They would be in the third wave, my cousin's horseless cavalry, under the general Menander. Lion and I were in the first, the left wing, behind the Argive and Messenian heavy infantry, eleven hundred in all, with four hundred light troops, darters of Thurii and Metapontum, in support. The center, once it re-formed up top, would be all-Athenian, the tribal regiments of Leontis and Aegeis, both crack units with their own peltasts and incendiaries.
On their left were the mercenary troops, including Telamon's Arcadians, supported by two hundred Corcyrean marines serving as javelineers, then another picked Athenian regiment, the Erechtheis. Linking this to our wing were four hundred Andrian, Naxian, and Etruscan marines armored as hoplites, my own among them, with a hundred Cretan archers and fifty darters of the Messapian tribe of Iapygia. The heavy units would assault the walls, with the missile troops immediately to the rear, firing overhead to clear the ramparts.
Topside, the troops' name for Epipolae, is several hundred feet up, crumbly white limestone with scrub oak and fireweed, sheer on three sides except the west, where it is steep but climbable.
There is a racetrack called the Polyduceum at this end, the last flat space of any scale, and upon this the assault troops marshaled during the first watch of the night. A light-armed force of two hundred rangers had already started up the Heights. It was their job to rope the face and secure the precipice.
The night was hot and dark as a tomb. The troops had been awake all day, keyed-up and impatient; few had slept for fear the previous night. Each man packed fifty pounds in shield, helmet, and breastplate and another forty of ironmongery and kit, for our orders were to take the counterwall and rebuild our own. We had all our masons and carpenters with us. Now massing on the marshaling ground, men sheeted sweat, crapped out at all postures, pillowing their heads on shields, stones, and each other's sprawling limbs. Many discarded helmets, for the heat and vision in the dark; others shed breastplates and greaves. The god Fear had made his entrance. Across the field one descried men evacuating bowels and emptying bladders.
"It's starting to smell like a battle,” Lion observed.
Our cousin Simon appeared. He had spotted us passing and got leave to call. He was decked in full panoplia, including helmet with horsehair crest. “What happens now?”
“We wait.”
I introduced him round; he knew Chowder from Athens and Splinter, another of our mates, from Phegae near Marathon. “What do you call this?” the latter inquired, indicating Simon's top-brush.
“Affectation,” prompted Chowder. They teased Simon, laughing from nerves.
“Is it hot,” Simon spoke, “or just terror?”
“Both.”
I unballasted his helmet for him.
“Are you scared, Pommo?”
“Petrified.”
Among Lion's notes is this observation: When soldiers seek to name the object of their terror, they rarely cite its true source but some unrelated or even ludicrous corollary.
My cousin had become obsessed with the dread that Lion or I would be slain tonight and not he. This would be infamous, he portrayed, as he deserved it and not we. He was already making vows to change his ways.
“No one's dying,” my brother assured him.
“Right,” seconded Chowder. “We're all immortal.”
When the call came down, I tugged our cousin apart. “It'll be hot Topside; you'll be sweating. Don't take wine, understand?
Only water. Eat every chance you get or you'll cramp. And don't be ashamed to crap yourself. We'll all be scraping mud off our thighs by sunrise.” We could hear the guidon bearers passing the word to assemble; all must form up and dress the line. “You'll be fine, Simon. So will we. We'll take our wine later, with victory.”
The signal came. We went up in column. Even at this hour heat radiated off the west-facing stone, which had been baking all afternoon. There were three tracks, each wide enough for one man; switchbacks turned so tight you could reach up with your capped spearpoint and tap the shields of the column snaking ahead across the face. We could hear shouts and fighting two hundred feet above; word came to advance at the double, as if we could. Up we went, clinging to the roped face, humping full kit plus tool packs and gear bags, shortsword and dagger, nine-footer in the right fist, ox hide skirt beneath the shield to deflect ironheads, plus leathers and battle pack with bread, wine, and waterskin. Sweat slathered; one cooked inside his carapace.
By the time our unit reached the top the rangers and lead units had driven the enemy from the Labdalum fort. We surged onto the flat, remarshaling. “Party hats off!” our captain bawled. We chucked the cornel plugs that protected our mates from getting stabbed accidentally, exposing the spearpoints' steel.
The table atop the Heights measured three miles east to west and just under two at the waist. We must cross it the long way and cross it fast. “Dress the line!” “Take your water now.” Of Pandora's original sixteen marines we had lost nine to disease and action over two years, added ten from depleted units and lost seven of those. Our current eleven had been subsumed under an Etruscan platoon whose captain, though past fifty, was a fire-eater with wrists thick as anchor ropes and hams like an ox. He could lift a mule, they said, though I never saw him do it. “She'll be raining iron soon, lads. Keep the ranks tight, ass hole to belly button, and you might live to chase pussy another day.”
The line stepped off at slung shields. We had dreaded the Labdalum fort, but it had fallen with barely a fight. The front surged forward. Terrain was raw, ascending, broken with dry courses and defiles. In a way it was worse than cleared fields of fire.
Branches caught the bowl of your shield; brush snarled your stride; it was impossible to advance on line. Squads first, then entire platoons faltered to regroup; gaps opened, filled by units from the wing or rear. We saw flames ahead and heard cries.
A whistle cut the darkness. Three Athenian rangers materialized, identified themselves by the password, “Athena Protectress,” and were conducted to Demosthenes' post of march, somewhere off to our right. Our Etruscan dashed off to find it. Men gulped water and dumped rations. Here he came back. The first manned defensive position lay a quarter mile ahead: a stone outwork with a palisade. Forms and timbers had been laid for construction of the wall; the enemy had torched them-that was the blaze we saw-but the wood had gone up too fast, tinder-dry in the heat, and the rest our lads had busted apart. Still the foe was there. He was waiting. The rangers were hard characters, faces blackened, wearing pilos caps and armed only with rabbit-stickers and the Lacedaemonian sickle, the xyele. They were tired now and scared; they wanted wine. Who didn't?
Lion and I set our two files at six and five, with the pair of us up front. It was so hot, sweat coursed from beneath armor with an audible flush; you could hear it sluice onto the limestone, like a dog pissing. When we wrung our undercaps, the liquid gushed as from a sponge. A marine made to ditch his helmet. Our Etruscan cuffed him. “Do you want your brains bashed in?”
Lion would not let our men loosen their breastplates or rest except on one knee. Wine they could have; we all needed it. Fear was on us now. You could hear it, like a comber at the base of a cliff, as the skins passed hand-to-hand and each ranker gulped the liquid courage which is never enough and, with that breathless overhaste all soldiers know ran through his prayers and superstitions, fingered the charms pended within his shield's bowl and chanted his magic phrases. “Whatever happens, don't break apart. Shield-to-shield all the way to the top.” Lion tugged our eleven about him. “Who runs, better see me dead first.” He meant he would kill that man himself when he got back.