Spartans at the Gates (36 page)

“I would like to shoot
that
bow!” said Kolax.

Osyrus kissed Kolax on the head. “On the other side of the dark skin is Heaven,” he continued in a voice full of reverence. “But the light of Heaven is so bright that it would blind us were we to see it all at once. So the Great God poked little holes for us to catch a glimpse of that light. And the holes are in the patterns of the gods and monsters so that we won't ever forget the stories of our heroes and their enemies.”

Kolax loved hearing his father talk. He was so wise and seemed to have an answer for every question. Why was the sky blue in daytime? Why did horses have hooves and not feet? Why were the Greeks such terrible archers?

It had taken them two days to ride from the gates of Athens to this spot in the eastern Kithaeron Mountains. Kolax had ridden the entire way sitting in front of his father, for he had been too weak to ride a horse on his own. At first he had been filled with shame and had wept hot tears, but his father had said, “You have been whipped in the legs by Osyrus of Skythia, my son! Of course you cannot ride on your own. I am amazed that you are still living.” These words had filled Kolax with such pride that he had cast aside his shame and let himself be borne like a stripling.

“Papa,” said Kolax. “Are we going to Plataea?”

“I have not yet decided, my son.”

“Oh please!” whined Kolax. “The killing is good there. And they will pay us in gold.” A sudden stabbing sensation in his intestines made him shift and grimace. He needed to relieve himself, but his father had told him he must stay in his lap, for he had sensed danger lurking in those dark woods.

“I am still waiting for a sign,” said Osyrus, staring into the night sky. “We could go to Potidaea and join the hundred and fifty of our Bindi brothers sent to the siege of that city. But Potidaea is far to the north. It's many days' ride from here, and we would have to take a ship for part of the journey.”

“Will the Hellenes be angry that you left Athens?”

“The Athenians can suck my balls,” replied Osyrus.

“Ha ha!” cried Kolax. “Good one, Papa! That one Athenian general can suck my balls too.”

Kolax thought about the little girl Iphy with a pang of sadness. He had forgotten about her until they had ridden many miles from Athens. He wondered if she was still up in that tree. He vowed to go back there someday and get her down.

“Osyrus of the Bindi is tired of that foul and grassless city full of oar-pullers,” said Osyrus.

“Plataea is just over these mountains,” said Kolax, pointing to the west. “We could be there in a day! They have grass everywhere. So much grass!”

“I am unsure,” said Osyrus. “I do not know if we would be welcomed by the Oxlanders. From what you say they are in the midst of a war with the Spartans.”

“They would welcome us, Papa!” said Kolax. “They are my friends! I am a hero to them. You'll see. Oh, Papa! Please let's go to Plataea. Let's help kill the Red Cloaks.”

“Hush,” said Osyrus. “I hear something.”

Kolax squinted across the flames and into the dark trees at the edge of the clearing. He thought he saw shapes moving there. The fire crackled and spit as the pitch-filled branches burned.

“I'm not afraid of the Dog Raiders,” said Kolax in a harsh whisper. “I killed fifteen of them on my own.”

“Fifteen, eh?”

Kolax could tell by the tone of his father's voice that he was smiling. “I am not making it up!”

“That is a great number, my son, for someone so young.”

“Papa,” said Kolax, “you don't believe me? But I swear by Papaeus I killed fifteen of them on my way to Athens alone. I didn't have time to collect their skullcaps. But I do have several of the Theban skulls back in Plataea. My little friend Mula, a slave, is keeping them for me in a leather steeping bag. You will see when we get to the citadel. I'll bet they stink good and proper by now. I'll make my poison from the decayed flesh and—”

“Quiet now,” said Osyrus. “We must be quiet. Someone is coming.”

He wrapped Kolax in his cloak to hide him, but the boy pushed aside the cloth so that he could peek out. He saw a black shape moving across the clearing. The man stopped on the other side of the fire, peering at Osyrus from the dark slits of his dog hair–covered helm. He wore plate armor, greaves, and big iron bands on his wrists. He was a tall man with trunks for legs and broad shoulders.

“Greetings,” said Osyrus in a friendly voice, speaking in Greek. “Come and join us by the fire.”

The dark figure cocked his helmeted head to one side. “I thank you,” he replied in a tone of mock politeness, but remained where he was. The man looked past Osyrus, scanning the rocks behind and above him, peering into the blackness.

“He's a Dog Raider,” whispered Kolax from the tent of his father's cloak.

“Quiet,” hissed Osyrus.

The Dog Raider looked directly at Osyrus and asked, “Who are you?”

“I am Osyrus of the Bindi. You don't need to bother with me. I am just passing through with my injured son.”

“Just passing through?” said the Dog Raider with a scornful laugh. “With your injured son. And where are you headed, Skythian?”

“Who is to say,” said Osyrus. “The god chooses my destiny. Come and sit. We have wine we'll share with you.”

“Do you think I'm an idiot?” said the Dog Raider. “I won't drink your poisoned wine, Skythian horse-raper.” He made a quick gesture with his left hand, drawing his sword with his right. More shapes moved from the woods and came up behind him, fanning out in a semicircle, their weapons glinting in the light of the fire. All of them wore helms and had round shields slung on their backs. Kolax quickly counted fourteen men. He reached around and clutched the handle of his father's dagger where it was attached to his belt, inching the blade from the sheath.

“We're travelers,” said Osyrus. “In my country travelers are afforded certain rights of safe passage.”

The Dog Raider laughed and glanced from side to side at his men. “Did you hear the Skythian?” he asked in an amazed tone. “I think he left his sheep-shit brains in his Grasslands.”

Kolax could not believe this Dog Raider spoke to his father in such an insolent manner. He started to say something insulting, but Osyrus clapped his hand over his mouth.

“Which way would you like your heads to be facing when we lay out your corpses?” Osyrus asked the Dog Raiders calmly.

“Come again?”

“East or west?” asked Osyrus. “Answer me, quick, you maggot from a buzzard's arse, because you're all about to die.”

The Dog Raider chief turned to his men. “Skin the boy first, then roast him on the fire.”

Osyrus let forth a Skythian war cry.

The instant the sound had passed his lips a barrage of black arrows flew down from the rocks above, striking the Dog Raiders where they stood. The dumbfounded warriors jerked and gasped as they were struck, for the tips of the arrows were coated with a poison that acted nearly instantaneously, filling the men's veins with a terrible fire. They fell to the ground, screaming and writhing.

All but one.

The Dog Raider chief had somehow avoided being struck. An arrow had clanged off the forehead of his helm. Another had glanced off one of the iron bands on his wrist. He reacted without hesitation, leaping straight through the roaring fire—charging at Osyrus, who still sat on the ground.

Kolax, in a blur of motion, sprang from his father's lap, his dagger clutched in his hand. He ducked the Dog Raider's furious sword stroke and plunged the dagger into the man's groin, pulling the blade upward and spilling out the enemy's guts.

“Stop your arrows!” shouted Osyrus, jumping to his feet.

The Dog Raider chief howled in agony, dropping his sword and falling to his knees, clutching his intestines as they oozed from his abdomen. Kolax kicked him in the face with the flat of his foot, then sliced across the man's eyes, blinding him. The warrior clapped his hands to his face and Kolax drove the dagger into his chest—three quick stabs that pierced his heart.

The Dog Raider chief crumpled to the dirt. Before his head hit the ground Kolax was already bounding over to the nearest enemy warrior who lay on the ground, slitting the man's throat to make certain he was dead, then moving on to the next one.

“Kolax!” shouted Osyrus.

“Yes, Papa,” said Kolax without glancing up, driving his dagger into the brain of a twitching Dog Raider.

Osyrus stood with his mouth agape. “Good kill,” was all that he could manage to say.

Kolax smiled at his father and nodded. But then another powerful gut cramp wracked his bowels and he squatted on his haunches, groaning in pain. He peered up at the rocks behind his father, watching as the black silhouettes of Skythian archers moved down the steep face. There were twenty-four of them. They were all men of the Bindi tribe who had left Athens with Osyrus and Kolax.

The archers fanned out on the killing ground, carefully removing their individual arrows from the bodies, for each man marked his own arrows with a particular pattern on the shaft. They put the arrows back into their lidded quivers, careful not to touch the razor-sharp and tainted arrowheads.

“Strip them of the armor and clothes,” said Osyrus in a commanding voice. “Cut off their heads and put their faces in their arses so that they can smell their own bungholes for eternity.”

“Ha ha!” laughed Kolax, before doubling over in agony. He watched as the archers quickly completed their task, making a pile of clothes on one side and armor and weapons on the other. The fourteen naked corpses were lined up in a row, their skin shining white in the light of the rising moon. Kolax thought they looked like strange fish. He giggled as their heads were hacked off and arranged in the humiliating position. But the painful spasms in his bowels cut his laughter short.

“Where do we go now?” asked one of the archers.

Kolax turned to see Jaro—an archer nearly the same age as his father—standing face-to-face with him. Jaro was a tall and muscular man with the reddest hair Kolax had ever seen. Osyrus wasn't looking at him, though. He had his arms crossed on his chest and gazed at the sky.

“I don't know,” said Osyrus. “I'm waiting for a sign.”

“Well, we can't wait here forever,” said Jaro. “Killing these Dog Raiders is a waste of time. They don't wear gold like Persians. Where are we, anyway?”

“The Kithaeron Mountains,” said Osyrus. “Didn't you ever look at a map when you were in Athens? On the other side of this range is the Oxlands and the city-states of Thebes and Plataea.”

“I say we set out for that other place,” said another archer. Kolax glanced over at Skunxa—the fattest and smelliest Skythian he'd ever met. The man stood near the fire, trying on one of the Dog Raider helms. “We should join our fellow Bindis at the Athenian siege of Potidaea or whatever it's called and make some coin.”

A few of the Skythians made sounds showing their agreement with Skunxa. But others complained. It was a difficult decision to make: Plataea or Potidaea.

“Potidaea is too far,” said a slender young man with a neatly trimmed beard and a splendid topknot. He chewed on a piece of dried meat and smiled in a self-satisfied way. His name was Griffix and he was one of Kolax's cousins. “I heard it takes weeks to get to Potidaea on a trireme,” he continued. “And I don't see any ships up here in the mountains. Plataea, however, is just a day's ride over this mountain.”

“We should go to Plataea,” agreed Kolax.

“My son,” said Osyrus, holding up a hand. “Please. You are too young to have an opinion on such a matter.”

“Let the boy talk,” said Jaro, throwing up his arms. “He's the one who got us into this shit-pit in the first place.”

Osyrus waved a hand for Kolax to speak.

“Plataea is a wonderful place,” said Kolax. “The people aren't like Athenians at all. They are tough and don't ride in boats. There's heaps of gold too. You could each make enough in a year to buy fifty of the best horses back home.”

“Come on,” said Griffix. “The boy is talking shit. Are you
certain
he's your son, Osyrus?”

Kolax flew at Griffix, but before he could get close enough to throw a punch, Osyrus grabbed his son around the waist and lifted him above his head. The archers all laughed as Kolax kicked the air, screaming in his hoarse voice.

“Calm yourself,” said Osyrus, “or I'll have Skunxa sit on you.”

Kolax stopped struggling and glanced at the potbellied Skunxa. All of a sudden it felt like a knife was digging into Kolax's guts. He let forth a howling scream, clutching his midriff. Osyrus quickly set him down.

“What happened?” he asked. “What is wrong?”

“It's my stomach,” said Kolax. “I've got to make shit.”

He squatted down right in front of the men and started straining, his eyes bugging.

“I don't need to see this,” said Griffix, rolling his eyes.

“Watch!” barked Kolax. “I'm going to prove it to you.”

“Prove what?” said Griffix, a disgusted expression on his face. “That you're as crazy as a hemp-smoking hare?”

A great fart erupted from Kolax's hind end, followed by a noisy bowel movement that splattered on the ground.

“He looks like a sheep with the drips,” said one of the men, peering at Kolax.

“Hey, what's that coming out of his arse!” cried out another, pointing.

“He's shitting darics!”

“You're kidding.”

“Look!”

“Thank Papaeus!” said Kolax after he was done. He fell on his side and lay very still.

Many hands grabbed at the pile of feces, cleaning off the gold coins and holding them up to the firelight. Griffix, after thoroughly rubbing one of the darics on his tunic, bit into it, exclaiming, “It's real!”