The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae by Nick Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

any danger.
    For me the path downhill was blocked by three burly men; they hadn’t even bothered to wear hoods, must have known there’d be no one to identify them when it was done.As they were forcing me back against one of the sheds I understood this was Metiochus’s reckoning.
    He was too high-born to involve himself: this way I got shame and death. Fear gives you wings, I slipped round the side of the shed evading their hands into the mouth of a foul dark alley. I ran, screaming for help. Me, I’d fought next to Miltiades at Marathon; now there was just terror, never occurred to reach for my knife or fight, just squeal and run; it’s all about context.
    I ran, slipping and sliding over rough ground through the shit and refuse littering the earthen track. I didn’t know where; I ran stumbling blindly. I’d no plan, I just wanted to live; I’d have let Metiochus do whatever he’d wanted to me if I’d known this would happen. I think I was screaming his name when they caught me like they were always going to do.
    They knew the ground; one had taken a different path and came out in front. I saw him, massive and threatening, blocking the way. Out of instinct, nothing else, I backed against a wall as they closed on me. Whatever they say about last thoughts isn’t true. I didn’t think of my mother, Elpinice or Lyra. I’d have given any of them to these men if it saved my life.
    I just wanted to live, to see another day. So I blubbed and begged but saw in their eyes there’d be no negotiation – just death. Perhaps that made it easier, it certainly made it simpler. I fumbled for my knife, felt it slip from my sweaty palm. They crushed me back into the wall; I smelt their reeking breath, felt their callous hands. Then I felt the bronze knifepoint against my throat and my bladder emptied.

Chapter Five
    My face was splashed by gouts of blood but there was no pain. The man with the knife stumbled, grabbed at my shoulder for support, then his legs gave way and he slipped to the ground fumbling at me weakly as he went, leaving a trail of blood on my tunic to mark his passing. Right where he’d been close up by my face, there was another man looking no better disposed towards me. Seemed I must be already dead of the wound and this was a frightening antechamber of Hades where you were assessed for punishment.
    “Don’t think that I like you any better than he did, boy. Just thank whatever daemon watches over you.”
    His hood was pushed back exposing his face; it was vaguely familiar but in my dazed state I couldn’t place from where. Behind him, on the ground, was another man, deader than my most proximate assailant who was making the kind of whooshing noise a squid does after it’s been lying on a dry deck for a few minutes. My interlocutor turned the body with his foot and the whooshing rose a pitch. Then he picked up my dagger and put it in my hand. I followed all this in a dream like it was happening to someone else.
    He closed my hand round the knife handle then closed his own massive hand over that. I remembered where I’d seen him before but before I could make sense of any ofthis he grasped my wrist with his other hand. Then with a strong jerk he pulled my hand and the blade down into the upturned stomach of the man still wheezing for air. With the full force of his strength behind it, my hand and the blade slipped in easily. I tried to withdraw but he held fast and began to stir my hand round inside like he was checking the consistency of oatmeal porridge. I think I was sick and maybe blacked out momentarily because the next thing I remember was him shaking my bloodied hand in front of my face, saying,
    “There that looks better, the hand of a hero fighting against odds.”
    The whooshing noise came to an end with a sigh that sounded almost peaceful – not that I looked down to check.
    “Just the finishing touches, hold him tight.”
    Two men who I hadn’t registered grabbed me and forced me back