Steven Pressfield - Gates of Fire - An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

Night's chill had descended upon the camp; as the nobleman Tyrrhastiadas had predicted, fear now stood hard upon the allies; they were one rumor away from terror and one perceived prodigy from panic. Dithyrambos understood the militiamen's hearts. These needed some prospect to fix their hopes upon this night, some expectation to hold them steadfast till morning. Let the raid succeed or fail, it did not matter. Just send men out. And if indeed the gods have taken our part in this cause, well… Dithyrambos grinned and clasped my master's hand in farewell.

Dienekes divided the party into two units, one of five under Polynikes, the other of six under his own command. Each squad was to scale the cliff face independently, advancing across Kallidromos on its own to the rendezvous point beneath the cliffs of Trachis. This to increase the likelihood, in the event of ambush or capture, of at least one party getting through to strike.

When the men were armed and ready to move out, both parties presented themselves for final orders before Leonidas. The king spoke to them alone, without the allies or even the Spartan officers present. A cold wind had gotten up. The sky rumbled above Euboea. The mountain face loomed overhead; the moon, as yet only partially shrouded, could be glimpsed above the shreds of wind-torn fog.

Leonidas offered the parties wine from his personal store and poured the libations from his own plain cup. He addressed each man, squires included, not by his name, but by his nickname, and even the diminutive of that. He called Doreion Little Hare, the Knight's play name from childhood. Dekton he addressed not as Rooster, but Roo, and touched him with tenderness upon the shoulder.

I've had your papers of manumission drawn, the king informed the helot. They'll be in the courier's pouch for Lakedaemon tonight. They emancipate you as well as your family, and they free your infant son.

This was the babe whose life the lady Arete had saved, that night before the krypteia; the child whose being had made Dienekes under Lakedaemonian law the father of a living son and thus eligible for inclusion among the Three Hundred. It was this infant whose life would mean Dienekes' death, and Alexandras' and Suicide's by their association with him. And mine as well.

If you wish-Leonidas' eyes met Rooster's in the gust-driven firelight-you may change the name Idotychides, by which the babe is now called. It is a Spartan name, and we all know you bear scant affection for our race.

This name Idotychides, one may recall, was that of Rooster's father, Arete's brother, who had fallen in battle years before. The name the lady had insisted upon giving the babe, that night of the rump court behind the mess.

You're free to call your son by his Messenian name, Leonidas continued to Rooster, but you must tell me now, before I seal the papers and dispatch them.

I had seen Rooster whipped and beaten any number of times upon our chores and details in Lakedaemon. But never till this moment had I seen his eyes well and fill.

I am struck with shame, sir, he addressed Leonidas, to have extracted this kindness by extortion. Rooster straightened before the king. He declared the name Idotychides a noble one, which his son would be proud to bear.

The king nodded and placed his hand, warm as a father's, upon Dekton's shoulder. Come back alive this night, Roo. I'll get you out to safety in the morning.

Before Dienekes' party had climbed half a mile above Alpenoi, heavy pellets of rain began to strike. The gentle slope had turned to cliff wall, whose composition was maritime conglomerate, chalky and rotten. When the downpour hit, the surface turned to soup.

Ball Player took the lead past the initial ascent, but it soon became apparent that he had lost his way in the dark; we were off the main track and into the bewildering network of goat trails that crisscrossed the steepening face. The party made up the trace as it went along, groping in the dark with one man taking his turn in the lead, unburdened, while the others followed bearing the shields and weapons. None wore helmets, just undercaps of felt. These became drenched and sodden, spilling cascades from their brimless fronts into the men's eyes. The climb became outand-out mountaineering, traversing from toehold to handhold with each man's cheek mashed flat against the rotten face, while icy torrents sluiced upon him, accompanied by landslides of mud as the boulders and stones of the face released their hold, and all this in the dark.

For myself, my shot calf had cramped up and now burned as if a poker had been buried molten within the flesh. Each upward heave compelled exertion of this muscle; the pain nearly knocked me faint. Dienekes was laboring even more miserably. His old wound from Achilleion prevented him from raising his left arm above his shoulder; his right ankle was incapable of flexion. To top it off, the socket of his gouged eye had begun to bleed afresh; rainwater mingled with the dark blood, runneling through his beard and down onto the leathers of his corselet. He squinted across to Suicide, whose pair of shot shoulders made him slither like a snake, arms held low to his side as he writhed up the crumbling, mud-slick, rotting slope.

By the gods, Dienekes muttered, this outfit is a mess.

The party reached the first crest after an hour. We were above the fog now; the rain ceased; at once the night became clear, windy and cold. The sea rumbled a thousand feet below, blanketed an eighth of a mile deep in a marine fog whose cottony peaks shone brilliant white beneath a moon only one night shy of full. Suddenly Ball Player signed for silence; the party dropped for cover. The outlaw pointed out across a chasm.

Upon the opposite ridge, a third of a mile away, could be descried the tented throne of His Majesty, the one from upon which he had observed the first two days of battle. Servants were dismantling the platform and pavilion.

They're packing up. For where?

Maybe they've had enough. They're heading home.

The party skittered down off the skyline to a shadowed ledge where it could not be seen.

Everything the men bore was soaked. I wrung a compress and wound it fresh for my master's eye.

My brains must be leaking along with the blood, he said, I can't think of another explanation for why I'm out here on this ass-fucked errand.

He had the men take more wine, for the warmth and to deaden the pain of their various wounds.

Suicide continued squinting across to the far ridge and the Persian servants striking their master's theater seats. Xerxes thinks tomorrow will be the end. Bet on it: we'll see him on horseback at dawn, in the Narrows, to savor his triumph at close hand.

The ridge saddle was broad and level; with Ball Player in the lead, the party made good time for the next hour, following game trails that wove among the scrub sumac and fireweed. The track ran inland now, the sea no longer in sight. We crossed two more ridges, then struck a wild watercourse, one of the torrents that fed the Asopus. At least that's what our outlaw guide guessed. Dienekes touched my shoulder, indicating a peak to the north.

That's Oita. Where Herakles died.

Do you think he'll help us tonight?

The party reached a wooded upslope that had to be climbed hand over hand. Suddenly a swift crashing burst from the thicket above. Forms shot forth, invisible. Every hand flew to a weapon.

Men?

The sound receded swiftly above.

Deer.

In a heartbeat the beasts were a hundred feet gone. Silence. Just the wind, tearing the treetops above us.

For some reason, this serendipitous find heartened the party tremendously. Alexandras pushed forward into the thicket. The earth where the deer had taken shelter was dry, crushed and matted where the herd had lain, flank-to-flank. Feel the grass. It's still warm.