Stories Thread

[LordofUmbar]

Bithys Nisaias Parthiakes awoke from his troubled sleep with a start, drawing his sword from the table besides his bed.

“Whose there?” he shouted. “I can see you hiding in the shadows.” All he met with was silence. “Just another dream.”

He lay back down on his bed and pulled furs close. He looked around his Spartan apartment. It consisted of a single room with a simple, wooden bed and a table with a single chair. A single window looked out to the world beyond. Outside was a strange land. The town was Greek in design but it lay amid the cold, harsh steppe stretching to the horizon. Memories suddenly came flashing back to Parthiakes , memories he wished to forget. He had been sent when young to Sparta, never to see his family again. There he was trained and brought up as a Spartan soldier. After his training, he saw some service but nothing exceptional. He would have had a nice life there if he hadn’t killed his messes’ overseer.

“That man was cruel, a scourge to god and man, I was right to do it. You were right.” he told himself again and again.

After that, he was forced to flee for his life. But the arms of those who wanted his blood were long and he barely survived several assassination attempts. He didn’t find peace until he reached the ends of the know world, the barren steppe far away from the world he knew. There he was hired as a Strategos to help fight off the nomadic hoard under the name of Parthiakes.

Curse the nomads, they always seek to take what is ours and our ‘fellow Greeks‘ in Bactria won‘t be much help either, they have a mind of their own. This empire was once great but now has fallen into shadow. The Seleucid monarchs took more than they could handle when they claimed this wilderness. Many leaders of the Empire seek to abandon the east all together and destroy our enemies in the west at all cost. But this is a foolish view. We cannot abandon fellow Greeks to be slaughtered mercilessly.

Just then, a messenger arrived, slowly opening the creaky door.

“Strategos, you have been summoned to Antiocheia by the Basileus.” the messenger announced.

“Why me??” Parthiakes replied.

“All the Strategos of the Empire are being called together, leave at once.”

“All right, I will go.” Parthiakes sighed. “Tell the stable boy to saddle my horse and provision it for the ride to Antiocheia.”

“Very well.” the messenger replied. He then turned around and left at once.

This could be my chance to redeem myself. I will assuredly find friends, but will I find enemies as well? It matters not, to horse…