Spartans at the Gates

by Noble Smith

  “Ajax! Teleos!” Chusor barked. Neither one of the boys was by the forge. The fire—which should have been a red-hot blaze by now—was nearly out.

  “They’re in the courtyard,” called Leo. “I saw them trying to kill something.”

  Chusor stepped into the courtyard and caught sight of the two boys chasing a terrified bird, trying to smash it with the bellows.

  “Don’t let them kill the poor thing,” called a female voice from the window above the inner courtyard.

  Chusor glanced up to see a woman’s pale face staring down at him from one of the upstairs windows. It was Kallisto … Nikias’s lover. The teenaged girl had been recovering in his house from a head wound she’d suffered in the battle with the Thebans. Chusor admired her. She was brave and beautiful. But she was the daughter of a man who’d been in league with the traitor Nauklydes, and so it wasn’t safe for her to leave his home. She’d been tainted by the crime of her father. He’d seen up close what sort of savagery the Plataeans were capable of committing. He’d watched men of his own guild take apart a Theban prisoner, piece by piece, to extract information. It was a gruesome memory he would take to his tomb.

  Chusor had promised Nikias to keep Kallisto safe. As long as she was under his roof, nobody would touch her. For the smith had helped save the city from the Theban invaders, and for a time, at least, his protection meant something. But someone had painted the words TRAITOR’S DAUGHTER on the outside wall of the smithy one night. And many men and women gave Chusor’s house dark looks as they walked past.

  “Get back into bed, girl,” said Chusor, not unkindly. “You should not be up.”

  “The pretty pigeon,” said Kallisto. “It flew through the window and sat on my bed, looking at me. I thought it was a sign from Nikias.”

  “Pigeon?” said Chusor. He glanced across the courtyard and saw Ajax about to impale the bird with an iron rod. Moving with the speed of a striking snake, he picked up an empty wooden bucket and flung it at the boys. It hit Ajax in the knee, bounced off, and smashed Teleos’s foot. The pair howled with pain and shot angry looks at their master.

  “By the shriveled leg of Hephaestos!” yelled Chusor as he charged them, filled with the wrath of a vengeful deity. “Leave the bird alone!”

  Ajax pointed at his brother and said, “Teleos made me!”

  Chusor snatched the bellows from Ajax. Teleos, a year older, took the opportunity to punch his brother in the face. Ajax screamed and struck back at Teleos. Chusor shoved them off to the side and let them fight.

  “Do me a favor and go out in the street and kill each other,” said Chusor, his eyes riveted on the bird.

  He set the bellows down and walked slowly to the pigeon, making a low clucking sound in the back of his throat. The pigeon took one look at Chusor and strutted toward him, swaying its head from side to side and blinking its red eyes. Chusor knelt down and gently cupped his hands around the bird, then brought its head to his mouth and gave it a gentle kiss.

  “Hello, old friend,” he said, inspecting the animal’s wings to make sure the boys hadn’t harmed her.

  Chusor realized that Teleos and Ajax—and even Leo, who’d popped his head out the window to take in the fun—were staring at him with surprise. He glanced up at the window and saw Kallisto regarding him with an odd expression.

  “If either of you ever so much as ruffle a feather on this creature,” said Chusor to the boys, “I will cut off your balls and cook them on the forge.”

  The boys nodded vigorously and went back inside.

  Kallisto said, “I had a terrible dream about Nikias just now. I’m—I must tell you about it.” She looked stricken and held a long hand to her throat.

  Chusor replied, “I will come later. You must rest now.”

  She nodded silently, and then moved away from the window, disappearing into the shadows of her bedchamber.

  Chusor walked quickly into the kitchen and grabbed a jar from off a shelf, and then carried the pigeon to his private chamber and set the bird on his desk. The pigeon inspected everything with an officious air—some scrolls, quills, a wine bowl holding only dregs—while Chusor regarded the creature with an apprehensive gaze. Finally, he took the bird in one hand and found the bit of parchment that he knew would be tied to her leg. He opened the jar he’d gotten from the kitchen, took out some millet seeds, and scattered them on the desk. The pigeon cooed and got to work snatching up the tiny grains.

  Chusor unrolled the tiny scroll. He shook his head in amazement as he scanned the coded words written on the parchment. It had been nearly a decade since he’d used the ciphers, but ever so slowly they came rising back into his brain from the depths of his memory, like corpses from a shipwreck floating slowly to the surface of the sea.

  After he finished reading he reached for his wine cup and realized his hand shook. He refilled the empty cup, took a long drink, then wiped his mouth on his arm, staring at the pigeon. After all this time … they had come! They had finally tracked him and Diokles down.

  He tore the parchment into tiny pieces, placed them in a bowl with some white powder, and scraped a flint with a knife, causing a spark. The powder ignited and burned the pieces of parchment to ash. He tossed them out the window and the ashes vanished on the breeze.

  He reached for a hidden drawer under the desk and took out a scroll, unrolling it on the table and holding the corners down with different rock samples he’d collected from the mountains. He stared at the map of Plataea he’d drawn—a bird’s-eye view of the citadel, with all of the buildings’ walls and bastions clearly marked. It was a secret map he’d been working on for years, ever since coming to Plataea. The only person who’d seen it other than Diokles was Nikias. He hadn’t intended on showing the young fighter the map. Nikias had come into his workshop unbidden and seen it lying on the table—a careless mistake Chusor would never have made in his younger days. It was a map that would earn him a “tunic of stones” if anyone found out about it. For who could make such a map other than a spy? An enemy of Plataea?

  The pigeon walked to the edge of the table and jumped onto Chusor’s lap with a little flutter of wings. It sat there contentedly, cooing. Chusor gently stroked the bird’s head with one of his giant thumbs.

  “I’m heading to the market,” called out Leo from the other room. “Need anything?”

  “Bread and cheese,” said Chusor immediately. “And some fresh vegetables for the girl if there are any.”

  “Of course,” said Leo. “I’ll be back soon.”

  After the front door slammed shut Chusor put the pigeon on his shoulder, where it sat nestled against his ear. He went to work quickly, cutting a slip of parchment, writing a reply in the secret language with quill and ink, then rolling the message up and tying it to the pigeon’s ankle. He cupped the bird in his big hands and took it to the window.

  “Fly to your mistress, now,” he said in the pigeon’s ear, then tossed it into the air. When he was satisfied the pigeon was headed back in the direction of the Kithaeron Mountains he gathered up his gear: a long walking staff, a wooden basket that fit onto his back—which he used to collect sulfurous stones from fissures on the mountain—and his leather mountain boots.

  He put on the boots and laced them, then unscrewed a cap on the bottom of the walking stick to reveal a hollow core. He rolled the map into a tube and held it to the opening of the secret compartment, hesitating for a moment. Then he sighed and pushed the map into the tube and replaced the cap. He hoisted the pack onto his back and pulled the leather straps tight.

  Snatching his wide-brimmed reed hat from its hook, he placed it on his head and exited the house, striding up Artisans’ Lane.

  THREE

  Nikias lay stunned on his back in the middle of the road, breathing in ragged breaths. He lifted his head with a great effort, squinting down the length of his body at the mounted Dog Raiders. He counted twelve of them. Twelve ruthless killers who were going to skin him alive.

  The satyr-bearded comma
nder had turned his mount around to face the other eleven riders and shouted angrily at his men:

  “The Spartans said they’d give us silver for any captured Plataean!” he roared, glancing over his shoulder at Nikias. “He’s no good to us dead. They’ll want to extract information first.”

  Nikias probed his stomach fearfully, expecting to find an arrow sticking from his guts and his bowels leaking out. But all he felt there was a hard and lumpy mass.

  “Oh, thank you, Zeus,” he whispered, for the bag of gold that he wore under his tunic had turned the point of the arrow! He touched some of the Persian darics that had slipped out from a tear in the leather pouch. The traitor’s blood money had saved his life. At least for the moment.

  “I’m not kissing the arses of the Long Hairs for a few shitty silver coins!” barked a one-eyed Dog Raider. “That Oxlander cunt over there killed my nephew.” He pointed at one of the corpses on the road. “I want him peeled while he’s still got breath. He’s dying from a gut wound. He’ll be meat before we can get him back to camp.”

  Nikias shuddered and clenched his teeth, banishing the blinding fear from his brain. He had to think. He was running out of time!

  “I’ve seen men live for days with stomach wounds,” said the Dog Raider commander.

  “You can stick his bleeding stomach in my puckered old arse!” spat One Eye, pulling his knife from its sheath. The other raiders laughed.

  The hunters can quickly become the prey.

  It was his grandfather’s voice in Nikias’s head. When Nikias was a boy his grandfather used to tell him the story of a wolf caught in a trap. When the hunter came close enough to skin his prey, the wolf leapt up and tore out the hunter’s throat: the clever wolf had merely been pretending to be caught. “Deceit,” his grandfather had explained, “can be as sharp as a sword.”

  Guile was the only way he could beat these Dog Raiders now.

  A memory flashed in his mind: a wandering bard singing the “Song of Troy”—the scene with the wretched Trojan Adrestus, defeated on the field of battle, pleading piteously for his life.

  He tried to flex his right arm, but it was still numb and useless. No matter. He’d fought with his right arm tied behind his back before, pummeling a much bigger warrior named Axe in a pankration bout. Nikias’s grandfather had trained him to be ready for any shift in fortune. A hoplite might lose a hand or an arm in the midst of battle.

  He snatched his dagger from his belt with his left hand, then cut a large gash in the bag of gold. He carefully tucked his blade under the pit of his wounded arm, hiding it from sight.

  “It’s on your heads, then,” the commander said, nervously smoothing his satyr’s beard. “You can be the one to tell King Kyros you lost him a valuable prize that he could trade to the Spartans.” He pointed at a trio of riders including One Eye. “Make it fast.”

  “Gods!” Nikias cried out in a grief-stricken voice. “My stomach.” He let forth an agonized cry, tucking his legs into the fetal position and clutching his abdomen. He’d seen men with gut wounds after a battle. He knew how to feign this terrible injury. He watched as the men chosen to be his torturers sauntered toward him.

  “Bring me that pretty hair, will you?” called out one of the Dog Raiders. “I’ll put it on my helm.”

  The three riders sauntered over and surrounded him, peering down and gloating.

  “Please,” Nikias said in a high-pitched, pathetic voice. “I beg you.” He pretended to weep. “Take me alive to Kyros. My father is rich. Ransom me.”

  “You gave us quite the chase,” said One Eye, standing on Nikias’s right. The raider held a coil of rope with which to bind Nikias’s arms and truss him up like a dead animal. The old man started looping one end to make a slipknot.

  “Those Oxlanders are good riders,” commented the Dog Raider standing at Nikias’s feet. This one spoke with a lisp—he had two missing incisors. He knelt and grabbed Nikias around the ankles to pinion him in place.

  “They make good screamers too,” added the raider to Nikias’s left. Nikias stole a glance at him. He was the youngest. Brown of beard. Cold, dead eyes. He scraped a hunting knife over a sharpening stone.

  “Take me alive!” screamed Nikias. “There are treasures in my father’s house!” He prepared his body to strike. A tingling heat coursed through his spine and left arm. He felt a sudden mad urge to laugh.

  Brown Beard squatted and squinted at Nikias’s face with the casual air of a butcher deciding where to cut first, running his hunting knife back and forth over the stone. “Scared?” he asked without pity.

  Nikias squirmed, crying out in mock agony. Writhing wildly, he scattered the Persian coins onto the road. “There!” he shouted. “Look!” The coins clinked with the unmistakable sound of gold and glimmered yellow in the sun.

  “Hey,” said Gray Beard with a start. “This one bleeds darics!”

  All three warriors, dazzled by the gold, lunged greedily at the coins, turning their eyes away from the young man, who they thought was dying on the road.

  And then Nikias attacked.

  His dagger flashed quickly to the right and to the left—as fast as a snake striking a hare.

  Brown Beard clutched the side of his neck with an expression of mystified surprise as his lifeblood spouted from the mortal wound gushing beneath his fingertips. One Eye toppled backward, killed instantly by the blade, which had passed through the soft underside of his chin, the roof of his mouth, and into his brain.

  The raider with the missing incisors—both hands still clenched on the coins—glared stupidly at Nikias, utterly bewildered. He blinked once before the bloodied dagger plunged deep into his eye, all the way up to the hilt.

  Nikias was on his feet before the third Dog Raider’s head hit the road. He flipped the bloody dagger, caught it by the flat of the blade, and sent it flying at the archer’s horse.

  Thwack!

  The blade sank into the animal’s chest. The horse reared and the archer somersaulted off. He reached out desperately to break his fall and landed awkwardly, his face hitting the road. His horse, meanwhile, turned and ran straight into another mount, knocking its rider to the road. That man hit the ground headfirst and lay unmoving.

  The commander scrambled to his knees, screaming through a mouthful of blood, “Kill him!” His left forearm was broken and dangled at a weird angle.

  Nikias grabbed his Sargatian lasso and ran headlong at the pack of Dog Raiders, cracking his whip in a frenzy of unleashed rage, striking their horses on the legs, rumps, and heads. The animals went wild, bucking and turning, throwing their riders. The road became a churning mass of terrified horses and trampled raiders with Nikias darting nimbly this way and that, his whip working ceaselessly, scarring flesh and hide, throwing up a red mist.

  “Thanatos!” Nikias shouted, calling on the god of death.

  One of the dismounted riders broke from the chaos, limping over to Nikias with his javelin held high, screaming openmouthed as he came. But Nikias whipped him full in the gaping maw with the Sargatian lasso—a knifelike blow that split the man’s tongue in two.

  The Dog Raider dropped his spear and reached for his mouth with both hands, his voice catching in his throat as the blinding pain hit his brain. Before the enemy could take another step Nikias cut his forehead to the bone. The Dog Raider covered his face with his arms, like an injured child. The next blow from Nikias’s whip sliced clean through the artery in his neck. Blood spurted. His knees buckled and he fell to the road.

  “Come on!” Nikias yelled, raging. “Fight me now!”

  Another Dog Raider jumped off his horse, holding his armored forearm to his face to ward off any whip blow, and charged at Nikias with his sword raised. Nikias let the man approach a few steps before lowering his arm and snapping the whip at the raider’s ankle. The braided leather cord wound itself around the warrior’s leg. Nikias leapt back, pulling up on the whip, jerking the man’s leg up high, and flipping him onto his back. And then Nikias was o
n him, driving his heel into the Dog Raider’s throat, breaking his larynx. Nikias backed away as the man writhed, gasping for air. He wouldn’t live more than a minute or two.

  Nikias quickly surveyed the scene. Brown Beard and One Eye were dead. The raider with the missing incisors—dead. The raider with the whip-lashed neck—dead. The one with the crushed larynx—dying. And two who’d been thrown from their mounts lay motionless on the road.

  Seven Dog Raiders were either dead or dying. He’d whittled them down to five. Those were good numbers. He snapped his whip over and over again, terrifying the horses.

  The commander had remounted but was having trouble controlling his bucking horse because of his broken arm. The other four horsemen were having the same difficulties with their spooked mounts.

  Nikias lowered his whip and glanced down. The Dog Raider whose throat he’d smashed with his heel had turned purple about the face, his eyes bulging from his head. He glared at Nikias with a look of profound hatred as he tried to suck in air through his destroyed windpipe.

  The dying man’s horse—a giant black gelding—came over and sniffed its master’s head. The animal trembled, blood trickling down its haunch from where Nikias had struck it with the Sargatian whip. The horse stared goggle-eyed at Nikias out of one side of its big head, its reins dangling tantalizingly just out of reach. If only he could grab the reins. He could mount the animal and ride it back to the Three Heads!

  He glanced at the five Dog Raiders up the road. They were an arrow shot away, spinning in circles, cursing at their frightened horses.

  Nikias took a slow step toward the gelding. But the instant he moved his foot the horse flinched and whinnied angrily at him, snorting. It wheeled and kicked out with its hind legs, and then ran away, tossing its head as it went. It disappeared into the fog, heading north in the direction of the mountains. Nikias swore under his breath and turned to face the mounted Dog Raiders. The five men had finally gotten their horses under control and were lined up in a row, ready to charge with their javelins pointed at him.