Crunch-crunch-crunch. Footsteps, fast, coming through the tents toward him.
His head whipped up. “Guards!” he snapped.
A shadow appeared near the fire, striding purposefully toward him. He rose, going for his short sword, when the shadow halted and tossed a heavy object in his direction. The object landed near the fire and burst. Precious wheat spilled from the sack. All eyes fell upon the wheat as if it were gold. Stentor looked up as the shadow came into view. Kassandra wore the look of a huntress, her brow dipped and her eyes fixed on him.
“Misthios?” he growled.
“Hyrkanos is dead. For the last moon I have tracked him down. Tonight, I infiltrated his camp, killed him and his men. A dozen more wagons of stolen grain lie there: you and your men can eat and regain your strength—in time for the arrival of the Athenian land assault.”
He stood, elated and enraged. “So you bring us salvation again?” he seethed. “You wish to have us bow and praise you?”
“I ask for nothing other than an audience with the Wolf,” she said quietly.
Stentor’s ire faded, and a sparkling jewel of an idea began to glimmer in his mind. They needed every spear they could gather. “Very well. There is one way to secure such a meeting. When we march north to face the Athenian phalanxes”—he stabbed a finger at her—“you, Misthios, will march in my enomotia, my sworn band. I will vouch for you. You trained well on the bay. But mock fighting on the sand is no way to measure a warrior. You must prove your worth as a hoplite, as part of the wall of steel, in true battle.”
The two Spartans sitting by the fire rumbled with laughter at the idea.
Stentor willed her to crumble at the prospect of true battle. Run, Misthios, be gone!
Kassandra held his gaze. “Give me a spear and a shield, and I will fight as a Spartan should.”
Stentor’s sneer faded into a cold glower.
Dust clouds rose over the Megarid like rival serpents, drawing closer, as the two great armies marched toward battle. Barnabas had been like an old hen that morning, trying to give Kassandra extra bread and making sure she had enough water.
Now, a half morning’s march north of Pagai bay, she wondered if she would ever see him again. Inside the helm, the blood thundered through her ears, her breath crashed like waves, and the stink of sweat laced the air. The bulky shoulders of the Spartan on her left brushed against her arm with every step, the shield roped across her back chewing into her shoulders and the haft of the hoplite spear grating on her palm. She had left the Leonidas spear on the Adrestia, knowing that she could not be seen with it lest the Wolf recognize it and her. She glanced along the front of Stentor’s enomotia: thirty-two bearded men with faces set like stone. The Wolf marched with them too. The rest of the bands marched like the trailing tail of a great crimson snake. Reinforcements had been summoned from the Peloponnesian allies: Thebans, Korinthians, Megarans, Phocians, Locrians—swelling the Wolf’s force to nearly seven thousand strong. The Skiritae roved ahead like a vanguard, along with a contingent of Boeotian horsemen. The rolling countryside ahead peeled away as they marched mile after mile. Rocky hills, wooded uplands.
And then they saw the iron wall awaiting them on the great dust bowl ahead.
Steel, bronze, blue-and-white robes and banners. Athens’s brigades stretched out like the horizon itself. Nearly ten thousand, Kassandra guessed. They erupted in a din of cries and songs of derision.
Terse commands rang out along the Spartan column. The tail of the column swung forth, forming a broad front to match the Athenian line, leaving the Wolf’s Spartans on the right, the allies in the center and the Skiritae anchoring the left. The din of boots faded away, replaced by a shush of wood and metal as every man brought his shield forward to present a wall of bronze and bright-painted emblems—the Peloponnesian allies with blazons of thunderbolts, snakes and scorpions. Kassandra swung her shield from her back likewise, slipping her left forearm through the bronze porpax sleeve on the inside and grasping the leather strap at the cuff end. It felt like part of her body now.
Suddenly there was silence, broken only by a gentle sigh of wind. Then came a strained bleat. A white-haired Spartan priest dragged a goat through the lines, stopping in front of the Wolf. Kassandra stared at the withered old man: the laurel wreath wrapped around his head and the bony, bare shoulders. Memories of that night came streaking back. He chanted to the sky, holding a blade to the terrified animal’s neck, beseeching the Gods for their favor, before yanking his arm back. The goat thrashed and fell, blood leaping from its gaping neck in spurts.
When the animal fell still, the priest declared that the Gods were pleased. The Wolf raised a hand, and every single spear fell level, like iron fingers pointing across the plain at the Athenians.
An unarmored Spartan behind Kassandra lifted a set of auloi—forked pipes that jutted down from his mouth like the tusks of an elephant—then sucked in a breath and blew. A low, dreadful moan poured from the pipes and across the plain. Kassandra’s flesh crept, the sound of the “Hymn to Castor” shifting the earth from long-buried memories: of childhood feasts, of better times. As she looked over the field to the Athenian lines, she realized her mouth had drained of all moisture, and her bladder had swollen to the size of an overripe melon. She knew she could face and defeat any of the men there, one to one. And damn, had the Wolf not trained her endlessly in the art of phalanx fighting during her childhood, showing her how to stand, how to be strong and immovable, when to push, when to strike? Had she not shown those Spartans training on the bay just how skilled and worthy she was? Yet true warfare like this was new to her, strange… unsettling.
“Afraid, Misthios?” Stentor asked, posted by her right side.
She did not look at him.
“Marching into battle is like running with chains on your ankles. You cannot turn and run, lest you covet shame. You cannot dodge and duck as you might when you fight a lone foe. You are part of a wall, part of the Spartan machine. And part of the wall you will remain. This is no mere training bout. You will fight and win on this field… or fight and die.” He sighed and chuckled. “But you should rejoice, for those who live on the edge of death are the ones who live the most.”
“You want me to run,” she hissed back. “I will not.”
“Perhaps not. But maybe you will learn something by watching me—for today I will grab glory for the Wolf. I will be his champion. It will be me he seeks audience with once the day is done!”
She eyed him sideways, wondering if it would be best to say nothing more. But she could not help but wonder at what might have been. Had that night on the mountain never occurred, would Stentor even be here? Might it be her instead? Or perhaps Alexios? Her next words slipped out before she could catch them. “The Wolf… if I fall today I will never get to meet him. Tell me about him.”
Stentor flashed her an iron glower. “About his guards, his routines? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You think I have forgotten that you are a misthios?”