Xerxes yelped "Zounds!" as brazen chariots, dragging exuberant fanatics, gouged holes in jinxed King Leonidas' military notions of preventing questing raiders swarming Thermopylae's upper valley; while xenophobic youths, zealous, all bearing crude daggers, edged forward, grinning horribly, intently just keeping lines moving nearer, Oh Persia, quietly reducing sentries to unmoving victims.