went past my aspis on my naked right side and scored my bronze-armoured thigh, and the blow slipped away, turning like rain from a good roof. A thrown javelin left a deep dent in my right greave, and then the shaft rotated and slapped hard into my left ankle, and there was bronze there, too.
Their screams and roars were those of a hundred-headed monster, and that monster had two hundred arms and unlimited stores of strength. The press of men struck my aspis and I staggered back a step, and behind me was empty air and water.
Listen, then. This is who I was.
As they came to contact, my spear flew like the raven on my shield. I had a trick I’d practised for a year — rifling the spear from my shoulder on a leather lanyard, so that, in fact, I threw it about the width of a man’s palm. But the leather never left my hand and armoured wrist, so that I could tear it out of a corpse. When done just right, the spear would either take a life, or bounce off a shield or armour and return to my hand like a magical thing.
Ah, the man from Halicarnassus doubts me. Hand me that spear — the heavy one. I’m not so old that my hand cannot hold a spear. Watch, my children.
Three times into the old beam — in as many heartbeats. No man can block all three, unless the gods give him strength.
Ah, you interrupted me with your doubts, young man.
Listen, then.
My first blow went into the bridge of a man’s nose, and before he fell to the deck, my second blow went deep into his mate to the right, and the man fell to the deck clutching my spear. I stepped forward into the moment of time created by the kills and twisted my spear in his guts, ripped it clear and killed a third man with my sauroter as the spike rotated up.
Just like that.
By the will of Heracles, my spear didn’t break, and I threw it forward again on my wrist thong and missed, and my bronze spike slammed into an unarmoured man.
My right side was naked, and every heartbeat I waited for the spear in the ribs that would end my fight. I had boarded confident that we would break the Persians in a moment, and now I was fighting for my life.
But nothing came into my right side. A man threw his arms around my aspis, seeking to break my arm. I thrust forward with both legs into the press and he tripped, and my sauroter went into his mouth and out again. His limbs loosened and he fell. Brasidas tapped his aspis against me on my right to tell me that he was there.
I whirled my spear over my head, changing the sauroter for the spear point. Roared my war cry: ‘HERACLES!’
They all came at us at once, and there was a long time there that I remember nothing, except that I killed men, and no man killed me. They were soft and unarmoured, and I was covered in bronze. They were not warriors, and I was trained from boyhood.
And yet they almost had me, again and again.
Desperation makes all men equal. A small man in a Phrygian cap caught my spear arm and tore my spear away — broke my balance, dragged me forward and a dozen blows fell on my armour and helmet. One — a spear — punched that small hole in the backplate of my thorax. See?
I got the sword out from under my arm. My fancy long-bladed xiphos was too damned long — hard to draw in a press. I couldn’t get it clear of the scabbard and I almost died trying.
Two men were trying to press me to the deck. Brasidas killed one — I saw his spearhead — but he had his own dozen opponents.
I went to one knee. Something cold was in my right side, and something hot was trickling down the middle of my back.
A woman screamed. I thought I knew that woman, and that scream.
I got my foot under me and pushed. My right hand gave up on the xiphos and went instead to the stout dagger I always wore at my right hip. Like a beautiful thought, it rose from its scabbard and my hand buried it in my immediate grappling adversary’s arm. He had to let go. I must have stabbed twenty times, punching with a dagger, over and over, as I cleared the space around me. I was blind — sweaty, and my helmet twisted just a fraction on my head — but it didn’t matter, and any man I could touch, I cut, or stabbed.
I felt an aspis press into my back.
I heard Darius shout, ‘I’m here, lord!’
I rotated my hips, and let him step forward. Only then did I discover that the little rat with the cap had dislocated my left shoulder, and my shield hung at my side like a dead thing. It’s odd what your body can do, when it is life or death.
We had ten marines aboard by then, doing what they did best — they had to fight to get into a formation, and we lost one, but when Brasidas and nine hoplites were formed in a rough line, five wide and two deep, they were unstoppable on a ship.
I got my helmet off. Only then did I see that my right hand was pouring with blood. Apparently at some point I grabbed a blade.
I dropped the aspis off my left arm.
Leukas came onto our deck. He had good armour and a Gaulish helmet, and carried a long sword. He led a dozen of our deck crewmen, who were better armoured than many poorer hoplites.
His sword whirled — I’d never seen him fight. He was full of fury, and I remember thinking that he should be trained. An odd thought to have in a fight.
But his no-holds-barred approach was ideal for facing down a crowd of badly armed men, and when the deck crew crossed behind him, the fight began to be a massacre.
I stood and breathed. And bled, of course.
And then I turned and walked over the pile of corpses towards the Persians.
I had no aspis, and one of them — the youngest by ten years, I’d guess — had an arrow on his string.
I knew one of these Persians.
‘Greetings, brother,’ I said to Cyrus. I reached up my bleeding hand and tipped my helmet back.
Cyrus was the centre Persian. He was a superb swordsman, and a fine archer. I’ve mentioned him before, and his brother Darius, and their friend Arynam. The world is truly very small, at least among fighting men.
Cyrus laughed, and his teeth showed white in his old-wood face. ‘Ari!’ he shouted. In Persian, he said, ‘Brothers, we are saved. This one is my friend — my sword brother.’
We embraced, and I bled on his armour and apologized.
‘Tell your women they don’t have to stab themselves,’ I said. I slapped Cyrus on the shoulder. I felt alive.
Behind me, the desperate oarsmen threw down their weapons and begged for mercy. The Persian woman by Cyrus dropped her weapon and threw back her shawl. And stepped forward into my arms.
Sometimes, I think that we are mere playthings of the gods. And sometimes, that they mean us to be happy.
Men were dying at my back.
There was blood running over my sandals.
A friend of my youth stood at my shoulder.
I saw none of them, because the woman in my arms was Briseis.
Epilogue
My voice is gone, and I’ve talked enough — the Halicarnassan’s stylus hand must hurt like fire, or be cramped like an oarsman’s after a long row. And my thugater must be tired of hearing her old man brag — eh?
I’ll wager you’ll come back tomorrow. Because tomorrow, I’ll tell of how we went to Aegypt; how we explored the Erytherean Sea. How we found Dagon.
But what you’ll come back for is the fight with the Persians. At Artemesium, where the Greeks showed Persia we could fight at sea. And at Thermopylae. Where the Spartans showed us all how much like gods we could be.
