A soldier's arms

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

New story. I've always thought that most accounts I've read of the battle of Thermopylae are way off the mark, so I'm trying to reclaim it.

This will take a while to write, so don't hold your breath between episodes. Enjoy.

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INTRODUCTION.


Sparta 450 BC

......and when Cimon poured wine over my head I just laughed. Grabbing him around the shoulders we all tottered around the plaza and towards the shade of the trees. Mardonius grabbed the jug and gulped down a heroic draught. Then he belched and pointed towards the east.

"See? We can see the sun. Not like those Athenian bastards cowering behind their walls."

Cimon wrestled the wine away. "They'll keep." he said. "Their time will come.". Then he drained the jug and tossed it towards a huddle of old helots who were repairing a wall.

Mardonius sniggered. "We'll winkle them out like fat oysters. They can hide all they like- but they won't stop a Spartan!". With that he took a deep breath and started singing the first bars of "Leonidas".

He was silenced within seconds. The earthenware jug came flying back and struck him full in the face, shattering with the impact. Mardonius shrieked with shock and pain and reeled back, blood flowing from his nose and brow. I turned back and stared at the old helot who watched us with a cold insolence, gripping his mattock hard.

Cimon had drawn his knife, but something in that old slave's manner had frozen him in his tracks. Though he must have been well over 50 years old, he was still a lean and hardened man and he looked ready to kill us where we stood. Slowly reaching down, he raised the hem of his tunic to reveal an ugly scar running across his ribs; a white and shiny viper around his side.

"See that, boy?" he said. "A Persian left that on me. Think you could do better?".

Mardonius was silent and breathing hard. Sometimes these old Messenian veterans were trouble. They had reinforced our elite hoplites in the Persian Wars and had seen their share of killing. Once too old to fight they would be returned to helot status to serve us, but it was not unknown for them to rebel bloodily.

Then the helot pointed to another scar, this one running down his calf. "The crush of the bodies drove the edges of my greaves in..." he murmered,

An armoured helot? Surely not! "You were a hoplite?" I asked.

"I was.". Now, only now, the warrior in him was fading and he looked tired and old. He leaned back against the wall.

"What happened to you?"

He looked up again, and that disgusted look was back in his eyes. "I used to be like you. So arrogant. So keen to go to war. Singing "The Ionian revolt" and swaggering about, so full of ****.". Now he sat down under the trees and beckoned us forwards. "Let me tell you what it was really like. Let me tell you about Thermopylae."

"Simoniedes was on my left, for I was stronger....."

******************************

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

30 years earlier.

The third night at Thermopylae

"They're in good voice tonight" I said . I was braiding my long black hair, as were several others around me. Others among the Spartan hoplites tightened buckles on their bronze breastplates, exercised or poked campfires with sticks. Everyone was fidgeting- the tension hung over their camp like a blacksmith's hammer, and men by the thousand clutched at any pointless action to take their minds off the clamour coming from the Persian lines not half a mile away.

Simoniedes had wrapped himself tightly in his blanket- autumn was here and the nights were growing colder. The wind was picking up tonight and it whipped in from the sea, around the mountains and up the narrow pass of Thermopylae. "I can't blame them" he said. "It'll warm them up". He wriggled a little closer to their fire.

Our army wasn't large, but it stretched a long way down the pass that in several places was less than ten feet across. On one side the sheer grey face of the mountains, on the other a cliff onto rocks and surf- the knife-cut that was the pass of Thermopylae cutting between them for four miles. Our camps stretched back nearly a mile and housed 4200 fighting men, all grouped together according to nationality.

The largest force were the Athenians, numbering 2600. They had been the loudest on the first two nights, screaming out their songs commemorating their great victory at Marathon ten years earlier. This was done to intimidate the Persians, but also as a rebuke to us Spartans who had not fought at Marathon, and had barely raised a presence here. They lacked our discipline, but Marathon had shown they could still fight with desperate courage. With Athens under threat, no-one expected them to be any weaker now.

Next were the 1100 Boetians, Thebans and Thespians. They were the quietest and showed the fear most openly. No surprises- their homes faced no immediate threat, so it shocked no-one to find scores deserting each night.

Finally there were the mixed races of the armed helots, and the 300 Spartans. As ever, faith had hamstrung our effectiveness as the great festival in Sparta had delayed the muster of the phalanxes, just as it had at Marathon. Though the combined Greek army was led by a Spartan, King Leonidas, his countrymen were little more than a token presence.

Leonidas was in a foul mood again. For the last week, his every waking hour had been spent hearing Athenian jibes and songs, reminding him that for all our much-vaunted military prowess it was Athenians who did the fighting. His knuckles were bone-white, and this morning he had beaten a helot to death for oversleeping. Marathon had made him bitter- the soft and timid little Athenians had emerged from behind their coward's walls and fought like demons, while we who laughed at defences had prayed in our homes.

Iannis already bore the scars of his king's wrath. On the march to Thermopylae he had brawled with an Athenian who had called him a "Spartan *****", and had been flogged in front of the assembled phalanxes. He lay on his belly to save his scabbing back and morosely scribbled pictures in the dust.

"How's the back?" I asked.

"Itchier than a whore's crack." said Iannis. "It's keeping me awake."

"That's good" I said. "It's healing."

Simoniedes chuckled. "Hey, you always wanted a war-wound, didn't you? Something to impress the lads with". He slapped Iannis's invitingly upturned backside. "Those scars should win you a drink or two at the next festival."

"What next festival?" said Philotas, pointedly. "Planning on getting back home?".

Simoniedes laughed at that. He was always like that. We were all supposed to be impervious to fear and discomfort, or at least to not show it, but to Simoniedes it was as if this was just another training game. His jokes and laughter poked and cajoled at his companions, annoying and (finally) amusing them into laughing back. Perhaps there was one like him in every phalanx, keeping the morale of his fellows up, but I never met anyone quite like him. In contrast, I was the slow and dull one floundering behind him.

Our group all came from the same village- myself, Simoniedes, Philotas, Iannis, Perdiccas and Eumolpas. In Sparta's armies old friends were kept together so that every hoplite knew and trusted the men holding the line with him. We were also paired- my pair was Simoniedes and we were together at all times. In the phalanxes, each man's shield protected the man to his left so there was a tendency in battle for the line to drift to the right as each man sought a little more protection. That's why the stronger men were placed on the right- to anchor the line. Simoniedes on my left, for I was stronger. He called me his "big, dumb ox".

Tonight, however, even Simoniedes' charm was struggling to lift our spirits. Word had reached us that the Greek navy had been defeated, so we were no longer waiting to sweep the Persian invaders away.

We were stuck on a mountain slope with no hope of reinforcement. Outnumbered more than twenty to one. We all knew our chances of surviving were very slim.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Sheer magic, please dont take to long.

[TheGuitarist]

In an astonishing coincidence, I've been toying with the idea of writing about Thermopylae myself. My world history teacher covered it last week and I was fascinated by it.

But your version will undoubtedly be far better, so I'm looking forward to the continuation!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I hope you do write about it. No two authors approach such a tale in the same way, and it's amazing just how different they can be.

I don't think it's possible to write a story in depth without projecting some of your own personality on it, and that's where the differences really lie.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 2- Morning. 4th day.

The sky was greying as dawn approached, and birdsong could be heard over the singing and bellowing from the Persian camps. With quarter of a million men at his disposal, Xerxes could easily spare a few thousand each night to approach the mouth of the pass and spend all night screaming at us. It was standard practice- an attempt to deprive us of sleep and undermine our morale. Usually it was just screaming and drumming, but the occasional mispronounced obscenity in pidgin-Greek could be made out. Sometimes the more educated attempted a spot of propaganda- reminding us that we could be crushed underfoot by overwhelming odds at any moment- but it usually got drowned out and just blended into a constant idiot blaring.

Not that we were slacking in that field, however. We had something that the Persians didn't- abundant food. They were hungry- the land could not support an army of one hundred men, let alone one hundreds of times larger. Xerxes had arranged his next supply landing from his navy to be beyond the mountains, which was why he had to take the pass. A detour around the mountains with an army that size would have taken over a week, and he would arrive with his forces weak and half-starved. We played on this- every time we received our meals of vine leaves fatly stuffed with lamb we would wave them at the Persians and ask if they were hungry. I swear we could hear their bellies growling from half a mile away.

Xerxes was no fool. His intelligence was excellent and he knew we were dug in hard. Taking the pass would be bloody and brutal, so he had paused for four days as he tried to intimidate us into surrender or retreat. However his supplies must have been near-exhausted by now, and within a day or two he would have to attack. With every day the tension grew.

Philotas was showing the strain. He had spent some time softly punching at the grey cliff face as we idled round the fire, until Iannis noticed the blood smearing across the rock from his torn knuckles. His pair, Perdiccas, took him away to a quiet corner and we could hear him crying. Now he was silent and pale, so Perdiccas was gently cajoling him to rest and eat. Perdiccas was a quiet and soft-spoken man, but understood his boisterous pair well and could be relied on to coax him through if anyone could.

At the other extreme, Eumolpas was taking his usual morning exercise which consisted of a good hour of shouting abuse at the Persians. He usually began by reminding them that they had been away from home for a long time, then moved on to suggesting what their women were doing with Ionian Greeks in their absence, which orifices were involved and how much they screamed with delight at being filled by a real man for a change, rather than a Persian eunuch. Simoniedes would sometimes join in, and his suggestions would become so spectacularly disgusting that the two would end up howling with laughter, unable to keep up the abuse any longer.

Sometimes one of the Persians, usually a poor and inexperienced Medean warrior desperate for glory, would approach the pass entrance and challenge a Greek champion to single combat. We were under strict orders not to do so- I usually replied by lifting my kilt and waving my penis at them. In the absence of a common tongue it was a suitably eloquent retort.

However these moments of amusement were growing fewer and further between. This was the fourth day at Thermopylae and we were tired, dirty and shivering at night. Conversations were less common, and were replaced by terse scolding and flashes of temper. Leonidas stalked through the camps with his retinue like a thundercloud, issuing orders and summary punishments for idleness.

As the day dragged on, and noon passed, Perdiccas climbed up the steep face of the pass until he reached a ledge over two hundred feet up. He stayed up there for a couple of hours, watching the activity in the Persian camps. Then he climbed down and hurried over to Leonidas's quarters.

It was near dusk when he rejoined us, looking grim and dejected. "What did you see?" I asked.

"A lot of activity. Drilling, quartermasters handing out arrows, instruction sessions. The infantrymen from Menes are all being moved up to the front."

Iannis swore. "They're coming, aren't they?"

"It looks like it. Tomorrow looks like being the one."

Not even Simoniedes had a laugh at that. His jaw was clenched and he looked thoughtfully at the ground. For once, it was Philotas who broke the silence.

"Good. I'm tired of waiting. I just want it to end."

He sat down heavily. I leaned back against the rough rock face and slowly slid down it, feeling it drag and graze my elbows. There was a great weight in my belly and a dry, bitter taste in my mouth.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to defacate. I wanted to cry. I wanted to beat my head against the rocks until everything stopped. Instead I checked my sword's edge and tried to become as cold and numb as the cliffs around us.

[vovan]

Great stuff, as always, Laz. Unfortunately, I can't offer you a literary analysis, but I think it would suffice to say that the story is awesome.

[gooberboob]

An interesting tale, as I didn't study this portion of history in any depth, I definitely want to see more, the only thing I found wrong were one or two sentences that were semi-confusing, but if you were to read it aloud, you could catch it with no problem.

[SKILORD]

Nice.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 3. Evening, 4th day.

Leonidas had spent the last hour addressing groups of soldiers according to their nationality. He had saved us Spartans until last, obviously planning to make a rousing finale to his countrymen. One of his helots, a Messenian clerk, was taking notes of his speeches to report back to the waiting ears in Athens, Thebes, Thespiae and Sparta.

The light was failing by the time he reached us. We all stopped checking our equipment and drew around to hear his speech. Leonidas was quite a short man, but heavily-built, and had a pugnacious bulldog's face that looked ridiculous when coupled with his lavishly braided and oiled hair.

Stepping up on a boulder to gain height, he looked around at his troops, then began.

"Countrymen! You have spent your lives preparing for this moment. You were fortunate enough to be born into the greatest culture in the world, and to be born into the purest and noblest bloodline in humanity. Now you must prove yourself worthy of it."

He was gesticulating so wildly that he almost fell off his rock. Regaining his balance, he continued.

"Your ancestors brought Sparta glory by enslaving the Messenians to serve us. You will now prove yourselves by bathing in the blood of those Persian vermin ahead of you. They are not men. They copulate with lesser races and animals, while their women drop runts and cripples from their stinking holes. There is nothing pure in them. "

His face was flushed and sweating, and he was near-screaming. "Kill them all. Kill them even when your spear is lost and your sword is broken. If your pair slackens in the combat cut open his belly yourself, for he is a traitor to his people. Only be.....only by.....You must..."

He stumbled to a halt, his mouth working like a landed fish as he tried to find the words. Seconds dragged on, and his face was purple with frustration. Dumb and raging. His arms jerked up spastically, but still the words failed to emerge. None of us moved- we weren't even breathing.

Finally he snapped. He cursed us as dumb animals, stepped down from his rock and punched his clerk full in the face, before stalking back to his tent.

In the collective grip of an awful embarrassment, we all avoided each other's eyes. Instead we went back to our camps and stoked up the fires to ward off the night's chill.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

In case anyone's getting twitchy, you're two episodes away from the carnage beginning in earnest. The next episode is my favourite, however.

[vovan]

Looks cool. Eagerly awaiting for the next part.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 4.

Night, 4th Day

I measured out the evening in the rhythmic hiss of the whetstone on my sword's edge. Hiss, hiss, hiss....a simple, repeated task can drown out thought. Anything to fill the time, to give it some sort of meaning.

Simoniedes was watching. "You'll wear that thing down to a dagger" he said.

I checked it's edge with my thumb- it was no sharper than it had been an hour ago. Any sharper and it could have sliced the moonlight.

He yawned, his breath clouding in the cold air. "Get some sleep" he said.

Seeing as I wasn't in the mood for arguing, I sheathed my sword before pulling the blanket over me. Carefully tucking it under my legs to keep out the chill, I watched the flickering light of the campfire dance over his face. The conversations from neighbouring groups were dying down and the were few sounds other than the sharp popping of burning firewood.

Simoniedes rubbed his eyes. The smoke tended to hang in the pass like a chimney, and we were all red-eyed now. Looking up, he saw me watching. "Can't you sleep?"

"No chance" I answered. "Can't stop thinking."

His teeth shone as he flashed that winning grin at me again. How many times had I seen that now? "You think too much" he said. "Too much furrowed brow, too little **** and balls".

"I thought I was your dumb ox?"

"You are. Oxen are very thoughtful animals. Big on thoughts, small on conclusions. So deep in thought they never notice they're in a yoke and knee-deep in their own crap".

I laughed quietly. "Lovely. That's me, is it?"

"Of course". He shuffled across until he sat on the edge of my blanket. "It's about time I heard you laughing again. You've had a face like a rainy day for weeks".

"Well pardon me. I've had a few things on my mind."

He was watching my face, looking for the reactions. "Like what?"

"Like getting a Persian sword in my guts. It's the thought of being opened up like that..."

Simoniedes went quiet and gazed around. He watched the huddle of blankets on the other side of the fire where Philotas and Perdiccas lay huddled. They were whispering very softly, too softly to be overheard. He watched them for several minutes.

Then he looked back down on me. "Like I said- you think too much."

He lifted the edge of the blanket. "Come on- move up a bit. A man could drop dead in this cold.". He shuffled under the blanket alongside me. Then he ran his had up my kilt and lightly took hold of my phallus.

I nearly shot bolt upright in shock. "Aaaah! Your hand's freezing!" I howled.

He nearly passed out with laughter. For a good minute he could barely draw breath, and tears were streaming down his face. Finally he wheezed and spluttered to a halt, and stared across at me, grinning. "You'll soon warm it up" he said, feeling me grow and harden in his hand.

Before he could react, I drew my cold hand down under the blanket and grabbed him likewise. He bellowed in outraged delight and shock. "Aaaah, you evil bastard!". The laughter again, and this time I joined him, laughing every bit as hard....

.....and then we stopped talking and let our hands move together while we held each other close for warmth and strength. For those sacred moments I forgot to be afraid. When the climax took me I knew that other pairs across our camp were doing the same- each act was an act of defiance in the face of death. Each hoplite helping each other draw strength and reinforce the bonds between them.

We were Spartan hoplites. We would kill for each other and die for each other. We would do this because we loved each other.

[TheGuitarist]

Superb. I'm glad you're not afraid to show the depth of the bonds between members of the Spartan army. After all, that unbreakable brotherhood was the reason Sparta was the greatest military power in the world for several hundred years.

Anxious for the next installment.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Dont be to anxious Guitar man or a Spartan may be knocking on your door!

Excellent tale Laz but too much info for me in that last part, however dont let me stop you and I cant wait for the fight to come.

Good stuff

[notyoueither]

Hey! Where's my story!

Get going you slacker!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I said it would take a while.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

You were not wrong either were you Laz it certainly is taking a while

Looking forward to the next bit all the same.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Work issues- the next part will follow when I've scraped together enough time to write it.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 5. Thermopylae, 5th day.

The battle began at first light. When our scouts raised the alarm that the Persian army was advancing, Leonidas ordered the Athenian hoplites to the entrance of the pass. They held the ground before the first barricades which were manned by a mix of Thespians and Messenians. We were half a mile back, holding in reserve ahead of the second barricades, at one of the tightest stretches of the pass. In ranks no more than four wide, we waited in case there was a breakthrough at the front.

Echoing down the mountain-walls came the sounds of battle- screams, bellows, crashes and thuds. Messenian runners carried reports back to Leonidas at the first barricades, and ran his orders back along the line. The word was that the Athenians were holding up well, news that must have soured the promising reports for our king. To us it came as no surprise- the Persians still clung to the old ways of heroic battle, all swordplay and dramatic one-on-one melees. Such tactics were devastating on the open field, where the speed and overwhelming numbers of the Persian attacks could outflank their opposition.

Here at Thermopylae, however, they were fighting on our terms. Our defensive formation, strict discipline and positional advantage firmly tipped the balance in our favour. From my position on the right of the line, I was right up against the edge of the cliff and had a fair view of the battle. What I saw shocked me. I could see that it was the Medean spearmen who were fighting the Athenians- the light infantry making up a large part of Xerxes' rank-and-file. The Athenians had retreated back to one of the narrower sections of the pass to make a stand, and the Medeans were being forced onto their spears, or driven off the cliff by the force of their advancing ranks behind. Before panicked orders could be screamed back along their lines I had seen a rain of men fall onto the rocks below. Hundreds must have been killed or maimed without a sword or spear coming near them.

When Xerxes finally ordered the Medeans to retreat and ease the pressure on their front-line, the Athenians began to drive forwards in close order. Their morale badly shaken by the slaughter, the Medeans gave ground and were driven back along the pass. Two hours after battle had commenced, the Athenians were right back at the entrance of the pass having killed over a thousand of the enemy at a loss of less than fifty of their men.

For the next two hours they held that position, crouched behind their shields while arrows rained down from the Persian archers. Then a second assault was made by the Medeans- again the Athenians fell back to the chokepoint to make a stand. Though this assault was more cautious, the Medeans were still taking a ferocious savaging and they retreated out of the pass less than an hour later. By now the floor of the pass was carpeted with Medean bodies, and they were on the point of routing. The Athenians were close to exhaustion, but jubilant.

By noon, it was eerily quiet. The Persian ranks were seething but holding back from the pass. Then trumpets announced the arrival of Leonidas at the Spartan position. We rattled our spears in salute as he stalked up to our lines to speak.

"All Spartan hoplites will now advance and relieve the Athenians. Take up position at the pass entrance and hold the ground before the first barricades". He raised himself up to his full height, and unlike last night's fiasco words didn't fail him. "You have been trained to be the finest soldiers this land has ever known, but now you must prove yourself worthy of that training. Xerxes has withdrawn the Medeans- the next assault will be made by the Immortals."

Every second of the march up the pass is stamped on my memory- the smell of blood and sweat, the dust in the air, the way my breath rasped through my throat and seemed so loud as to drown out the sound of the marching feet. Then we were at the frontline. Then we were fighting for our lives.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I feel some hard-core and brutally authentic fighting coming on for the next episode.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Cracking stuff cant wait for some more

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Dut to the glory of the "sick day", you won't have long to wait.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 6. Thermopylae, 5th day.

Have you any idea what it feels like to fight?

The impact of shield on shield, and the pressure of those behind you, is crushing. I was a couple of rows back from the front line, which meant I could actually do some fighting. Those right at the front were so crushed together that they could barely move- all they could do was keep their shields up and push.

That's what war is. A dirty, noisy shoving match between two walls of shields. After our position, our biggest advantage came from our large, bowl-faced shields- the smaller and flatter shields that the Persians used tended to slide across them under the pressure, leaving gaps that could be exploited. Our next big advantage came from our spears, which were longer than those used by the Persians. This meant that despite being a row or two back from the enemy, I could look for gaps and stab at them.

The Immortals were terrifying. An elite chosen from all over Persia, each man towered over six feet tall, and was heavily-muscled. They spurned armour and fought with sword and shield in light shirts and trousers. Over the course of six hours, we slaughtered them.

For the last two hours, I was at the front. I had moved forwards to plug a gap left by a fallen hoplite and joined Simoniedes who was already at the front. With a crash of bronze on bronze, my shield hit a Persian shield and I became part of that screaming and lurching wall. My friends gradually worked into the front line too, until we held the line together.

What was it like? The heat was awful. In the crush of bodies we sweated and groaned, getting thirstier by the second. We pushed against the Persians, our feet braced in the stinking soup of blood, piss and **** that coated the ground. All the time we were no more than two feet away from an enemy face, while spears stabbed over our heads and past our shoulders. Sometimes the pressure would suddenly ease on the Persian side and we would stumble forwards onto an uneven footing of Persian bodies. Some of those under our feet were still alive, but were quickly crushed.

The first man I killed simply slid across my shield, and with a heave of my shoulders and hips I forced him over the cliff. My spear had been lost as I forced my way onto the shield-wall, and for over an hour I never came close to drawing my sword. My entire body and both hands were braced against my shield as I tried to become as dumb and unyielding as the mountain. I rarely raised my head over my shield's rim- the first time I tried this, a Persian spear rammed into my helmet making me dizzy with the impact. Instead I pushed hard and wrenched my shoulders from side to side, trying to unbalance the Persian crushed against me, trying to force his shield aside for one of my fellows to kill him, or to simply push him off the cliff.

Simoniedes was crammed against me, and we were both crouching into the cover of my shield. "Keep pushing, you ox!" he said.

Philotas died first. Soon after taking the front, he started to panic in the crush and his thrashing threatened to break our line. A hoplite behind him managed to draw his sword and cut his throat, then forced his way forward over his body to take his place. Blood was sprayed on me, but I couldn't swear that it was Philotas's.

During the crush, the straps fastening my breastplate broke under the strain and I was soon fighting bare-chested. Soon after that, the pressure on the front-line started to ease as the Immortals sopped trying to push us back. It was then that the fighting really started.

The first I knew of this was when I realised that the Immortal in front of me was trying to bite me. His sword was still pinned behind his neighbour on his left, but he was forcing himself over the top of my shield and snapped at my neck. Still unable to draw my own sword, I butted him in the face with the brow of my helmet and kept butting until he didn't have a face any more. The ridged bronze brow turned it into screaming meat that sprayed blood and saliva down the back of my shield. Once I forced forward until he had fallen underfoot, I stamped down until he wasn't moving. Then I drew my sword and killed, and killed, and killed.

Finally able to move and being on the right of the line, I used the freedom of my sword arm to hack at the Persians. If they turned their shields to meet my sword, they exposed themselves to the spears of our second and third rows. If they held fast I hacked at their legs, attempting to cut the tendons, and forced them up to the cliff's edge.

I have no idea how many I killed. Thirty or more, perhaps. It felt like it would never end, but this wild slaughter in fact lasted only a few minutes. The easing of pressure meant that the Immortals were pulling back and we were advancing to force them out of the pass. Eventually we were at the mouth of the pass, the last ranks of the Immortals broke and ran to join their fellows who had pulled out of Thermopylae.

I was swaying and dizzy, exhausted and thirsty, and covered in blood. Some was mine- at some point a Persian spear had skidded across a rib and nearly impaled me. We had held, however. We had faced the Immortals and driven them back out of the pass. The sun was setting and the hungry Persians knew they faced another night with little food.

[vovan]

Great stuff as always.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

[trevor]

Wow... excellent job. Words escape me...

[Skanky Burns]

A pleasure to read. Eager for more.

[SKILORD]

I must agree, this is quite awesome.