It was the night before the battle--the last battle. I leaned on the post of the tower, restless, eyes heavy, but I could not sleep, for I had watch for something, anything that would raise alarm. Nothing in this barren desert but the motionless soldiers from the day before. They are with the ferryman now, on their way to the fields of judgement.

Luckily for me, my post was over within the hour. The minutes lingered, each minute ticking by, slowly, taking longer and longer. I finally heard the call of a friend. Demetrius, a spear-brother of mine from when I began my training. He said, “Erastos, get some sleep brother, for the battle is in the next four hours.”
I said to him, “Thank you, my old friend. I feel as Hypnos is begging me to rest my weary eyes.”
I hunched over to my barracks, number 106. I crawled into my cloth hammock above all the others. I closed my eyes and fell asleep within seconds.

“Get up you swine, the enemy is here! Get up! Go! Spears! Shields! Pikes! Grab your weapons go!” barked the barrack’s captain.

I jumped up threw on my armor, grabbed my spear and shield and walked to get into formation. To say goodbye to our loved ones perhaps for the last time. My mother and father waited by the front of my barracks as were the parents of my other spear brothers. I looked at my father grabbed his hand and embraced him.

He looked at me and spoke the words that all fathers must speak to their sons as they leave for battle. “Return with your shield son, and if not with it, then on it!”

I looked at him nodded. Then I looked to my mother, tears on the corners of her eyes as she said goodbye to her son--perhaps for the last time. We marched out, between the watchtowers, onto the field of battle. We lined up in our units. Veterans were in the back and fresh recruits were at the front. I was in the third most frontline because I only finished my training a year before. I was still a new recruit in a veteran’s eyes.
The only veteran  at the front is our King. King Aegsilaos. As that is his duty to be in the front. To raise the moral of all by being in the thick of battle. Always.

He walked in front of all the units, turned and then faced us. He spoke to us. His voice deep and booming. “Men, my brothers, my family. We do not have a gate, nor do we have walls. This is because we do not need walls.” He lowered his shield. He started banging his spear against his shield. He screamed, “We are Spartans! We are sparta’s walls. If you die today men, I assure you that we will have as much wine and women as we can handle in Elysium!”

We lowered our shields and spears. Then, we waited. It seemed as if an hour had passed but then we felt the ground rumbling--the enemy had arrived. I felt the recruits in front of me trembling. Then I felt a puddle around my foot--the man in front of me p----- himself. That’s what I get for not being a veteran, I suppose.

“Ach!” I shouted. “It seems that some of our men are not quite ready for battle, for there is a small lake beneath me!”

There was a rupture of laughter. I smiled and jokingly nudged the man that had relieved his bladder. He was laughing along, but it only could have been from embarrassment. Thats when the ground started to rumble and shake. The laughter ended. We waited and listened in silence. No more joking. I could hear people muttering prayers to the gods; to protect them, their families, and their country--or what remained of it.

Nearly fifteen minutes later we saw them, or it, or whatever they were crest the hill. It wasn’t soldiers of Persia like the day before. I saw horns and fur. Scales and red eyes. Snake hair and tusks. We weren’t fighting an army--we were fighting beasts of hades. Minotaurs, hydras, gorgons, all types of mythical creatures sent from the bowels of the earth.

“What is this?” someone yelled.

I heard someone say, “What do you suggest my king?”

There was a pause. The enemy continued to advance towards us. Our king still did not say a word. The he spoke.

“Form Phalanx. Form up! Phalanx, now!” He bellowed.

I heard the noise of spears hit the tops of shields as they were pointed outward towards our enemy.

“Forward!” Said the king.

We shook the ground as we marched forward still maintaining phalanx. The enemy was now only about a thousand yards out. We marched on. Looking forward. I heard heavy breathing and still felt men around me trembling. Then the noise of whistling arrows. Men started to collapse. Everyone but the men in front raised their shields. We marched on, men still falling around me and arrows still deflecting off my shield.

The enemy was now only two hundred yards out. Our numbers dwindled. We continued to march. Then the minotaurs started running towards us.

As soon as they did this our king screamed, “Charge men!”

Everyone shouted, “For Sparta!”

Those words echoed. I could tell our charge shocked the enemy because they stood still for a moment but then continued advancing towards us. We made contact with them. Spears flying through the air, horns gouging men in front of me. I noticed a minotaur in front of me and he noticed me. We both were in a sprint towards one another. Right before we made contact I hurdled in the air stabbing the beast in the shoulder. It was wounded, but not dead. It seemed angry from what I did only slightly wincing at what I did to it. We locked eyes and it charged. I raised my shield and braced. It trampled me, I fell to the ground and it stomped over me. Things started to go dark and I started to fade out of consciousness. Before my eyes shut the last thing I saw was the minotaur that had trampled me trample my brothers-in-arms.

A bright light, a muscular figure, identifying themselves as someone that I needed. Was I awake? No, I couldn’t be, for there was only white light surrounding me. The figure spoke to me.

“I am Ares.” he said, “ If you do not wake now this battle is lost, and your friend Demetrius will die as will your king. Wake Erastos, I will give you the strength you need. You can still save your friend and your king.”

I opened my eyes after hearing a shrill scream. It came from Demetrius dealing with the minotaur that I failed to kill. I started getting up but winced, I felt my chest, I could tell one of my ribs was broken. It didn’t seem to bother me though because I still got up with some sort of unworldly strength. I was determined to save him, I was focused, I ran. I picked up a fallen brothers spear as I ran past his limp corpse. The minotaur was facing away from me, it did not know I was charging towards him. I buried my spear deep into the center of its back and let out a tremendous roar. It fell to its knees and then fell over on top of Demetrius who did not get out of the way fast enough.

“Demetrius!” I yelled.

I stood there motionless for a moment, just looking at the dead minotaur. Then I saw the body start to raise and heard a cough. Demetrius was alive. I helped him lift the minotaur off himself. I did it with ease. I started to wonder if part of Ares was inside of me, if I truly did have the strength to make this battle end. Demetrius and I locked eyes and we embraced one another for only a moment though for the battle still raged on. He recuperated quickly and grabbed his weapons and shield. We started to charge around the battlefield saving as many of our men as we could. We slashed gorgons and pierced minotaurs. We felt we were winning the battle.

It was soon after I realized I had not heard or seen the king after we made contact with the enemy. I gathered Demetrius and a few other soldiers and we tried to make our way around the battlefield looking for the king. One of the soldiers spotted him, he was one of about twelve other men fighting a hydra who had about five heads. We charged over to him but we were too late. I saw one of the hydra’s heads bludgeon the king. He fell to the ground and I sprinted towards him. One of the heads noticed me as I ran toward the king. The hydra ignored all the other soldiers still assaulting it and made its way towards me. I was unafraid for whatever reason and I charged it. I had my spear in hand and dug it deep into the beasts skin. I lost my spear inside of the beast and it let out a deep groan. I think I killed it but I wasn’t sure. I ran to the king and lifted him over my shoulder and carried him.

The king was either unconscious or dead either way I was bringing him back to town, then I noticed people leaving the village. More men with bows and arrows in hand. Our elders coming to our rescue. There was at least five hundred of them. They were sprinting towards the battle. Some of the elders came to escort me back to town while the others continued their course towards battle. Once they were in range of the battle they drew their bows and called for the men in the melee to fall back behind them. All of the men that were capable of pulling out did so and started retreating back to the town. The elders released their arrows and then followed the others back to town.

I had carried the king back to town and put him in the hands of the women of town. I turned to go towards the retreating men. I stood on the main road into town and looked towards the battlefield. I shouted to the men running past to me to form a phalanx. Most obliged but our numbers were few. There were maybe a thousand of us out of the three thousand we started with. The beast were far away now but there looked to still be a lot of them. They started to form up again and walked towards us. None of us knew what to do so all we did was stare blankly at them and wait for our death to come.

It was soon after that I heard a battle horn that I couldn’t recognize but I saw men on horses running towards the beast. There had to be at least seven thousand of these horsemen. They shot off a volley of arrows that dimmed the sky. As soon as their arrows connected I saw hundreds of the beasts fall. The horsemen shot more arrows and more beast fell. I looked around to my people as they all looked around as well. We all seemed to have the same thought and charged out towards the beasts. We couldn’t even reach the beasts before they retreated due to loss of numbers. The horsemen followed them and continued to pick them off.

Myself and the men that were left just looked in awe at our saviors. They soon turned away from the beasts and came back towards us. We dropped our spears to show that we intended no harm. The horsemen reached us. I was about to deal with the diplomacies between us and them but then I realized that these weren’t men riding horses, they were men with the lower bodies of horses, centaurs. I did not know what to say so I said nothing. We all just stared at these creatures.

After some time one of the centaurs spoke to us and said, “I am Chiron who is in charge?”

No one said a word. I decided to take charge. I stepped forward and said, “I am Erastos, our king may be dead, I brought him back to town and left him there with the healers. Why did you save us from those beasts?”

Chiron remained silent for a moment then said, “As you probably know those ‘beasts’ were sent from Hades. He has released them all over the world. He intending to wipe out the world and then wipe out Mount Olympus.”

I asked him, “Why does Hades wish to wipe out the world? Why does he not just try an take over Olympus?”

“Erastos, I don’t think you understand, if he wipes out the world and Mount Olympus it will be the end of any life as we know it.”

“Well what can we do Chiron?”

“You’re one of the last surviving countries, me and my centaurs will protect you as long as we can. We must get you to Olympus, there you can all be given the power of the gods and defend this world. This is the the beginning of the end Erastos--the apocalypse.”