Those Who've Never Fought
The battle that had raged for hours ended in a Spartan victory. Outside the walls, discarded shields and snapped spears lay strewn across the ground; inside, screaming and wailing rose without pause.
Smoke still climbed in thick billows from fires that hadn't quite died, and everywhere people pried up fallen roof beams to drag the wounded out from beneath them. It was far too ugly, and far too filthy, to call a victory.
"Easy on that end! We're setting it down!"
The men bracing the roof bellowed back and forth at one another.
I left them to it and went around gathering torn grain sacks, dragging each one off to the side. Barley lay spilled across the ground, ground to mush underfoot, and every crushed kernel stung — after all the grief it had taken to get the numbers to add up these past few days.
"...What a waste."
My escort overheard and gave me a long look.
"People are dead, my lady, and the grain is what bothers you?"
"People are a waste too, and so is the grain. This stuff feeds them just the same."
I answered while tying off the mouth of a sack. Truthfully, I wasn't in any mood for jokes, but if nobody cracked something now, the whole mood would collapse for good.
Turn my head the slightest bit and there was the carnage. A man with a blood-soaked rag bound around his thigh sat gritting his teeth; beside him, others who would never move again lay covered in cloth. That alley had been bustling with noise only that morning.
And if I turned the other way, some folk stayed up on the wall in case the Athenians came back, while others ran through the lanes calling out the names of family.
And Brasidas's soldiers? War over or not, they got no rest either — some filed out the gates to tally the fallen and collect weapons while the rest patched the breaches in the walls.
The battle had ended, and not one soul could rest. Clear away the dead. Move the wounded. Plug the gaps. And nobody yet knew for certain that the Athenians wouldn't return.
With my mind in knots, I was thumping the ground for no reason when my eyes met an old man ferrying water jars nearby.
"You were up on the wall earlier, weren't you?"
When the old man asked, I instinctively drew the spear behind my back. He watched me do it for a moment, then bowed his head once.
"Thanks to you, my child lived."
I faltered. What was I supposed to say to that?
I wasn't sure I deserved to be thanked, and the moment the thought formed, the face of the man I'd killed surfaced, vivid as life. What came out of me in the end was a truly bizarre reply.
"You can set the water down over there."
The old man snorted a laugh, hoisted his jar, and moved on.
I watched him go for a long while. Someone had thanked me, and I felt nothing good because of it. All I managed was to retie the sack in my hands, for no reason at all.
Was war simply like this? I turned the question over and no answer came. Instead, crying and hammering struck my ears all at once — the outcome decided, and yet not a single face wearing the look of a finished fight.
That went for me too. Relief at being alive mattered less than a mind churning over what had to happen next, and somewhere in the middle of it I glanced down at my palm. It stung.
I'd scrubbed them clean, yet it felt like blood still lingered between my fingers, and no matter how I rubbed, nothing came off at all.
The sensation of a spearpoint punching through a man's body, though — that stayed impossibly vivid. The hard catch of armor, and then the sudden give, sinking in, yielding.
I ground my palm against the hem of my tunic anyway. It changed nothing.
"Arista. Brasidas is asking for you."
Just as the gloom had settled over me, my escort called out, pointing toward the wall. I followed his finger to a man in a crimson cloak, looking our way.
"...Why?"
"How would I know that?"
Come to think of it, fair enough.
I walked over with a sigh.
Brasidas stood beneath the broken stretch of wall. Up close, his armor was a wreck — dirt and blood caked into one, his shield a map of fresh scratches.
He looked over a wounded man stretched out on the ground, then turned back to me.
"They tell me you had water gathered before the attack."
I stared at him a beat — hadn't expected that — then nodded.
"Moved the grain inside too. Cleared the carts from in front of the gate."
"The carts, he helped with."
Couldn't very well lie about it. I raised a hand and indicated the escort standing behind me.
Brasidas glanced at him, then turned his eyes back to me.
"Why did you do it?"
"Because if there's a fire, you need water."
The answer came out remarkably blunt.
"I know that much. Nobody ordered you. You stepped up on your own."
I shut my mouth for a moment. Can't exactly bring up my past life.
"Everyone looked so out of their minds, that's all."
"And?"
"It seemed like somebody had to."
Brasidas said nothing. After a short silence, his gaze slid down to the spear in my hand. I'd wiped the blood away, but a dark stain still sat in the groove of the blade. Left to set like that, it would never wash out.
"You fought with this?"
The man I'd killed swam up in my memory, and my throat locked. I felt like I could heave at any second.
"Why didn't you run?"
Working past the knot in my throat, I forced out an answer.
"If running had been an option, I'd have run. The gate side was already sealed, and the Athenians were coming ashore."
Brasidas's eyebrows lifted a hair.
"So you fought. How many did you kill?"
"One."
"Certain?"
I opened my mouth to answer and stopped. He asks if I'm certain, I say yes, done — that's how it should have gone. But something in my head slammed on the brakes, as if warning me not to answer.
When I gave no answer, he turned his gaze away as if that was enough.
"Threw up, did you. How many times have you washed those hands?"
I couldn't answer that one right away either. He looked at me and let out a short snort.
"More than three, I'd guess."
I tucked my freshly scrubbed hands behind my back.
"Is that how it always goes? Killing a man the first time — is everyone like this?"
"Not everyone."
"So I'm the strange one, then?"
He mulled it over a moment, then rose and faced me as he spoke.
"No need to fret over that just yet."
I let out a small breath.
"You may sleep poorly tonight."
"I'll be fine."
"The ones who say that usually sleep worst of all."
There goes the little comfort I'd scraped together. This man is absolutely insufferable.
But with no rebuttal available, I kept my mouth shut, and Brasidas turned his head to look back inside the walls. People had been hauling jars since earlier; more than half the water we'd laid in was already gone, and from the look of it, every drop had gone to dousing fires and washing wounds.
"You said you killed one Athenian."
"...Yes."
"The one who readied that water. The one who had the grain moved. The one who cleared the carts — who were they?"
"...I gave the orders."
He nodded.
"That was more useful."
I looked at him. Meaning the fighting I'd done was useless? As if he'd read the question forming, Brasidas added:
"The Athenian you killed was useful for keeping you alive. But more people will live because of that water and that clear road than because of anything your one spear guarded."
The words didn't come quickly. Even in my past life, these had been precisely the sorts of chores I'd have shrugged off as a hassle.
And yet the first praise I ever heard after my first battle wasn't for spearwork. It was for logistics.
"Was that a compliment?"
"You have to check?"
At Brasidas's narrowed eyes, I worked up an awkward grin.
"If I'm going to hear one, I'd rather be sure of it."
"Then go right on thinking so."
Yep. Not a shred of talent for making a thing sound pleasant.
Just as the conversation was winding down, a shout came from the wall.
"Brasidas!"
Must have been plenty of wounded — soldiers were calling him as they carried a man past. Brasidas watched them and spoke to me.
"Your arm is trembling, so don't even think about picking up a spear."
Only then did I register the faint tremor running through the whole arm. I clamped my hand around the shaft.
"It's not trembling."
"Eat and rest. You need to be able to move tomorrow — whether to head home or do anything else."
He didn't wait for so much as an answer. Just said his piece. Insufferable man. Still, if this was the end of it, I'd take it. Then my escort stepped up close.
"My lady. We ought to prepare for the return as well. Lord Epitadas will worry."
In that instant, Brasidas's stride stopped dead.
Ah. Why did it have to be that name, right now?
"Epitadas?"
"...He's my father."
He studied me for a moment, then said, brief as ever:
"I see."
Somehow that one word landed like a bad omen. I wanted to ask whether he knew him — how well, from where — but I was too afraid of what the follow-up might be.
"Then when you get home, tell him yourself that you came back alive."
"Yes."
That much I could genuinely handle. No way I'd get chewed out for that.
I was still basking in that comfort when, a few steps away, he added:
"The rest, too."
"...The rest?"
This time there wasn't even a reply; he simply walked on ahead. As my escort bit down a laugh beside me, I called after Brasidas, urgency climbing my throat.
"Just a moment — how much, exactly, am I supposed to tell him?"
Silence again. I shot a glare at my escort instead, for all the good it did. Brasidas left without once looking back.
I watched that silent back shrink into the distance, then sighed and murmured to my escort, almost under my breath:
"That man — is he close with my father?"
The escort laughed.
And that laugh was the most ominous thing I'd heard all day.
When I get home... where in the hell do I even start explaining this?
One thing was certain: I was as good as dead.