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It’s too fast to follow, with your heart pounding in your ears – your eyes try to focus on multiple collisions simultaneously, but this cannot be done. Instead, your eyes glaze, taking in the overall picture – the savages, each of various colorations, streaming towards your men like the crashing surf against the rocky shoals, rising upon the ascending shoreline, and then, the violent encounter between them, thin plumes of spray leaping off the water into the air, the spray finding the gaps between the stones. In this fashion, you watch with awe as the Κενταυροι leap into the ranks of your men, bronze-tipped spears gleaming in the humid morning air, driven forwards by the will of manslaughtering Ares…
You watch as good men are gored, shattered, split apart by the hooves and spears of the beasts – beaten down so that their souls are torn from their frames and sent below to the realm of Hades. The rapidity of the violence is breathtaking – there is not enough time to measure each act of destruction, only the lightning-fast trading of spearthrusts, parries, and wounds.
And yet – it is not total devastation. You dimly notice Argyros’ roaring shout in the background, and men are suddenly grabbing their fallen compatriots by the necks of their linothorax armor, bodily dragging their dusty heels over the earth until their feet remember how to kick and walk on their own power. Amazed, you see the wounded stagger to the back of the lines, stumbling, but holding their spears steady and firm. Before you can register this, you hear Argyros shouting again, "FOLD IN!"
There are bodies being trampled into the earth – but fewer of your Thessalians have caught the earth in their teeth than you might have feared. Less than ten, you guess, your eyes darting across the hilltop’s edge, rubbing your freezing right arm and hoping –
You see him.
The black-haired savage chieftain – there’s no mistaking him. He is visibly older, scarred, snarling as he steps agilely to one side or the next, angling for position against a charging Aristonax. Aristonax has advanced unexpectedly against the chieftain; jolting forwards from a rocky outcropping on sturdy legs, a bronze-clad boulder.
Absentmindedly, you feel your hands working and suddenly, the taut bowstring is against your cheek, fingers tensed. You feel Νίκων’s bearlike leather hands gently pressing on your shoulders, pulling on your elbows, making subtle corrections, and then, you hear him:
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-i">Now, ‘Nira! Now!</span></span>.
The arrow flies true – and sinks into the left shoulder of the chieftain, black blood spilling immediately down its side. It roars in pain, rearing up on his hindquarters before awkwardly turning to the side to avoid Aristonax’s thrust. Its eyes are burning with black vengeance, seeking out who has done this evil against it, and to your dread – you watch them lock onto your own. The spear is being balanced far-shadowed - it takes flight...
