Sword of Apollo (12 page)

An old legend said that Zeus's wife, Hera, had become angry with the god and had run away to the island of Euboea. Zeus asked King Kithaeron of Plataea to help him mend his marriage, and the wise king ordered a statue carved of a beautiful woman and placed it on the summit of the mountain. Then King Kithaeron told Hera that Zeus was going to marry a fetching Plataean maiden, and the worried Hera came flying to the mountain to stop the nuptials. When she saw that the bride was made of wood, she laughed and forgave her husband, and Zeus set the statue on fire with a bolt of lightning.

A statue of a maiden was burned every seven years during a spring festival. But the bonfire would be coming early this year.

Nikias glanced at the statues of Zeus, Hera, and King Kithaeron standing sentinel on the right side of the clearing. These statues were also made of wood and attired in clothes. They had been here for untold years, smiling enigmatically, cracked and weathered by wind and sun and rain.

He walked around to the other side of the pyre and gazed down the southern slope of the mountain toward Megaria. The wind whipped into his face, blowing hard from that direction. Perfect conditions to fan the flames and send the fire spreading back down the mountain and toward the Oxlands.

When Nikias came back around, the others stood waiting for him in front of the pyre. He slipped his arms from the leather straps and removed his burden, setting the clay jar on the flat pavers. The others did the same. Then Nikias removed the wax plug from the mouth of each jar and the pungent reek of pine resin punched him in the nostrils. Kolax, kneeling at his side, laughed softly.

“This is going to be fun,” said the barbarian. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a handful of white powder. This was the stuff that Chusor had taught the men of Plataea to make: crushed gypsum mixed with limestone and bat guano. A powder that caused fires to burn with an unstoppable ferocity.

“Don't use the powder until the fire is already raging,” Nikias told him.

“I know, I know,” muttered Kolax, thrusting his hand back into his pouch.

“Now spread the pitch on the driest trees,” said Nikias, hefting his jar.

They went to work pouring out the highly flammable liquid. Nikias dumped most of his over the branches beneath the effigy, then dripped the remains of the syrupy substance in a line across the stone floor to some dry shrubs at the edge of the clearing.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something standing in the black shadow of the statue of King Kithaeron: a cloaked and hooded figure of a man, as still as stone. Had somebody brought another wooden effigy to the summit? Nikias wondered. He stared for several seconds, but the thing did not move.

He walked slowly toward it, drawn by the eerie apparition. As he got closer he noticed that the figure's hand gripped a thick branch.

“Die!” The figure lunged at him with the makeshift club, swinging for his face, and Nikias swept up with the empty jar, using it as a shield, smashing it into the attacker's arm.

“Eye snatcher!” shouted the man, staggering toward the pile of branches and clutching his wounded arm. “Cursed of Zeus—eater of shades!”

Nikias stepped back, wide-eyed, clutching the rim of the broken jar. The stranger threw back his hood and stared at Nikias with a single bulging eye. His gaunt face was covered with a ragged beard. His long hair was greasy and lank. The man sucked in his breath, then let forth a bloodcurdling scream that echoed down the mountainside, the tendons in his neck bulging.

Nikias's companions rushed to his side, staring in wonder at the shrieking man.

“The mad seer!” said Kolax, and uttered an oath in Skythian.

“Make him shut up!” said Leo. “You could hear him screaming in Plataea!”

“We can't kill him,” said Kolax, dropping his bow. “He's holy.”

The Theban pointed a finger at Nikias. “You!” he cried. “Honor taker! Nothing for you, Plataean, but death! Death to your unborn!” He let forth another hair-raising cry.

Nikias stood frozen by this nightmare figure. He had grappled with the young warrior in the streets of Plataea on the night of the sneak attack and had gouged the man's eyeball from his skull, digging his thumb deep into the enemy's brain. And then, on that fateful eve that Nikias had departed the Oxlands for Athens, he had run into the Theban near the Cave of Nymphs. The madman had cursed him then, just like now. The sight of him filled Nikias with loathing … and terror.

“Stop screaming!” commanded Baklydes. He stepped forward and punched the Theban on the side of the head, and the madman stumbled and fell down but continued to cry out.

Leo darted forward and grappled with the man, putting him into a headlock and dragging him to the edge of the summit, then hurled him over the southern edge. The Theban tumbled like a stone before coming to a stop against a toppled tree.

“We must light the fire!” said Baklydes, turning to the others. “Quickly!”

Nikias passed a hand over his face, stunned into inaction by this terrible omen he had just witnessed. Why had the Theban come here, of all places? On this night? And how did he know that Nikias had an unborn child? His skin prickled and the world seemed askew, as if in a nightmare.

“Who has the firestone?” asked Leo.

Nikias checked his pouch and found that it was empty. He had somehow forgotten to put one of the spark-making stones in his pouch. “It's not there,” he said, his heart sinking even further.

“Oh, come, now!” exclaimed Kolax. “What a sheep-stuffer! Lucky for us I can start a fire with my bow, but it will take a long time in this wind.”

“Don't worry!” said Mula. “I brought a firestone.” He held forth a hunk of the glimmering rock and it glinted in the dim starlight.

“Good work, Mula!” said Leo, patting him on the back.

“Yes,” said Nikias with relief. “Good job—”

His words were cut short by a menacing noise: horses' hooves and the shouts of men.

“Riders!” said Kolax, pointing to the west.

Through the trees Nikias saw a line of torches approaching fast along the ridgeline. At least twenty horsemen. They must have been stationed near the summit and been alerted by the screams of the mad Theban. The sight of them roused him to action. He grabbed the firestone from Mula's hand and drew his blade, kneeling on the ground by the pile of branches. He struck the sword against the stone and sparks flew, but the pitch didn't ignite. The wind was too strong.

The horsemen were coming fast.

“Run!” Nikias yelled at his friends. “I'll stay!”

“Stuff that!” replied Leo, and squatted next to Nikias, shielding him from the wind. Baklydes and Mula joined him, putting their backs to the gusts. Only Kolax ran away, scrambling up some rocks and disappearing into the shadows of the trees.

Nikias struck the stone frantically and a shower of sparks leapt from it. But still the pitch would not ignite.

“Move closer!” he said.

They pushed themselves together, making a wall against the gusts.

The pitch caught fire and started to smolder, and then burst into flames that shot up underneath them, scorching their legs. Mula cried out and they all leapt back onto the stones of the altar. Two horsemen, fast riders who had outpaced their cohorts, broke through a gap in the trees, charging toward the Plataeans with their javelins raised. They were Dog Raiders and wore open-faced helms covered in the hides of spotted dogs. They wielded short javelins—the bronze spearheads gleamed like death in the cold light of the stars.

Baklydes and Leo jumped to their feet, drawing their swords. The horsemen were ten feet away when the men convulsed and fell from their mounts—one shot through the neck, the other in the thigh—and lay writhing on the ground. Their horses careened across the clearing and into the woods beyond. Kolax's high-pitched Skythian screech sounded from the rocks above. Leo and Baklydes fell on the poisoned men, hacking their heads from their necks.

But more were coming.

The pitch fire had spread fast along the ground to the shrubs and the other trees on the edge of the sacred space—everywhere that had been drenched with resin. Nikias reached into his pouch and threw a fistful of white powder on the flames and they roared ten feet high. Dog Raider horses screamed and halted on the other side of this wall of fire. Leo and Baklydes flung their powder onto the growing inferno, and the orange flames leapt even higher.

An arrow whistled past Nikias's head like a hummingbird. He touched his temple and felt blood. Through the flames he saw the face of a Dog Raider with a black forked beard, staring back at him with surprise and hatred. Nikias recognized the man! He'd fought him before, on the road to Athens—a Dog Raider commander. Fork-Beard shouted a command to his men and the horsemen checked their mounts, turned, and headed back into the forest. Nikias knew where they were headed: they were going to go around the other side of the summit and cut them off.

From the direction of Plataea came the distant blaring of the war trumpets. The spotters on the walls of the citadel had seen the fire, and the signal had been sounded to let the other men know it was time to kindle their own flames across the mountainside.

“Run!” shouted Nikias to his companions. He sprinted across the summit to the other side, flying down the rocky slope on the southern side of the mountain—away from the Oxlands and into enemy territory.

 

FIFTEEN

From where he stood on the Eagle's Turret—the highest tower on the southern wall of Plataea—Menesarkus could see the flames on the peak of Mount Kithaeron: a tongue of fire licking the sky. “Good work, my lad,” he said to himself. A second later the shattering noise of the trumpets erupted all along the wall. The sound was so deafening, he reckoned as he glanced at the score of trumpeters spread out across the bastion, that the noise must be heard all the way to Thebes.

He looked back toward the mountain peak. The flames on the pyre had spread quickly, and white smoke billowed toward the full moon that rose above the summit like a shining shield.

“Stop the signal!” he bellowed. “Stop!”

The trumpets ceased.

He stood awhile longer, waiting silently until he saw more fires begin to glow lower down the slope, spreading in a thin line all the way across the dark face of the mountain from east to west about a quarter of a mile from the summit. Nikias and his companions would have had more than enough time to retreat from their position down the slope and get beyond the next level of fire. The conflagration on the summit already burned fiercely, fanned by the increasing wind, and it rose higher than any pyre that Menesarkus had ever seen.

“What will you think of
that
, Arkidamos?” he said under his breath. He imagined the Spartan king on the other side of the mountain, staring up at the fire and wondering what was happening.

The fire on the summit had grown stronger and was moving downward toward the first line of flames. Soon the mountain would be covered with a forest fire greater than any living Plataean had ever seen, creating a cloak of smoke that would hide the exodus of Plataea. It was a trick worthy of the wily Odysseus.

Menesarkus turned away from the parapet and made his way slowly down the four flights of stairs to the ground level. He had to lean on the wall of the tower with every step, for his right knee gave him considerable pain—he could feel the bone rubbing on bone. Chusor had offered to make Menesarkus a brace, but he had turned down the clever smith out of vanity. He regretted that decision right now.

When he got to the street he found it nearly deserted. Doors of houses were flung open as if people had fled in great haste, and there was refuse and cast-aside furniture littering the ground. Down the lane he could see families hustling along, bearing heavy burdens—the belongings they deemed necessary for the journey to Athens. These stragglers were supposed to have assembled in the agora an hour ago, but they must have lingered in their homes until the sound of the war trumpets had caused them to bolt like frightened hares.

He watched as a middle-aged man tried to pull a heavy wooden chest through a doorway, but it would not fit. The man cursed the gods as he pulled with all his might, until finally the leather handle broke and he fell backward, sprawled on his arse on the street, screaming in pain and clutching his lower back.

“What are you doing?” Menesarkus asked, his voice dripping with scorn.

“What does it look like, you sheep-stuffing idiot?” said the man. He struggled to his feet, turning on Menesarkus with a glare; but when he saw that it was the Arkon who had spoken to him, he dropped his eyes and stammered, “I—Arkon, forgive me—I didn't know it was you.”

“What is in that chest that is so important, Telemakos?” Menesarkus asked with a kinder tone. He had known Telemakos his entire life, watching him grow from a thoughtful child to a stalwart warrior and a skilled artisan—a painter of vases. Telemakos had painted the funeral jar image of Menesarkus's only son, Aristo, after he had died in battle against the Thebans sixteen years ago. And Telemakos had so skillfully painted the likeness of his late son that his work looked as though the figure on the vase was actually thinking and breathing.

Telemakos scratched his thick beard with a long, delicate finger and said, “The box is full of my samples, Arkon. I packed the very best of my craft in there, along with my tools. I need them if I am to find work in Athens. My back is not strong enough to join a trireme—I have a bad spine. An old injury.”

“It was at the second siege of Sardis,” said Menesarkus, laughing. “You thought I had forgotten? That great Median warrior knocked you off the scaling ladder and you landed on a rock that went right up your arsehole. How you did howl!” He thought back to the siege in Lydia—an expedition financed by Athens that Plataea had joined years after the defeat of the Persian invaders. The ostensible goal had been to retake city-states in Ionian Greece that were still under the control of King Artaxerxes—son of Xerxes the Invader. Sardis had come under siege several times over the decades, but it had never been taken. That changed during the siege that Menesarkus, a young general at the time, had helped lead. Freedom for Ionian Greeks had been the rallying cry, but it had really been an excuse to pillage and slaughter Persian satrapies.