Spartan Beast (The Hellennium Book 2)

by P. K. Lentz

  “But you....” He growled. “I kill one woman, one innocent out of the many thousands upon whom you and I and men like us bring suffering every day by our actions, and you would crush that bright future. Would you drag my own wife, my child, out here, if you could, and put them to the sword? You would, I am certain, because we are the same, you and I, with but one difference: I am a man of vision, while you possess the mind of a mere animal.”

  With a final sneer and cough, Brasidas turned at the approach of hulking Styphon and the slight form of Andrea beside him.

  As the two drew up, Demosthenes taunted, “It seems to me I wielded my weapon rather better than you did yours. If you can still call her yours.”

  Andrea, the Spartlet whom it seemed might be a better wielder of unearthly weapons than her city's regent, regarded the two visitors impassively for a moment before speaking.

  “Priests and ephors have spent the last two hours impressing on me the importance of convincing the white witch to stand with Sparta,” the girl said. “I let them talk, and asked if they saw any humor in their apparent belief that the fate of their ancient city might rest on the words of an eleven year old girl. They did not.” She shrugged. “I am proud of my heritage. With good reason. I have no wish to see Sparta destroyed. It does not deserve destruction, and I will do my part to avert it. But, Eden...” She turned dark, earnest eyes on the witch. “I do not think you should stand with Sparta today.”

  “Silence, girl!” This from Brasidas. “Styphon, remove her.”

  “Yes, Styphon,” Eden said. “Do try it.”

  Styphon, making the un-Spartan choice to live rather than obey, made no move.

  “Between love”—Andrea's eyes fell on Demosthenes as she spoke this word—“and all-out slaughter, there must be a middle ground. With such power as has fallen into our world, that place is where we have no choice but to dwell.” Pleadingly, she addressed Eden: “You need not love your sister. Hate her if you must. But there is room in this world for you both.” Then to Demosthenes, “And there is room for Sparta. I have called it my home, and also Athens. In both places I found things to dislike and to admire. It is—”

  “I am the one,” Brasidas interrupted, “who would see all the cities of Greece uni—”

  “Shut up,” Eden told him calmly, and he did.

  “You must live, Demosthenes,” Andrea went on, “because if you are killed, then Sparta's only hope for survival will be that Eden can destroy her sister. That would be a terrible outcome. And so I beg you to use your influence on Geneva to see that my city is spared. I know that your vengeance has already begun. Please end it before it slaughters guilty and innocent alike.”

  Brasidas roared. “Why do we listen to this prattle of a child who knows nothing of the world? When she comes, Geneva will not be talked to! I have seen what she can do when—”

  “Draw your sword and silence the child, if you dare,” Demosthenes said. “I am not certain I agree with her, but I would hear her out. Perhaps that is why we have philosophers in Athens, and here you have none.”

  Andrea resumed, “Today I watched my father kill my good friend.” Her black eyes moistened. “For a time in Athens, she was my only friend, as I was hers in Sparta.”

  “Eurydike?” Demosthenes's gaze flew to the man identified as her murderer

  Styphon glared back, stone-faced.

  “Yes,” Andrea confirmed. “Executed for setting you free. Brasidas passed sentence and Styphon carried it out, both knowing that I was to blame, not her. I hate my father for it. He probably deserves to die, as I have already plotted the deaths of others who harmed my friend. But if I am to ask others to show restraint, then I must show it myself.”

  “I will show none,” Demosthenes muttered at Eurydike's killer. The slave had died despising her former master. Not without reason. But it hardly warranted denial of proper vengeance, and he would see it was granted.

  “You three stand here and discuss philosophy if you must,” Brasidas said with disgust. “Come, Styphon, the defense—”

  A horn sounded, high and urgent. Then distant shouting:

  “She comes! She comes at the head of an army!”

  * * *

  19. Reunion

  Eyes widening under a scarred brow sheened with sweat, Brasidas raced off barking orders. With a lingering, rueful look at Demosthenes and Eden, and avoiding any glance at his daughter, Styphon ran after the polemarch.

  When they were gone, Andrea took two steps closer to her star-born mentor and put out a small hand which clasped the fingers of Eden. The girl looked tired, the witch melancholy.

  There was some human in this star-born killer after all, Demosthenes had come to know these past three days, as he had learned of Geneva in years past. The knowledge prompted him to venture a question as they watched armed hoplites all around scramble in what looked like chaos, but surely was not.

  “What was your name before it was Eden?”

  The witch answered brusquely, still clasping the hand of Andrea: “Shut up, turtle.”

  Evidently, it had been decided that the most sensible plan to defend Sparta against Thalassia was to concentrate troops at the city's heart, where she would face as many blades as could possibly be brought to bear against her at one time. Any other formulation, any effort to bar her before she entered Sparta, covering every avenue of approach, would see the defenders spread too thinly to stand a chance when she actually came. And so the agora beneath the high acropolis and the main thoroughfares leading to it were jammed with red-caped soldiers as ready as they could be for what was to come.

  With an army, the criers had said. But what army could Thalassia have brought? Agathokles and any sizable force of Naupaktans could not possibly have marched this deep into the Peloponnese.

  Then again, impossible no longer held the meaning it did some years ago.

  After long minutes spent watching the frantic deployment and hearing a cacophony of shouting, Demosthenes remembered that one among them possessed senses far keener than his.

  “What are they saying?” he asked Eden.

  “It is what they have forever feared, the reason I advised Brasidas long ago that Helotry must end if Sparta is to endure. A neighbor enslaved is an enemy eternally at the door, waiting for such an opportunity as this, a spark such as she evidently has provided.” An amused smile twisted Eden's pale lips. “Geneva leads an army of slaves.”

  Demosthenes laughed. In Naupaktos, they had raised between them the possibility of agitating for such a rebellion. He had rejected as too slow and uncertain a path. But Athens knew, any city knew, from bitter experience how swiftly revolutions could arise to sweep away old orders when the time was right and the right man—or otherwise—was present to stand at its head.

  “Andrea, it is time for us to do as we discussed,” Eden said softly.

  “No.” The girl's refusal was emphatic. “I cannot leave my city in this state. I will not.”

  “You are smarter than that. We will return one day.”

  “If I leave now, I may have no home to return to.”

  “She is right, Andrea,” Demosthenes said to her, self-servingly. “Go. I will impress on Thalassia that Eden is no longer her enemy and that Sparta should be spared.”

  “He lies,” Eden declared. “On one or both counts.”

  “I am not.”

  Not explicitly, at any rate. Surely, though, he meant not to be bound by any promise made to a little girl and a madwoman.

  “That, too, is a lie.”

  “Enough,” Andrea said. “My blood is my blood. I remain.”

  “Then I remain,” Eden said, with penetrating eyes and a wicked sneer at Demosthenes. “And I will forever be Geneva's enemy. It is only a matter of how hotly the fire burns.”

  Slowly, the ranks of hoplites settled into their final formations, facing roughly west. The square and surrounding streets became a sea of crimson and bronze, bristling with gently waving spear shafts. But for some distant shou
ting, the soft clatter of neighboring shield rims, and not a few hacking coughs, Sparta fell silent in anticipation of the first direct attack it had suffered in the memory of anyone's great-grandfather.

  After listening for a short time, Eden reported: “The slave army is small at present, but growing, as new rebel armies will. Still, it is no match for Sparta's forces. Brasidas insists on fighting, but the ephors have overruled him.”

  She listened some more to the impossibly distant conversations. Watching her features, Demosthenes saw her brow wrinkle and lip curl in an expression of puzzlement or disbelief.

  “No...” she said, as though to herself.

  Demosthenes prompted her, “What?”

  “It seems that in single-handedly smashing the attack on Naupaktos, Geneva killed nearly three hundred Equals.”

  Knowing that any display of his true reaction could be dangerous, Demosthenes managed not to laugh out loud or let his eyes light with satisfaction. He only studied Eden's face, which he rather suspected hid her own true reaction to the news. Fear. Or jealousy, perhaps.

  “Sparta cannot sustain another loss like that, even in victory,” she resumed. “The ephors have agreed to discuss terms with her. To which end your reunion approaches, turtle.”

  Minutes later, her eavesdropping proved accurate when six Equals came with orders that Demosthenes should accompany them.

  “I come, too,” Andrea insisted. The men scoffed.

  “And I,” Eden added, silencing them. “He is my prisoner.”

  The three were escorted west, through the mass of troops, past their front line, and along a short stretch of deserted street until they reached a small band of Equals whose number included the five ephors of Sparta. The officials were geared for war, for they were men of fighting age who could not be spared only because they had been elected for a one-year term.

  The band's number also included Brasidas, who on seeing Demosthenes drew his sword and lunged. Demosthenes threw himself out of the path of the attack, the blade grazing his left forearm. He fell onto all fours, but did not stay thus, for here was an opportunity he had long awaited; it had come unexpectedly, but could not be missed. As Brasidas swung his sword into position for a downward stab, Demosthenes exploded toward him, driving his shoulder into the polemarch's legs, grabbing him around the knees and bringing him down before the blade could descend.

  Brasidas fell face-down, and in an instant Demosthenes was atop him, knee upon bronze-plated back. While Brasidas struggled, unable to bring sword to bear from the prone position, Demosthenes locked one arm around the head of Laonome's murderer, set the other under his chin and he pulled, throwing all of his weight backward with no other goal than snapping his enemy's neck.

  He surely would have, too, had it only been a second later that he was struck on the head from behind and dragged roughly upright. Brasidas's face slammed into the dirt, and he scrambled to his feet with crazed eyes and rage on his soiled, sweating face. He made to lunge again for a second attack on his now-restrained opponent, a certain killing blow which would in turn kill any chance at appeasing the enemy at Sparta's door, granting Brasidas the battle he desired. He would have had his way, but two men, including an ephor, wrapped arms around Brasidas and hurled him back, keeping their grip as he struggled against them.

  “Stand down!” the ephor holding him barked. “Brasidas, surrender your blade!”

  At length, breath hissing through clenched teeth, Brasidas did as ordered, handing over his sword. His captors released him, and he took swift steps toward Demosthenes, who was yet held fast by a man on either side.

  Brasidas drew back a clenched fist and struck Demosthenes full on the left side of his jaw.

  Demosthenes tasted blood, which he quickly gathered and spat at Brasidas. It spattered his breastplate. “Your grave can get no deeper,” he said with a bloody smile.

  Brasidas glared a moment longer, drawing heavy breaths, before his inbred discipline was restored and he turned his back to join the conclave of Equals.

  “What is the girl Andrea doing here?” he asked angrily. “She has done enough damage this day.”

  “The enemy witch has affection for my daughter.” This speaker was Styphon, who became the next target of Brasidas's scornful look. “If our goal is to prevent battle, she can be of help.”

  “Prevent battle,” Demosthenes taunted. “What would the Founder say?”

  The men holding Demosthenes' arms shook him violently. “Quiet, preener!”

  “Andrea will attend,” Eden said. It was a declaration, not a suggestion. “As will I.”

  “Very well,” an ephor conceded. Moments later, an embassy detached itself from the Spartan enclave to make its way along the dusty road toward an enemy force rendered all but invisible by woods. Demosthenes, walking freely, was among the embassy, as were Eden and Andrea, two ephors, Styphon, Brasidas, and about twenty more Equals tasked with protecting the rest.

  From the hidden enemy line, a lone representative galloped forth on horseback. There could be no mistaking the rider's identity. Long before he saw her face, and she his, Demosthenes smiled, not triumphantly or vindictively, but merely with the pleasure that comes from seeing a friend after too long.

  It was better than that, for she was no mere friend.

  Thalassia, general of a slave army, wore a corselet of black and bronze, and her arms and legs were black-clad, too, in barbarian fashion. Since their separation, she had cut the hair which it had previously been her eccentricity to fashion elaborately before a battle; now it was bound back tightly and efficiently. Where once she had appeared as some demi-goddess or ancient heroine descended from on high to aid one side or the other in battle, now she looked more like what she was: a visitor from some alien world never glimpsed or imagined by mortals.

  Riding behind her on the same horse, gripping her armor with hands bound together at the wrist, was a second, male figure. He wore a soiled chiton, and a sack covered his face.

  Reining her mount, Thalassia caught Demosthenes' eye and answered his smile with a look of joy and relief that was no less intense for all its briefness and subtlety. In a flash it was gone, replaced with the steely mask which every general must wear when meeting the enemy.

  The bulk of her attention, though, was plainly on Eden.

  After slipping to the ground, Thalassia reached up and roughly grabbed her hooded passenger, depositing him on his knees in front of her. Aiming pale, threatening eyes at the Spartan delegation, she yanked off the sackcloth.

  The young prisoner who blinked at the sudden brightness wore a thick, unkempt beard and surely was an Equal, even if his long locks had been crudely hacked off.

  “Agesilaus, brother of Agis,” Thalassia announced. “Rightful Eurypontid king of Sparta. Want him? You know the price.”

  “Give up nothing for my—”Agesilaus began, and then was silenced by Thalassia kicking him from behind, sending him face-first into the dust.

  “Send him over,” she said.

  “Though he be exiled, Agis is yet the rightful king,” one of the two ephors present yelled. “We have no need of an heir! Our demand is a swift end to armed threats which Sparta would rather not take the time to—”

  Thalassia sighed heavily. “You people and your fucking constitutions.”

  On her horse's rump hung a large satchel, into which she now reached. Her hand emerged holding by long its hair a cleanly severed human head, rather fresh by its complexion. To the sound of not a few stifled gasps, she hurled this toward the Spartan delegation. Bouncing, it rolled to a stop.

  “Agis, ex-Eurypontid king of Sparta,” Thalassia said. “Little brother was nice enough to tell me where I might find him.”

  She took from the satchel a severed hand, removed from its stiff finger an iron ring which, stooping, she forced onto the finger of Agesilaus. Drawing one of her two swords, she put its point to the new king's neck.

  “Send him over,” she repeated icily.

  “The Helot
rebellion will be called off, and you will make no further moves against Sparta!”

  “The rebellion is not mine to call off,” she returned. “But I'm happy to kill no more of you than I already have. Send him over.”

  “She offers us nothing!” Brasidas hissed at the two ephors. “Even if she did, she is not to be—”

  “Quiet, polemarch.”

  “This can only be settled by—”

  “Quiet!”

  While the leaders of Sparta bickered thus, Andrea slipped between their red cloaks and ran forward to cross the open space toward Thalassia. Immediately after, Eden stepped in front of Demosthenes and shoved two Equals apart from behind, opening a path. The two turned and glared, but dared not retaliate. Reaching back, Eden grabbed Demosthenes' chiton and dragged him out, marching him along the same path Andrea had taken, safely ignoring the angry muttering of Sparta's leaders.

  The girl was already addressing Thalassia with warm words of greeting when they arrived, but Thalassia's wintry eyes went to the two coming up behind.

  “Listen to her,” Eden demanded coolly of the rival whom she had once cut to ribbons.

  “I know what you and Demosthenes intend,” Andrea said. “I can stop it. They have seen the illness you gave them. I will tell them its cause, which is proved easily enough. But it need not come to that. Days ago you sent me a simple plea, and I heeded it, as was right. Your friend and mine, Eurydike, paid the price with her life. I now return a simple plea of my own. Leave with what you came for, and spare my city and people. Eden will do you no harm. Your feud with her will be at an end.”

  Lowering herself to one knee, the girl clasped Thalassia's hand and pressed her lips to the back of it.