The Fallen King and the Queen
The first king of Thespiae.
The Mercenary King, Thespios.
Until recently, he was a man who spent his days in the Sparta polis, drinking lavishly with beautiful handmaidens on either side, plotting the grand conquest of Athens across the sea. But as if the Goddess of Fate had decided to play a cruel prank, he had lost his kingdom and his soldiers in a single day, reduced to a prisoner rotting in this cold, underground dungeon.
“Listen to me! No matter what, I was a king of a nation and a warrior who traversed the battlefields! Just kill me already!”
“What is that old man yapping about?”
“Ugh, he’s hurting my ears. Is this why Garsis told us to bring earplugs?”
These were mere common soldiers, the kind whose heads would have been lopped off in an instant had they met him on the battlefield. Yet, despite their mockery, Thespios did not stop raising his voice.
“I was a king, a warrior, and a loyal follower of Ares! Even though I have been taken prisoner, if your lord truly understands honor, then respect mine and take my head before the gods! Let my blood serve as a substitute for the victory I could not offer to Ares!”
“Oh, your great Majesty. Shut your trap.”
“The Phesakaines have ears as sharp as needles, you know.”
“If even one of them hears you and comes down here, you won’t have any limbs left to stand on.”
—Grind!
Phesakaines.
How could he ever forget that name?
They had collapsed the Valley of the Wolf King—a place guarded like an iron fortress by his shield and chief general, Karkis—in a single day. They were the fifty ghosts who had marched forward, cutting down everything in their path from the front, as if mocking his strategies. His chief general, the shield Karkis, had his throat slit by the hand of their leader, Iason. His right-hand man, the greatsword Kerki, had his limbs carved to pieces by the deputy leader, Idas.
They were his sworn brothers, his two arms, the valiant warriors who had faithfully guarded his flanks since he started as the most pathetic of mercenaries. Even if the greatest demigod heroes or monsters had appeared, they would have been nothing but rotting logs before his brothers. Yet, the brothers who had boasted that this time would be no different had all returned as cold corpses.
And he, who had resolved to fight to the death upon realizing the end, had been toyed with not by the Sword Demon Iason, nor the deputy Idas, but by the pathetic, lowly son of the goat-god, only to be captured with his limbs intact. For a warrior, there was no greater humiliation than this.
“That, too, is what I desire! As a defeated general and a king of a fallen nation, how could I stand proudly before Ares! Respect my honor and let someone worthy of the task take my head! Do not insult a warrior like this!”
To a servant of Ares, this was a humiliation and an insult worse than death. Thespios screamed until the veins in his eyes bulged, but the guards continued their chatter as if a dog were merely barking in the distance.
“Tsk. He’s lost his mind.”
“Should I ask Chancellor Ereinea to supply the guards with earplugs?”
“My salary went up quite a bit this time, so I’ll just buy a honeycomb on my way home and make some myself. The kids will love the leftovers.”
“Life has gotten so much better. Back in the days of Iasos, we couldn’t even dream of honey; we’d agonize over whether to put an extra piece of bread on the dinner table.”
“Have you seen how plump the kids are lately, running around? Just seeing that makes the wine go down smooth.”
“Oh, how is your mother doing? Is she still ill?”
“Don’t even ask. When I visited the Council, the God himself was doing house calls and touched her once. She’s been flying around ever since. She weeded an entire patch of the field by herself! Plus, her appetite has improved; she ate almost an entire pig’s hind leg yesterday.”
“Oh my, that’s a cause for celebration!”
—Hahaha!
The idle, trivial, and inconsequential chatter of the guards. Their small talk buried the roar of a Great King who once commanded thousands of troops and tens of thousands of slaves. No, he was being ignored.
“You… you bastards…!”
At this point, Thespios felt so absurd that his strength drained away, leaving him feeling more hollow than humiliated. It felt as if his spirit, which had held firm like solid steel, had snapped somewhere. The cold chill of the dungeon floor, where he collapsed as his legs gave out, finally felt real.
“If only… if only I had died…”
If only, back then, his head had fallen to the blades that were slaughtering his soldiers. If only he could have swallowed poison instead of living a life of shame, and committed suicide with honor.
If he had done that, he wouldn’t have had to suffer this insult.
“Ah, Ares. I have no face to show you…”
A nation of Ares that would surpass Athens, which was once entrusted to Athena. A powerful military state where the ignorant masses followed humbly under the leadership of great warriors. Sparta, the new nation that was the birthplace of the brilliant Great Hero Perseus and the holy land of Ares who blessed him, had now devolved into a fantasy more hollow than a ghost in the air.
“Huhu…”
How did he end up in such a miserable state? Thespios hung his head, filled with regret.
—Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Halt! This is an unauthorized… Gasp!”
“What’s wrong? Is it perhaps Iason-nim… Gasp!”
“….?”
Beyond the corridor where the footsteps echoed, the guards, who had been startled as if they had seen a ghost, made choking sounds and scrambled in confusion.
“How is the prisoner?”
“..!!”
Beautiful.
Beyond the iron door, cutting through the deep stone corridor, the beautiful voice of a woman rang in his ears, and Antaios lifted his head as if bewitched.
‘No, it’s not just a beautiful voice…!’
Thespios had once faced the infamous Nemean Lion, the lioness who inherited that bloodline, during his mercenary days. It was a beautiful lioness with a golden mane inherited from her father, and he still vividly remembered the sound of her howling as she stared down at them while they were hiding hundreds of miles away.
‘That one lion almost wiped out the mercenary group that had barely managed to stand on its own.’
After sacrificing countless mercenary members, Karkis and Kerki had managed to tighten a noose around its neck, and Thespios, covered in blood, had barely won by stabbing his sword into its throat.
‘Then, is that woman outside…?’
“Open the door.”
“A-as you command!”
As soon as the voice, which felt like it was suppressing something, gave the order, the iron door that Thespios had pounded and shaken so much swung open in an instant.
And then, she appeared.
“Ah…!”
The first thing that caught his eye was her crimson hair, shimmering like a burning flame. The beautiful, voluptuous bronze body visible beneath her lightly worn tunic was too ideal, both as a warrior and as a woman. And above all, Thespios, struck by the illusion that Artemis herself had descended, could not help but admire her beauty, forgetting his own situation, and whispered her name as if possessed.
“Queen Atalanta.”
“…Hmph.”
Though she inherited no god’s blood, Atalanta had risen to the same rank as the great heroes of history and the great hero of the current era, Zeus. In a sense, she was a hotter topic than even Heracles. How excited he had been, imagining the new queen who possessed both goddess-like beauty and the martial prowess of a mythical hero.
If her lover hadn’t been none other than Dianes, there would have been countless gods and heroes who would have tried to take her by any means necessary. Thespios himself had declared that even if he gave the other demigods to his subordinates, he would take Atalanta for himself in this war. Rumor even had it that Apollo’s disgraceful display at the hands of Dianes in the Hero’s Forest was all because he had coveted Atalanta. Atalanta was so beautiful that even that rumor felt like an understatement.
‘If it’s a woman like that, she would have no reason to fear even the gods…’
Her sharp beauty, a blend of primordial wildness and the pride of a queen. If, by any chance, she were looking for a husband other than Dianes, all the men of Greece would gather like clouds. Even if the price were their own death!
“Fallen King Thespios. Is that you?”
“Cough… Y-yes, that is so.”
Fallen King, and Queen. Thespios nodded, his lips trembling at the stark contrast in their titles. Yet, his mind was racing.
‘Why would the Queen visit in person?’
Thespios had been begging for death while crying out for honor, but he was accurately facing his own situation. He had intentionally made a loud scene, acting out so that anyone could hear, in order to shake off the humiliation and meet his end as quickly as possible.
But looking at her, it seemed Atalanta had made up her mind and walked all the way here to find him.
‘Why?’
To insult a defeated king?
Or to show the final mercy of one king to another?
‘Or perhaps…?’
He had heard of it. He had heard that among the Amazons, there were those who enjoyed the taste of ravaging their prisoners in return. They said that the more noble and high-ranking the man, the more pleasure they felt in ravaging him.
‘Could Atalanta be one of them?’
No matter how much her lover was Dianes, one could never know the truth behind closed doors. And Thespios had lived a life too harsh to feel humiliation at being ravaged by a woman. No, if he could share his body with a woman like Atalanta, it was actually what he desired.
‘This could actually be an opportunity!’
He had heard that Dianes was away for a long time. If he could seduce Atalanta in the meantime, he might even be able to swallow this Arcadia whole. Dianes was a pretty boy, but Thespios possessed a different kind of masculine charm. Besides, young women like this usually felt attracted to older men they could lean on and rely on…
“Thespios. Do you know your sins?”
“…What?”
Thespios, who had been replaying vain hopes while looking for an opportunity until the very end, was brought back to cold reality by those words.
“…I should have known.”
Thespios, who had been harboring hope in an imagination as hollow as the now-vanished Sparta. The ruby-like eyes that clearly reflected his ugly appearance were shining intensely with anger and murderous intent.
“Guard, arm this man and take him to the execution grounds.”
““Yes!!””
The guards answered the command of the queen, who was much younger than him, and began to bind Thespios. Thespios alone was bewildered by the sudden turn of events.
“W-what? Arm me?”
Arm him? Was she actually going to set him free? But the execution grounds?
Atalanta, who had been turning to leave at Thespios’s frantic voice, turned her head and glared at him.
“I will decide both your death and your final words.”
“W-what did you say?”
“And, based on your reaction just now, both your death and your final words have been decided.”
Atalanta left those words behind and slowly disappeared. Before long, Thespios also stepped out of the underground dungeon for the first time in months and stood on his own two feet under the hot sun.
—Boo! Boo!
—Thespios! Punish that barbarian!
—What kind of king are you!
—You dirty mercenary! Where did you sell my daughter!
“T-this is…”
Instead of the golden armor he always wore, he was dressed in crude iron armor and a helmet, holding a leather shield and an iron sword. Looking up at the people who were once his subjects, who were now looking down on him, insulting him, and spitting on him.
Thespios could only look up at the bright sky in a daze.