Storm of arrows

18

Luck, good fortune, careful planning and the will of the gods got Kineas’s force across the desert in the full bloom of spring, with water at every major depression and flowers blossoming among the desolate rocks. Fifteen days after they marched, on the feast of Plynteria in Athens, the army was reunited at the edge of the endless grass that rolled away to every horizon but the one behind them, heat mirage and dust devils and a line of purple mountains in the sunset as the last token of Hyrkania.

‘You make good time,’ Lot said, clasping Kineas’s forearm. ‘You have truly become Sakje.’

Kineas flushed at the praise. ‘We had perfect weather and water in every hole.’

Lot grinned. In Sakje, he said, ‘That’s why you cross a desert in the spring. Come — I have a little bad wine and Samahe is reporting on Ataelus’s adventures in the east.’

‘You seem happy,’ Kineas said.

‘I’m home!’ Prince Lot said. ‘I think I never expected to live to get here. And here we are! My messengers are out on the grass, riding for our yurts and our people. We’ll make rendezvous in the Salt Hills, and then we will have such a feast!’

Kineas nodded. ‘How far to the Salt Hills?’

Lot led on to his ‘tent’, merely a square of tough linen staked over a pair of lances. Mosva poured them wine in gold cups. ‘The cups are better than the wine,’ he said. ‘Ten days and we’ll be in the hills. Ten hard days, and then you’ll have all the fodder you need until you reach Srayanka.’ The Sauromatae prince sniffed the air, which was heavy with dust and pollen, like an open bazaar. ‘That is the smell of home!’

‘Will you leave us?’ Kineas asked.

‘Never!’ Lot said. ‘Now you are in my land! I will keep you as safe as you have kept me.’ He drank his cup and Kineas finished his. ‘Ten days’ hard riding and then we feast.’

Kineas turned to Mosva. In a way she was a woman, and then in another way she was just one of his troopers. ‘Do you fancy either Leon or Eumenes?’ he asked.

She gave the grin of a young woman just discovering her powers. ‘Both,’ she said, and laughed.

Lot nodded. ‘They are both fine young men.’ He shrugged. ‘Among my people, women choose their own mates. Both are rich, well-connected, brave and foreign.’ He grinned again. ‘My sister’s son inherits my tribes, no matter what road my daughter takes.’

‘Your sister’s son?’ Kineas asked.

‘Upazan,’ Lot answered, and he frowned, as if the name left a bad taste.

‘Ten days’ hard riding’ was repeated throughout the army as they rode east. The desert vanished behind them and they rode over downs of new grass, green as Persephone’s robe, but watercourses were rare and only rain saved them from serious consequences until they came to a great river flowing across their path, burbling brown with spring run-off across rocks.

Kineas was on his Getae hack and he led the horse down to the water, careful not to let the beast over-drink. Diodorus and Leon were doing the same. ‘Surely this isn’t the Oxus?’ Diodorus asked.

Kineas shook his head. ‘We must still be twenty days from the Oxus,’ he said. He rubbed his beard. ‘Or more. Lot!’ he shouted.

Prince Lot circled his horse through the drinking animals and splashed up.

‘What is this river called?’ Kineas asked.

Lot shrugged. ‘In Sakje, it is Tanais.’

Leon was pulling his gelding clear of the water, because the horse wanted to keep drinking and Leon had no intention of letting him. From the far bank, he shouted, ‘They’re all called Tanais! It means “river”.’

Lot shrugged. ‘No Greek name that I know,’ he said.

Leon, who interrogated every merchant and traveller they met, went to his pack and withdrew a scroll whereon he made a few marks. ‘This must be the Sarnios,’ he said. ‘At least, that’s what the horse-dealer called it.’

They camped in a bend of the Sarnios. Kineas sacrificed a young calf born on the march to the river goddess and ordered a few of their cattle slaughtered so that all the troops got a ration of meat with their grain. Later, well fed and greasy, they sat under the sky, wrapped in their cloaks against the cold night air, and watched the stars spread above them, backlit by the glow of Temerix’s forge in the bed of his wagon. Antigonus and Kineas worked on tack, repairing headstalls. Kineas saw that the charm Kam Baqca had given him so long ago in the winter camp on the Little Borysthenes was fraying, and he sewed it down tight. Antigonus had acquired a bronze chamfron, a piece of horse armour, but he couldn’t get it to fit his horse without troubling the animal. Every night it seemed he was making adjustments.

‘Wish she could talk,’ Antigonus joked. ‘Tell me if the cursed thing fits.’

Kineas finished his much smaller project and watched Darius attaching nocks to arrow shafts in the firelight. It was finicky work. ‘Wouldn’t you do better waiting for daylight?’ Kineas asked.

The Persian had all his arrow-making kit spread on a pale blanket. ‘Yes,’ he said. He swore as his hand slipped and a finished nock went sailing off into the darkness. ‘But Temerix bought charcoal from a trader. He has enough to melt bronze and he’s casting the heads tonight.’

Kineas grinned. ‘You could still put the nocks on in daylight,’ he said.

Darius nodded. ‘There’s never time.’ He flicked a glance at Kineas. ‘The Sauromatae saw deer tracks today. I won’t be caught unprepared!’

Kineas laughed. ‘You had all winter to make arrows.’

Darius ignored his commander and concentrated on his task.

‘Uuggh!’ said Philokles, arriving with a bowl and a slab of meat. ‘What’s that smell?’

‘Glue,’ Darius said. He had another nock ready and was fitting it on a neat dovetail into the butt of the arrow’s shaft, where the string would catch it. He rolled the nock in glue and slid it home, wiping the excess with his thumb. Then he took three carefully prepared fletchings, all cut from heron feathers, and glued them in place on the shaft. He set the arrow point-first in the ground and went on to the next shaft, methodically placing and gluing the nock.

‘Hmm,’ said Philokles, interested despite himself. ‘Why not set the feathers straight on? What purpose do they serve?’

Darius dropped a fletching in the grass by the fire and swore again. By the time he recovered it, there was glue on the feather itself and Darius threw it in the fire in disgust and began to cut another.

‘It looks like a great deal more work than my spear,’ Philokles said.

Kineas didn’t want to speak. It was the first time Philokles had shown interest in anything — much less humour.

Darius fitted a new fletching and put the shaft into the ground with the other six he’d made. ‘Hunting arrows are the hardest,’ he said.

‘Why?’ Kineas asked, to keep him talking, and to keep Philokles interested.

Darius shrugged the shrug of the young. ‘War arrows you never get back,’ he said. ‘I don’t even put nocks on them — I just cut a notch into the shaft and wrap a little cord around the base of the notch. But hunting arrows — you hope to get them back. And you shoot them farther, at harder targets. They need to be well made. My father always told us to make our own and not trust other men’s arrows.’

Philokles nodded. ‘Why the feathers, though?’

Darius shook his head. ‘You Greeks always ask why,’ he said. ‘Ask a real fletcher. I just do as my father taught me.’

Kineas laughed. Philokles looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Kineas shook his head. ‘There’s something profound there,’ he said. ‘But I’m too full of beef to get my tongue around it.’

Philokles laughed and punched his shoulder.

Across the Sarnios, flowers bloomed, and the Sauromatae girls made themselves wreaths and wore them as they rode, Mosva looking like Artemis. The hunters shot deer in the folds of the hills, and men, when they had water, sang songs to Demeter and her swift-footed daughter returned from exile. Darius shot a deer on the first day of hunting and was insufferably proud.

Despite Lot’s prediction, it took them a further ten days from the Sarnios, and it was one of those happy times that soldiers remember when they are old — seldom the boredom or the cold or the heat, but the beautiful spring on the plains and the Sauromatae girls riding along the flanks in fields of flowers. Meat was plentiful and horses that had been near death suddenly grew strong.

A month after leaving Hyrkania, the hills of Dahia were visible through the heat shimmer on the eastern horizon. Men grumbled and openly wondered about their wages, and they ogled the Sauromatae girls when they stripped their tunics to ride bare-chested in the spring sun.

Diodorus pulled his horse up next to Kineas. ‘The troops are better,’ he said. ‘Ares, it’s good to be clear of cursed Hyrkania!’

Kineas nodded and looked at his friend, recalled from a daydream of worry about Srayanka.

Diodorus glanced at Philokles, who was riding alone, lost in thought. ‘Is he better?’ Diodorus asked.

Kineas nodded. ‘I think so. Are you?’

Diodorus shrugged. ‘I’m a soldier. I’ve seen a sack before. I-’ he began, and fell silent.

Seeing them together, Philokles pushed his heavy stallion into a trot and the horse brought him up level with the other two. Philokles would never be a natural rider, but two years in the saddle had improved him.

‘You two look earnest,’ he said.

‘We’re talking about the troops,’ Diodorus said. ‘And morale.’

Philokles nodded. ‘They’re back to grumbling,’ the Spartan said. ‘Always a good sign.’

‘You’re better?’ Kineas asked.

Philokles shrugged. ‘I’m different,’ he said.

Kineas watched his cavalry riding by. ‘They’re all different,’ he said. ‘I’m different too.’

‘You let her live,’ Philokles said. ‘I have no moment of mercy to serve as a sop to my conscience. I just killed men until my arm was too tired to kill any more.’

‘I let her live for pretty much the same reason,’ Kineas said. ‘There was more fatigue in it than mercy.’

‘This is my last campaign,’ Philokles said. ‘I love you, but I cannot be a beast for ever.’

Kineas nodded slowly. ‘It was to have been Niceas’s last campaign,’ he said. ‘He asked me to buy him a brothel in Athens.’

‘Perhaps I’ll be the next to die, then,’ Philokles said, and laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t want a brothel, though.’ He looked over the plain. ‘It was merciful, but letting her live will cost us in the end. She can tell Alexander-’

Kineas shook his head. ‘You and I have both been spies, brother. The world is so full of spies,’ he gave Philokles half a smile, ‘that one more won’t be a ruffle on the grass.’ He looked out over the plains, the sea of grass, almost the same as the sea where he had met Srayanka except for the brush of purple brown on the far horizon that betokened a great range of mountains. Wind whispered in the new blades, rippling the green between pale and dark like the footprints of giants racing across the steppe.

‘Somewhere out on the sea of grass, Alexander is waiting,’ he said.

Diodorus shook his head. ‘Whatever he’s doing, he’s not waiting.’

Kineas nodded. If I don’t find Srayanka, I won’t care, he thought.

Two days on, and they met the outriders of the Sauromatae host, pickets at the edge of the green hills who watched their approach and cheered their lord, home from the wars. Lot rode at the front of the column and his young women rode along the flanks, bragging of their exploits and showing the heads of the men they’d killed. The column crested the first ridge and was able to look down into the caldera of an ancient volcano, with rich soil to the far wall several stades distant and a camp of yurts and tents that filled the plain on the far side of a small lake.

Then they feasted for a day, resting their horses, and listened to news of the world. Truce had failed. Alexander was at war with Spitamenes, and Spitamenes was laying siege to Marakanda, while Alexander tried to relieve his hard-pressed garrisons in the north along the Jaxartes. All the tribes had been called to gather on the Jaxartes to resist him if he tried to force a crossing, with mid-summer named for the muster.

And the ‘westerners’, Srayanka’s Sakje, were camped four days’ travel away, at a bend of the Oxus.

It was all Kineas could do to remain patient. In his mind, he could see the shape of the campaign — the Sauromatae chieftains sketched him the lie of the land, the hills and the desert and the two great rivers that flowed through the high plains.

Lot and his chiefs drew their world in the soft loam of the caldera floor, carefully building the Sogdian mountains to the east and the Bactrian highlands to the south, so that the mountains formed something like a curling wave design, or a cupped hand seen in profile. At the base of the palm was Merv, an ancient trade city that lay on the Margus river at the edge of the southern mountain range. Alexander had a garrison at Merv. At the tip of the curling wave lay Marakanda — the greatest city of the plains, also on the edge of mountains. Marakanda lay on the Polytimeros, a river that flowed out of the Sogdian mountains.

Between Merv and Marakanda flowed the mighty Oxus, the greatest river of the east. The valley of the Oxus passed between two ranges of mountains, rising far to the east in the highlands of Bactria, and it emptied into the Lake of the Sea of Grass, a distant body of water in the far north that Lot had seen and of which Leon had only heard rumours.

The far eastern border of the Sakje lay at the Jaxartes, which ran a complex course like a writhing snake, rising in the eastern Sogdian mountains and also emptying into the Lake of the Sea of Grass, roughly parallel to the Oxus, on a diagonal course from south-east to north-west. The land between the two great rivers was the land of the Massagetae, and the queen was rallying her army north of Marakanda on the Jaxartes, so rumour had it.

Kineas found their descriptions of the terrain bewildering, even with Leon to help him chart it and sort out the complexities. The two great rivers — the Oxus and the Jaxartes — seemed to rise close to each other and empty into the same body of water, yet they ran hundreds, sometimes thousands, of stades apart. He found it difficult to get some notion of distance out of the Sauromatae. This was their home, and the vast reach of grass — here green and deep, there patchy like the wool on a sick sheep — defined their world. They had ten alien words for the quality of grass and none for swimming.

Greek soldiers and Sindi clansmen wrestled and rode and ran and shot bows against their hosts. Kineas gave rich prizes from Banugul’s hoard, and Lot did as well. Temerix, the best bowman on foot, received a heavy bow with minute scales of gold under a glaze or varnish that somehow did nothing to reduce the flexibility of the weapon. His victory brought dark looks from Lot’s heir, his sister’s son Upazan, a handsome blond man who seemed to feel that his uncle had already lived too long and that any contest he lost must have been unfair. Upazan had many beautiful things — a gold helmet, magnificent scale armour, a red enamelled bow and a shield covered in silver that shone like a mirror and had a curling dragon as an emblem picked out in red and solid gold. He showed it all to Kineas with pride, and clearly desired more of the same.

Lot said that Upazan’s bow, and the one he gave as a prize, were spoils of raids far to the east, where he claimed there lived an empire mightier than all of Persia, with soldiers in bronze armour. Leon listened with rapt attention. Lot, sensing the Numidian’s interest, showed them another bow, this one fitted with a shoulder stock and a bronze trigger mechanism. Kineas shot it for sport and it carried well and punched a bolt through a Sakje shield with ease. Leon listened carefully, drew a picture of the weapon on his scroll and added notes. He was so distracted that Mosva showed her hurt by flirting with her cousin Upazan, whose desire for her was obvious and drew disapproval from the elders.

Kineas watched Upazan. Upazan was bitter at having missed the campaign in the west, more bitter still that his uncle was now a hero, and bitter again to be eclipsed in contests by foreigners. When he and Leon threw javelins and Leon bested him, striking a hide shield five times out of five at the gallop, Upazan responded by riding up behind the black man and striking him with a spear, sweeping him from his mount with the haft.

In a heartbeat every Olbian was on his feet. Leon was well liked. Eumenes, no friend of the Numidians, ran to his side and helped him to his feet. Upazan laughed. ‘It is just play such as men play,’ he said. ‘Too rough for you westerners?’

Lot shook his head and demanded that the young sub-chief apologize, which he refused to do. He stood in front of them without flinching and laughed again. ‘Does the black boy need so many mothers?’ he asked. ‘If he seeks redress, we can fight! I will kill him and then I will own the prize. It should have been mine. You are all fools.’

Under Kineas’s direct order, Leon turned and walked away. Upazan laughed at the Greeks, and Kineas let him laugh.

Later that day, Kineas met Lot’s queen, Monae, who had held his tribes together while he fought in the west, a campaign that already had the status of legend among the Sauromatae. He saw how she looked at Upazan — with distaste bordering on hate. ‘Lot’s sister was everything to him and she died giving birth. Lot has never put reins on that horse.’ She pointed her chin at Upazan. ‘He is more trouble than all the rest of the young men and women together — and many of them worship him, or at least fear him. With the young, the two are often the same.’

Kineas was too old to let one angry young man spoil his pleasure, and he was too desperate to see Srayanka to mind the young man’s passions too much. He accepted Lot’s apologies in place of the truculent Upazan’s.

Later, around a council fire, sitting on the beautiful Sauromatae rugs of coloured wool under the canopy of stars, Kineas listened to Lot talk about the politics of the tribes. Monae was with them, along with Diodorus, Philokles, Ataelus — and Upazan. There was no avoiding the young man — he was, after all, Lot’s heir.

‘Pharmenax, the king paramount of all the Sauromatae, has made a separate peace with Alexander — has ridden to meet him,’ Lot said.

Kineas was startled. ‘So your war is over,’ he said.

Lot looked at his Monae, who smiled like a wolf. ‘No one followed him. Being king of the Sauromatae is not very different from being king of the Sakje, Kineax. He has the title, but he has made a decision that is unpopular, and few of us care to follow him. Now, if this Alexander wins great victories, and if Spitamenes the Persian and Queen Zarina of the Massagetae are defeated? Hmm. Then, perhaps you will see us join King Pharmenax.

‘We should be riding to Alexander now,’ said Upazan. ‘He is strongest. He will conquer.’

‘Spitamenes?’ Kineas asked, ignoring the boy. ‘I heard talk of him in Hyrkania. Refresh my memory?’

‘One of the lords of Bactria. He has given Alexander the former usurper — Bessus. Handed him over — for impiety, so it is said. Bessus is a good man and a poor general.’ Monae shook her head sadly. ‘It has been quite a year, husband.’

Upazan leaned forward. ‘This is not women’s talk, Monae. I spoke and I expect to be answered. We should go to Alexander.’

Kineas looked at the boy but said nothing.

Lot put up a hand. ‘Upazan, your time as a hostage with the Medae has left you rude. Women may share in any council.’

‘Pah — women warm beds and make babies. We are fools to allow them anything else. When I am king, we will have done with spear-maidens. ’ He spoke with the malicious enjoyment every adolescent experiences in stating a view that he knows his elders will hate. It was hard to tell if he actually believed any of it.

‘Bessus was the satrap? Bessus?’ Kineas asked.

‘Satrap? He called himself King of Kings.’ Monae shook her head. ‘He will die badly, with his nose slit. This Alexander has been fast as a snake to adopt the ways of the Medae.’

‘I feel as if I have come out of the oil pot and fallen into the fire,’ Kineas said.

‘Nothing about barbarian life is simple,’ Lot said. He laughed, but there were lines on his face, and his glance strayed to Upazan.

‘Who is Queen Zarina?’ Kineas asked.

‘A spear-maiden who made herself queen,’ Monae said. She put a hand to her throat and coughed, and then laughed easily — the world was a humorous place for her, and she showed all her teeth. ‘She loves war. She does not love Spitamenes, but she wants to defeat Alexander. She has called a muster of all the Scythians — from the Euxine to the great mountains. Sakje, Dahae and Sauromatae and Massagetae and Kandae and all their kin. There has never been such a muster since the days of the great wars against the Persae.’ She smiled. ‘And they were once one of our tribes, as well. The Persae. Clan mothers remember.’ She shook her head. ‘Zarina sees herself as queen of all the people. Will we have her? Will we obey?’ She laughed. ‘But we will all go — even your Srayanka. If only to see how many horse tails the people can muster, and show this Alexander what power is.’

Kineas caught his breath and then released it slowly.

Lot glanced around and then leaned forward. ‘What do you intend, lord?’

‘Why do you call him lord?’ Upazan asked. ‘He is some foreigner, not our lord.’

‘You have never seen him run a battle, nephew,’ Lot said, reasonably.

‘Foolishness.’ Upazan had opinions for every subject and no hesitation about showing them. He got up and left the fire. Rising, he managed to kick sand at Kineas. Kineas continued to ignore the boy.

When Upazan was gone, Kineas leaned forward. ‘First, I plan to meet with Srayanka. I understand she’s at Chatracharta, on the Oxus.’

Lot and his wife exchanged glances. ‘That’s where we expect to find the Sakje,’ he said carefully.

Kineas nodded. ‘If I understand it correctly, we can move north along the Oxus to the Polytimeros, and then — well, then I’m not too clear on the terrain.’ He shrugged. ‘But we’ll go to the muster on the Jaxartes.’

Lot leaned forward and sketched the wave and the two rivers in the dirt. ‘All the valley of the Oxus is held by Iskander,’ he said. ‘And he has forts along the Polytimeros and the Jaxartes. That is his frontier. You’ll have to ride around him to get to the muster. That’s the word on the plains — stay north of the forks of the Polytimeros, and ride well clear of the Sogdian mountains.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘Srayanka will understand this better than me,’ he said.

Again he watched his hosts exchange a look that worried him, but he was too close to finding Srayanka to worry about the campaign.

That night, well fed, half-drunk on Persian wine, his head buzzing with the gossip of the east, Kineas threw himself on his old cloak and went to sleep without effort.

He stood on the field of Issus in the dark, a flood of spectral Persians coming at him from over the river, and he relived his last moments at Arbela, his horse carrying him deep into the Median nobles, his helmet torn away, fighting from habit because he had only moments to live, at the Ford of the River God, and his body shifted uncomfortably as he slept. And then he found himself at the base of the tree. Ajax waited there with Nicomedes, and Niceas had his arms around Graccus and the two stood like men who have celebrated a great festival and now help each other home. The four of them watched him steadily as he approached.

‘Not long now,’ Ajax said. ‘Are you ready to join us?’

Niceas grunted. ‘Best find that filly of yours and ride her a few times, because there’s none of that here!’

The others laughed grimly.

‘You know what we’ve been trying to tell you?’ Ajax asked.

‘I think so,’ said Kineas. It was the first time he could remember being able to converse with the dead. Seeing them — speaking with them — made him absurdly happy.

‘Finish it,’ Graccus said. He was serious, dignified — just like himself. ‘We can hold them until you climb to the top.’

Nicomedes nodded. ‘Alexander must be stopped. You will stop him.’

And he set himself to climb. Above him, a pair of eagles shrieked

…

Kineas awoke to the feel of rough bark under his arms and thighs, and a leaden fatigue in his limbs.

On the third night in the caldera, Kineas sat under a rough shelter, with a scrap of animal parchment on which he’d rendered a rough map of the ground from the caldera to the distant Jaxartes. Philokles lay beside him, and Diodorus sat on the ground with Sappho at his shoulder on a stool. Eumenes and Andronicus sat back to back, both of them mending bridles. Leon was off questioning traders — or following Mosva.

They all looked at the map and made plans: a quick trip across the dry ground to the edge of the sea where Srayanka’s Sakje were camped, a grand reunion, and then some hard decisions.

‘If the pay doesn’t catch up with us, and even if it does, I have to wonder at whether we keep the boys together,’ he said.

Eumenes, hitherto silent, leaned into the discussion. ‘The men complain that they are too far from home. And many complain that we are not keeping the festival calendar and that the gods will not be pleased.’

Diodorus nodded. ‘There’s a lot of complaining, Eumenes. But I see it as a sign that the boys are recovering from the march here and the storming of the citadel. Never worry your head about a little bitching.’ But to Kineas he said, ‘I don’t see what we can accomplish here. The Massagetae, all the Sauromatae, the Dahae — they’ve got more horsemen than the gods. They can bury Alexander in a tide of horseflesh. What can we do with our four hundred?’

‘We have discipline they lack, and we’ve faced Macedon before,’ Kineas said. ‘But I take your point.’ He looked out at the rim of the caldera and the deep blue sky beyond. ‘The world is larger than I ever imagined.’

Diodorus nodded. ‘I’d like to find my tutors and bring them here,’ he said.

Kineas went on as if his friend hadn’t spoken. ‘But Alexander is still the monster. However great the world is, he seems to bestride it. I will go where he goes.’

Diodorus shook his head. ‘Then I guess we’ll follow you there,’ he said. He watched the sun for a moment. ‘Then what happens? I mean, when we fight Alexander. Then what?’

Kineas laughed. ‘When we beat Alexander, I will try to persuade Srayanka to ride home.’ He shrugged. ‘If I’m alive.’

Philokles shook his head. ‘Always that old tune. What we’re telling you, Strategos, is that if you want your men to follow you to the end of the world to fight the finest army to stride the earth since the long-haired Achaeans sailed to windy Ilium, you had better have a plan for what we do when we win.’

‘Or lose,’ said Diodorus, cheerily.

On the next morning, the hyperetes of each troop got the men into column. They grumbled and groaned and cursed their sore muscles and their hard lot as they mounted, but they did it. Kineas watched Leon embrace Mosva, and watched Eumenes’ face darken almost to purple, and Upazan’s match it, but he did not interfere. Leon made a gesture at the Sauromatae chief with his hand — a small gesture of two fingers. Upazan reacted immediately, running at Leon, but Leon was mounted. Smiling, he tripped the Sauromatae with his spear and danced his horse away. An ugly muttering spread among the younger Sauromatae.

Kineas thought of interfering. But he didn’t.

Before the sun was a hand’s-breadth in the ether, their borrowed Sauromatae scouts were over the lip of the caldera and the great lake of the steppes gleamed like a flat sapphire on the horizon. It vanished as they descended the caldera’s side, but the next day it came into sight again. They made good time on the steppe, the scouts found water and they slept in rough camps with heavy curtains of sentries.

Kineas drove them hard.

By the festival of Skirophoria they were watering their horses in the Oxus, and across the river they could see horses and men washing shirts. The Olbians and the Sakje fell on each other like long-lost friends and battle brothers (and sisters), so that discipline dissolved as they entered the Sakje camp. Kineas rode straight for the circle of wagons at the centre, his heart slamming in his chest and his tongue thick in his mouth. Why had she not come out to meet him? Her scouts must have seen him a day ago!

He dismounted, with Ataelus beside him. Parshtaevalt stood to receive him, and the younger man looked tired.

Kineas embraced Srayanka’s tanist, who all but sighed with relief. ‘Where is she?’ he blurted out.

Parshtaevalt hugged him harder. ‘Taken,’ he whispered. ‘She is prisoner of Alexander. And we have been betrayed.’