So we went out together, and joined the warriors.
Every man before he entered the holy precinct had cleansed himself and prayed. They crept down soft-footed, hand on mouth; not even the enemy near could have hushed them like the dread of the cave. A torch smoked in an ancient socket; if a man coughed, or clinked his bronze, echoes went back and forth, and died like the chitter of watching shades.
I went through first, lest any man feared ill-luck from it. No light must show from the mouth; so after the last black grope, the cloudy night seemed clear. Waiting while the spies marked out the path before us, I felt that I knew this place. As I looked about, I saw marks on the rock, and peering closely found a carved eye, rubbed with time. My foot crunched on a shell; on the threshold-slab there were withered flowers. Secretly in the dark I made the sign against evil. Time out of mind, the place had not been opened. How had the boy known?
Once marked, the path was easy. The men filed out, catching at each other, stumbling and saying, “Hush.” It seemed to take half a night, and I wondered if we had left time enough. But all were through before the first fading of the stars. Last came Hippolyta, who had stayed to see good order, and reverence in the shrine. When her hand touched me, I gave the word to go. Man passed it on to man, with a sound like rustling reeds.
We crept over the level ground, towards the Hill of Apollo. It is the highest of the ridge, and commands the rest. Already the cocks were crowing; skylines looked black against less than blackness. We reached the foot-slopes and slipped upward among the trees.
We did not give them time to see us first. As we reached the open with day’s first gray, we gave a great war-yell, and charged the camp. The omens were faithful; Terror was our friend. Watching the ramp and the northern postern, their sentries had not looked where the walls were sheer. The first sound of their outcry told us we had them. Before dawn had kindled the tops of Parnes, we were masters of the hill.
It had been manned with fighters only; the horde was in the plain beyond. Among the dead we found some Sarmatian women; but no Moon Maids were there. If any had been, they had got away to ready the other strongholds. I did not mean to give them leisure for it. My heralds blew their horns; and the horns of Amyntor answered from the Rock. He had been at work behind me; the great gates were unbarred. Now with the force that I had left for him, he came charging down upon the Hill of Ares, covered by the Cretan bowmen, to take the enemy from the flank.
Day came, clear and cold. It shone upon the Rock, and on the strong house of Erechtheus with its crimson columns, its checker-work of white and blue; the house of my fathers, which I had staked on a single throw. Across the dip it looked near enough to toss a stone at; but if we lost, I should never come within its gates again. I turned to the plain of Piraeus and the sea; for my men were pointing, and breaking into cheers.
The bands of plunderers were returning, streaming from the south. No good news there. But out beyond them, the beaches of Phaleron Bay were bright with ships. They were the ships from Salamis, the fleets of Athens and of Eleusis, the fleet of the Salaminians, coming to join the battle.
Before us on the ridge of hills, seething and swarming, were the Scythian warriors. They covered the top of Pnyx, the next hill north beyond the saddle. We were above them now; but we must storm them from below, with no surprise to help us. I heard the shouts of the horde beyond. Yet further off, Amyntor blew the call of victory; he had taken the Hill of Ares. Now was the time. I raised my hands to Zeus. Somewhere above the sky he sat with his great scales in his hand, weighing our fate. I threw up my prayers into his balance. But it would need more than prayers, to tip the pan.
Hippolyta touched my arm. “Listen,” she said. “A lark is singing.”
He hung above us bubbling music, soaring and lapsing in blue air. She said, “He brings us victory,” and smiled at me, her gray eyes clear as the song. The fresh breeze fluttered her glittering plume, and the flag of fair hair that beat her cheek still flushed with battle. She was all gold and fire.
I gave back her smile, and spoke. I do not know what I said to her. A strange lightness was in my head, and everything echoed there, as if in a hollow shell. The hills, the battle, the sea with its colored sails, the Palace and the warriors, glowed bright and flat and far, like pictures painted by a skillful Cretan on the walls of some great room where I stood alone. Only my fate was with me, sent from the god. My soul waited for the word.
The sea was far, the ships like toys on it. Yet it seemed to me that I heard it roar. Distant at first, then nearer, the surge grew in my ears. I knew it was the voice of no mortal waves.
I had heard this sound before; when I lifted the stone at Troizen and got my father’s sword; when I offered myself to the god, to go to Crete. It is the token of the Erechthids, time out of mind. At the great turns of fate it comes so, and, when the deed has answered it, it dies away. But now it grew, as if the flood that made it surged around my soul, to wash it from its moorings and drift it out on a shoreless ocean. And I knew its meaning. A great solemnity closed me round, a great grief of loneliness, a great exaltation. It was the voice of Moira, the voice that calls the King.
The tide would sweep to the Rock, Apollo had said at Delphi, and would be turned by the appointed sacrifice, which the god would choose. Why had I not seen then that in such great peril there could be only one? I should have married sooner, I thought; I leave children for heirs and a realm divided; Crete will break away. But that too was fated. The god of my birth, Blue-Haired Poseidon, has it in his hand as he has me. He has told me my part, to make the offering for the people; that is enough for a god to tell a man. I shall die on this field; to this all my life has led me; but I have saved my kingdom and made it great, and the bards will not leave my name to perish. So be it, then; I prayed always for glory before length of days. Father Poseidon, I consent; accept the offering.
So I said, praying within in silence; for warriors going into battle must hear of victory, not of death. And the surge of the sea grew steady and strong all around me, a great voice of triumph, bearing me up and making my body light. I turned to Hippolyta, standing by me in her valor and her beauty. She, even she, the nearest to my heart of all things mortal, seemed out beyond this wall of crystal in which I stood alone with the singing god. If I had felt the coming of a common death, I should have said farewell to her, and given her counsel what to do for herself and our son. But I walked with fate, who says that what will be, will be.
This is our last deed, I said in my heart; our last fight together. Let us go with the gods, in pride and battle-joy. She will have time to weep.
She was looking steadfastly at me with her clear eyes. I did not know what time had passed since I heard the voice of Poseidon. No one seemed impatient; it could not have been long. She said to me, “I see you clothed with victory, as if a light shone through you.” “You too,” I answered; for some solemn presence seemed to have touched her also. “In the gods’ name, then. Come, it is time.”
We ran down into the dip between the hills; then threw our shields before us against arrows, and climbed towards the Pnyx. Up there was the man who would send my life to the god; or the woman maybe, for the Moon Maids were there shouting their high war-calls, bright as cock-pheasants in the morning sun. The hill was steep, but my feet were light on it, as the tide of fate bore me along. Yet something hindered me: it was my heavy shield of dappled bull-hide. It made me laugh, that being given to death I should lug along, from habit, this burden which had no use but to keep me safe. I loosed the buckle of the sling, and tossed it from me and ran onward. It was not my business to choose when I should fall.