take care. This substance I use will eat iron but also flesh.”

  Remaining still posed no difficulty for Demosthenes; to do otherwise was hardly possible.

  While waiting, he grasped the mea
ning of the frog sound. Andrea had brought them to mask any sounds that might be heard by the sentries in the square.

  Some seconds later, Demosthenes' arms became suddenly heavy. They would have fallen if not for Andrea's small arm wrapped around them, softer and lower than the iron manacles that yet encircled his wrists and which might have rattled had she not prevented it.

  Next came the rustling of a cloak and more movement as Andrea climbed down. His savior whispered from behind, presumably while working on the remainder of his bonds, “I am sorry about your wife. Brasidas should not have done that.”

  With strength he did not have, Demosthenes raised his arms again over his head, in case one or more of the sentries had keen eyes or chose to check on him as they sometimes did. “Is that why you wish to help me?” he breathed back at the girl.

  “No. Geneva sent a message. Just two words. I could not ignore them.”

  Demosthenes could not suppress a faint smile on his cracked lips.

  The chain encircling his neck fell loose and was quietly removed. “If only you understood the living nightmare our world might become,” Andrea whispered. “The things Eden can make, or worse, teach men to make... This liquid I use, in another form, could become an odorless, colorless vapor which if breathed, would melt a man from the inside. Geneva could make such weapons if she chose. But she is content here. I wish for Eden to be content, too.”

  The pressure on Demosthenes' ankles eased, and for the first time in two days he moved his legs, just slightly. Only the chains encircling his chest remained.

  “But you cannot deceive her...” Demosthenes observed.

  “Deceive? You mean when it comes to my affection? I need not. She is a sad and beautiful creature. My fondest hope is one day to see the sights that she has seen.” A brief silence, then, “Magdalen allows each agent of the Caliate, in the course of her service, to recruit one member. I will be Eden's.”