by P. K. Lentz
There was a gash in her neck, pouring red blood onto black leather. Some price had been been exacted, at least.
She moved away from Styphon; she never stopped moving, striking first at one quarter, then another, ever thwarting encirclement. Neither did Styphon stop. He raced toward her, as every man did, stepping over the bodies of the fallen, eyes peering over shield rim, spear ready to carve inhuman flesh. In this manner Styphon approached the witch, foregoing war-cry since her back was to him, for the moment. It would not be for long, he knew. His comrades noted it, too, and all sped their steps to take advantage.
As Styphon put his shoulder and all his strength into a downward blow, she spun and dodged his thrust, along with those of three Helots, and she sent her body low to the ground, adder-like. Then up she rose, right in front of them, behind the blades of their spears, and her swords poked holes in the necks of the two men flanking Styphon.
For an instant, her icy, angry eyes found Styphon's. There was no joy in them now, none of light he had seen in them when had come to Naupaktos as herald for Agis. No, here was a black eagle eyeing a mouse. Here is what I truly am capable of, her look said to Styphon in that breathless instant. This is the fury you unleashed upon your world on that day you failed to destroy me, when I was helpless and naked and at your mercy!
Even as Styphon's mind accepted a deserved death, his war-bred body refused, opening its fingers to release spear-shaft and trade it for short sword. Long before he could bring the blade to bear, either he would be dead or Thalassia gone from his reach. But that mattered none.
While the two Helots sank gurgling into oblivion on either side of him, Thalassia winced. Not in pain, for she felt none as far as Styphon knew; she winced in annoyance, and as his body of its own accord drew his sword, he saw why, and it sent thoughts of death from his mind.
From behind, two men had lodged spear blades deep in her torso.
“Fucking fuck,” she muttered, and whirling she sent the shades of those two heroes to the same bleak halls which were every man's fate.
Hope swelling behind his shield and in sword arm, Styphon drew back to hack at the supple, already sliced neck exposed beneath her tied hair, even as past her, to the north, he glimpsed a sight to inspire hope greater still.
The mass of men caught behind the fire and not in it, a number greater than those who had made it across, had finished marching around the flames and presently raced at speed to lend fresh aid to the mere twenty or so who remained battling Thalassia.
Hesitating none at the sight of the onrushing lambdas, or for any other cause, Styphon brought his blade sweeping down in a man-cleaving arc.
Blade cleaved neither man nor witch of Erebos, for Thalassia did as she had done a thousand times in the preceding minutes, maneuvering out of harm's way as if her attacker was submerged in honey whilst she moved through air. She kicked Styphon's knee out from under him, sending him to the earth, where she stepped upon the hand holding his sword. While standing thus, in two fluid moves she slew two more Helots.
If he had not known before, Styphon knew now, kneeling helpless before her, surrounded by the bodies of all the Helots under his command: she was deliberately letting him live.
Of those who had made it across the Mornos, but a handful survived, and they now kept their distance, electing to await the imminent arrival of reinforcements. There was no shame in that, only wisdom.
Keeping sword and eyes upon those men, her sandaled foot yet crushing Styphon's fingers, Thalassia knelt low.
“You live for one reason,” she said with some urgency. “You owe me. It will take me at least a day to heal. When I reach Sparta, if he is alive, your debt will be discharged. If he has died, from any cause...” Without removing her gaze or right-hand sword-point from her enemies, Thalassia sent her second blade down to graze the nape of Styphon's neck, and she hissed: “... then you will die. But not before you watch your new broodmare go to hell before you. Do you understand that, you witless fuck?”
“Aye,” Styphon answered quietly.
The sandal rose from his hand, then seconds later descended on his cheek, driving his head into moist dirt. When the weight left him, Styphon restored his grip on his sword and scrambled to one knee, looking all around.
To the south and west, he spied a black form in the distance, running, a swift Atalanta melting into the distance.
The witch had retreated from the field.
In any battle of men, victory was said to belong to the side which remained on the battlefield when the fighting was done.
This evening, on the bank of a river that burned, there were few living who would agree.
* * *
By day's end, the shattered remnants of the army of revenge had marched to the walls of Naupaktos. It came as no surprise that the city stood silent and empty. Scouts had reported as much. The port of Naupaktos, likewise, stood empty of ships and men. By sea and by land, the inhabitants had fled, up the coast, into the woods—it mattered not where, for there could be no pursuit nor even occupation of the conquered city by an army so broken as theirs.
By fire and iron and arrow, the witch had slaughtered at least five hundred. More than half that number were Equals. A great many more were barely fit to complete the march to Naupaktos owing to the effects of the Hydra's Breath.
Brasidas had been burned at the Mornos. The left half of his face was bright pink and blistered, and much of the arm on that side was wrapped in bandages that covered skinless flesh which seeped. The look on the polemarch's rough, damaged features as he led his men through the city gate in a mockery of victory was a haunted one.
“Tear it down,” he commanded in a dull voice, not his usual bark. “Burn. Destroy. Work through the night until morning when we depart. Leave them no homes to which to return.”
With no ardor, the men set to carrying out his order. Styphon lent his back to pulling down the city walls; no easy task, and one which could not be accomplished in a day. But significant damage could be done. It was ever the way of things what took years to build could be all but wrecked in a day.
Brasidas, stripped to loincloth, lent his own back to the same task, and lent his anger, too, working with tightly clenched jaw and eyes that no longer appeared dull but burned with bitterness.
In the evening, he paused in his labors to hear an aide report, “They emptied the granaries, polemarch. All but one, which it seems they tried to burn. But it did not catch, and the grain is—”
“Set the slaves to making barley cakes from it,” Brasidas instructed the man dismissively.
“Aye, sir.”
Overhearing, Styphon found himself strangely bothered by the exchange. A few moments later, he realized why.
“Polemarch,” he called out immediately. He was not one quick to speak—few Equals were—nor was he eager to address Brasidas, but in this there was no choice. “Perhaps any grain to which she has had access is best left untouched.”
Brasidas looked over at him and scowled, not in annoyance or contempt, by the look of it, but rather consternation at having missed the possibility himself. Sighing, he called out to the departing aide, who returned.
“Feed the first batch of cakes to some slaves. If they greet the dawn no worse off, we will have our provisions.”
“Yes, polemarch.”
Issuing a throaty growl, Brasidas resumed his labors, as Styphon already had.
“So Styphon,” the polemarch said as he put his good shoulder into helping reposition a siege engine. The great katapeltai, unneeded in attacking the city, had been adapted for the demolishing of its walls from within. “Seeing as you are such a font of good advice, and you find yourself without a unit, I suppose you must become my lieutenant once again. It is to my credit that I kept you alive, even when I wondered what reason there could be.”
Styphon's reply was suitably laconic: “Thank you, polemarch.” Yet his mind continued forming words which needed saying, and he addressed Brasidas anew: “Polemarch, the
witch spoke to me during the battle.”
“You mean the battle in which she might have killed you ten times over, but chose not to?” He scoffed. “Spared by two witches, by Demosthenes, by me. I wonder whether such good fortune will last you a lifetime, or if you are not exhausting a lifetime's worth in a season. What shall happen when you face the foe who fails to show you mercy?”
Ignoring the insult, Styphon reported, as was his duty: “She told me she planned to come to Sparta. Soon.”
This silenced Brasidas for a time. Styphon deliberately failed to look upon his leader's face, for he knew there would be fear there, at least for a instant. He cared not to witness that.
“Then we must hasten home to face our fates,” Brasidas said at length. “When the ships of the new navy come tomorrow, delphines and scolopendrai, you and I must be aboard the swiftest.”
“If she has not sunk them already,” Styphon advised.
“Yes...” the scarred, defeated polemarch grated. “If she has not sunk them.”
* * *
16. Among better folk
Next morning, the fleet sent to meet the 'victorious' forces at Naupaktos was late, turning thoughts of its destruction from idle fears into very real ones. As the morning wore on, the army took its breakfast of barley-cakes, for the slaves who had tested them seemed to have suffered none. Styphon found himself untroubled by hunger and so instead set to readying neighborhoods to be put to the torch.
Hours later, triangular sails appeared round the strait: three delphines and two larger scolopendrai. As it turned out, one of the latter would carry to Sparta nothing but corpses for burial, many of them blackened and unrecognizable.
Styphon embarked with Brasidas and his picked men on a sleek delphine, the same, in fact, which had borne him to Athens many days prior, Sorrowful Wind. Without awaiting the loading of corpses and war engines, Wind departed Naupaktos alone to round the western coast of the Peloponnese in a swift return to Sparta's port of Gytheio. The remainder of the fleet would embark with the following dawn, leaving behind them a city and port ablaze.
As they passed Patras, Styphon thought he glimpsed a dark figure watching from atop high rocks. But then it was gone, and he put it to his imagination.
They sailed all day, Brasidas hounding the crew for greater speed. The Wind passed Pylos, a town of shades laid waste by Agis as punishment for its having followed Demosthenes and thrown off of Spartan rule. It was also where, two years prior, the age of witchery had begun with the entrance into this world of the unnatural being whom the Equals besieged on Sphakteria had named Thalassia, the thing from the sea.
From afar, Styphon looked upon the rugged island, its forests still scarred by fire from the long-ago battle. He was glad when the place left his sight.
It became clear that Sorrowful Wind would fail to make Gytheio before full night, owing to their late embarkation. From conversations with sailors in the past, Styphon had learned that the new breed of ships were meant to be sailed through the night, unlike galleys; it was the sailors who refused. Brasidas knew this, too, of course, and had some harsh words for the step-brother captain, even as he accepted the delay. The rounding of the many rocky fingers of the peninsula's southern coast was treacherous enough in daylight this time of year. Neither was careening overland at full gallop in blackest night an option for Equals who were not ashamed of their aversion to riding.
And so they put in at Pedasos, a town which Sparta generations ago had cleared of Messenians and given to the more trustworthy Nauplians, who had sided with Sparta against Argos. There they rested, and dined again on the barley cakes from Naupaktos. Styphon considered eating but found himself unable on account of suspicions which he could not name. Secretly, so none noticed, he discarded his share uneaten. The next morning Sorrowful Wind moored at Gytheio, where Brasidas wasted no time going ashore and announcing to their waiting countrymen that victory had come at dire cost on account of witchery against which Sparta herself must soon be defended.
As he spoke, Brasidas yielded every so often to a shallow cough. A number of Equals had developed such coughs overnight. They attributed it to the chill of the sea wind.
One of Sparta's five ephors, the elected officials who were a check on the power of kings—and regents—was among those meeting the ship at Gytheio. This man, a supporter of Brasidas, whispered to him some news to which the polemarch reacted with tight-lipped fury.
“Horses,” Brasidas growled. “Get us horses. We make haste to Sparta. Styphon, come! This matter concerns you.”
The regent declined to elaborate. They rode at speed, and an hour later Brasidas and Styphon and several of Brasidas's men reined their mounts in what served as Sparta's center.
“Bring them out!” the regent yelled at two Equals standing sentry as he leaped to the ground. “Bring out those responsible for freeing Demosthenes!”
Styphon dismounted and set to waiting and wondering while Brasidas shared private words with the elders and ephors who hastened to meet him.
He wondered who was shortly to be brought forth. Brasidas's words haunted: This concerns you. He whispered prayers that those words did not have the meaning he thought they might.
Minutes later, from the direction of the windowless complex in which accused men awaited their trials or executions, a pair of red-cloaked Equals came flanking two prisoners in chains. One was a girl, the other hardly out of girlhood.
His prayers were for naught: the accused were Andrea and Eurydike.
The slave was almost entirely supported by the arm of her escort, feet dragging and head hung in the semi-living state which Eurydike had occupied since the attack upon her.
Styphon's daughter walked erect and with black eyes defiant.
He would expect no less.
The guards halted in the square as Brasidas separated from the ephors to move nearer to Styphon. Eurydike sank into a heap in the dust.
“I am told they both confess to having acted alone in freeing the condemned,” Brasidas informed Styphon. “Clearly, a citizen's word carries the weight of truth whenever it differs from that of a slave. However...”
Brasidas let that word hang. Styphon knew well what hung from it: to accept Andrea's confession was to impose a sentence of death upon her.
“Given the circumstances,” Brasidas resumed after a pause to cough, “it might be judicious to accept the confession of the Thrassa, who after all was the concubine of Demosthenes. We might simply execute her and be done with the matter, that we might get on to preparing a defense of our city. However... Andrea is your daughter, and both dwell in your home, where you are lord. I yield to you.”
“I freed Demosthenes, father.” Andrea spoke calmly but emphatically. “Your wife has given sworn testimony that Eurydike was at home with her all night. They refuse to listen. I will face justice, not her. Eris will confirm my story. Even now, Demosthenes is in her custody.”
Speechless, Styphon looked upon the two females before him, glad at least that Hippolyta was not present.
“He must be returned,” Styphon said, half-heartedly. He had, after all, in Naupaktos staked his life and Hippolyta's on delaying Demosthenes' execution, something which it seemed his daughter and Eris had done for him.
“Demosthenes' fate will not be decided by the regent,” Andrea declared.
“Styphon,” Brasidas said, frowning, “I urge you to control your offspring.”
“I... shall,” Styphon answered, though he had no certainty that such was within the realm of possibility.
“Styphon!”
This, the cry of a woman, drove Styphon still deeper into uncertainty and despair. Hippolyta pushed her way past the gathered crowd in the square to throw herself against her husband, clutching at his breastplate.
“End this madness! Eurydike was with me, the whole of the night, in my bed!”
Men and women all around chuckled and whispered. Styphon's face burned.
He clutched his huntress wife's wrist and growle
d at her, “Silence.”
“Perhaps I had best handle this, after all...” Brasidas suggested, taunted.
“No, polemarch. I—”
“Father,” Andrea addressed Styphon anew. “If either of us is harmed, Eris will—”
“Silence!” he demanded of that one.
Then, Hippolyta again: “Styphon, you must—”
He shoved her away. “Quiet, woman.”
All around him were females, instructing, threatening, owning. Daughter, wife, Eris, Thalassia.
In a voice barely above a whisper, for he did not wish it to fall on Hippolyta's ears, Styphon delivered his verdict to the regent.
“The slave is guilty,” he said. “My wife had best be restrained, lest she put herself at risk.”
“Excellent.” Coughing, Brasidas waved over Eurydike's guard before commanding two other Equals to seize Hippolyta, who screamed in protest, seeing what was to occur.
“As master of your house, would you do the deed?” Brasidas asked loudly, publicly, of Styphon. “By the blade, for the sake of expedience, unless you fear blood-guilt. If you prefer, another can—”
To any well-raised Equal, there was but one answer, which Styphon gave: “I shall do it.”
“No!” Hippolyta shrieked, struggling violently against her captors.
But Eurydike made no struggle as she was led to a place in front of Styphon.
“Father, you make a grave mistake,” Andrea pleaded, her calm facade showing cracks. She bit her lip and seemed to fight a desire to rush forward in some futile effort to save her friend.
“Fucking trembler!” Hippolyta cried. “You are not even a man! I'll cut your craven seed from my womb!”
“I am a man,” Styphon muttered.
Eurydike was deposited in a pile before him, her thin, freckled limbs encircled by irons, copper-colored curls matted. She showed her first clear sign of comprehension by dragging herself to her knees and facing away from Styphon with head raised, that his blade might be set upon her neck.
