Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) (46 page)

Several of the small clusters of residents
running ahead of the invasion force, desperate to escape, had
slipped through those gates as the defenders were slamming them
shut, but other refugees, now trapped in swiftly-conquered Piraeus,
had to veer left or right, screaming children in tow, to seek
shelter within the port.  Fortunately for them, the invaders
deemed them unworthy of notice.  Instead, Styphon's hoplites
secured the gate and waited.  They waited some minutes, until
thirty men arrived from the beach carrying six smooth Athenian
trireme masts on their shoulders.  Once at the gate, the men
set the masts down on the paved street and began bundling them like
a sheaf of javelins, using thick ropes brought especially for the
purpose.  Then they attached sets of chains at even intervals
along the huge bundle's length and placed on the end which faced
the gate another object borne on the ships from Sparta: a convex
bronze drum with a spike at its center and a hollow wide enough in
diameter to fit over the six masts.  They hammered the drum
into place, secured it with nails, then heaved the chains over the
leather-clad shoulders of the ten stoutest Equals present and
brought the completed battering ram forward to the gate.

In drills in Sparta, men armed with such a
ram had penetrated wooden walls the thickness of a typical city
gate in seven blows.  Piraeus's gate lasted six.  The
first three gave the double doors a bone-jarring rattle.  The
fourth and fifth created a crack and made it wider; and the sixth
blow,produced a man-sized hole in the wood through which were
visible the backs of dozens of stupefied Athenian defenders who now
set to fresh flight.  Equals poured through the breach
unopposed and swung the gates wide to speed the passage of the
rest.  

The bastions lining the Long Walls were
meant to allow defenders to fire missiles outward, but they could
almost as easily direct fire within.  "Shields!" Styphon
cried, but the Equals were already assembling into a tortoise-like
formation.  The centermost troops took turns bearing the
weight of the battering ram, which would be needed again when they
reached Athens, held their shields overhead while those on the
edges kept them angled out.  A hard rain sounded on the
barrier, a constant thump-thump of iron heads striking hidebound
wood and either embedding there or clattering onto the paved
street.  As it became clear the barrages posed little threat,
Styphon ordered the formation's speed increased, and the thunder of
missiles pounding nearly eight hundred bowl-shaped shields rose
briefly before tapering off again as they passed each bastion.

An hour into the march, Equals at the fore
reported the Athenians in their path throwing up a hasty barricade
which it seemed they then meant to set aflame.  A force had
been picked from among the Spartans to deal with just such an
eventuality, and Styphon wasted no time calling it to action.
 He led the twenty men forward himself, all at a full run,
screaming, shields high, spears forward.  Faced with that
sight, the Athenians scattered like ants, deserting their hasty
barricade of wagons and market stalls, throwing their lit torches
behind them in the hope the tinder would catch.  

It did not, and twenty of Greece's most
feared warriors—nineteen after one Equal was laid low by a spindle
in the back—became a work crew, using shields as ploughs to shove
aside debris meant to block their path to victory.  The
blockade failed in its purpose, hardly even proving a delay.
 The Equals' steady progress up the broad, deserted street
brought them soon to the end of the Long Walls, to the inner
cross-wall from which hung, on two stone pylons, the gates of
Athens herself, taller and sturdier than those of Piraeus.
 

Beneath a shelter of shields, the ram was
brought forward and its bronze spike, blunted by its earlier use,
was set against the bronze-clad timbers on the small gap where the
twin doors met.  Three men drew the ram back from behind, the
ten wielders set themselves and then, on cue, they heaved.
 The full weight of six ship's masts struck the doors, which
rattled on their hinges but refused to yield.  For the second
and third attempts, a dozen more men lent their shoulders and arms
to hammering the weapon home.  The gates of Athens shook
again, and a dent appeared in their bronze edging, where the ram's
spike forced the doors apart just slightly.  Letting loose a
great bellow with each heave, the determined sons of Sparta drove
the ram five more times into that same spot and achieved at last a
break in the bronze, a splintered hole in the wood.  

The achievement came at a cost: at least ten
of their number slain in the constant hail of white-fletched arrows
sent down from atop the sheer walls that towered above them on
three sides.  But whenever an Equal fell, those around him
merely closed the gap in their tight formation, providing first and
foremost unbroken cover to those engaged in the back-breaking labor
of swinging the great ram.

At last, with a thunderous boom which must
have shaken Attica, and a rousing cheer for which the people of
Lakedaimon had waited the better part of a decade, the doors of
Athens gave way.  Its breakers did not waste much breath on
celebration, for there yet was work to be done.  The city's
inanimate wall lay open, but ten paces beyond, visible through the
small hole, stood a second wall of spears and set shield-arms yet
to be breached.  These could not be the cream of the Athenian
hoplite class, and their numbers could not have been great, for the
bulk of Attica's forces, assuming all had gone to plan, were
currently arrayed against Brasidas on the Megarian frontier.
 Assumption, of course, was the enemy of victory (as the
once-contemptuous Athenian navy had learned this day), but events
thus far suggested no hitches in the smooth execution of Brasidas's
strategy.

The two forces glared at one another through
the gap in the door, which after three more crushing blows of the
ram became large enough for perhaps four fighters to pass if they
packed tight.  Neither side wished to be the first to
approach, but the defenders held the advantage in that regard, for
this was their city and time would only swell their ranks.
 Doubtless they would pounce the moment four or fewer Equals
dared become the first to pass through the breach.  All the
while the rain of arrows continued, raising a curse here, a groan
there.  Taking stock of their position and the assets at hand,
Styphon devised a plan and conveyed it, over the patter of arrow on
shield, to a half dozen men around him, who conveyed it to a dozen
more, and within minutes all was ready.

The ram, which had been discarded on the
ground, was hoisted again, and this time Styphon was among those
who set down their spears and slung its supporting chains over
their shoulders.  But instead of letting the ram swing free,
the wielders hugged it close, and on the count of three, holding
shields high, they charged with it through the breach.

The Athenians, as expected, pounced with
thrusting spears.  The man ahead of Styphon took a blade to
the leg and fell, but the rest took up his share of the load and
pressed on with undiminished momentum.  The Athenians could do
nothing to prevent the bronze-crowned bundle of masts from entering
their city at an acute angle to the doors.  Once it was
inside, the holders turned it parallel, using it as a barricade
behind which the remainder of the invading host could spill
through.

Five of those who had held the ram were
slain, but not for nothing.  By the time the survivors slipped
off the supporting chains, letting the bundled masts crush their
comrade's corpses, and drew their short swords, a foothold inside
the city was achieved.  It would not be yielded.  Within
the breached city walls, Spartan warriors fought in a mass that
swelled like a pool of crimson blood flowing from a freshly opened
wound.  An Equal in the rear ranks which had yet to join the
battle raised a war chant of Tyrtaios, and those around him lent
their voices, so the heart-raising sound competed with the
insistent shriek of the Athenians' trumpeted alarm.

Well before the last of the seven hundred
plus Spartiates had set foot in the city, the defenders broke and
fled.  Styphon ordered his men not to pursue, but regroup
instead by the broken gates.  He looked down and made a rough
count of fallen Spartan shields: ten, give or take, but there would
be time for tallying corpses later.  Just ahead and to the
right of the broad, paved avenue before them stood the hillside
theater called the Pnyx, the seat of Athens's beloved democracy and
a place where, by all accounts, a dizzying array of demagogues were
wont to make flowery speeches in praise of themselves.

While the ranks were mustering behind him in
even rows, Styphon picked out twelve men, told them to gather wood
and anything else that could be used as kindling, and he pointed at
the Pnyx.  

"Burn it," he ordered.

"Our democracy is our greatest strength!"
Nikostratos cried out over a sea of gently bobbing shields, the
colorful menagerie of gorgons and lions and lizards that was the
Athenian center. Behind the general, closely packed, facing the
enemy and moving as he moved, were twelve hoplites with shields
held high in a barrier against further attempts at assassination
from afar. Demosthenes stood watching among the cadre of aides who
were still in shock at the death of Nikias.

"We do not depend, as other cities do,"
Nikostratos exhorted, "on the skill and virtue of one man, or even
thirty, to lead us to victory. If one Athenian falls, strategos or
not, another is ever ready to step into his place. Nikias served
this city all his life, and gave her more than most, and we shall
sorely miss him, but the 
demos 
lives on, and shall
live on! Do not let this shameful display of cowardice on the part
of our enemy make you think for a moment otherwise!

"This is Attica!" Nikostratos thrust an arm
at the occupied Megarian frontier. "And those blood-drinking
vultures have no business being here!" He raised his hand skyward
in a fist, and the ranks of hoplites raised a warlike roar in which
Demosthenes could not bring himself to participate.

The quarter-hour allotted by Brasidas had
expired, and more time besides, with no sign of Thalassia. The
likely explanation seemed that she was unaware of the deadline, but
Demosthenes could not help but let another, less innocuous
possibility enter his mind.

Perhaps Eden, who had known Geneva far
longer than he, was right about her. Perhaps a habitual traitor had
decided, after all, to save her own perfect skin.

He could not quite bring himself to fully
believe that. She would come.

The roar of the Athenian troops subsided
rather too abruptly and became a murmur. Someone pointed out into
the space between the two armies, and Demosthenes turned to follow
the gesture to spy a pair of riders making its way over the field
of swaying grass into Attica at a gallop. Without hesitation they
came, and even before their identities became easily knowable by
sight, Demosthenes knew them. Brasidas carried his shield and the
herald's wand which he imagined, rightly or wrongly, rendered him
inviolable, even after the shameful slaughter of Nikias. Or maybe
his confidence came from who it was that rode beside him: Eden,
silken blond locks fluttering over a brightly shining corselet that
looked to be composed of hundreds of interlocked iron rings.

Brasidas reined in his mount thirty yards
out, at the base of the hill on which the Athenian lines
stood.  Instead of stopping with him, Eden turned in a wide
arc and circled back, never even slowing, as if a boundless energy
animated her. Her strange little bow bounced on the flank of her
black horse (which she rode well, using stirrups, Demosthenes
noticed).

"Where is your champion?" Brasidas cried up
the hill.

Having not been informed of Brasidas's
earlier ultimatum, Nikostratos, of course, had no inkling of what
was meant. His aides rushed to his side, and all began speaking at
once in hushed tones.

Demosthenes meanwhile signaled to Straton,
the captain of the belly-bowmen, and shared a glance with him that
said all was ready. As Chief of Special Weapons, he had decided how
the gastraphetes and the fire-pots would be deployed today. He
hoped he had chosen well.

He walked slowly, resignedly, to Nikostratos
and said, "Send me."

The general and his circle of advisers fell
silent and stared, first at the speaker, then each other. One man
nodded, then others, and then all agreed.

"Fine," Nikostratos declared. "Once it is
made clear to me what we stand to gain or lose."

"Everything," Demosthenes answered
dismissively, then turned his shoulder and headed down the hill
with hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword.

Ahead, Brasidas remained perched atop the
horse for which he appeared to have no love, and vice versa, while
beyond him Eden slowed her mount and wheeled, halting near the
midway point between the two armies. Near the limit for accurate
gastraphetes fire, Demosthenes could not help but notice.

Descending the hill toward smirking
Brasidas, he thought of the promise to Laonome he was breaking. It
was not yet a year that they had been wed, and here he was putting
city and duty first. There was no doubt in his mind she would
forgive him the lapse, yet still, a part of him, perhaps the
greater part, wished to turn back even now and race home to her
embrace.

Certainly Laonome's welcome would be warmer
than that of Brasidas, who chuckled scornfully.

"Left you, did she?" the Spartiate said.
"Come to beg for more time?"

"I have come to fight for Athens,"
Demosthenes said plainly. "Call forth your champion."