At that moment, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a tall, broad-shouldered Cypriot marine step forward and rear back, hurling a huge axe through the air.  I opened my mouth to warn Hippocrotes, but all seemed to move in slow motion- all except the whirling, double-bladed weapon.  Hippocrotes sensed it, however, beginning to whip his head around, his eyes a blur of motion even as the remnants of his shield came up to defend himself.  My conscious mind thought Hippocrotes would be all right, he would make it, even as my unconscious thoughts knew it wouldn't be so.

 

The axe grazed the top rim of his shield and continued in,, embedding itself with a sickening thud into my friend's left shoulder, near where his neck joined the collarbone. The force of the blow sent Hippocrotes staggering back.  He dropped his sword, and his hand flew to his neck, grasping at the deadly axe head, feebly trying for its removal.  He fell then, right to the deck, his back slamming against the forepeak, the remnants of his once proud shield clattering to the oak and shattering nearly beyond recognition.  I cried aloud, my grief and rage overcoming the terror of my own situation.  Then I leapt in front of him, my own shield held high, my hammered arm trembling with exhaustion. 

 

The Cypriots let out a cry of their own.  The great warrior was down;  they would finish it now.  I stood over my fallen friend, sword at the ready, my breath coming in heaving gasps, tears of rage mixing with sobs of grief.  Then I heard his voice behind me.

 

"Lysis," I heard him say through wheezes of pain, his efforts barely audible.  "Lysis, listen to me.  Don't look around.  I'm nearly done now.  Just listen."

 

I couldn't turn anyway;  the Cypriots were advancing, cautiously still, but they were coming.  Behind them the final desperate resistance of my fellow citizens was ebbing, and it seemed to me I would be the last they would come for.

 

"Lysis-" Hippocrotes' voice faltered, growing weaker as death stalked his sliding youth.  "I never told you...meant to...never could.  I never told you-"

 

Now it was going, almost done.  Through my tears, my hurt, my fear, I still sensed his dying urgency. "Hippocrotes!" I croaked "What?"

 

"Lysis, I'm sorry...so sorry.  Look.  Look in the old chest in my room...the old chest...Look..."

 

And there was no more.  His words barely registered, but their ending completed my own transformation.  My friend was gone, and I was filled with a rage beyond imagining, a desperate animal energy that reached to the core of my being.  I sprang forward to the attack.