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Thread: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [ON HIATUS]

  1. #21
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 4/1/13]

    For the characters, did you use cheats to add traits? Or take them as they came?

    Oh and I wasn't expecting the eldest brother to die in a riot

    Pretty action packed update, but no great battles. Maybe next time..?

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    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 4/1/13]

    Quote Originally Posted by SonOfApollo View Post
    For the characters, did you use cheats to add traits? Or take them as they came?

    Oh and I wasn't expecting the eldest brother to die in a riot

    Pretty action packed update, but no great battles. Maybe next time..?


    Nope, no cheats for traits. In AAR's you take them as they come, and Dionysios was always a tyrant and Tisandros always disliked democrats. I didn't expect Kalppos to die in a riot either! One moment the city was rioting, the next it came up saying he was dead! Played well with the plot, but saddened me nonetheless.

    Battles aplenty shall be yours during future updates, please stay tuned!

  3. #23
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 4/1/13]







    A Time for Daggers and Backs, 4th year of the 67th Olympiad (509 BC)





    How? How had everything been swallowed into Hades?

    This was the question that kept swimming beneath the surface of Euaristos' mind, even as another hot breath made the skin on the back of his neck crawl, a large hand grasping his shoulder tightly and causing him to bite his lip once more. A guttural grunt forced the boy of eight-and-ten years to brace himself once more. It had hurt at first - when the first drunken warrior had mounted him like a woman, his scream of pain muffled by a ragged scrap of chiton that had been stuffed into his mouth to both silence him and stop him biting his own tongue – but after the seventh or eighth time he did not even feel anything any more, tied there like some joint of meat. His hair was matted with human secretions and his own sweat mingled with that of his abusers, his limbs void of all resistance and his mind somewhere far away from the degradation bought down on him.

    It was this latter choice which may well have kept him alive, going through the events of the battle for Enna over and over in his head.

    That one moment, that one moment that had changed everything...



    ************



    Tisandros has spent the autumn in Akragas, Euaristos and he composing tales of his conquests and spending the cold nights in one another's arms, only for ambition to get in the way of what the Kretan believed was an idyllic situation. The elder brother would not be outdone by his younger sibling, a tale as old as time itself, and planned meticulously to cross over and through the Sikanian mountain passes with over a thousand men before striking at the Kreto-Rhodians when they least expected it. This he had done, marching men and rolling wagons loaded with supplies into deepest, darkest, Sikania and arriving outside of Enna only a month before the snows had started to fall and make movement between coast and interior all but impossible for an army.

    Surakoûsans there were in that army, nearly four-hundred men with white crests and expert-forged thoraxes of muscled bronze. Tramping alongside them came the Sikeloi with bobbing horse-hair of black and white on more Attike style helmets, open-faced and reinforced along the brow ridge. At the rear of the marching column came the recently gathered hoplitai of Gela, men in scale thoraxes and with crests of red, three-hundred or so untrusted and untried men gathered from the remaining citizens of Gela that had not been sold into slavery or opposed their new overlords by causing trouble for them.

    Ahead of these and running along the flanks were just under two-hundred men of Rhodos, men armed with the slings in the use of which they excelled and sporting the headbands used to tie back their hair, some eighty Keltoi scurrying ahead of the entire column and shouting to one another in their harsh but sometimes musical tongue.

    Lastly came the cream of the Surakoûsan force, the over a hundred horsemen and sixty men charged with guarding their strategos during the coming storm of conflict. The men who would later fail in their duty and bring a fate worse than death upon the Kretan who rode at the side of his master and beloved.

    After crossing the mountains, and seeing the layout of the tribal centre he was about to take, Tisandros encircled it and made the decision to wait out the winter before leading the attack. Many moans and groans of complaint were heard from the younger, softer, men but the veterans just shook their heads, spat, and went back to sharpening blades or polishing armour until it gleamed. Not a flake of snow touched the valley in which the hill-settlement was located - Sikanian and Hellenic eyes watching the besiegers carefully from the hilltop undefended by even the most basic of wooden palisades or ditches – and soon the shouts for something to be done became so loud that Tisandros was forced to execute the ringleaders in a public display of discipline. An act such as this did nothing to endear him to the men he had under his command, especially the Gelans, but he answered to no-one and told the discontented to close their mouths before they felt the blade on their own exposed necks.

    One year moved swiftly into the next, but it was not a happy one for Euaristos. Far from becoming the masculine paragon of manhood that he had expected to, being trained by both Gerasimos and Adrastos in the art of man-to-man combat and warfare in more cerebral ways, reaching his eighteenth year had only caused him to physically flourish into an even more maiden like figure than he had been whilst growing for the last few years. It was true that his training had given his muscles a sharp definition, and his height was certainly not that of any women he had ever known, but hair still refused to sprinkle his face and his face became no more squared or manly than before. Overall he could be confused for a muscular woman in her maiden years, and it gnawed at him and his mind each and every day. This was not how he wanted to look, not how he wanted to be seen by others, but the Gods had dealt him a cruel hand, and he had to make the best of it.



    ************



    On the day of the battle, during the opening weeks of spring on the Sikelian plains, he girded himself in armour built for a smaller horseman and grasped a shield in one hand. Outwardly he attempted to remain as calm as possible - the cold bronze of the helmets cheek-pieces kissing his smooth cheeks, the wind ruffling his crest – but inwardly he was shaking like a leaf flung about in a turbulent storm. The urge to urinate was overwhelming, but he clasped his thighs to the back of his mount and took in the air of the valley with deep breaths like a smiths bellows.

    “Be calm, my beloved,” came the echoing voice of his master from nearby, his face a blank mask of bronze and shadow, “keep control of your horse and follow me when I ride. Nothing could be more simple.”

    The words were meant to calm him, but did not, and his thoughts were interrupted by the braying of a horn before he could spit his words out in return. All eyes were turned to watch as foe-men gathered by the enemy strategos Kleandros began to muster themselves on the outskirts of the village that the Sikanians called a city. There were psiloi, some clothed in nought but rags and others in nothing at all, alongside Italiote swordsmen wearing their distinctive bowl-shaped and crested helmets, hoplitai from Akragas and Gela both noticeable by the symbols on their aspides and the state of their equipment. Tisandros had known that Gelan would face Gelan and so had positioned his own Gelans on the leftmost flank of his battle-line, his Surakoûsans anchoring down the left and his cavalry held in reserve. Out in front squatted the slingers, those of Keltoi birth nearly invisible amongst the waving grass.

    “Move those men, quickly now!”

    In a complete reverse of battle etiquette, no doubt trying to put Tisandros on the wrong foot, the taxis of warriors from Akragas charged alongside a pell-mell group of psiloi toward the right flank of the Surakoûsan line. Euaristos watched from his elevated position with his breath held in his throat, his eyes widening as the white crabs painted onto black shields began to enlarge in size, and very soon he was able to make out the shaded faces of the black-crested death wishers. They were the last of the 'free' men of Akragas, and it seemed that they wished to throw away their lives as dearly as possible. Tisandros waved a hand and sent two taxies wheeling to their right and advancing on the enemy formation to the sound of the pipes, the tramp of feet and clatter of bronze were like a paean to Ares, and Euaristos could feel his urge to vomit lowering and his excitement rising.

    When the clash finally happened he nearly launched himself off the back of his stoic animal, looks from the men around him suggesting that he sit back down and keep quiet.

    Three formations met on the field then, the two of the Surakoûsans overlapping and enclosing on their enemy, the men from Akragas desperately trying to fight their way out of simply sell their lives as well as taking another with them. It is in this swirl of chaos that men do some of their most terrible work, plunging bronze and iron into the man opposite their shield, sweeping a blade out to thrust it into buts or hack away at limbs, using teeth and nails to fight if nothing else was left them. Euaristos found it all intriguing, sat only feet away, but also sickening in equal measure. Those 'little men', poor Greeks and Sikanians who tried to fight as best they could, were mauled by Surakoûsan spears and trampled on as the white horsehairs ploughed on into the rear of the broken and retreating opposition.

    Very soon, the entire line of Surakoûsan hoplitai, and their allies and xenoi – foreign subjects to the ever more powerful city-state, such as the Sikels - were surging forward towards Enna with murderous intentions on their minds. Tisandros did not try to stop them, in fact he admonished any man that was seen shirking to the rear of his fellows, giving a ferocious grin to his hand-picked horsemen and gesturing towards the open pathway that would lead straight into the centre of the hill-top settlement, “follow me, my brave brothers, and let us carve a name for ourselves as the men who pacified Sikania!” His rallying cry was taken up by many of them, but Euaristos, his sweating hand holding tight to the hilt of his kopis, did not allow some awkward glances between a number of them to pass him by amidst the cheering.

    One moment they were still, but the next they were racing one-another across the field and past the bronze men and their rhythmic footfalls. Euaristos had tried to spur his horse on, having ridden little, and was very nearly thrown, before he regained both his balance and his dignity and held even tighter to the flanks of his mount. When the charge began he was taken away by it, his mind racing as quickly as his horses hooves, a satisfying rasp sounding in his ear as he slid his curved weapon from its sheath and whirled it over his head. All around him rode the oligarchs horsemen, each as crazed with blood-lust and full of adrenaline as he, and although initially quite spread out, they now began to converge to form a line as they closed with their enemy.

    Ahead of them came Kleandros, a tyrant in his own right, left to rule over Enna and the strategos of the Kreto-Rhodian forces. He was, and would always be, known as an exceptional builder, a hater of slaves, and one who was to die at the age of seven-and-twenty years. With his own bodyguard all around him, their equipment and armour no less than that of his Surakoûsan opposite, he took the initiative and never even paused, instead laughing behind his helmet as the two leaders met in the confines of a wide slope leading to the villages central point and main shrine to their Gods. On their right the hoplitai of Tisandros, screams and prayers reaching to the heavens, had come to grips with the Leontinoi rebels – or survivors, depending on your point of view – and Italiote swordsmen, large men using an aspis in one hand and a xiphos in the other, their complexions paler than those of their Hellenic adversaries and their helmets more like crested bowls sitting on their heads than actual items of protection.

    This was unknown to Euaristos, the Kretan riding forward to get as close to his patron, lover and leader as he could. He urged his horse forward with both words and heels, kicking it in the sides as hard as possible, his tip-heavy sword whipping out in a moment of vicious clarity to take off a mans arm at the elbow, a return swing hitting him in the back of his neck and killing him instantly. Warriors of assorted poleis, all of noble blood and tied to a mother-city, moved and milled about the feminine killer, his keen and youthful eyes picking out Tisandros only a couple of arms lengths away and embroiled in a combat with two of his foes. Behind him sat two of his own horsemen, seemingly doing nothing, and it was in that very moment that Zeus or Athena sent a thunderbolt of incite to strike his mind.

    “Tisandros!” Came his wail, his heels now smacking his mount with little concern, his body – already smaller than that of the men around him - twisting this way and that to avoid being killed or flung from his horse, “Tisandros! Beware, treachery! Treachery!”

    Tisandros looked round then, having dispatched his attackers and ignoring the two comrades that now gathered closely about him in 'support', one holding a curved kopis and the other a thin-bladed dagger. The oligarch raised a bloodied sword in a salute to his lover, only the first words of Euaristos having reached him over the din of battle, his smile showing even behind his helmet. It was a smile that was soon turned to a look of pain and surprise, one rider in the armour of his most trusted fighters cleaving into his thorax with his blade and cursing as it scraped off of the finely crafted bronze, the second thrusting his dagger in and up as Tisandros hunched forward. Euaristos would never forget that moment, the only man he had ever truly loved at that point curving his spine backwards in pain, his sword dropping from nerveless fingers and his shield hanging as limp as his swiftly dying body from the back of his horse, his face stuck in a rictus of disbelief. With a firm shove from one of his faithless assassins, his body fell from his horse and into the churned earth of the ground.

    Before Euaristos could avenge him, thoughts of such rage and anger in his mind that it would have made Ares proud to personally know him, something hit him heavily in his helmet. He did not know what it was, or who had struck him, but his head felt light and he began to close his eyes. Though he fought against it with all his might, it was not to be. Slowly, but the result never in doubt, he too succumbed to a darkness of his own.



    ************



    The Surakoûsans had won the battle without their leader, but what came after was a cleansing and an orgy of blood on a scale not yet seen on the island of Sikelia. Brother turned against brother and comrade against comrade, a pre-arranged signal making it so. Some men, loyal to Tisandros even after his death and burning on a magnificent pyre, died in their sleep with a blade stuck between their ribs, other quicker or more sober characters fought before being overwhelmed. Those men that carried out their unknown masters tasks took no prisoners, killing warriors and camp-followers, slaves and baggage-carriers, nobles and poor men. Very soon, sooner than anyone could have anticipated, all those that would have remained loyal to Tisandros and his family were massacred in one dark evening.

    One story of extreme loyalty was that of the bodyguard who remained supporters of their dead friend and lord, throwing themselves on their blades or having someone assist them before their enemies could close in on them, their innocent souls going with clear hearts to Hades.

    The tale now returns to Euaristos, unconscious and fully unaware of the orgy of bloodshed that the Surakoûsans visited upon one-another and the Sikanians that had called Enna their home. Over a thousand of these, men, women and children, had already been executed and their places or worship and dwelling were ransacked and looted to the fullest extent of the plunderers abilities.

    “Wake up, you feckless' bum-boy,” a cold splash of water and a sharp slap accompanying the harsh voice, Euaristos waking with a wide-eyed start to find a solidly built hoplite standing before him with his member already jammed in the Kretans mouth. Instinctively, not knowing what else to do, he was about to bite down when the man shook his head, “if you even think of biting, I will slit your throat and leave you for the carrion. Either suck...or die.”

    Sometimes in the following moments, his backside greased with olive oil and an apparently endless stream of rapists and gawking observers all about him, Euaristos began to wish that he was dead or would be given the only kiss he craved now. The kiss of cold metal and warm, flowing, blood. His own blood. However, as another man grunted and quivered behind him, the Kretan retreated into his own mind and took a look about himself. He was dangled from a beam until he was at the waist height of a standing man, his legs weighed down behind him, and his body permanently bent forward. Around him were timber walls, and above him a thatched roof, and he knew that he was either in one of the houses of Enna or else a place where they kept their animals. Halfway into their enjoyment, using him with the ease of a man eating a meal or taking a walk, the rag was shoved into his mouth and some complaints were raised that there was now only one 'target' left.

    From the shadows, and the scent of the air in the night, Euaristos could tell it was evening. His lip had been split as a man had climaxed, hitting him hard in the face, and it throbbed terribly, and now he began to cry.

    His mind went back to the moment of his lovers killing, again and again and again, and though he was numb all over he would cling to life. Cling to it like a limpet to a rock. No, they would not break him, he would not die...no...he had to live...all thoughts of how they might dispose of him once they had finished with him evaporating – to his own great surprise - as easily as morning mist, now something else burnt in his belly like a growing flame - the feeling of vengeance.

  4. #24
    Audacia's Avatar Give Life Back to Music
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 10/1/13]

    Gripping update McScottish, your language and style are superb. The imagery you convey really paints a vivid picture. I appreciate the screenies too! It's nice to see how the Greek world is shaping up!

    Under the patronage of Inkie Pie: Text Editor for The Great War
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  5. #25
    Knonfoda's Avatar I came, I read, I wrote
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 10/1/13]

    Wow, just wow.

    I agree with Audacia, you really DO paint a picture, that is for sure! I feally enjoyed the screenshots, they really do a lot to situate the reader into the tale, and I think that kind of information is almost indispensable. I've had my fill of screenshots for the next few months now I feel!

    But seriously, back to your writing. It is very vivid and gritty, especially given the twists and turns, such as the death of one brother in a riot, and then the other by treachery. And really, I can't think of a worse possible fate to have befallen Euaristos. This really must be the lowest of the low for him, and in fact, I think, any character I have ever read about, which says a lot haha. And obviously this brings me to the question... the question one asks themselves when they realise they have hit rock bottom, and there is no way out other than up... so the question is, what now for Euaristos? Vengeance you say? I want to see how he achieves that, and how he escapes from the emotional pit fate has put him in!

    Excellent writing as always McScottish! When's the next update?

  6. #26
    Rex Anglorvm's Avatar Wrinkly Wordsmith
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 10/1/13]

    That last chapter was horrific, albeit horrifically good. The battle scene was well described the assassination and the turncoat bodyguards ably portrayed, but the fate that befell Euaristos.....

    Your writing is amazing, but the last chapter was something else altogether.

    Rep+

  7. #27
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 10/1/13]

    Quote Originally Posted by Audacia View Post
    Gripping update McScottish, your language and style are superb. The imagery you convey really paints a vivid picture. I appreciate the screenies too! It's nice to see how the Greek world is shaping up!


    Well, anything for the fans! I understand why people need to see them, and it is good to be able to locate everything within the story from visual aids, helps draw you in I find. Just look at Tolkien's maps! As to the imagery, well I do try. Thanks for the comment Audacia, if my writing could be half as good as yours then I'd be truly thrilled. As it is, I just hope you keep reading what I have to write.



    Quote Originally Posted by Knonfoda View Post
    Wow, just wow.

    I agree with Audacia, you really DO paint a picture, that is for sure! I feally enjoyed the screenshots, they really do a lot to situate the reader into the tale, and I think that kind of information is almost indispensable. I've had my fill of screenshots for the next few months now I feel!

    But seriously, back to your writing. It is very vivid and gritty, especially given the twists and turns, such as the death of one brother in a riot, and then the other by treachery. And really, I can't think of a worse possible fate to have befallen Euaristos. This really must be the lowest of the low for him, and in fact, I think, any character I have ever read about, which says a lot haha. And obviously this brings me to the question... the question one asks themselves when they realise they have hit rock bottom, and there is no way out other than up... so the question is, what now for Euaristos? Vengeance you say? I want to see how he achieves that, and how he escapes from the emotional pit fate has put him in!

    Excellent writing as always McScottish! When's the next update?

    Next update will be soon...how soon I do not yet know, but soon. My thanks for your comments K-dawg, always constructive and more-or-less always positive too. When it came up on my screen that Tisandros had been killed, well, I had a nice hard think and just thought "what the hell! I've done same-sex love, may as well stick rape in there too."

    On a more serious note, this is the horror of war, the horror of betrayal, nothing glorious and nothing special, just pure unadulterated horror. The very nature of man, and men at war, something I imagine that no Greek polis would have been unused to.

    What now for him? How shall he achieve retribution, or at least some form of revenge? Good questions indeed, and ones that I intend to answer over a succession of updates. Webs within webs...I'm no G.R.R. Martin, but I do try.



    Quote Originally Posted by Rex Anglorvm View Post
    That last chapter was horrific, albeit horrifically good. The battle scene was well described the assassination and the turncoat bodyguards ably portrayed, but the fate that befell Euaristos.....

    Your writing is amazing, but the last chapter was something else altogether.

    Rep+


    Ah! You had me going for a minute there, you sly dog you. I consider my writing to be mediocre at best, but if you say it is amazing then who am I to argue?


    I'm glad you all enjoyed it, and I hope the continuing journeys of Euaristos will entertain, shock and surprise as much as this chapter.

  8. #28
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 10/1/13]

    What a twist of events.. Didn't see that coming, characters seem to be dieing off quickly.

    I think I have given you some of those vaunted reputation points (not sure if it worked)for a griping update. Staying tuned.

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    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 10/1/13]

    A Sparse Refuge, 4th year of the 67th Olympiad (509 BC)




    “When are we going to stick him then? I've already ridden him three times, and my cocks getting sore!”

    “The masters not given me any word, so we keeps him alive till he does. If you don't want to use 'im no more, then just bugger off an find something else to do. Plenty of others want to have their turn, you know that as well as I do.”

    Two voices he could hear, both crude and unrefined, their dialects rough and coarse like the fertile valleys from which they had likely come. Life was harsh there, crops rising and crops just as swiftly failing, men there as unruly in their words and manners as their lifestyle. They had been speaking for over an hour, of all manner of things, from the state of the weather to how many of them there were left after what they referred to as 'the cleansing'. It was through their scraps of conversation - caught as he drifted in and out of conciseness – that Euaristos managed to piece together what was going on, and what would happen to him next, whatever it was hanging on the word of one shadowy figure which none named but all called 'master' or 'leader'.

    From time-to-time his mind would drift back to the condition of his own body, not being able to help himself, the tough rope biting into his wrists and the weights about his ankles feeling as if they might tear away his limbs entirely. A dull throbbing was never far away in the region of his spattered rear, those that abused him now giving him some time to 'recover' before they began their violations afresh, not wanting to kill him before they were told – likely to suffer a similar fate to the aching Kretan.

    Some things he knew for definite; that there were five guards at all times, guarding the two doors which led into the building, four subordinates and a superior veteran who never spoke and hardly ever appeared at all. Euaristos had heard this man, a well-spoken aristocrat, or so he believed, a man that had once been one of his masters bodyguards, but only once had he seen his stone-like face peering down at him with lust as he was forced once more to perform acts usually confined to pornes and other courtesans. How he hated them, hated them all, hated every single one of them with every fibre of his weakened and shattered soul and body. Yes, he knew that even if he did escape, somehow, though it seemed impossible, he would not be able to run far or hide himself for long from searching eyes.

    In a pit of degradation and fear, but not yet completely open to the insidious influence of despair, Euaristos had proven to himself that he was not a coward and far from being the soft and weak-willed boy which his enemies and rapists took him for. Each moment he prayed inside his mind for release, his lips unmoving and his eyes staring blankly ahead or down at the straw-strewn floor, his nose closing itself to the stench of sexually excited men and their aftermath, his ears to their grunts of pleasure and insults designed to demean him even further, right up until her snapped and was no more than an instrument of pleasure without a mind of his own. This was something he had already decided he would never become, not if he was mounted by all the men in Sikelia and Hellas, he would die before he gave them anything close to genuine satisfaction. Everything else was fleeting, but to see him broken and torn asunder within would be something that would hold itself in their minds until they died.

    ”Poene, daimon of vengeance and retaliation, and Alastor, who reaps revenge on the sons for the sins of their fathers, and ever-blessed Nemesis, now hear my words.” He began in his mind, blocking all other thoughts from inside, ”I bid thee to release me from my bindings, to give unto my hands the weapons of revenge and bloodshed, to use me as an instrument until such time as I have completed my acts. Let me go from here by whatever way you deem, and if you make it so I shall raise an alter to you.”

    What Euaristos did not know then, but should have known, was that the divine beings are not deaf to the plights of those that require their help. If it suits them anyway. In the darkness that is the divine void something stirred, and that daimon called Soter, the spirit of deliverance and safety from harm, was tasked with the act which would set the Kretan free. No, the Gods are not deaf, and soon two deliverers would hear a call and readily answer it. That very night in fact.



    ************



    It was the evening of the fourth day since man had fought man, Tisandros had been heinously slain, and that Kretan flute-player had been tied up like a hog in the barn which recently became free of owners. The wind and air was warm, owls hooting in the trees, and the evening light enough that a man could see another approaching from a stade away. Thoughts of that Kretan boy, so feminine and so now so loose, made the blood of Harpokras flow to his nether-regions and he did his best to keep himself under control – he was on guard over the prisoner after all. And yet...he was one of the few that had not taken a turn so far, and this only enraged him, willing his lust to remain dormant until his chance presented itself.

    “Are you done yet, Krantor? Did you drink a lake or something?” He questioned into the fading light, the corner of the building obscuring from view the spot where his brother-in-arms had gone moments previously to relieve himself and his bladder.

    Harpokras, a native of Tegea and far from his home, let out a sigh and leant idly on the eight-footer which he held in one hand, his large bronze aspis rested against his legs from where it could be quickly retrieved if needed. A grunt came from his lips, his thorax beginning to get uncomfortable and his greaves, which had never fit him correctly, only annoying him further as the time rolled on.

    “Krantor? Get your arse back here or-”

    Words ceased coming from his mouth as Krantor rounded the corner, or at least his upper body did, his eyes rolling back into his head and his hair tangled with blood. It was only then that Harpokras noticed the line gouged into his throat and recoiled as the more senior hoplite slumped face-first to the floor.

    “Come out from there! Drop your weapons and come out!”

    The Tegean, paid with Surakoûsan coin to betray his leader, gripped his spear tightly in both hands and left his shield where it was by the doorway. Slowly he paced towards the corner, sweat beading his uncovered brow and his neck skin crawling, a final sharp breath being taken in as he rounded the structure with a yell. There was nothing there. Only the body of Krantor, bleeding crimson life into the dirt, and his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.

    With such emotions running so high, how could he have heard the light-footed assailant creeping forward behind him in time to react?

    When the roughened hand clamped itself over his mouth, nails of fingers digging sharply into the flesh of his cheeks, he tried his hardest to dislodge it and let out a shout of warning. He had not thought that one hand could have a grip like that of pure iron, the fingers completely unmovable as he pulled and heaved at them. In his surprise and fear he forgot entirely about the sword that dangled below his armpit, a sword with which he might have had some chance of survival, but the primordial need for life took over and all thoughts of logic and reason abandoned poor lustful Harpokras to his death.

    Almost as if his attacker were toying with him, keeping that hand firmly in place, a sword was drawn from behind him and in one fluid motion that sharpened blade caressed his neck like a caring lovers kiss. Slowly, unhurried, the smooth metal was drawn back and forth over his throat in the motion of a woodsman's saw, Harpokras became frantic and began to spit, claw and bite, but nothing would slow the receding path of the smaller-than-normal weapon which clove effortlessly through the skin at the base of his neck, through his oesophagus and airway, and only ceased once it began to grate against the hard bone vertebrae of his spinal column. Warm crimson rain spurted out of the mortal wound, the dying rhythm of his heart bringing the downpour to a slow finale, the blood-drenched hand only then unlatching itself from his face and letting the rapidly cooling body fall next to that of his comrade.

    “The other two are dead?” Calmly breathed Adrastos, wiping the disgusting wretches blood from his hand, whilst eyes focusing on those of Gerasimos, who had stepped neatly from around the corner.

    “They are,” sighed the larger man, the last few days to him like the very ending of the world, his craggy face unsmiling as he pointed to the body of Krantor, “get his armour off, we shall need it to complete our flight.”



    ************



    At first he thought he was floating, or that others had come to misuse him or his 'break' was up, but when Euaristos peered one swollen eye up at the statue-perfect features of his Spartan mentor he began to weep. Dribble came from the corners of his mouth, “thank you,” he managed to garble over and over again, not even noticing as they moved his agonising limbs into a thorax and greaves, a helmet sending him into semi-darkness once more, “thank you...thank you...thank you...”

    Gerasimos looked down at him and shook his head, his features filled with sadness, “quiet now, young master,” he whispered in a hushed tone, “can you move your legs?”

    Try he did, doing as his first teacher told him, ignoring the burning pain that shot through his thighs and made him yelp like a struck child with every step. Yes, he could walk, but not without looking like exactly what he was - a young man violated in turn by traitors and cut-throats. Nonetheless, Gerasimos and Adrastos, both dressed in the similar clothing of Surakoûsan hoplitai, the Spartan with his crimson cloak tucked beneath his breastplate, half-carried the Kretan from the building and out into the unilluminated atmosphere of the night.

    Not even a moons ray lit them up as the trio made their way further and further along the mountain trail leading away from the now cursed settlement of Enna, hundreds of camp-fires easily visible if one took a split second to look back. When both men - one a veteran of war and the other bred into it from birth - agreed that they had not been seen or followed, Adrastos removed his rolled-up cloak and swaddled the shaking form of Euaristos in its coarse but utilitarian folds. Neither had any idea what could be going on in that boys mind, nor did they wish to, but both knew that they had to be there when he awoke into some semblance of ordered thought and vowed that they would be.

    After gaining a swathe of stades between Enna and themselves, Gerasimos led them through a narrow gulley and upwards toward the mouth of a cave, the interior blacker than the night about them if that was possible. They had to chop their way through thick foliage, an obvious sign to any half-skilled tracker that they had been there, but that would make find kindling. Fire they would desperately need, and attackers they could fight off if it came to it. The path leading to the recessed cavern would also play to the advantage of the besieged, gaining height as it twisted ever up and only wide enough for two men abreast – or two men and a boy, surrounded on all sides by grasping and snaring tentacles of thistles and nettle plants.

    “Wait here, and keep him standing. I'll take a look inside.”

    Taking the time for a small search of the immediate area, Gerasimos returned to the stationary pair with some tinder and what looked like some flint. Tearing a piece of cloth from his own garment, he knelt and produced a spark with the ease of an expert campaigner, tying the rag about a stick and heading with a firmly set jaw into the mouth of the cave and then ever deeper.

    “Get in here, Spartan. Bring the boy with you.” Drifted the voice of Gerasimos as if from somewhere distant , echoing through the caves innards until it reached the ear of the sharp-sensed warrior.

    He moved forward into the cave, not having to be told again, and within the next couple of hours the pair had laid Euaristos on a leafy bed and got a modest fire started. Outside the night closed in, and shadows danced across the bare grey walls of the hollow niche, flames licking forth and illuminating Gerasimos who sat and stared into the flames, whilst Adrastos sat and looked out into the gloom, idly trying to polish his helmet with one hand and re-experiencing old memories in his mind as he kept watch. Though only four-and-twenty years or such, not even a full homoioi yet, Adrastos had killed a helot and lorded over a 'pack' of younger boys before being gifted as a hostage to Tisandros, it was doubtful that there was a sharper pair of ears or eyes within miles of their position.

    So it was forgiveable that neither of the pair believed they would be discovered any time soon, and they were correct. They were not discovered soon - it took nearly two months, and the frigid coming of autumn before anyone realised that they were there.

    Yet, eventually, someone did realise, and on a chill autumn evening the outlines of two figures were visible on the path leading to the cave. Adrastos, going through a number of mental exercises with his young charge - who had began to regain himself after his ordeal - shook Gerasimos awake and pointed down the path, both warriors arming themselves and stepping out to meet these newcomers...

  10. #30
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 16/1/13]






    News of the Outside World - Autumn, 4th year of the 67th Olympiad (509 BC) to Spring, 1st year of the 68th Olympiad (508 BC)




    They gave up without any resistance, the two strangers, Gerasimos and Adrastos marching them into the cave where their faces could be seen and who they were could be confirmed. Surely the Korinthian and his brother warrior must have recognised them, otherwise they would have been slain on the spot and their bodies tossed into the gully at the foot of the trail, or this was how Euaristos thought of it as he propped himself up on his elbows to peer closely at the pair who now entered the cave that was slowly turning from a temporary hiding place to a more permanent abode.

    “We found them wandering up the path,” grunted Gerasimos as he nudged them both closer to the Kretan, “take a look and tell us if you recognise both of them.”

    He and Adrastos went back to watching the darkness and maintaining their armour and weapons leaving Euaristos to look the pair up and down. Yes he knew them, he knew them both, and knew that he was in no real danger, but had never thought to see either of them travelling about the mountains by themselves.

    “Young master,” spoke the more weary of the two, giving a small bow and waiting for any reply.

    Euaristos returned his bow with a smile, moving himself to sit with his back against the cold stone of the caves wall. “Well, Audax, what brings you to my humble hideaway?” Came the question, delivered in a tone used by someone who neither cares nor wants to know but who is forced anyway to ask.

    The senior slave of Tisandros' household, old but with the features and bodily physique of someone half his age, realised that any preamble would be useless and so, with a small sigh, he opened his arms and gave a shrug.

    “They came for his family, my mistress Anteia and her children, little Damoxenos and brave Euthaleia, in the early hours of an eerily silent dawn. I knew something was wrong, not all of my free-born intuition having been lost during my servitude, and made sure that they were not there when the attackers came. There were some fourteen of them, men armed with cudgels of wood and long staffs, each clothed in the rugged garb of farmers and poor folk, but they knew what they were doing and no place was left untouched. Several of the girls were violated, and two of the men, I was beaten but survived. When they discovered that my mistress was not there they left.”

    “That is all very interesting,” sneered the impatient youth, “and it saddens me, but you did not answer my question.”

    Audax gave another bow, “we are here because we came to find the master, but on seeing what had become of Enna, and knowing that my lord would never have let his army loose in such a manner if he had lived, we decided that retreat was preferable. My eyes are not as weary as you may suspect, and I saw your fire from the vale below. So, we decided to approach and take our chances, out of supplies and afraid of returning to Akrai.”

    “It is as he says,” spoke the second figure for the first time that evening, “we had nowhere else to go, and I thank the Gods we found you here and not some others.”

    “My lady Galene, a pleasure to see you here as well.”

    Euaristos had eyed the Iberian slave, now the property of the wife of Tisandros, with some interest, but now he looked at someone he had only seen once before. It was the same someone who had taken him to his lover dressed as a woman some years ago, but who seemed unchanging in appearance as the sea or a mountain face. She had those same black curls, the same mouth that was little more than an opening on her face, and those exact same eyes of languorous green. Both were dressed in peasants clothing, Audax leaning against a stick and Galene, who had clearly been looking after him, doping her best even now to look imposing.

    “Sit then, please,” bade the mentally sharp Kretan, not yet fully recovered in body but, with the help of Adrastos and his Spartan upbringing, well on his way, “I am afraid we have nothing to offer you in way of food, except some rough bred and a crudely carved bowl of melas zomos,” they both sat, but it made Euaristos smile to see the look of unease come over their faces as he mentioned the infamous 'black broth' of the Spartans, made from salt, vinegar, and pigs blood and pork, a meal of survival and not of culinary pleasure.

    Some half hour it took for Adrastos to prepare the dish, humming a childhood tune to himself as he did so, finally pressing two bowls into the hands of the outsiders, “you will not enjoy this,” he quipped, “but you are not Spartans.” Nor did they seem to enjoy it, each making faces as they supped it and slurped down the pieces of hard pork from a pigs leg already some days old. When they had finished, the bowls taken away and both man and woman 'satisfied', Euaristos went to questioning them, having been hidden away in his mountain for some time. His questioning was so straightforward that even Adrastos approved, taking the form of “tell me everything”.

    “Nothing much had happened since you hid,” began Audax, “Taras began trading with Surakoûsai, and a nobleman called Andromenes became the tyrant of Gela,” the Iberian nearly spat this last piece of information, “it is a disease which seems to be spreading through the wealthiest of the oligarchs, and I fear that soon it shall overtake all. Xenoi from Magna Graecia and my own homeland are swarming to Sikelia, hired with coin to form bodyguards around those wishing to cease power from their rivals without the risk of being dispatched in an attack of vengeance or an uprising. On our way west we saw savage Keltoi from the northern lands, gleaming weapons bared and heads hanging from belts, a taxis of Italoi marching beside them.”



    ************



    Audax could not have known how right he was, for tyranny was indeed spreading more rapidly than a plague through the upper echelons of the Surakoûsan aristocracy and their vassals and allies.

    What followed the meeting which made the group into five instead of three, Galene cooking for everyone except Euaristos, who struck to a Spartan diet, were nearly four months of bodily recuperation for the recovering Kretan and an entire world of change across the rest of the island of Sikelia.

    For his part, Euaristos began training once more under the guidance of Adrastos; lifting gradually heavier rocks, warming up and then exercising his muscles and body each day, sparring with weapons and in the unarmed art of pankration, and in the evening taking a seat to be mentally challenged in games of riddles,the learning of rudimentary mathematics and to recite verses from Homer and Alkaios of Mytilene. Gerasimos on the other hand, when not taking watch, would tell the eager-to-learn adolescent everything he knew or had heard about the mother-city of Korinth, about those colonies founded in Sikelia by the Korinthians, Kreto-Rhodians, Chalkidians and others, and all the stratagems of warfare that he knew.

    A hard process it was, and even though he was more than willing to learn and better himself, something still bothered Euaristos. Both his mentors saw it, but neither one commented as it did not seem to do any harm to his training and learning. As to the boy himself, Euaristos believed it was his thirst for vengeance growing stronger, and that he would have to do something before it became too strong for him to control.

    From time-to-time Audax, or another volunteer, would disguise themselves as best they could and find a travelling merchant or drunken gossip. They would then interrogate them, by way of a casual chat, buying them drinks or simply acting the curious but innocent fool. By this method, though not taking a step outside the area of a few stades around the cave, Euaristos and the others were able to keep abreast of all the goings-on across the eastern half of the island, goings-on that seemed more worrying than reassuring.

    In the west, in Surakoûsai to be more precise, Hieron – the ten-and-six year old son of the deceased Kallippos – had made himself absolute ruler of the greatest Greek city east of the motherland. Using guile, expert oratory, and surprisingly little muscle, the boy that was even younger than Euaristos had managed to dominate Surakoûsai and everything that that entailed. His first action was to proclaim himself Basileus of the city-state, an action that none dared oppose if they valued their life, whilst his second was to summon home all citizens of Surakoûsai eligible for military service. This summons was answered, and men returned to the mother-city from all corners of the island, only Dionysios able to keep four-hundred hoplitai or so in his polis of Kentoripai. In doing this, Hieron now had the loyalty and strength of nearly two-thousand men of bronze, as well as barbarian mercenaries that were loyal only to their paymaster and a savage deterrent any resistance.

    From then on tyranny spread like a bad rash, tyrants growing forth like weeds in the forms of Eukles of Heloros, Telines of Leontinoi and Andromenes of Gela. Dionysios too, the youngest son of Epikydes of Surakoûsai, but also the only surviving one, ruled over Kentoripai as a monarch would in other lands, the local Sikanians and his Hellenic subjects swayed by a ruler of two-and-twenty years that was as unafraid to spread his wealth as he was to throw lavish festivals, build huge monuments and temples, and to execute law-breakers without trial.

    Some oligarchs still ruled, all the men of wealth and quality, in poleis like Megara Hyblaea and Akragas, and yet in other settlements such as Akrai and Enna there was not yet a leader or a group of leaders that had come to prominence enough to take the reigns of power. These poleis lived in states of peace, but without any guidance from a strong hand, like ships bobbing about on an endless sea with a mast or rudder.

    The winter season, as moderate as ever in temperature and weather, was when Hieron began to show that he truly was his fathers son. The young tyrant had had enough of the Euboian colonists, gathering an army reinforced by foreign mercenaries under Eukles of Heloros, he set out along the coast towards Katane. Some miles to the north-east of the city he met a relief force from Naxos further up the coast, massacring them in a battle on a coastal plain near Katane and turning once more toward his main objective of the campaign. Hipponikes of Katane, a democratic supporter and untested strategos abandoned his city and fled into hiding, along with the entire garrison, leaving Katane open for Hieron to simply march in and take it.

    Having not the strength to waste, nor the inclination to hold the settlement, Hieron sent a message to his uncle in Kentoripai and bade Dionysios take charge of Katane, offering him also the rulership over Naxos when it was clawed from the hands of Kallikrates who defended it. These terms were accepted, and when Naxos was finally pacified in the spring of the following year, siege equipment built to scale the walls of the coastal polis taking time to construct, Dionysios could now be called the tyrant of not one but three poleis, none of which had been emptied of their citizens but assimilated with promises and shows of friendship instead.

    Some wondered why Dionysios did not challenge his younger nephew for rulership of Surakoûsai, and the answer was simple. Hieron held strength and resources far surpassing that of his relative, his fleet and land strength was stronger and the cities that Dionysios had been gifted had already had their fighting men slain in battle against the white-crested lochoi of the most powerful city on the earth of Sikelia.

    This was the lay of the political and geographical landscape when the first month of the sixty-eighth Olympiad dawned, the entire eastern half of Sikelia under the rule of Hieron or those loyal to him, the Sikanian interior of the island being Hellenised and their people being recruited into tyrants bodyguards or used as assisting forces on the battlefield. The Sikels of the east, those that gave their name to the island, were also being recruited in greater numbers outside of Surakoûsai and formed into phalanxes of their own, to be used where citizen-soldiers could not be found, to guard important crossings or again to reinforce Surakoûsan armies in the field. In the west the Phoenikians were fighting an ongoing war with the citizens of occupied Selinunte and their allies, reinforced by Spartan 'new men' and liberated helots, their gaze turned away from activity in the east, for the moment.

    All that remained for Hieron, or one of his vassals, to do was to bring the last Kreto-Rhodian stronghold in Sikelia into the fold. This was the polis of Zankle, another coastal settlement with a natural harbour, occupied by the last largest concentration of Kreto-Rhodian forces on the island and commanded by the former tyrant of Gela, Gelon. This strategos was thirty years of age, a devoutly religious man who was also a cunning and fearsome adversary on the battlefield, ambitious politician who was untouched by a fear of death and was more than unlikely to give up his city unless he lay dead or dying.

    Lastly was Lipara, an island off the coast of Sikelia famous for the black rock found there and the position it held in the Tyrrhenian Sea. This was the final stronghold of the Kreto-Rhodian colonists, a force of them having taken the polis and now commanding it entirely.

    It was here that would need to be taken, if Surakoûsai was to reign supreme in the western mediterranean, and if Hieron was to make himself Basileus of all eastern Sikelia. From there it would only be a short step, and a long and arduous campaign, to make himself overlord of the entire island and the most powerful man outside of Hellas and the Persian Empire.



    ************



    “Spring,” breathed Gerasimos with a smile, “no better time for new beginnings.”

    Behind him and Euaristos, both moving forward at a steady pace next to one another, came the remaining three of their little band. Each of them bar one carried something that would be needed for their journey south, Gerasimos and Adrastos their weapons, Audax and Galene shouldering foodstuffs and crude utensils, and Euaristos carrying nothing but a coarsely made spear with a sharpened tip of flint. This he now used to lean on as he walked, having recovered his strength enough to walk but still not entirely, deep breaths of air filling his lungs and helping him to keep up with his older mentor as they walked some way ahead of the others.

    They walked along the southern trails of the mountainous interior towards Gela, from where they planned to turn east and to Kasmenai, from Kasmenai they wished to travel to Heloros, and then Surakoûsai herself. This could be done easily enough without obstructions, long rests or delays of any sort, within the space of two days if one were to get a boat from Gela and sail round the coast. By foot, as they proposed to do, it would take considerably longer.

    What would they do once they got to Surakoûsai?

    This was the question, and none of them were entirely certain what the answer was. They could try to worm their way into the tyrants good graces, or even enlist in his bodyguard by posing as foreigners and strangers to Sikelia, a task not as hard as one would think, since none of the travelling party were from the island itself. Then again there was the same method which had worked so well with Tisandros, the method of using lust as a means to an end, something a leader of ten-and-seven years – married or not – would know quite a bit about.

    For now they simply walked the trails and survived as best they could, minds whirring as they walked no doubt, but the only way the question would be answered would be to cross the bridge when they came to it.

  11. #31
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 18/1/13]






    A Lucky Encounter - Spring, 1st year of the 68th Olympiad (508 BC)




    A contented sigh escaped from the lips of Euaristos as he entered the vast construct of stone, the slight smell of marshland gently sweeping under his nostrils, blocked out to a greater extent by the grove of cypress trees in amongst which the Olympieion- or temple of Olympian Zeus – was situated. It was here that the weary travellers finally found themselves, footsore and going to sacrifice at the massive temple, the roof held aloft by one-hundred-and-two towering columns and a statue of the King of the Gods erected at the farthest end to tower above the temples many supplicants.

    On making their way to the temple, they had passed through a settlement named Polichna, a squalid little settlement just east of the river Kyana. In spite of the vulgar villagers, rough and ready farmers for the most part, the small community did possess foodstuffs and drink enough to quench the thirst and fill the stomachs of the travellers. Back south was the road to Heloros, west was the river, and to the east were coastal marshlands and the Great Harbour of Surakoûsai.

    To the north of the Olympieion was a bridge and a road, a road which would lead straight to the gates of the outer wall about Surakoûsai and into the agora, from there one could travel over a miniature isthmus to the isle of Ortygia or north to the commercial centre of Surakoûsai called Achradina. The district of Neapolis contained the theatre of Surakoûsai and most of the Surakoûsan monuments, including the temples of Apollo and Demeter, and north-west of both the former was the slopping terrain of the residential district – called Tyche – encompassing a vast area of the Epipolae plateau, a rather undeveloped area of the city but included in the city of defensive and strategic purposes. From here a road went north to Megara Hyblaea.

    “Impressive,” said Adrastos with some approval as he swept his helmet from his head in a swish of bronze and horsehair, his words meaning 'not bad but still a little too lavish for my Spartan tastes', even those of his 'kind' able to appreciate a well-built and sturdy temple to the head of the Olympians. Gerasimos too removed his helmet and came to stand beside the pair, whilst Audax and Galene remained sat on the steps in the light of the sun drenched day.

    The Kretan, suddenly feeling smaller than an ant beneath the stern gaze of father Zeus, walked self-consciously over to the singular altar constructed in front of the statue for purposes of sacrifice and worship and took a knee. Here, if you could endure the gaze of the living stone eyes, anyone could give or ask of Zeus Olympios. Whether the prayer would be answered or not was an entirely different matter.

    “Zeus Olympios, father of the Gods, I am-” he glanced quickly at the statue and then back down, feeling unworthy of even gazing at it, “I feel undeserving to be in your presence, befouled as I am, unable to save my lover from a painful death and then used like as a plaything for the lusts of men,” the hot swell of anger began to rise in him now and he clenched his fists tightly together, breathing in the air that had moved about these stones since the temple was erected in the dark past when the first Greeks colonised the coast, “Tisandros was to me as you were to Ganymede, and I have already prayed for vengeance. Now I would ask the same of you, let me grasp the throat of the one who ordered him killed, grasp it and squeeze it until the life goes from him, or release your furies.”

    Footsteps sounded behind Euaristos, followed by a voice lathered with curiosity, “an interesting prayer, no doubt of that, you mentioned Tisandros...not Tisandros of Surakoûsai?”

    “What of it?” Challenged Euaristos as he rose from the floor, turning to stare straight into a pair of empathetic eyes which took his breath away. For a moment, just a moment, he believed Zeus had bought back his beloved, so similar was the appearance of the young speakers face to that of Tisandros, but the more he looked the more he realised it was not him but someone who must be bound to him by blood, “who are you?” His question was asked out of curiosity, but from the fine chiton of orange-dyed wool to the stainless white chalmys, and the expertly crafted sandals worn on the youths feet, it was clear that this was someone of importance that he may have just offended.

    What happened next was as God-sent as it was unexpected, a smile cracking the square-jawed and masculine but also hairless face of the speaker. His body, tall and well-muscled from years of training, but only just beginning to sprout some hairs on the legs and arms, shifted into a stance of amusement and in one motion he gestured to himself.

    “My name is Hieron, son of Kallippos, absolute ruler of Surakoûsai...and you are Euaristos of Krete, are you not?”

    Surprised as he then became, Euaristos knew he should not have been, for Hieron was the ruler of the most powerful polis on the island and no doubt informed even of a sneeze on the other side of his territory. What surprised him more was the look which he gave, a look not of lust or want for the Kretans body, but certainly a look of interest. As if to emphasise the point, without even explaining what he was doing, Hieron moved around him in a circle and looked him up and down, his full lips parting to let out a wisp of air.

    “You truly are as beautiful as they say, an individual that could be mistaken for an effeminate man or a more masculine woman, able to blend in as either. Quite a skilled lover as well, if the tales or boasts of my dear departed uncle Tisandros were anything to go by. My father always told me that to love another man was an affront to the Gods...but...I must say that I am sorely tempted.”

    One hand, quite large for someone only seven-and-ten years of age, and already marked with scars caused during training or battle, reached gingerly out towards Euaristos. The Kretan prepared himself for the touch of yet another, but to his astonishment – a feeling mingled strongly with relief – Hieron pulled his hand back without touching him and returned to standing and admiring him.

    Dressed in the rags of a peasant, covered in dust from the road and with black marks beneath his eyes from lack of sleep, as well as scars on his lip and torso, Euaristos wondered what the self-proclaimed king of Surakoûsai could find so interesting or alluring about him. Whatever it was, he did. What he had said was true though, after the months of training he had finally began to develop muscles and, if one was to glance his way, Euaristos could be mistaken for either a rather svelte man or on the other hand a toned woman with an especially athletic figure.

    “You do me too much honour, my king,” replied Euaristos, unconsciously batting his eyelashes like some virginal maiden, a reflex he had developed since his enslavement but one that seemed to cause other men to become kind towards him, “I am certain you have heard what happened to your uncle, and then to me?” At this Hieron gave a curt nod, allowing Euaristos to continue, “I was simply asking for revenge on his killer, whomever that may be.”

    Once again Hieron smiled, shaking his head in mock disgust, “my dear Euaristos, I am only seven-and-ten years of age, barely even a man, yet I am the ruler of Surakoûsai and already know who it was that killed my uncle.” The look that Euaristos gave him was enough to make him forget being coy, and with a sigh he spoke again, “who is the only brother left of the sons of Epikydes? Who wished to become the first tyrant, who could gain from all their deaths, the deaths of oligarchs?”

    Before he could answer, Hieron was approached by two burly men, twins it seemed to the Kretan, Ligoures from the northern reaches of the world. Each of them dressed in armour of linked rings, craftsmanship of some fine quality, their helmets adorned with horns and on their arms strapped shields the circumference of a grown mans stomach. Both had hair of a fiery red, blue eyes, and at their sides sat sheathed blades.

    “My king,” growled one in a deep but rasping voice, “your ship sets sail this evening, we can stay here no longer.”

    “Yes, yes! Can you not see I am speaking, Ainorix?” A look of anger flashed across the young tyrants face, and for that small moment it was possible for Euaristos to catch a glimpse of the man behind the façade, the mask quickly slipping back into place as he turned back, “I am sorry Euaristos, but I must catch my ship to Lipara...” he tapped a finger to his cheek for an instant, “you have a Lakedaemonian with you, a true Spartan, do you not?” Euaristos could only nod, and the smile returned to that face, so like his lovers, almost instantly, “good...good-good...gather your friends, all of them, and enough horses shall be provided to carry us all to the Great Harbour.”

    “My king?” Blurted the astonished slave, his eyebrows rising nearly to the level of his hairline.

    “You heard me,” came the faintly aggravated reply, “gather your four companions and follow me outside, my fleet and army are already under way. This time next month we shall be in the midst of a victory feast atop Rhodian corpses and inside the walls of Lipara itself.”

    Tyche, fortune, had once again smiled on Euaristos – or so he firmly believed – and within a matter of minutes they were all mounted on horses that Hieron had commandeered from a praying horse-merchant at the temple. Everything of worry seemed to drop away from the mind of the Kretan at this point, sitting high on the back of a finely bred steed and following the most powerful man in all Sikelia to crush the last of the Rhodian colonists in a pincer strategy, he attacking from the sea and Dionysios launching an attack on Zankle and Gelon of Gela by land.

    If it worked, then this would be the end of Kreto-Rhodian power in Sikelia, and Euaristos would be able to come face-to-face with his lovers murderer. A man who may not have held the knife, but was ten times as guilty as his hired assassins. If it failed, if Hieron should die or Dionysios should lose the battle on land, then only the moirai knew what would proceed him.

  12. #32
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 18/1/13]





    A Fresh Beginning? - Spring to Autumn, 1st year of the 68th Olympiad (508 BC)



    “Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.” - Homer, The Iliad




    Sleek bodies moved below the waves as the dolphins performed their rituals, unknown to mankind and always a mystery, just as were the sea-dwelling creatures which chattered to each other in clicks and screeches both pleasant and abhorrent to the more ape-like creations of the Gods. Euaristos admired them though, how they almost danced below the water, springing forth with acrobatic leaps from below the crystal-clear waters which flowed about the natural harbour, the coastline, and beaches of the Isle of Lipara. He sat on the forward bow of a Surakoûsan trireme, the very same ship that had bought he and his companions to this luxuriant and resplendent part of the world, an island itself between two very different worlds – those of Sikelia, awash with slavery and blood, and those of the Italioi and their kin – and let the sunlight of the scintillating summers day wash over that bronzed flesh of his which was bared to it. In his hand he held a wax tablet and a stylus, gifted to him by Hieron to replace those of his own which were lost, items he now expected were shattered or thrown aside by some Sikel or Surakoûsan in Enna, the very thought of the place making his skin crawl and the bright day seem that little bit darker.

    Looking down at the wax through which he would have to carve, knowing that he was one of a fortunate few to be as literate as he was, the Kretan wished to record his experiences for posterity and so that someday, someone somewhere might read his words and remember him. It was a childish fantasy, hoping that he may be made immortal in writing if nothing else, no great deeds left to him or a living family to honour him and morn his passing. Then again, maybe he wrote for pleasure, he did not really know and he let these thoughts slip back into the recesses of his mind as he touched the stylus to the tablet with an uncertain half-smile.

    “Our journey has taken longer than Hieron claimed it would to reach Lipara, bringing an army nearly seven hundred strong to an island which has strategic importance but little else. The young son of Kallippos, styling himself a monarch over Surakoûsai, has destroyed those he came here to defeat and now gloats over those he considers to be lesser men.”

    Nearly two months it had been, sailing north from the Great Harbour on a friendly wind, but becoming embroiled in a sea-swept storm which had forced the expedition of Hieron to make for the closest shelter of Naxos. Several ships had been damaged but were mended under the knife-like stares of the recently 'upset' Naxioi. There were many who loved Dionysios, and would follow him willingly, but there were also those that cursed the name and that of Surakoûsai and would squawk with glee to see he and his mother-city fall and burn. Once all was set straight, and the storm passed by and into the south, the triers of Surakoûsai took once more to sea and made well enough time.

    They were fine vessels, Surakoûsan triremes, built from the best wood on the island and sailed by men that knew the coasts and islands of the Tyrrhenian sea as well as they knew their own minds. One secret which the navy of Surakoûsai possessed, unknown to their enemies and most of their friends, was the reinforcement of the ships triangular bow with bronze fitted over the wood. It was an improvement, at first thought of as madness, bought about by Epikydes of Surakoûsai in his years of youth, and was now used on almost every reliable warship which that polis had in its arsenal.

    ”My luck it was to discover more of the boy-like tyrant, to see that although he may appear as young and sometimes even foolish, he is far more than that. An avid interest in all things Lakedaemonian is his, his mouth never ceasing to ask questions of Adrastos when he could corner the stoic and pragmatic Spartan. At first it would be of their tongue, the brusque manner of their speech, moving then to the matters of warfare and the famous agōgē which turns Spartan boys into unarguably the greatest and most fearless warriors of Greece. When he was finished with his questions, or patiently but unknowingly cast aside, he would descend once again into what I now know to be his natural and unaltered state.”

    A leader of men he may have been, but Hieron was as grim and sour as any man twice his age. For brief periods, when talking and questioning of the things he loved; beautiful places and people, the Lakedaemonians, the conquests and strategies of his father and uncles and other things, he would light up and become animated as if by some supernatural force. Then again, when he became bored or wished to be left alone, he would withdraw into himself and became a morose spectre of his own imitation.

    Barely any could reach him when that mood took him, one of the Ligoures twins, Ainorix or Trexios, perhaps or Galene with her feminine touch or even Euaristos, who was treated by Hieron as something related to a caged bird of spectacular plumage. Not once had he ever tried to take the Kretan, not even to run a hand over his body, but even during these unilluminated moments he would watch Euaristos as one would view a new species of wildlife or even a creature of what some blasphemers considered myth. Moody he often was, as any boy of ten-and-seven was sure to be, but the young beginning of an exceptional leader he was also, with a keen intellect and wit and an ability to take in everything he saw and was said to him.

    ”Word reached Hieron that his uncle, the murderous tyrant Dionysios, he who killed my lover and the father of Hieron both, had done as was asked of him and wrenched Zankle from the clutches of Polyxelos of Knidos. This tyrant was loved by the people, even a hero to many, but when Dionysios executed him there was no clamour, no uproar or revolt, and I cannot help but think that Hieron's uncle can only be helped by his namesake or some other deity beside. After this victory, and the massacre of the inhabitants of Zankle, executing all dissenters and sending others into servitude, Dionysios then marched against Gelon of Gela and fought him until the combined might of Dionysios' army prevailed, capturing Gelon and holding him a prisoner even now along with two-hundred of his men.

    I need not write, but I shall, that this impressed Hieron but also angered him. We had done nothing since landing on the island, our enemy some three-hundred fishermen and peasants, mere psiloi, who knew the island better than we. Each night a sentry or two would go missing, javelins flashing out of the darkness to kill a man or a blade raking a throat and opening it like a fishes belly. There was talk amongst the massed hoplitai, men of who consider themselves of aristocratic birth and not of farmyard simpletons, of returning to Sikelia if something was not done.

    Yet something was done.

    Hieron showed his genius by bidding his men remove their heavy thoraxes, and the helmets which confined their senses and their breath, taking only their aspides and their spears into the hills surrounding the polis of Lipara. It was in rugged conditions, encircled by the crags of mountain-faces and in between jutting rocks, that the psiloi manoeuvred and used to their advantage. Hieron, a broad smile on his face, took away some of this advantage and ordered his men to follow him into the middle of the foe. With his Ligoures around him, led by their twin chieftains, he did just that and with a bellow his men followed him over rocks and tree-stumps, along narrow trails and straight to the agora of Lipara! Through the streets and alleys of Lipara they fought, simple men fighting for their homes, colonists from Rhodos and Krete, Euboea and Ionia, men that had no chance of defeating trained killers.

    I remember coming across Hieron, a man that I had sworn to serve as my king, covered in the blood of enemies and still hacking at the lifeless corpse of some poor wretch. His eyes were wide, wider than I had ever seen them, and with his mouth half-open. When a speckle of the corpses blood dappled his lips he did not brush it away, no, he moved his tongue over it and kept his eyes fixed on me as he did.

    A boy he is, and one of prodigious potential, but a monstrosity as well.”




    ************



    Ainorix towered over the Kretan-born slave, a slave who had technically been 'freed' twice in his life already, but who made no claim to what could not be seen as actual freedom. Up close he could see the scars which were visible on the surface of the barbarians skin, some faded almost to nothing and others much more fresh, purple bruising covering his knuckles from his most recent conflict. Over his muscular body he wore a tunic of chequered material, reaching to his knees below and to his elbows on either side, a broad belt of leather wrapped about his stomach and holding a shirt of metal rings in place about his torso. Around his neck was a cloak, shorter than a Greek chalmys, pinned on one side by a golden brooch, and on his feet a pair of boots much like those of Euaristos' homeland. Oddly, nothing moved as he walked, not even the cloak, no sound coming from beneath those large feet, the Ligurian moving with the suppleness of a feline but holding within him the strength of a bear.

    They moved together through the high-arched hallway of what Euaristos assumed must have been the palace of Hippokrates, the half-Italioi tyrant that had presided over Lipara before being wrapped in chains by Hieron and thrown into a deep hole somewhere in the mountains. It was a fine abode, fit for visiting nobility or just one ruler, an absolute ruler, built from stone and decorated in certain places with the black rock so famous in foreign lands, but mined on Lipara and its sister islands. Such mining would be what many of the Liparan colonists were now doing, a punishment for resisting Hieron and his entrance into the city.

    Through two doors they went, one hanging slightly at an angle, the tree-trunk with which it had been battered aside still laying in the looted hallway as the pair walked past. Inside they found Hieron, sitting quietly on an wooden stool, a piece of rough workmanship but not awful quality, looking at a tablet that Euaristos recognised instantly as his own. Although the expression on the tyrants face was unreadable, Euaristos would know his thoughts soon enough.

    “A monster, am I?” Quoth Hieron, rising to his full height and moving until his smooth face was only inches away from that of the boy who had only recently become a man, “AM I!” Spittle flew from his mouth, landing on the high-boned cheek of his quarry, and for one minute Euaristos believed he would be struck, either by Hieron himself or one of his pet Ligoures. Hieron refrained from it in the end, rubbing a hand across his forehead and scratching at one cheek, his lips pulled up in a pained countenance.

    “Euaristos...you praise me and then you turn me into something to scare children,” the voice of Hieron sounded saddened, almost offended rather than hurt, and with a heavy sigh he sat himself on the inside sill of a window. Outside the gloom of an autumns dusk was setting in, and the pale face of the wounded tyrant was outlined in a stark contrast. “Why write these things? Why? I am barely ten-and-seven, my men laugh at me behind my back as no more than an immature boy, and now someone I find utterly captivating has to write of me like this?”

    He had no answer to those questions, and did not want to risk making Hieron or his bodyguards angry, but he would not hold back an honest answer, “because, my king, it is the truth.”

    Far from displeasing the tyrant, it appeared to cheer him, Hieron even let a smile briefly show before he gestured for Trexios to approach.

    “This,” he said almost with relish, holding aloft another wax tablet that the imposing Ligurian had just handed him, “this is the next stage of my monstrosity, or perhaps of my potential.” He made a great show of reading the tablet once more, setting aside Euaristos' own, a well-rehearsed grin pulling up the side of his face but not going as far as his eyes. Eyes that returned to Euaristos filled with the mirth of someone given eminent news. “Just this month a Phoenikian army crossed the Halyous river and marched on Akragas. From the east came Andromenes, having been forewarned and after gathering the men of Gela, to meet their strategos Kanmi Bulla, a Thrakian by birth, on a hill-ringed plain further inland and away from the city. He captured Bulla, and left only twenty men alive, word of their defeat no doubt reaching the ears of their brethren in the occupied Greek poleis by now.”

    Euaristos knew what was coming next, his hands shifting beneath his dull brown chlamys as he wrung them together. He watched as Hieron watched him, nodding his head when he saw that the Kretan understood.

    “Yes, the Phoenikians have made a grave mistake. No doubt it is their bickering with the refugees of Selinunte and their allies that has blinded them to the expansion of Surakoûsai and therefore my power, power every day that grows. Sikels and Sikanians come from their villages to join in readiness for the next battle, Keltoi sailing by the boat into our harbours to fight for coin and land, their brethren of Iberia following at their heels. In each allied or subject poleis new taxies are formed, men fighting beside us from Gela, Leontinoi, Katana, and very soon even Liparoi from these very islands. Persian spawn, their decadence clouding their minds, spewing forth dark-skinned Libyans and bearded women.”

    Casually, as if swatting away a fly, he flung both tablets out of the window and into a ravine on the other side, where they would shatter into unreadable fragments. Useless to anyone.

    “Soon, soon...this month I take ship for Himera, the largest polis on the northern coast, and from there I shall strike back at my enemies.”

    With lengthy strides he once more reached the side of Euaristos, the smell of wine and cooked meat on his breath, and leant forward until their noses almost touched. Nothing happened for a moment, both sets of eyes peering at the other, before Hieron, who visibly shook as he did, leant forward and embraced his opposite in a kiss. Both were of roughly the same height and Hieron moved straight forward, Euaristos caught by surprise and unmoving as their two mouths touched. Yet it was a movement of tipsy bravado, not true lust, Hieron pulling away as quickly as he had swept forward and turning his back on the rather astounded Kretan.

    “Go now, gather your companions. You will come with me to Himera, as will your Spartan and your Iberian. The old man and the woman shall remain here for the time being.” A shudder seemed to move through those broad shoulders, the shoulders of a still-developing boy that were crushed by a severe weight, his rule unchallenged over nearly all of Sikelia and a fresh campaign on the horizon, with only his treacherous uncle as a man who ruled four poleis to oppose him. “Do ask I have commanded, Kretan. Soon we set sail for Himera, and once there the war shall truly begin.”



    ************



    Adrastos and Audax flanked Euaristos on either side, all three standing idly outside the palaistra of Himera and watching young men and old enter and leave the gymnasia to go about whatever business they had. All three had arrived in Himera in mid-autumn, having to leave Lipara behind, as well as two of their fellows, Hieron exercising his claim over the city and giving the three of them almost the entire freedom of the place without restrictions. Since arriving they had visited the 'heavier' area of the gymnasia more than once and been surprised to find that Audax was far from just an old man.

    In his homeland, it was discovered that Audax was far more than a slave, perhaps even a chieftain or a chieftains son, and very soon the trio had connections amongst the Iberian mercenaries that enjoyed the hospitality of the very same city as themselves. More than once they had been defended from drunken hoplitai on a dark night, groups of these strange barbaroi arriving as if out of the very shadows to come to their aid and leaving without so much as a parting word. There was much more to Audax than met the eye, that was certain.

    The tyrant had not been indolent though, sending gallopers to Surakoûsai for fighting men, and to Dionysios with a request for reinforcements. Men aplenty had arrived from the mother-city, and other places too, all citizens of Surakoûsai that had been spread over the face of Sikelia by the last years of warfare. There must have been over a thousand of them, and that was just the infantry, noble horsemen and lower cavalry riding to the aid of their victorious sovereign as if he were a benevolent ruler and not a self-centred despot. Eventually a herald had returned from Dionysios, bearing the news that Hieron's uncle would gather as many men from what he now called 'The Four Poleis' as he could and march as soon as he could in support of his nephew – and his own desires.

    Now it was only a matter of time, another waiting game, until Andromenes of Gela crossed the Halyous in the south or Hieron made his way along the coast in the north. Time and strength of numbers were not on the side of the Phoenikians, their strength sapped as they tried to wipe out the survivors of Selinunte, determined and Spartan-led fighters who had already taken two Phoenikian settlements and now pressed them in the west. Soon they would be every bit as pressured in the east, caught between the hammer of Surakoûsai and the anvil of an enemy they could not decisively defeat.

    Hieron was right; when they had made the mistake of threatening Akragas, not knowing that they would be defeated in their turn, begun the Phoenikian War had.

  13. #33
    Rex Anglorvm's Avatar Wrinkly Wordsmith
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 20/1/13]

    Had a fair amount to catch up on there, its good to see that young Euaristos is now free to take some measure of revenge, but who knows what Hieron has in store for him

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  14. #34
    Rex Basiliscus's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 28/1/13]

    I like the story Took me some time to read it, due to many other things occupying my time atm, but will try to stay with it. Can't wait to see what happens next

    +rep (when I can)

  15. #35
    Rex Anglorvm's Avatar Wrinkly Wordsmith
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 28/01/2013]

    Another great update and somehow I knew that his freedom would not be easily won

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  16. #36
    Foederatus
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 28/01/2013]

    I haven't been on these forums much, but I decided to check up on some AARs I was following, this has gotta be one of the best in my opinion(that I've read)

    Those last updates were insane! Insanely good!

  17. #37
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 28/01/2013]

    This isn't an update, sorry, but just a confirmation that I haven't forgotten about this AAR and will be updating it soon. Thanks for everyone who has commented/given me rep/hopefully enjoyed this tale thus far. Stay tuned!

  18. #38
    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 28/01/2013]

    Okay, now I'm confused. I seem to remember posting an update after this 'last' one...an update which appears to have disappeared. Ah well, the show must go on. Expect an update by Monday next week or preferably sooner.

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    McScottish's Avatar The Scribbling Scotsman
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    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 28/01/2013]





    A Sweeping Winters Report – Autumn, 1st year of the 68th Olympiad(508 BC) to Winter, 3rd year of the 68th Olympiad (506 BC)




    “No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny.”- Homer, The Iliad




    Wars come and wars go, very much like the unnecessary and bloated vanities of man, and the war against the Phoenikian colonists and settlers was not really much of an exception. It had started well for the Surakoûsan under their aristocratic leaders and only progressed to even dizzier heights as the years had worn on, Hieron and his blood-relatives, connected by intricate webs of blood, marriage and adoption, had moved with speed unheard of for a Hellenic army ever before and within two years the outwardly 'unified' poleis of the island had smashed asunder Qart-ḥadašt domination of the eastern quarter of Sikelia and sent refugees streaming across the sea to return to their lives in North Africa.

    Among this conflict were fought only two pitched battles, and three sieges, the Greeks singing paeans to the Gods and screaming their war-cries as they pursued their broken enemies from the field of battle or sacked their cities, raped their women and enslaved their children for the surmounting glory of Surakoûsai the mother city.

    Such was the way of war...yet not all went the way of the Hellenes, and on a dry spring day Andromenes of Gela fell when the garrison of Selinus sallied forth in a vain hope of breaking his encircling lines and creating a gap large enough to escape. This only made things worse for the mingled Greco-Phoenikian population of the
    polis, for without the Gelan tyrants strong hand there was nothing to restrain his Iberian mercenaries, wild hill-folk who unleashed their dismay at the death of their paymaster on the innocents of the city and their households. Nearly four-thousand Dorian colonists were slain that day, a bone of contention that would bring about further conflict by the time the war was over.

    Hieron took Panormos on the north-eastern coast, choking the breach in its wall with the bodies of deserters who had given up their lives to him that they may live. He had not expected them to, but live they did! Desperate men as they were, being the first into the settlement and securing a 'beachhead' for the Greeks that swarmed through the streets and enslaved the populace to their masters will. Dionysios meanwhile had sacked Entella, a Phoenikian-held settlement that belonged in actuality to the Sikanian natives of the island, the men and women of this city were also enslaved, most sent to the mines of Surakoûsai that were slowly becoming congested with the amount of fresh labour from bloody conquests.

    At sea the
    trierarchos Tisandros, no relation to the great Surakoûsan oligarch of that name, defeated the Phoenikians twice. This was no mean feat, as their adversaries were twice as skilled at sea as they and had it not been for the metal rams fixed to every Surakoûsan vessel the battle for naval supremacy may have been lost as surely as that on land was won.

    By the winter of the third year the Phoenikian colonists and their military strength had been forcefully cleared from the entire island, leaving only those poleis under the dominion of Surakoûsai and their Dorian cousins led by their Lakedaemonian polemarchoi. It was a peace, some would call it a stalemate, that could not last between the two opposed peoples and their respective allies, and those who knew best – the gloomy and youthful Hieron among them – knew that war would be the only option, a further spilling of Hellenic blood as an offering to Ares Andreiphontês and his thirst for the blood of men.

    For Euaristos of Krete, semi-freed slave and now one-and-twenty years through his Gods-given lifespan, the years consisted of leaving Sikelia to forge alliances with foreign powers. This he did with great gusto, having learnt a thing or five from his first master, a diplomatic genius, and very soon the
    poleis of Kroton and Taras were agreeing to treaties much more in the favour of Surakoûsai than their own citizen populations. By this skill he inclined the Phoenikians to agree to a ceasing of hostilities between their own people and the Greeks, no possessions left to them on Sikelia and enough wealth their own without further war, logic that saw an end to the killing for now.

    It was also that winter that the marriage of Agathokles of Sikelia, a Sikel prince and able to gather thousands of his fellow Hellenised tribesmen to his banner, and Euthaleia, the two-and-ten year old daughter of the famous Tisandros, took place. It was arranged like most things on the island by Hieron and Dionysios, nephew and uncle, and now the most powerful pair of war-leaders and tyrants on the face of Sikelia with Hieron nominally ruling the mother-city of Surakoûsai and Dionysios forging a coalition of
    poleisbeneath the long-shadowed rim of his blood-stained aspis.

    All was going well, or so it seemed to most, until Dionysios and his faithful strategos Diokles of Trinakria went toe-to-toe with the Lakedaemonian Areus some stades north-west of Selinus near the Hypsas River. There fortune smiled on the Surakoûsans once more, their three-and-a-half thousand men able to smash asunder the patchwork force of enfranchised Helots, neodamōdeis, mercenaries from Gallia and Iberia and one lochos of Spartan full 'equals' which had been hastily thrown together by Dorieus of Lakedaimon in defence of the last three cities which his people held in the east of the land.


    The victory that followed, tipping the balance of power in the favour of Dionysios, caused bitter and bad blood between the two relatives. Each sought the help of their allies, the tyrants of other cities in Sikelia, to reinforce their own power.


    It is in this climate of relations-at-war that we rejoin our protagonist, now well known by those hoplitai and mercenaries of Hieron's forces, men he had spent time with both far away from Sikelia and in the breeze of its cities streets. Becoming more and more versed in the arts of war, and by this time a capable combatant, he nonetheless is also known by men that remember him and would rather see him dead, not only this but Adrastos, his Spartan companion and mentor, is becoming more unsure of his place in the Surakoûsan ranks when they fight those people which he considers his own.

    Dilemmas within dilemmas and the Gods keep the wheels of the world turning.
    Last edited by McScottish; March 24, 2013 at 06:22 AM.

  20. #40

    Default Re: [Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [Updated: 02/03/2013]

    McScottish my old friend...i have returned

    Love this AAR, in particular the unflinching description of the gruesome and depraved circumstance which befell the Kretan, despite appearances he's one tough resilient lad, just hope revenge doesn't consume him completely.

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