Sons of Zeus: A Novel by Noble Smith

Author:Noble Smith [Smith, Noble]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Eurymakus stood in the farmyard staring up at the roof, waiting for his men to lower Menesarkus. The fire raged. The second floor had started to collapse. Soon the roof would tumble down too. Saeed was on his knees nearby. His hands were bound in front. Mula, the arrow still sticking from his shoulder, lay next to him, unconscious.

“What are you doing?” shouted Eurymakus toward the roof. None of his men had spoken for some time. He’d heard some females screaming and assumed that his men had made short work of them.

There were only two of Eurymakus’s raiders and his man Bogha still with him on the ground. He’d lost at least twenty men. They stood with their spears pointed at Saeed and Mula. Bogha had his curved Median blade drawn, waiting for the word to hack them to pieces. As if in response to Eurymakus’s question, the head of a Theban appeared at the top of the parapet.

“What’s going on up there?” demanded Eurymakus.

The head did not respond. It was a disembodied head stuck to a sword point. Menesarkus was holding the sword. He flung the head at Eurymakus’s feet.

“I’ll be waiting for you, Eurymakus!” he yelled down, and let forth a mocking laugh, spat at Eurymakus, then tossed another head over the side. Eurymakus had to duck to keep from getting hit by the bloody projectile. “I’ll be waiting for you on the banks of the Styx!” Flames roared up behind the old pankrator, as though he stood at the fiery furnace of Hades itself.

“Kill them, Bogha,” Eurymakus ordered.

Bogha raised his sword to chop off Mula’s head. As he brought down the blade, nimble Saeed dived in front of his child, taking the full force of the sword on his back. His armor had been fashioned by the greatest smith in the Persian Empire, and even though it was fifty years old it deflected the blade as though Bogha had attempted to slice through a rock.

Bogha kicked Saeed aside with his massive foot, raised the sword a second time. As the giant swung down again, an arrow ripped through the back of his sword hand. He let out a wail as his fingers released their grip and the weapon fell from his grasp.

Before the other Thebans could react, Nikias’s white mare Photine leapt into the yard. The Skythian Kolax rode her. The child had been trained from before the time he could walk the earth to sit astride a horse and guide it with his knees, thus leaving his hands unencumbered to wield his fearsome bow. He rode in a tight circle around the Thebans. In four heartbeats he shot four arrows—an arrow for each of the enemy. One of the Theban raiders was struck through the eye. The other in the heart. They both died instantly. Bogha got an arrow through the cheek, and the metal head knocked out four of his molars, sliced through the tip of his tongue, and exited the other side of his face.

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