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

the twenty Spartiates who had just been
grumbling or laughing at the slave's fright fell instantly to
silence.
    "Someone is playing a trick on you, donkey!"
Styphon hissed.
    The look of terror on the Messenian's face
did not fade.  He insisted again in a whisper, " She
moved... "
    Styphon was drawing back a sandaled foot to
kick the man in the head when he froze and realized in the same
instant as did his comrades that the slave had not lied at all.
 If trick this was, it was an elaborate one, for there at the
crest of the ridge, not thirty paces off, the woman stood, naked
but for a scrap of black cloth over her left breast.
    Staggering, she fell hard onto her knees,
set one hand on the earth and rose again.  The men gasped and
invoked the names of gods, and Styphon barked at them, without
taking his eyes from the risen corpse, "Spartans, are you men or
little girls!?"
    The woman, or shade, or whatever it was,
having regained its feet, stood swaying gently, arms held out in a
search for balance.  Its head was bowed, tangled dark hair
hiding its face.
    Some citizen or slave whispered, "We must
leave this place."
    Styphon bellowed, "Lashes and demotion for
any Spartiate who runs!"
    The warning was meant for his men, but
theirs were not the only ears to hear it.  Up on the ridge,
the dead thing picked up its head and turned eyes toward them.
 A score of grown Spartan citizens, death dealers all, gasped.
 Styphon himself, whose faith in the creatures of legend was
not strong, half expected to see under the black hair a grinning
skull or harpy's beak, but there was only a face.  Its
expression could not be read from this distance, but Styphon sensed
on it an emotion he had witnessed many times before and knew well.
  Fear .  The shade was afraid.
    Styphon ordered over the muttered prayers of
others, "Catch her!"
    As if she had heard, which perhaps she did,
the corpse-woman turned and made to flee the camp.  She
stumbled, knee striking the rocky soil, but she bounced to her feet
again in a flash and ran.  
    Still, no Spartan moved.  No wonder,
since neither had their leader.  Styphon remedied the lapse by
taking off at a full run.  As he went, he pointed and shouted
out the names of his men in small groups and told each where to go.
 For a moment they all stood bewildered, but soon enough they
became Spartans again.  A superior had spoken and could not be
disobeyed.  The hunt was on, its aim to prevent their quarry
from reaching the wall of trees (blackened stumps, mostly, since
the cursed Athenians had lately set fire to the island) which
marked the arbitrary southern boundary of their mountain
encampment.  In the end it could hardly matter if she made it
there, of course, for there was no true escape to be had for anyone
on tiny, besieged Sphakteria.   If only .
    Stumbling every five steps, the corpse-woman
proved easy to catch.  Rather, she proved easy to surround;
after that, no man was willing to go near her.  Thus what
resulted was a sort of moving cordon, within which the prey was
free to move about as it wished.
    After some minutes at this impasse, Styphon
called out, "Kneel and let us approach!"
    The she-thing's head whipped round to face
him.  Hardly a spear-length away, Styphon looked straight into
eyes that were the pale blue of a winter sky and deeply frightened.
 Her bare female form seemed a delicate thing, with slender
limbs and nary a dimple of excess fat, but when she moved, muscles
rippled under skin the color of summer barley.  The features
of her oval face were finely wrought, from pointed chin to wide,
dark lips to thin brows arching over those pale eyes.  Many
men, in vastly different circumstances, and if their tastes ran to
the exotic (which Styphon's, like those of most Spartans, did not)
would have counted her as attractive.
    Her lips made an omicron shape in Styphon's
direction, but if she had been about to speak nothing came of the
effort, for before any sound could emerge, her