Marathon: Freedom or Death (Christian Cameron)

Synopsis of "Marathon: Freedom or Death", second book of "Long War" by Christian Cameron: The Battle of Marathon in 490 BC was one of history's great turning points - the first time the Greeks managed to defeat the Persians in a pitched battle, it enabled the rise of classical Greek civilization. The heroic Militiades, who led the Greeks at Marathon and then died in exile, a ruined man, was a fatally flawed character. His opponent, The Persian King Darius, was guilty of vaulting ambition and hubris, but he combined it with personal integrity and vast generosity. And in the middle, torn between two cultures, one of which has already made him a slave, we find Kineas - ancestor of the Kineas of the Tyrant books - nicknamed 'Killer of Men' he will lead a decisive contingent of infantry in the thickest of the battle. Two and a half thousand years ago, the Greeks and the Persians fought an epic battle to decide the future of the world...
Arimnestos of Plataea grew up wanting to be a bronze-smith, like his father. Then, in the chaos of war, he was taken to a city in the Persian empire and sold as a slave. To win his freedom he had to show that he could fight and kill. Now, to preserve that freedom, he must kill again. For the Persians are coming. A vast army sent by King Darius to put down the rebellious Greeks and burn the city of Athens to the ground. Standing against them on the plain of Marathon, a much smaller force of Athenians, alongside their Plataean allies. To defeat such overwhelming force seems impossible. And yet to yield would mean the destruction of everything the Greeks have dreamed of. In the dust and heat of Marathon, in the clash of shields and the rush of spears, amidst the thunder of hooves and the screams of the dying, those dreams will undergo their fiercest test - and Arimnestos and his Greek comrades will discover the true price of freedom.