by P. K. Lentz
After one verse, Brasidas withdrew his voice from the soaring elegy, drew his sword and clashed its blade against the edge of his battered shield, once, twice, three times. On the first clash, the chanting ceased. On the second, the Spartan contingent around him locked shields and set their spears, those who had them, while the rest of the seething mass on the bridge turned its backs to the hundreds of watchers arrayed on the Strymon's western bank.
On the third clash, they charged.
The tide of men surged east, toward Alkibiades and the men he led, freshly emerging from the hills. Alkibiades' force consisted almost entirely of javelin-armed Imbrian light infantry, whose crescent-shaped shields of hide-covered wicker had no chance of withstanding a crushing metal tide such as that which they faced. Had the Thracians stayed with the main body instead of breaking ranks to chase their enemy into the marsh, it might have been different. Then, at least, Alkibiades might have made up in numbers what his force lacked in quality. As it was, the scant one hundred Athenian hoplites under Alkibiades' command stood only two ranks deep between hastily formed wings of light infantry.
To their credit, they all stood their ground, the Athenians at the center setting their spears and locking shields to receive the charge. Alkibiades himself was among them, in front, easily picked out by his shield rimmed with gold and inlaid in fragile ivory with a figure of winged Eros wielding a thunderbolt.
To prevent Demosthenes' men on the east bank intervening, Brasidas had left a rear-guard, and a fearsome one at that: about half of the total surviving Spartan contingent kept their hard eyes and lambda-blazoned shields facing the rising sun while their fellows streamed away. Those left behind were the most grievously wounded of the bunch, men whose faces were masks of gore, whose breastplates bore round holes from which blood issued; men who could hardly stand without the aid of their spears. But their wounds made them hardly less formidable, for as the bridge emptied they had slowly fallen back to its mouth where they formed up seven across and two ranks deep to form a spear-studded wall of flesh and bronze that filled the space between the bridge's rails. They were doomed, these men, and they knew it, but they knew also that their sacrifice was not in vain. Though fourteen men could not hope to defeat an Athenian army, given the strength of their position they could hardly fail to delay it long enough that by the time any relief crossed over, the fighting on the west bank would be over.
Before joining the westward tide, Brasidas clapped several of the doomed men on their armored shoulders and spoke words inaudible over the war cries of the three hundred or more men getting underway behind him. He could hardly have told them much more than, "Die well."
The order for a frontal assault on the bridge hovered on Demosthenes' lips, but it never landed. No, there was simply too much to lose. Any force that managed to cross that bridge would do so over a heap of its own dead.
The lone alternative was a trail leading north through the marshes, which led to a ford. Cavalry could reach the ford and cross it in eight minutes, give or take, and then to reach the battlefield would take them the same again, by which time the fight was all but certain to be over.
Still, something had to be done.
Digging his heels into Balios' flanks Demosthenes drove forward into the Strymon's chill, swift waters. When the charger sensed no end in sight to the rising water, Demosthenes laid a hand alongside the beast's twisting neck to calm him as the current lapped his sweating haunches. By the time they reached the river's midpoint, Balios' back was fully submerged and the cupped iron plates of Demosthenes' armor clinked and flapped as foaming water swirled under and around them. The horse was scarcely visible but for his snout, but still he obeyed the labored, submarine kicks from his determined rider until at last, fighting the current that labored to shove him into the sea, Balios emerged from the broad Strymon trailing water in streams like some steed of Nereus bursting from a white-capped wave. The horse's forehooves planted at last on solid earth, he resumed his gallop and must have shared his rider's sense of triumph as together they set their sights on the backs of fleeing Spartans. The deep crossing had been new to Balios, but this, the riding down of a fleeing enemy, was an endeavor he understood.
Behind, encouraged by their hipparch's success, others of the citizen cavalry were attempting the ford, some with better luck than others. Of the eight who set out and at whom Demosthenes gave an occasional backward glance, five made it, the other three being washed downstream where men and beasts were sure eventually to find some way to shore, with or without the aid of the comrades who scrambled to offer aid.
Ahead, to the west, two masses of men, one screaming and running full tilt, the other grim and still, collided. The great clash of hundreds of overlapped shields rang out over the Strymon, and dying groans soared skyward whilst shades fled into the earth as men on both sides inevitably were cut down. Brasidas had aimed his charge directly at the Athenian hoplite center rather than at the weaker flanks which almost certainly would have given way. It was a risky strategy which required the Athenian phalanx to collapse immediately, for if they held for even a few minutes then Brasidas's force risked envelopment by the light-armed wings, who could then cast javelins at will into his unshielded flanks.
But if the center broke, the Spartans' way to freedom would be clear. Demosthenes knew he would have made the same choice in Brasidas's position, or he wished to think so.
He rode hard toward this freshly developed Battle of the Strymon Bridge, where the shoving match was on. Defeated men pushed with all the strength left in their tired limbs to steal freedom back from the maw of defeat, while their foes dug in heels to complete a victory already won. The latter had heart, but the former had cause to fight harder, and they had the momentum, too.
The prayer that Demosthenes sent into the bleak Thracian sky on Alkibiades' behalf was a somewhat empty one, but even had the words been heartfelt, not even a god could have staved off the inevitable. After holding fast for less than a minute, the Athenian line shattered.
Maybe the gods did send one small blessing: knowing that he was beaten, Brasidas gave no pause for slaughter. The instant the way was clear, his men broke into a run, making a line straight for the woodland cover which not an hour ago had been used to deadly effect against them.
But whether they knew it yet or not, their freedom was far from certain. Pursuit was hard on their heels. Demosthenes' eyes hunted down Brasidas in the mass of troops, and found him quickly enough near the rear of the fleeing mass. Having stood on the eastern edge of the bridge, he had been among the last to leave it.
Demosthenes craned his neck to shout back at those comrades who had succeeded in fording the river with him, a number which was growing as more made the attempt for a second and third time.
"Brasidas!" he cried. "Kill Brasidas!"
He kicked his heels in the stirrups and urged Balios on, though the beast could hardly move any faster. The frosted plain shook beneath pounding hooves, chunky snowflakes flew past in a blur, and all Demosthenes saw was Brasidas, hair flying around the rim of the bouncing hoplon slung on his back.
But the enemy general must have felt those hooves and known what they meant for his chances of escape, for after shouting orders left and right he stopped short and whirled to stand his ground, and so did all the fifteen remaining Spartans, whose shields flew from their backs to form a hasty wall. Those who had lugged their heavy spears from the bridge were glad now to have kept them; they dug in the butt-spikes and lowered the shafts to welcome the oncoming pursuit. Brasidas had only his sword, which he drew and held ready.
The sight sent a fresh surge of battle delirium through Demosthenes' veins, but not enough to turn him into a blind fool. Squeezing Balios' flanks, he veered right, away from the shield wall, denying Brasidas the engagement he desired, and raised a hand in the signal for encirclement. The five or so Athenians immediately behind him obeyed, splitting left and right and riding a ring around their trapped quarry.
Even n
ow, Brasidas was not one to give up. He shouted another command, and the wall of fourteen brave freed Helots disintegrated. Its members, shrieking war cries, charged their mounted pursuers with weapons held high like so many sheep-raiding Illyrian hordesmen.
Three of their number—along with Brasidas himself—came after Demosthenes, easily singled out by his helmet's white plume. He wheeled Balios away, but the four assailants spread out with the aim of converging on him from different directions. As quickly as that, hunters had become prey.
Demosthenes kept what distance he could from his attackers. An eastward glance told him another handful of citizens had made the river crossing, while closer still Alkibiades' hoplites had regrouped and begun to race to help. If he could stall and avoid Brasidas long enough, he would have numbers on his side.
But no. A day might be won by stalling and avoidance, but not a war. Certainly not a war against Fate herself. Ignoring all else, he set his doe eyes on Brasidas, grit his teeth and surrendered to the battle delirium. A few pounding hoofbeats, and his long cavalryman's sword, already held poised, swooped in a flat arc aimed at Brasidas' neck.
The Spartiate's blood-streaked, hawklike face vanished behind his hoplon and the sword's edge bit not flesh and bone but bronze-shod wood. Demosthenes wheeled round and attacked again and again, forced to fend off attacks from the Helots as he went–he stabbed the face of one who tried to drag him down–but always he fought toward Brasidas. Only with the general's blood soaking the frozen earth of Amphipolis would today's victory be complete.
Help came to his side in the form of a pair of citizens driving off the Helots, and the way to Brasidas was clear. Demosthenes charged. Brasidas dropped down onto one knee and set his sword and battered hoplon to meet it. As he galloped past, Demosthenes' blade sheared a corner off of the Spartan's shield. Balios screamed, and soon enough Demosthenes saw why: black blood streamed from Brasidas's sword. Horse blood.
Stricken Balios' forelegs buckled, sending Demosthenes tumbling to the ground. Thankfully, his scale armor bore the brunt of the landing, but the wind was knocked out of him and he knew he had scant seconds to catch it if he hoped to live long enough to fight for his life.
He had hardly sucked one shuddering breath before the gore-caked, soiled figure of his Spartan counterpart filled the empty expanse of clouds between the cheek pieces of his helmet. His hands were empty, he realized, his sword nowhere to be found. At least not quickly enough to matter. Yet if he made no move, he would be dead and the laurels due him in Athens would crown his corpse here in distant Thrace instead.
Forgoing a frantic search for his weapon, Demosthenes set his hands and feet instead to getting upright, but he barely made it into an unsteady crouch before Brasidas was on him. Pain lanced through his midsection on the left just below his ribs, where any hoplite worth the price of his panoply, not least a Spartiate killing machine, was trained to aim the death blow. The back of Demosthenes' head struck the cold ground, bounced and struck again. The earth rose up to swallow him, and a winter sky the color of a goddess' eyes faded from view. Laughing at himself for having had the gall to challenge Fate, the chains of which bound even the gods, Demosthenes surrendered himself to the grip of death.
III. AMPHIPOLIS 6. Prisoner
The chill, uneven surface rumbled under his back. His own breath rasped in his ears, overwhelming the din of frantic shouting from somewhere outside the bronze shell encasing his head.
He opened his eyes, looked up on an expanse of winter sky, and he remembered.
At once, all the muscles of his body sprang to life. He scrambled upright, or tried to. In a clatter of iron and bronze, he lost his balance and tumbled onto one knee before rising and whipping his head around in search of Brasidas.
His eyes found instead the hulking forms of horses and their riders swirling around him. One of several unmounted cavalrymen he discovered standing closer to him cried out, "Demosthenes lives!"
Yes, so it seemed. But how? He remembered the killing stroke, still felt its spider-like ghost on his torso just under the ribs. And where was his killer? He cast urgent looks about, still half expecting attack, but Brasidas was nowhere to be found, only fellow Athenians. Accepting that the danger was past, Demosthenes struggled to remove his heavy helmet. As he did, a supporting hand appeared under his arm.
"If you're looking for Brasidas," the arm's Athenian owner said with a smile, "he is on his way to Amphipolis via the ford to the north, slung over Leokrates' saddle and roped like a goat!"
"Captured?" Demosthenes asked, perhaps stupidly. "How?"
"Leokrates struck and wounded him just after you fell, only minutes ago. A few other Spartans were captured, too, but we thought it best to get our prize safely behind the walls as quickly as possible."
Demosthenes nodded instant approval, even if privately he would as soon have left Amphipolis without such a 'prize.' Once captured, an enemy general could not safely be killed, lest the same treatment befall the next Athenian of high value who fell into enemy hands.
Brasidas had his life, but so did Demosthenes, and he was determined that it had not only been saved so he could do Thalassia's will. Who cared if her plans were better served by Brasidas's death? She had run off to who knew where, perhaps forever.
Good riddance was surely too harsh a thought, but So be it seemed apt. Athens had a chance to rise now because of her, and it would be mortal men who squandered that chance or made good on it. That was as it should be.
"I'll see Leokrates gets the prize for valor," Demosthenes said of the comrade who had saved his life, then asked, "What of the bridge?"
"Still held by half-dead slaves. Perhaps once they hear of Brasidas's fate, they'll yield."
Thanking his comrades as he broke from them, Demosthenes went first to the crumpled corpse of black Balios, whom someone had had the decency to put out of his misery. He knelt beside the fallen beast, touched his mane and thanked him for his part in bringing victory. Then he started for the Strymon, learning along the way that the Athenian casualties of the breakout had been light. Only eleven men, and Alkibiades not among them.
He had not forgotten, of course, that Athens that day should have counted Demosthenes among its dead. So why did she not? He surely had not imagined the blow. As he walked, his hand kept going to the spot where there should have been a wound. Instead there was only a dull throbbing which flared to mild pain with every breath. He searched among the iron scales of his armor in search of the spot where the sword had entered and at length found a split in the leather and worked a finger through it.
No matter how it turned and twisted and pushed, the finger never met bare flesh. And neither, he realized, had Brasidas's blade. Smooth and pliable, the layer of fabric between leather and skin stretched and conformed to any attempt at penetration, then snapped back.
Spun bronze, he had called the small scrap of her clothing which Thalassia had brought with her to Pylos, and she, without his knowledge it seemed, had affixed it inside the leather lining of his armor at precisely the spot he was most likely to be run through.
Already his city owed her, as did he personally for naming the time and place of his appointment with death so that he might avoid it. Now, in an even more meaningful sense, he owed her his life.
Shit.
He came at last to the bridge where the grim, blood-streaked faces and demonic eyes of fourteen steadfast martyrs were as hard as the blades of their set spears. Alkibiades' men had begun to gather on the western bank, forcing the bridge's defenders to split in half to face either side. Those facing west could hardly have missed the defeat of their comrades, but if so, the sight seemed to have made them no less determined to die.
A voice called to Demosthenes from the opposite bank: "Strategos, we have more than enough bolts to kill them! Shall we?"
It was Straton, and after a moment's thought Demosthenes signaled him the negative and descended the bank to take up a spot hardly two spear lengths from the west-facing line
of Brasidas's rear guard, the fourteen men who were all that yet stood of the force which was to have taken Amphipolis.
"You men are Helots, no?" Demosthenes said to them. "The leader who brought you to this place will be my prisoner, if he survives his wounds. Those of you who wish may leave here as free men. We will even do our best to treat your wounds. Any who choose to stand fast and die, we shall oblige, but I fear you will have to settle for death by spindles. I would be glad to starve you, but unfortunately we need to use this bridge. You have as long as it takes me to step out of harm's way and give the command to fire."
With that Demosthenes turned his back on them and began withdrawing to the Athenian line at a leisurely pace, confident that at least some of the slave-born fighters behind him would question their loyalty to their distant masters, even as they wondered whether word of the decision they made here could somehow reach home and affect the fates of their families.
A cheer suddenly erupted among the Athenians, and Demosthenes turned to see a bowl shaped shield rocking on the planks of the bridge. The owner who had cast it down ran for shore with one stiff, bloodied leg dragging behind him. His example made it easier for the others to choose life, which they proceeded to do almost to a man. Within the space of a minute, only four men remained on the bridge, one of them standing in such a pool of blood that it streamed off the planks and into the Strymon. Another likely remained upright only thanks to his spear shaft. The four were given one final opportunity to stand aside, which they refused, before Demosthenes signaled gravely to Straton on the opposite bank.
The unwieldy belly-bows, already strung, were raised and aimed, and enough iron-tipped skewers flew to kill those four men and ten more besides. The Helot's shields and battered bodies were pierced, and they crumpled without a sound to the bridge, surrendering their shades to Hades for a city which had enslaved their forefathers.