Chapter 2.
The sons of Hephaestus rejoiced in a sudden torrent of rainfall that shed across the blood bogged fields of Arillia, their skin relieved of the reddened earth plastering them from head to foot. The warlord of Greece looked up into the heavens at a looming flock of crows darkening the grey skies, waiting to feast upon the fetid corpses many meters beneath. The dead lined the ground for as far as their black eyes allowed them to see, yet they would not land until all signs of life had dispersed from the strife ridden field, still plagued by the whimpers of a thousand dying men.
“You are Arbicos?” A wilting peasant cried kneeling before the Hellenic warrior, his clean robes rapidly soaking up the red from the drenched grounds. The warlord did not speak, he nodded at the man without meeting his gaze, his blood shot eyes were flooded with water, not a mark on his face, merely a look of lost hope. “Your name echoes across Europa. The neutrals say you are their saviour, our enemy’s say you are Hades himself.” The pale stranger reached out his arms mercifully.
The young warlord stood with a raised chin, splaying his thick neck, as the oath he took before his pathetic king rang out in his mind. Never turned off, he was tortured by thoughts of sin and despair, but he knew not how to rest, how to stop fulfilling his oath:
I bleed the blood of our makers, for my country, and all of the Hellenes. My sword is my dynasty, my shield the walls of our nation. My life for the Athenians, my spirit never diminishing, to the death in war. I take this pledge to stand as the protector of Greece, its people, and its king.
The Athenians said that Arbicos’ shield alone was half the wall of their nation. A legend in his own time, he was revered by all who whispered his name.
The face of the man had never been touched by a blade nor stricken by any means for he fought with impeccable wit and calm, though every face he had ever relinquished of life grieved him in his dreams and haunted his every footstep. Killing came so naturally to the warlord, yet with every life he took, he stepped closer to taking his own. From his first kill to his last the warrior suffered a personal grief unknown to his peers, his thoughts were dark and his depressive misery darker.
The unrivalled warrior turned about to look at his men, many already looking upon his absent gaze for a signal to their next actions, he raised up his shield and roared with might. For as far as they stood the war cry reverberated, his loyal troops joining him in celebration. Apart from the heavy belt of his makers that a warlord was accustomed to wear, merely marching amongst his people he was undistinguishable. Every soldier of the Athenian army was of impressive physical appearance, and the dark hair and black eyes of his men were most common amongst Hellenic society.
His own eyes were heavily baggy for an inability to secure a peaceful nights rest. Guilt and hatred enthralled him and bound him to a solitary existence, often only being seen during times of war. On the field of battle however the warlord was a changed man, the shadows of his past and present dissipated as the adrenaline of combat surged through his veins and brought all the darkness that subdued him with it to be unleashed upon his unfortunate foes, it was in the heat of battle that the warlord burned brightly amongst his soldiers.
“Shall I reform the men, warlord?” Chroniclus, the warlord’s loyal troop captain spluttered with heavy breaths at Arbicos who nodded dreamily, then spoke himself, his voice rumbling like rolling thunder.
“Gather them, Chroniclus, we march north. The Egyptians send an emissary to our shores with grave news, in three eves time Arbephest speaks, we must make haste.” Returning the gesture his tall captain turned about, and with a bellowing call ushered the troops towards their leader.
These recent times had been the darkest Arbicos had seen. Strange events were occurring across his lands in both the skies and within the ground. The Hellenes were used to tranquil weathers all year round, and few tremors beneath their fertile soil, yet within these passing months the country had witnessed a horrific splitting of the very earth that once lined its home and erratic weather patterns that ignored the seasonal cycles. The skies had become dark and peculiar colours amidst the clouds kept men of all walks of life on edge. Very few had lived in an age when the thin air above them resonated with the sounds of great sea beasts.
Beneath the warlord’s army, though in a time when the people within the Pillars of Hercules recognised the north as the south, and the east as the west, as the Egyptians believed that the latitudes of the earth laid so, rested a vast countryside of seldom touched tranquillity. The wilds were as dangerous to a man as a battlefield for beasts of all imaginable forms lurked amongst the flora.
The Athenian army hastily reformed their lines in preparation to march home. They had barely lost of a man of Arbicos’ thousand soldier troop for their discipline in combat was unseen anywhere else in the world, they were born warriors, and served their warlord and country with an incorruptible devotion.
Four males who had fallen in Arillia were lifted upon quickly crafted wooden stretchers and carried alternately by the ranks of Athenian troops. Their lost brothers would be given the burial of a Hellenic warrior once they reached their home in Cele.
Despite minor injuries many of Arbicos’ troops had suffered, the men held their ranks and the task of marching home began. It was once a five day journey from the borders of Europa back to Cele, however in the passing weeks a horrendous tear had parted the north and south of Greece, leaving a huge outcrop at its northern mass. Hellenic travellers were now forced to travel north east into the harbour of Taloma, a trade town located on the south east coast of Greece, and sail down the east side of the country, and across the small expanse of ocean that now divided the land. The Athenian territory was no longer, but for a small corridor of ground that connected the country at its western stretch, attached to the rest of the Hellenes. Though few of the nation’s people truly knew of this, the news was spreading quickly.
The catastrophic eruption and flooding of the land had caused an uproar amongst philosophers and priests and prophecy tellers, in the chaos Arillia was invaded, for the usurpers assumed that the Athenians would be in disorder and perhaps, for a brief moment, fail to keep the free world liberated.
Arbicos walked ahead of his men, he held no interest in the common guffaws nor shameless talk he heard many of them so frequently partake in. His solitary existence and lack of interaction laid an even greater aura of mystery about him. There were very few with whom he was accustomed to addressing as a friend or whose company he took pleasure in. His memories alone were enough to send him into a downward spiral of subduing darkness.
Despite an endless effort to avoid his misery there were thoughts of one thing he could never prevent from plaguing his mind. The mental wounds left upon him by his own father and thoughts of his childhood scarred him above all else, he had never known what it was to be praised, not even as little as a nod of acknowledgement.
For much of his early life his father had treated him like an animal, to give you strength were the words he used. The desire to see his child rise to prominence drove him to brutally beat Arbicos until he had attained his place amongst the Athenian ranks, even then he showed no sign of recognition to his son.
Unbeknown to the warlord, it was the proudest moment of his father’s life, to watch in his dying days his first born son stand as protector of all the Hellenes. The death of his father as he stepped up to this post left the warlord bitter, for it was his father’s force that had drove him to this position. Upon his death he lost the right to grow out of his grip and bare him witness to those things that he had no control over.
From his childhood memories to what he was as a grown man, he hated himself and the fate that had been put upon him by the makers, seething with a bitterness that rarely resided. The warrior often seemed as though he was in a hesitance trance, but in reality it was an intent focus to avoid his mind straying away from the only light he knew that dispersed the darkness.
There was a particular urgency and stride to Arbicos’ movement
s, so much so his army struggled to keep up pace for the fatigue of battle and burden of carrying the dead, though his men knew not of his purpose.
The young male suddenly froze before a thick outcrop of shrubbery and knelt upon one knee, raising his arm up he displayed a clenched fist. Instantaneously the ranks of his men seized their advance and followed his lead. Chroniclus made haste ahead of the troop and knelt with his leader to observe the reason for their abrupt halt. His soldiers rested with spear tips prepared, leaning violently outwards upon a united wall of shields enclosed like the chitinous back of a giant arthropod.
They wore no helmets, no armour, no coloured garbs nor anything that displayed a suggestion of vanity or superficial means. They crafted with bronze, dedicated smiths, said to have been passed down from Hephaestus himself. Spears tipped with razor sharp bronze heads and impenetrable shields that overwhelmed the most steadfast of enemies, their sword blades could behead a man with the lightest effort. These were the weapons of no primitive warriors, but of a nation that had been honing its art for millennia. To the death in war was not just a recital by a warlord, it was the way of life for any who rose to the ranks of the Athenian military.
“By Athena, I thought they were no more, warlord.” Without saying a word Arbicos raised his hand again, displaying five digits. The front five men of his troop made their way forward and knelt with their leader. Arbicos whispered to them, his deep voice calm and authoritative.
“We rush from the bushes to startle it, be ready to defend yourselves whoever it goes for, we will slay it from behind when it focuses upon you.” He rose his other arm up with a closed palm to signal the rest of his men to come forward and hold. Before they moved a sudden wind flooded through them carrying with it a bitter chill unlike any the Hellenic men had ever known.
The discomfort of the moment distracted Arbicos as the lightest, coldest touch landed upon his shoulder. Every man looked up into the sky which had become engulfed in thick pink clouds, and upon them from above drifted the lightest snow, though it was thin spread, the men had only ever heard stories of such weather in their life. To see it falling for the first time struck some with fear, and others with amazement.
Arbicos looked at Chroniclus with puzzled expression. “Ice from the sky?”
“Perhaps it’s a sign from Hephaestus, warlord.” His gaze drifted away and for a moment appeared lost in thought before springing to life.
“Up!” His selected warriors sprang from the bushes to surround their target.
The huge lion did not flinch as the Athenians rushed from the foliage. He rose calmly from his resting position revealing a litter of kin. His aged gaze locked upon Arbicos, the cubs he guarded had no idea what his grizzled face had seen, nor had he memory of it. What blood had poured from his healed wounds to secure them this moment in existence. There was no hope for him. His resilience to conflict had reached its peak long ago, though protecting his young would have certainly brought about his last efforts of strength. Lost amongst the Athenians the male had no need to fight, for his last stand was obvious. He would have fought to the finish against sword or claw.
Arbicos stared into the eyes of the animal, a shiver cut through him. He could only imagine what the warrior had experienced in its time. He looked at the lion king and imagined his country if his own leader had such natural prestige. His men could have gathered around the colossal animal and slain it, but he respected it. All that it lived for was not so dissimilar to his own existence. Nodding at Chroniclus, and gesturing that his men avoid conflict with the fearless beast they each stepped with utmost delicacy around the barren ground upon which the animal stood.
In every direction the men looked the wilderness was scarce of wildlife, it seemed that nature was aware of the great king resting amidst. Not far past the enclosed dead shrubbery the ground led to a ridge which Arbicos quickly discovered dropped sharply down a small distance onto an incredibly fertile green plateau. From the sight of the skilfully crafted blockades, encircling a vast wooden building that dwarfed many structures he had ever seen, he knew he must have stumbled across a Hellenic smallholding.
Not a living soul moved across the plane though the warlord was eager for the prospect of his troops gaining a moment of safe rest for their troubles in Arillia.
“Lead the troops, captain, I’ll join you once all are accounted for.” Chroniclus nodded at his leader and was the first to descend the grey rock ridge. The men flooded down the terrain like ants.
Chroniclus approached the defensive barricades of the property which had been fashioned into immense wooden spikes, most likely in an effort to deter the beasts of the wild. Upon approach a starched voice yelled out causing the captain to slow his pace.
“If you’re raiders I advise you turn about now. You’ll find little here other than the sharp of my blade.” Chroniclus was undeterred by the threats that came from beyond the barricade yet he had no interest in causing fright to one of his countrymen, he looked fifty meters back and saw that the last troops had scaled the ridge. Suddenly the captain noticed a pair of eyes appear gazing through a gap in the woodwork that was little more than five feet from the ground.
“We are the sons of Hephaestus, returning from war in Europa, we intend you no trouble.” Chroniclus looked at the black eyes through the gap.
“Then you’ll be on your way -” The male suddenly paused and turned his gaze away from the captain. Chroniclus heard the footsteps of his warlord pass him by and immediately the blockade creaked and groaned as the owner released a crude rope and pulley system that scarcely held a derelict looking doorway in place. As it lifted and crashed with unrestrained force Arbicos was shocked to see a short man stood before him, he had the muscular mass and width of three of his finest soldiers. “Warlord... Arbicos?” He lowered the bronze short sword that was of military design and stood to attention.
The Athenian’s lost face stared at the man, his intense sorrow ridden gaze pierced him and he could not look back for more than a brief moment. “They said you were young. From where do you return, my lord? May I be of service to supply your troops with a source of water?” Arbicos nodded slowly before speaking.
“If it’s of no trouble, sir, we march home from Arillia. What’s your name?”
“Dorian,” he nodded, “I was under the service of warlord Crastan when we defeated the last rebellions of the west. Come, bring your men beyond the wall before the cats skin their flesh from their bones.” Although their numbers were great there was ample room upon the grounds of the aging man’s property to harbour them all. While the last of them entered the wooden gateway Arbicos noticed a figure disturb his peripheral vision. It was a female dressed in simple linen clothing.
“Who are these men, Dorian?” She called, her voice so quiet and sweet that she strained to make it heard.
“They are the sons of Hephaestus, my dear! They march from the south, homeward bound, they require water.” Suddenly Arbicos noticed a second figure appear from the woodwork of the enormous hand built house. He first mistook him to be a man for his size matched his father’s, as his face became visible however he noticed the fattened, rosy cheeks of an uncertain child. Dorian noticed the warlord looking past and turned himself to look upon his family. “Come down here, lad,” he lifted his arm to usher his son and the boy came obediently. “This is warlord Arbicos, son, a renowned warrior, that belt he wears” he pointed towards the heavy buckle, “displays the emblem of the sons of Hephaestus. The same emblem that your old man served under in days gone by.” He rested a hand upon his son’s shoulder who was yet to speak.
“He must soon be prepared himself to step forward as a soldier of Greece.” Arbicos stood with his shield tucked to his side, clutching at the hilt of his short sword.
“Not likely!” The unbelievably wide man pulled his son closer to him who stood at the same height and nearly the same width as his father. “The boy is little past his fourteenth harvest, I’ll have the pleasure of looking upon his u
n-warn face for some harvests to come, though I shall make a truly formidable soldier of him yet.” Arbicos twinged slightly at the thoughts of his own father’s methods of making a soldier out of him. By now the female had joined the two men and Dorian rested his spare arm around her. “This is my wife, Amares.”
She looked shyly at Arbicos, her pale hazel eyes mesmerised him, he felt a sudden moment of guilt for he had never in his life been so drawn to a gaze since first looking upon his wife some harvests past. She was an immeasurable touch shorter than her husband, the same height as Haedra, her dress skilfully tied to effortlessly flaunt her impressive assets though Arbicos had no interest in ogling. The same could not be said for many of his soldiers. The female held a striking resemblance to the young warlord’s wife that captivated him. After some hesitance he spoke up.
“We shall not trespass your land long, I assure you, the water you offer would be much appreciated then we’ll be on our way, if it’s of no disrespect to your expectations.”
“Certainly not, warlord, it’s an honour to know I’ve contributed to the sons of Hephaestus after so many harvests out of service.” Dorian lead Arbicos around the back of his plantation, in which a large stream flowed water into a vast lake, it was crystal clear and had been irrigated skilfully to enable easy extraction from an enormous water deposit.
“How long have you been out here, Dorian?” Despite his solitude, the warlord was a skilled linguist and had little trouble socialising.
“Six harvests past this one, warlord. I lived in the hills below Panthea, married Amares before I left to join the war effort in the west, and gave up my arms upon return. It may be less honourable living the life of a farmhand, but to see my son come of age gives me greater pleasure than seeing men die at the edge of my blade.” Arbicos nodded at the male’s words.
“You need not feel less honourable because you gave up arms, my friend, you served our country as any other man has or will. The last of the western liberation in Europa was my first march to war -” The warlord’s speech hastily resided as his gaze drifted into oblivion.
“Beg your pardon, my lord?” The wide male gripped a large wooden bucket in each of his huge hands and stepped towards the edge of the waterline. Arbicos shook his head dreamily.
“How did you know I was Arbicos?” Dorian was kneeling at this point filling his buckets. He stopped his action and rested an arm upon one knee.
“Warlord Arbephest was my captain in the west,” he shook his head. “I’ve never in my life witnessed a man who had such bloodlust surging through his veins. Thought he was crazy myself. I hear news when trading, your name above most others. I know what that big bastard looks like, leaving just one other.” Even in his distanced state this comment put a light smile upon Arbicos’ face. “Can I ask you something, warlord?” The young male did not look at the man nor speak however nodded as Dorian looked up through squinting eyes. “Have your men noticed anything strange in the skies in these recent times?”
“The skies have been most peculiar, the colours of them worry me as much as they worry any other man.”
“I don’t speak of the skies themselves, lord,” he rose from the waterside and handed Arbicos one of the heavy pales of water. “I’ve seen,” the wide male looked down at his reflection in the remaining bucket he held. “I’m sure I’ve seen them, in the darkest hours of the morning. Boats, in the sky.” Though he did not say it, Arbicos assumed the male was of the greatest sincerity, but of a troubled mind, as he had seen succumb many veterans of war. He shook his head slowly before looking to meet the stranger’s gaze.
“I’ve not seen nor heard reports of such things, sir, you’ve not once seen them in the clear of day?” The huge male mumbled something and shook his head repeatedly. He quickly filled two more buckets, and handing a second to Arbicos lead the warlord back around the plantation towards his troops.
“Do you have a wife of your own, warlord? If you don’t mind me asking.” Dorian did not turn his head as he walked ahead of Arbicos.
“Not at all, I do indeed have a wife, we’re due our first child in the coming days.” This time the veteran did turn his head briefly to smile at his guest.
“Is she of a -” he paused for a brief moment in thought, “high name?” The warlord shook his head before he answered though Dorian did not see.
“No.” So unique you are, Arbicos, and you will let it all away for the touch of an unrefined miller’s daughter. His father’s words cut into him still despite them being uttered so long ago. “We met upon my first return from the west, on the outskirts of Cele.” Dorian laughed lightly at his words taking pleasure in the exchange of stories.
“I’m sure she’s a beauty to behold.” The young male did not reply to his host, the image of his wife’s thick untamed hair flailing with her wild laughter filled his mind dispersing the heavy press of dark thoughts for a moment.
Arbicos’ troops drank the water without hesitance and each said their thanks to Dorian and his family who joined them.
“What’s your name, boy?” Arbicos looked at Dorian’s son, the boy would never forget those eyes, that empty gaze, it was like looking into a black void of misery.
“Dorian.” He spoke up, and Arbicos knew his father’s word was not one to be questioned. The high pitch of it so greatly mismatched to the sheer size of his maturing body. The warlord raised a hand and placed it upon his shoulder before briefly forcing a vacant smile.
“Look after your old man, Dorian.” Arbicos nodded at the boy then looked briefly at his father and mother, nodding once more he turned about and signalled his men leave the plantation grounds. “We make haste to Taloma, men, keep up pace, I wish to arrive before nightfall!” The frost that fell from the heavens and the chilling blow of the wild winds had completely dissipated and once more the strength of the sun broke through the thick pink clouds. Arbicos’ army reformed their lines with immediate obedience and the trek onwards towards their destination resumed.
The Echoes of Solon Page 3