“This—” he indicated Cyra—“is a priestess sent to us from the Oracle at Delphi. As you all have heard through the soldier’s line—” this brought a low chuckle from the men as the King referred to the rumor mill that often kept the men more informed than their commander—“I was given a prophecy by the Oracle when I traveled there. I will tell you now what she told me.”
There was absolute quiet, even the breeze had stopped.
“I was told we were to win a great victory here. But that in order for that victory to occur, I — we- must assist her and her priestess—” he again pointed at Cyra—“in a task they have that involves the gods. We traveled here, as you saw, via a pathway of the gods through the underworld.”
Leonidas scanned the faces, but as he expected, they were inscrutable. He imagined most of the men were still mulling over the prophecy of victory, trying to believe it in face of their numbers and the reports of the scouts about the size of the Persian army that would be here the next day. The gods, well, Leonidas knew most of the men were like him. They had seen men praying as fervently as the most possessed priestess and been cut down.
Still, there was the factor of his mode of arrival, Leonidas knew that added an edge of the surreal to not only what he was saying, but the setting provided a backdrop that he could tell was unsettling even to the most hardened warriors. Lightning flickered, highlighting the rocky mountainside, the stone wall and the sea — and the faces of the men.
He knew what question was foremost in their mind — and it wasn’t what the gods were up to. “We defeated the Antirhonians yesterday.”
The news of the victory wasn’t what they focused on but the timing. Yesterday. Leonidas took a deep breath. They were Spartans but they were men also.
“We will face the enemy. The three hundred of us. We will hold them here. The six lochoi will be here in five days time hard marching. Any place else, you and I know it would be impossible. But—” he let the word hang in the air, then he walked to the exact middle of the pass in front of the wall.
“Shoulder to shoulder a line.” He extended his arms out from his side, indicating what he wanted. The men moved. A line formed from the mountain to the cliff. A second one behind it. And a third. And most of a fourth.
“Three deep. We fight here three deep as we fight anywhere. Spear length. The Persians can only bring the same against us.” He smiled and indicated the men in the last rank. “And we even have a reserve.”
“Yah!” Polynices slammed the pommel of his xiphos against his shield. “I have fought many places, but this, this is the best by far. This ground will run with Persian blood. We will make a wall in front of this wall—” he indicated the stone wall he had so laboriously worked on—“with their bodies. And that will be so much easier on my poor hands,” he added.
The men laughed.
Leonidas walked over to the Middle Wall. He slapped a stone. “This is good. But this—“ he held up his xiphos, the blade glinting in the torchlight—“is better. You have done well. I think sleep is more important now. The skiritai platoon will maintain security to our front.”
The men slowly broke ranks. Leonidas walked over to Cyra. “Well?”
The priestess shrugged. “Good talk.”
Leonidas laughed. “Wait until the morn. There won’t be any talking.”
The Persian scout was brought before Xerxes and his general, his clothing covered in mud, his face pale and tired. It had taken him four hours to make his way up the chain of command, giving his report to each level as he progressed. Now he stood in front of the King himself, but he was so tired he felt little other than a burning desire to find his bedroll and curl up under his blanket.
“Report!” the King’s senior general ordered.
The man kept his eyes downcast from the King. He had heard stories of what happened to those whose reports displeased Xerxes. “Your majesty. I was sent forward to scout the route into and over the pass at Thermopylae. I was accompanied by an Ionian who had traveled this path in previous years on trading missions.”
Xerxes left hand gave a rolling motion, which the man barely saw, but recognized as a signal to get to the point.
“There are Greek troops in the pass, my Lord.”
The general stepped forward. “How many?”
“I could not tell. I saw the lights of torches and glimpses of troops. Not many torches, maybe twenty at most, lord.”
“Twenty?” the general laughed, considering the camp that surrounded the Imperial tent had as many fires burning as stars on a clear night sky. “Most likely a feeble attempt by some local militia.”
“We have encountered no resistance so far,” Xerxes noted. The general’s laughter was abruptly cut off. “Could this be the three hundred Spartans that Jamsheed told us about?”
“Perhaps,” the general allowed, “but even if it is, three hundred could not hold that pass for more than five minutes against an assault by the Immortals.”
“Make your plans,” Xerxes ordered. “I want these Spartans dealt with swiftly and harshly.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Xerxes left the main chamber, retiring to his quarters. Behind him, his generals pored over Pandora’s map, making their plans for the next day’s action.
Most of the camp was asleep, or attempting to get to sleep. Most soldiers spent the majority of their career sitting around doing nothing. The next largest amount of time was spent training. The least amount of time was spent in actual combat. Although no official word had been passed, all in the camp already knew that they would meet Greek forces the next day. Around the fires men talked or sat in silence, whichever their angst forced them to. Veterans talked in low voices to each other in whispers, the word that the enemy were Spartans also having been passed.
Inside his quarters, Xerxes slept deeply.
“The first day,” Leonidas said as the sun hung low in the eastern sky.
Cyra was next to him, wrapped in her red cloak, but she said nothing.
“Why four days?” Leonidas turned to her. “Why couldn’t it be two days? Or today?” He laughed. “That would make things easier. But four days—” he shook his head—“my scouts tell me there are almost a quarter million troops facing us.”
“We cannot control the timing,” Cyra said. “We can only control our actions.”
“We can’t control our actions if we are dead,” Leonidas noted.
A skiritai came running in from the north, across the open space in front of the Middle Gate.
“Yes?” Leonidas asked as the ranger came to a halt in front of him and gave a half bow.
“My lord, the Persians are moving. An advance guard has just begun to enter the trail at the base of the pass.”
Leonidas slid his helmet on, putting his face into a dark shadow. “It is time.”
A contingent of Egyptian troops, over four thousand strong, began their way into the pass. Xerxes scouts did not lead the way — after all he had the report from the scout the previous evening and Pandora’s map. Instead they had been deployed on the crucial mission of finding a vantage point from which the King might view the coming action. They had located such a place on the mountainside to the northwest, where the angle was just sufficient to see into the pass and the Middle Gate. As the Egyptians had assembled, the scouts had laboriously carried the heavy throne up into position.
While the advance guard of the Egyptians entered the beginning of the pass, Xerxes, surrounded by his guard and most of his generals, slowly rode up a steep track to the small level notch where his throne was set. Pandora walked behind him and to the right. They reached the throne and Xerxes settled in, then got his first view of the pending battlefield.