Independence Day (Time Patrol) by Mayer Bob

Author:Mayer, Bob [Mayer, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Time Travel, Fantasy, Alternate Universe. Science Fiction
Publisher: Cool Gus Publishing
Published: 2016-07-03T16:00:00+00:00

Mantinea, Greece, 4 July 362 B.C.

“How many Legion?” Scout asked.

“You can’t tell?” Pandora asked.

“I wouldn’t ask if I could get a head count,” Scout said.

“Two,” Pandora said.

“Why are they here?” Scout asked.

The army below was deployed, the men standing in the tight formations in their armor, sun glinting off spear tips. Officers were walking to and fro. On a slight rise to the rear was a cluster of men: the nobles who commanded, including the Spartan king. The fear in this army was also palpable, along with the pressing need not to let their comrades down.

Pyrrha was watching the horizon. “I surmise they are here to protect Epaminondas and keep him alive. Look.”

A wave of glittering dots was appearing from behind a ridgeline. The dots became the points of spears.

“Epaminondas leading his Thebans and their allies approach,” Pandora said.

“Someone else does,” Pyrrha said, indicating the slope in front of them. A Spartan rider was spurring his horse up the hill; red cloaked, plumed helmet, sword in hand.

He reined in ten feet in front of them, the horse skittish. “Who are you?”

Pandora nodded at Pyrrha. ‘Kill him’, she projected.

Pyrrha walked forward, using the Naga as if she needed its assistance to walk. “We are weary travelers.”

The rider gestured with his sword, controlling his horse with the other hand. “Go.”

“You should go back,” Scout said to him, edging her voice between a command and a plea. “Your fellow soldiers need you.”

The horse was suddenly calm. The rider slowly nodded. “Yes. I should. Yes. You need to leave here. There will be a great battle today.”

Pyrrha halted four feet from him, but was looking over her should at Pandora.

‘Hold’.

The rider turned the horse’s head and galloped off.

“Pyrrha would have dealt with him,” Pandora said.

“By killing,” Scout said. ‘I can hear you too.’

“Only when I allow it,” Pandora said.

“And you allowed it, so you wanted me to do something,” Scout said.

Pandora gave a slight nod. “Astute.”

“He will most likely be dead soon anyway,” Pyrrha said, coming back to them.

“Are you fate?” Scout asked her. “Do you get to decide whether he lives or dies?”

“The Fates rarely intervene,” Pyrrha said.

“Why do they at all?” Scout asked.

“We don’t know,” Pandora said.

“What are they?”

“We don’t know,” Pandora said. “They come before all others. What they dictate is at it is.”

“Vague much,” Scout muttered.

Pyrrha pointed with the Naga. “There is Epaminondas.”

The Theban general came over the rise at the head of his army. He wore a white cloak and was mounted on a large steed. This was an era when generals and kings led from the front and often the fate of the army rested on their fate.

“If he lives,” Scout said, “he will change history.”

“Indeed,” Pandora said. “So he mustn’t live. Sad, because he is a remarkable man.”

The download confirmed that. The famous Roman Cicero would write of Epaminondas as the ‘first man of Greece’. He was the general who’d already broken Spartan military power, so that it was just a shadow of its former greatness, which

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