Tyrant

17

‘Chargers!’ Kineas shouted, cantering down the slope he had just ascended. His trio of Cruel Hand scouts remained on the bluff, looking down on a village of six log houses, four of which were aflame. The last two were still holding out.

Kineas hadn’t needed his scouts to find the Getae. This was Srayanka’s land, eight hundred stades north and west of the Great Bend camp, and the Getae were putting it to the torch, moving slowly east, their progress marked by the funeral pyres of a hundred villages.

As soon as Kineas called, his column began changing horses. Most of the men were already wearing armour. They had been close to the enemy for two days, riding carefully to avoid detection.

Kineas pulled up with Niceas, Leucon and Nicomedes at the head of the column. He held his palm flat and spoke rapidly, a clear picture of the town, the river and the surrounding terrain clear in his mind.

‘Leucon, take your troop south around the bluff and ride like the Pegasus — get in east of the town and then cut north.’ He illustrated this with his right finger, drawing on his palm. ‘Here’s the village — here’s our bluff. My thumb marks the river. See it?’ He indicated on his hand where Leucon would go. ‘You close off their retreat. We smash into their main body. Let a handful flee away — north. Understand? Leucon, this will depend on you.’

Leucon closed his eyes. ‘I–I think so.’ He was hesitant. And he didn’t understand.

Kineas spared a moment for a new commander’s fear. He knew them all intimately — I’ll get lost, I don’t know the country, I won’t be able to find the village, I’ll be too slow.

Kineas leaned forward. ‘Ride up to the summit, dismount where the Sakje horses are, and take a quick look. Nicomedes, go with him. Quickly, and don’t let yourself be seen. Go!’

They seemed to take for ever. When he had been atop the bluff, he had seen a woman being raped in the street. Leucon’s inexperience would cost that woman her life.

Kineas sacrificed her, a woman he had never met, so that his officers would know their roles. Which might save lives.

‘Zeus, they take their time,’ he muttered.

Niceas refused to answer, knowing this mood of old, and busied himself checking the column. Kineas decided to join him. He rode along the ranks. Most of the troopers looked nervous.

‘Let your horse do the work,’ he heard Niceas saying to a group of Leucon’s young men.

‘No different from a hunt. Place your javelin and ride on,’ Kineas said to the men behind Eumenes. Even Eumenes looked pale.

Nicomedes and Leucon came down the hill at a rush. Kineas met them at the head of the column. ‘You see it?’ he asked.

Leucon was paler than Eumenes. ‘I — think so. South around the bluff here, and then along the river bank under what cover I can find, and then hard back into the town to cut their retreat and break their resistance.’

Kineas put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘You have it well enough.’ He wanted to get on with it but he took the time to say, ‘This may not work. There may be an irrigation ditch or something that blocks your movement. Perhaps the Getae have scouts down that way.’ He shrugged, despite the weight of his armour. ‘From this moment — take it as it comes to you. You’ll be fine.’

If his words had any good effect, Kineas couldn’t see it. Leucon looked almost paralysed.

‘On your way, Leucon,’ Kineas said crisply.

Leucon saluted, arm across his chest, and waved to Eumenes. The first troop moved out at the trot, and Nicomedes’ older troop watched them go, calling encouragement — sometimes, fathers encouraging sons.

‘First action,’ Kineas said. He had his own nerves.

‘They ain’t bad, for rich boys,’ Niceas said. He was picking his teeth with a tough grass stem. ‘They needed a speech — something about the gods and their city.’

‘No, they didn’t,’ Kineas said. He put his horse to the slope, and Niceas followed him with Nicomedes just behind. ‘Hold the horses,’ he said to Niceas. He and Nicomedes crawled on their bellies the last few feet to the summit. The Sakje had pulled branches from weedy bushes to cover their hide.

From the bluff, Kineas could see ten stades in every direction. The Getae had been fools not to put a sentry here, but they really were barbarians, and they thought they were at liberty to loot in an undefended land.

To the south, Leucon’s column was now in a file of twos, a blue and gold caterpillar crawling across a narrow ditch. Nonetheless, he was making good progress.

Kineas’s own tensions shot up as he realized how close his timing would have to be.

The Getae in the village street were preparing to rush the last house. Five houses had their roofs afire. The body of the woman lay naked and unmoving in the street.

There were two hundred Getae, give or take a dozen. Most were gathered thick around the town, looting the houses or preparing to take the last one. A few were straggling to the north, chasing some goats. And a dozen more to the south.

‘Fuck,’ Kineas said. He leaped to his feet and ran for his horse, Nicomedes hard on his heels.

‘They’re going to see Leucon any second. We have to go.’

Nicomedes looked at him without comprehension, but he followed, leaping on to his horse’s back like a professional. Niceas got up and raised an eyebrow.

Kineas got to the head of the column and waved to the right. ‘Column until we round the bluff. We’ll form line as soon as we’re in the fields. Right through the town — kill anyone in your path and keep the line straight even if you have to go around buildings. This won’t be like drill. And gentlemen — if all else fails, kill every Getae to come under your hand. They’re the ones with tattoos.’

No one laughed. Veterans would have laughed.

‘Walk,’ Kineas called. Niceas’s trumpet was out, but silent. Surprise was still possible.

Nicomedes said, ‘I don’t understand.’

Kineas turned on his mount. ‘Trot!’ he shouted. To Nicomedes, he said, ‘There’s Getae south of the village — they’ll spot Leucon and call their friends. The whole fight will now happen down by the river, and if we’re not quick, a lot of young men will die.’

Nicomedes shook his head. ‘You see this?’

Kineas had lived his whole life as a soldier largely unable to communicate just how clearly he could read a battlefield. ‘Yes,’ he said.

The head of the column rounded the flank of the bluff, and the village was immediately visible.

‘Form line!’ Kineas called.

Now a winter’s training told. Despite their fears, they responded crisply enough to the orders, and even the corner of a boundary hedge that blocked the last formation of the line didn’t slow them — the end files fell back and the line advanced in good order.

‘Ajax — collect the last four files and keep them as a reserve. Follow the main charge.’ Kineas waved at them, and Ajax turned out of the line at a gallop.

Kineas took a javelin in his free hand and raised it so that inexperienced troopers could see that it was time to ready themselves.

Nicomedes had his in hand. His face was set, and he looked old.

‘They still haven’t seen us,’ Kineas said. ‘That won’t last, and I want to get their minds off Leucon.’

Nicomedes shrugged. ‘You are commanding my troop,’ he said without bitterness. ‘I’m a trooper. Command me.’

Kineas felt vaguely guilty that he had seized command — but he wanted this to go well. The future morale and quality of the whole would depend on this one action. Victory would build confidence. Defeat would shatter it.

At the edge of town, a man in a red cloak rode into view, turned, and shouted.

A stade to go.

‘Shouldn’t we charge?’ Nicomedes asked, shouting to be heard.

‘Still too far,’ said Niceas. ‘It all looks closer than it is, the first few times,’ he said.

Kineas farted, and his hands began to shake. Red cloak was pointing urgently, and men were joining him. Kineas had time to wonder how a man fated to die at a different river weeks from now could be so afraid, and then he forced himself to turn his head, glanced north and south, and assured himself that he was not riding into the jaws of a trap.

‘Now!’ he said to Niceas.

Niceas’s trumpet came up, catching the sun in a blinding dazzle as he settled it to his lips and the long call began.

Nicomedes sang.

Come, Apollo, now if ever!

Let us now thy Glory see!

Now, Lord of Light, we pray thee,

Give thy servants victory!

By the third word, the troop vented their fear in song, and the Paean rose to the heavens like the smoke of the vanquished towns, and their hooves pounded the earth like a tide of vengeance flowing from the east.

Kineas leaned low over the neck of his grey stallion and dug in his heels for a final burst of speed, throwing his javelin side-armed into red cloak — his throw was high, and the point took the man in the mouth. His head seemed to cave in and Kineas was past him, whirling his heavy javelin like a scythe, seeking only to widen the hole he had made, but Niceas had killed his man and suddenly they were in the streets of the village. The handful of dismounted Getae died against the log walls, or pinned to the mud of the street, or trampled to death by a hundred hooves, and then the line burst out of the village. To the south, Nicomedes had led the right of the line around the town and they were in good order. To the north, there was chaos — a fight around a barn, and a tangle of hedge, and no officer.

‘Ajax!’ Kineas called. ‘Sort that out.’ He waved his sword at the melee at the barn. Where was his good javelin? Why was his sword out?

With half the men, he started down the slope towards the river, where he could hear sounds of fighting. ‘Line!’ he shouted. He didn’t slow down his canter, and they came on like veterans, galloping up to take their places in the line despite the many men missing. His horse was tired — almost blown, and the other horses would be worse. Too late for that. He pointed his line as best he could at where he imagined the fight to be, just past the crest of the low ridge that lined the river, waited a few strides of his stallion to let the line adjust, and raised his sword. Niceas put the trumpet to his lips, and the call rang out, and then they were over the rise — straight into the rear of the Getae, not a line but a series of knots of men facing Leucon’s outnumbered line.

Kineas had no javelin. He rode straight into one of the knots, cutting with his Egyptian blade. His horse reared, shying from a corpse, and then struck with his hooves. A blow on his back plate, and a line of fire along the top of his bridle arm — he cut back on instinct and felt the blade hit home, his eyes only seeing the target after the sword had fully severed the man’s hand above the wrist — Kineas’s horse danced again, and Kineas cut back with the whole weight of his arm and severed the man’s head, so that it rose a few inches and then fell, blood fountaining from the stump of the arm and neck and the trunk slipping from a now terrified horse. Kineas reined his stallion in a tight circle, looking for a new opponent. He saw Eumenes locked in a grapple with a Getae warrior, and even as he watched the two fell from their horses. Eumenes landed on top, and his opponent had the wind crushed out of him, and Eumenes’ fevered hands found a rock and smashed the man’s head.

A few strides away, Nicomedes killed carefully, fastidiously, like a cat, his javelin licking out into men’s faces and necks. In fact, he fought like a hoplite mounted on a horse — Kineas had never seen a javelin used that way, like a six-foot sword.

Just beyond the last knot of barbarians still fighting, Kineas found Leucon, clear of the melee, restraining a few files from the slaughter. The Getae were broken, panicked, seeking only escape, and the Olbians were not giving any quarter — they had ridden through the village to reach the fight, and they were in an angry mood. And they were fresh troops in their first action — all their fear was being vented on the beaten enemy.

‘I thought I should keep a few men back,’ Leucon shouted.

‘Well done,’ Kineas called, just as his stallion paused, and then, in a long, slow fall, collapsed and died, blood gushing from a wound in his neck.

The Getae had been surprised and disordered in each combat, and the Persian stallion was the only casualty among the Olbians. By the time the routed enemy were butchered, over a hundred Getae were dead, and the Olbians killed the seriously wounded barbarians at Niceas’s order. Few enough of the Getae had died fighting — most had been hacked down after they broke, pinned against the swollen waters of the river. More had drowned trying to swim to safety.

‘No prisoners, the way we’re moving. And no soldier worth a fuck leaves a man to die like that,’ Niceas said to a group of red-faced Olbians. They were cooling down. Now was the time to give quarter. ‘If they can walk, let them go.’ To Kineas, he said, ‘What do we do with all these corpses? Our rich boys won’t want to bury them.’

‘They seem quick enough to loot them,’ Kineas said. Even the most starry-eyed, Achilles-loving stripling among the cavalry was taking his turn cutting gold and silver rings from the fallen Getae.

‘How do you think they got to be rich boys?’ Niceas sneered.

‘Leave the dead for the crows,’ Kineas said. ‘I want to move as soon as we can. Make that Sindi farmer see sense — him and his fellows.’ Kineas turned to Ataelus, who had missed the action scouting north of the village but had managed to acquire four new horses anyway. ‘Ataelus — make him see sense. They have to come with us.’

‘Column of refugees will only slow us down,’ Niceas said.

Kineas smiled grimly. ‘I want to be slowed down,’ he said.

Ataelus shook his head. ‘Men stay to bury,’ he said.

‘Take me to him,’ Kineas said. He had to walk — his riding horse was lame and his stallion dead — the finest horse he had ever owned. To Niceas, he said, ‘Get the best horse available — get two or three.’

Niceas shook his head. ‘Sorry the grey bastard died. I’ll miss him. Like an old friend.’

‘Better a horse than a man,’ Kineas said, but he had kept that stallion alive for three years, and the grey bastard had done the same for him. He followed the Sakje to a group of Sindi men — heavily built, squat, with broad faces and red hair, most of them. They were burying children, and the woman who had been raped and killed. Kineas tried not to look at her — wondered if he could have saved her by a simple charge into the town.

Then he made himself look at her. Simple courtesy, really. She was young, and she had died an awful death. He made himself breathe in and out. Next to her was an older woman — perhaps forty — with long blond braids and a small knife still stuck in her throat. ‘Tell them I can take them — all of them — with me.’ Kineas gestured.

Ataelus spoke to the broadest man — obviously a smith. Kineas understood all that he said.

The man shook his head and pointed at the row of little bodies with his shovel, and the blonde woman. All of the Sindi men were weeping.

Ataelus turned back to Kineas. ‘Very bad thing. When house took fire, mother killed childs. Then kill her with own knife — brave. And men vow fight to death — and then we come. So wife, all children dead. Men want die.’

‘Athena protect us,’ Kineas said in horror. ‘The mother killed her own children?’

Ataelus looked at him like an alien building. ‘No Sakje — dirt people or sky people — go as slave. Mother brave. Brave brave.’ The Sakje reached in his belt pouch and took out a pinch of seeds — the same seeds that Kam Baqca burned on her brazier. He threw the seeds into the grave, and threw a small, ornate knife from his boot beside it.

‘I honour her brave.’

Kineas heart seemed to swell to fill his chest, and he thought he might choke, and his eyes burned. He turned away, walked back to where Ajax and Eumenes were telling of their exploits, watched with some amusement by Nicomedes and Niceas.

‘Thirty men to help the townspeople dig graves for their fallen. Right now.’ Kineas’s voice broke as he said it, and he turned so that his officers wouldn’t see him unmanned. He was an old hand, and he had seen quite a few dead children, but this affected him so deeply that he was shaking.

He thought of Medea, killing her children at the end of the play, and he wondered what the playwright had missed. Or known.

The Olbians, aware of some change in their hipparch, dug without a grumble. The women and children were buried in an hour. The men gathered flowers to put on the graves, and Kineas threw a brooch in, as did many of the soldiers, so that the mother’s grave was heaped with things she might have counted as treasures if she had lived.

By the time the last flower was placed on the last child’s grave, Kineas had listened to all Ataelus had to tell him of the Getae to the north and west. When his column mounted, the Sindi men had Getae horses and a good wagon of their own. The Sindi men all had bows like Sakje bows, and every man had a heavy axe, and death in their faces.

‘North and east, right across the front of the Getae advance,’ Kineas said.

Ataelus smiled grimly.

After three days, Kineas had a hundred Sindi refugees, men and women and children, and his column was slowed to the speed of a walking man. And the Getae had taken notice. Three times he’d fallen on their raiders. Three times he’d destroyed the band he’d met. Every man in the Olbian column was a killer, now — there had been hard fighting in the last town, fighting inside the houses.

And with killing, death. Young Kyros, the brilliant javelineer, was dead, a Getae knife in his neck, and Nicomedes’ business partner, Theo, lay on a cart breathing as best he could with a punctured lung, waiting to die, and Sophokles, whose contempt for the rules of war had entertained them on the first trip to the Sakje, took a sword cut to his arm and bled out before his comrades could save him. Luck, good armour, and barbarian indiscipline had kept the rest of them alive, but they were exhausted in body and in spirit, and many of them had wounds — wounds they would survive, but which sapped their strength and their will to fight.

Kineas and Niceas bore down, becoming monsters of discipline. No shortcoming was tolerated. Niceas struck two young troopers in a single morning. Kineas wondered what Srayanka would think — or what she would do.

So it was a silent, sullen column that moved through a steady drizzle on the fourth morning, the tired men riding tired beasts, man and horse alike with their heads down. Niceas and Nicomedes were both out with the scouts, because the scouts required the immediate presence of their officers to keep them alert. Kineas blessed the handful of Sakje every hour. They were doing most of the work.

Ajax and Eumenes rode with a silent Kineas. Both glanced at him from time to time, but neither spoke.

Ataelus returned from his latest scout by midday.

‘Fuck-their-mothers Getae gather behind us,’ he said. ‘Three big bands. See them when night comes, if we camp.’

Kineas cursed and wiped water off his face. ‘I don’t want to lose them and I don’t want my camp stormed in the night,’ he said. ‘How many?’

Ataelus shrugged. ‘Many many. Ten hands and ten hands and ten hands and ten hands, in each group — and more. Too many to fight.’

Kineas nodded and waved to one of the Cruel Hand scouts, who cantered up. Like Ataelus, he didn’t look tired, depressed, or unhappy, and Kineas wished he had a hundred veterans. The advantages of taking his Olbian horse for this part of his plan against the raiders was now balanced by how brittle their spirit was. They’d recover — and be better soldiers for it — but not for some days.

‘Can you find the king?’ Kineas said.

The Sakje nodded.

‘Go find him. Tell him it will be tomorrow, just after dawn. I’ll make for the big hill.’

The Sakje turned his horse. He raised his whip to his forehead. ‘You good chief,’ he said in Greek. He waved at Ataelus, gave a loud yip in the direction of the other Cruel Hands, and rode off at a gallop.

Kineas watched him go, wondering if the king would come. Kineas had begun to distrust the king. Perhaps distrust is too strong a word, he thought. But the king, despite his youth, wanted Srayanka. And when Kineas had proposed to use his own men as bait, he’d seen something pass over the young man’s face.

The rest of the day was brutal. Kineas kept the column moving by force of will, the fear he could inspire, and force. He terrified women, he ripped children from their mother’s arms to put them on wagons, he struck Srayanka’s whip at the slowest oxen.

Towards evening, they came to a stream. He’d been here before, en route to the first action. Then they’d crossed easily, but now it was swollen with a day’s rain.

‘Athena protect us,’ he said grimly. He rode back to his officers. ‘Go among your men. Select all the veterans and send them to me.’

‘You’ll weaken the files,’ Niceas said.

‘I don’t think the files will fight. I need to survive the next hour.’ Kineas was looking through the rain at the last hill, where he hoped his scouts were watching his back trail.

Niceas shook his head. ‘Don’t do it.’

A day of absolute authority had its cost. ‘Obey!’ Kineas demanded.

Leucon shook his head — sombre, but sure. ‘They’ll fight, Hipparch. You just have to say something — they’re scared. Ares’ balls, sir, I’m scared too. I–I thought we’d have a rest.’

Kineas mastered his anger and turned his attention to Niceas. ‘Speak your mind, hyperetes.’

‘Don’t pull the veterans. Give ’em a talk, we lighten up a little, show them some respect, and they’ll fight like heroes.’

Kineas rubbed his jaw, watching a cart begin to cross, pulled with ropes by men waist deep in muddy water. ‘Think that’ll work?’

‘Worked on you, once or twice,’ Niceas said. ‘Pull the veterans and they’ll think you don’t trust them.’

Kineas smiled — his first smile in a day. ‘I’ll try it,’ he said. ‘Sound: Form line.’

Despite fatigue and rain, the two troops formed line on their tired horses like soldiers. Some men did it without raising their heads.

Kineas rode out to the front of the line. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘So I’m pretty sure you’re all tired. I’ve driven you like a coach drives athletes, and you’ve come up to the mark every day. And now we’re at this Hades-damned stream, and I have to ask you for more.’

He pointed at their back trail. ‘There are two thousand Getae behind us, about an hour’s march away.’ He swung Srayanka’s whip over his head and pointed past them. ‘A day’s march that way is the king of the Sakje.’ I hope. ‘One more fight, and one more day on the trail, moving fast, and you can rest. And before you despair, gentlemen — you’ve fought three actions in three days. None of you are boys any more. Now you know what the animal looks like. Any man worthy of his father can stand in a big field on a sunny day and hold his piece of ground for an hour. But to be a real soldier, you have to find it in yourself to do it day after day, in the rain, in the desert, when you are tired and sore and when your dinner runs down your legs or when you have no food to eat at all.’ He pulled his helmet off and rode closer to the line. ‘We can get across this stream and back to the king — if you have the spirit to do it.’

Ajax raised his sword. ‘Apollo!’ he shouted.

The answering shout was not deafening — but neither was it hopeless. The troops gave three Apollos.

Kineas summoned his officers. ‘Have the men dismount and stand by their horses. Send the most junior files of each troop to help move the wagons. Let’s do this thing!’ He spoke in a different tone than he’d used all day — like an officer commanding veterans. He turned to Niceas. ‘You were right,’ he said.

Niceas shrugged. ‘It happens,’ he said. He watched young Clio leading two younger men in pushing at a wagon wheel, up to their waists in freezing water. ‘They don’t look so much like rich boys now.’

Twenty minutes later the last wagon was across and Ataelus returned at a gallop to report that the lead Getae band was in sight. Kineas looked at the sky — more rain — and the crossing. To Niceas, he said, ‘I think we’re going to do this.’

Niceas huddled in his cloak. ‘Did you doubt it, Hipparch?’

Kineas shook his head. ‘I did.’ He waved to Leucon. ‘Get your men across. Nicomedes, mount and cover them. The Getae are coming.’ Something tugged at his right foot, and he saw the blacksmith. ‘What?’ he said in Sakje.

The blacksmith pointed at the stand of small trees by the swollen river. ‘Die here,’ he said, pointing at himself. ‘You cross.’

Kineas wiped the water off his face. ‘No. No one will die here. Too much rain. Get across.’

The man planted his feet. ‘Die here.’

Kineas shook his head. He called for Ataelus. ‘Tell him it’s raining,’ he said. ‘Tell him that his bowstrings are wet, and he’ll be lucky to kill one Getae — and that it’ll be for nothing, because the Getae won’t want to push across against us. Not enough light left.’

Ataelus translated, speaking rapidly, using his hands more than he was wont, speaking, Kineas thought, with great emotion. Ataelus thought highly of the blacksmith.

The blacksmith finally nodded. He put his axe over his shoulder and walked to the ford, his friends falling in around him, and they followed Leucon’s men through the rising water.

Kineas rode up to Nicomedes. The Getae were still well distant, and the ford was clear. ‘Better cross,’ he said.

Nicomedes gave a tired smile. ‘You won’t have to tell me twice.’

The two Cruel Hand scouts were coming in, one galloping far to the north, the other far to the south. Both turned periodically and shot from the saddle, and Ataelus gave a yip and rode out to the front.

Nicomedes shook his head. ‘Does that change our plans?’

‘No,’ Kineas said. ‘Get across.’

He sat in the rain, watching the Sakje — just three of them — harrying the advancing Getae, who had few bows and none that would fire in the rain. One by one, the Sakje bowstrings became wet through, despite the best efforts of the Sakje warriors to keep them dry, but they each hit two or three men, slowing all the Getae for a few more minutes as the precious grey light slipped away to night. All three rode to the ford untouched. The Getae were just two stades away, clear despite the heavier rain and gathering gloom.

The four of them pushed into the heavy water. After ten steps, Kineas put his arms around his horse’s neck and allowed himself to float free from his saddle cloth, and then his horse — an ugly Getae beast, but strong as an ox — pushed up the far bank of earth, showering both of them in mud in the process of shaking like a dog.

The Sindi men were cutting poles — stakes, it turned out, and as Kineas wrung the water from his cloak and tried to get warm, he watched them pound the stakes into the soft earth at the side of the stream so that the ford was blocked with man-high spikes pointed at horse-chest height.

Kineas rode up to the officers. ‘The Getae are mad — they may try it anyway. If not, they’ll come an hour after the rain stops. We’ll hold them here. We won’t get better ground.’ To the blacksmith, he said, ‘Tell the people in the wagons that we move before dawn. We will abandon the wagons — every man and woman is to ride on the spare horses. No unloading, and leave the fires lit when we go.’ He looked at Ataelus. ‘Will the Getae fight at night?’

Ataelus shrugged with a sneer, as if the petty superstitions of the Getae were beneath his consideration.

Kineas looked around. ‘I want our scouts up and down stream ten stades, looking for another ford — if they find one, we leave. Half a troop on duty every watch — two hours a trick. Get a hot meal in them and then we’ll sleep in the open.’

‘In the mud?’ asked Eumenes.

‘That’s right. If you aren’t tired enough to sleep in the mud, you aren’t really tired. Leucon’s boys know how to huddle up. Tell them to teach their fathers. Right — we move before dawn. Any questions?’

There were none. Nicomedes was almost asleep in his saddle.

The slaves and the Sindi cooked faster and better than the Olbians, and they had hot food — mostly a thin soup of roots and some meat, but as good as ambrosia after their day — and heavy bread nine days old. Kineas ate his and handed his bowl to Niceas to use. ‘Wake me if the rain stops,’ he said. He lay down with Eumenes and Leucon, and the soggy ground met him with an icy embrace. It was horrible, and then it was merely uncomfortable, and then he was asleep.

He woke from a dream of being trapped in a cave full of water to find Leucon’s cloak over his head, and he was blind. He threw it off, reaching for his sword, and Niceas, silhouetted by a fire that burned as high as a man, jumped back.

‘Rain stopped. Sky is clearing,’ he said. He was munching something, and he pointed. ‘Stars,’ he said through the bread in his mouth.

Kineas ached, and he shivered, his whole body moving as if he was going to vomit. His fingers were swollen and their joints burned. The wound he had taken on his left bicep in the first fight was hot and tender. He didn’t know where he was for a few heartbeats, and then he did.

‘Get everybody up,’ he said. ‘What’re the Getae doing?’

‘Huddling around their fires,’ Niceas said. ‘There’s quite a pack of them — fires all the way back to the hills.’

Kineas’s brain began to function. He squelched over to the fire and its warmth began to soak into his joints. ‘Get everyone in the saddle.’

A Sindi woman pushed something hot into his hand — a clay cup full of tea. It tasted bitter, but it was warm. He drained it, burning his tongue. The cut on his arm ached.

‘Mount all the Sindi on the spare horses and leave the wagons,’ Kineas said.

‘Heard you last night.’ Niceas said. ‘Done. Had to use a stick on the refugees — they don’t want to leave their little bits of things behind.’ He gave a hard grin. ‘I took care of it.’

‘Athena’s shield, Hipparch — we could have done that two days ago and left the Getae in our dust!’ Eumenes spoke from the other side of the fire.

‘We could have,’ Kineas said. ‘But that’s not what I ordered. Now I have.’

Eumenes held his hands up like a boxer defending himself. ‘I spoke hastily.’

Kineas ignored him, turning to Nicomedes. ‘You are the rear guard. Try to keep the stragglers moving, but if you must, abandon them and push on. Don’t be trapped into a fight — once we stop, the whole pack will be on us. Understand?’

Nicomedes drank some of the woman’s tea and nodded. He had circles under his eyes, and he looked sixty years old. Ajax stood behind him, as beautiful as ever. ‘If we aren’t to fight, why are we the rear guard?’ he asked.

Kineas shook his head. ‘Don’t be a fool — If I have to, I’ll sacrifice you to get the rest away. But not without an order from me. If you see me form Leucon’s troop in line, come and fall into your accustomed place.’

‘For a last stand?’ Ajax asked.

‘For whatever I order,’ Kineas said. He took a deep breath and drained the tea left in his cup, bowed to the woman and handed her back her cup, and then turned back to grin at his men. ‘Trust me,’ he said.

Again, he wondered if he could trust the king.

The Getae were as slow to rise as any barbarians, and they were two hours behind at mid-morning. Helios’s winged chariot was climbing in the sky, and the Sakje rode with their bowstrings across their knees to dry the sinew in the sun.

An hour later, the men had passed from cold to heat, and the ground was already dry, rolling out to the horizon in waves of grass. A few stades to the east, a single tall ridge rose above the plain. Kineas had scouted it on the trip out, just ten days ago.

Behind them the Getae were less than three stades away, and their flank companies were beginning to press forward, extending to the right and left in the high grass, calling to each other as they came. They were beginning to encircle him, like good hunters. They were pressing on quickly, assured of their prey and embarrassed by so much defeat in the last few days.

Kineas rode to the head of the column. ‘Straight up the ridge,’ he said. ‘At the gallop!’

The column was losing cohesion, the weary men showing a tendency to lose control of their horses, but the gallop galvanized them again. The Sindi in the centre of the column were mostly accomplished riders, but not all. Kineas rode back down when he saw them slow. He and Ajax took children and mothers on their own jaded horses, and the Sindi men took others, and the little band of Sindi pressed on. Kineas saw the base of the hill rising between his horse’s ugly ears, and prayed to Zeus. He looked back. The Getae were two stades back, forming a line, and their flanking bands were a stade distant to the right and left, but already level, pacing them. The Getae were calling back and forth, their war cries loud and shrill.

Kineas’s tired horse grunted as he started up the ridge. The child in his arms was a girl, perhaps three years old, with blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She looked at him curiously.

‘Horse is tired,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Are you tired?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

Leucon’s company was at the crest, forming a line as they arrived. They weren’t neat, but they were still under control, and he was proud of them.

‘Alyet. I’m three years old.’ The little girl held up three fingers, spread broadly. ‘Are we going to die?’ she asked with all the lack of understanding of the young. ‘My mother said we might die.’

‘No,’ Kineas said. He was three quarters of the way up the slope, and his animal was making heavy work of it. He let her take the slope at an angle and she responded well. Leucon’s men were formed, and Nicomedes’ men were passing the refugees, just as he had ordered, scrambling up the face of the ridge to form alongside Leucon’s company.

The Getae didn’t pause. They were coming on; so close that Kineas could see the plaques they wore as decoration on their harness and the designs on their cloaks. The companies to the right and left were angling in, eager to be in at the kill, hill or no hill.

Kineas made it to the crest. He rode to the huddle of Sindi and swung the girl into her mother’s arms. Mindful of the horror in the village, afraid that on the edge of victory they would despair, he patted the little girl’s head and raised a hand for attention.

‘Now we win,’ he said loudly, in Sakje.

A hundred doubting faces looked back at him.

He smiled, all the cares of the last few days lifted by what he could see from the top of the ridge. ‘Watch,’ he said, and rode away to the centre of his line.

The Getae were at the base of the slope, calling and shouting. The bolder spirits had pushed their horses up the first part of the slope.

Far out on the sea of green, beyond the farthest horns of the Getae advance, the grass moved as if pushed by a wind, and lines of Sakje rolled their horses erect — lines that stretched for a stade each, hundreds of riders rising from the grass like warriors grown from dragon’s teeth.

And from behind the ridge came the king and his nobles, riding easily on unwearied horses up the back of the ridge to form a compact line of armoured men to Kineas’s left. And another company appeared on the right — more and more riders. The Olbians and the Sindi gave a cheer, and the Sakje crossed the crest to fall like the bolts of Zeus on the Getae.

The king had come. The king had come. Kineas felt the weight fall from his shoulders, and then the slaughter began.

The Olbians played no role in the fight. They watched the revenge of the Sakje with the weary joy of men who know that they have accomplished much and can now rest. Before the last Getae fell, where a knot of nobles gathered around their leader and died in a heap, Kineas led his column the last few stades to the king’s camp, a great circle of wagons enclosing thousands of horses by yet another river, guarded by yet more Sakje deemed unnecessary for the massacre.

The Olbians were greeted as heroes. Kineas found that despite his weariness, he couldn’t listen to too much praise. He rode from group to group, watching their faces, amused that his men, exhausted moments before, suddenly had the energy to drink wine and boast. There was food, and fire, and soon they were joined by the first Sakje returning from the rout of the Getae. Many had heads tied to their saddlecloths. Later, Kineas saw a man scraping carefully at a whole tattooed skin. Others had loot — a little gold, a great deal of silver, and horses.

Ataelus returned just before dark, riding in with Srayanka’s Cruel Hands. She was covered in blood, but before Kineas’s fears could rise in his chest, she waved. He returned her wave, a broad smile across his face, and saw that his own skin was filthy, mud and blood and sweat fighting for possession of his wrists and hands. He hadn’t bathed or strigilled in a week.

Ataelus rode up proudly, sitting on his tired pony like a king. ‘I take ten horses!’ he said. ‘You great chief. All warriors say so.’ He glanced at Srayanka, issuing orders to her inner circle. ‘Lady say you hero. Say you airyanam.’

Kineas grinned again.

While Ataelus praised him, the king rode into the laager. His armour was gold, and it was blinding in the setting sun. He looked right and left, and finding Kineas, he rode up to him — a mass of gold from head to toe.

‘It worked,’ he said. He struggled with the chinstrap on his Corinthian helmet, got it, and lifted the whole gilt thing off his head. His hair was matted flat, and he had a trickle of blood running out of one nostril. ‘By the gods, Kineas! The Getae will feel this for ten generations!’

‘We were lucky,’ Kineas said. ‘I thought of all the things that could have gone wrong while we rode. A foolish plan, and far too ambitious.’ He smiled wearily. ‘And I seem to remember that you were to have no part in this fight. I seem to remember Kam Baqca extracting a promise.’ You came! he wanted to say.

‘I said I would not place myself in any danger,’ the king grinned. ‘Nor did I. They were broken before we rode down the hill.’

He dismounted and opened his arms in embrace, and Kineas hugged him, armoured chest to armoured chest. ‘Oh, we pounded them!’ the king boasted. ‘The Cruel Hands lay so still that their scouts practically rode over their lines without seeing them. I must have killed six.’ The boy ended the embrace. ‘I feel foul. Tired. This is my first big fight — my first victory as king — and you gave it to me. I won’t forget.’ Satrax was stripping armour while he babbled. He was still fighting the laces on his scale vambrace. ‘Marthax says I should stay out of the fight — but if I didn’t fight, I would cease to be king. We are Sakje, not Greeks.’ He grinned, the same relief from tension on his face that could be seen on every other leader. ‘Sometimes I think that Marthax wants to keep all the glory for himself. Or that he wants to be king in my place.’ He seized a proffered cup of wine and drained it.

Kineas stepped up close and started on the other lace. Other men and women did the same, so that the king’s disarming was itself a celebration. They babbled to each other, exalted by victory and survival.

When his scale breastplate was dragged over his head, the king stepped out of it and then embraced Kineas again. ‘Smile,’ he said. ‘Laugh. We are alive. And now I believe we will defeat Zopryon. I believe we could defeat Alexander!’

The young king pounded his shoulders, and he smiled at them, suddenly wanting to be free of their embraces and their praise, feeling dirty. He slipped away gradually, telling himself that he was as eager to be free of his armour as the king had been free of his. Kineas went to a fire that the Olbians had appropriated and was greeted with a roar. Ajax helped him out of his breastplate, and Kineas felt lighter, if not younger.

Nicomedes came and placed an arm around Ajax’s broad shoulders. The age had fallen away from his face, and he was a gentleman of forty again. ‘We honour you, Hipparch,’ he said. ‘It is one thing to hear of your exploits, and another thing to see.’

Kineas looked at his legs, streaked with mud, and his arms, with blood and ordure mixed. All the rain had done was to streak it, and where he had lain in the mud, his tunic was soaked through and his side was itchy and his left arm was swollen. ‘If you are quoting someone, I don’t know it,’ Kineas said.

Nicomedes said, ‘I am a rich man, and I have been privileged to see many great craftsmen and artists at work. It is always the same — when you watch them work, you see the focus of their genius, and you know you have the real thing.’

Ajax laughed. ‘I doubt Kineas wants to be in your collection, my friend.’

Kineas half grinned. ‘Thanks — I think.’ He pulled off his tunic. ‘Can you get a slave to find my kit? I need to wear something else. In the meantime, I’m going to the river to bathe.’

Nicomedes made a show of sniffing his battered cloak. ‘A splendid idea.’

Ajax produced a strigil as Niceas joined them with another. ‘I have oil,’ Niceas said.

Ajax cheered him as if he’d won a race. As they walked, a few other men joined them — Leucon and Eumenes, and several of their young men. They walked the stade to the river on sore legs, and Kineas was happy, as happy as a man who can foretell his own death can be. He had lost four men in a hard campaign. He regretted them — but he knew he, and they, had done well, and he knew that for a few hours he didn’t have to worry about anything but the aches in his muscles and the fever in his wound. Death seemed very far away.

He listened to the younger men chatter, and he walked a little ahead of them, naked, with his filthy tunic over his shoulder. He heard the pounding of hooves and he turned.

Srayanka was behind him, with a few of her officers, all naked, covered as they all were in mud and filth, the horses as well as the riders. She saw him and he saw her, and she rode past him, her eyes flicking over his body even as he looked at hers. Then she was past, kicking her horse to a gallop, turning back to wave. She raced on, as beautiful as anything Kineas had ever seen despite the grime and the blood, her unbound black hair flying out behind her, her back straight as she gathered her horse for a jump and then leaped from the bank straight into the river with a splash like a leaping whale. All the rest of her warriors followed her.

The Olbians pointed and shouted and cheered. ‘Like Artemis and her nymphs,’ Nicomedes said. He appeared shocked. He took a breath. ‘Who expected such beauty on a day like this? I wish I had a painter — a sculptor — anyone to make that for me.’

‘I’ll settle for a bath,’ Niceas said.

‘Let’s run,’ said Kineas. And the Olbians began to run. They ran like Olympians, squandering their last reserves in the setting sun. And as they came to the bank they made the leap into the cold water, and they shouted as they fell.

Kineas swam across the broadest pool. The water was deep but full of silt from the rain, or stirred up by the horses. He didn’t care — it felt wonderful against his skin despite the cold. He swam with his tunic in his teeth, looking for her in the slowly falling dark.

He found her in the shallows under a tall tree. She was scrubbing her warhorse clean, scooping sand with her hands from the river bank and scrubbing at her horse’s legs where the big beast appeared to have waded in blood.

She smiled at him. ‘He bites,’ she said in Greek. ‘Not too close.’

Kineas stayed in the deep water. He was a practical man, and he was happy just to be with her, admiring her body — he began to wash his tunic as best he could. After a while, he passed behind her and went to the bank, where he collected a handful of her sand and began to grind away at the dried crud on his arms.

Down the pool, he could hear shrieks and shouts from the other Olbians. From the voices, it appeared that more and more were coming to bathe — more Olbians and more Sakje.

‘You airyanam,’ she said, looking over her shoulder. She pushed a tail of black hair back over her naked shoulder. She glanced downstream, and back at him.

He stepped up to her and she entered his arms as though they had rehearsed the embrace a thousand times, and her mouth came under his as easily as the clasping of two hands.

They wrapped themselves into each other…

For a few seconds, until Ataelus called, ‘Here they are!’ and they were surrounded, Cruel Hands and Olbians, laughing, jeering, with more than a few obscene suggestions.

Kineas slipped into deeper water to hide the truth of their assertions, still holding her hand, and she swam after him leaving her horse. And they swam together with their people until they were clean. They dried naked in the warm evening air, on the grass, and Agis the Megaran and Ajax both sang from the Iliad while the Greek men used olive oil and strigils on their skin, to the delight and amusement of all the Sakje. Then Marthax sang with Srayanka, turn and turn again, an endless ballad of love and revenge. Kineas found that the king had joined them, and he sat with the king while men fetched dry tunics and food, and then Srayanka finished singing and sat with her back against his as if they were old war companions. Her people had brought her clothes, and she was dressed, and she had given him a tunic of pale skin covered in embroidery like her own. It was barbaric. He put it on anyway.

The king sat stiffly with them, and then turned away, clearly angered, when Kineas donned the tunic. Later, when she kissed Kineas, an absent and affectionate peck as she reached past him for wine, the king rose to his feet. He spoke to her in rapid, angry Sakje.

She tossed her drying hair, flicked her eyes at Kineas and then nodded to the king. ‘My mind knows,’ she said clearly. ‘And my mind rules my body.’

The king turned and strode off into the dark.

Srayanka’s back remained warm against his, her iron and deerskin hand supple in his, and he was, again, as happy as a man could be who had only a few weeks to live.

In the morning, the army lay in a stupor of exhaustion and wine-sickness. A handful of Getae could have wrecked them. Kineas had never seen an army behave differently after a victory, but wondered if there might be a value in keeping a guard.

The swelling in his arm was less, and the heat from it almost gone, as if the river spirit had drawn away the poison. He was one of the first up, and having drunk some Sindi tea, he donned the leather tunic that Srayanka had given him. Despite its outre appearance, it was clean. His military tunic was damp, and despite his desultory washing while he watched Srayanka, it was still filthy, and the rest of his kit had vanished in the retreat — probably left at the last camp.

The king rode up to where Kineas was eyeing the Olbian’s string of captured Getae mounts, working to select a decent riding horse. To his eye, they were all too small.

‘I think it is time we spoke as men,’ the king said, with an obvious attempt at dignity. ‘You have given me a great victory. I would not be ungenerous.’

Kineas sighed and looked up at the king. ‘I am at your service, Lord.’ He looked at the ground, unused to discussing such matters. Then he looked back. ‘Are we speaking of Srayanka?’

The king wouldn’t meet his eye. ‘After Zopryon is defeated — would you marry her?’

Kineas shrugged. ‘Of course,’ he said, because he had to say something. Of course, if I were alive.

The king leaned down. ‘Perhaps the prospect is not as enticing — she is no Greek woman, and she is fierce. But she will not settle to be your leman — she is the chief of the Cruel Hands, too great a personage to be a trull. Perhaps you cannot wed her — perhaps you are already married, or promised?’

The king had mistaken his tone entirely. ‘I would be proud to be wed to the lady,’ Kineas said, and found that he meant it.

The king straightened in his saddle. ‘Really?’ He sounded surprised. ‘She would never live in a city. It would kill her.’ Now he met Kineas’s eye. ‘I have lived in a Greek city. I know the lady. She lives as a free spear maiden, and your city would kill her.’

Fantasizing aloud, Kineas said, ‘Perhaps I could buy a farm north of Olbia — she could visit.’ He laughed even as he spoke.

The king shook his head. ‘I like you, Kineas. I liked you from the first. But you come like the doom of my happiness. You brought this war, and now you will take my cousin. I will try to speak as a man, and not an outraged youth. I wish her for myself — but she will have only you. Now I must endure not just the loss of her — a woman I have desired since I was old enough to feel a man’s desire — but to know that my best warriors speak of you as airyanam. If you wed her, you will be a potent ally — or a deadly rival. And I ask myself — is this what you desire? Will you leave your men to ride the plains? Or bring them, like a new clan?’

Kineas rubbed at his beard and felt old. ‘Lord, I will serve you. Indeed, I had not thought on any of these matters. I can see that they prey on you. But…’ Kineas struggled for words. ‘It is the lady herself that I value.’

‘How will you live?’ the king asked. ‘Can you leave Niceas, or Diodorus, to be the consort of a barbarian girl?’ He looked away over the grass. ‘Or would she leave the Cruel Hands to grind flour and weave with Greek women? I think perhaps she would — until she hated you, or went mad.’

Kineas nodded, because he had thought these thoughts, and because the sentence of death hanging over him had saved him from having to decide. Except he felt — knew, in his heart — that they would have found a way.

Or would he have ended as Jason, and she as Medea?

But what could he say? Lord, I’ll be dead, so it doesn’t matter? ‘I think we would — will find a way,’ he said carefully.

The king was still watching the grass. He drew himself taller. ‘I will try not to stand between you,’ he said. The sentence cost him. And then he added, ‘Kam Baqca says I must do this thing.’

Kineas wondered what it was like to have so much power at eighteen years. ‘It is a noble thing to do, whether Kam Baqca recommended it or not.’

Satrax shrugged. Then he straightened and sought again for dignity. ‘I hear you lost your warhorse,’ he said. ‘You lost that grey — which gives me a beautiful opportunity to show you how highly I value you.’ He extended a hand, inviting Kineas to mount behind him.

Kineas mounted with the king. ‘People will laugh,’ he said.

‘Unlikely,’ the king answered. He kicked his horse into a trot and then a canter.

They were riding through the royal herd, or rather the abbreviated version that the king had brought on the pursuit of the Getae. Kineas knew the brands.

The king spoke suddenly, ‘My other lords think you are the perfect choice — she will have a husband, and the Cruel Hands will have heirs, and you, of course, are already a war leader of repute.’ The horse continued for a few strides. ‘I am told I should pick a girl my own age, with better hips for childbearing — a Sauromatae princess is recommended.’ Kineas was pressed against the king’s back, and Satrax was stiff — angry. Angry that he had to bow to the wishes of his lords. Then he relaxed and pointed. ‘There!’ he said.

The stallion was not so much grey as silver, a dark silver the colour of polished iron, or steel. He had a heavy black line down his back — a marking Kineas had only seen among the heavy Sakje breed — and a pale mane and tale. He was tall, and self-possessed. In fact, he was twin to the king’s war mount.

‘He won’t be as well trained as your Persian,’ the king said — like all men giving a great gift, he had to decry its faults. ‘But he’s well broken to harness — my next warhorse. Yours, now. And a couple of riding horses — Marthax has them for you, but I wanted to talk.’

Kineas walked around the stallion, admiring his haunches. He had a short head, without the purity of line the Persian had, but he was big and the colour was either ugly or magnificent. It was certainly rare. ‘Thank you, Lord. This is a kingly gift.’

The king grinned, embarrassed and looking very young indeed. ‘He is, isn’t he?’ Satrax smiled, showing his essential good humour. ‘There’s the advantage of owning ten thousand horses,’ he said after a moment.

‘I am sorry,’ Kineas said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

The king grimaced. ‘Kings have to think hard thoughts. If you are her husband, you will be a man of great power among my people. A baqca who was also a man with a wife who commanded a clan. A great soldier with Greek allies. You may be my rival.’ He looked at the horse. ‘As Marthax is.’ He stared over the plain. ‘Or is this just my jealousy speaking?’

‘You are blunt,’ Kineas said. ‘You think like a king.’

‘I have to.’ The king gestured at the horse. ‘Give him a try,’ he said.

Kineas caught the mane of the stallion in one hand and vaulted on to the beast’s tall back. He almost missed his seat — this monster was a hand taller than the Persian — and he was thankful that the animal waited patiently while his feet scrambled.

Satrax restrained his laughter with difficulty, pleased to see the Greek discomfited by the horse. Kineas made a clucking sound, and the big animal flowed into a curve. ‘What a gait!’ Kineas crowed. The beast’s easy flow of hooves was strangely familiar. He tried his knees alone, his hands free, and brought the stallion alongside the king’s mount easily. The two horses sniffed at each other like stable mates — which they probably were. They were the same colour.

‘Same dam?’ he said.

Satrax grinned. ‘Same dam and sire,’ he said. ‘Brothers.’

Kineas inclined his head. ‘I am honoured.’ He patted the horse’s shoulder, thinking of his conversation with Philokles. ‘I swear to you that no action of mine will harm your kingship. Nor will I wed Srayanka, or ask for her, without your permission.’ He slapped the horse. ‘This is a wonderful gift,’ he repeated.

‘Good,’ said the king. He nodded, obviously relieved and just as obviously still troubled. And jealous. ‘Good. Let’s get the army moving.’

It was later in the day when Kineas, who was becoming more enamoured of his new horse by the hour, realized why his gait seemed so familiar.

The silver horse was the stallion from the dream of his death.