In good order, the Spartans relinquished the killing field and retreated behind the Middle Gate. Squires carried the dead and severely wounded with them. Leonidas was the last remaining in front of the wall, watching as a fresh group of Assyrian warriors deployed at the far end of the killing field. Reluctantly, he climbed over the wall and took his place in the center.
For the first time, he noticed that the sun was no longer shining. Looking up, he noted that dark clouds blanketed the sky. Thunder sounded in the distance. Drowning out momentarily the sound of the Persian army drums and horns signaling the advance. Leonidas looked across at the ledge where Xerxes was perched. The Persian King seemed calm, a change from the last three days. Leonidas frowned.
“A storm comes,” Cyra was next to him.
“He’s up to something,” Leonidas said, indicating Xerxes.
“All we need are a few more hours,” Cyra said.
“We can hold the wall for a while,” Leonidas said. “But once they breach it. It will be over quickly.” He turned to Lichas. “You have many arrows. You may fire at will.”
The archers opened fire, their missiles slamming into the Assyrians. The bombardment was fierce, but the Assyrian officers marshaled their troops as if on a parade ground, lining them up moving unlimited reinforcements up to take the place of those struck down.
“They’re good,” Leonidas allowed, watching the spectacle.
“They’re insane,” Cyra muttered.
“No. They need a solid front to move forward. It’s what I would be doing.”
Cyra shook her head. “1 never said you were sane, either.”
Leonidas laughed. “I suppose we aren’t. But you needed us. Still need us.”
The Assyrians were finally formed and began moving forward. Their shield wall was up, and the effect of the barrage was almost negligible now. Leonidas went to the right side of the wall and tapped Lichas on the shoulder. “You’ve done your duty.”
Lichas nodded, then passed the word down his line. The archers slowly slipped away, making their way down the south trail until only Lichas remained. There was no time for more farewells, as the Assyrians were just about at the wall.
“I will tell Greece what you have done here,” Lichas said to Leonidas before following his men.
Spartan spears were leveled. And the points met the Assyrian’s assault along the rocks of the Middle Wall. The front rank of Assyrians died, then the second. The third clambered over the bodies of those in front. Leonidas ran to and fro on the wall, using the Naga Staff wherever it was most needed, slicing through shields and flesh. He’d dropped his shield some time during the fighting, the leather hooked on an Assyrian sword.
It was even darker, and the sound of thunder was close. An Assyrian leaped up onto the wall to Leonidas’s right. A huge warrior, a four-foot-long sword in his hand. He decapitated a Spartan who tried to push him back. Leonidas jabbed at the man, the blade of the Naga Staff punching easily into the man’s chest, but the Assyrian still managed a strong blow, which slammed into the Spartan King’s helmet, staggering him. Leonidas twisted the haft of the staff, gutting the warrior, then pushed the dead man back over the wall to crash into his fellows.
Leonidas couldn’t see out of his left eye. He wiped with a free hand and pulled it away, covered with blood. Someone touched him to his left, and he whirled blade first, halting when he recognized Cyra. She used her cloak to wipe away the blood from the wound on his scalp.
“It is almost time!” she yelled, straining to be heard over the screams of the dying, the clash of arms and the thunder.
Leonidas shook his head, spraying blood and trying to organize his thoughts. He saw Assyrians on the wall here and there, his Spartans trying to push them back. He looked to the rear. Ten Spartans stood, spears ready, eager to join the fray, their eyes locked on him, waiting for his command.
“There!” Cyra pointed at the spot she had indicated in the morning. A black sphere was forming. Frightened Assyrians stepped back from it, opening a hole in their front. Leonidas held up five fingers and pointed. Half of the ten Spartans he had held in reserve broke ranks and dashed forward.
“Come,” Leonidas yelled at Cyra, straining to be heard over the sound of battle and storm.
He jumped over the wall, swinging the Naga Staff in a large arc. Clearing space. The five Spartans followed. Locking their shields, protecting the priestess. Leonidas pressed forward. The black sphere was just like the one he had gone into to get here, hovering just above the ground. One of the Assyrians stumbled back fell into it, and disappeared. That caused the others in the immediate vicinity to panic.
The way was open. Leonidas stepped off to the left, just short of the black sphere, feeling the power emanating from it race over his skin. The other five Spartans completed a semicircle around the portal, Cyra on the inside.
Leonidas risked a glance over his shoulder. Cyra was reaching forward, toward the darkness, hands outstretched. And out of the portal came two hands holding a golden sphere about three feet in diameter. The skin on these hands was blistered and raw, but they were steady, holding the sphere. The arms extended out all the way but whoever it was didn’t come through.
Cyra took the globe, staggering as if it was heavy, her body shaking as she stepped back from the portal.
“To the wall!” Leonidas yelled. He took point, the five Spartans flanking him in a wedge. There was little resistance from the Assyrians, their ranks still disjointed. The rest of the Spartans had regained the Middle Gate and stood on top of it.
Leonidas paused at the gap in the Gate, allowing Cyra and her precious cargo to pass through. He looked over his shoulder. The Assyrians had pulled back and were re-forming, the task easier now that Lichas and his archers weren’t bombarding them. With the reinforcements that were pouring into the killing ground, and the losses his men had already endured, Leonidas knew the next assault would ride over the wall and break his line.
He turned his attention back to this side of the wall. Cyra was reverently holding the golden sphere in her hands, peering into it. He could see that the surface wasn’t smooth but appeared to be made of numerous two-inch strands of gold interwoven in a complex pattern.
Leonidas blinked, because the strands seemed to be pulsing, as if they were alive, even shifting
in place, as if she were holding a nest of snakes.
“You must go,” Leonidas said to Cyra.
She didn’t appear to hear him, her focus on the sphere.
Leonidas placed a blood-spattered hand on her shoulder.
“You must go.”
Cyra slowly looked up. “I see … ” Her voice trailed off.
Then Leonidas saw something beyond her that caused his heart to pause momentarily: Lichas limping up the trail with a half dozen of his men. And they were firing their bows back down the trail. The king held up his free hand, five fingers spread wide. Then he pointed to the south. The five remaining knights broke ranks and dashed to support Lichas. The other five stayed near Cyra and Leonidas.
There were shouts of alarm from the east. When Leonidas looked in that direction. He saw the solid line of Assyrian reinforcements moving forward in step toward the Middle Gate.
A horn sounded to the south, and fifty Immortals came rushing up the path, overwhelming Lichas, his archers, and the five Spartans Leonidas had sent as reinforcements. And in the center of the Immortals was a woman who the King recognized as having been the one next to Xerxes: Pandora.
“We’re surrounded,” Leonidas stepped between Cyra and the Immortals. He saw that Pandora also carried a Naga Staff. His eyes darted about, searching for a way to get Cyra out of the pass, but the Assyrians were charging to the north, the Immortals filled the pass to the south, the cliff and sea to the east and the rock wall to the west. He felt a pang of failure, that despite his best efforts, he had not achieved what the Oracle had tasked him to do; the map would be Pandora’s.