Spartans at the Gates (48 page)

The agreeable smile faded from Linos's face and his eyes hardened. His entire aspect became stern and shrewd. The change was so sudden and dramatic that Menesarkus flinched. It was suddenly apparent that Linos had only been masquerading as a doddering old fool. But he was something far different.

“I have returned just in time, it seems,” said Linos in an icy voice. “This ship is filled halfway up the hold with bilgewater. My appearance in Plataea is no accident. I was sent here to offer you counsel.”

Menesarkus scratched his beard and stared at Linos as if for the first time. “You're a spy, aren't you?”

“Not a spy,” said Linos. “Not like that scheming Athenian Timarkos, who has been in and out of Plataea like a mad jackrabbit. I am, rather, a member of a confederacy of like-minded men who oppose tyranny wherever we can. I have spent most of my life scuttling the schemes of the Spartans and Persians, ever since the end of the Persian Wars, wandering throughout Greece and the barbarian lands in the guise of a bard. I was on my way back to Plataea when I met your grandson in Tanagra.”

“You met Nikias in Tanagra?” said Menesarkus, amazed.

“Before he was captured by the Theban Eurymakus,” said Linos. “The lad asked me to travel with him back to Plataea. But I declined. Meeting him there seemed to be too much of a coincidence. I thought perhaps my enemies were trying to set a very clever trap for me. Now I know the gods were attempting to bring us together for his safety. I hope that he lives,” he added, glancing toward the upper floors.

Menesarkus shifted his jaw back and forth warily. “And why should I trust you? Perhaps you are a trap set for
me
.”

“You and I stood next to each other in the shield wall against the Persians,” said Linos. “Do you forget? I saved your life once, Menesarkus.”

“How could I forget?” said Menesarkus. “But men change. Look at what became of Nauklydes.”

“Nauklydes was corrupted by money and power,” cut in Linos. “I am not Nauklydes. I crave neither of these ephemeral things. I seek only to thwart the tyranny of the dual kings of Sparta.”

“So you know about Nauklydes and his treachery,” said Menesarkus under his breath, more as a statement than a question. “This league of yours must have eyes and ears everywhere.”

“We do,” replied Linos. “My cousin Kallinikos is part of our order. He is much shrewder and more sharp-witted than he lets on.”

Menesarkus sat down on the bench and sighed. “The water clock is running out for Plataea. The Spartans will attack soon,” he said. “We will either hold them at bay or not. Everything now depends on the courage of our warriors.”

“Those are the words of a defeated man,” said Linos.

Menesarkus scowled at him.

“I am not afraid of your black looks, Menesarkus,” said Linos, crossing his slender arms on his chest and smiling. “I knew you when you were a fat beardless lump of a boy, dreaming of glory. You don't have to trust me,” he added. “You merely need to heed my advice.”

“And what is your advice?” asked Menesarkus with disdain.

“Attack the Persian Fort immediately!” shot back Linos. “Tonight! The Spartans are expecting you to lock yourselves behind these walls like frightened rabbits. Listen to me, Menesarkus. There are no more Spartans coming to the Oxlands. It was a ruse to force you into a treaty. The enemy has already sent their reserve forces to aid Potidaea. There are only five hundred or so full-blooded Spartiates in the Persian Fort right now. The other three thousand warriors are Spartan vassals. The rest are mere Helot
slaves
. Seize this moment! Storm the Persian Fort with every man that you have. Slay the Spartans. Free the Helots. Send the enemy running back to their homeland with their tails between their legs, and you will deliver a message to anyone in the Oxlands—be they Theban or Tanagraean—that attempting to destroy Plataea is a dangerous business.”

Menesarkus kept silent for a long time. Linos's words were well-spoken, but they did nothing to bolster his morbid spirits. He shook his head. “That would be suicide, Linos the bard. We wouldn't get an army halfway to the fort before the Spartans came out to meet us on the fields. We cannot beat them in a phalanx battle. You, a veteran, should know that.”

“I'm not suggesting that you attack them in broad daylight with an army of hoplites!” said Linos scornfully. “I'm not telling you to send a herald inviting them to battle on foot, you great ox-headed lump! You need to start thinking like a barbarian now. Not a general of Plataea.”

“Like a barbarian?” asked Menesarkus, bristling at Linos's insult.

Linos smiled. “Like a
Skythian,
” he said with a glint in his eye.

 

NINETEEN

General Drako gazed at a monster in the fading light of dusk.

Instead of feet this strange beast had giant wooden wheels, and its stout body was covered with bronze shields like the scales of a lizard. An iron wedge as big as a tree trunk jutted from its maw like a fang. It sat silently inside the walls of the Persian Fort on the eve of the assault on Plataea like a hunched and sleeping Titan.

“What a shock Menesarkus will get when he sees my Helots pulling this battering ram up the road to the gates of his citadel,” thought Drako. He stood admiring the thing with his arms crossed. He reached up and touched the head of the ram—felt the cool, smooth metal. It weighed over four thousand pounds and would easily smash through the oak and iron-banded portals of the citadel. It would have been impossible to bring something this massive all the way from Sparta, so every piece of this machine had been constructed here inside the Persian Fort. Spartan engineers had built a smithy and forge. The iron for the ram head had been brought from Sparta, carried a few ingots per man by the thousands of Helots.

“‘Many Helot hands make easy work,' as the old saying goes,” Drako mused.

He walked over to a gang of the squat, black-haired slaves fitting together the scaling ladders. There were over two thousand twenty-foot-tall ladders ready for tomorrow's attack. Watching the thralls at work always gave Drako a feeling of satisfaction. They were like an army of efficient and tireless ants. All they needed was food and discipline—a hardy people that Drako's ancestors had been wise to enslave.

The siege would begin at dawn with an assault on the main gates using the battering ram. That would draw the attention of the Plataean defenders to the eastern wall. Then the Helots would charge the western wall with the ladders. Many of the slaves would die, of course, in the attempt to take the walls. But once the battlements were in Spartan control the Plataeans would be trapped in their own citadel. And after the gates were smashed, the Spartan hoplites, along with a contingent of Theban warriors, would storm the citadel and slay everyone.

The plan for this attack had originally been conceived by Arkilokus. The prince had studied with a siege master in Persepolis—with the Persian known as “the City-Killer”—and had learned many useful stratagems from that wily race. But now, thankfully, the pompous royal was gone, and Drako would not miss him an iota. He was glad to be rid of the man who had been a burr in his balls for so many years. He had sent Arkilokus to Korinth with a contingent of guards immediately after he had been handed over by Menesarkus. In Korinth, Arkilokus would board a ship for Sparta, where the prince could recuperate in the palace of his father. And thus he, Drako, would reap the benefit of having both secured Arkilokus's release as well as defeating Plataea … alone.

It was growing dark. Hesperos, the evening star, was already shining. Scores of bonfires burned brightly in the camp. Drako heard the distinct hooting of an owl from somewhere on the other side of the earthen wall, and it was answered by the screech of another in the distance. Night was coming.

“The Helots can rest now,” said Drako to his second in command. The warrior nodded and barked out an order that was taken up throughout the Persian Fort. The Helots put down their tools like automatons and started trudging off to the fenced area in the center of the stronghold where they ate and slept, guarded by an outer ring of ever-watchful Spartan warriors.

Drako took a long look at the guarded and gateless entrance on the southern wall of the fort, then scanned the tops of the high earthen walls, picking out the silhouettes of the warriors stationed there. Satisfied at what he saw, he walked in the direction of his tent. Just then a swallow flew so close to his face that he could feel the rush of wind created by its wing.

He smiled faintly. Good things were coming. The swift birds, returning from their winter homes for the summer season, were a happy omen.

He entered his tent and took off his cloak. Then he lay down on his cot and started to touch himself, thinking of the coming siege. There would be no prisoners or slaves taken. Plataea was to serve as an example for the rest of Greece. If Menesarkus survived he would make him watch as everyone in his beloved city was executed, and then he, Drako, would cut off the Arkon's head.

For some reason he couldn't make himself hard.

He tried to think of the pretty eunuch, but the only face that came to mind was Eurymakus's, snarling at him with his mutilated lip. He took his hand away from his loins in disgust and crossed his arms on his chest, frowning as he fell into a deep slumber.…

He was awakened an hour later by the sound of screams and the pounding of horses' hooves. He leapt out of bed, the sword he kept by his bedside in hand. He saw the shapes of his guards writhing in the torchlight outside the tent. And then the shadows of horses galloped past.

One of his guards stumbled inside the tent and fell at his feet, clutching an arrow sticking from his neck. The warrior—a powerful man who had served Drako on many campaigns—thrashed as blood gushed from his eyes and nostrils.

What in the name of Zeus is happening?

Then Drako heard a sound that made him break out in a cold sweat and panic for the first time in his long life of battle and bloodshed: the eerie and unearthly shrieking of Skythians—archers whose poisoned arrows brought instant and excruciating death from the slightest scratch.

He saw the shadow of a rider outside the tent. An arrow ripped through the cloth, passing by Drako's ear—closer than the swallow's wing had done.

Drako turned and slashed a hole in the back of the tent and dashed headlong through the rent and into the fray.

*   *   *

“Death!” crowed Kolax as he rode through the Persian Fort, shooting surprised Red Cloaks with his tainted arrows.

It had been so easy to breach this stronghold! The Skythians had simply split into four groups and charged up each of the four sloping earthen walls, shooting the Spartans manning the tops of the battlements, and then riding straight down and into the heart of the encampment. The Spartans were completely unprepared for this kind of crazed attack—it had never even crossed their minds.

Kolax's head moved like a hawk's with rapid jerks from side to side. He scanned the battlefield lit by the Spartan campfires, seeking out the enemy. He let forth a piercing war cry and wheeled his horse around and charged toward a campfire where a group of Spartans, naked as pigs, had been combing their long hair. His bow twanged, arrows sang, and five Spartans lay writhing.

“Glory to the Arkon!” he shouted in his raspy voice.

Nikias's grandfather was a great man to conceive of such a smart plan!

He saw Skunxa try to ride through a mass of Helots, but the Spartan thralls merely sat unmoving on the ground where they'd been sleeping, blinking like perplexed children woken from dreams. Skunxa's horse balked at running over so many men, and threw its rider to the ground. Two Spartan warriors who stood nearby ran at Skunxa with their swords raised, but Kolax shot one through the hand and the other in the ankle. They screamed and fell with their faces in the dirt, twitching as they vomited their life into the dust.

Kolax rode up to Skunxa and said, “Hurry up! We must get to the entrance!” The fat man was taking far too long to remount his horse, at least in Kolax's opinion.

He heard his father's voice calling out in the distance in Skythian, “To the southern entrance! Ride!”

Kolax kicked his horse and headed back toward the sound of his papa's voice. The plan had been simple: the Skythians were to breach the Persian Fort and scatter the Spartan warriors manning the heavily guarded entrance. But Kolax couldn't resist killing a few of the enemy on the way there.

“Die!” he shouted as a Spartan tried to hold up a shield to block his arrows, but Kolax merely shot him in the foot and he fell dying just the same as if he'd been struck through the guts. “If only this night could go on forever!” he thought.

Suddenly a spear flew out of the dark and struck him in his armor-plated chest. He fell off the horse and landed on his rump. He grunted in pain and watched in outrage as a naked and noseless Spartan ran out of the shadows, grabbed his horse's reins, leapt onto its back, and charged away.

“No!” screamed Kolax, jumping to his feet and taking off after his mount. He sprinted toward one of the blazing campfires and stopped short when three Spartans, each of them wearing armor, started running toward him with spears raised. There were no other Skythians in sight. Swiftly Kolax reached back and grabbed an arrow. But his eyes nearly shot out of his head when he realized the string of his bow had snapped in his fall. The bow was useless!

Kolax smiled wolfishly and tossed aside his bow. He grabbed another arrow from his quiver, holding one in each hand. The Spartans surrounded him, jabbing at him with their spears, closing in on him, their eyes fierce with hatred.

Kolax let one of the arrows slide down his palm so that he clutched it by the fletching feathers. Then he reached back and flung it like a dart. The arrow grazed the wrist of one of the Spartans, and the man screamed and fell on his back. The other two warriors stared at him in horror as blood started to gush from the man's nose. Kolax ran straight at the dying Spartan and jumped over his body, flinging his other arrow. It struck one of the two remaining Spartans in the unprotected thigh and he fell, clutching his leg in agony.