The Ten Thousand

CHAPTER ONE

THE PERSIAN SCOUT galloped furiously up to Cyrus on his frothing horse, his beard wiry and dusty from the sprint, a wild expression in his eyes. He shouted in Persian and in camp Greek, sometimes intermingling the two, his tongue tripping over itself in his hurry.

"The king… the king is marching toward us in battle array! Today is the day, Lord Cyrus! The hour of your glory is at hand!"

Word spread quickly down the line, raising panic among the camp followers and confusion among the men. Officers marching in the front, near Cyrus' party, immediately wheeled and began racing back to their units, colliding with the troops advancing behind. Concerned that we might be attacked at any moment, and on unfavorable ground, the prince dispatched officers the length of the army's march to begin making order out of the chaos and to provision the troops. Other riders he sent up into the surrounding hills to observe the king's forces, and to identify favorable terrain for a battle. Cyrus himself hastily donned corselet and greaves. Within a half hour the army had arranged itself into full battle formation along the crest of a low range of hills running perpendicular to the river. We were just outside the tiny hamlet of Cunaxa, six months and a thousand miles distant from Sardis, a mere three days' march from Babylon itself. The Spartans anchored the pivotal right line against the Euphrates, with Proxenus' division beside them, along with a thousand Paphlagonian horsemen from Cyrus' native troops, all of whom would be commanded by Clearchus. Menon held the left wing, adjacent to Ariaius, while the remainder of the native troops were positioned in the center. Behind the long ranks of soldiers the motley thousands of camp followers had gathered in shuffling order, bearing gap-toothed grins of anticipation and wielding makeshift weapons they had assembled from broken remnants of the drilling field. All carried sacks or baskets, for they did not intend to return empty-handed from their task. Behind them the quartermasters worked frantically, arranging the supply wagons into a compact, organized array, leading the vast herds of beasts into temporary enclosures, and setting up field hospitals and officers' quarters. The five hundred Lydian guards Cyrus had posted over the camp arrangements, in continued punishment for their sorry performance before Queen Epyaxa, stalked impatiently among the chaos, irritated at being assigned to camp detail. Sitting on his horse motionless in the middle of the front ranks was Cyrus, easily recognized by his bare head and flowing hair, surrounded by his six hundred cavalry, their polished armor glittering in the blinding sunlight.

We stood in silent formation, facing the hills to the east whence the king's troops would be arriving. Hardly a man stirred. The only movement was the occasional distant rider galloping from or toward the army, retrieving messages from the outposts and carrying Cyrus' orders to his far wings. The moment was otherworldly and eerie, tens of thousands of men motionless and silent-that brief moment before engagement when the lines are orderly, the troops confident, the horses calm, and the Homeric glory of battle is most apparent and anticipated.

The distant hills facing us began shimmering in the mid-afternoon heat, becoming hazy and ill-defined. Small flies buzzed about our faces, and sweat trickled down my sides under the corselet. My scalp burned and itched under the helmet, the felt caul lining my head underneath already drenched with perspiration. The initial tension, the sharp knot I had felt in my stomach while making my preparations, had given way to a dull, throbbing ache, a weight in the lower belly and knees, a pervasive background presence of anticipation and fear. Some men, even officers, became restless in the heat, shifting on their feet, gulping fetid water from their skins and chatting idly with their companions. A few set the rims of their heavy shields on the ground leaning against their knees, to free up their hands while they wrung out their caps. Others simply sank down into the dust where they were, grunting loudly as they sat, concluding that whatever repose they were able to afford their tense limbs was worth the difficulty of standing up again under the weight of their gear.

The sun beat on us relentlessly, turning the outside of our armor and helmets hot to the touch, steaming our bodies inside like loaves of bread in an oven. The haziness increased, and we had almost begun to doubt we would be seeing action that day at all, when we noticed the distinct outline of a brownish cloud floating up from the horizon. At first it was so distant and faint that when I pointed it out to Xenophon, he simply dismissed it as the effect of heat waves on the sand as the sun burned hotter. After a few minutes, however, we saw that the cloud was drifting closer, becoming denser and more ominous as it approached-the dust raised by the million marching feet of Artaxerxes' army.

The horizon at the top of the distant hills darkened to black, and then thickened in a wavy line, from the downstream course of the Euphrates at the right of our present location, in a wide arc almost to the farthest left of our view-and then the line began spreading and thickening like the dark shadow of a cloud, moving toward us, inexorable and plaguelike, as the massed forces of five times a hundred thousand men and horses approached us in formation. Certainly no sight ever seen by mortals, not the sacking of Thebes nor the destruction of Ilium, surely not even the war between the gods and the Titans, was a match for this sight of the king's enormous army, for pure, destructive splendor. Here and there shone sparkles of light as the sun reflected off glittering armor and polished bridle bits, and within moments the occasional shouts of officers' orders, the whinnying of horses and the thunderous, rhythmical tramping-above all the tramping-were carried floating and wafting to our ears by stray gusts of wind.

Earlier in the day Cyrus had warned us not to be unnerved by the battle cries of the barbarians. As a Persian himself, he was well accustomed to their practiced technique of trying to break their enemies' concentration even before coming to blows, by emitting an ear-piercing shriek that would carry for miles, designed to strike terror into the hearts of all who heard it. But this time the prince was wrong: The barbarians came marching in complete and utter silence, without a sound from their men other than the insistent tramping. In its own way, this was even more unnerving, making them seem more like shades or gods than creatures of flesh and blood.

I glanced at Xenophon, who stood transfixed by the sheer wonder at seeing in this barren, empty landscape the vast multitude of men and animals suddenly appearing from nowhere. Only Clearchus seemed unmoved by the spectacle. He trotted ceaselessly up and down the lines on his enormous, frothing war-charger, fine-tuning placements here, berating an officer there, his long, carefully dressed braids flying out behind him from under his full-faced Spartan battle helmet-a terrifying sight, only his glittering eyes and bushy chin exposed from beneath the polished bronze.

Cyrus pounded up to our lines, searching out Clearchus, who calmly finished bellowing orders to his captains before he turned to the prince, waiting impatiently on his skittish horse. "Your highness!" Clearchus exulted, a murderous glint flashing through the deep eye sockets of his bronze helmet, "This is your Greek army! These are the men who will lead you to victory!"

Cyrus ignored Clearchus' boasting. "Victory! Victory over the enemy's auxiliaries perhaps. The false king and his Immortals are marching against us in the center of their forces-if we defeat them there, the battle is won. You are on the wrong end of our lines, General! Fall back and cross with your men to the left!"

Clearchus gaped at Cyrus in astonishment, then scanned the approaching forces more carefully and saw that what the prince said was true-the enemy was so numerous that the king's center actually faced our far left, so much did the king's lines overlap and extend beyond ours. Still, the value of shifting his troops to the other end of the line at this late hour was dubious, and the prince's implicit questioning of his tactical skills was intolerable. He whipped his helmet off in a rage.

"Wrong end, my ass! The first rule of battle, Prince, is to position your strongest troops to anchor the right. Absent us, the king's cavalry will cut through your right like butter and fold you up from behind. With our forces hard against the river, we can't be outflanked on this side at least. Believe it-I've been doing this since before you were born. As long as I command the Greek troops they stay on your right."

Now it was Cyrus' turn to gape at his subordinate's direct challenge, and after an astonished pause, he lit into the Spartan with a barrage of oaths and insults that made my hair rise, even under the soaked helmet and caul. Proxenus, Xenophon, and I froze as we watched Cyrus and Clearchus rant at each other, shouting and gesturing as the vast forces of the enemy continued their inexorable march toward us across the plain. Artaxerxes would not wait for our tactical dispute to be resolved before launching his troops into battle. I despaired at seeing the two generals at the point of coming to blows, but Clearchus remained unyielding. There are few men more stubborn than an old soldier, and none more stubborn than a Spartan. The prince finally raised the palm of his hand sharply, cutting off Clearchus in mid-sputter.

"I have staked my life and my fortune on defeating the false king in this battle," he seethed, in a voice barely audible to the rest of us, "and I will not be stymied by a petty autocrat. You have resisted my orders, but I do not have the time to enforce them. The enemy is almost upon us! If you will not take on the king, by the very gods, I will myself! And we shall see this matter through again after the battle, Clearchus, I assure you."

Wheeling his horse with an angry jerk of the reins he cantered off, his chestnut hair flowing freely behind him, and Clearchus angrily jammed his own helmet back on his head. His long Spartan braids, oiled and black yet streaked with the gray of his years, draped over his shoulders like the snakes of the gorgon.

"Stupid, vain son of a whore doesn't even wear a battle helmet," Clearchus spat, not bothering to lower his voice to prevent the rest of us from witnessing his insubordination. "If he wants to feel the wind through his hair he'd do better to ride without his pants. At least then he wouldn't be jeopardizing the whole fucking army."

Proxenus spoke up for the first time, pressing his horse against the side of Clearchus' nervous animal to calm him, and looking straight into the face of the furious Spartan.

"Clearchus, your position is correct, but this is no time to break with the prince. Whether Cyrus is right or wrong, you disobeyed his direct order, which you would never tolerate from us. For the sake of the army and our future, send an olive branch before battle commences."

Clearchus stared at him in a fury, and I thought he might even strike Proxenus with his sword for second-guessing him; but after a long moment he glanced away in silence, the cords in his neck working furiously as he clenched his jaw and surveyed the rapidly approaching enemy. He coughed harshly, clearing his throat of the thick, acrid dust, and then turning his head to the side he seized his nose between thumb and forefinger and blew two arching strings of snot to the ground, narrowly missing Proxenus' horse. He then twisted in his seat the other way to locate the prince, who by now had stationed himself at a more favorable viewing area several hundred yards away. "You," he said, glancing at Xenophon. "Run a message to Cyrus over there: Tell him I will take heed, and all will go well." With that, he wheeled his horse contemptuously and galloped off to make further preparations. Xenophon and I raced over to Cyrus' position, anxious to deliver the message and return to our own forces before the battle commenced.

The two sides were now no more than a quarter mile apart, and we were able to distinguish the Persians' various units. The black cloud of marchers separated into individuals. Cavalry in white, silk-decked corselets supported the heavy infantry in the enemy's left wing facing us, and Clearchus passed word down the line that these riders would be led by Tissaphernes himself. He was proven right a moment later when the enemy commander's personal banner-a golden, winged horse on a black pennant-hove into view. "A gold daric to the man who kills that donkey-faced son of a bitch!" Clearchus bellowed to all within earshot. The men's excitement visibly increased.

Within minutes, we were able to identify the king's vanguard to our left, the fearsome Medes, marching in disciplined silence with their rouged faces, bright purple pantaloons, and bejeweled necks and ears. They resembled Cyrus' effeminate eunuch slaves, but their chain mail vests, plumed bronze helmets and tanned, muscular arms added a sinister effect to their otherwise delicate appearance, which was intended to strike terror into less disciplined forces, as does the ambiguous face of a clown to a small child. They were followed by troops from the dozens of nations over which the king of Persia held sway, and from which he had forcibly conscripted his forces: Phrygians, Assyrians, Bactrians, Arabians, Chaldeans, Armenians, Kurds-the list was endless. Even the most expert among our troops were, in the end, unable to tell one from the other, much less recall each of their peculiar fighting styles, weapons, and special penchants for killing. Most astonishing of all was the variety of weapons and defensive devices arrayed before us-from the light wicker shields carried by the Cissian archers, so different from our own thick oak and bronze bowls, to the thin, reedlike spears carried by the Egyptians, which were deadly when thrown at medium range, but which were too light for close-in sparring. Perhaps most unnerving to all but the Spartans were the sixty Persian scythe-chariots pulled by white stallions. Their drivers grinned murderously beneath their visors as they surveyed our lines, waiting for the opportunity to charge into the fray with their axle-mounted knives, slicing in half or running down any soldiers who might stand in their way. To Clearchus the range of men and techniques was of no consequence. He held all enemy forces in equal disdain, convinced that the superior Spartan discipline and endurance of his troops were capable of overcoming any number of enemy forces he might face.

As the enemy steadily approached, Clearchus dismounted and strode over to the seers waiting before the front lines of troops. Like Euripides, he believed that it is with the gods' favor that wise commanders launch an attack, never against their wishes, and so he ordered a goat sacrificed to Zeus and then to Phobos, God of Fear and Rout, seeking to avert the latter's eyes from our men and to focus them instead on the Persians. Clearchus himself began the ritual, and despite the relentless advance of the enemy troops, he carefully and deliberately followed the prescribed protocol, slicing his blade through the beast's exposed throat and letting the blood spurt and gush, placating the gods. As it fell, it soaked into the hot, parched earth, leaving only a dark, steaming stain which itself would be effaced within minutes by the stifling dust, as the earth healed itself of the scars and stains inflicted by men in their puny affairs.

Clearchus had not yet called his troops to attention. Though they carefully watched the advancing hordes and the sacrifices, they feigned nonchalance, glancing out of the corners of their eyes, their shields leaning against their legs and the gripcords exposed, some of the men still sitting down. Xenophon and I had been warned in advance by Proxenus of this unsettling habit of the Spartans, a calculated effect designed to indicate their scorn for the advancing enemy. It was not until the Persian archers, some 200 yards distant, finally began finding their range that the men casually stood up and mounted their shields.

At a signal from Clearchus' trumpeter the Greeks bellowed the watchword we had devised, Zeus soter kai Nike! "Savior Zeus and Victory!" clanging their shields and increasing the volume of their roar with each repetition until the very earth seemed to shudder. After a moment, the reedy, high-pitched wailing of the battle pipes soared over our voices, an otherworldly top-note rising in arrhythmic counterpoint to the bass of the hellish chorus. The rising, rolling beat of the oxhide drums, which we felt as a thumping tremor in our bellies, resonated through the ranks, and as the throbbing beat suddenly doubled we broke as one into the chanted war hymn, the paean to Apollo. The thunder of the massed ten thousand voices and the explosive clanging and crashing of spears on shields rolled over the field between the opposing forces, and seemed to hit the Persians almost physically, like a wall. The enemy companies directly across the field from our right wing faltered and their front visibly wavered as the troops behind them began to cluster in bunches. At another deafening blast from the salpinx we broke toward the Persians' left wing in a trot. Our hoplites maintained a flawless, tight phalanx formation on the slightly downward sloping plain, while the light infantry followed close behind, fitting their arrows on the run, forever chanting the bloody hymn. As we approached to within fifty yards of the enemy lines, the heavy infantry broke off the rhythm of the war chant and commenced a full-throated, wordless wail, a howl as if of pent-up rage, summoning Ares, the implacable god of war, with the deafening cry, "Eleleu! Eleleu! Eleleu!" They snapped their spears down in perfect unison to full horizontal, the freshly sharpened edges and tips glinting their promise of painful death in the blinding sun. The mouths of the terrified enemy soldiers before us worked soundlessly, contorted in fear, and their officers' horses rolled their eyes wildly and reared their heads to the side in an effort to escape the bellowing wall of men and metal fast approaching.

The enemy line faltered, its front ranks stopping dead. The rearward Persian marchers, unable to see what was happening uphill beyond their leading comrades, kept pushing forward, tripping over those who had halted in front, and in turn being pushed by their fellows in the rear. Encouraged at this sign of hesitation, the Greek heavy infantry picked up its pace to a full sprint, armor and shields crashing madly. The discipline of the Greek forces was heart-stopping-men prepared against those unprepared, good order against disorder, troops surging forward in absolute, deadly precision, as tight and as uniform as the scales on an asp.

As for what happened next, it is impossible to say whether the gods were responsible, or whether no enemy could resist a tide of men as determined as ours. The Persian ranks collapsed without a struggle in the face of the Greek hell-storm, unable to muster even the deafening crash one usually hears as the lead warriors of the opposing forces collide and fold into one another in a chaos of metal, body fluids, and screams. The front line broke and we plowed over them as if they were so many molehills, neglecting even to kill those we ran over, but simply trampling them and moving on to the next rank, a seething, roaring wall of iron and death. The frenzied camp followers swarming close behind us stripped the dead of their valuables and food, using clubs and discarded spearheads to make short work of any enemy soldiers who remained twitching or sobbing after being mowed down by our surging hoplites. The Persians in the front lines tried desperately to wheel and run to the rear, but their comrades behind, fifteen or twenty ranks thick, marched doggedly forward like the slaves they were, under the whips and threats of their sergeants, blocking the path of the panic-stricken front ranks and hindering their retreat. Slaughter ensued, panic fed upon panic. Even those few Persians originally inclined to take a stand and fight lost heart when they saw they had been deserted on all sides, and then they themselves joined the terrified mob.

Our archers took special aim at the enemy chariot drivers, who had held slightly back behind their heavy infantry, waiting for a gap in the fighting to open up through which they could drive their lethal scythes without cutting apart their own men. The Spartans loathed such machines, and had not used them in their own forces for a hundred years. They did, however, relish the thought of facing them, for they had mastered the trick of calmly opening up gaps between which the chariot drivers would charge harmlessly, while one or two Spartans darted in from the side and stabbed the horse or driver. In his youth, Clearchus was known to be well accomplished in this trick.

The Spartans were to be disappointed, however, for not a single Persian scythe-chariot even made it to the Greek lines. Our bowmen toppled several of the drivers, and in the ensuing chaos none of the Persian infantry even bothered to pick up their comrades' reins. The panicked horses raced about aimlessly among their own men, the razor-sharp blades violating the sanctity and virginity of fragile skin, lopping off an arm here, a head there, gouging through men's breastplates and ribs as if they were cheese, exposing the gods' secrets to the eyes of leering and terrified onlookers. I watched as two Boeotians from Proxenus' battalion, brothers as it happened, each took charge of a runaway chariot and began lending method and discipline to the general carnage they were wreaking, turning the Persians' most terrifying weapons against them with devastating effect. They cut a bloody swath through the most densely packed of the enemy lines, and then calmly drove their captured trophies up to Proxenus, grinning, with odd pieces of bloody flesh and dripping helmet leather still hanging off the murderous tines. Socrates once said that to peer inside a human being, you can make him laugh or observe him in love; he neglected to note that you can also use a blade or a spear point. The latter method proves beyond a doubt that people are more alike inside than they are outside, and in fact are scarcely different from pigs or asses.

Xenophon galloped back and forth the length of our immediate line, wheeling his mount in tight circles at the end of his range, and observing Tissaphernes' forces closely for any indication of an attack or an attempt to outflank our troops. The exercise was useless, however; Tissaphernes' cavalry were helpless in the chaos, and they assembled nervously far to the rear of the battle, awaiting the outcome. I glanced at Proxenus, who was darting in and out of the slaughter on his horse, trying to maintain order among the fury, and at Clearchus, who after having led his men directly to the enemy lines, had backed away to monitor the situation, and was now sitting on his horse impassively on the edge of the fray, watching as his men mowed down the enemy as if harvesting wheat in a field.

Finally the Persians' surviving middle and rear ranks reversed their march and began a general retreat. The Greeks ran them down as they went, tripping over the bodies of the fallen and slipping in the gore on the ground as they churned it into an ankle-deep slurry of mud and piss, salted with shattered weapons and the detritus of dying men. The Hellenes' spears, both the throwing point and the sauroter, the bronze-tipped "lizard-killer" used for standing the weapon in the ground when at rest, had long since broken and shivered on the fragile spines and skulls of the Persians, and our men were now reduced to a frenzied, blind hacking with their short swords. Mobs of Persians threw down their shields and weapons in their panic, forgoing any protection, forgetting even to fight, but doing everything to assist in their own slaughter. The enemy dead numbered in the thousands, while our troops had scarcely lost a man, suffering only from the weary numbness in our limbs from the strain of the relentless killing.

Clearchus at last roused himself from his apparent boredom at the appalling carnage, and ordered his trumpeter to sound a halt. For what seemed an eternity, nothing happened. The horrifying bloodbath continued unabated. Finally, however, after further trumpet blasts, Clearchus resorted to riding into the slaughter himself, swinging and beating at his own men with the flat of his sword to drive them back, to force a respite. The mad blood-trance lifted and the Greeks staggered, gasping, to a halt. The shattered men slowly lowered their arms and stood trembling in place, dropping their weapons in exhaustion. The terrible roar of battle died away to a mere echo in our heads, which was gradually replaced by the moans of the injured and dying. The troops' appearance was hellish, godlike-so slathered in gore from helmet to greaves they might have been wallowing in it like dogs, their eyes glittering evilly through the darkness of their visors, the muscles in their shoulders and thighs swollen and taut. Their chests heaved, quaking legs collapsing in exhaustion, some crumpling into the steaming, fetid muck, kicking aside corpses and unclaimed viscera to make room for themselves. Moans of agony filled the still, heavy air, the death throes of bleeding Persians who had not yet been dispatched by the pitiless camp followers. The ground was purple with blood, it flowed in rivulets into puddles and pools and collected in hollows, corpses lay mingled with each other, shields pierced, spears splintered, daggers unsheathed, some on the ground, most stuck in bodies, some still in the hands of the dead. The hardiest of the Greek troops struggled to remain on their feet, their hands shaking from the shock of the slaughter and the intensity of their effort, and they sought out comrades, even strangers, to lean against in their exhaustion and to feel some human comfort.

It was only now that the men realized the extent of their accomplishment, and of the danger they had faced. For all our awesome bluster, our attack was a precarious one-the men had kept their shields in an even line out of sheer discipline, but the unintended effect of this was to hide the enemy's view of what lay behind our front. We had, in fact, stretched ourselves so thin, in order to cover the entire length of the massed Persian forces facing us, that our phalanx was only four ranks deep-half the normal depth. We had had only one chance to break through the enemy, and against all odds, we had succeeded.

Clearchus dismounted and walked solemnly among the dazed men, lending a shoulder to one on which to lean momentarily, helping another to rise from the spot where his knees had given way in the shock of the killing. I was astonished to see him offer calm, quiet words of encouragement, amazed at the visible strength he lent to each man as he strode among the ranks. The groups through which he passed stood noticeably taller and stronger than those whose shoulders he had not yet touched. This, I reflected, was the source of Clearchus' own strength, his fierceness, this restorative and inspirational effect on the men at his command. After a few moments, he found a small boulder on which to stand, and throwing his helmet back from his face and raising his blood-encrusted sword to the heavens, he lifted a heart-stopping cry to the gods: "Lord of the Gods, Protector of Armies, these men-these men are Greeks! Savior Zeus and Victory!"

The troops leaped to their feet in triumph, clanging their swords upon shields with deafening effect, repeating the terrifying war chant. Hearing a strangled "Eleleu, eleleu" voiced with great effort from somewhere nearby, I glanced behind me and realized it was coming from the parched, constricted throat of Xenophon as he too stared at Clearchus, an expression of murderous triumph in his eyes.

The men settled back down to rest for a moment, silent in their exhaustion and gratefulness at remaining alive, and gulping watered wine from their skins. At Proxenus' request, I galloped atop a small rise for better visibility, peering through the heat waves rising from the earth to where Cyrus' cavalry and the Greeks' left flank stood awaiting the outcome of our skirmish. The dust was still heavy in the air, but as it slowly cleared, I could perceive the outline of our other troops, a mile or so distant. I raised Proxenus' battalion flag and waved it in mad circles, and as I did so I saw their pennants lift high in jubilation, men raising their weapons above their heads. A moment later I heard their throaty cheer come rolling toward me over the plain. I glanced at Proxenus, and his eyes smiled beneath the uptilted brim of his visor.

The most imminent danger was from the king's right wing, which extended to our front as far as the eye could see, far overlapping Cyrus' relatively short left line. The king himself had maneuvered to face Cyrus, and had apparently ordered an encircling movement, for his hyperextended right wing was now folding in and around the prince's left side. Even the most ignorant battle squire could see that unless immediate action were taken, Cyrus' troops would either be surrounded, forced to retreat leaving our group separated and vulnerable, or driven back toward its right to the river, leaving all of us to our own fates, trapped between an enormous army in the front and an impassable river in the rear. Seeing the prince's quandary, Clearchus ordered the men up and in battle order, and we wearily began a forced trot in the blazing sun back across the field whence we had just come, to support Cyrus' forces. Tissaphernes' cavalry, however, was nowhere to be seen, and when I pointed this out to Xenophon, he looked up, startled. Proxenus had assigned him to observe their movements, but in the exhaustion and glow of our rout over the Persians facing us, he had neglected this task for several minutes.

Cyrus was not about to wait for us to arrive, and for his own forces to be encircled, before he attacked. Astonishingly, he sounded a trumpet and began charging toward the king's heavy infantry, his own six hundred horsemen beside him in close formation, struggling to keep up with their racing leader, screaming the horrifying, ululating Persian battle cry as they sprinted. The king's men halted their march immediately, standing stock still in amazement. These were well-trained troops, not about to turn tail at the first approach of the adversary like those we had met; yet they were not so foolhardy as to continue advancing in the face of Cyrus' flying cavalry.

The king shouted an order, and his ranks of bowmen launched their arrows, forming a thick cloud as of evil birds, whizzing and humming through the air. Some struck home among Cyrus' lead horses, tripping them up, throwing their riders and creating chaos as those behind them stumbled over the writhing bodies of the fallen. Another volley of arrows was launched, this time more of them finding their mark; still Cyrus raced on, his long mane of hair streaming behind his helmetless head like a torch in a stiff wind.

With a roar of frenzied men and horses and a ringing crash of metal on metal, the prince's cavalry hit the king's armored troops in what seemed an explosion. Terrible screams rose from men and beasts, as the first ranks of the Persians were mercilessly trampled and Cyrus' lead horses were run through with javelins, or their legs hamstrung by enemy swords, toppling their riders into the dust. We were now running as fast as our fatigue would allow, determined to support the prince in his impossible charge against the king's hugely superior forces, yet also scarcely daring to believe what we were seeing: none of Cyrus' horses were retreating from the whirling cloud of dust, and that in fact a steady stream of broken and terrified enemy soldiers were flying toward the King's rear, shifting the cloud steadily back and obscuring what little we could see of the battle.

At this point my vision failed me for the dust and lengthening shadows of the day, and I shall have to rely on what I was told after the battle by Cyrus' comrades. Even by the light of day it is impossible for those doing the fighting to see everything, and in fact in battle, as in much of life, no one really knows anything more than what is happening right around himself. When we finally arrived at the prince's initial point of impact with the enemy, there was no one there still living. The battling forces had raced away, like rabid dogs rolling over each other down a street in a frenzy, and Cyrus' initial line of six hundred cavalry had been broken up and dispersed in the confusion into small bands that were running down Persians by the dozen. The prince had personally launched himself against the king's general, lancing the officer's horse through the haunches to trip him up and make him throw his rider, and then using the lance again to impale the man through the neck as he lay helpless on the ground.

The sight of their general pinned twitching and writhing by the broken lance point broke the nerve of the few enemy forces who were still maintaining order, and they began fleeing, singly and in small groups, across the wide plain, scattering to avoid being run down by Cyrus' marauding cavalry. His strategy was working, for as he routed the king's guard, the Persian right wing stopped advancing in its encircling movement as its officers tried to discern the outcome of the battle before committing themselves further to an attack against Ariaius' and Menon's forces.

After a frantic sprint across several hundred yards of the plain, Cyrus finally spied the king and the remnants of his guard attempting to maintain order in the retreat. "There he is!" shouted the prince. "Death to anyone who strikes the king before me!" Galloping up to Artaxerxes he struck him on the chest with the blunted end of his broken lance, knocking him off his horse. Just as he struck, however, one of the king's guards, throwing his own lance to ward off the blood-mad prince, struck Cyrus in the cheekbone under the eye, knocking him unconscious and off his horse. The king's bodyguards and Cyrus' nobles began viciously hacking at each other over possession of the respective bodies of their leaders. Neither side knew even whether the king and the prince were still alive, for they lay still as stones, brothers almost touching each other with their outstretched arms. After a few seconds, the king groggily arose, and himself actually began contributing to the fighting, which was no longer a kinglike affair on splendid stallions, but rather like one fought by common soldiers, on the ground in the piss and the mud, and the king was fighting for his very life.

Artaxerxes' men finally gained the upper hand, killing eight of the soldiers defending the prince's unconscious body. One of those soldiers, Artapates, a massive, scarred Scythian who had been with the prince since his boyhood and who was Cyrus' most trusted protector, leaped off his horse and threw his enormous body over the prince, shielding him with his own, and receiving the points of twenty lances in his back which had been intended for Cyrus. Even so, the man continued to live and breathe, and when the king ran over to where Cyrus lay, he was chagrined to find the old warrior still snarling at him through his broken teeth in hot hatred, shattered lance tips sprouting from his back like bristles on a boar and blood pouring from every orifice. Kneeling, the king pleaded with Artapates to roll off the prince's body, that the king would spare him, for the old Scythian had been his own boyhood instructor as well as Cyrus'. The warrior spat at him in fury, too spent and near death to even curse him with his lips, though his fast-glazing eyes still glowered at the king in a poisonous rage. Sorrowfully, the king drew Artapates' own scimitar from his belt, and muttered a quick prayer. He then brought it down hard, in one hasty stroke removing both the massive, battered head of the fearsome old fighter, whose eyes continued to glitter fiercely from their sightless sockets, and the small, smooth, almost childlike head of Cyrus, which rolled several feet along the same downward path, settling against Artapates' grizzled jaw as if still seeking the shelter and protection of his old tutor, in death as in life, like two plaster masks tossed carelessly in the corner after the performance is complete.