The Agrianes did not walk into Taygeton like freed slaves. They arrived like predators, lean and scarred, their javelins carried as though they were part of their bodies. Their movements unsettled the Spartan soldiers who lined the training yard. Spartans stood rigid, bronze polished and shields square. The Agrianes were wild in their bearing, shoulders loose, eyes burning with restless fire. Where Spartans looked like carved stone, the newcomers moved like a storm barely held in check.
The first clash was not fought with spears but with words. A drillmaster ordered the Thracians into phalanx formation. The scarred leader of the Agrianes spat in the dirt. "We are hunters. We strike from the hills. We do not march like stones in a wall." His men laughed, sharp and mocking. The Spartans bristled. Doros stepped forward, jaw tight. "A wall breaks hunters. Let's see which lasts longer—your arm or my shield." The yard buzzed with tension as Spartans shifted, ready for a fight. Leonidas's voice cut through them all like a blade across the anvil. "Enough. A wall without teeth is only stone. Teeth without a wall scatter into dust. Alone you fail. Together you are iron." Neither side argued further, but the stares traded across the yard promised the matter was far from over.
The drills began, and chaos followed. Spartans advanced in perfect steps, shields locking tight. The Agrianes darted ahead, loosing volleys of javelins that slammed into wooden targets with bone-breaking force, but their sudden charges left the wall open. Spartans cursed, shoving them back into place. The hunters mocked the stiffness of the line, flowing too late behind bronze shields, nearly tripping recruits in their retreat. Voices rose, fists clenched, and Leonidas's roar silenced them. "Every gap you leave is a death. Every spear you drop is a grave. If you cannot fight together here, you will die together when the Wave comes."
They drilled again. And again. Day after day Leonidas drove them, shaping rhythm from chaos. Advance three steps, brace shields, javelins arc in unison, hunters slip back through bronze, reload, strike again. At first it was jagged, with shouts and curses breaking the rhythm. But slowly the pattern smoothed. The wall braced without stumbling when wolves passed through, the wolves learned to retreat at the moment the shields set, not a step later. Targets were reduced to splinters, bristling with shafts, and grudging respect began to creep into Spartan voices. Doros growled one evening, "They bite harder than I thought."
Still, pride was not so easily buried. At night Spartans muttered that barbarians had no place among them. The Agrianes boasted their throws could shatter Spartan spears before they touched an enemy. Tensions boiled until Leonidas forced them into shared hardship. He marched them across the mountains, each man carrying both shield and javelins until sweat ran down their backs. When Spartans faltered, Agrianes steadied them. When Agrianes stumbled, Spartans shouldered their burdens. On the third night, the hunters brought down a massive boar with a storm of javelins and invited their Spartan allies to feast. Doros tore into the meat with a grin and declared it the best meal Thracians had given him. The camp roared with laughter, not derision but the warmth of men beginning to see each other as brothers.
Bonds formed in smaller moments too. Kyros sparred with them, fascinated by their speed, grinning even as their knives left shallow cuts on his arms. "Faster than fleas," he joked, "but I like fleas that bite this hard." Theron studied their volleys, noting how each throw landed like a drumbeat in rhythm. "If we weld their storm to our stone, no phalanx will stand," he told Leonidas. Even Antaeus, a young recruit who once called them cowards for fighting at a distance, changed when a Thracian hunter showed him how to balance a javelin. His first throws wobbled, but when the fourth sank through a target shield, his grin matched the hunter's.
The overlay flickered in Leonidas's vision: [Agrianes Cohesion with Spartan Units: 31% → 61%. Loyalty: 56% → 62%. Integration: In Progress.]
News of wolves marching beside Spartans carried swiftly to Lakonia. Merchants spoke of drills where bronze walls advanced while storms of javelins darkened the sky. In the bronze hall the overseer's fury echoed, his staff cracking tiles. "First peasants, then cripples, now Thracian mongrels! He twists Sparta into something unrecognizable. He means to crown himself on their backs." Another elder whispered, "The people already cheer his name more than ours. They say his wall grows sharper by the day." Damaris's staff tapped once, calm but heavy. "Perhaps he is not twisting Sparta. Perhaps he is forging it into what it must become." The overseer's glare burned like coals. "Then let Persia test him. The Immortals will cut the truth from his lies."
That night Leonidas stood before the Forgeheart, the blue fire painting his armor in ghostly light. Behind him Spartans polished their shields, steady as ever, while the Agrianes sharpened their javelins and sang low songs of the hunt. It was not harmony yet, but it was no longer discord. Theron came to stand beside him. "They are not yours yet. But they will be, if you give them battles worthy of their teeth." Leonidas did not look away from the fire. "They will have their hunt soon enough," he said. "And when they do, they will learn the wall does not break."