Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) Read Free

Styphon's mind, more likely than not some man's
mistress drowned to keep her quiet.  But then it was possible
that all Persians plucked.  It seemed probable enough, given
that even their men were womanly.  Spartan women sure didn't
go smooth, and their men were glad for it.
    Princess or slave, Persian or Greek, her
presence was an ill omen, and ill omens sapped men's confidence,
which in turn made them more likely to die.  Already the Helot
who'd discovered the corpse in the surf had suffered a slit throat
in the night, and hungry as they were, the soldiers had decided to
burn as an offering to Zeus and Artemis a third of the good barley
cakes the unlucky slave had brought.
    In that impractical action the men had been
unanimous, but they were split on whether to bury the woman's body
properly or cast it back into the sea.  Until the matter could
be decided, it sat on the ground outside the bounds of their
encampment.  Helots had been assigned to watch over it and
keep the crows away, but strangely they had not been forced to cast
a single stone, for no crows came.  This was seen among the
ranks as an even worse omen, notwithstanding that crows themselves
were harbingers of doom.  Still, Helots continued to watch the
body in case any birds did come, not so much for the sake of
preserving the corpse, but because birds could be cooked and
eaten.
    Styphon rounded a great stone outcropping on
his descent of the mountain and caught first sight of the
moss-encrusted stone fort which was the camp under his command.
 Its roof had long ago collapsed, making the structure more
stockade than fort.  The walls that remained were hardly the
height of a man.  It was said that old Nestor had built the
thing, and perhaps he really had, but whoever had put it there had
positioned it sensibly on the highest part of the island where the
sheer cliffs were impassible on three sides.  Should the worst
come to pass, Epitadas, the  pentekoster  in charge
of the island and currently commanding the main body of troops at
the island's center, had designated Nestor's fort as the site of
their final stand. 
    Whatever fate lay ahead for the Spartans
besieged on Sphakteria, victory or death, it would surely arrive
soon, for atop the mount which he now descended, Styphon had
witnessed a sight which made it all but certain: seventeen Athenian
heavy triremes spilling fresh troops onto the beach at Pylos.
 A runner would bear the news on to Epitadas, who would say
something on the order of, "Let them come."  
    Indeed, let them, Styphon agreed.  Far
better to face one's fate head-on than to sit hammered by the sun
against an anvil of barren stone, sipping brackish water by the
handful, breathing clouds of oily soot and forever waiting.
 Sphakteria by now would have broken a less disciplined force.
 The womanly Athenians wouldn't have lasted a week, let alone
three months at the height of summer's scorching heat.
    Before Styphon completed the trek into camp,
a scream reverberated over the rocks.  The screamer appeared
below, a Helot running toward the camp from the south.
 Styphon quickened his pace, hurtling over loose rocks and
flirting with a neck-breaking spill while in his pounding ears rang
the mad Helot's persistent shrieking.  Hardly a minute later,
Styphon arrived at the rear wall of Nestor's fort, nearly slamming
into it, then raced around the corner to where the camp's entire
population, forty men and slaves in all, dressed like Styphon in
ragged chitons that clung with sweat to their chests and sunburned
thighs, had gathered around the wild-eyed screamer.  
    Styphon penetrated the human curtain just as
another Spartiate belted the Helot in the face, silencing his
crazed shouts and sending him sprawling.  When the slave
managed to drag his head upright, it was to cry out, face twisted
in terror, " She moved! "
    There was no need to ask who, for there was
only one female on this cursed rock, and she was stone dead.
 Knowing that,