"They are not natural," Coronea had told him. "The Bearded Men are a witch's enchantment. They do not know fear."
But, Xanthippus thought, they could certainly induce it. He felt his men's anxiety which only grew the more they contemplated the enemy. The Bearded Men stared back at them not only fearlessly but seemingly without comprehension, their vacuous eyes accentuating their inhumanity. Xanthippus was not the only one who felt uneasy. He found Thalen deployed in the front line, dressed in Prathian black, but with a fearful look in his eye. He recalled the lad fighting Shadow Riders and knew he was not a coward.
He tried to make his tone light. "Are you ready for a real 'Prathian Battle' now, Thalen?"
That did the trick. Thalen smiled broadly. "Fuck you, Prathian," he said. The words were music to Xanthippus' ears. Lyssa, riding by his side, blushed.
"The men are crude, my dear," he said. "This one in particular. He has been cursing me since the day I met him."
"Don't make me repeat myself," Thalen said.
To Myrtilus, Xanthippus adopted a more serious air. "I owe you my life, old man," he said, remembering Myrtilus' attack on the Shadow Rider camp.
"Indeed you do," Myrtilus replied. "And Nydeon owes me five coppers. I'll survive this battle just to spite you both."
But it was the Epirians who had to fear for their survival. When the attack finally came, it broke like a storm over their lines. Nachtus led his brigades of Bearded Men straight at the ill-armored Epirians. Many of the men fled at the brutality of the initial onslaught, horrified by the fearlessness with which the Bearded Men fought. They had never faced such a heartless foe. The bronze automatons stepped over the bodies of their dead as though they were mere hummocks of earth, never once pausing their murderous advance. Short of killing them all, there seemed to be no stopping them. Nachtus knew just where to strike. Archers and javelineers swarmed over the unsteady Epirian flank while the Bearded Men cleaved into their lines. Xanthippus watched them absorb the initial shock, despairing to see men streaming away in fear. The line shuddered and bent. He was on the brink of shifting his Prathians to bolster them, knowing the move would unleash the Irrylian left upon him, when the line finally stabilized and held. Only the lateness of the attack and the setting of the sun saved them.
That night around a crackling fire with the pitiful wails of the wounded filling the air, Xanthippus met with Gorgeo and Gonatas and the other Epirian leaders.
"We cannot hold," Gonatas said. "When the dawn breaks and they attack in earnest…" His voice trailed off. His face was grimy and streaked with sweat. Xanthippus had been shocked by his appearance. When he had first met the former Irrylian prince, he had been strong and handsome, vigorous and regal in his bearing. Now, Xanthippus could not help but notice a fearful cast to his eye. His hair was shot through with white. He seemed to have aged twenty years and he spoke in a halting manner, a quavering lilt to his voice.
"They are not men," Coronea said of the Irrylians. "They must be killed, each and every one. They do not break off an attack once it has begun."
"What say you, Gorgeo?" Xanthippus asked.
"We might use the darkness to retreat," he suggested without much conviction. "Though I am weary of running. But Gonatas has the truth of it. We cannot hold. If we fight, we die. I fear the dawn, Prathian."
Xanthippus met his eye across the dancing fire. Deep shadows framed his angular face. He was the iron man, and to hear those words from his lips shook Xanthippus to the core.
He was surprised to hear Lyssa's voice break the silence. "If these Bearded Men are an enchantment as you say, Coronea, then perhaps the spell can be broken."
"Nachtus leads them," Xanthippus said, feeling hopeful. "They are clearly Nachtus' men."
Gonatas had already begun shaking his head before Xanthippus had even finished. "It is imp-p-possible. He cuts down great swaths of men with a single stroke of his sword. He is a f-f-fearsome creature. I hesitate to call him a m-m-man."
Xanthippus felt a rising annoyance. They could not hold, they could not advance or retreat. He had heard enough of impossibilities. Coronea cut him off, however, before he could speak.
"Of all of us, we alone have fought them," she said, thrusting an arm around Gonatas' waist. She looked around the group defiantly. "You will forgive us if we understand the challenge we face."
Xanthippus let out a sigh. "I ask only if you can hold," he said, "and you have answered me honestly. It is the Prathians who will fight tomorrow. But the Epirians must hold. That is all I ask. Lyssa," he called and Lyssa looked at him with an anxious expression, "do you know where Mormaso is?"
"Yes," she said. "I know it well. This is the Mormaso road. The town lies but half-a-league from where we sit."
Xanthippus nodded. "Take Coronea and twenty of my Guardsmen. Speak to the town council in the name of Areus and bring back all the men, young and old, and all the strong young women of the town, along with every shovel and pick they can put their hands on."
Lyssa smiled, happy to play a role more suited to her than to any other in the group. "I know the council, and they know me," she said. "It is done."
"What is the meaning of this, Xanthippus?" Gonatas asked.
"Tomorrow we fight, but tonight we dig," Xanthippus said. He went on to explain to them that they would build a trench in front of the Epirian lines, a trench even Bearded Men might find daunting when backed by a determined enemy whose hearts seethed with hatred. "Do not let any…man…across the trench. I will lead the Guard and sweep the Irrylians towards you. We will crush them between us."
Skeptical, Gonatas averted his gaze. Gorgeo's eyes remained fixed on Xanthippus. "It is cowardice," he said.
"It is your only chance for life, Gorgeo. Do not be so eager to die."
But he did not fault Gonatas for his skepticism. Normally, he could count on the fear and crumbling resolve of an enemy, especially when facing the Prathian Guard. He had never considered the possibility that an enemy would not know fear.
He was in a foul mood when he returned to the Prathian lines only to find that their flank was under attack by flights of arrows issuing from a nearby copse. The men tried returning fire, but shooting through darkness into the cover of the trees, they had no hope of hitting anything. Enemy fire continued unabated.
"The men will never get any sleep tonight with those arrows flying out of the sky at them," Nydeon reported when he had returned. One of the arrows had lodged in his shield. He pulled it out and slammed it to the ground.
"By gods, we're going in then!" Xanthippus declared. It was unthinkable to him that he should have attained command of the Guard just to see it destroyed in its first action, and all of Prathia lost. That this nuisance would be added to the very real possibility of his destruction was more than he could bear.
He and Nydeon gathered up Myrtilus, Thalen and fifty other Guardsmen to attack. They lined up outside the little oak wood and leveled their spears. They would flush the Irrylian bastards from their cover like rabbits.
They could see arrows flying over their heads, thin black streaks barely visible in the night sky. Of the wood, they could see very little but where the leafy branches extended above the horizon. Dressed in their Prathian black, they remained unseen by the archers in the wood. They brought several torches with them, but Xanthippus had ordered them to remain unlit. He wanted to take the enemy by surprise. On his word, the line began running. As far as Xanthippus was concerned, it was a blessed relief.
When they crashed into the wood, they found the first of the archers in the act of nocking an arrow. At the moment Xanthippus drove his spear into the man's side, he had actually been laughing at some remark offered by a nearby companion. The man was not bearded, nor was he armored at all. He was all too human. A grimace transformed his smiling face into a mask of pain as he clutched at his gut where Xanthippus' spear point exited his flesh. The wood was suddenly alive with sound and mayhem.
Myrtilus and Nydeon raced past Xanthippus on eithe
r side. The dead archer's jesting companion was the next to fall, but none of the other archers waited to witness his fate. Shouting in fear, they turned and bolted noisily through the brush with the Guard hot on their heels. Screams and the sounds of bodies crashing through leafy branches filled the little wood. Some of the Irrylians hid rather than fled, but it was too dark to find them. The Prathians began lighting their torches and soon tree trunks and underbrush alike were bathed in torchlight.
Though he could hear men fighting and crying out in the distance, the wood seemed oddly empty to Xanthippus. One of the men with him carried a torch and he and Nydeon approached a small clearing and stopped when they saw something at the far edge of it.
As soon as he found himself illuminated by the sphere of torchlight, the Bearded Man looked up. He was down on one knee, pulling a bloody sword from the breast of a Guardsman, showing no more alarm than a man gutting a fish on a riverbank. Xanthippus felt a thrill of fear shoot through him. The thing stood and seemed to regard the Prathians menacingly with its hollow eyes. The Bearded Man stepped over the dead Guardsman. Before his foot hit the ground, two more appeared out of the brush on either side of him. Xanthippus, Nydeon and the torch-bearer found themselves facing three of the things that Coronea had told them were not natural men.
Xanthippus saw now that while telling was one thing, seeing was quite another.
The Prathians exchanged glances, lowered their spears and charged. Shieldless, the Bearded Men hacked at the thrusting spears, dancing aside with surprising agility. Xanthippus caught the first one in the side, but his spear point glanced off the thing's breastplate. He immediately lifted his shield to block the return slash from the Bearded Man's sword, a powerful blow that he could feel rattling his bones even through his bronze-faced shield. With inhuman speed, the thing immediately stabbed at him. Xanthippus dropped his shield down hard, catching the edge of the blade with its rim. Then he shoved with all his might, intending to pulverize the Bearded Man, and plowed him into the ground with his shield. Xanthippus reared back and thrust his spear into the thing's breast, driving the point deep until he could feel it digging into the ground beneath it. He yanked the point free of the armor, releasing, not a fountain of blood, but a gushing of steam and searing heat. He drew back in amazement as the life hissed out of the Bearded Man's hollow breast.
When he looked up again, he saw another of the bronze men staggering drunkenly with Nydeon's spear piercing him clean through. Nydeon had drawn his sword and he watched the Bearded Man totter away from him before falling on his face, pushing the spear out his back. Ribbons of steam trickled out around the shaft.
"Gods preserve us!" Nydeon muttered.
The third bronze man had lunged at the torch-bearer who saved himself behind his shield. He thrust his torch into the thing's face, but the Bearded Man swept it aside and in a shower of sparks the torch leapt out of the Prathian's hand. It spun off into the dry brush and began to burn while the Bearded Man slashed a bloody stripe into the man's thigh. Grimacing in pain, he cried out and staggered back, groping for his sword. Xanthippus turned to charge when he saw Nydeon swing his sword with both hands, lopping the Bearded Man's head from its bronze shoulders with a clash of metal. The thing fell forward and the wounded Prathian fell back, scrambling away so it would not land on top of him. As the headless thing lay smoking at his feet, he stared at it, terrified, as if he expected it to rise again.
Xanthippus rushed to the man and helped him to his feet. The fire had already spread and was beginning to climb the trees that grew out of the burning brush. He could feel its heat on his back as the man thrust his arm around his shoulders. His leg was red with blood. Nydeon grabbed his other arm and together they carried him quickly out of the burning wood.
Back near the Prathian lines they found most of the men they had left with. Others sprinted up the slope from the burning wood and joined them as physicians tended to the wounded man. After taking stock of the missing and the dead - only three men failed to return - Myrtilus looked down on the growing conflagration which illuminated half of the Prathian position.
"No more missiles will be coming from there," he said without satisfaction, even as the screams began dying away.
Xanthippus reflected that while the archers had been human and easy to chase off, the Bearded Men had been something else entirely.
Privately, he confided to Nydeon, "I believe we are going to die." No one could have been more astonished than he was to hear those words fall from his lips. It may have been the first time in his life that he had ever truly believed it. Or it may have been the first time he had ever believed it without welcoming it. It did him no good at all that Nydeon did not argue with him.
By the time the dawn began to purple the sky above the distant black hills, the wood had been reduced to smoking charcoal. Riding to the Epirian lines, he saw that the trench was only half done, half as deep and half as wide as he knew would be necessary to impede an Irrylian attack. There simply had not been enough time. After his experience with the Bearded Men, he was not so sure even a full-sized trench would have been much better. The workers - soldiers and old men, women and boys - had all climbed out of the ditch and fled when the sunrise found Nachtus glowering across the field at them with a bolstered array of Bearded Men, archers, spearmen and heavy horse. The giant knew now where to hit them and had spent the night re-deploying his forces. With a sinking heart, Xanthippus could see that his trench would do little to thwart him. He rode back to the Prathian lines. His attack would have to be launched at once with vigor and without regard to their survival. The sheer size of the Irrylian army would absorb his attack, he felt, but there was no choice. If they would die, they would die fighting.
He found Lyssa sitting near the burnt-out campfire on the Mormaso road. Her gown was dirty and torn, her face smeared with mud. Her hair hung in damp strands around her face. He dismounted and came to her. When she caught sight of him, he saw such a look of adoration in her eyes that his heart immediately melted. He ran to her and grasped her in his arms.
"We dug all night," she said. "All the people of the town, with all of their shovels and picks…We did the best we could."
Xanthippus saw that she was exhausted. "That trench will save us," he said, noticing a look of pride in her eyes. He had begun to see a deep well of courage and determination in this girl. "But you must promise me, Lyssa."
A troubled look creased her brow. "Promise what?" she asked.
"Should the battle go against us, you must promise to--"
"But the battle will not go against us," she said, cutting him short.
Xanthippus would not be put off. He overrode her voice in a more forceful tone, "You must promise to ride hard for Serusi--"
"No!"
"Go to Areus and board a ship--"
"I will not leave here without you," she said sternly.
"If we fail, there is nothing standing between Serusi and these monsters--"
"If we fail, then we die. That is the end of it. There are no ships, I will not leave here…"
"Xanthippus!" He jerked his head around to look over his shoulder. Men were calling his name. In the distance, he could hear the Irrylians banging their weapons against their shields, and he could hear Nachtus' deep, booming voice rising above all. He was shouting for them to surrender, offering the Epirians merciful treatment. The sound sent a chill down his spine.
"My men await me, Lyssa." When he looked back to her, he wondered if it would be the last time he would ever see her.
Then he began to hear a different sound. It started as a low murmur, the clattering of thousands of men turning, followed by choruses of excited voices that soon became uncertain cheers of joy.
Xanthippus looked about him in confusion. Men were turning to peer behind them. Men in the rear ranks wandered off to get a closer look and relayed what they saw to others. Men began raising their weapons over their heads. Men began cheering.
Xanthippus stood and gazed into t
he distance. The sun had peaked over the hills and the valley below was awash in its light. A long black mass of shadows crept across the plain under a cloud of dust that could only have been thrown up by thousands of marching feet. Preceding it was what for an instant appeared to be a giant, a black figure that seemed to stretch to the sky.
Xanthippus gave a start. Men were cheering this? Yet another giant leading another army. What could it be but more Irrylians come to crush their enemy between them?
As he continued to gaze into the plain, the figure resolved itself out of the mirage of rapidly warming air into that of a mounted man, a man in gleaming armor who shone brighter than the sun.
"Eagle Man!" someone gasped. Xanthippus snapped his head toward the sound. He knew the name. He had heard it in Tygetia. More recently, he had heard it from the Epirians who knew that it was what Hurrus was called in his homeland, a name that stirred the Epirians' imaginations to unknown heights. Their chests had swelled with pride when they had learned of it. And when the first man let fly the name - "Eagle Man!" - others took it up and the next man Xanthippus saw utter it did so forcefully and with tears welling in his eyes.
"Eagle Man!" all of the Epirian army began shouting when they recognized who it must be. "Eagle Man! Eagle Man!"
Xanthippus did not dare hope, but after he got a good look at the man in his polished silver armor, the eagle wings spreading from the crown of his helm, the regal purple cloak overlaid by his long golden hair, he did not have to be told who it was. He could see at once why the Epirians called the man their king, for looking at him Xanthippus saw that he could be nothing else.
Lyssa had been standing at his side and he had not realized it until he heard her voice whispering in awe. "They are magnificent!"
At Hurrus' side rode the woman who must have been his queen, a woman of surpassing beauty who wore a slender golden crown nestled in the rich waves of her auburn-tinged black hair.
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