By Murry J

Lexos stumbled, spilling water across the ground. He cursed, rubbing his scraped knee. Thankfully, neither of the two terracotta amphorae had broken, but now he would have to go back to the spring to refill them. Reluctantly, he trudged back down the long steep path that led to the spring. Nestled in the foothills of a mountain range, his home city of Marathon was a bustling merchant town. Men visited by land and sea, selling strange spices and beautifully patterned cloth. From the place where he stood, Lexos could just barely make out the sails of two ships on the horizon.

Something bumped into his shoulder, and he turned to see a man running down the path. He looked out over the water to see a view of chaos and confusion. A fleet of strange ships with black sails was coming towards the city!

As Lexos watched, a flaming javelin arced from a ballista on one of the strange ships, striking a small barge and lighting it on fire. Huge stones flew from catapults mounted on the city walls in retaliation, smashing through the deck of one of the strange ships, ripping it into two pieces. Lexos counted at least twenty of the strange ships sailing towards the harbor. A second wave of flaming arrows erupted from the ships, and soon the whole docks were engulfed in flame. As he watched, three trireme warships rowed swiftly towards the invaders. Two were immediately set ablaze, but the third rammed into an enemy ship, puncturing the hull and sending it smashing against a sharp outcropping of rock.

A cheer went up from the men on that ship, and they seemed to row with even greater vigor.

Suddenly, another wave of enemy ships appeared on the horizon. These were not the warships that Lexos was familiar with, but large freight barges, modified to carry huge trebuchets and catapults. He could see men loading large hogshead barrels into the trebuchets and watched as the catapults snapped forward, releasing the barrels. Two were intercepted by large boulders launched from the walls, releasing a spray of liquid as they crumpled from the impact, but the others flew over the walls and landed in the city. Flaming arrows flew towards the points where the barrels had struck, exploding in a jet of fire when they struck the expanding puddles. How could they be doing this? Lexos wondered. Is it magic? If so, then the very gods must be working with them!

Already, he could see crowds of people fleeing towards the temples. Thunder crackled, and a bolt of lightning struck the top of a neighboring mountain. He heard screams, and turned and saw several women fleeing up the path towards the shrine. They nearly trampled him in their mad dash for shelter. A strong wind rose, howling through the groves of olive trees. He saw three large companies of hoplites marching towards the gates. The commander barked an order, inaudible from where he stood, and the gates swung open. The troops marched out onto the pier as an enemy ship docked, discharging several dozen men in strange armor. The two groups met, and the ring of steel on steel echoed across the broad plain surrounding the city.

A raindrop struck Lexos on his head, and he looked up to see dark anvil-shaped clouds begin to burst, pouring water from the sky. The fires began to wane, and the winds grew to a frantic frenzy, nearly throwing him off the edge of the path.

Stones arched back and forth between the two sides, smashing ships and buildings with incredible force. A javelin struck one of the catapults mounted on the city wall, cutting through a rope and smashing the catapult into several pieces of wood and metal, as if it had been dropped onto a stone from a great height. A boulder bounced away from the wreckage of the former catapult, crushing several fleeing archers and falling into the city, where it smashed through several buildings before coming to a quivering halt.

The path grew muddy, and Lexos nearly slipped several times. He heard shouts from the ruined docks, and saw that the soldiers were being forced back by a greater force. Only two catapults remained on the wall, and the warships were long gone, sunk into the dark watery depths of the Petalioi Gulf. Six enemy warships remained, and half a score of the barges.

Huge crowds fled into the foothills, carrying their most valuable belongings. Wagons and carts rumbled through the western gate. Slaves and soldiers remained in the city, defending against its inevitable fall. As he watched, a huge stone smashed through the gates, bouncing and sliding into the market square. The former crowds of the agora were gone, with only a few stray dogs slinking through the abandoned stalls, hungrily devouring any food that they found. The tide of enemy soldiers poured through the gate, engulfing the last defenders amid a huge army of invaders.

Thousands of soldiers poured into the city, carrying sacks and torches. They poured oil and threw wood into the temple, then torches, inciting agonized screams from those trapped inside. They ransacked the city of all that they wanted, down to the very golden statue of Pallas Athena that stood in her sacred temple. Then they cast torches upon the straw houses of the poor, and soon the whole city was ablaze. A detachment of soldiers separated from the main body and marched out the western gate. Where are they going? Lexos wondered. As if in answer, the men began to march up the path that led to where he stood.