Spartan Beast (The Hellennium Book 2)

by P. K. Lentz

  Demosthenes had his own answer to Andrea's plea, but he kept his silence awaiting Thalassia's, meanwhile watching Eden for any sign of an imminent, murderous end to her forbearance.

  But it was another quarter from which there came burst of sudden motion as the hostage Agesilaus exploded to his feet and broke into a wild run in the direction of Sparta. Eden watched with scant interest, while Demosthenes tensed to give chase until Thalassia put out a hand and said calmly, “Let him go.”

  Just as well, for Demosthenes remembered that he was unarmed. A spare sheathed sword hung at the back of Thalassia's mount, all but certainly intended for him; he walked a few paces now and drew it.

  As her hostage escaped, Thalassia crouched, pulling Andrea into an embrace.

  She kissed the girl's face, whispered into her ear, “I'm sorry,” then with a sharp whistle, she flung Andrea bodily aside and became a black blur moving in the direction of Eden.

  There came the sound of blades drawn, and an impact like that of a javelin striking a bronze-clad shield. Blood flew—whose, it was impossible to tell—as the two became entangled in an ungraceful, black-and-white maelstrom of brutality. No sword-fight; this was murder.

  At the same instant, the forest around the road came to life with the sound of rustling leaves and twanging bowstrings, and the sky filled with bolts and arrows which sped just over Demosthenes' head on course for their true targets: the Spartan delegation. Behind the volley came fighters at full run, screaming, well armed and armored Helots eager to spill the blood of their hereditary masters.

  Though caught fully by surprise, Demosthenes hesitated none, and required no time for thought. He knew the reason Thalassia had not warned him, which she might have done with a mere glance: Eden was sure to have caught her signal, too.

  Since the cliffs at Naupaktos, he and she had been two parts of the same ruthless machine. His half, even if it was the lesser, needed no instruction. He knew what was to be his part in this plan, which was less a plan than a combination of instinct, preparation, and adaptability.

  Of all things which might be accomplished this day, the elimination of Eden was by far the most important. But he was not meant to interfere in that effort, one which easily might cost him his life, or Thalassia's by forcing her to protect him.

  No, his role was clear. He was to claim his vengeance.

  * * *

  20. Ruthless machine

  Even as the first wave of arrows hammered the Spartans, striking the two attending ephors in the face and neck, Demosthenes set eyes on Brasidas, and he charged, armed but unarmored, hearing from behind him the fierce battle-cries of the onrushing Helot fighters.

  More bolts flew from the rebel crossbows, cutting the air near Demosthenes' head, but he heeded them not. He saw only Brasidas, who appeared no less determined to resist despite having being freshly pierced by arrows in the arm and leg. Seizing the sword of a fallen ephor to replace the one stripped from him, the polemarch cried out at the twenty Equals present, “Forward! Forward! Ignore the slaves! Kill the witches!”

  Under a hail of missiles, the Spartan formation closed ranks, locked its round shields, bellowed defiantly, set its heavy spears, and surged forward.

  Having no intention of impaling himself or any interest in battling this armored beast, which likewise held scant interest in him, Demosthenes veered sharply, setting course to outflank it. The one whom he desired—sweating, freshly wounded, and lacking both shield and spear—ran at this formation's rear.

  In plenty of time, Demosthenes removed himself from the phalanx's path.

  A man on its edge spared him a glance. Demosthenes knew the face well, for it belonged to the Spartan whose death he desired more than any other save Brasidas. Styphon.

  A glance was all that Styphon spared him, all he could spare, for he was not at this moment his own man, if a Spartiate ever was, but rather only a small part of a larger organism born and bred to enforce the will of the Spartan state.

  So were they all, and the Spartiates had two more urgent threats to face in the form of rebels and witches, which is why a ragged, unarmored, formerly condemned Athenian could maneuver unchallenged to the formation's rear. There, its leader turned, saw his bitter foe, stopped running, and fell into a defensive stance.

  Following the example of his other half, Demosthenes slowed not a bit but instead used his blade to bat aside that of Brasidas before slamming bodily into him. The Equal had the advantage of a breastplate, but he also was ill. Already, his breath was heavy from the exertion of the run, and his brow shimmered with plague-sweat.

  The two tumbled as one to the ground, striking rapid blows at one another with fist and sword pommel, each all the while struggling to put edge or point of blade to soft flesh. Brasidas was first to succeed, and when Demosthenes drew back a cut arm, the polemarch followed with a sharp headbutt to Demosthenes' face then tried to use the momentum to put himself above his enemy for a killing stroke. But Demosthenes put his injured left arm to good use by grabbing and pushing on a broken arrow shaft lodged in Brasidas's leg.

  The Equal grunted in pain, faltering in his assault long enough for Demosthenes to send him back into the dust with a sword hilt to the jaw. Finding his feet, Demosthenes sprang up far more quickly than the polemarch, who was overcome by a wheezing cough.

  When Demosthenes came to stand over him, Brasidas swung his blade upward, but the effort was weak and easily deflected. Once it was parried, Demosthenes drove his sword point down into Brasidas's right wrist, causing the fingers to open and the sword to fall free.

  Groaning, coughing, face streaked with blood and sweat and soil, Brasidas wheezed, “End it, Athenian. Do it. Kill the hope of Hellas.”

  “No,” Demosthenes said. He drove his blade down again, slicing the polemarch's ankle, which spouted blood. Then the other, and then both knees. The wounds would not soon cause his death, Demosthenes knew from practice, but Brasidas would not be able leave this spot under his own power. “You don't get to die in battle. You will have no name on your grave.”

  Gripping the legs of his crippled, writhing, semi-conscious captive, Demosthenes began dragging Brasidas west in the wake of the phalanx which had just passed.

  * * *

  Running in the front rank of the formation, at its left edge, Styphon watched Demosthenes pass, and he did nothing. The Athenian was irrelevant. Even in the absence of specific orders, Styphon would have known that the final destruction of the two witches was far more vital to the future of Sparta, and here was a rare chance to accomplish it, while they were busy slaughtering each other.

  It meant, in all likelihood, that Brasidas was to die. He was wounded and sick, and Demosthenes was not. But even a polemarch's survival was irrelevant to the well-being of Sparta when weighed against the boon of the removal from it of both Eris and Thalassia. No doubt Brasidas himself would understand that.

  And so Styphon charged on alongside his brothers. The Helot rebels were ineffectual and could be all but ignored, as Brasidas had commanded. They were swordsmen, not hoplites; a few tried to attack the formation from one side or the other, falling in the attempt, but none were fool enough to stand in its path.

  The spindles from enemy bows kept flying, lodging in shields and stealing the lives of at least two Equals, but spindles could not slow the phalanx's swift, steady advance on its objective, the witches presently butchering each other in a tangle of slender, swiftly moving limbs and bloodied blades.

  Near them, on her knees, was Andrea, the daughter who hated him. She was nothing if not clever; surely she possessed the wits needed to move out of the way of a charging phalanx. But the phalanx drew closer and closer, screaming the battle-cry, swatting Helot flies, yet Andrea did not move.

  Styphon's lips fell silent as he saw why.

  She held both hands tightly across her midsection, where a red stain was slowly spreading. Just feet from the warring witches, fully in the path of the phalanx, Andrea sank to her knees.

  A
part of Styphon's mind, the bulk of it which was loyal and obedient and loved his city above all things, began instantly to mourn her, a child lost in the achievement of a greater good.

  But another part told him that if he only threw aside spear and shield, the added speed would let him reach her in time to remove her from harm's way...

  Any attack on the witches was doomed to disaster anyway. Andrea would die for nothing.

  He ran on, shield high, spear overhead, nearing the point past which there could be no choice. Ahead, blood-soaked Eris seemed to have the upper hand: on top, stabbing downward over and over into her enemy's inhuman flesh.

  It was Styphon's body which made the choice, more than his mind. His mind told him to remain in formation, to stay by his brothers and persist at any cost, but instead, he cast off the lambda blazoned hoplon encumbering his left arm, and with his right he threw his heavy spear in the direction of the witches. He knew not whether it struck them, for his eyes were on Andrea as the legs underneath him thrust him harder forward, giving him speed enough to get ahead of the spear blades, several of which would have scalped him had he not held his head low as he crossed in front of them.

  It was Andrea who was champion of foot-races, but today it was her father, the font of her fleet blood, who ran, and the laurel to be won was her life.

  Crossing nearly the entire width of the phalanx, six shields minus his own, he scooped up his kneeling daughter without missing a stride, squeezing her to his breastplate of stiff leather, just ahead of the spears, and he ran on, beyond the rim of the rightmost shield of the phalanx, rounding it to take him back east, toward Sparta.

  The glimpse he had had of her as he swept her into his to arms had shown the bleeding to be extensive. She needed a healer, and he would run until they reached one.

  “Father...” Andrea said dully, in his arms. “Father... please. P-please don't let me die.” For the first time in memory, she sounded her age.

  “You will not,” he pledged, a promise not his to keep. He could only run.

  Clutching her tightly, he sped through the woods toward Sparta, intending to let nothing stop him before he reached a healer. After a few short minutes, he heard over the rush of his own breath and the crunch of dry leaves underfoot a set of unmistakable sounds: the cadence of hundreds of feet hitting the ground in unison while a lone voice set the rhythm with a chanted war-hymn of Tyrtaeos.

  Sparta had learned of the treachery and was marching out to meet its enemy. Emerging from the wood onto open plain, Styphon saw the walls of shields moving toward him through tall grass and he adjusted his course to take him through a gap between formations. The soldiers knew him for one of theirs, of course, and so he was allowed to pass, if not unmolested:

  “The battle is that way!” Equals called to him mockingly.

  “What, did you bring the wrong shield?”

  “Ah, it's Styphon! Once a trembler, always a trembler. Men's hearts do not change!”

  He paid them no mind and began to cry out, “Healer! I need a healer! Swiftly!”

  He passed the phalanxes going off to victory or death, or some combination thereof, and continued through the outskirts and into town proper, crying all the way for a healer.

  After too long, an elderly man in the cloak of that profession appeared, moving as swiftly as he could, with his young apprentice at his side. Both were half-blooded step-brothers, for no male Equal could have any profession other than war.

  Styphon hastened to them and set a faintly gasping Andrea on the ground. Her abdomen and the hands which had clutched it were nothing but slick blood, which also covered Styphon's breastplate and arms.

  “You must save her,” he said. “She is deeply cut.”

  “I can see that!” the old man snapped while the youth tore a hole in Andrea's chiton. “I haven't much time for her. There'll be men bleeding soon. Bad enough, this disease they brought back from Naupaktos.”

  Kneeling over her, he poured water from a skin over her flesh, exposing a long slice from which new blood continued to pour. But Styphon only glanced at that; he looked instead upon his daughter's face, for she spoke to him in a breathy voice, repeating over and over, “Hot iron... hot iron... hot iron.”

  “Do you know of what she speaks?”

  “Hmm, what?” the old man asked, perturbed. “Ah, searing iron... I have heard some use it to stop bleeding. Not tried it myself. No, we'll pack the wound with—”

  The youth clapped the old man's shoulder. “No better time to test it, grandfather. I shall heat a blade.” He rose and ran off.

  A shadow fell over Styphon, and he looked up to see one of the three surviving ephors standing over him.

  “What will they find out there, Styphon?” the ephor asked.

  Styphon rose and answered, “The Helot army is ineffectual, though they are well armed and harass with spindles. Of the two witches, I cannot say if either yet stands. At minimum, they have done each other great harm. There may never come a better chance than today of destroying them.”

  “I too pray their time in our world is done,” the ephor answered. “But come. You are scant wounded. Your place is—”

  Coinciding with the sudden end to the ephor's words, some strong force hammered Styphon from behind, at the small of his back, alongside the spine. Pain and sudden numbness spread there, and he stumbled forward, stopping himself on the shoulder of the stunned ephor.

  He heard fast footfalls from behind, and he whirled, a move which caused a fresh burst of pain. Reaching behind him, he learned why: a thick, smooth shaft jutted from his back, and had bumped against the ephor.

  A javelin. And having turned, Styphon's eyes fell now upon the huntress who had cast it, running full-speed toward him with hate in her eyes and dagger in hand. He had time barely to raise his arms, and the ephor no time to intervene, before Hippolyta was upon him, blade plunging into his neck.

  Twice more it bit before Styphon fell backward, onto the javelin, which twisted and drove deeper, sending a chill wave throughout his torso and down every limb.

  “Coward!” Hippolyta screamed, struggling as the ephor seized her knife-wielding arm by the wrist. “Murderer! I loved you! And I loved her! Now, thanks to you, I know only hate! Take it with you to Haides!”

  Rolling onto his side, javelin in his back, the taste of blood filling his mouth, Styphon looked skyward through a mist which slowly crept in from the edges of his sight. He saw his wife aiming the dagger at her womb, where Styphon's seed was lodged. But the ephor restrained her, aided by two other Equals who ran up.

  He shifted his dimming gaze and saw the old healer step over the form of Andrea just as the apprentice returned gripping tongs which held a rod of iron. The youth's mouth and eyes were wide with shock.

  “Not me...” Styphon uttered. The words gurgled. “Save... her.”

  His graying vision found the face of his daughter, which had turned to look back at him with its black eyes. Nearer, he saw the fingers of Andrea's hand, reaching for him. Styphon commanded his own hand to meet and clasp it, but the limb was numb and went nowhere. He could only look, for a few more fleeting moments, on a young face which featured in his fond memories, even if its owner had come to hate him.

  There was no hate in her eyes now, though, and Styphon was glad for it as he expelled a final, wet breath and fell backward, spinning, into that bleak, lightless realm where all memory died.

  * * *

  21. Death storm's eye

  It had angered Demosthenes to see Styphon race away in the direction of Sparta. Though he dearly wished that Equal dead, he could not consider following him. For one, it was a great enough risk not to have killed Brasidas yet, sparing him for a more fitting death later. To leave him unguarded to chase lesser prey would be utter folly.

  A second reason was that the Spartan phalanx had just collided with its two targets, Thalassia and Eden, flowing around and surrounding them. From behind, Demosthenes could see little other than the backs of Equals.
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  Thalassia would escape. Not unhurt, but she would escape. It was far from certain, but he believed. He had faith.

  Eden would not. He hoped.

  Perhaps it would be wise, after all, to deal Brasidas a quick death now. Not only was there uncertainty in front, but also behind in the direction of Sparta. Surely reinforcements would not be long in arriving.

  Demosthenes slowed and stopped. He wore no armor, held no shield, and was armed only with a short sword to their spears. In such a fight, he could only die.

  Swiftly upon surrounding the two star-born combatants, Equals quickly began dying at the hands of one or both, while others died from bolts in the back as Helot bowmen dared venture closer, maneuvering for better shots.

  Spear blades rose and fell and swords slashed in a crimson frenzy, but whatever harm the two 'witches' had done each other, whatever their differences, they were not enough.

  Within minutes, the last spear fell, and silence and stillness reigned but for the moans and languid movements of the half-dead.

  Dragging Brasidas, who was inert—perhaps dead, given his illness—a short distance farther, Demosthenes released the leg of his captive and ran to the site of the carnage, stepping over Spartan corpses until he reached the death-storm's vortex, where hoplites were stacked three deep. There he stopped and pushed fresh bodies and lambda-blazoned shields aside, searching.

  He saw movement and found a hand, blood-coated, slender: a woman's hand, reaching up as if from underwater. Clasping it, he rolled a dead Equal, kicked another aside, and uncovered the hand's arm. It was black-clad. Lifting a shield, Demosthenes found the arm's owner's head, likewise attached, and the blood-greased hair on it was dark and cropped and bound back.

  Demosthenes blew held breath in elation as he helped Thalassia climb from the human wreckage of the destroyed phalanx. She was covered all over with deep gashes, her torso appearing like a corselet stuffed with freshly butchered meat. Her face was a gore-mask, its left eye split open or missing entirely.