Philip II of Macedon, with key Greek city-states in submission, turned his attention to Sparta and sent a message:

"If I win this war, you will be slaves forever."

In another version, Philip proclaims:

"You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."

According to both accounts, the Spartans sent back a one word reply:

"If."

Sparta

September 21

477 BC

12:55

There are times in a warrior's life when has to back down. No matter how deeply ingrained upon him it has been to never give, to never bow to the enemy, no matter that it is the law. There are foes so formidable, so merciless no wise men would fight them.

Spartan women are one such relentless adversary, so when my mother tells me that I will volunteer to go in Athen, I do not ask why, I do not try to argue; I take one last spoonful of soup, get up and grab my armor.

She laughs and tell me I can at least finish eating. Good, there are very few things in life I really enjoy, but my mother's 'Black soup' is one of them, so I sit back and resume eating while considering what I am about to get myself into.

Athen… Last time I saw the city was two years ago, after King Leonidas' death in the Thermopylae, the Presians had pushed all the way to the city and . My mora and I were stationed at the Peloponnesian Peninsula, charged with defending it from the invaders while letting refugees trough -Athen would owe us a huge favor for this-.

Except the enemy never came.

I took us quite some time to realize that and much less to punish the Persian ground forces while the Athenian navy did the same at sea. Glorious. Bloody, but glorious.

A year after the death of our king, the last Persian on Greek soil was turned into ash atop a burning pile of his kind. It has been a year since my brothers and I have not fought a single battle and now the Athenian messenger finally convinced the ephors to send a few warriors investigate the reports of steel spiders crawling around the country side.

I will not go alone, even though Plataea proved to everyone how deadly Spartans were even outside their phalanx, it was decided a group of thirty warriors should be sent with some helots and provisions for a few week.

Marcus will be Enomotarch and I will act as his Phylearch, which means I will be in charge of half the phalanx. Will be strange to serve under him again after so long, the only occasion he had to give me orders were during our daily war games and practice.

Behind me, Dionae enters the house, moving slowly in a vain attempt to sneak up on me. Her tiny feet barely make any sound at all, but I was trained not to let anyone take me by surprise and have the scars to prove it.

She pounces and I spin of my chair in time to grab the back of her head and dip her face in the bowl of cooked blood and liver. There is not much left, but enough for her to get some in her ears.

"Hello, little one." I greet, and she immediately answers;

"Hewo Ashos!"

"Athos, stop it…" I immediately let my sister go and take a step back just as my mother emerges from the kitchen, towel in hand.

That woman should have been a prophet, she can always tell what I am doing sometimes before I think about doing it.

I once asked her how she did and she answered that she had been trained just as thoroughly as I was, just not for the same purpose.

My little sister is thirteen years old and just tall enough to kick a man in the groin, which I saw her do on many occasions to some of her most annoying pretenders.

Those I did not have to threaten of a slow and painful agony, anyway.

She take my mother's towel and wipe the soup off her face.

"I'll get you some day!" She vows.

I smile and ruffle her hairs, "You will; once I'm old and senile!"

"You're already old!" she laughs once I sit back, taking he own seat to my right.

"I tuned twenty-one last month, Dio, that's not old by any standard…"

"It is by mine!" She counters, before taking a bite into the piece of meat our mother puts in front of her. I simply continue.

"It is barely one fourth of my active military career…"

"That you spend sitting here and playing with your friends." She does have a point there…

"Well," I begin, trying to find a fault in that, before remembering the main subject, "I am still not old."

"If he is old, what am I?" mother points out, looking falsely insulted.

"You're my mother! Mothers don't grow old…"

"We just shrink and wrinkle?"

"Exactly!"

I scoff at the outburst but a lifetime in the military has taught me when to keep quiet.

Before the conversation can be carried further, however, I hear Marcus call his men to form up in the city center.

We are leaving, it seems.

I take a few seconds to put on my armor and helmet, then find my swords and finally take my shield from my mother.

"With it or on it," She reminds me, "And please try not to bring back any… Mementos, this time."

I laugh and nod. "This time I shall bring you flowers, then."

At Plataea, I used my shield to crush a Persian's skull and a large chunk of skin and hair got caught in a tiny crack, on the side.

I tried to get the thing out after the battle, but it was too slippery for me to get a good grip.

By the time I made it back to Sparta, the flesh had almost rotten away and smelled, let's say, quite strongly.

I sling the thing in my back and kiss my mother, ruffling Dionae's hairs some more on the way out.

Outside, in the center of town, Marcus is fighting with his spear, trying to find a soft spot on the ground to dig it in.

I pick up my own spear from against the wall and walk up to my comrade and commander.

He smiles upon seeing me and gives me a solid warrior handshake that almost huts my wrist.

Marcus is the strongest Hoplite I ever met, but also the slowest, which means by the time I had earned seven kills at Plataea, he was still in mid charge.

He quickly compensated, however, and finished the fight with his two swords shattered, his spear destroyed beyond any use and his shield bent inward.

By the day's end, Marcus had scored a hundred and seventy-two confirmed kills.

I barely got pass the hundred, but it is not important. We won.

Aeimnestus, Kratos and Demetrius are the only others I fought with, the rest are fresh warriors who just graduated from the reserve.

They are young and never faced battle, but every Spartan has had to fight for survival ever since we were child, so none are what we could call inexperienced.

I throw my spear on my back and hang my arms to it while watching the helots load our provisions in backpacks. Half the slaves are female and scrawny, crumbling under the huge packs. The ephors gave us whatever they could spares and I am not complaining, but these helots will not survive the trip this way.

Now, I do not feel bad for the weaklings, but I cannot fight and cook at the same time.

"Men!" I order my part of the phalanx, take as many bags as you can carry."

No discussion; they grab the provisions and imitate me when I hang four of the bags to my spear. In addition to my armor and weapons, it becomes quite hard to move, but I love challenges.

Marcus does the same thing, taking five bags. Most of his men follow suit, but there is not enough provisions for all of them, so many hurry and fetch maintenance tools, spare javelins, spears and swords, a few even bring spare shields. Two of them grab portable blacksmith equipment that usually requires a horse or mule to move.

Now carrying supplies for three to four times our number, we set off on the path for Athen. Looking at my brothers, I can see the shadows of smiles under their helmets and decide to add some challenge.

"Spartans, the first one to fall from exhaustion will be making camp for the rest of the trip."

There's actually a few eager chuckles at that and Marcus bumps my shoulder.

"You realize none of them will stop until we get to Athen?"

I nod, "If the battle does not make it into history, the way we got to it surely will."

The Enomotarch smiles and re-assure his grip on the spear. The thing is so heavy it dented the neck part of his helmet.

0

0

0

Athen's Outskirts

477BC

September 30

00:55

I suppress a yawn and massage my painful neck.

Ahead, Marcus and his men are lying in the high grass, ready to rush at the first sign of the strange light.

My men are waiting just behind him with javelins, ready to bring the rear and cover the phalanx's advance.

Then, once we're out of javelins, the plan is to rush in and flank the enemy formation by forming a pair of micro phalanx.

Then we kill anything that's not a Spartan…

Except the slave we use as bait, anyway… She doesn't seem so scared, interestingly, just sitting there next to the fire and knotting blades of grass into tiny baskets that she discards into the fire as soon as they're done.

Maybe she knows having Spartans watching over you means that you WILL see the sun rise again.

Suddenly, she gets up and spin on herself, horrified.

"It's in the grass!" Is all she manages before being dragged away in the night, screaming.

The moon is very bright and I manage to pick out the trail the girl leaves in the grass as she is being dragged away. My javelin whistles angrily on its way.

It hits something and sticks at an agrle of forty-five degrees, a meter above the ground and half of it sticking out of the ground.

Lightning ripple along its handle for a few seconds, then the weapon disappears in the tall grass.

Marcus and his group begin their organized charge, covering themselves behind their shield as they approach the area where my javelin was last seen.

I admit being a little startled when the helot rises above the grass, javelin in hand, and uses it to stab something on the ground twice. She then give it a hard kick that causes a loud metallic sound and a lot of pain, from her ensuing curses.

Marcus orders her to join my line and bring the javelin, before continuing his charge, spear held ready and sandals crushing the grass. His phalanx is a wall of solid bronze and pointy sticks. Anything that stands before them stands as much chance as a snail in an avalanche.

The helot does not wait for an invitation and is by my side in seconds, despite the fifty meters between us.

She hands me my javelin and study the tip. It was bent by whatever armor the enemy wore, almost pointing backward now… Impressive, but not unique, many cultures have created metals harder than bronze, but they always face the same problem; too brittle.

I straighten the tip with my thumb and hand the weapon back to the woman, who seems intrigued.

"You earned a weapon." I explain. She hesitates. "I'm a Warrior, not an ephor, I don't play mind games."

She finally takes the javelin and holds it close. She reminds me of Dionae, her face and all… I can't help but think the only difference between us is that was born to fight and her to serve. We are both slaves to our nations.

Unlike Marcus and the others, I feel no contempt for the helots because of their rank, only because of their weakness and the fact they let us push them around like cattle.

Marcus' voice brings me back to the scene ahead. "Athos, come look at this…"

I move forward with my twelve warriors by my side, holding a perfect line and with out shield intertwined. No quite big enough to be a real phalanx, but close.

We cross the distance quickly and I find Marcus, Kratos and Demetrius kneeling next to something that seems to be no more than a large lump of brass.

Then, it turns a lone eye pink to me and flails its skeletal arms in a vain attempt to… whatever does it think it will do if it somehow reaches me? Shake hands? Tickle? In any event, it is not moving, its legs laying around uselessly.

The thing has a cylindrical abdomen connected to four boxy legs pointing away from each others, along with two tiny arms, near the 'head', a pink gem.

The javelin seems to have crippled it, as it remains still even as Kratos pokes it with his shorts word.

"Can you make it talk?" I look at Marcus, then at the prisoner, before finally asking:

"Can it talk?"

The hoplite shrugs. "Find out."

Great… The others form a circle around me while I dig my spear in the ground to initiate a dialogue. I speak Celtiberian, Latin, Helenian and a few dialects from the north. Let us see what we can find out.

"Who are you? Why do you take peoples away? Do you understand me?" No answer.

After I try every language I know without a single reaction, we must face it, that thing either speaks every languages I tried or none of them, since it showed no particular signs of understanding at any point.

The helots have long since set up camp around us and are preparing it for the night. I hope we are not actually going to stay here, this thing might have had friends.

"So?" Marcus asks, leaning against my spear.

"It's not talking." I draw my short sword. The Enomotarch nods and I dig it in the thing's eye. Immediately, I feel an atrocious burn along my forearm and quickly pull my blade out, lightings rippling along my arm.

The pain quickly subsides, replaced by a throbbing and slight numbness.

Let us not do that again.

I am about to tell the others what happened when I realize my feet are no longer on the ground and I am floating. I look up and am blinded by an intense blue light.

"Spartans!" I hear Marc call, "Ready yourselves for battle!"

I kick around to face our leader and he tosses me my spear, already holding his ready.

All around us, Spartans are holding their shield and spears in readiness for the contact with whatever has assaulted us. There are also pieces of the camp being brought along, floating freely around us.

I snatch the spear from the air and place myself in combat position, braced for impact same as when I charged the Persians.

Whatever the enemy is, it will bleed before the last Lacedaemonian has fallen.