Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) Read online

  Athenian Steel

  (Book I of The Hellennium)

  ~

  P.K. Lentz

  Text copyright © 2015 P.K. Lentz

  All Rights Reserved

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE: Longing for Oblivion

  PART I. PYLOS

  1. Strange Flotsam

  2. The Dead Arise

  3. Sea-thing

  4. Thalassia

  5. Horn of Fate

  6. Invasion

  7. Dirty

  8. The Goddess's Wrath

  9. False Priestess

  10. The Third Thing

  11. Fury

  12. Gash

  13. Spoil

  PART II. ATHENS

  1. Homecoming

  2. Libation Bearers

  3. Alkibiades

  4. Kiss Me

  5. Wet

  6. Wormwhore

  7. Lamia

  8. Council of War

  9. Rain

  10. Aichmolotos

  11. Soft Things

  12. Spartlet

  13. One Year

  PART III. AMPHIPOLIS

  1. A Few Shots

  2. To the Wolves

  3. Arrhidaeus

  4. Bridge of Death

  5. Brasidas

  6. Prisoner

  7. Not a Goddess

  8. Appointment

  9. Thracian Idyll

  PART IV. ARKADIA

  1. Dog

  2. Widow-Maker

  3. Laonome

  4. Princess and Fool

  5. Wedding

  6. Jailbreak

  7. Slaughtergoddess

  8. Witch-Tamer

  9. Late

  10. Engines of Destruction

  11. On Skiron's Road

  12. She Whose Wrath Is Relentless

  PART V. ELEUSIS

  1. A River of Flesh and Bronze

  2. Her Last Secret

  3. The Arrows of Eris

  4. Breach

  5. Clash of the Star-Born

  6. Battle for the Bodies

  7. The Battle of Eleusis

  8. Dekelea

  9. A Spartan's Duty

  10. Vengeance Is Sworn

  SAMPLE OF THE PATH OF RAVENS

  PROLOGUE: Longing for Oblivion

  “Geneva, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this,” said Lyka, an unwelcome presence hovering over the pilot's controls in the hardliner's steering chamber, “but it looks as if we're in the wrong layer. It's Severed. There's no way back. We're trapped here.”

  Lyka did not seem particularly alarmed, but then Lyka was old, much older than her two crewmates, even if she did not look it, and was perhaps less prone to fits of excitement than other fighters of the Veta Caliate.

  Eight seconds later, Lyka's severed head floated free in the zero-grav, haloed by a cloud of tiny globules which burst into flat red flowers on contact with the chamber's smooth surfaces.

  The head drifted gently past the small room's only hatch, which presently opened at the approach of the third and final individual aboard the hardliner Longing for Oblivion.

  Eden had certainly overheard Lyka's observation. Now her eyes went wide at the sight of her slaughtered crewmate. At her pilot's console, Geneva triggered a control to quickly seal the hatch. Four fingers of Eden's hand were pulped in the closing orifice as she tried, and utterly failed, to hold it open. She did not scream.

  “Geneva!” she instead howled in rage at the fibresteel door. "You're dead, traitor!"

  Alone in the steering chamber but for the two wayward parts of the nominal superior she had just killed, Geneva ignored Eden's promise and the stream of stinging insults which followed it. She double-checked her instruments. This was the right layer. Not the one on their mission manifest, of course, but the right one. His layer. That was his Earth directly ahead.

  Pre-industrial, which was good. And the hardliner's current course would land it somewhere in the western hemisphere, which was also good.

  Their landing would be less a landing than a fiery disintegration in this Earth's atmosphere. But it was vital that Longing not survive, and for that reason Geneva had overridden those elements of the liner's systems which enabled it to transition between void and atmosphere, gravity and none. The hardliner would break up on entry, and the three crew aboard would make landfall, or seafall, separately from their vessel and each other, and with no protection but their voidsuits. All three would surely sustain catastrophic damage. But they would heal. They would survive. Geneva had hoped to be able to destroy her companions utterly before reaching her destination, but that was far from a simple task, the tools for which were not typically present on a hardliner.

  No, her sabotage had not gone quite as planned, but then plans only worked in perfect worlds, and perfect worlds did not exist. For that reason, Geneva had few certainties concerning what she would do when she got groundside. Rather, she trusted in her ability to take advantage of whatever opportunities might arise to work toward the achievement of her aim.

  Her final aim. Her last mission. –

  She knew what she would not do. She had no interest in ruling this world or in depopulating it by the thousands, both of which were available options. One way or another, her existence would end in this endeavor, and she would have the luxury of taking her time at it, since Caliate pursuit seemed unlikely. She could live a life here. Many lifetimes. Primitive ones, but surely enjoyable.

  Maybe her two companions would even unwittingly help. Neither bifurcated Lyka nor furious Eden, pounding uselessly on the hatch with one hand and one freshly made stump, had any inkling as to why they were doomed. They were Geneva's siblings, of a sort. Two of thousands, most of whom called her vile names behind her back, if not to her face, and who only grudgingly trusted her because Magdalen told them they must. Magdalen was wrong after all, it seemed: wayward Geneva had been a traitor to the Caliate once before, and now, with this act, she became one again. Betrayal was easier the second time.

  They hit atmosphere. Instruments showed the steering chamber getting very hot very fast. Eden's pounding stopped, and she screamed a few last words in the moments before the hardliner Longing for Oblivion achieved its eponymous wish.

  “I will find you, bitch!”

  Staring blankly at the instrument panel, Geneva paid her no heed.

  Above the clouds, and far above the square sails of wooden ships crewed by mariners to whom the sea on which they fished and traded and made war was the center of the world in more ways than one, a strange vessel's long journey met its catastrophic end. Three of the many small, burning fragments into which the vessel shattered had once been alive, and would live again.

  I. PYLOS 1. Strange Flotsam

  Ninth day of Metageitnion in the archonship of Stratokles (August 425 BCE)

  By moonlight the Helot rowed his tiny boat, its hull patched and rotten, toward the shore of the mountainous island that dominated Pylos harbor. Sphakteria, it was called, an ugly name for an ugly lump of rock. Windswept waves from the Ionian Sea poured relentlessly through the narrow channel between island and mainland and threatened to swamp his little craft, a flec
k of chaff on Poseidon's vast domain. But such were the only conditions in which this voyage might be made, for in daylight and when the weather was fair, Pylos harbor was watched over by Athenian triremes, the crews of which would halt and slaughter any who tried to run their blockade.

  But what was the risk of death to one enslaved by birth to men whose sons hunted and killed his kind as practice for the killing of better men? Ever had that been the lot of Messenians, at least since their ancient conquest by Sparta, to toil in servitude as Helots whose highest hopes in life were to meet a natural death and leave behind a few sons to inherit their hard lot. Until now, that was. Now there was cause to dream of more, for the Spartan forces besieged on Sphakteria had promised to make rich men of any who could smuggle them food, and free men of any Helots who did the same. Yes, the risk of this short excursion was high, but so was the reward—freedom, an unthinkable thing for one upon whose people Sparta renewed annually her declaration of war, in order that a Helot's murder might cause his killer no ritual impurity.

  Now the Spartans were embroiled in a war more pressing than the perennial one against their slaves. In six years of war with Athens, Sparta's ancient hegemony over the Peloponnese, her own backyard, had gone unchallenged—until this summer, when out of nowhere the Athenian general Demosthenes had landed at Pylos and built a fort. Thinking Demosthenes their deliverer, Pylos's Messenian population had gone over to him, yielding the city to Athenian control. A Spartan army, recalled from its annual siege of Athens, had descended swiftly on Pylos from its landward side, whilst even more troops were brought in by sea for a naval assault.

  Either Demosthenes was favored by his city's gods or the Spartans had angered theirs, for when the desert dust had settled and the tide had rinsed the shore clean of blood, the Athenians remained in place. The Lakedaemonian army still held the surrounding plains, but Athenian ships controlled the harbor where sat the isle of Sphakteria, on which Sparta, confident as ever in eventual triumph, had stationed a garrison before the battle.

  Now those men were trapped. When Sparta's attempts to negotiate their release were met in far-off Athens with scorn, the proclamation had gone forth: freedom to any Helot who risked bringing the trapped men provisions. It was an offer only a fool could refuse, but Pylos, it seemed, was a city of fools, for instead of seeing that the Athenians cared nothing for their welfare, but only for humiliating their enemy, Messenians had flocked in even greater numbers to Demosthenes. Did they not realize that the moment Athens' aims here were achieved, her forces would abandon Pylos to the mercy of its once and future masters? And those masters knew no mercy. When the last Athenian ship had sailed and their shortsighted local allies fell, as surely they would, the punishment for those Helots who had turned, along with many who hadn't, was sure to be swift and brutal.

  This Helot, though, was no fool. He saw what the future held, and so he rowed on through the crashing waves. He cast a backward glance over one shoulder at his destination and saw Sphakteria rising from the silvered water like the spine of a great black serpent bathing in the harbor. In silhouette the island's shore did not look treacherous, but it was, so much so that his decrepit little boat was unlikely to survive the landing. No matter. It needed only to get him ashore along with the precious cargo that would make him a free man.

  Land came unexpectedly in the form of jagged black teeth jutting from the water. The sea around the boat frothed white on the rocks, pelting the Helot's face with chill, salty droplets. Squinting down the darkened shore he picked out a spot where the rocks seemed fewer and less rugged, and he hunkered down and pulled harder on the oars. A swell thrust the boat's prow into the air, and as it slammed down, the oar in his right hand snagged between two rocks and snapped in two.

  No cause for panic, he told himself. The current, choppy as it was, was bearing him toward his chosen landing. He gripped the remaining oar with both hands and put it to use as a pole to ward off sharp rocks.

  About halfway there, a pale shape in the surf caught his eye. It poked out from behind some black rocks a few oar-lengths shoreward, rising and falling gently in a tangle of undulating seaweed. Craning his neck for the few seconds that he could safely divert his attention, he made out curled fingers attached to a forearm.

  A corpse. The sight was no surprise, for the summer's naval battle had consigned a great many bodies to the depths. Poor men, their shades would drift inconsolable for eternity, denied entry into Hades' hall.

  The Helot had seen his share of corpses in his lifetime, but never a drowned one, and so as his progress past the rocks gradually brought more of it into view, he couldn't help but steal a glance when caution allowed. Someone had told him once that a body left at sea bloated up like a fatted pig and turned just as pale, yet this corpse's skin had pigment yet, or at least it seemed so in the moonlight. And it was thin, slighter even than the average man would be in life.

  When at last the wave-tossed corpse stood revealed from head to waist the Helot gaped in amazement, for this was no sailor, but a woman. A scrap of black cloth covered one of her sea-girt breasts, but the other stood bare, its nipple a dark crown on a mound of silver-blue flesh. Tendrils of hair writhed about her face in a black corona. He could not make out the features clearly, but they appeared sharp and serene, hardly misshapen by violence or bloated by drowning.

  Tempted as he was to stare, especially upon discovering that her lower half too was bare, he tore his attention away and focused on the nearby beach. Only a few more rocks were left to navigate, little danger by the look of them, and he would come aground.

  A wicked thought occurred to him, swatted down as swiftly as it arose, that if he were careful he might pick a path back over the rocks by foot from shore and search the corpse for jewelry. But no, he had come to Sphakteria for his freedom, not trinkets of silver and bronze, not even gold. Were he to be caught plundering the dead, he might spend his first day as a free man awaiting execution. No, he would simply tell the Spartan garrison what he had seen and be done with the matter.

  At last he ran his little boat aground on the rocky shore, holing its hull in the process, and thoughts of the woman fled his mind. He was alive and soon would be free. Throwing his body ashore, he scooped pebbles from the beach and pressed them to his lips, but he wasted little time in that enterprise. He had to unload his cargo quickly, lest the tide come in suddenly and sweep it away. There were too many canvas sacks for him to carry all at once and so he made three trips, piling them at the top of the beach. While he was doing this, a voice boomed over the rush of the breaking surf.

  "You there!"

  Startled, the Helot looked up to see a lone figure approaching down the shoreline. Moonglow turned the man's bare chest blue, his long hair fell in a cascade over his broad shoulders, and his dark beard was wild and untrimmed. "You bring us provision?"

  "Aye, lord!"

  Even in the dim light, wearing a coarse cloak of undyed wool, the speaker was unmistakably a Spartiate, an Equal, born to fight and kill, just as Helots were born to serve. Wearing their armor of leather and bronze, bearing eight-foot ash spears with blades of sharpened iron, Spartiates were Stygian beasts who struck fear into the hearts of all men. Naked but for his cloak, this one proved that Equals needed no such trappings to inspire terror.

  The Helot waited with two sacks piled on his back while the Spartiate closed the remaining distance across the beach, crouched, and thrust a gnarled hand into one of the sacks on the ground. It came out with a barley cake, which he examined in the low light before replacing. No doubt he was starving, but discipline forbade him from partaking before his share had been allotted, even when the sole witness was a Helot whose word was worthless against his.

  "You'll have your freedom for this," the giant Equal said. He hefted the remaining three sacks and balanced them on sinewy shoulders.

  "Thank you, my lord!" Blood pounded a triumphal march in the Helot's ears, a wave of euphoria imparting fresh strength to tired limbs. As he began to w
alk behind the master whose name he did not know, he remembered what he had seen on his approach to the island and mustered the courage to raise the matter.

  "Lord!" the Helot called out. He bore only two sacks to his master's three, yet he practically had to run to keep pace with the far-striding Equal. "I saw a body washed up on the rocks!"

  "That's common enough," the soldier said without stopping. "We'll send someone."

  "But lord, this was a woman!"

  Now the Spartan halted and turned. Even bent beneath his greater burden, he stood taller than the Helot, at whom he gazed down curiously from the shadowed pits of his eyes. "A woman?"

  "Aye, lord. She looks... fresh."

  The Spartiate sighed, shrugging the sacks from his back onto the rocky sand. "Show me."

  I. PYLOS 2. The Dead Arise

  Forever had the men of Lakedaemon, descendants of Herakles, been a superstitious lot, and never more so than in times of great success or deep misfortune. Currently, for the over four hundred Spartiates and as many Helot shield-bearers trapped on barren Sphakteria, it was decidedly the latter.

  One of those Spartiates, Styphon, son of Pharax, who presently walked down from a mountainous lookout post, was perhaps less inclined than most to fret over omens. That quality, he liked to think, helped to make him a good phylarch. One day, if he lived, it might serve him well at higher ranks. Yet even the fiercest of skeptics, which he was not, would have had difficulty denying an omen such as the one facing them today, a sign that had sent the twenty long-haired Spartans under Styphon's command scrambling to prostrate themselves in prayer.

  The omen was a woman. Persian, by the look of her, and despite being stone dead and cold to the touch she had golden skin as pure and unblemished as that of any aristocrat's freshly bathed virgin daughter. She was everywhere depilated from the neck down in the manner of whores and Athenians, which made her, in Styphon's mind, more likely than not some man's mistress drowned to keep her quiet. But then it was possible that all Persians plucked. It seemed probable enough, given that even their men were womanly. Spartan women sure didn't go smooth, and their men were glad for it.