The Afgan Campaign

41

It takes six days, pushing our animals and prisoners, to relink with the main column. This is at Gabae, the trading camp on the frontier between Sogdiana and the Wild Lands. We catch up with the siege train; the fighting elements have already pushed north. The Wolf’s tribesmen, a scout tells us, are massing above the border. “Looks like an all-in skull-buster.”

No one has seen Lucas or Costas or Agathocles. The capture of Spitamenes’ son is news to them. They have heard nothing and know nothing.

We drop our prisoners and press north along the military highway, or what has become the military highway. Mule trains of hundreds bring up rations and heavy gear. How far ahead is Coenus? No one knows. Where is Spitamenes? The rear-boggers give us the blank stare.

Our animals are too fagged to keep pace. They need a day. We carve a camp alongside the trudging supply column, in an icecrusted wash in the middle of nothing. Gales howl. We chop sod for a windbreak. Plunging my pike into the turf, I pull up a skull. Flag digs up a hip joint. The site is a barrow. An ancient burial mound.

Soldiers are superstitious. “I ain’t bonzing here,” says Dice.

We bed down with the muleteers. Breakfast is wine and millet scratch, both frozen. We share it with a squad of Paeonian lancers-Alexander’s elite scouts-who have ridden three days without rest from Nautaca.

“Where’s the king?”

“Coming fast, mates. And bringing every bat and bumper!”

The lancers wolf their gruel, then spur north, putting the supply column behind them.

By postnoon Alexander’s merc cavalry are passing. Rumor says his Royal Squadron of Companions-and he himself-have already pushed past Gabae by the eastern caravan trace. They’re ahead of us.

We slog on. The supply train has plenty of dry fodder, but their sergeants won’t let us have it. Every bale is tagged for a line unit. We have nothing for our ponies. The steppe sprawls gray and frozen; grass is frost-stiff straw. Our horses’ turds gush like soup.

Still no one has word of Lucas.

My mind searches for reasons. “You’re thinking again,” says Flag.

In this multitude, he reasons, what’s the chance of getting news of one man? Besides, it’s almost certain Lucas got through. “They’re heroes, him and that captain. It was their report that set off this whole show.”

I want to believe it. It makes sense; the timing of it rings right. Lucas is probably in camp with forward elements right now. He’s with Coenus and Alexander, soaking up the glory.

We press on. A thaw hits. The steppe becomes a bog. Laden mules sink halfway to their hocks; wagons are mired by scores. The lane of the column’s passage looks like a field plowed by oxen. It’s so miserable, death itself sounds like a vacation. Better than another night’s kip in this slop.

It rains all day, the tenth and eleventh. Our horses are skeletons. We look like ghosts. Then on the twelfth, the temperature plummets. The heavens dump sleet, then snow. We come over a rise. Ahead: an assembly area. Quartermasters route us off the highway behind a range of hills.

We have caught up with the front. Tents and field kitchens. Mack infantry in thousands, all arming for battle. No half-pikes. Full-length sarissas. Stephanos sends me to find someone from Coenus’s brigade to report to. It’s impossible. The site spreads for miles. We’re among elements of Alexander’s elite merc cav. Their horses make ours look like dogs. Before I can spot a familiar face or a standard I recognize, a colonel’s aide calls us to mount and ride. The fight isn’t tomorrow, it’s now.

Still no one has seen Lucas.