Ok. Some new things going on here. Please be gentle.
The story:
My name is Lykos.
One of Leonidas' three hundred.
"Surrender. Lay down your arms." He said.
"Molon labe." Said the King.
Come and get them, indeed.
They advance. The hordes of Xerxes, hungry to avenge the blood we have spilled these last three days. Leonidas is with us in the phalanx. He would have it no other way.
His shield defends the man to his left. Ikonoles. My brother. His shield defends me, the man to his left. My shield defends the man to mine, and so on down the line.
My thoughts return to my wife in Lakonia. Neomache. To my son. Andros.
"With your shield, Spartan, or on it," said she.
"Always, my lady."
We walked with Leonidas, we three hundred. North, across the Isthmus of Corinth. North, past Thebes. North, past Athens. We stopped only to eat and offer a sacrifice to Ares. The God of War.
The Gates of Fire. We rebuilt the wall along the narrow path.
And we waited.
Xerxes did not disappoint. An army made of a hundred nations, they said. Men numbering in the millions. Their arrows would blot out the sun, they said. Dionekes said it best. "We'll fight in the shade." I chuckled.
They came.
We fought. And drove them back.
Once.
The Immortals.
Twice.
Not so Immortal.
Day the third. During the night we received word that they had flanked us by way of a narrow goat path through the mountains.
It makes no difference. Either I die here or on some other battlefield. Spartan law. No surrender for Lykos if he can help it. We will meet our end.
But by Ares, what an end we'll make.
We charge.
The first of the Persians to meet my spear welcomes it through his chest. He sputters blood, and drops. The next, through the eye socket. The third, under the ribcage. My spear breaks. I throw the useless splinter with all my might, whereupon it meets a Persian on horseback, the shaft of the spear enough to throw him backwards off his horse.
I unsheathe my sword. Our swords are short. For close work. The shield parries a blow, drives the man's arm up with it, and leaves his torso exposed. A quick strike, a quick kill, and somehow I think to myself we will survive this day.
Leonidas falls.
"Ikonoles!" I scream. "The King!"
A helmet turns and nods in my direction. We fight even harder. My sword is bent. I toss it aside. I pick up a Persian javelin and return it. He drops. I run, screaming, into the fray. Startled Persians run. As well they should. Others turn for me and charge. It makes no difference. I break a neck, I chew through an ear, I break an arm and take hold of a sword, and cleave through the Persians. I run to the King. I pick up his body. I carry him on my back and wend my way back to my brother Spartans. There are simply too many of them. The Persians, I mean.
Not in the sense that they are overwhelming us, mind.
But simply too many to kill.
An arrow in the leg and I drop. The King falls next to me. I roll onto my back. I grasp a discarded spear and hurl. He screams like a girl. I grin.
But the one behind him looses another arrow. It sings like a siren and finds its cruel way into my chest. Suddenly, it becomes very difficult to breathe.
The bow. A coward's weapon. Dizzy now.
The battlefield grows darker.
Ikonoles grabs the King, his hoplite squad with him. He looks at me once. He takes the body of King Leonidas back.
I think my wife would be proud.
Death comes for me. Now I am the one being carried away.
My ancestors will meet me there, I'm sure.
"O tell the Spartans, passerby,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie."