The Siege of Helike Part One

A story about a siege on the Greek city Helike by the Persians. This is only Part One of the story, and I'll be writing Part 2 in a week or two.

*I WILL NOT BE CONTINUING THIS STORY, BUT AM USING THE IDEAS IN IT FOR A BOOK*

*THE BOOK'S NAME WILL BE "The 16th Legionnaire" AND I'LL BE WORKING ON IT INSTEAD*

If you'd like to read any completed works of mine, please refer to one of these links:

The Pursuit of Misery (Story)

The Riddle (Poem)

Words and Dreams (Poem)

Writer's Block (Poem)

Of No Man, Nor Beast (Poem)

The Masquerade (Lyrics)

It's the third of Gamelion, and the Persians are at our door. They have battered down the last rock and overturned every stone to find the last of our group. The battle has gone for 3 months now, and we only have enough rations for a few weeks. The blockades killed everyone except for 13 warriors and two leaders, Takis and myself, I am called Makis by the way.

I bet you are wondering how this all began. Well, its rather simple really. Our king thought it would be funny to throw a extravagant ball and make the centerpiece a mockery to the Persian god of war, yes I know, the irony is terrible. Eventually word got back to the king of Persia and he retaliated. He prepared for seven years to avenge the injustice done to his god. He then attacked with the largest army ever seen at that time which consisted of over one million men, 500 war ships, 2500 catapults and his new “balls of fire”. This is the lost journal of the lost Greek city.

We were the largest city in the entire world at the time, even larger than Athens, but that all changed on the 26 of Boedromion. We heard the crack of wood as their ships met ours,, setting fire to the ships. We saw our men jump from the ships with fire burning down their skin. We heard the footsteps of his men, with the metal of their swords clashing against their newly brandished armor. We saw the boulders being flung at us by their newly hammered catapults. We saw and heard the cries and screams of OUR women and children as they were scorched by the “balls of fire”. And worst of all, we suffered through seeing every relative that we had suffer through days if not weeks of hunger and torture while our king sat at his throne eating on his precious grapes to only throw out the spoils to the pleading servants at the bottom of his castle window. But all glory lasts only for a time.

I remember the first day they broke through the walls. It took weeks, but they finally succeeded. They flooded in like water in a cracked boat. They tore through our troops as if they were paper, and then proceeded to crush the wall from the inside. We told our women and children that survived that day to flee in the underground canals, but it was unknown the underground was purposely flooded with oil, only to be lit when the Persians heard their footsteps. Those whom remained felt the new heat underground, and checked on the canals, only to find unidentifiable corpses. Then the next day was at hand.

On the next day, they went in groups of 5-10. They raided every home and killed off the brave few who remained. Luckily, a brave soul sounded the horn before they got to the second level of the city, or they would have won that very night. We gathered at the second level barracks and prepared to fight. There are 4500 of us left, and I realize our new fight ahead. There are 5 hours left in the day, so we must either perform a well co-ordinated attack with extreme force with losses under 100, or flee and hide until we are rooted out and killed one-by-one. We obviously chose the first. We lined up on the wall of the second level, only partially broken at this time, and put as many archers on it and in the immediate background of it with a narrow pass to the door. The door had been blocked by wood with metal backing and newly placed metal barriers to slow down his men from breaking it. Ten feet behind that we had our remaining 3600 swordmen on the path to the top level, where our king rests.

They battered at the door but it was futile. Our archers picked them off piece by piece until the remaining archers fainted due to hypothermia. We easily killed 20,000 of their men before they broke through the doors, but what is 20,000 men in the sea of one million. They had their archers fire arrows into our section and killed a few hundred men, more than we could afford. Then came their infantry. They were lightly armored, but their armor was devilish. Their hoods blacked out their faces, it seemed like you were being swallowed by a demon of Hades. They fought bravely, as did ours, but to no avail. They killed every last one of us, or so they thought.

14 men and I escaped just after their infantry attacked. We knew we couldn't fight them off then, so we gathered together and escaped. There were rumors among the Persians that there was a small group of survivors in the city, but the Persian leader Ahriman didn't believe their gossip. We saw their raid on the kings palace and watched as Ahriman took our king, tortured him, cut off his legs and burned his wounds so he would survive, and sent the body back to Persia to be burned as sacrifice to their god of war. This is 3 weeks before the third of Gamelion.