It was just into January—Sorry, Gamelion you extinct nut-jobs—and the passage through Thermopylae still haunted her as they made their way down the narrow barren coast in winter. The temperature was not wintry by her Michigan standards but it was cold enough that she wore a big fleece throw over her lacy robes. Selene, always kept apart from her by Menander, was bundled in the yellow cloak of a slain Macedonian straggler who had been caught fleeing from Lamia yesterday as they broke camp.

I hope I don’t have to watch anyone else die again—ever—particularly while Menander is snarling questions into their face.

She already knew that they would be camping in the open tonight and was making mental notes on how best to insure Aristotle did not get sick in this misty wintry mix they marched in. She would make sure he was high and dry and keep him warm with her fleece. The thought of having him sicken and die brought on a near panic in her mind.

If it happens you have to fire up the unit and boogie, leaving Selene to that man and Polymara to God only knows what fate.

Half of Menander’s considerable force had been left behind, as he set out with the pick of his men on ‘an extended winter foraging expedition.’ He no longer had to deal with a iron-willed general since the death of Leosthenes—poor Sebastian is still shaken up about that—and had just informed the Allied War Council of his intentions.

The twenty-four Arkadian light hoplites were under the command of Kresion, a tolerable half-Spartan sergeant, and Kratoklus, an insufferable meathead. This core force was a frightening presence as the lean, lightly armed, and highly discipline, Arkadians could run all day long. There would be no getting away from them.

Menander himself commanded two dozen Lokrian deserters from the Macedonian force. These were not the best men he had, so he kept them close. To officer these second-rate troops, who were armed in the light fashion like the Arkadians, he employed two of the traditional heavy armed hoplites with leaf-shaped swords, who had defected to him from a Phokian commander.

The Phokians are the key. They are his guides and coconspirators. They live near Delphi and are probably the only ones that have been brought into his confidence. He does not confide in his fellow Spartans.

The force was rounded out by four Dolopean slingers—little more than boys—and the fearsome Agrianians and their disgusting leader, the one-eyed shaman Augulus. This creature had exacted a promise from Sebastian that she would bless him. She had concocted a little bullshit pagan tree-hugger ceremony in a small grove of oak on the mountainside the night before they broke camp. She had even, against her own better judgment, activated the hoop and used it to bless the ecstatic old cuss.

She had then exacted a sacred promise from him on behalf of the Agrianian war deity Wolf-War to aid her when next she summoned the spirit of the hoop. She also swore him to keep their barbarian pact from the ears of any civilized person—she dared not name Menander—lest she bring down a curse upon him.

It’s a long shot, girl.

And do I know it!

In any event Augulus and his men had begun keeping a close eye on her and Aristotle, whether by Menander’s order, or out of a new found reverence for the ‘barbarian sorceress’ among them. Augulus even detached a man to stand outside of their tent where she curled up with Aristotle while old Xenophile and Sebastian made themselves as comfortable as they could on the rocky hillside covered with nothing but an ox-hide rug. They were more comfortable than the rest though, who all curled up around the fire or squatted under their cloaks on the cold windswept coast overlooking the Gulf of Euboea.

She whispered, “I am certain she misses you over there, safe on her home island, wondering whatever happened to her kind husband.”

He nodded silently in the dark and she held him close while he eased off into an uneasy sleep.