Spartan Beast (The Hellennium Book 2) Read online

  Spartan Beast

  (Book II of the Hellennium)

  ~

  P.K. Lentz

  Text copyright © 2016 P.K. Lentz

  All Rights Reserved

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Table of Contents

  PART I: ATTICA

  1. Scream for me

  2. Agis

  3. Aspasia

  4. Discord

  5. Inglorious Conquest

  6. Sleeper in Chains

  7. Meat & Philosophy

  8. Ares Descends

  9. Hand of the seducer

  10. Walking to Corinth

  11. The Nymph's Tit

  12. Agathokles

  PART II: RETURN TO ATHENS

  1. Homecoming

  2. Gerousia

  3. Hippolyta

  4. Uninvited

  5. Half-dead eyes

  6. αἱ τοῦ σώματος ἡδονή

  7. Abduction

  8. Piss & driftwood

  9. Necropolis

  10. Twenty-Four

  11. Blood & jasmine

  12. Feel it

  13. Huntress

  14. Blight

  15. Omega

  16. Tyrannicide

  17. Lord of Wind <='Preview Edition' ended here!

  PART III: THE BATTLE OF NAUPAKTOS

  1. Waking up in Corinth

  2. Kleon

  3. A walk with a witch

  4. Assault on Eden

  5. The god of Sparta

  6. Curse of greatness

  7. Spectacle

  8. Defiance

  9. ...considering

  10. Glorious duties

  11. The battle of Naupaktos

  12. Beachhead

  13. Kill the messenger

  14. Herald

  15. Elegant

  PART IIII*: SPARTA

  1. Beaten

  2. Trial

  3. Night visitor

  4. Turtle

  5. Omega's men

  6. Elean

  7. The gift of Eris

  8. Slave

  9. Deliverance

  10. Bright Eyes

  11. The second battle of Naupaktos - (i) The army of revenge

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

  13. The frogs

  14. The second battle of Naupaktos - (iii) Black witchery

  15. The second battle of Naupaktos - (iiii) Thalassia's day of glory

  16. Among better folk

  17. Lair of the white witch

  18. Between love and slaughter

  19. Reunion

  20. Ruthless machine

  21. Death storm's eye

  22. Antigonos

  23. A mad universe

  * 'IIII' is the Greek equivalent of the Roman 'IV'!

  Epilogue One

  Epilogue Two

  END MATTER

  1. Scream for me

  PART I: ATTICA

  Acharnia, Attica

  The month of Thargelion

  20 days after the fall of Athens

  (May 423 BCE)

  On a mountain trail in western Attica walked a man who once had been a general of Athens, the hero of Pylos and Amphipolis, but who now looked a vagrant, his clothing soiled, his beard unshorn, his sand-colored hair falling in matted locks. He shuffled toward the oncoming Spartan Equal, and he hummed. The tune was cheerful, giving no outward indication that he who hummed it inwardly seethed.

  The crimson-cloaked Equal was unhelmed, long black hair falling down his back, and his sun-bronzed chest was bare. Like all full-blooded male citizens of Sparta, he was a beast born and bred for war, yet presently his only battle was with a bound lamb bleating and squirming as he carried it under one arm.

  On seeing the shaggy, oblivious stranger in his path, the Equal barked, “Stand aside!”

  Appearing to notice the Equal for the first time, the former general halted his steps, ceased his humming, and called out amiably, “Hail, Spartan warrior!”

  “I have no quarrel with you,” the Spartan said, continuing to close the distance between them. “Clear off and do not give me one.”

  “I shall give you no cause for quarrel, sir, I assure you,” the other answered, stepping off the trail into the tall grass. His speech was the drawl of a high country dweller. “Diomedes is my name. I live in these mountains. A simple hermit. I offer no creature any harm.”

  Eyes narrowed in a threatening glare, the Equal passed him by.

  The other drew up to walk alongside him and said, fawningly, “I am a great admirer of Spartan ways, sir. I would not scorn the chance to talk of them with you while you go on your way.”

  The Equal ignored him.

  “Your unit intends to offer sacrifice?” the other persisted.

  “Aye,” the Equal grunted.

  “You took the animal from this farm yonder?”

  “Bought it there,” the Spartiate corrected him.

  “Bought it! Such magnanimity in victory.” The hermit chuckled dryly. “Although, I suppose that since your people mint no coinage, it was Athenian silver you used.”

  The Spartan stopped and whirled, the lamb bleating renewed protest. “Leave me alone, you sack of goat shit,” the soldier bellowed, “unless you wish to become a sacrifice yourself!”

  “Apologies!” Freezing in his tracks, the shaggy one hoisted his hands in mock surrender.

  The Equal growled, resuming his walk, while behind him, the mountain man cast doe-eyes to the roadside in search of a stone of a certain size. Spotting one as big as two fists, he moved swiftly.

  The stone came down hard on the Equal's unprotected head just as he was turning to investigate the sudden flurry of motion. The soldier went down, and so did the trussed lamb. The former was silent, the latter not, and for a few loud seconds, the attacker stood monitoring the more dangerous of the two for signs of movement, of which there were none.

  The Equal lived, breathing under the cover of his cape. Blood-smeared rock still poised, Demosthenes of Athens considered whether or not to bring it down and crush his helpless victim forever. A part of him wished to, but another part had a purpose for the man. It was this other part which Demosthenes desired to nurture, and so the Equal's death was to be delayed.

  The lamb, on the other hand...

  Kneeling, Demosthenes relieved the enemy of his short sword and turned it on the animal.

  “I'm sorry if you thought this was a reprieve, friend,” he said to it. “The gods have no use for you. But I am in need of food.” Clamping a hand over the bleating lamb's face, he slit its throat, silencing its cries and sending hot blood spurting onto the hard-packed trail. He used the rope from the creature's legs to bind his human victim's wrists, then worked on finding the best arrangement by which to carry both burdens away into the mountains.

  * * *

  The Spartan stirred in his bonds.

  Lifting the hem of his chiton, Demosthenes took aim, and the captured enemy completed his return to awareness choking on a faceful of piss.

  Once Demosthenes had fully unloaded his bladder and the Spartan had finished coughing and sputtering, Demosthenes addressed the prisoner he had staked out spread-eagle on the forest floor.

  “What is your name, Equal?” he asked.

  The Spartan did not answer, rather just tested his bonds, which were rawhide strips. Unable to free himself, he relaxed well-muscled limbs onto the leaves, leveled his captor with a lion's glare, and he roared.

  “Calm yourself,” Demosthenes cautioned. He sat on
a fallen trunk and laid his sword across his lap. “I have questions for you, and I recommend you answer them all. So, Equal, what's your fucking name?”

  “You think I have not been pissed on before, Athenian?”

  “I have no idea what you Equals do to one another,” Demosthenes said, “and I don't care. What you need to know is that, as of now, the only thing that you are equal to is horse shit. So what's your name, or shall I just call you Horseshit?”

  The Spartiate growled, but yielded: “Arkesilaos. What do I call you, besides dead man.”

  Demosthenes toyed with the sharp blade in his lap. “I will ask the questions,” he said. “Here is a simple one. Were you present on the first day of the siege of Dekelea?”

  Arkesilaos tugged at his bonds again for good measure. “What if I was?”

  “If you were, then you might remember a pregnant woman whose throat was cut by Brasidas.” Such a matter-of-fact account of the event, coming from his own lips no less, prompted a cold sweat on Demosthenes' brow and an upward surge of acid from his stomach.

  The prisoner sneered. “I remember the cow,” he said. “Before the march, we passed her around like a whore and fucked the daylights out of her.”

  Demosthenes' fingers tightened on the grip of his sword. “You lie,” he said quietly, hopefully. “But whether you are or not, I'm going to cut your balls off for saying it.” He drew a breath and restored a degree of calm.

  “She was the wife of some cunt. Demostratos, was it?” Arkesilaos laughed. “Is that you? No wonder she begged for it, being married to half a man!”

  “She was the wife of the cunt Demosthenes. Which is me. When I kill Brasidas, I am considering making her name the last word he speaks. And since your present and final purpose in life is to help me practice for when I kill him, slowly, I want you to say it: Laonome.”

  “Laonome,” the Spartiate said obligingly, but by no means submissively. He added: “the fat, slippery whore.”

  The words stung, but Demosthenes forced himself not to react. To claim his vengeance, he would have to be cold. “I thank you,” he said. “You are making this much easier.”

  He stood, set down his sword and picked up a large, flat rock which he slid underneath Arkesilaos' bound right hand.

  “I've killed plenty of men,” Demosthenes said, conversationally. “But until recently, they were all trying to kill me at the time, which means I have done my best to make it quick. That is a hard habit to break, I have found.” He shrugged. “I realize now that I dislike the sound of my wife's beautiful name on your lips. You don't deserve to say it, and neither does Brasidas.”

  With the first rock in place on the ground, Demosthenes picked up a second. Seeing his captor's intent, Arkesilaos clenched his fists, and the muscles of his arms bulged in a vain attempt to break free. “No!” he cried out, Spartiate discipline failing him.

  The rock slammed down onto the Spartiate's right hand, smashing the bones of his fingers with a sickening crunch, sending a spray of blood onto the dried leaves underneath. Arkesilaos screamed, a nasal sound on account of his refusal to unclench his jaw, a sound that was half pain and half rage.

  Demosthenes spoke calmly over the Equal's lingering groan. “Now, even if you escape me alive, you will be a cripple. You will never bear a spear for Sparta again.” He threw down the bloodied rock and squatted to pick up another so large it required both arms. “This one will ensure you cannot escape at all.”

  Arkesilaos' next scream was more of a shriek. It began moments before the giant stone came crashing down on his right knee and lingered on long after the stone had settled. But the stone did not long rest, for Demosthenes retrieved it and repeated the process twice more, so as to thoroughly pulverize the man's left leg.

  Famous iron discipline abandoned, a Spartan sent an anguished wail up over the tall pines: “Help me!”

  “It is unlikely anyone will hear,” Demosthenes said, “much less find you in time. I am afraid the best you can hope for is that they capture me after I finish. But I have a good hiding place, and don't think I am so stupid as to have brought you to it. So scream if you want to. I want you to.”

  That was a lie. In fact, this was sickening work, and he wished it would be over with, just as he had felt and wished the previous six times. But it had to be done. He needed to inure himself to the screams of the helpless. He had to learn to feel nothing.

  He picked up his sword. “What next?” he asked of himself and his victim, who was quiet now but for sharp breaths drawn to combat the pain. “Your eyes?” He leveled his blade there, then shifted it down three feet or so. “Balls? Or your shield arm?” He directed the blade accordingly. “Which of those last two is more important to you? I know what my answer would be.”

  “Coward,” the Spartiate rasped. Involuntary tears welled in his eyes. “Untie me and we will see who's still the better man!”

  Demosthenes sighed and sat. “I hardly enjoy this,” he confessed. “Not at all. But it has to be done. Do you have a wife, Arkesilaos?”

  “Yes, yes!” the Equal answered, perhaps sensing, incorrectly, an opportunity to save his life. He gave her a name: “Kleora. And a son, Antikrates.”

  “Good,” Demosthenes said. “I want you to know that they, too, will die soon. Every Spartan man, woman, and child will. For that is my sole purpose now: to obliterate your people from this earth, that none might ever walk it again who can rightly claim Spartan blood. I have the weapon which can accomplish the task. For now, it sleeps, but soon it shall wake. Soon...”

  Arkesilaos groaned through clenched teeth, eyes shut tight against his pain.

  “Shut up,” Demosthenes said. “I've heard women giving birth behind curtains who make less noise than that.” Likely driven by pride, the Equal quieted, and Demosthenes went on. “Do you know that you are not the only Arkesilaos? Of course you don't. But I do not mean other men bearing the same name. I mean others of you, for this world in which we dwell is but one of a myriad of copies. There are many more of Demosthenes, too, in these other worlds. They exist alongside us, invisible to us. She... it taught me that. My weapon.

  “I suspect... nay, I am certain... that no other twins of me do what I do now. This world, this one layer of the many-layered cosmos, stands changed forevermore, made different from all rest. It was largely by my hand that this occurred. And my hand will alter it yet more, by ridding it of you and your kind.”

  Demosthenes brought his sword to bear, its tip hovering over the helpless Equal's nose.

  “Take heart. Your wife and son will live on in other worlds. Better still, they will not have lost their husband and father, who dwells with them still, with two good hands and two legs on which he can walk. As for this world's Arkesilaos...” He rose from his seat one last time, touching the blade to Arkesilaos' throat. “I am tired of torturing him, and his time now ends. His family will grieve. But not for long.”

  Arkesilaos, the one belonging to this particular world, raised a prayer to Zeus. The god did not answer, could not hear. Demosthenes drove his sword point down through the Equal's neck and into the forest floor. A spring of blood gurgled around the blade of hard Athenian steel, and the victim uttered a choked moan before descending into the black, godless silence of death.

  * * *

  2. Agis

  The King was coming. One of Sparta's two kings, anyway. Agis the Second was the better of them, most would say, for his not having spent two decades in exile and disgrace like his counterpart. Agis was due at Athens's harbor town of Pireaus by midday, and Styphon stood on the beach at the head of ten Equals tasked with escorting him the five miles to the conquered city, where he would meet with its conqueror, Brasidas.

  On schedule, or near enough, the royal ship Archegetas appeared. No special decoration made the trireme royal; the quality of its construction and identity of its trierarch were enough. New and better vessels existed now, thanks to the witch Eris, vessels equipped with complex rigging and triangular sails that all
owed them to tack against the wind. The ones used a month ago to seize Athens with a surprise seaborne assault, had been converted triremes. Now, the new ships were being built to purpose.

  In shipcraft, as in all things, some inevitably would reject the new and cling to the old ways. Styphon was uncertain where he fell. Perhaps somewhere in between blind adherence to tradition and blind longing for the new. Fortunately, one of his middle rank was rarely called upon to make such decisions, but only follow those who did.

  When Archegetas's crew had eased her into the dock and moored the ship, Agis and his entourage disembarked and strode the planks down onto the beach where Styphon waited.

  “Lord King.” Styphon and the men behind him all fell briefly to one knee and then rose. Spartans were no Persians who bowed and scraped the earth before royalty. True, Agis was a blood descendant of Herakles, and thus of Zeus, but he was still yet a man.

  Agis was handsome and just under thirty, with bright, honest eyes and dark locks that tumbled over both shoulders. As an heir apparent, Agis had been spared the harsh training regimen prescribed to all other Spartiate boys from the age of seven, and thus his limbs were leaner than the ideal, his skin thinner and lacking in scars, yet none could accuse of him of putting on aristocratic airs. He wore a plain wool chiton bound by a leather belt, and the crimson cloak on his shoulders bore the white salt streaks of a sea voyage. His sole adornment, the only declaration of his royal birth, was a ring of plain iron set on a finger of his left hand.

  The king smiled, acknowledged and dismissed the bows with a wave of his hand, which he then extended to clasp Styphon's. “What is your name, soldier?” he asked.

  Styphon's heart froze. Since his shameful surrender at Sphakteria two years prior, his name had been a curse in Sparta, its taste often foul even to his own lips. But he spoke it anyway, with scant hesitation. “Styphon, sire.”

  The king's smile vanished. His open eyes hardened, and shrugging his cloak from his right shoulder, he drew his short sword. Styphon held his ground, unflinching even as the blade's point came to rest in the hollow of his neck.

  “I have heard you called a trembler,” Agis said. “Are you?”

  “That is not for me to judge, sire.”