Spartan Beast (The Hellennium Book 2) Page 7

  Styphon's spear was hardly righted before he felt the crush of the assault on his shield and was thrown back, back, heels digging in. Only Diphridas, the Spartiate who had laughed, stood to his left, the phalanx's edge, and ever more horsemen were pouring in, the wedge growing wider and wider until it spilled over the edge of the phalanx, forcing its second and third ranks to come forward and add their spears and bodies to stopping the charge. Horses screamed agony as their throats were cut or bellies ripped open, and men screamed, too, as they were crushed beneath hoof or skewered with lance or spear. The Athenians worked their long swords like scythes, and it was one of these which sent Diphridas to the unnameable realm. But he was avenged: his killer followed him below, Styphon's own spear blade having pierced him through the soft underside of his jaw, opening his skull like a blossoming flower.

  The slaughter of Spartiate and Athenian alike was great, but Styphon's feet gave only a few steps, and these came early on. By the time the full weight of the Athenian cavalry had landed, its failure was sealed. It broke like water crashing on a seaside cliff, causing great spectacle but achieving nothing. The stone of Sparta's sons today had held fast.

  But not at little cost. The price was yet being paid, with men on both sides continuing to fall as the futile assault persisted. Styphon killed at least three more himself before the weight on his battered hoplon subsided and he was able to move forward behind the Athenians who had begun to turn tail and flee, some on foot, others on their mounts. If the Theban cavalry were not just now arriving from the north to ride them down, they might have been allowed to escape with their lives, for Equals never gave in to the folly of pursuit. They never cheered, either, for celebration implied surprise, and victory must never come as a surprise. And so the Spartan army was silent.

  The exhilaration of slaughter leaving him, Styphon wasted no time pushing through the packed hoplites to where he had last seen Alkibiades.

  “The hipparch!” he cried, shoving Equals out of the way and searching the mounds of dead and writhing men and animals. “Where is their hipparch?”

  “Here,” someone said, and kicked something near his foot, which turned out to be the still, gray hulk of a dead horse. Pinned underneath, the carcass covering him from thigh to shoulder blades, a man laid on his stomach in the churned soil. From atop the once-bright helm still covering his head, a once-white plume snaked away into the mud.

  Kneeling, Styphon gripped the plume and yanked off the helm. Chestnut curls spilled out, and Alkibiades stirred, barely, alive but insensate.

  Nearby, King Agis sat upon the ground, unhelmed, head held in hand, amid a cluster of his guards. He had sustained some minor, bloodless injury.

  A fresh cheer filled the air, reverberating off the walls of empty Dekelea, in front of which the Theban infantry and cavalry, outnumbering their foe by four to one, had overwhelmed a shrinking ring of Athenians. A small number of the latter still fought valiantly on—enveloped and offered no quarter, they had no choice—but their annihilation was at this point a certainty. Hence the Thebans' celebration.

  While other Spartiates found and tended to their wounded brothers, Styphon searched the faces of the enemy dead for that of Demosthenes, but none were he. The absence ascertained, Styphon left his gear with a Helot and made haste across the field toward the gates of Dekelea, passing the heaped bodies of the Athenian infantry intermixed with plenty of Theban corpses. As he went, he absently scanned the lifeless faces over which he stepped, but did not linger to look, for it seemed unlikely that Demosthenes would have been among that group.

  By now the town's gates had been opened to allow the Thebans to enter and search for any remaining defenders, while women and children and old folk cowered in their homes. Entering, Styphon searched with a growing sense of futility for the pair he sought.

  Within a quarter-hour, a Dekelean town elder had handed over a corselet of leather and bronze. Shaped for a woman, the armor was pierced and rent with gashes. Styphon had not witnessed the clash between Thalassia and Eden at Eleusis, having been miles away commanding the marine landing which had captured Athens and thrown its defenders into disarray, but he had heard it told by those present that the two women had cut each other to ribbons like frenzied Maenads setting on a hapless intruder into their sacred wood.

  The same Dekelean elder told Styphon that Alkibiades had been in command of the town for some days now, since Demosthenes had vanished.

  Styphon rewarded the old man by finding the Theban general, grabbing him by the throat, and instructing him to make sure that his half-civilized horde showed some restraint whilst in Dekelea.

  The news that Demosthenes and his witch had eluded capture failed to surprise Styphon, even if it did disappoint. Brasidas would not be pleased, even if he surely had anticipated and planned for such a possibility.

  Styphon returned to the field of battle to find that Alkibiades had been extracted from under the horse carcass. His eyes were open but glassy, and his head lolled as Styphon inspected him for injuries. He had suffered a deep scratch above the greave of his left leg, and a dent in his helmet likely explained his semi-consciousness. Perhaps a bone or two was cracked.

  He would live. That was fortunate, for although as a prize he ranked third in Brasidas's estimation, the polemarch would undoubtedly find a use for Alkibiades.

  * * *

  9. Hand of the seducer

  Styphon knew the Athenian jail compound well, having spent more than a year of his life in it, held hostage with two hundred of his countrymen, until Brasidas had arrived and organized escape.

  This time, Styphon was on the other, preferable side of the bars, and had come to fetch an Athenian prisoner—a man, in fact, who once had come to visit him during his own imprisonment. He had a private cell, so as not to allow him the opportunity to plot with his fellow prisoners, potentially accomplishing the mirror image of Brasidas's own feat of mass escape.

  That prisoner, Alkibiades, sat on the straw-covered floor of his cell, his bandaged leg stretched out. He saw his visitor through the cell door and smiled. “Styphon,” he said, sounding truly pleased by the sight. “How is your girl?”

  Although a victor owed the vanquished no reply, Styphon gave one: “Andrea is well, last I knew. At home.”

  “In Sparta,” Alkibiades said approvingly. With some difficulty, he stood and limped the short distance to the door with its small, barred portal. The last time Styphon had seen Alkibiades in this prison, when their roles had been reversed, the preening blatherer had been immaculately groomed. Now, after a month spent under siege and a day in prison, his once proud waves of chestnut hair were oil-soaked tendrils clinging to his neck. “I am glad she will no longer find her father's name a burden. Congratulations.”

  To this Styphon did not bother to reply, but just unbolted the door and pulled it open.

  Limping out, Alkibiades asked simply, as one pleading for some harmless bit of information to which he was not entitled, which was exactly the case: “Eurydike?”

  The Athenian's grimy features showed that he expected the worst. And why not, for the last he had seen the Thracian girl was on the plain of Dekelea, where Brasidas had spared the slave's life, choosing instead to cut the throat of her mistress, the wife of Demosthenes.

  “She is also in my household,” Styphon begrudged. “Safe.” The answer produced a look of relief on the prisoner's face. “Come.”

  With a bleak sigh, Alkibiades stepped out. “I do hope this is not an execution.”

  “An interview,” Styphon said. Alkibiades preceded him down the dark hallway, the sandal on the foot of his wounded leg scraping along the stone.

  “I've told your men all I know,” the prisoner complained. “I know nothing about any resistance, or who this 'Omega' might be. I don't know any Sigma or Psi either, for that matter. And as for Demosthenes, he vanished over the wall one night with star-girl's body. He wouldn't tell me where he was going. I don't even think his mind's all there anymore.”
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br />   “We know all that,” Styphon said. It was not only the testimony of Alkibiades and others in Dekelea which bespoke Demosthenes' flight from Dekelea: his black scale armor and Pegasos-blazoned shield had been found on the corpse of another fallen Athenian after the ambush.

  “So what is the purpose of this interview?”

  “I am to take you to Brasidas,” Styphon said. “What he wants is his concern.”

  Alkibiades laughed. “Maybe he wants to know how good his mother was at sucking my balls. I'll be happy to tell him that.”

  “Do not count on him having a sense of humor.”

  “Unlike you, hmm?” The Athenian scoffed.

  Exiting the jail complex, Styphon and an escort detail of two more Equals, forced to match the snail's pace of their captive, walked an agonizingly slow path from the jail to the nearby Tholos, the administrative center of Athens. It was mid-morning and Athenians thronged the streets. Their lingering, surreptitious stares said they well knew the identity of the man marching in irons past the columned law courts of the fallen democracy. If they felt admiration for him, they kept it to themselves.

  At the Tholos, the escort fell away, leaving Styphon to help the hobbling prisoner up the steps and inside to the commandeered office of Brasidas.

  The polemarch stood behind the heavy oaken table which looked once to have been part of a trireme's deck, silently gazing down at an assortment of parchments cluttering its surface. Styphon stood silently awaiting acknowledgment. Somewhat surprisingly, Alkibiades possessed the wisdom to do the same.

  At length Brasidas looked up and smiled less than convincingly. “Please, have a seat.” He gestured at a cushion beside a low table. “Will you drink some wine?”

  In spite of his wounded leg, Alkibiades made no move to sit. The offer of drink was likewise declined with silence.

  Brasidas's smile faded into a reflective frown. “A Lakonic reply,” he said. “Suit yourself.”

  Unaddressed and apparently unneeded, Styphon stepped back to excuse himself.

  The polemarch stopped him by saying, “Styphon, you may remain. Shut the door.”

  Styphon did so and then resumed his position a pace to the Athenian's left.

  “If we may speak as one commander to another,” Brasidas began, and set his hand on a marked slip of paper, “I have here the final tally for the action at Dekelea. Would you care to hear it?”

  Alkibiades returned quickly, “Just assume I gave whatever answer shuts you up the fastest.”

  Styphon saw anger behind the polemarch's smile of forbearance. “Your cavalry attack killed fourteen Equals,” Brasidas said. “The wounds of another eight will probably consign them to the reserves. And although you pretend a lack of interest, I know you wish to hear how many Athenians fell.”

  He paused as if waiting for Alkibiades to urge him on, but resumed anyway when the latter refused.

  “Four hundred and ninety-two dead. Half again as many wounded. Nearly six hundred captured. Thirty-six of the dead were of your cavalry, by the way, which means your horsemen managed to kill one Spartiate for every of two of their own who fell.” He raised his scarred brow. “Which is rather impressive, to my mind.”

  Alkibiades cleared his throat, as if his pride had lodged there on the way down, and he said dryly, “Commander to commander, polemarch, I request leniency for all those captured but myself. They will settle back into their lives and obey your laws. I will instruct them thus myself.”

  With a shrug, Brasidas dismissed the matter as unimportant. “My post as governor is temporary. In a few days' time I will leave, and a government of your own people will take over fully. It will be up to them to decide what to do with your men. My guess is that most will be pardoned. They will if we have chosen our administrators well from among your people.”

  “You mean your tyrants,” the Athenian scoffed.

  “Most will call them that. Should angry words become actions, there will be a garrison of Equals here to help them maintain order. But then, you are not likely to witness any of that.”

  Alkibiades turned to Styphon at his side and smirked contemptuously. “ So it is an execution after all.”

  “No,” Brasidas inserted over a reply that Styphon had no intent of making. “You misunderstand. You are coming with me to Sparta. I have heard men say that you have a fondness for our values. Well, you shall get the chance to experience them up close. Without a spear aimed at your throat, so to speak.” He smiled again, more genuinely. “So long as you behave yourself.”

  The smile fell. Brasidas rapped with a bent knuckle on the tabletop. “Now on to other business. You have been cooperative in answering our questions, I hear, even if you had nothing to tell. However, I should like to ask a few of them just one last time, with a certain witness present.”

  Puzzlement showed on the Athenian's face as the latch sounded on the door behind him. Styphon had a sudden inkling of who was shortly to appear, and it caused his muscles to tense. He turned his head, and so did Alkibiades, to join Brasidas in casting an eye upon the opening door.

  There was no urgency in her step as she slid in through the widening gap, a pale shade possessed of a grace which only bolstered the aura of strength she exuded. Her long, silken locks of gold were twisted into braids that were gathered and fastened to her head with onyx-head pins. No respectable woman of Sparta would ever wear her hair thus, lest she be the target of scornful stares from men and women alike, but Eris was no Spartan woman. Perhaps she was not even a woman at all, in spite of appearances. When Styphon saw her, as he was now for the first time since her demise a month prior in a whirlwind of mutual slaughter with Thalassia, he could not help but see the nightmare-fiend which had slain a dozen Spartiates before his eyes with little more effort than it took a farmer to stick a pig.

  The smile Eris wore now, as she glided in and shut the door behind, hem of her long white chiton grazing the straps of high-laced sandals, was one which other men might find disarming, but Styphon saw in it only a fearsome grin to rival that of any hound of Haides. Likewise her dark blue irises were eddies in the water of Styx, her flawless, alluring skin the surface of a bleached skull long ago picked clean by crows.

  “Styphon,” she greeted in her lilting, barbarian accent.

  Even her sweet voice, as she spoke his name in cordial greeting, became in his ears as the scrape of talons on bone.

  Thankfully, her attention did not linger on him. She instead looked to Alkibiades, who quickly averted his face.

  “Did every hair on everyone's body just stand on end, or only mine?” the Athenian asked in a whisper.

  A smile creased Brasidas's angular features. “Eris is... an acquired taste,” he said. Eris gave a thin smile of her own, without removing her eyes from Alkibiades.

  Straightening himself and banishing unease from his expression, the prisoner faced her.

  “Eden,” he said curtly, addressing her by her true name, which Styphon had heard only once or twice, many months ago, and only in private. To all who knew her in Sparta, she was Eris.

  “Alkibiades,” she returned. The name dripped from her rose-colored lips and even seemed tinged with a hint of awe. She raised a soft, deadly hand and stroked his fuzz-covered jaw, which twitched subtly in response. “What did the Wormwhore tell you about me?”

  “Little,” the Athenian answered. “I learned late of your existence, only when it could no longer be hidden from me. Thalassia keeps her secrets well.” He gave a conspiratorial half-smile. “Fortunately for me, in some respects. If she was forthcoming with anyone, it's Demosthenes.” His bright eyes shot to Brasidas, to whom he said, “She is no goddess, you know. She comes from another time and another world and doesn't give a centaur's balls about Sparta.”

  The Athenian read Brasidas's faint smile and sighed, concluding, correctly, “You do know that. Not outside this room, though. Everyone else actually believes she's Eris.”

  “Their idea, not mine,” said the pale witch. “Who am I t
o deny men their little fantasies?”

  Alkibiades continued to address the polemarch: “She will lead your city to ruin, as Thalassia did mine.”

  “Blame Geneva, then,” Brasidas returned. “As I am accustomed to thinking of her. Or Demosthenes. I only did what was necessary to level the field for Sparta. I use Eris, as she uses me. I suffer no illusions.”

  Alkibiades chuckled darkly and returned his gaze to Eris. “You will suffer, all right.”

  “I presume you know of Geneva's ability to discern truth from lies when any man speaks?”

  In Alkibiades' hesitation, Styphon saw the Athenian's answer and further sensed him reliving a hundred conversations, a great many lies told. “No...”

  “It is an ability she shares with Eris here.”

  “When I met him, Demosthenes knew,” the false goddess intoned very near to the Athenian's ear.

  “So much they neglected to tell you,” Brasidas lamented.

  The Athenian scoffed. “I see your aim. You won't turn me against them.”

  “You overestimate your worth,” Brasidas said. “But then, I have been told that about you. No, as I said, I only wish to question you in the presence of my witness, who possesses a rather useful ability in that respect. It will not take but a moment.”

  The polemarch proceeded to ask Alkibiades whether he had communicated at any time with the resistance currently operating in Athens; whether he knew the identity of Omega; whether Thalassia had been conscious when last he saw her; and whether he had any knowledge of the whereabouts or intentions of Demosthenes.

  Alkibiades answered all in the negative.

  When Brasidas signaled he was finished, Eris, whose piercing witch-eyes had remained locked on the prisoner throughout the questioning, put one bare arm affectionately at the base of the Athenian's neck.

  Styphon shuddered at the thought of being the recipient of such a touch.