In the ancient Greek city-state of Plataea, teenage warriors trained in the ways of the battlefield long before they reached the age of eighteen. They also trained in the vicious, no-holds-barred form of unarmed combat called pankration. Similar to today’s Ultimate Fighting and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), this extreme style of man-on-man battle was featured in the original Olympic games. And sometimes, those pankration techniques were used not just for glory on the battlefield or in the Olympic stadium, but in the fields outside the city gates to settle personal, deep-seated grudges between fighters. The short story The One-Armed Warrior introduces the young pankrator Nikias, the hero of Noble Smith’s forthcoming novel Sons of Zeus, a work of historical fiction that will appeal to fans of Steven Saylor, Steven Pressfield, and Simon Scarrow.

In 431 B.C., Ancient Greece experienced its own "Pearl Harbor"―a treacherous sneak attack that would mark the start of the bloody war between the democracy of Athens and the tyranny of Sparta. Caught between these superpowers, the independent city-state of Plataea became the arena where their battle for control of all of Greece would begin. In Plataea, the young Greek warrior Nikias dreams of glory in the Olympic games as he trains for the pankration ―the no-holds-barred ultimate fighting of the era―until an act of violence in defense of his beloved threatens to send him into exile. But before his trial can take place, a traitor opens the city gates to a surprise attack force. Suddenly trapped inside their own fortress, the Plataeans are fighting for their lives. As Nikias seeks to discover the identity of the man who betrayed the city, he makes a daring escape, gathers an army, and leads this ragtag band into a suicidal battle at the gates of the citadel―a battle that will decide the fates of his family, his friends, and the woman he loves. In the vein of Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden, and Steven Pressfield, Sons of Zeus marks the beginning of a richly detailed new action-adventure series.

The Peloponnesian War has begun. An army of merciless Spartan invaders have arrived at the gates of Plataea, bent on obliterating the independent city-state and its inhabitants. Plataea's oldest allies, the Athenians, are spread too thin in their own campaigns to send help. Cut off and alone, the Plataeans have dug in behind their high walls for the coming attack, while the tyrannical Spartans prepare to lay siege. On a rugged mountain road, a young Plataean warrior named Nikias rides to Athens on an urgent quest. He carries with him a bag of ill-gotten gold, hoping to raise an army of mercenaries to help defend his citadel from the Spartan assault. But in the sprawling stronghold of Athens, Nikias encounters perils that prove to be more dangerous than those he has faced on the battlefield. Noble Smith's Spartans at the Gates transports us to the dawn of one of history's most famous wars—a fight that would tear apart the great powers of ancient Greece.

Nikias of Plataea has survived battle, shipwreck, and torture. But now the young warrior must face his greatest challenge: leading the people of his city-state on a desperate exodus to Athens while being hunted down by the largest Spartan expeditionary force in history. From the burning forests of the legendary Kithaeron Mountains, to the plague-ridden streets of Athens, to the dreaded Prison Pits of Syrakuse, Nikias has to use his fists, sword, and wits to defeat his enemies, and bring aid to a citadel cut off from the rest of the world by merciless invaders.