Run, they said.

McDermott, John A.

The sun was bright above us when we chased them back to the bay. They dropped their shields and spears in the tall grass and leapt into the water. We followed them, running into the shallows, and I saw Cynaegirus reach their vessel first, his long arms stretching to grasp the carved goddess on the stern. I saw the flash, sunlight on sharp metal, as the swift are of the axe hacked at his wrist and cut off his left hand. Cynaegirus fell into my arms, howling, blood spurting from his wrist, and we tumbled into the waves. I dragged him back to shore, tried to stem the bleeding with my hands, but it was futile. It gushed between my fingers. Someone brought me the robes of a fallen enemy and we wrapped his wound in the pale yellow garment.

It did no good. His blood marred the clear water like a cloud in blue sky. He bled so much. He died ten feet from the shore of his father's land. Others of us had been more successful and we boarded seven of their ships before the rest sailed, stunned by our resistance. I was still kneeling by my cousin's body when Miltiades' shadow fell across my back.

"Phillipides, you have a task," he said, his voice hoarse.

I looked up at his grave face, lined by sleepless nights and days of war. He still held his heavy sword, dark and dirty from the morning's work. His generals stood behind him, all stern and silent men.

"You must tell the city our news," he said.

"Send someone else." I looked at Cynaegirus's placid face. He could have been sleeping.

"You are the fastest. Why would I choose someone else?"

"Because I am weary. And because Cynaegirus needs my help."

Miltiades squinted, glanced to the water, then out to the flaming ships.

"No, he doesn't. The living do. You must run to the city and tell them. Even weary, you are the swiftest. Go and tell them the word. The word they've been longing to hear."

The sharp smoke from the burning wood stung my nostrils, masked the tang of blood in the air. It would be good to run. This was a place for leaving. Miltiades knelt by me on the wet sand and took Cynaegirus's lifeless hand, his one remaining hand, from mine. It was cold now.

"Run, Phillipides," he said.

The men behind him nodded. "Run," they said.

So I began.

The first step in any journey is the easiest. Your soles are fresh, your soul is light. Running away from the stench of battle, away from the groans of the wounded, from the fires and the fear, felt good, like a bath on a hot afternoon. A bath would be nice. I will have our servant, Ura, draw one when I arrive. I will have her bring me cold water to drink as well. When I arrive. When will that be? Running my fastest, with no pause, no walking, I could get there in three, perhaps four hours. It was a considerable distance from the battle to my father's house, from Marathon to home.

Away from the carnage, it was a day for lunching on a hillside, for romping with a woman. Butterflies flitted in dancing circles to my left, my right. Green leaves waved and whispered above me. It was a day for eating in a secluded knoll with Selena, then making love, slowly, languidly. I could imagine her bare arms, her tan legs, the taste of her mouth after grapes. I could see the sun shining off her brown hair, falling from her thick braid and draped over her strong shoulders.

I smiled as the ground crunched beneath my sandals. Small rocks and pebbles. I would be careful not to twist an ankle, I turned and looked at the plumes of smoke rising from the hill behind me. The gray tendrils weaving across the sky didn't have to be the signs of battle. It could have been a bonfire, a series of them, from a crowd of young people celebrating a wedding. I ran with my face forward. A grove of cedar trees clustered to my right. And Selena stepped from their leafy shadows and waved to me.

"Phillipides," she called. "Phillipides, stop and eat with me."

"I can't, Selena. I have been asked to run, to tell the city of our victory. I will eat with you another time."

I was almost to her and I could see the shine in her green eyes, the wetness of her lips.

"Stop, Phillipides. What's the rush? What's the matter with them learning the good news after you've rested a while?" She beckoned, fluttered her long fingers. I kept running. I reached out my hand to brush hers, but our arms weren't long enough. I ran past her without a touch.

"You fool. You're going to make me run with you."

And she did. She hiked up her long skirt and joined me, stride for stride, her brown legs flashing. Selena was always a good athlete. She had muscles the other girls didn't develop. We had played together as children. I wanted to play with her as adults. It was a different sort of play. She made me grin.

"What are you smiling about, Phillipides? What's the joke?"

I shook my head. The sweat ran down my face. Locks of my short, damp hair stuck to my forehead.

"There is no joke. I was thinking of us, as children. Do you remember hiding from old Maura, my mother's maid? Do you remember where we hid?"

"Of course, I do. Do you think I'm senile at seventeen? Maura couldn't find us in the shed. I remember the smell of sawdust. Your father must have just finished cutting something when we ran there."

"That was his furniture-making phase. The scent of sawdust has always reminded me of you, Selena. Sawdust and the scent of oranges."

"Oranges? Why?" We kept pace, foot for foot, yard for yard. We found a rhythm together.

"I remember you eating one outside of your aunt's house. It was in summer. Like today. You were waiting for your mother to come out--"

"I could have been there for hours. The way those two gab!"

"--and I would have watched you for hours. You were probably ten. No, eleven, because I was thirteen, I remember. And you ate the orange, slowly, carefully, sucking every slice, and it was the first time I realized food could be alluring."

"So it was the food you fell in love with, not me?" She turned her face to mine and gave a surly squint. "You should be running through an orange grove, then. You don't need my company. Run with this!" And she held an orange in her hand. She stopped. I kept going, but turned to watch. She planted her feet and bent her knees. She heaved it at me, but it sailed over my head and bounced into some scraggly brush at the side of the trail.

"You're a fine athlete, Sele, but a lousy aim."

"Grrr," she said and raced to catch me. She did with a few long strides. "I was aiming for your head, Phillipides. I was trying to knock you out." She laughed.

"You wouldn't be the first today."

She quit smiling. "I forgot. You fought. How was it?"

"How is it ever? I'd rather not talk about it. I'd rather we went back to oranges."

"It was callous of me to forget. But you are fine. You're safe and well. You're here, on the road home, healthy and strong?"

"Yes, I feel fine, Sele. I will be there shortly. Before the sun sets if I keep this pace."

"You can keep this pace. You can."

She was smiling again, her soft cheeks flushed, but not damp. I was sweating heavily, my tunic stuck to my chest. I could feel the warm beads drip down my back.

"I will see you there, Phillipides. I will see you there." She stopped in the path. I twisted to see her, but my legs kept turning. She held up a hand. She held an orange.

"We will eat together then, Phillipides!"

I nodded. If I'd tried to speak, I would have cried. I nodded and turned my gaze away from her. I looked forward. It was a flat stretch of land, grassy and treeless. I left Selena standing beneath the last stand of foliage I saw for some time. I ran alone, in silence. I thought of her. I thought of Cynaegirus. I thought of bloody water. The birds above me flew. They weren't the vultures of this morning. They were gulls. So far inland, I laughed.

"Gulls, you must have followed me! Go back! Go back and tell Selena to hurry up. I'm going to beat her home!" I waved my arms. "Go, go!" The gulls turned in a smooth U and headed back to her. I kept forward and headed to her as well.

The straps of my sandals were cutting into my ankles, into the flesh of my shins, but I didn't want to stop and retie them. There was nothing I could do. I hadn't any cloth to use as a buffer. I needed the soles, as thin as they were, to protect my feet from the jagged rocks on the road. I ignored the pain and ran on.

The flat fields waved, grain like pale yellow hair, in soft, undulating folds. The wind rippled across their tufty tops and made them move in unison. I was lost watching the chorus when I heard the slap of other soles against the stones. Next to me was Pythian, my brother.

"Where did you come from?" I asked. He was wearing a fresh white tunic, brilliantly clean in the afternoon sun. So white I had to look up from his chest and stick to his rich blue eyes. He had the eyes of our father. He had his black curls, too.

"Mother had me folding laundry. Folding laundry! Did she think I would stay on that chore?" He shook his beardless chin and scoffed. "Laundry!"

"You have to help her, Pye. She doesn't have the servants she used to. She and Ura can't do it all. You know that."

"There are girls to do the work like that. I want a noble job. A real task."

"And what are you considering?"

"Look what you do. I want to do that. I want to smite the enemy. I want to see the rest of the world."

"You're seeing it now. These aren't the fields we grew up in. We must be miles from home."

He spat, acting the disdainful man, but wiped his chin with a soft hand, burnished gold by the sun, but still with unblemished palms. "You know that's not what I mean. I want to see other shores. I want gales whipping into sails. I want conquest."

"You want glory," I said. I tried to keep my arms loose, let them dangle by my sides. I could feel my elbows locking. It was still a long way. I couldn't let my arms defeat my legs.

"Of course I want glory! Don't you?"

"I want a leg of lamb and some wine," I said.

He laughed. "After lunch," he said. "What do you want after lunch?"

I wanted to stop him, hold him by the arm and tell him exactly what I wanted. I wanted my own farm. I wanted Selena, pregnant, and a smile on her face. I wanted our father's stories and our mother's warm fires on the hearth. I wanted salt for our meat and sun for the crops. I wanted Cynaegirus's right hand where it should be. I wanted Cynaegirus's eyes to open. I wanted a piece of land and peace of mind.

I touched his bicep but said nothing.

"You noticed? I'm getting stronger every day. I'm going to join you soon. Mother says I can't go, she needs me, but father hasn't forbidden it."

"Father's in his grave. You expect him to have opinions about whether you should go off and get yourself killed? Perhaps he's lonely. Maybe he's just looking for company."

Pythian pursed his lips. "I wouldn't want to join him. Not yet. I want to see what women are like. What the world has to offer."

"War will just get in your way then. Run off to the sea, but don't follow me. Swords and spears don't point the way to grand adventure. They point at your chest and make you bleed."

Pye shouted a crisp short syllable. "Ha!" he cried. "Ha!" He raced ahead and skipped in a widening circle. "Let them point at me! They'll just be pointing out the leader!" He leapt and swatted at the air. Leap. Swat. Leap. Laugh.

"You're leading me home," I said. I didn't want to shout. I wanted to save my breath. "Isn't that enough, Pye?"

He stopped. "No, Phillipides, it's not. You've had your time. We want you to come home. But I have to go now. It's my turn."

I ran up to him, jogged in place because if I stopped moving my legs I knew they'd never churn again, and went to kiss him. He ducked out of my reach, dodged and weaved.

"Kiss mother when you get home! I'm too big to kiss now. I'm a man!" He ran into the golden fields. I could see the wheat part for him, waves opening for his brown legs, his white tunic. He arms flashed above the grain. He held a young branch in one hand, still green and pliable. He whipped it round and round. He swatted the tufts and they dipped and fell and rose again.

I lost him in the waves. I kept running.

Clean laundry sounded nice. Soft and bright. I would willingly fold laundry for my mother. Stacks of white linen. Fresh and orderly.

The sun beat on my back.

I felt the leather loosen and looked down at my leg in time to see it tear. My left sole flapped with every step. I hopped, reached down, and yanked at the knot. It unfurled and fell to the ground and I was one foot bare. My gait went lopsided and I hopped again and pulled at the other knot. It took two tries, but it untied, and I left my wretched sandals in the middle of the road.

The stones were smaller here, and I could see a short pelt of grass beyond the next ridge. I could run there comfortably. I glanced once behind me and was surprised by the bloody prints I left in a weaving trail, my loopy signature with every step and slap.

When I reached the top of the ridge, I saw the grassy way left off sooner than I'd expected and there would be a rocky path beyond it. I needed to appreciate the soft grass while I had it. My thighs burned with every length, my shoulders pulsed beneath the blazing sun, and my pumping arms ached. My ankles felt like they were pounded from above and below, my body, heavier every step, weighing down on them, the earth punching up through my screaming feet. My knees shook and my lips were parched. That bath sounded even better than before. I could smell myself, the stink of sweat and blood and ash. I hadn't realized how much soot had stuck to my flesh.

Pye wanted to know my desire after lunch. A nap. A long nap with a cool breeze and the sound of the horses in the pasture. Whinnying and neighing. The buzz of a bee.

"Bees sting," my father said.

I turned to my right to see the old man running next to me. He grinned and his long gray hair glinted. He always wore his hair too long. Mother would have a fit. "You look like an unshorn sheep," I said, mimicking her. "Clip those curls."

He laughed. "Ah yes, your mother wants me to get a hair cut." He kept his sinewy arms bent loosely, relaxed; he didn't need to flex to show off his years of hard work. "Though she wouldn't tell you, there once was a time when she loved my long locks." He elbowed me.

"I don't want to know," I said. "Too much, too much." We laughed like school mates. "When did you get here? How long have you been with me?"

"I didn't get anywhere. It's you who are traveling, son. Consider the distance you've come. You've left Miltiades and the others on the coast. Now you are well inland, almost to the house of your grandfather. I mean, your house--"

"--your house, it will always be your house," I said.

"Not true. It was your grandfather's before me and it's yours now. And then it will be Pythian's." He held back, restrained his stride. He could always go much faster, outsprint me even beyond his prime, outlast me with less sleep. He's where my speed comes from. Without my father, Miltiades would have asked another man.

"Pye is a baby," I said. "He couldn't run a house."

"He won't have to. Your mother will run it. Pye will simply hold the deed."

"And where have I gone?"

"What?" His blue eyes flickered. He looked off at the sky, followed a lone bird high above us.

"Where am I that Pye is now the master?"

He shook his head. "Did I say that? You're the master, Phillipides. You are still the oldest boy."

We ran in silence. It was good to have him by my side. I remembered running as a youth, his strong gait always pushing me further, faster. When he collapsed in the field, it seemed so wrong. He was a strapping man, good with a scythe as well as with his knife. He could talk all night, not a public orator, but a keen conversationalist. I'd listen to his friends, willingly silent, as my father swayed them. Vote this way or that. He was trusted. Resilient. He didn't let the servants do all the work. He was in the field with them. He enjoyed the labor.

He was dead.

"What are you doing here?" I blurted. "How can you be here?"

"I am nowhere new, Phillipides. I'm always with you."

"You're buried in the knoll where the olive trees are. You are not here."

"I am there. And I'm here." He smiled and showed his straight teeth. He never lost one. His corpse could chew through thick rope. My mother had said that the day we buried him. She had giggled, tears running down her face. It must have been a joke between them. I didn't laugh. I was fifteen. I was a somber boy that summer. He wasn't there anymore. The servants wouldn't listen, my mother told me I was the man of the house, but she was in charge. I knew I couldn't replace him. Pye replace me? My brother had a much smaller task. He could do that. Perhaps that was the chore he'd been looking for.

My father touched my arm. His fingers were still thick, hands hard from gripping hammers. "I am always with you."

I felt my chest heave and catch. I couldn't weep and run at the same time. I sucked in and held my breath--counted three trees at the edge of the path--then expelled, pushing it all out. I blew until I thought my guts would follow. I got rid of it all. More soot and the smell of death.

My lungs quit shaking. My stomach settled.

I turned to see him and my father was gone.

The stones were sharp and slashed my soles as I'd expected. The hours had weighted my limbs but deadened my skin. I knew I was cut, but my feet were numb. My neck hurt more than my torn feet. It was so stiff. I rubbed at it, fingers working to loosen the muscle, but nothing helped. I couldn't look to the right without turning my entire body. Fortunately, no one was with me. I could stick to a straight line, looking ahead, not to the side. Not up, not down. I never looked behind me anymore. Simply straight ahead.

The end was close. I couldn't hear the wind in the trees, the slap of my steps, the flies that flit around my face. I heard the steady single chirp of some steadfast bird. Chee--chee--chee--chee, he said. He kept a beat. I ran to it.

The sun was still hot and high in the sky. I wanted rain but couldn't look up for clouds. I thought about showers, no, worse. I wanted a roiling black horizon. The drops would fall, fat and heavy. Chee--chee--chee--chee. They'd fall on my head and face and shoulders. They'd pick up speed until I ran in sheets, a wall of water surrounding me.

That was the way Cynaegirus died. A wall of water, a gush of blood.

I ran to the sound of the storm in my head. I left the bird behind.

I saw the old men standing at the end of the road, their robes brilliant, fresh in the sunlight. Between us, the long shadow cast by a thoroughfare between rich homes. It lay like a black rag. I would cross the darkness and reach the crowd. Mother. Pye. Selena. They were all there. My father waved me on. My thighs shook, my knees groaned, my arms hung limp at my sides. Somewhere I knew there were green fields waiting for me, the horses on the ridge, the gentle wind and cool water. My father beckoned. I ran toward him. He would hear me, too.

Miltiades told me to tell them the word and I will. Victory, I will say, victory. Victory and I will rest.