A soldier's arms

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Dont be to anxious Guitar man or a Spartan may be knocking on your door!

Excellent tale Laz but too much info for me in that last part, however dont let me stop you and I cant wait for the fight to come.

Good stuff

[notyoueither]

Hey! Where's my story!

Get going you slacker!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I said it would take a while.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

You were not wrong either were you Laz it certainly is taking a while

Looking forward to the next bit all the same.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Work issues- the next part will follow when I've scraped together enough time to write it.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 5. Thermopylae, 5th day.

The battle began at first light. When our scouts raised the alarm that the Persian army was advancing, Leonidas ordered the Athenian hoplites to the entrance of the pass. They held the ground before the first barricades which were manned by a mix of Thespians and Messenians. We were half a mile back, holding in reserve ahead of the second barricades, at one of the tightest stretches of the pass. In ranks no more than four wide, we waited in case there was a breakthrough at the front.

Echoing down the mountain-walls came the sounds of battle- screams, bellows, crashes and thuds. Messenian runners carried reports back to Leonidas at the first barricades, and ran his orders back along the line. The word was that the Athenians were holding up well, news that must have soured the promising reports for our king. To us it came as no surprise- the Persians still clung to the old ways of heroic battle, all swordplay and dramatic one-on-one melees. Such tactics were devastating on the open field, where the speed and overwhelming numbers of the Persian attacks could outflank their opposition.

Here at Thermopylae, however, they were fighting on our terms. Our defensive formation, strict discipline and positional advantage firmly tipped the balance in our favour. From my position on the right of the line, I was right up against the edge of the cliff and had a fair view of the battle. What I saw shocked me. I could see that it was the Medean spearmen who were fighting the Athenians- the light infantry making up a large part of Xerxes' rank-and-file. The Athenians had retreated back to one of the narrower sections of the pass to make a stand, and the Medeans were being forced onto their spears, or driven off the cliff by the force of their advancing ranks behind. Before panicked orders could be screamed back along their lines I had seen a rain of men fall onto the rocks below. Hundreds must have been killed or maimed without a sword or spear coming near them.

When Xerxes finally ordered the Medeans to retreat and ease the pressure on their front-line, the Athenians began to drive forwards in close order. Their morale badly shaken by the slaughter, the Medeans gave ground and were driven back along the pass. Two hours after battle had commenced, the Athenians were right back at the entrance of the pass having killed over a thousand of the enemy at a loss of less than fifty of their men.

For the next two hours they held that position, crouched behind their shields while arrows rained down from the Persian archers. Then a second assault was made by the Medeans- again the Athenians fell back to the chokepoint to make a stand. Though this assault was more cautious, the Medeans were still taking a ferocious savaging and they retreated out of the pass less than an hour later. By now the floor of the pass was carpeted with Medean bodies, and they were on the point of routing. The Athenians were close to exhaustion, but jubilant.

By noon, it was eerily quiet. The Persian ranks were seething but holding back from the pass. Then trumpets announced the arrival of Leonidas at the Spartan position. We rattled our spears in salute as he stalked up to our lines to speak.

"All Spartan hoplites will now advance and relieve the Athenians. Take up position at the pass entrance and hold the ground before the first barricades". He raised himself up to his full height, and unlike last night's fiasco words didn't fail him. "You have been trained to be the finest soldiers this land has ever known, but now you must prove yourself worthy of that training. Xerxes has withdrawn the Medeans- the next assault will be made by the Immortals."

Every second of the march up the pass is stamped on my memory- the smell of blood and sweat, the dust in the air, the way my breath rasped through my throat and seemed so loud as to drown out the sound of the marching feet. Then we were at the frontline. Then we were fighting for our lives.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I feel some hard-core and brutally authentic fighting coming on for the next episode.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Cracking stuff cant wait for some more

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Dut to the glory of the "sick day", you won't have long to wait.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Part 6. Thermopylae, 5th day.

Have you any idea what it feels like to fight?

The impact of shield on shield, and the pressure of those behind you, is crushing. I was a couple of rows back from the front line, which meant I could actually do some fighting. Those right at the front were so crushed together that they could barely move- all they could do was keep their shields up and push.

That's what war is. A dirty, noisy shoving match between two walls of shields. After our position, our biggest advantage came from our large, bowl-faced shields- the smaller and flatter shields that the Persians used tended to slide across them under the pressure, leaving gaps that could be exploited. Our next big advantage came from our spears, which were longer than those used by the Persians. This meant that despite being a row or two back from the enemy, I could look for gaps and stab at them.

The Immortals were terrifying. An elite chosen from all over Persia, each man towered over six feet tall, and was heavily-muscled. They spurned armour and fought with sword and shield in light shirts and trousers. Over the course of six hours, we slaughtered them.

For the last two hours, I was at the front. I had moved forwards to plug a gap left by a fallen hoplite and joined Simoniedes who was already at the front. With a crash of bronze on bronze, my shield hit a Persian shield and I became part of that screaming and lurching wall. My friends gradually worked into the front line too, until we held the line together.

What was it like? The heat was awful. In the crush of bodies we sweated and groaned, getting thirstier by the second. We pushed against the Persians, our feet braced in the stinking soup of blood, piss and **** that coated the ground. All the time we were no more than two feet away from an enemy face, while spears stabbed over our heads and past our shoulders. Sometimes the pressure would suddenly ease on the Persian side and we would stumble forwards onto an uneven footing of Persian bodies. Some of those under our feet were still alive, but were quickly crushed.

The first man I killed simply slid across my shield, and with a heave of my shoulders and hips I forced him over the cliff. My spear had been lost as I forced my way onto the shield-wall, and for over an hour I never came close to drawing my sword. My entire body and both hands were braced against my shield as I tried to become as dumb and unyielding as the mountain. I rarely raised my head over my shield's rim- the first time I tried this, a Persian spear rammed into my helmet making me dizzy with the impact. Instead I pushed hard and wrenched my shoulders from side to side, trying to unbalance the Persian crushed against me, trying to force his shield aside for one of my fellows to kill him, or to simply push him off the cliff.

Simoniedes was crammed against me, and we were both crouching into the cover of my shield. "Keep pushing, you ox!" he said.

Philotas died first. Soon after taking the front, he started to panic in the crush and his thrashing threatened to break our line. A hoplite behind him managed to draw his sword and cut his throat, then forced his way forward over his body to take his place. Blood was sprayed on me, but I couldn't swear that it was Philotas's.

During the crush, the straps fastening my breastplate broke under the strain and I was soon fighting bare-chested. Soon after that, the pressure on the front-line started to ease as the Immortals sopped trying to push us back. It was then that the fighting really started.

The first I knew of this was when I realised that the Immortal in front of me was trying to bite me. His sword was still pinned behind his neighbour on his left, but he was forcing himself over the top of my shield and snapped at my neck. Still unable to draw my own sword, I butted him in the face with the brow of my helmet and kept butting until he didn't have a face any more. The ridged bronze brow turned it into screaming meat that sprayed blood and saliva down the back of my shield. Once I forced forward until he had fallen underfoot, I stamped down until he wasn't moving. Then I drew my sword and killed, and killed, and killed.

Finally able to move and being on the right of the line, I used the freedom of my sword arm to hack at the Persians. If they turned their shields to meet my sword, they exposed themselves to the spears of our second and third rows. If they held fast I hacked at their legs, attempting to cut the tendons, and forced them up to the cliff's edge.

I have no idea how many I killed. Thirty or more, perhaps. It felt like it would never end, but this wild slaughter in fact lasted only a few minutes. The easing of pressure meant that the Immortals were pulling back and we were advancing to force them out of the pass. Eventually we were at the mouth of the pass, the last ranks of the Immortals broke and ran to join their fellows who had pulled out of Thermopylae.

I was swaying and dizzy, exhausted and thirsty, and covered in blood. Some was mine- at some point a Persian spear had skidded across a rib and nearly impaled me. We had held, however. We had faced the Immortals and driven them back out of the pass. The sun was setting and the hungry Persians knew they faced another night with little food.

[vovan]

Great stuff as always.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

[trevor]

Wow... excellent job. Words escape me...

[Skanky Burns]

A pleasure to read. Eager for more.

[SKILORD]

I must agree, this is quite awesome.