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I remember standing at the shoulder of King Leonidas, spear in hand, as the Persians marched towards us at the Gates of Fire. I remember the smell of fear and piss that rose off of those Persian dogs. We looked out of our bronze helmets, masks of death, and we smiled. It is strange the thoughts that pass through one's mind when one faces death. I remembered the meal I'd had that morning. I remembered the long march we had here. I remembered digging the trench behind me with my King at my side, working along with us. I remembered singing as we marched from our beloved city of Sparta to this god-forsaken place to do battle.
That same song now tore itself from my throat and I heard others take up the same song. Now, one might think that we would sing of death, and battle, and glory. But no, we sang of feasting, and wenching, and we sang of wine and meat. We sang of celebration, for such is the spartan way.
At hearing us sing out joyously, the Persians faltered half a step but continued their march. King Leonidas called out commands and we raised our spears and began to march towards the advancing Persians. Our shields held out before us we locked them together to form a tight wall that no sword or spear could pierce. We raised our spears above them and we continued to sing. Oh we continued to sing. We marched to war as a man walks into his honeymoon cottage.
The Persians ran up against our shields and we dug in and pushed. They sought to push us back as a whole, to get us off balance. But with rows eight deep and as wide as the pass itself, we pushed back. And not only did we hold, we pushed them. We pushed them back and we made them fall down the cliffs to the sea below. Their arrows were so many, that they blacked out the sun. Our battle was fought in the shade that day. A glorious day. Many of us died with honor in that pass. So hard did we push that afterwards, there were ruts in the hard ground where men's feet had pounded and dug.
And in the midst of pushing against the Persian bastards, my mind flashed back to training. I remembered doing this drill. Eight of us Spartans-to-be, would line up with shields in a line and put the front man against a large tree and we would push, and push, and push and try to knock down that tree. Never did we succeed. But we pushed at the Persian mother-fuckers the way we pushed at that tree. And great was our strength. We pushed them back. And we made them bleed.
My spear broke as it rammed through yet another breast-plate of stylized bronze. But I did not panic. The Persian before me smiled. Then my xiphos, or shortsword, ran into his gizzard. We call the xiphos a lizard sticker. I stabbed upwards and viciously. All the while singing a song about taking a bath with my brothers-in-arms. Glory is for those who are willing to die with honor.
Every Spartan is taught from the moment of birth to die with honor. When a Spartan male is born, he is placed in the snow for one night, and if he dies, it is no loss, for he was weak. To die sword in hand is the only way to die. We reveled at the thought of death in battle. And so we fought like demons. And they ran away.
They asked us once, why we fought. "You will all die" they intoned.
"Yes, but to kill all of you is not our goal. Our goal is to kill most of you and delay you for a time, while the rest of our comrades prepare to come and avenge our deaths."
Every single one of us knew we were going to die at the Gates of Fire. But we were glad at the thought.
We sang all the louder when the Persians turned tail and ran at the end of day one. No one had ever before seen the fighting fury we showed that day. And still we sang.
Still we sang.
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