The Falcon of Sparta

by Conn Iggulden

  In the morning, Chrisophus sent foraging parties to strip orchards of fruit and to seek out the more remote farms away from the villages. They were not prepared for the thousands of Persians spilling out from another path through the mountains, on foot and on horseback, all racing to cut the foragers off from the rest of the Greek forces. Men and women pitched blankets full of fruit to the ground and withdrew at their best speed, while Chrisophus brought out the closest sixty Spartans at a sprint in the opposite direction.

  They had been caught out of position and a running battle developed that was like a street riot in Athens, with both sides trying to score blows on weaker opponents than themselves. The delighted Persians hacked at anyone they could reach, armed or unarmed, then raced on rather than standing to fight. It was a mess, and dozens of Greeks were killed before Xenophon brought up the main square in support. The sight of that advancing line steadied the nerve of those who ran before the enemy, so that they allowed themselves to be taken back amidst the ranks. Bodies lay behind them in the fields, with plums and figs scattered in trampled slicks of fruit.

  Faced with the main force, the Persians withdrew once more, using a vast number of horses to manoeuvre. Xenophon’s eyes were drawn to a watching figure in white, though he could only curse Tissaphernes. Xenophon’s revenge, if he were ever to enjoy it, would be to walk as a free man and leave that fat Persian lord behind to wonder what might have been.

  The stripping of the villages went much faster now that they knew they were overlooked. Xenophon blamed himself for not setting better guards, but he was not alone in that. Chrisophus walked the camp for hours, snarling at anyone who dared approach him. They had let down their guard in a hostile place, with an enemy still prowling around and watching for the slightest weakness.

  Worse news was that a great river blocked their path. The pass through the mountains had taken them east and north, but they could go no further without crossing a torrent too deep for the spears they thrust into it. Xenophon questioned prisoners from the villages and the news was not as good as he’d hoped. An edge of nervousness settled on the Greek forces as they understood they were bounded on one side by mountains and on the other by a river they could not cross. One of the Greeks suggested using sheep bladders to float over, but the idea of trying such an enterprise while Tissaphernes and his cavalry looked on was impossible.

  South was Babylon and a return to the heart of Persia, west took them back through the mountains. The river blocked east and the villagers told Xenophon that Ecbatana lay in that direction, the summer residence of Persian kings and a place as well defended as anywhere on earth.

  Xenophon gathered all his officers in a village square, while lines of hoplites formed around the camp.

  ‘According to the villagers, there is a range of mountains to the north that stretches for months of travel east and west. If we can get through, our path will take us to Armenia. From there, we can continue north and west until we strike the Greek settlements on the Black Sea. I do not know how far that is from the mountains, but we cannot go round them. They must be passed.’ He paused, choosing his words. ‘The tribes in those crags are said to be unspeakably savage and great in number. The headman of this village talks of them like vengeful spirits. He says we would not survive the attempt.’

  ‘This speech is not as inspiring as you think, general,’ Chrisophus said, to a chuckle from the men. ‘That fellow sought to frighten us, but what choice is there but to face these “Carduchi” in the mountains? We have done well to reach so far, but perhaps … we cannot endure for ever.’

  Xenophon raised a hand and Chrisophus subsided immediately. One thing the Spartan did well was take orders.

  ‘The river is too deep and too wide. With Persian cavalry to threaten us, we’d be slaughtered trying to get across. No, I agree our best way is still north – out of Persia by the fastest route.’

  He looked at them and there was a part of him that rejoiced. For all the beards and corded muscle, for all some of them were older than him, they were not just his flock, they were his brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters.

  ‘The Persians are said to be afraid of these Carduchi tribesmen. There is every chance they will not dare to dog our steps through the passes. We could leave them behind at last.’

  Xenophon paused then, aware that an enemy who terrified the Persians might not be a welcome alternative.

  ‘If anyone has a better idea, speak now. Otherwise, I will take us north across the plain and through the highest peaks. Gather what blankets and coats you can find here. We will need them all.’

  He sat quietly while they discussed it, knowing that they would come to the same conclusion he had. Xenophon had not mentioned the tale the village headman had told of a Persian army that had passed through eight years before. One hundred and twenty thousand men were said to have gone into the Carduchi fastnesses. Not a single man had made it back alive. Xenophon hoped the wrinkled old headman was just spinning tales to frighten foreign invaders. The fellow had one white eye and long brown teeth in a face like a walnut shell. If he was telling the truth, or any part of the truth, it was possible Xenophon was making the mistake of his life – and still the only choice he could see to take.

  Beyond that village square, the rest of the Greeks formed up. Twenty thousand men, women and children seemed a vast number when they crowded around, but in square, the ranks were dwarfed by the distances they had to cross. Xenophon had arranged columns forty men wide on three sides, with eight hundred Spartans at the fore. They enclosed almost the same number within, though the camp followers looked more and more like ragged pilgrims come to an oracle or a shrine to be healed.

  At least eating well for two days had improved their mood and their health. Chrisophus had overseen the stripping of the villages and he had been thorough. Those left behind would starve that winter, but Xenophon felt that was a problem for Tissaphernes, rather than his own concern. Had his people been allowed to leave in peace after Cunaxa, he would have been less harsh on the villages they passed. He paused in his thoughts, realising he had described the twenty thousand as his people. They looked to him to keep them alive, and he knew in that moment that he would die trying. He’d searched for purpose in Athens and never found it. He shook his head and chuckled, wondering if he’d ever have the chance to describe the revelation to Socrates.

  By the time the officers had finished discussing the way forward, those in the square were waiting with some impatience and the sun had risen almost to noon. When the horns blew, they all found their positions from habit, by the faces of those around them. The strongest carried meat wrapped in cloth, or nets of chickens and a waterskin on their shoulders. Many more bore bundles of winter coats and woollen blankets, all they could find. Small boys drove a herd of goats along with them, clicking in their throats and whipping them with long sticks.

  Xenophon rode to the front as soon as Hephaestus and the scouts cantered ahead. As he did, the Persian army spilled out of the passes behind them like oil from a cracked pot, watching balefully, but making no move to attack. The Greeks were safe enough while they marched between the villages. Houses and streets stole the advantage of those who chased them. Xenophon knew the plain would be a different story. The village headman said it was a march of many days, a hundred parasangs or more. Xenophon still hoped the man sought to undermine their morale.

  ‘We head north,’ Xenophon called to those he led, feeling his heart swell with pride. His people. His family.

  The Persian regiments pressed closely as they left the villages behind, but the truth was that everyone in the Greek square was getting fitter with each daily trek. Skin and muscles hardened with use, so that those in the centre had begun to take on the lupine look of those who marched around them. Certainly there was no softness in the Greeks. That had been burned out of them in the deserts.

  Tissaphernes sent smaller groups running alongside, catching up to the marching square and sending barbed shafts into t
he mass. Yet when they came close enough to strike, they were threatened in turn with the slingstones, launched by men who were getting better each day.

  The Persian horsemen were a greater threat. They rode up fast in thick groups, throwing spears or javelins while the rearguard struggled to raise shields and keep moving. The Greeks lost a trail of men that first day, in pairs or threes, so that sixty were missing from the tally when they came to camp. It was hard not to imagine the same slow bleed all the way to the mountains, until they were too few to defend themselves and the last of them were hacked down. The mood was dour as they halted, panting and sore.

  Xenophon watched as the sun touched the horizon and the Persians drew up in their regiments, reining in. He still wondered at such a fear of a night attack that they put a great distance between the camps. According to Hephaestus, who had trailed them back on foot, they withdrew for miles before they felt safe enough to hobble their horses.

  Xenophon saw Tissaphernes raise a hand almost in salute before turning his horse away. The light was beginning to fade. He thanked the gods for the good fortune in the enemy he had been given. A more determined Persian might have pressed the attacks with twice the vigour and never relented or fallen back until they had been pared down to nothing.

  Xenophon thought of the sixty men he had lost that day and bared his teeth in sudden rage. It was too many. He knew some of the soldiers wanted him to stop and fight. Persian pride would force Tissaphernes to stand and the Greeks might slaughter half his army before driving the rest off.

  It was tempting, though Xenophon knew nothing was certain. If he lost even a quarter of the hoplites, those who remained would be too few to protect the others. They would lose all. He made the argument to his generals and they had accepted it, though grudgingly. He was the strategos they had raised to command them. Until he failed, his orders were as iron.

  Each morning for a dozen days, they set off when the turning stars showed dawn was close. They butchered the animals and devoured every last scrap of food they had looted. There was never enough and hunger returned quickly as a beast prowling amongst them. After a time, the food was gone and they had to rise and start into movement with just cold water.

  They left behind mounds of their own faeces for the Persians to track through, which was the only consolation for being bearded and stinking. Dirt had become ingrained on that march, and if they emptied their bladders in peace in the morning, they had to do so while marching for the rest of the day. Women suffered worst, but there was no place there for modesty. The men around them turned away at first, giving them what privacy they could. After a while, the emptying of bladders became so commonplace it went unremarked.

  The nights grew bitterly cold as they approached the mountains. To their astonishment, snow fell one night, so that they woke covered by it, shivering and numb. Some of them came to blows over a hard word or nothing at all. Hunger brought a constant, simmering anger into the camp. They groaned each morning as they set off, muscles loosening and complaining. Only the Spartans swung into movement as if they could do it for ever. They had grown long beards and their braids hung right down their backs over the cloaks. Yet they smiled and washed their mouths with a bare sip of water, grinning over cracked lips.

  Behind them each day, the Persians appeared in the distance, pressing on at a cruel pace to make up whatever ground they had lost. It meant the morning was a respite, until the enemy came close enough to shoot and throw. The Greeks waited for that moment and it was almost a relief when it began. They settled then into the trudge across the plain, with the mountains growing slowly before and men dying in their tracks behind. They drew lots in the evenings for the honour of the rearguard, but those who survived a day under constant, needling attack were too weary to speak by the end, worn down by fear and rage.

  On the eighteenth day, they were marching like ghosts through the wilderness. The hunters went out with sling and spear, but most had only water to keep them alive. They were red-eyed from staring into the distance. The mountains had tormented them for an eternity, seeming to float on the horizon. Yet on that morning they were noticeably closer, though no more welcoming than they had seemed before. The crags were brutally sharp, rising from the ground like daggers rather than gentle slopes. A mantle of snow rested on the highest peaks and they seemed to go back and back for ever.

  Tissaphernes called down an attack while they were in the foothills, when their destination was clear. In the front ranks, Xenophon could actually see right into the first valley, to where Hephaestus had scouted a pass as far as he dared. It seemed the Persians would not let them out of sight without spilling more blood. The regiments behind them were looking ragged themselves, having had to march four hundred miles after an enemy they could not bring to heel.

  As the Persians formed up in a wide line, their officers were close enough for their exhortations to be heard. Xenophon gestured to Chrisophus, and the Spartans came through the square to form the rearguard. They had lost some of the gleaming muscle they’d enjoyed before. Their beards were wild and they were wiry, savage-looking men, but still better trained than any Persian regiment. Their confidence showed, though the breeze from the mountains was chill and their teeth chattered as they stood there. Red cloaks swirled as the Persians pressed in. With the mountains at their backs, the camp followers had gone into the pass, leaving only the hoplites. White teeth flashed as they drew swords and raised spears.

  Chrisophus carried no shield that day. In his right hand he held a short sword, the blade no longer than his forearm. In his left, he carried the shorter kopis. He hefted the weight of them both and grinned at the advancing enemy.

  ‘Advance Lacedaemon,’ he roared across the ranks. ‘Advance all! This is the only chance you’ll get, you whoresons. One glorious moment of play, before we withdraw from this empire for ever more. Choose what you tell your children now.’

  The Persians had begun to falter in their approach as soon as they saw the red cloaks of the ancient enemy. Their officers ordered them on and some used short sticks to batter them forward when they hesitated.

  Ahead of them, they saw golden discs of bronze, as well as shining helmets and greaves in the same battered metal. The Spartans looked like men of gold and red, and for the first time in an age, they were not retreating but coming forward in a great rush.

  The lines met and the Spartans crashed into an enemy who had stung them. Despite the pain and exhaustion, they were like boys finally able to stamp on a wasp nest. In delight, they endured cuts to hack and stab, using the spear, then the shield and sword, and finally the kopis, which took fingers and lives in quick, chopping blows.

  The Persians fell back from the onslaught, but Tissaphernes saw a chance and sent regiments spilling around the Spartan flanks, crashing into wearier men, some of them barely able to stand. They cried out in warning and the sound reached Chrisophus as he killed at the front. He cursed, straining to see. He would wager his Spartans against a force ten times their number, but Tissaphernes had brought eighty or ninety thousand across the empire in their wake. The Greeks could not win. They could only leave them bloody.

  ‘Fall back now, Spartans, in good order. Hold the flanks and withdraw. Take up our dead. See how many of their families will wail and weep when they think of us.’

  He grinned at the laughter in the men around him as they began to pull away, raising shields once more and taking up fallen spears so that they bristled and could not be charged by horsemen, though enraged Persians yelled curses down upon their heads and promised vengeance.

  Tissaphernes feared his men would be drawn too far into the mountains. He had heard of the tribes that infested those peaks. The empire of Persia had taken entire kingdoms under its wing, from Babylon to the Medes. Yet those crags remained, isolated and untamed. He watched the Greeks withdraw and the sprawled bodies they left behind, like rags or scraps of flesh on the ground. The retreating square seemed to vomit them up as they slid into the mountains.


  On impulse, he raised his hand in farewell to them. A Greek officer on a horse turned to watch him, not one Tissaphernes knew. The stranger raised his hand in answer, then trotted away into the crags. Tissaphernes shook his head. He’d thought they would surrender when he killed the generals at the feast. He’d promised King Artaxerxes that they would be helpless without leaders. Instead, they had chosen others and survived, somehow. They were a strange people, he thought. He wondered what the Carduchi would make of them.

  He turned to his second in command, Mithridates.

  ‘Would you like to go with them?’ he said.

  The Greek shook his head.

  ‘Not for a crown, my lord. We will not see them again.’

  ‘That is my thought. When I return to the king, I will report them destroyed. Is that an accurate description, do you think?’

  The Greek bowed his head.

  ‘It is, Lord Tissaphernes. They do not know it, but they are all dead. You drove them into the Carduchi, so it must be your success. Congratulations, my lord.’

  Tissaphernes smiled and put away the little blade he held in his palm. The last of the Greeks had gone into the pass and vanished, as if they had never existed. The peaks had swallowed them all.

  He thought suddenly of the resourcefulness of the Greeks. He had believed them helpless more than once, yet they had survived.

  ‘Do we have pigeons, still?’ he asked.

  Mithridates nodded.

  ‘Of course, my lord.’

  28

  The cold increased with every step as the path narrowed and led upwards. Lines of hoplites marched together with shields ready and spears acting more like staffs as they climbed over broken stone. Cliffs soared high above them, with mists preventing anyone from seeing the peaks. Xenophon left Hephaestus at the rear to watch for any sort of last stab at their back from Tissaphernes, but there had been something final about the way the Persian raised his hand before passing from sight.