set, chins down to cover the vulnerable throat — and then Styges pushed forward with his right leg and Bellerophon roared his war cry and they were past me.
I got a breath in me. Teucer stepped over me, close at their shoulders, and shot — and there were hands under my armpits, and I was dragged back. I breathed again, and again, and the pain was less, and then I was on my back and my shield was off my arm.
‘Let me up!’ I spat.
They were all new men — the rear-rankers — and they scarcely knew me. On the other hand, they’d been bold enough to push into the scrum and get my body. I finally got my feet under me and I rose, covered in blood and straw from being dragged.
‘You live!’ one of the new men said.
‘I live,’ I said. I pulled my helmet back and one of them handed me a canteen. I looked at the front of the fighting — just a couple of horse-lengths away. I could see Styges’ red plume and Bellerophon’s white, side by side, and Idomeneus’s red and black just an arm’s length to the right of Styges. They were fighting well. The line wasn’t moving, either way.
I looked to the right. The Athenians under Leontus were into the Medes — but the fighting was heavy, and the Sakai in the rear ranks were lofting arrows high to drop on the phalanx, where they fell on unarmoured men, many of whom had no shields.
To my left, the Persian cavalry were pressed hard against the front of our shields, stabbing down with their spears and screaming strange cries.
A new man — little more than a boy — handed me a gourd. ‘More water, lord?’
I drank greedily, pressed the gourd back into his hands and pulled my helmet down. ‘Shield,’ I said, and two of them put it on my arm. My left arm muscles protested — something bad had happened in my shoulder. ‘Spear,’ I growled, and one of them gave up his spear — his only weapon.
Behind me, the sound of battle changed tone.
I had to turn around to look — once I had my helmet on, my field of vision was that limited.
Beyond the Athenians fighting the Medes, something was already wrong. I could see the backs of Athenians — I could see men running. But they were two or three stades away — slightly downhill. It looked to me as if our centre was bulging back.
Remember that we had been fighting for only two minutes — maybe less.
I remember sucking in a deep breath and then plunging forward into the phalanx the way a man dives into deep water. I pushed past the rear-rankers easily — they were anxious to let me past. When I came to armoured men — our fifth or sixth rank, I suppose — I had to tap the men on the backplate.
‘Exchange!’ I called.
Rank by rank, I exchanged forward. This is something we practise in the Pyrrhiche over and over again. Men need to be able to move forward and back. I went forward — sixth to fifth, fifth to fourth, fourth to third. Finally, after what seemed like an hour, I was behind Teucer, and I could see Idomeneus, locked in his fight with a Persian captain.
They were well matched. And both of them were failing — their blows slowing. I’ve said it before: men can only fight so long — even brave, noble men in the height of training.
I stepped to the right, cutting in ahead of Idomeneus’s second-ranker — Gelon. He knew me immediately.
I tapped Idomeneus on the shoulder.
He looked back — the merest flash of a glance, shield high to deflect a blow — but in that heartbeat he knew who was behind him.
He set his feet, and I put my right foot forward across my left, and allowed my knee to touch the back of his leg. He pivoted on the balls of his feet and stepped to the rear. I pushed forward and launched a heavy blow into the Persian’s shield with my new spear, rocking him back.
He was tired. I could tell he was fading from that first exchange, and he crouched behind his shield and thrust low, at my shins, but I was having none of it. I had caught my breath, and I was as fresh as a man can be in a phalanx fight. I powered forward on my spear foot, and Gelon came at my shoulder, pounding away at the noble Persian with high blows to his shield and his helmet.
He gave ground.
‘Plataeans!’ I roared. ‘TAKE THEM!’
I remember that moment the best, children. Because it was like the dance, and it was glorious — it was, perhaps, a taste of godhood. Enough men heard me — enough men in every rank heard the call.
I was Arimnestos the killer of men. But in that kind of fight, I was only one man.
But I was one
The Persian officer was gone — knocked flat, or exchanged out of the front rank. I lost him in the moments when we pushed, and my new opponent’s eyes were wide with terror. I swept my shield forward and caught the rim of his oval shield and flicked it aside, and Gelon’s spear robbed the man of life as easily as if he was a dummy of straw.
Then we went forward. I had Styges at my left shoulder and Idomeneus was pressing up on my right. Gelon was at my back, and Teucer shot and shot from behind my left ear. We went forward ten paces and then another ten — the enemy stumbling away before us. They didn’t break, but suddenly there was less pressure on our front.
Leontus and his Athenians were keeping pace, and the Medes were backing away almost as fast as we pressed forward, but they were not yet beaten men. In truth, it was the hardest fighting I had ever seen. By this time, we had been spear to spear for as long as a man gives a speech in the Agora — or more — long enough that the sun was suddenly high in the sky. I was covered in sweat. My face burned from the pressure of my helmet and the blood and salt against the leather of my helmet pad. My shoulder was lacerated by the damaged scales on my thorax, and my legs ached.
The Persians flinched back again, and their front solidified. Men were calling to each other to hold their ground, and the Medes on our right got their spear-fighters into the front rank and locked shields, and we came to a stop, just a pace or two clear of their line.
I looked around — we’d pushed them back a stade or more. And as they recoiled, they were pivoting on their centre, so that we were facing their ships in the distance, far away by their camp.
All along the line, men breathed and stood straight, they switched grips on their spears, or dropped a broken weapon. Many exchanged, giving their place to fresher men.
‘You live!’ Styges said. He raised my shield arm — wrenching my shoulder as he did — so that the black raven on my red shield rose over the battlefield.
Men cheered. That is a great feeling, daughter, and worth all the pain in the world. When men cheer you, you are with the gods.
Opposite us, an officer called for the Persians to cheer and got a rumble — and no more.
‘Plataeans!’ I called, and Heracles or Hermes gave my throat power. ‘Sons of the Daidala,
The spear came up again, and our cheer had the force of a crack of thunder, and we charged — not far, two paces, but the Persians were yielding before we reached them, their shields moving, so that every veteran in our line knew that we had beaten them — and with a long crash like the sound two boats make as they collide, the enemy gave way.
The first-rank man opposite me was brave, or foolish, and stood his ground. I knocked him flat. I threw my borrowed spear at the next man and it stuck in his shield, dragging it down. Gelon put a spear-tip into the top of his thigh and I stepped on his chest and pressed forward, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there — a moment of fear — and I was into the third rank.
This part I remember as if it was yesterday, thugater. I had no weapon, and the next man should have killed me, but he cowered, and my right arm shot out as if it had its own life in combat, grabbed the rim of his scalloped shield and spun it to the left. His shield arm snapped. He went down. He screamed, and his scream was the
