Atlantis Gate

CHAPTER 24

Cyra lay still on the hard ground, slowly taking inventory of her body. She felt as if she had been severely beaten. Every muscle ached and her fingers were torn, the wounds still oozing blood. She slowly sat up, grimacing in pain. As she expected, the Spartans were already awake and moving, even though dawn was an hour away. She could see Leonidas ten feet away, his squire slowly rubbing oil onto his skin, then kneading the muscles underneath, loosening them.

“It will be a clear day,” Leonidas said in a low voice, as if respecting the darkness. Cyra glanced up. The sky was clear, thousands of stars sparkling overhead. She heard muted laughter from a group of warriors as she gathered her cloak tight around her shoulders. “How do you feel this morning?” Leonidas asked, his teeth flashing as he gave a quick

smile. “Fine.” The smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “It will be a long day,” the King said. “You must hold until tomorrow,” Cyra said. “And then we can die?” Cyra wasn’t certain whether it was a question or a statement. She noted a red tinge on the

horizon, but in the wrong direction, to the north. Leonidas must have noticed her looking that way. “The Persian camp is like a false dawn.

They burn much wood. An army on the march is like locusts, devouring everything in its path.” “It is a waste,” Cyra said. “Yes, it is.” Leonidas wasn’t looking to the north though, but rather at a cluster of young

Spartans who were sharpening their xiphos. “I want you to stay behind the wall this morning. I

don’t want the men to see you once they form.” “Why is that?” “You remind them of home. Of their families. Their wives.” “Isn’t that a good thing?” Cyra asked. “They know why they fight,” Leonidas said. “I want their focus on battle” Cyra nodded. “I will tend to the wounded. Those who cannot fight.”

“Stay close to the wall, on the south side, near the wounded,” Leonidas said.

“Why?”

“You will see.”

Metal on metal, leather creaking, men cursing. The Persian army began to stir and move. The orders had been issued, taking hours to trickle from general down to squad leader. Those chosen to fight this day, their fates decided by a few old men sitting in the King’s tent the previous evening, began to gird themselves for battle. Those not called up said their silent prayers at being spared for this day at least.

Stories circulated the camp from those who had met the Spartans in battle, mostly from the Egyptians, but even some of the Immortals had told tales late at night. And as with most armies, the stories became exaggerated. The Spartans were seven feet tall. They fought with limbs cut off. It took a dozen normally mortal blows to kill one. There was even a story there were only three hundred of them in the pass. Men shook the heads disbelieving this last story— three hundred could not hold for two days, not fight off the Immortals.

The real dawn came with a blazing red sun rising over the Gulf. Leonidas had his armor on and was pacing along the top of the Middle Gate, deploying his men. The Spartans formed a double line as they had the previous day, directly in front of the diminished stone wall. The sound of bugles and drums echoed up the pass, indicating the Persians on the march.

A squad of skiritai came jogging back and their leader went directly to Leonidas. “Five hundred foot of Scythians — heavy infantry — lead. Behind — archers. At least four thousand. Different nationalities. Some I’ve never seen before.”

Leonidas nodded. As expected. “Join the squires,” he ordered the rangers. He raised his voice so all could hear. “Knights! Listen. The Persians come just as we expected. A wall of heavy infantry and behind them archers. We are ready for that. As your aching backs can tell you.”

That brought a low chuckle from the men.

“But we must stand fast for most of the morning before we implement our plan. I do not want any of you to fall asleep from boredom.”

Leonidas waited out the laughter. “As you already know from the soldier’s vine, the rest of our army is four day’s march away. And the only reinforcements closer are two hundred archers under Lichas.

There was no laughter. From her place with the seriously wounded Cyra was surprised that Leonidas would tell them such negative information yet he didn’t want her in front of the wall for fear of affecting the morale.

“That is the state of things,” Leonidas said simply. “Are there any questions before the Persians arrive and we begin our day’s work?”

There were none and Leonidas hopped off the wall and walked the line, checking his men, paying particular attention to those who had been wounded the previous day, making sure they were up to the task.

“Hey, old man,” he stopped in front of Polynices who sported a blood-soaked bandage poking out from underneath his helmet. “Did some Persian try to knock a little sense into you?”

Polynices laughed. “If he had achieved that, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“True, true,” Leonidas agreed. “I assume you sent whoever dealt you the blow to his gods?”

“I parted his head from his body,” Polynices said. “His gods might not recognize him.”

The Spartan King edged closer and lowered his voice. “What do you think? Can we hold the day?”

“If their generals are stupid — yes.”

“If their generals are smart, what would they do?” Leonidas asked, even though he knew what he would be ordering if he were the Persian leader.

“Heavy infantry in assault after assault all morning regardless of casualties to keep us engaged in the pass while using the fleet to land to our rear.”

That was Leonidas’s greatest fear — that the Persians would simply land troops behind them. He had rangers posted to watch the Persian ships and so far the fleet remained still, the only activity barges landing to bring food and supplies to the massive army. Perhaps the Persians thought there were more Greeks marching this way and such a maneuver could turn into a rout with the landed troops caught between the pass and the reinforcements.

“Do not worry,” Polynices said. “The Persian army is too large for a general to think straight. It takes enough brainpower simply to move the entire thing and keep it fed. Not much left over to figure out how to employ it in battle.”

Leonidas looked around now that he could see. He noted the Persians’ ships in the Gulf to the north. And the contingent of finely garbed soldiers surrounding their King as he made his way to the throne set on the mountainside. And then up the steep mountain to the top, noting the scrub covered slope, then back down to the pass.

“I feel as if I am forgetting something important,” Leonidas confided in Polynices.

“You would not be a good commander if you didn’t feel that,” the old man said. “We have a good plan for today. That is enough for now.” He nodded toward the pass. “We have company.”

The first rank of Scythian heavy infantry marched into the open space, the commander deploying his men, doing a much better job than the Immortals had the previous day. Eighty wide, six ranks of Scythians locked in place, shield to shield, thick spears pointing ahead. Behind those six ranks, bowmen filled the space, packed tightly, with just enough room between the ranks for their weapons to be wielded. The same was true on the narrow path to their rear as more bowmen prepared for battle.

Leonidas went to the center of his line. The Scythians were eighty meters away and he could see the eyes of his enemies. He slid into the open space in the line and, like the rest of his men, waited.

Xerxes impatiently watched the preparations. He was tired of this place, of Pandora, of the Spartans. “Why are they not firing?” he demanded of his general.

“My lord, the bowmen are stacking their missiles,” the general informed him. “It will be difficult to resupply them once the battle is engaged. And we want to keep a continuous bombardment going so that when the Spartans weaken from holding their shields over their heads there will be no respite except that of death.”

Xerxes frowned. “Shade,” he ordered, indicating his left. A slave quickly ran into the place and held up a palm branch, protecting the King from the slanting rays of the early morning sun.

“What will today bring, Pandora?” Xerxes asked.

“I do not know, my lord.”

“No predictions? No visions? No words of wisdom?”

“I am afraid not, my lord.”

“You are not very useful as a seer,” Xerxes said loudly, bringing uncertain chuckles from his court sycophants. “I will make a prediction then. I will tell you what I see the day bringing. Spartan blood coating that cliff wall underneath the pass red. That is what I see. And I see further than that. I see all of Greece in flames. The cities that have caused us so much trouble, especially Athens and Sparta, razed to the ground, the earth plowed over and salted so that no sign of them remains and nothing will grow in those sites. That is what I see.”

“Shields up!” Leonidas yelled the command in a loud, yet calm voice as he noted the archers bring their bows, arrows cocked, to bear at a forty-five degree angle. He lifted his heavy shield as he went to one knee, locking it in place with the men to his left and right. The shield was at the same angle, in inverse, from the archers facing them.

The sound of the first volley of arrows being released by the Persians was almost musical, but very loud, louder than any Leonidas had heard in all his battles. As the sky darkened with the wooden shafts arching up, he estimated they were in range of at least three thousand archers, quite a feat on the Persian’s part to get that many in so small a place.

While the first volley reached its apex and began descending toward the Spartan lines, the second volley was launched. Leonidas realized he was tensing and forced his shield hand to relax. The missiles landed with the thud of iron tips striking wood, ground and rock. Leonidas felt one strike his shield, hitting a rivet and bounce off. His eyes were peering through the slightest of cracks between his shield and the man to his right. The Scythians were leaning on their shields, laughing and screaming obscenities.

The second volley landed. From somewhere to Leonidas’s right a man cried out in pain as an arrow found his exposed foot, pinning it to the ground. The warrior cursed as he lowered his shield and ripped the arrow out of his flesh — a mistake as the next volley caught him exposed and three arrows struck his body. Two bounced off armor, but the third caught him in the neck, driving down into his body, severing arteries. The man fell forward, his blood spurting.

All this Leonidas caught out of the corner of his eye. “Hold!” he yelled. “Leave him,” he ordered as the men on either side made to retrieve the wounded man. “Lock in place,” Leonidas further ordered. The two men slid closer together, keeping the shield wall intact. The wounded Spartan tried to crawl back, under the shield wall, but he didn’t make it, bled dry. More arrows hit his body.

Behind the Middle Gate, Cyra was seated with her back to the stone wall. The dozen seriously wounded were to her left and right. Eight feet in front of them, the ground was pin cushioned with arrows, clearly delineating the safe zone from the death. An occasional arrow would bounce off the top of the wall and drop harmlessly into the safe zone. She couldn’t imagine what was happening on the other side of the wall. She could not imagine an ant surviving this, never mind a man.

“How long has it been?” Xerxes grumbled.

“Three hours, my lord.”

Xerxes leaned forward, squinting. “Are you sure they aren’t dead underneath those shields?”

The general swallowed. “Sire, they would not still be holding them up if they were dead.”

“Surely they must grow tired soon,” Xerxes said.

“That is the plan, sire.”

Behind the King, Pandora stirred impatiently, the rolled up map tight in her hand.

“Did you hear the one about the Persian King and the chicken?”

Leonidas smiled as he listened the men joke to each other underneath their shields. Several more men had been struck, but the wall was holding. His arm ached, the muscle quivering, but he had held the shield in this position many times in training for much longer periods of time, while trainers went down the ranks striking men with wooden poles, screaming at them. King or not, Leonidas had taken his place in the training every month.

Leonidas checked through the crack. The Scythians were still leaning on their shields but they were neither laughing or hurling obscenities. He knew it was beginning to sink in to them, that the Spartans would not be so easily dispatched. He also knew that his men were beginning to wonder when he would issue the orders to implement the plan they had prepared all night.

Leonidas raised his voice so that his men could hear above the sound of bow strings twanging and arrows thudding home. “Isn’t it nice of the Persians to supply us with so many arrows for Lichas and his men to shoot back at them?”

There was laughter, but Leonidas could tell it was strained. He returned his attention to the front. He edged his shield over slightly so he could see the hillside where Xerxes’ throne was set. He could see the Persian King flinging his arms about, mouth wide open, obviously yelling at the cluster of finely armored officers in front of him. Leonidas was tempted to give the order, but he knew that as long as the Persians were content to lob arrows at his forces, the clock was ticking in his favor. And there was the issue of when Lichas and his archers would arrive.

“You heard me,” Xerxes restrained himself from ordering his master-at-arms from lopping off the general’s head for questioning the order.

The general bowed his head. “Yes, my lord.” He scurried off to pass the command down the chain of command.

Leonidas had watched the general scurry away and wondered what was next. It was obvious the Persian King was losing patience with the barrage. From the lack of shadows from the arrows sticking into the ground nearby, Leonidas estimated it was noon. This had gone on without change for longer than he had hoped.

He was thirsty and his bladder was full. Several men had already pissed where they knelt, the urine flowing in small golden rivulets along the rocky ground. And no one said a word about it. What was a little piss when arrows were raining down upon them and a quarter million men waited to slay them?

Leonidas could see the Scythian commander talking to a courier who wore a helmet with a tall plume on it — the same officer that Xerxes had been screaming at.

“Steady, men,” Leonidas yelled. “Something’s getting ready to happen.”

“About damn time,” someone yelled in response, which brought a chorus of laughter.

The Scythian commander was yelling orders in his strange tongue, his men lifting their shields. Still the arrows came. The commander went down his line, making sure it was dressed properly, shields interlocked, spears forward.

Leonidas frowned as another arrow thunked into his shield. The Scythian lines began moving forward, yet the barrage wasn’t stopping. If anything, Leonidas realized, it was getting thicker. He suddenly realized what was about to happen. He looked through the thin space between his shield and the man to his right toward Xerxes. The Persian King was leaning forward, as if watching some interesting sporting event.

The Scythian commander pointed forward toward the Spartans with his sword. Leonidas could see the fear on the men’s faces. He could hear muttering in his own ranks as his men realized the enemy infantry was approaching; yet the arrows still came down.

The Scythians were halfway across the open space. Some arrows, their range short, began to fall into their ranks. Leonidas saw one of the warriors in the front rank collapse to his knees and fall forward, a shaft sticking up out of his back.

When the Scythians were less than twenty meters from his men, Leonidas rose to his feet, bringing his shield from the up to forward position. His heart pounded with pride as the entire two lines of Spartans immediately rose and did the same, ignoring the arrows that showered down upon them.

The Scythians slammed into his lines, both sides jabbing, hacking and slashing as they fought among the arrows still being fired by the Persian archers. The missiles struck without regard for the side one was on.

Leonidas neatly sliced the head off of a Scythian right in front of him, then pointed the Naga Staff blade up into the air and pumped up and down three times, before bringing it down to parry a thrust from a Scythian officer.

Hidden in the bushes above the pass, a skiritai saw the signal and passed it along. Over two hundred squires and skiritai were hidden on the slope, crouched under bushes and behind piles of rock, clinging to the steep slope in small hollows they had dug the night before.

Released, they sprang into action, shoving forward stones that had been laboriously carried up the slope from the Middle Gate the previous evening. The heavy rocks tumbled down, smashing into the clusters of archers below.

The squires and skiritai were too high as the archers tried to turn their weapons against them. The arrows reached their apex fifty feet below, then many arched over and caused their own mayhem among those that had loosed them.

And at that moment, Lichas and his archers arrived. They announced that by a line of men stepping up onto the Middle Gate and firing point blank into the Scythians, just over the heads of the Spartans. At such close range their powerful bows could punch through armor and the effect was devastating.

The arrows from the Persians had stopped as the archers reacted and died under the rock assault from above, which was becoming a literal avalanche as the hundreds of head sized rocks that had once been half of the Middle Gate that had been carried by the Spartans up the slope the previous night showered down upon them.

The front rank of Scythians were fighting bravely even as the ranks behind them were spitted by the Greek arrows. Leonidas moved forward and the Spartan line surged, the men actually happy to be free to move, even if it were toward the enemy, after so many hours under their shields. Their heavy sandals snapped the arrows stuck in the ground as they slashed at the Scythians.

Leonidas howled with the passion of combat as he drove the Naga Staff completely through the chest of a warrior in front of him, the thrust so strong it actually struck the man behind that Scythian, killing him also. The entire Spartan line growled, screamed and yelled as they cut into the Scythians with a vengeance their enemy had never seen and would not see again as they died.

Absolute silence reigned on the hillside around Xerxes throne. Not a single Scythian escaped. Half the archers were dead, crushed by stone or knocked off the trail to fall to their death below. The others were fleeing down the same path taken by the Egyptian and Immortal survivors of the past two days.

Xerxes pulled his dagger out and stalked forward. His master of arms was at the edge of the escarpment. Xerxes slammed the blade into the man’s chest and he tumbled forward. The Persian King spun about. No one would meet his eyes. Except Pandora.

“Go.” Xerxes gestured with the blood-stained dagger. “Check the path. Be back by daylight.”

“Stop.”

Leonidas whirled, Naga Staff at the ready and only managed to halt the sharp blade as it reached Cyra’s neck.

“Stop,” she repeated, placing her hand on his arm. “It is done for today. It is done.”

Leonidas blinked.

“It is done. You have won.”

Leonidas slowly nodded. “For today,” he whispered, looking at the blood on the blade of the Naga Staff.

“For today,” Cyra acknowledged.

“And tomorrow?” Leonidas looked around in a daze at the dead and dying that surrounded him, lying in a field of countless arrows. His feet were submerged several inches deep into the mud made of dirt, blood and urine.

“Ah,” Leonidas moaned. He staggered several feet to the right and sunk to his knees, ignoring the muck as he dropped the Naga Staff and cradled the head of a wounded man in his arms. Cyra joined and recognized Polynices.

“You led well,” the old man whispered, blood flecking his beard.

Leonidas was looking about. “We have lost many.”

“But as long as there is one Spartan standing-” Polynices paused to take a deep breath, before continuing—“the Persians will not have the pass.”

“You fought bravely,” Leonidas said. “I saw—” he stopped when he noted that the blood was no longer bubbling out of the old man’s mouth. He reached up and closed the lifeless eyes. “He was my first instructor in the agoge. He was the first to teach me the basics of phobologia.”

Cyra placed her arm across the King’s shoulders. “Perhaps — just perhaps — fear is a good thing. Perhaps there are things we should fear. Things we don’t understand.”

Leonidas shook her arm off. “Can you respect the dead?”

Cyra stood. “We are doing this to respect the living.”