~A70 Ch4~
It was now the fifth day since the Persians had arrived in this foreign, peculiar land. The peaceful days had crawled slowly for the battle crazed General. He had had to deal with his least favorite royal member for days, constantly suppressing the urge to plant a foot up Abrocomes's royal ass.
It was an hour until high noon so Perseus was still allowed to survey the battlefield. The plain in which they would be fighting in was hardly more than a hundred meters. Perseus, while relishing the chance to fight, found it foolish to directly engage an enemy when they could be easily bypassed. The Persians could effortlessly conquer several strategically important cities before the Greek army could catch up. There were other ways to get into the southern mainland of Greece other than Thermopylae.
Perseus shook his head as he surveyed the near barren plain. He was a General, yes, but he also loved fighting. If that idiot king Xerxes wanted them to fight, so be it. Perseus had thought to thank the Persian king before he had remembered that the God-King had had his fellow half-bloods killed.
Two men approached him so he said, "Raise the olive branch flag."
Soon it was raised and Perseus called to two men, "First Lieutenant, with me. Abrocames, if you can manage to keep your mouth shut, you may also attend."
Abrocames scowled at Perseus before leading the group towards the center of the plain. There they met King Leonidas and the same three Spartans they had encountered four days past.
Perseus acknowledged the aging king with a nod, something that infuriated Abrocames to no end because the General had never shown him respect.
"King Leonidas," Perseus began, "have you given any more thought to surrendering?"
"I gave my answer four days ago. I will not repeat myself," Leonidas replied.
Abrocames suddenly spoke. A royal could obtain all the education he desired so he was versed with the Greek language, "Surrender your weapons, Leonidas, and I promise your life will be spared!"
Leonidas looked at his fellow Spartans before all of them burst into laughter. Eventually Leonidas recovered himself enough to shout, "ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!" Or "Come and get!"
Perseus broke out into a wide smile. To say in the least, it was the funniest thing he had heard in weeks and it had made out Abrocames as being uneducated.
"Prepare yourself, Leonidas! I would see you laughing at your death!" It was the only thing Abrocames said before he marched off to the army. The First Lieutenant followed him.
Perseus shook his head. He was feeling peculiar at how the two had easily abandoned him to the Spartans. If he had to describe his emotions, he would have said that he felt insulted that he had been left at the mercy of the Greeks. Did he not command respect as a Persian General? Was there some sort of hidden hatred bared toward him by men in the army? As a General, he was stern and commanded respect but unlike a few fellow Generals, Perseus was not cruel.
Perseus shook his head. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things; he would deal with it all later. Now, he was dealing with several Spartans. He had to be on guard since these men could easily take him by force. The only thing holding them at bay was that they had met under a truce.
As if sensing his internal worry, Leonidas spoke, "Do not fear, Persian General. As long as you do not attack first, we will not harm you. We respect the truce."
Perseus cracked a smile as he crossed his arms, "You speak as if I fear something."
Leonidas adopted a serious look, "The gods are beings that we all should fear. You are young Perseus so perhaps you do not understand. I will speak as simply as I can. There will always be something or someone to fear. The challenge is to overcome the fear."
"As you say Leonidas, I am young. Perhaps I just have not yet met the object of my fear," Perseus mused.
Both Perseus and Leonidas looked up to the sky. High noon.
"It is time for war, King of Sparta," Perseus simply said.
"So it is, Lord of Persia. Battle well and fight true for this battle may be your last, Perseus," Leonidas told him before he and his comrades moved towards their army.
"And you as well, aging hero-king of Sparta, Leonidas," A raised hand told Perseus that Leonidas had heard him.
Perseus walked back towards his army. The cry of war would soon be upon them.
...
Because the Persians had used their traditional shoot from a distance tactic, it was only logical for the Greeks to have suffered the first casualties of the conflict. The Greeks had adopted the same tactic and promptly responded by shooting their own arrows into the Persian hazarabam.
For the next three hours, they continued their war of attrition, each side hoping to batter the other enough to obtain a surrender from them. Ultimately, the Greek army could not withstand losing too many troops without having engaged in close combat so a new order was given by Leonidas.
"Charge!"
The Persians met the thundering Greeks with an equally loud battle cry, converging into a single entity for a moment before utterly breaking army formation and scattering into smaller battles. After another hour, it became glaringly obvious that while the Greeks were superior in combat, they lacked the numbers, by a hundred thousand, the Persians had. Persians could afford heavy losses, the Greeks could not.
Perseus sat cross-legged on the soil floor in his tent dressed in full battle armor. Light battle armor but battle armor nevertheless. His bronze sword was laid out horizontally before him. Two guards stood outside his tent, preventing him from escaping.
Perseus was essentially under tent arrest. Evidentially, members of the royal family did not enjoy being insulted with many members of the Persian Army to bear witness. Apparently, calling a brother to the king "a child whom everyone should avoid for fear of contracting his contagious disease of idiocy" merited being under guard.
The only regret Perseus had was that he had not insulted the boy more before he was put under guard. Well, that and not being able to fight. Perseus stood up. He was to be under guard for four hours. If he stepped out before then, he would be killed. As if anyone could defeat him.
Perseus couldn't explain it but he knew that four hours had passed. As he stepped outside the tent, making sure to grab his sword before he did so, he noted that he should try to stop insulting Abrocomes at every chance he got. At this rate, he would never get the chance to battle.
...
If the skill of a warrior could be compared to the rank a man held in society, Leonidas would have been a warlord. Every kick assisted a fellow warrior for a kill and every slash of his sword felled a Persian warrior. Though aged, he was among the most skilled of all Greeks. His mere presence inspired the Greeks to fell even more Persian scum.
Leonidas had just finished slitting the throat of a Persian when he was hit in his right shoulder by a projectile. Leonidas pulled the arrow out, not bothering to inspect the injury. It was a flesh wound, nothing that would severely impair his fighting skill.
After several quick glances and memorizing the position of allies and enemies, a skill only honed by years of training and experience on the battlefield, he finally found his archer. It was the same slimy looking man that had told him to surrender his weapons. Abrocames, Leonidas believed his name to be.
Letting out a wordless battle cry, Leonidas charged the cowardly royal, startling him into dropping the arrow he had been notching. A look of fear crossed Abrocames's face as he quickly backed away, attempting to notch another arrow but failing miserably.
Just as Leonidas was about to strike the man down with a swift thrust to his heart, he was disarmed by a strike to the pommel of his blade. A man moved between the two men, making himself an obstacle to Leonidas.
The man fought under the Persian banner but shared no traits that were commonly found with citizens of Persia. His skin tone was several shades lighter than the sun kissed skin a Persian possessed. He was a head taller than an average man, as tall as Leonidas himself, and even shared a young Leonidas's head of raven hair although the man's seemed to be perpetually messy. However, the most startling feature were the eyes. They were a shade of green. Sea-green if Leonidas were forced to name a specific shade. It was a color that Leonidas had found familiar in the past two meetings.
Perseus spoke first, "Ah, Leonidas. We finally meet upon the field of battle."
Leonidas scowled. Perseus was a good man, of that there could be no argument. However, now he was an enemy, an obstacle to overcome. "Perseus. I had become so engrossed with the man behind you that I had let my guard down. Had I realized you were so near, I would not have met my guard down so easily."
"It happens to the best of us...elder of Sparta. Come, pick up your sword. It would dishonor me to strike down a worthy foe while wielding no weapon," Leonidas acknowledged his greatest foe with a nod and retrieved his sword.
"What do you think you're doing, General? Xerxes has given the command to behead the King of Sparta and to mount his worthless head atop a pike and crucify his body! How dare you defy a direct order!" Abrocomes raged.
"A moment Leonidas," Perseus turned around and addressed Abrocomes, "I do not see Xerxes leading this battle. If he wishes for the head of the Spartan King so badly, then let him come challenge the King of Sparta and see if he can do himself what he has ordered. Or perhaps, since you so vehemently follow the King's command, you yourself can take Xerxes's place to slay the Spartan King! I will even lend you my blade."
Perseus paused, waiting for the royal brother to respond. The only response he received was a frightful look.
"Then leave my sight, coward. Go before Leonidas or I contract your weak will and fear in addition to your idiocy!" Perseus roared. The panicky man immediately ran, never once looking back.
"Thank Verethragna that I was not born a king of Persia otherwise I might actually have to be respectful to the man," Perseus shook his head before spinning and adopting a defensive stance with his sword.
"Come now, Leonidas, let us test our might against one another and prove who is the more skilled warrior."
Leonidas nodded and assumed his own stance, the business end of the sword pointed downwards to launch an uppercut as his first move.
The two ran at each other, both intent on killing the other, but just as the two swords collided for the first time, two war horns were sounded, signaling sunset.
Perseus sheathed his sword, "Saved by the horn, eh Leonidas?"
"Humph. It appears to me that you were the one who was saved, Perseus."
Sunset was the generally accepted time when major battles was to end for the day. Darkness blinded even the greatest of warriors. Darkness belonged to the mysteries of the world not simple, battling men. Night was a time for rest.
Perseus spoke suddenly, "Tomorrow, one of us will die."
Leonidas raised an eyebrow, signaling for the youth to continue.
Perseus shook his head, "It is just a feeling but one that I have learned not to ignore. We will be locked in a great battle and only one of us will come out of it alive."
"Perhaps you have a small part oracle in you, boy. On occasion, that could be a good thing," Leonidas responded. He had received a prophecy before coming to wage war. It had hinted at death but was surprised that a simple warrior could sense it.
"Perhaps. My father served Mithras, the Persian god of light. Like your Apollo, it is feasible he has ties to prophetic powers and I am able to access it through feeling," Perseus mused before laughing, "It is strange, Leonidas. I have never talked of such things before and yet with you, a complete stranger, I am more comfortable than any man I have ever known."
"That would be camaraderie in battle. I feel the same with you, young one, but I will not let that interfere with my purpose here and nor should you. Rest now for tomorrow, according to you, one of us will die," Leonidas smiled inwardly. He hadn't felt so alive since previous battles. With a single clash of blades, Leonidas could tell that Perseus was as skilled as any Spartan.
Both Leonidas and Perseus wondered the same thing as they headed towards their respective camps.
Who would live and who would die?
~A70 Ch4~