In a wild frenzy, her stick now broken, Neto kept thrashing with her nails and fists at the backside of the dying Kuniskos. She was tearing his two braids right off the sides of his head. “Helot to helot, old man,” she kept repeating as Nikon rolled her off. “Helot to helot. For Erinna and all the rest. For Erinna. For Erinna. For Chion. For Lophis. For our Proxenos.”
Here ended the helot Kuniskos, once the terror of the Messenians, who had taken off so many heads and was about to lose his own. He was once the good servant of the Malgidai, but now pierced by Neto, the freed woman of Helikon, and by Nikon and Melissos, he bled out his life force on the floor of a dirty hut where the goats and cows of Taygetos sought shelter. Neto had known, even with rope and chain these many months, that he was to die by the hand of a Messenian, but the goddess had told her only that-not that Nikon or she herself would strike. Gorgos had wanted his way one last time with Neto, but she got hers with him instead.
Kerberos, splattered in the gore of Lichas, took over and tore at the neck of the Kuniskos whose scent Keberos he now remembered from Helikon, along with the kicks he had endured. The wolf-dog locked onto him hard and bit so hard on his neck that the hound ripped off the head of Kuniskos from his body. Neto stumbled up and let out a shriek-or was it laughter? “Pull it off for your dead Sturax. Look. The head cutter has his own cut by a dog, by a dog like him.” She let out her war cry and like a Bacchant grabbed the head of Gorgos and threw it over at the battered corpse of Elektra.
Amid the killing of the four Spartans, Ainias and Melon had turned to stab their way through the back entrance. They were eager to catch the three remaining Spartans who had backed out into the open pen and were turning to run through the stockade. Chion now was heading to the rear of the hut to join his friends for the final fight, but Melon first hit the backpedaling Spartan, a stab below his war belt into the groin. He was a youth of twenty seasons or so on his first patrol-Thibrachos by name, son of Elektra herself from her first marriage to the brother of Lichas.
This fool Thibrachos for a moment had turned back around to fight after all, once he saw the brains of his mother splattered over the flat stones of the opposite wall. He had his eye on the slashing sword of the approaching Chion in the distance and never saw in the shadows Melon’s jab with Bora that went in above hip and brought out the black blood from his insides, along with his guts as well. Though the thrust was underhand, Melon sent the sharp iron right under the bronze, three palms deep into the Spartan’s midriff. Thibrachos died too, not more than twenty paces from Kuniskos-the fifth of the ambushers to fall before any had a chance to strike back.
As Thibrachos crumpled, the last two Spartans had tried to turn and flee out to the courtyard beyond. Ainias was quick with his blade and stabbed the second Spartan from the side. The doomed hoplite had tripped over his cloak and for a moment only flashed his unarmored flank. That was enough for Ainias, who sent the iron right into his armpit, and the sword tip up toward the heart, lifting him off the ground. This second Spartan was a better man than young Thibrachos and was known as the chopper Klopis, son of Deinon, and the enforcer to Lord Kuniskos in Messenia. As he fell back from the spear-thrust of Ainias, Melon came up behind and jabbed his spear butt through the back of his neck, and the Spartan hit the floor.
Chion for a second time halted in slow walk toward the back door, as his friends finished with his last two targets. Now in greater fury still, whether at his friends or enemies, the freedman suddenly headed through the back courtyard as he caught sight of Antikrates, the last Spartan alive. But Antikrates was a wiser sort than the two firebrands at his side. He had spied his planned way of escape the moment his father had fallen. Antikrates knew the perfidy of Gorgos-who had tolerated no rival to his return to Messenia-and so long ago had planned an exit should Kuniskos and his Klopis try to kill him as well in their bloodlust. Antikrates had thirty paces at least on Chion, heading through the pen to the mouth of the cave and safety. A wiser Chion of two good arms and of earlier times in the high vineyard of Helikon would have stopped, and with raised shield defended himself from a spear toss.
But like all of the old breed in the hut, friend and enemy alike, Chion held life less dear here at the final reckoning-and more so for Chion with the loss of an arm, the deaths of Proxenos and Lophis, and the maiming of Neto. Without breastplate and shield, Chion reckoned that he could catch the better-armored Spartan before he cleared the fences and was into the mountain. Why not? His legs and chest were tired but still stronger than most others’. And this Antikrates looked fat from his year after Leuktra, no longer the same man who had saved his father and the body of their king. Chion went right on past Ainias and Melon, who were finishing their iron work with the two henchmen of Antikrates. He began to trot with his sword in his good right arm stuck out in front of him for the final jab. Chion quickened his pace, and indeed closed much of the distance, but the running Antikrates was too far ahead, the mouth of the cave far too close.
Even Kerberos could not reach the Spartan. Just then at the entrance to the mountain Antikrates himself had a wild idea. This Chion was one-armed and slower than he thought-and no doubt spent. So the son of Lichas turned and for a moment saw that he would be safer, now and in years to come, to attack his nemesis than to keep fleeing into the cave. Antikrates raised his spear and cast at the onrushing Thespian. This was not a light willow javelin, but a heavy cornel for stabbing with its broad iron head, like the spear Chion had just flung into Lichas. It took a man of Antikrates’s size to hurl the long shaft with any power. Still, his pursuer was an easy target, large and without armor, coming on without balance. Chion had no left arm for a shield-nor even a spear any longer to bat away the thrust. It was back inside the hut, buried deep into the head of Lichas.
Chion was using only the sword, an old blade that Melon had given him on Helikon that he had torn back out from the dead Lakrates. Chion saw the spear and swung at the incoming tip. Too late. Antikrates’s throw hit him under the chin. The iron went deep right through Chion’s neck above the left collarbone, not far from his old wound at Leuktra. The tip broke through on the other side, as the weight of the shaft itself brought Chion to a stumble.
Antikrates stopped for an instant and announced to the sky that he had killed Chion, the bane of the Spartans. Kerberos froze and then turned back to shield his downed master. With a wild yell of triumph at his felling of Chion, the better man, Antikrates ran through the cave on his way to Sparta and fame. He reckoned up his kill, bellowing “Apektenon Chiona, apektenon ton doulon, ton megan, ton doulon ton Malgidon.” Even as he yelled, he had bigger thoughts held quiet in his chest, for he was wild in his escape and his freedom. “I run free of Chion. Free of my father Lichas who had lived too long anyway. Free and richer with my orchards and vines from the snake Elektra. Better they’re all dead and the old age of Sparta as well. I will live for better kills yet, kill better than this Chion. It will be sung a hundred years from now in new, better Sparta, that I Antikrates killed the best pigs that Boiotia offered. I kill today so I can kill more tomorrow. I killed Chion of Helikon. I will kill his master soon enough and then Epaminondas too.”
Such were his mad unspoken thoughts, but those behind heard only one refrain echoing back out the mouth of the cave: “Chiona apektenon, Chiona …” I killed Chion. Chion was down amid the dung. He had tried to grab the fence rung before sinking back into the muck of the pigsty. Chion had been foretold to be a killer of the royal ones of Sparta. For his part Antikrates likewise, the gods said, was to live on to kill the best man of Boiotia. These two prophecies dueled. Chion lost out. Perhaps the goddess Artemis forsook this believer in Pythagoras, ruing his lack of good meat on her sacrifice table. Perhaps she figured the slave had already killed enough of the royal guard at Leuktra, as she had promised. So the Messenians later would argue to explain the death of the godlike Chion and the win of the coward Antikrates. Had Chion not sent his spear into Lichas and killed Lakrates, or had he not kept smashing Elektra long after she gave up the ghost, or had he chosen to rest on his laurels while Melon and Ainias finished all three of the Spartans off, he would have come back to the farm with his master, once more the heroic pair returning from their defeat of the Spartans.