The Persian regiments knew the favour of God had passed from them. It had been bad enough losing Masistius, the master of horse, then Hydarnes of the Immortals. When Mardonius slumped, he took their will to fight. As dust coated their throats and made them strain for just one clean breath, they lost the battle madness that had carried them through a dozen lands and across the sea.

Mardonius looked up at faces looming over him. His people. They had come a long way to be in that place. They had burned a great city twice and yet its people somehow still took up arms against them. Other countries had always known when to lie down, when to give up. It seemed no one had told the Greeks. Though it was madness, perhaps it was its own strength as well. He did not blink when dust began to settle across his eyes.

29

The air smelled of fire, of char and blood. Xanthippus could smell it on his skin as he stood in a city square and looked down at the governor, kneeling before him. The man still wore his sleeping robe, spattered with blood from his lips and nose. Smoke rose in the south, where Xanthippus had been the evening before. His ships waited for him, in sight of the town, but no longer with those of Sparta and Corinth. Those allies had not understood how important it was to make a mark Persia would never forget. He had come to that place to do more than just burn a fleet! Those black ribs were all behind him, far to the south. He had whipped his people on to find and break the fabled bridge of ships, but that too was gone. Stolen from him. Nothing more than a few piers remained, with driftwood all along the Hellespont shore.

Xanthippus had thought he might feel some easing of his pain if he could have seen that bridge burn. Yet it had been broken, just a thread snapped by storms. The Great King had passed through months before. Xerxes had returned to his palaces and gardens, an empire away from that coast. He would forget them there, Xanthippus knew. If they allowed him to.

King Leotychides of Sparta had seemed to think their work was at an end. Xanthippus had explained at length why it was not. The man had looked at him strangely then and taken his hand in a firm grip, kissing him on both cheeks. His ships had been gone in the morning. Those of Corinth and half a dozen others had rowed away with them.