Sword of Apollo (21 page)

“Perikles is dead,” said the man on wall. “He died this morning. General Kleon rules Athens until the Assembly can meet. The gates are shut.” He turned abruptly and vanished from view, leaving the stunned Plataeans in total silence, staring up at the wall looming above them like the face of a frowning cliff.

 

FIVE

“There's the slow way to kill him and the fun way,” said the big Dog Raider standing in front of Kolax with his hands on his hips and an evil glint in his eye. “Skinning takes the longest, but the four-chop is more entertaining.”

The horseman's companion, a shorter and younger warrior with greasy black hair and a patchy beard, shrugged with indifference. “Both are fine with me,” he replied. “I'm just looking forward to listening to him scream.”

Kolax, bound with ropes to an olive tree, stared back at the Dog Raiders with wide-eyed horror. He would have screamed but his mouth was gagged.

“Ah,” said the first Dog Raider with a thoughtful look, scratching his brown beard. “For screaming there's nothin' better than a red-hot poker up the arse.”

“Why not start with that, then move on to skinning and then the four-chop to finish up?”

“The four-chop! No!” Kolax tried to shout, but his words came out as an unintelligible garble. He felt something hot and wet spray out his arse and groaned with mortification. He'd never shit himself before. At least, not in front of anyone.

“So be it,” said the Dog Raider. “I'll get the others. Sun will be setting soon. Best to do this in daylight.”

As soon as the two men strode off into the bustling Dog Raider camp to find their companions, Kolax started squirming against the ropes that bound him to the olive tree with his legs spread wide and his arms trussed behind him, his back to the trunk. His wrists and ankles were raw and bleeding, but the blood wasn't enough to lubricate his bindings. He bit into the rope in his mouth, screaming in the back of his throat in frustration.

It had been ten hours or so since he was captured near the Cave of Nymphs by the fork-bearded Dog Raider. He and the other marauders brought him over the Kithaeron Mountains into Megaria and to the outskirts of the sprawling Spartan camp where they had bivouacked for the night. Fork-Beard, the snarling piece of filth, then went off to find someone called “the Korinthian” to question Kolax, but he had been gone for hours, and now the Dog Raiders at the camp had decided to put an end to Kolax.

He called upon the sky god Papaeus to save him. He didn't want to die with a hot poker up his arse! Or skinned alive! And then finished off with the four-chop—to have all four limbs hacked off at once so that you wriggled like a maggot while the Dog Raiders laughed and made bets to see how long you lived before you bled out. This was a mortifying way to die, Kolax knew from firsthand experience, having helped four-chop several captured Dog Raiders with his Skythian kin. There was nothing funnier than watching an armless and legless man wriggling in the dirt, cursing and crying. Unless that armless and legless man was you.

“Oh, Great Sky God,” he said to himself in Skythian, “if you save me from this terrible death that is far beneath a warrior of my stature, I promise to cut off my topknot and burn it on your altar, and even give you my foreskin, and any number of other things. Please, please save me!”

He peered at the Dog Raiders. There was a crowd of them now, gathered around the cooking fire. They pointed at him, laughing. One of them was heating a poker over the coals!

He squeezed his eyes shut to block out the sight.

Where was that gods-forsaken Fork-Beard? Kolax had gathered from Dog Raider conversations he overheard while tied to the tree that the man Fork-Beard had gone searching for—the one named Andros—was an important Korinthian spy who always paid the Dog Raiders well for information about Plataea. Kolax was ready to tell this spy any number of lies about the Plataeans to keep himself alive. He would even offer to lead the enemy through the secret tunnels beneath the walls of the citadel, if only to buy himself some time to escape.…

He felt a hard slap on his cheek and opened his eyes to see Fork-Beard standing in front of him! Oh, sweet relief! He could have kissed the man.

“Wake up,” said Fork-Beard gruffly. “Time to die.”

Kolax stared at him dumbly. Where was the Korinthian spy? He thrashed against the tree. The group of Dog Raiders left the fire and came toward him. The one with the greasy black hair held the poker, and it glowed red.

“Where's Andros?” asked one of the Dog Raiders.

“Couldn't find him,” replied Fork-Beard. “He didn't return with the Spartans who'd gone to attack the Plataeans.”

“Was there a battle?”

“No,” replied Fork-Beard. “There's a sickness in Athens. And a Plataean emissary came to the Spartans. He was suffering from the sickness—a fever and black vomit. He said that the Plataeans are infected as well.”

“Gods,” uttered the man with the poker. “We should go back to the mountains. I don't want to be anywhere near a contagion.”

“Me neither,” said another with undisguised fear.

“That's why we're not taking this little monster back to Kyros,” said Fork-Beard, indicating Kolax with a jerk of his thumb. “We leave his corpse here. And we're buggering out of the Spartan camp tonight.”

Kolax's eyes passed from man to man with a look of hatred. He hoped that each and every one of these Dog Raiders got this sickness and died puking up his own guts. The young man with the poker caught his gaze and thrust forth his lower jaw.

“I'll burn those evil eyes from your skull,” he said, then stuck the hot iron into Kolax's shoulder. The flesh made a hissing sound. At first there was no pain, then a searing white light exploded in Kolax's brain and he shrieked in fury and agony.

The Dog Raiders laughed. This was good sport.

Kolax breathed hard through his nose, glaring at the man with the brand. The Dog Raider was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down his cheeks. “Wait until I put this up his arse!” he declared to the others, and did a little excited dance.

“Cut him off so we can bend him over,” said Fork-Beard. “Let's do this.”

One of the Dog Raiders pulled out a long knife and went to work on the ropes.

The instant Kolax's bindings were cut he swooned to the ground, as if he had no more strength left in him. He lay on his belly with his arms hidden beneath him, quickly wrapping the cut ends of the ropes around his hands. Two Dog Raiders bent over to grab him, but Kolax leapt up like a cat and grabbed the hot poker by the glowing end—his hands protected by the rope—and wrenched it from the young Dog Raider's grasp. He swung it, striking the nearest Dog Raider in the head, then flipped it over and plunged the hot end through the eye of the one who'd burned him. The Dog Raider howled and staggered backward on wobbly legs. Before the skewered man hit the ground, Kolax scrambled up the tree like a squirrel. He crouched in the topmost bough, twenty feet off the ground, and yanked the gag from his mouth.

“Come on up, you cistern-arsed mother cunnies!” he shouted. Through the foliage he could see the man he'd got with the poker writhing on the ground and gurgling like a madman. The thing must have gone into his brain and melted it, considered Kolax with satisfaction. The Skythian gave a mocking laugh that infuriated the Dog Raiders. One of them shot an arrow into the tree, but it missed Kolax and stuck into the limb directly in front of his face. He yanked the arrow from the wood and smiled—now he had a weapon! “You can suck my spear, you garlic-eating sons of whores!”

More Dog Raiders shot arrows into the tree, but the limbs were gnarled and thick and shielded Kolax. He leapt from branch to branch, laughing and taunting the enemy for their poor aim. When one of the men hazarded to stand underneath him, craning his face upward, Kolax flung his arrow down like a dart, skewering the Dog Raider through the mouth. He stumbled away from the tree, choking to death on the arrow.

“Ha!” barked Kolax. “Chew on that!”

“The little Skythian viper!” yelled one of the Dog Raiders.

“Bring wood!” ordered Fork-Beard. “We'll burn down the tree!”

Kolax curled up in the crotch of the highest branch and made himself very small. How long would it take them to start a fire? How many more minutes did he have to live? At least he had killed two of them. He'd have one more story to tell in the next life. He gazed into the distance toward the Spartan camp and the thousands of men and slaves milling about. He saw a troop of horsemen riding this way from the south. Could it be his father and the others in disguise? His heart swelled with hope. He stood up to his full height and waved frantically.

“Papa!” he called. “Papa!”

An arrow whizzed past his head from the ground below and he ducked back down, making himself small again. Smoke filled his eyes and he glanced down to see a fire burning at the base of the tree. He coughed and covered his face with his hand. He waited expectantly for the riders to approach. He would know soon enough if they were Skythian. But his hopes were dashed when he heard a Greek voice call out, “What's going on here?”

“Ah! Andros,” said the voice of Fork-Beard with a deferential tone. “I came to find you earlier. We have a Skythian boy—a prisoner for you to interrogate.”

“Where is this prisoner?”

“Up the tree,” replied Fork-Beard.

“A curious place to keep a prisoner.”

“He escaped.”

“And killed two of your men, I see.”

Kolax squinted through the smoke and tried to see this new arrival. This man Andros's voice was so familiar. He could see his silhouette in the smoke below, staring up into the tree.

“You're going to be burned alive,” said Andros in a friendly voice. “Why don't you come down and talk.”

“I'll come down!” said Kolax. “I'll tell you everything you want to know about the Plataeans. Just get me away from these Dog Raider cunts.”

Andros's laugh was caustic. “What could you possibly know about Plataea?” he asked.

“I have lived with them for these many moons,” replied Kolax desperately. “I know all their secrets. The underground tunnels—everything! I could draw you a map of the citadel.”

The smoke was thick now. The flames at the base of the tree crackled. He could feel the heat on the soles of his feet.

“Come down,” said Andros.

Kolax knew that if he stayed in the tree he would die—the Dog Raiders would eventually catch him and kill him. He would rather die at the hands of a Korinthian than one of the dirty mountain marauders. “I'm coming,” he said, but he did not move.

“If you try to run,” said Andros in a cold and menacing tone, “my men will catch you. And then you'll wish the Dog Raiders had kept you.”

For a moment Kolax thought of dropping into the flames and letting himself be burned alive. At least he would be choosing his own way to die. But while there was life, there was hope of escape. With a heavy heart he slowly inched down the top of the tree, then swung out on a limb over the flames and dropped to the ground in front of Andros. The Korinthian held a long dagger, ready to strike.

Kolax stared into the man's familiar face and his jaw dropped. He was transported back to the events in Athens two and a half years ago when he'd gone to the citadel with Nikias to recruit mercenaries to come back to Plataea. He became separated from his friend and met a wandering bard atop the Akropolis—a man who spoke fluent Skythian and who took Kolax under his wing. They became fast friends, smoking hemp together. And later, after Andros mysteriously vanished from the streets, Kolax hunted throughout the entire city until he found him: tied to a rack in the courtyard of the city jail and nearly flayed alive. The man told Kolax that he'd been mistaken for a spy, and so Kolax acted on impulse, risking his life to cut his bindings and help him to escape, saving him from more torture and a certain death.

Now, under the branches of the burning olive tree, with the acrid smell of smoke in the air, surrounded on all sides by Dog Raiders and Korinthian warriors, the man stared back at Kolax with an equally dumbfounded expression.

“You?” Andros whispered, mystified.

So Andros really was a spy, Kolax suddenly realized. And he was a Korinthian, in league with the Spartans. An enemy of Plataea …

Kolax didn't hesitate. He flung himself into the man's arms, hugging him tightly, crying out, “Andros! My friend!”

“What is this?” asked Fork-Beard with astonishment, stepping toward them with his sword drawn. “Do you know this filthy Skythian boy?”

Andros was silent, and Kolax tensed, squeezing his eyes shut with apprehension, waiting with dread for the feel of cold iron plunging into his spine. But Andros put a hand on the back of Kolax's head and held him tightly to his breast.

“You idiots!” Andros barked. “You've captured one of my best spies. What have you done to him?” He leaned down and put his mouth to Kolax's ear and said very quickly, “Play along, lad, and you'll make it out of this camp alive.”

Kolax nodded vigorously.

“
Your
spy?” said Fork-Beard.

The Dog Raiders started to grumble. There was a large crowd of them now standing around the olive tree—fifty or more—and they'd surrounded Andros's Korinthian horsemen, blocking their way to the Spartan camp.

“This is my slave Kolax,” said Andros. “I purchased him in Skythia when he was very small and trained him.” He spoke rapidly in Skythian, telling Kolax to look submissive and kneel at his feet. Kolax instantly obeyed.

“This little barbarian,” said Fork-Beard with mounting fury, “has killed dozens of my kin. We've been hunting for him high and low in the Kithaeron Mountains and caught him in Plataean territory.”

“Which is where he should have been left to fulfill his duties,” said Andros angrily. “You've made a pig's breakfast of my plans. And you're lucky I don't report you to the king's whisperers. Who do you think gave us the information about the Skythian archers at the Three Heads? Kolax was placed inside Plataea and has been feeding me vital intelligence. Come, Kolax.”