The task assigned to Davos and the others was to go to the battlefield and retrieve spears, shields and even wagons discarded by both sides and return them as wood for cooking meat. For this purpose, they were also assigned an ox cart.
The battlefield is not far from the camp. Yesterday the cavalry went out to scout and found that the Persian King's army had left before they dared to send out soldiers to clean up the battlefield. But there were quite a few soldiers sent out, mainly because they were afraid of encountering a surprise attack from the Persian cavalry.
Before he even reached the battlefield, Davos could see far ahead of him the sky, as if it were blackened, circling with uncountable crows, whose piercing cries made his heart palpitate!
And then close to the front, a few miles in a circle on the grass, layered covered with human corpses, horse corpses, corpses are dense flies and insects, and even wolves, wild leopards gnawing on the bones, to see people come also do not avoid, just far look, eyes flashing cold ...
Every step Davos took set off a layer of flies that buzzed and swooped right into his face, repelling them.
Davos paled and felt his entire stomach turn.
"Davos, you've been through this kind of scene many times, why do you still feel uncomfortable?!" There was a hint of joy in Martonis' concerned words. It was because he felt that although Davos had changed, there was still something he needed to take care of.
"I'm fine! ... vomit ..." Davos swallowed hard. Memories were memories, and this was after all the first time he, a modern man, had witnessed such a bloody massacre on the battlefield. But he knew in his heart: in this chaotic world, in the future, such scenes would appear in front of him again and again, and he had to adapt!
He loosened his hand over his nose and forced himself to endure the pungent stench as he picked the body off the ground, drew out the shield that had been pressed underneath, quickly slapped the maggots off of it, and threw it back onto the oxcart.
When he first arrived at the battlefield, the ox in the trailer could not bear the horrible environment even more, and was always restless, and nearly hit and hurt Martonius, or Dyvers had the idea of blindfolding it with linen, so that it was much quieter.
Everyone had been busy for a long time, and the oxcart had been filled, and each person had held a bundle.
"Where's Davos?" Matonis realized there was a man missing from the group.
"There!" Oliverus pointed a short distance away: dyvers was throwing a javelin at a vulture pecking at a carcass, only to have the seemingly clumsy vulture agilely dodge out of the way.
"Looks like he's getting ready for the javelin competition at the Olympia!" Oliveros joked.
"Shut up!" Matonis glared at him, then walked toward Davos.
Davos saw him coming and quite naturally picked up another javelin from the ground. By now, he was beginning to acclimatize to the hostile environment.
"Matonis, how many archers do we have?" Davos asked, running his hand over the sharp tip of his spear.
Martonis is completely inept at this aspect of the problem, thankfully there is the attentive Georgris: "Archers? ... I seem to recall that only Krilcus had nearly three hundred Cretan archers under his command ... If you count the light shields that could throw javelins ... Well all of them ... There probably might ... have been three thousand."
"Three thousand men. How many light shields do we have on our side?" Davos asked.
"There's about four hundred of them ..."
"Matonis, don't take the javelins and burn them, it's quite a shame, why don't we equip each man with one or two javelins, what do you think?" Davos thought for a moment and said
Before Martonius could answer, Oliverus snaps, "We're heavy infantry!"
"But when facing the Persian cavalry, our heavy infantry can't get close to them, we can only dodge the bows and arrows and javelins they shoot!" The reason why Davos had this proposal was because this body's memory held this regret. While collecting such wooden weapons, he suddenly had this inspiration, because he knew that another world-famous Roman heavy infantry in history was not only amazing in melee combat, but their javelin throwing was equally terrifying, so that's why he had this proposal.
"Arizos has more than enough cavalry there." Oliverus said.
Davos smiled, "It's better to rely on others than to rely on yourself."
"Is this the 'oracle' that Hades gave you?" Giorgis asked sharply.
Davos laughed but didn't answer.
"I think that's a good idea, go back and talk to Xellos." Martonis took the javelin from Davos' hand and, with a turn, hurled it so violently that the still-pecking vulture planted itself on the ground.
"But, Davos, your javelin skills still need to be learned!" Martonis said triumphantly.
It was only a matter of tradition and custom that the Greek heavy infantry did not use the javelin, but the Greeks were not bad at javelin throwing, and were even considered to be at the top of the Mediterranean, as the javelin was one of the pentathlons of the Olympiad, and the Greek boys began training for these in the arena at an early age.
"Great! Not only will we have beef and mutton for lunch, we'll also have bird meat!"
"I've heard that you can't eat the flesh of this bird because it comes from hell ..."
...............
In the camp, the animals had been slaughtered, the meat had been cut up, placed in tile jars, filled with water, set up on makeshift earthen stoves, and everything was ready.
Everyone pulls back their weapons, chops them up, and cooks the meat over the fire.
Matonis told Xylos what Davos had in mind.
Since it was the proposal of the "God's favorites", Xellos, after careful consideration, found the idea acceptable: the javelins were not heavy, and it was perfectly acceptable for a heavy infantryman to carry two javelins. So he went to Antonius to get support.
Antonius called the remaining nine squad captains under his command over to hear their thoughts first. Some of the captains were in favor of the idea and some were against it. Those who were against it stuck to the tradition of Greek heavy infantry and thought: Menon already had 500 light shields under his command, so it was totally unnecessary to let the heavy infantry carry javelins; those in favor of it thought: even though there were 500 light shields in the camp, they were all Thracians, and the two sides didn't work too well together. By having javelins of their own, the heavy infantry could at least force the Persian cavalry not to dare to come too close in order to minimize casualties. The two sides argued, Antonios could not decide, so he had to say: as long as it does not affect the battle, each squad decides for themselves whether to carry javelins or not.
Xellos returned happily, ready to speak to Davos, only to find a group of people salivating and staring at the chunks of meat flopping around in the tile jar, with Davos the only one missing.
"Where's Davos?"
"Said he was going to look at the entrails of the animals that were thrown away ... and talk about waste ..."
As everyone was puzzled, they saw Davos approaching, picking a bloody goat's intestine with his spear.
"Hey, get this stinky thing out of here! It's affecting our appetite!" The crowd covered their noses and yelled.
Devers ignored it, and instead exclaimed, "I see a great deal of cattle and sheep offal discarded there at the supply camp, left to be carried off by the birds and wild dogs; it's a waste! Don't forget, the first two days we were so hungry we couldn't eat our own hands! In the days to come, whether in battle or on the march, there may yet be times of starvation, and we ought to pick these up and stockpile them, in case such a thing should happen again and we have something to eat!"
"Are those things edible?" A strong soldier asked.
Davos remembered that his name was Martius, a soldier who lived in another tent, and his question was exactly what everyone wanted to ask. The Greeks were primarily grain-based and ate very little meat, and it was only this time, when they were deep in Persian territory, that they began to eat meat more frequently because of the logistical supply. Animal offal not only smelled fishy, but also tasted fishy when eaten in the absence of spices and cooking methods, so apart from using it for divination, very few people would try to eat it, or even think that eating it would be poisonous.
"Of course we can eat! These things are not only very camp ... not only fill our stomachs, but also improve our bodies. For example, it can make us see better at night." Davos replied affirmatively.
"Really? That's great!" Martonis said happily.
The five men in the other tent looked skeptical.
"Davos is a 'God's Favorite'! Did you guys know that? Before he fell in battle and fell unconscious ..." Oliverus began to brag to them about the amazing changes in Davos over the past two days.
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