The novel begins as a record made by Gobartes, a scribe of Xerxes, for the purpose of gaining “further intelligence, both of certain infantry tactics employed by the enemy which proved of some effect against His Majesty’s troops, and of the type of foemen these were” (22). The scribe relates the discovery of a Grecian survivor, the novel’s protagonist, Xeones, and that his gear is a mix of that assigned to both free Spartans and to helots. Ten days after being found, the captive has recovered enough to speak and provide the desired information.

This chapter begins the first interview with Xeones, who promises that “the tale he could tell would not be of generals or kings […] He could only relate the story as he himself had lived it and witnessed it, from the vantage of a youth and squire of the heavy infantry, a servant of the battle train” (25).

Xeones begins his tale by describing how it feels to die, equating it with his experience in an infantry drill in Sparta, noting that, physically, it resembles “not being pierced, but rather slammed” (28).