Tyrant

20

With dawn came thunder that shook the earth, rivalling the hoof beats of the returning Sakje. Fog covered the sun and swathed the riverbanks for a stade, so that a man could only see the length of his spear, and every returning Sakje warrior was a cause for alarm. Ten horses sounded like a hundred — a hundred sounded like ten thousand. By the time the fog burned off, the nerves of the Greek contingent were stretched taut — but they had become accomplished at passing the returning clans across the ford.

The king came with the sun. He was on a plain riding horse, a short chestnut, and he wore no armour and rode alone. He pulled up next to Kineas and sat silently as Memnon and his officers marched the two phalanxes back and forth on the flat ground just short of the ford.

‘I hope you approve,’ Kineas said.

‘Do you really think Zopryon will try to surprise the ford?’ Satrax asked.

Kineas scratched his jaw with the butt of his whip. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But we’d look like fools if he did and we weren’t ready.’

Marthax rode up on the king’s far side. He was on a warhorse, with his gorytos belted on and a short sword, although he wore no armour. He pointed across the river. ‘Rain today. More rain tomorrow,’ he said.

All three of them knew that rain could only benefit Zopryon.

Hour by hour, the clouds blew in from the east, and the sky darkened. Hour by hour, the Sakje came in from the west, some triumphant, some beaten. There were empty saddles, and bodies sprawled over the backs of horses; a bare-chested woman reared her horse at the edge of the ford to show the heads she had taken, and a troop of Sauromatae, eyes red-rimmed from fatigue, halted in front of the king to show him their trophies — hair, a helmet, several swords.

The king rode among them, congratulating the victorious, speaking softly to the wounded, teasing a reluctant clan leader and praising another for brave deeds.

Kineas dismounted to drink water and stretch his legs, and then remounted. In mid-afternoon, the thunder heads finally came to them, and the long line of darkness that seemed like the herald of the Macedonians moved into the river valley, and the rain began.

A few messengers had ridden up every hour since mid-morning, their hoof beats the only sign that time was moving, but as the rain came faster and harder, the number of messengers increased. The king had moved down the hill to the ford. As Kineas watched, the king’s household knights joined him. He dismounted and two men began to help him into his armour.

Kineas rode down the hill with his own staff. He knew Ataelus as soon as the man rode out of the wall of rain to the west. Ataelus had been with Srayanka. Kineas found his heart beating faster.

Kineas pushed his horse through the king’s household. They were grim-faced. Ataelus greeted him with a weary smile. ‘Too tired for fighting,’ he said. ‘Too much damn fighting.’

The king had just settled his scale hauberk on his shoulders. ‘Srayanka is covering the last group. She’s pressed hard.’

Ataelus put a hand on Kineas’s arm. ‘Big fight — Cruel Hands and Standing Horses and some Patient Wolves. We trick them — they trick us — we trick them. Fight like…’ He swept his hand like a man stirring a pot, round and round. ‘We shoot until for no arrows. Bronze Hats fight until horses fail. Then draw off, and the Lady Srayanka lets for go. Let Patient Wolves ride. Then let Hungry Wolves ride.’ He pointed out into the rain. ‘Just there. They come. And Cruel Hands come after.’

Kineas stared into the gloom. ‘I have two troops across the stream — a hundred heavy horse. Let me fetch her in.’

Marthax nodded vehemently. ‘Good. Take Greek horse and Sauromatae, here. Go!’ With one hand he physically restrained the king. ‘You sit here and wait,’ he said. To Kineas, he called, ‘Remember, brother! This is not the battle we want!’

The king had his armour on. He spoke in rapid Sakje, his voice imperative. He was telling Marthax that he intended to ride to support Srayanka himself, with his household knights.

Kineas turned his horse back. ‘Lord, you must not!’ he said. Self-interest and the needs of the allies marched together, and he spoke with confidence. ‘This is not a risk we can take!’

The king drew himself up, his mouth was hard under the sides of his helmet. ‘Do I command here?’ he asked.

Marthax grabbed his bridle. ‘No!’ he said. And to Kineas, he shouted. ‘Ride!’

Kineas didn’t hesitate. He turned his horse and rode for the ford. He had Niceas at his heels. ‘Sound the rally,’ he said. To Sitalkes, he called, ‘My charger!’

The trumpet rang out, echoing strangely in the moist air. Kineas waved to Leucon, who could still see him. Sitalkes came with Thanatos. Kineas mounted his tall black and pushed him into the ford. The ford seemed vast in the rain. Kineas felt too slow — as if his men were riding in honey, not water.

‘Are you calling us back?’ called Nicomedes, from the far shore.

Kineas clenched his knees and rose on the horse’s back. ‘No! Form on your bank! Leave room for Leucon!’

Disembodied, Nicomedes called assent. He could be heard wheeling his men into line. Other voices could be heard to the south. The rain came down harder, trickling cold between the shoulder blades and back plate of bronze, running over the helmet to soak into a man’s hair.

Thanatos’s hooves were on gravel, and then on grass, and he was clear of the ford. He put his horse to a canter and aimed at Nicomedes’ voice. Niceas was right with him, still blowing the rally. It was hard to look straight into the rain, but Kineas finally saw Nicomedes — his cloak was unmistakable. His men were already formed in a solid block. Half a stade to the south, Diodorus was rallying his pickets and forming. Kineas reined in and pointed to Niceas. ‘Leucon right there,’ he said, pointing to the north of Nicomedes’ troop. Leucon’s men, and the troop from Pantecapaeum, were coming across the ford in good order. Beyond them, the heavily armoured Sauromatae were crossing. Just the way they moved showed that their mounts were tired.

Ataelus rode up. Kineas leaned over and put a hand on his back. ‘I need to know exactly where Srayanka is,’ he said. ‘Can you link us up?’

Ataelus grinned. He blew his nose in his hand, jumped off his horse, and swung up on a remount he had on a lead. ‘Sure,’ he said. He waved and rode off into the rain.

Kineas rode to Leucon. ‘I need Eumenes,’ he said. Leucon nodded. Kineas continued. ‘Hold the line. Don’t lose your place. If we have to charge, halt the moment you hear the signal and retire in good order. If everything goes to shit, get back across the ford. We do not want a battle tonight. Understand?’

Leucon saluted. ‘Line. Retire in order. Avoid a general engagement.’

Kineas returned the salute. ‘You’ll make a general yet.’ He turned to Eumenes. ‘Leave your troop and go to the Sauromatae. Stay with them and pass my commands. For the moment, they are my reserve. Try to explain reserve to them without twisting their reins.’

Eumenes nodded and rode away, shoulders slumped. Leucon had not yet said anything about his father’s murder — but neither had he spoken a word to his hyperetes in three days, except to give an order.

Kineas rode back to Niceas. The line was formed — three dense blocks of men, with a looser line of Sauromatae in the rear.

‘Sound: Advance,’ Kineas said to Niceas.

The whole block began to walk forward. In twenty steps, the ford was gone behind them. In forty steps, they began to lose sight of the hills beyond the ford.

A band of Sakje appeared out of the rain, riding hard. Their first appearance gave alarm, but just as quickly they were identified — Patient Wolves. They showed their empty gorytos as they rode by, and indicated by gestures that the enemy was close.

Lightning flashed. In the time it took to illuminate the faces of his men, Kineas realized that this might be it. The fight. His death.

Silly thought — equally true for every man there.

Kineas rode along the front, too busy to dwell on mortality. He ordered all three troops to put their flank files out to prevent surprise. They passed another band of Patient Wolves, and then the first Cruel Hands — easily identified because every horse had the painted hand on its rump. Then, more and more — hundreds of them pouring by. Not routed — but drained. Done.

Ataelus rode up to him. ‘She just ahead now,’ he said. ‘Bronze Hats not so close. Careful since heard for trumpets.’ He pointed at Niceas for emphasis.

The rain was coming right into their faces. ‘Halt!’ Kineas called. Niceas played it.

They sat on their horses as the rain fell, drowning out the noise of the plain, and even whatever sound of fighting there might have been. Kineas couldn’t hear anything but the beat of the rain on his helmet. He pulled the thing off, tucked it under his arm. He turned to Niceas, intending to speak, and Niceas pointed silently over Kineas’s shoulder.

She was right in front of him, just a few horse lengths’ away. She was riding looking over her shoulder. Kineas tapped his stallion into motion and cantered up to her. The hoof beats warned her, and she turned in time to see him, and she gave him a tired smile. It was the first smile he’d had from her in a long time, even if it was only the smile of one commander to another.

‘Almost, they are beating me,’ she said. She was feeling in her gorytos for an arrow, and not finding any.

‘Take your people straight through,’ Kineas said — useless admonition. She had only a dozen of her household about her.

He put his hand to her face and withdrew it — it had gone there without his conscious volition. ‘Straight through my line — I’ll cover you,’ he said, as much to re-establish their military roles as to inform her.

‘Cruel Hands cover the rear. Always.’ Her eyebrows were up, and her eyes still had a spark in them. Then she rolled her shoulders. ‘Bowstrings wet. No more arrows. Long day.’

Kineas saw more and more Cruel Hands emerging from the murk. It wasn’t just the rain — afternoon was turning to evening.

Srayanka raised a bone to her lips, and blew on it, and her trumpeter rode up. Hirene had a length of linen around her arm and blood on her saddle, but her face had fewer lines than Srayanka’s. She raised her trumpet and blew a two-tone note with a trill — a barbaric sound that rang harshly through the rain and was soaked up by the grass, and suddenly the rain was spitting Cruel Hands, pushing their jaded horses into a gallop, or changing horses, abandoning the most blown. Kineas had the impression of many wounds, and immense fatigue, and then the last of them were past him, streaming through the gaps between his troops.

‘Get across the ford,’ he said in his command voice. He pointed with his whip.

She raised an eyebrow and motioned with her whip, touched her heels to her mount, and galloped off, her back straight and her head high. As she rode off, he thought of all the things he might have said — instead of bellowing orders at her.

Instead, he turned to Ataelus. ‘How far?’ he asked, pointing into the rain. ‘How far to the enemy?’

Ataelus pulled a strung bow from his gorytos, set an arrow to the string, and shot it in one fluid motion, the arrowhead pointed almost to the sky before he loosed, arcing away into the grey and dropping.

A horse screamed.

‘Just there,’ Ataelus said.

‘Zeus, father of all. Poseidon, lord of horses.’ Kineas swore, and then turned to Niceas. ‘Sound: Advance!’

Niceas blew the signal as they walked forward. ‘I thought we were avoiding a general engagement?’

‘Sound: Trot!’ Kineas called. He could feel his three blocks keeping their line, feel it in the sound of their hooves and the vibration of the ground. It could all be a vast trap.

He was half turned to order the charge, his throwing javelin just transferred to his right fist, when he saw the plumes, and then the whole man, emerge from the rain — two horse lengths away.

‘Charge!’ he bellowed. They were Thessalians — yellow and purple cloaks, good armour, big horses — and they were at a stand. Kineas’s charger leaped from the trot to the gallop in two strides, and Kineas’s javelin hit the Thessalian’s horse.

Their ranks were well formed, firm and tight, but he took in their fatigue in his first glance. Kineas’s horse shouldered past the wounded beast and pushed between the next two, lashing out with teeth and hooves to clear a way, and the whole troop flinched at his assault. Kineas used his second javelin like a sailor with a boarding pike, sweeping it to the right and left, tangling the troopers and knocking them off their mounts, and then the whole weight of his Olbians arrived, and the enemy formation shattered. Whatever their cautious officer had expected, a charge out of the rain by formed cavalry wasn’t it.

They were gone in an instant — they ran like professionals, leaving only a handful of bodies on the ground. The rain swallowed them up.

Kineas rose on his horse’s back and bellowed, ‘Niceas!’ in a voice that threatened to burst his lungs.

‘Here!’ replied his hyperetes. ‘Here I am!’

‘Sound: Recall!’ Kineas pushed his horse out of the mob of his own troopers — too many of them were gone into the rain, showing their inexperience by pursuing the Thessalians. He rode back along the line of their advance, until he saw the damply gleaming shapes of the Sauromatae.

‘Eumenes! We’re retiring. We had a fight — no idea what we hit. We’ll rally at the ford. Cover us.’ He turned and rode back to his own men, who were falling in on the trumpets and turning about — a dangerous manoeuvre with the possibility of an unbeaten enemy somewhere in the rain. Kineas watched them — it seemed to take an eon, and then another. He could see movement in the rain — bright colour to his right. Red cloaks. New enemy cavalry.

Nicomedes’ troop was half a stade to the rear and well formed, Ajax’s voice ordered men into the line, to close tight, close tight. Diodorus was well clear — gone into the rain. Leucon was having more trouble with the mix of men he had. Kineas rode over. ‘Now, Leucon!’ he called.

Leucon shook his head. The men of Pantecapaeum were having trouble finding their places in the rain and excitement. There were shouts to their front.

Niceas pointed. ‘Too many unrallied men — and now they’re getting snapped up. We need to get out of here.’

Kineas could feel the enemy cavalry gathering to his front. He heard a trumpet.

‘Leucon!’ he shouted. ‘Away! Run for the ford!’

Leucon pushed his helmet back, swatted a man with the flat of his sword, and opened his mouth to shout an order. A javelin punched through his neck and he seemed to vomit blood, and then he was down, and a line of Thessalians came out of the rain and smashed into Leucon’s troop.

Kineas’s horse was away with his first touch — flying ignominiously for the ford. He was well out front — safe enough, and he looked back for Niceas, who was right at his heels.

The rain cleared a little, and he saw the Sauromatae charge straight through the broken line of Leucon’s men. They struck the Thessalians with a sound like a hundred men beating a hundred copper kettles with spoons, and the Thessalians were stopped in their tracks.

Leucon’s men were the youngest and best among the Olbian hippeis. The moment they saw the allied Sauromatae, they turned. The red cloaks were evenly matched. Javelins flew, and men fell. The whole line — both lines — threaded through the combat like shuttles on a loom, and then swirled into chaos in a matter of hoof beats.

Kineas tore his eyes away. Time would be counted in heartbeats, now. The engagement he didn’t want was starting — half his command was committed, and if Zopryon had more cavalry to commit, he could win a sharp victory before nightfall. Kineas bore right, for Diodorus. Diodorus was there before him, his men already wheeled off to the left and reformed.

‘Follow me!’ Kineas yelled, and turned his horse. The stallion responded again — a magnificent animal, the best war mount he had ever possessed.

He led Diodorus’s troop up the right flank of the enemy, guessing their location by sound and intuition. Their arrival panicked the red cloaks, and they broke, but this time they were tangled in the melee to their front and they took casualties breaking off. Their horses were done, and they died in dozens, cut down from behind or trapped in the mud on foundered horses — and the relative freshness of the Olbians began to tell. Then Kineas heard another voice, like a giant in the dark — Ajax, with Nicomedes’ troop, closing in on the doomed red cloaks from the other flank. And even in the murk, he could see Eumenes, his sword wet with blood, exhorting the younger Olbians to rally, to press harder.

Scenting victory, Kineas harried them, unhorsed a trooper, cut another man’s arm and then killed their trumpeter in three quick fights. In a flash of lightning he saw their commander in an ornate, gilded breastplate and he charged the man — a man he knew — but the officer declined the combat and galloped for the safety of the rear. His horse, at least, had the energy to run.

Phillip Kontos, Kineas thought. A man he respected — and now sought to kill.

Kineas pursued a half a stade, reined in, peered into the gloom — he was alone.

He realized that he was farther down the field than he had intended, and that he had lost his hyperetes. ‘Rally!’ he called, his voice hoarse, rising, cracking with the third repetition.

A Sauromatae rode up to him and pointed back to the ford, as if he was a young trooper who needed direction.

Ataelus came up out of the rain, grabbed at his reins, and shouted, ‘Pike men!’ and pointed into the rain.

Kineas squinted and saw, far too close, a column of heavy infantry. He pulled his horse’s head around. In the middle distance, he could hear Niceas’s trumpet. He’d ridden too far — been a fool. Carried away in the charge.

He leaned forward on his horse’s neck and put his head down, in case the Macedonians had archers. This was their army — he was right in among them, a stade or less from their pike men. He pulled up at the first big knot of his own men — he was pleased to note that his horse still flowed over the ground — and shouted shrilly for them to fall back.

The pike men — a full taxeis — were forming from column into their combat formation.

With gestures, with the flat of his sword, with Ataelus calling in Sakje, he moved his men back, back to the line of the first charge and then back to where Niceas was sounding the recall — Niceas was exactly where he ought to be. He had a cut on his bridle arm and his helmet was gone, and he was still blowing his trumpet, and his face as Kineas came out of the rain was like a father’s with a strayed infant — love, relief, anger all born together.

Niceas put his trumpet on his hip and glared at Kineas. ‘Where the fuck were you?’ he yelled.

‘Playing Achilles like a fool,’ Kineas yelled back.

They were forming again. Kineas was proud of them — hard enough to form after a fight you win, harder to form after two, and Leucon’s men had been shattered, lost their captain, and they were pushing into their ranks, ready for a third go. Their horses were done, and no one had a javelin, heavy or light.

Kineas expected it to be darker. It was as if no time had passed from the first encounter. Off in the rain, and the ground fog that was rising to meet it, a Macedonian trumpet sounded, and then another. A few stades to the south, there was shouting.

Niceas panted for a few breaths. ‘Are we winning or losing?’ he asked. Then he grinned. ‘Aren’t you the man who ordered us to avoid a general engagement?’

Kineas shrugged, his attention focused on the rallying troopers. ‘I take your point, old man. Let’s get across the river. Where are the Sauromatae?’

Niceas pointed to the centre of the line. ‘Eumenes got them halted, all but a handful.’

Kineas rode to Eumenes. ‘Take command of your troop,’ he said. ‘Leucon is dead.’

Eumenes’ face fell — his mouth opened and shut like a gaffed fish, and nothing came out.

Kineas pointed again. ‘Take command,’ he said. His voice betrayed him, coming out as a squeak.

The reaction hit them all after they were successfully across the ford, riding in good order despite the rain and their own wounded. They were cold and wet and tired — too tired to cook or curry horses, and the officers had to bear down. Nicomedes and Ajax were as brutal as Kineas, using the whip of their tongues to berate any man whose horse was untended, or gear abandoned on the grass. Niceas pulled one of the younger men away from a fire and threw him to the ground.

Discipline was restored.

And then, after the first few minutes, the soul fatigue passed. Kineas thanked all the gods for the Sindi, who sprang into action, building fires, tending wounds, and cooking. Warriors came from the other camps — Olbian hoplites, and then a few Standing Horses, and some Patient Wolves. They came in the rain, with a jar of mead, or a skin of wine, or a haunch of cooked meat.

And the fires roared higher, pushing the rain back into the sky. Men ate their food, and drank some wine, or gifted mead, and the silence broke. Suddenly everyone had to talk, to tell his story.

Kineas still had his breastplate on, and his helmet under his arm, standing cloakless in the rain, watching for another outburst of insubordination, already beset with the next phalanx of worries.

Philokles had missed the whole engagement, but waiting had taken its own toil. Now he was half drunk, and he pawed at Kineas, trying to get his armour off.

‘Don’t be an idiot!’ Kineas snapped. ‘I don’t want it off yet.’

‘Who’s an idiot?’ Philokles answered. ‘I didn’t ride off into the Macedonian lines — Ajax says you were like a god. Are you looking for death? Or are you a fool?’

Kineas shook his head. ‘I’m a poor general. Once I start fighting, I’m lost — blind. I focus on the man in front of me, and then the next.’ He shrugged, his own reaction beginning to set in. ‘I ran across an old — rival.’

‘Put him down?’ asked Philokles.

‘He ran,’ Kineas said.

Philokles pulled the helmet out from under Kineas’s arm. ‘Get this statuary off your hide, brother. Live a little. Step out of the tyrant’s grasp for the evening. Go kiss Medea — if I can’t bring you to sense, perhaps she can!’

Kineas relinquished his helmet. ‘You’re drunk, brother.’

‘Bah! I am drunk. You should try it. Greek wine gives dreams from Greek gods — no dreams of death.’

‘Who dreams of death?’ asked Diodorus. He was rubbing his hair with his tunic, and was otherwise naked. ‘That was the ugliest action I’ve ever been in.’

Ajax came up behind him. He was flushed. ‘I wondered — it was like no fight you described.’

Kineas put an arm around Ajax. ‘That was the animal,’ he said to the young man, and gave him a squeeze. ‘You did well.’

‘Kineas dreams of death,’ Philokles said into a moment of silence, and then shut his mouth with a snap.

Diodorus went on. ‘Did we surprise them? Did they surprise us? I don’t even know who won — what?’ He looked at Philokles, and then at Kineas. ‘You have dreamed your own death?’

Kineas fumbled with the sash he wore around his breastplate. ‘Philokles is drunk.’

Diodorus took the Spartan cup from Philokles’ hand and drained it. ‘Good plan. Death dreams are all pigswill — I should know. I always dream my death before an action. I dreamed of death last night and doubtless I’ll dream of it again tonight.’

Philokles gazed at his now-empty cup. ‘Will it be tomorrow?’ he asked quietly. He didn’t seem so drunk, of a sudden.

Kineas got his sash untied and managed to open his breast and back plate. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ He looked around the campfires. ‘Where’s Heron?’

Niceas appeared from the rain with Arni, Ajax’s slave. Arni pulled the wet tunic over Kineas’s head and pulled a drier one down over him.

Niceas shook his head. ‘Heron isn’t back. Neither are his men.’

‘Crap,’ Kineas said. ‘Where’s Ataelus?’

Niceas shrugged. ‘He got a couple of horses at the end of the fight,’ he said. ‘I think he’s wooing a girl of the Cruel Hands.’

Kineas pulled his wet cloak over his almost-dry tunic. ‘I’ll find him.’ He hated to leave them — they were in the glow that comes after successful action, and he was headed for black depression. But something nagged him. Heron.

Kineas crossed the hill to the Cruel Hands, and his back was slapped many times. Sakje offered him wine, or mare’s milk, or spiced tea in deep mugs, and he drank some of each as he passed from fire to fire, asking after Ataelus.

He found Srayanka’s wagon first. He heard her laughter, and he rested his hand on the wheel, wondering — he had never sought her out since the night by the river, and now he felt foolish, like a suitor waiting in the rain.

More laughter carried through the felt of the tent on the wagon bed. Kineas heard Parshtaevalt’s deeper laugh, and he pulled himself up on the step and called ‘hello!’ in Greek.

Parshtaevalt’s hand opened the flap. The tent was lit by a brazier and dense with smoke from the seeds and the stems — the pine-pitch scent flowed past him into the night.

‘Hah!’ called Parshtaevalt. He put a hand on Kineas’s neck and hugged him, then pulled him through the door to the bench that ran the length of the wagon — seat by day, bed by night. The wagon was full of people, stifling with wet wool and smoke. Hands reached out and pushed him — prodded him — until he sank into a warm space between two bodies. One of them was Srayanka, and before he was on the bench, one of her hands had snaked into his tunic and her mouth closed over his. He kissed her so deeply that he breathed from her lungs, and she from his, and the fire in his skin burned his tunic dry as she curled around him on the bench. It was dark in the wagon — the red coals in the brazier threw no real light — and despite his knowledge that Hirene was under his left hand, he felt as if they were alone, and every breath of the air intensified his desire.

‘You came,’ she said around his kiss, as if she didn’t believe it.

He had come looking for something. His hand was under her tunic, tracing the line where the soft ivory of her breast met the lusher skin of her nipple, and she sank her teeth into his arm, and he gasped, taking a deeper breath of the smoke off the brazier…

The worm was close, the mandibles of its mouth chewing away at everything in its path, and his gorge rose as it ate Leucon’s face off his skull…

‘Ataelus!’ Kineas cried. He pushed her away. He wondered if he was going mad.

She grabbed his hand and he resisted, but she was strong, and she pulled him, pushed him, and suddenly he was falling — it was wet, and he was slumped at the wheel hub. She jumped down on the wet grass beside him.

‘You are easy for the smoke,’ she said. She admonished him with a finger. ‘Breathe deep. Go under wagon and breathe.’

‘Stay with me,’ he said, but she shook her head.

‘Too much, too fast. You breathe. I find Ataelax. He with Samahe. Do what we should do, but for Sastar Baqca and the king.’ And she was gone.

His head was clear when she came back, with Ataelus behind her like a spare horse.

Kineas didn’t feel like a commander and he knew he didn’t look like one, but he pulled Ataelus close. ‘I sent Heron — the hipparch from Pantecapaeum — downriver this morning to scout for fords.’

‘No ford downriver,’ Ataelus answered. There was another man with him — no, a woman. She had her arms crossed over her chest and anger dripped off her with the rainwater. ‘This Samahe — wife for me.’ He grinned. ‘Twenty horse wife!’

Kineas shook his hand, which was inane. ‘I need to know where Heron is and what he found.’

Ataelus frowned and looked at Kineas from under his brows. ‘You ask me to ride off in the rain — now? For this Heron?’

Kineas said, ‘Yes.’

Ataelus took a deep breath. ‘For you?’ he asked.

‘For me,’ Kineas said. He lacked the language to explain just why he was so worried, suddenly, about his missing hipparch — but he was.

When he was gone, Samahe protesting volubly after him, Kineas sat on the dry ground under her wagon. Srayanka sat against his back. They were silent for a long time. Finally, she said, ‘If we win — when we win. You bring me twenty of horses?’

‘Is that your price?’ he asked.

She laughed — a low, rich laugh. ‘I am beyond price,’ she said in Sakje, leaning around to look at him. ‘I want you like a mare in heat wants a stallion, and I would go with you for a handful of grass, like a priestess. That is one woman I am.’ She threw back her head, and her profile was strong against the light of the nearest fire. ‘But I am Ghan of the Cruel Hands, and there is no bride price to buy me.’ She shrugged. ‘The king would make me queen — and that would make Cruel Hands rich. I am woman, and I am Ghan.’ She looked into his eyes. Hers were picked out with reflected campfires. ‘But if we win this battle,’ she said again. ‘If we are free of the Sastar Baqca — will you ask me to wife?’

Kineas pushed his back into hers. ‘If we live — I will ask you to wife.’ He kissed her, felt the movement of her eyelashes against his cheeks. ‘I know Baqca. What is Sastar?’

She wriggled slightly in his arms. ‘What is the thing — the word you say when man rule over other men and will not hear them? Rule alone? No voice but that man?’

‘Tyrant,’ Kineas answered, after a moment.

‘ Tyrant ’ she echoed. ‘Sastar is like tyrant. Sastar Baqca — the baqca that allows no other voice.’ She turned and put her arms behind his head. ‘No more Greek and Sakje.’

‘No,’ said Kineas. Death seemed far away, and everything seemed possible. ‘I will marry you.’ He kissed her again.

She grinned even through the kiss, pulled away and looked at him. ‘Truly?’ she asked. She smiled, kissed him and then pushed him away. ‘Bring me Zopryon’s head as my price, then.’ She leaped to her feet.

Kineas got to his, still holding her hand. Their eyes were locked. She gave his hand a gentle pressure — and then she was stepping away.

The rain sobered him, and in moments it all came rushing back — the battle, plans, worries. Where in Hades is Heron? And the plain fact — this is foolishness — I’ll be dead. But he forced a laugh and said, ‘It’s a high price.’

She slipped out from under the wagon and turned. ‘It will make a good song,’ she said with a smile. ‘You know — they already sing of us?’

Kineas didn’t know. ‘Really?’ he called after her.

She paused in the rain on the step up to the wagon. ‘We may live for ever, in a song.’

He stopped at the king’s laager to report, then walked, drenched, down the hill to issue his last orders at the campfires. The night was half spent when he pushed through the curtain into his wagon. He had the energy to strip his tunic, to hang his sodden cloak from the ridgepole, and then he lay down on the bed. He lay awake for a time, and again he wondered if the gods had sent madness to him. He didn’t want to close his eyes. And then he did.

The worm was moving, a thousand legs pushing its obscene bulk across the wet grass to the river, a dozen obscene mouths chewing at anything that came under their jaws — dead horses, dead men, grass.

He circled above the worm, seeing it with two visions — as the worm was, the monster, and as the men and horses and wagons that composed the worm, like reading a scroll and understanding the whole of it at the same time, or like seeing every stone in a mosaic and seeing the whole design.

He pushed against the dream, and the owl turned away from the worm and flew south — the first time he had been in control in a dream. The owl beat its wings, and the stades flew by — grey and indistinct in the constant rain — but he saw horsemen moving on the west bank of the river, a dozen parties pushing south.

Then he let his dream self have its head and turn north, back to the worm on the sea of grass. It was horrible, but the horror had a familiarity to it — because he himself had been the legs of the worm, and the mouth. He knew the smell.

His dream self turned east, over the river, which had a dull glow in the dream rain, and then he was descending, and there was the tree — no longer a tower of green-black majesty. The tree was dying. The cedar bark was hard under his talons, the leaves and needles fallen away in swathes like sick animal loses hair, exposing bare wood and rotten bark, and the top had already cracked and fallen away. He landed, grasping a solid branch, and it, too, cracked, and he was falling… from his horse, an arrow in his throat, choking on the hard pain and the rush of blood — bitter copper and salt in his mouth, in his nose, and in his last moments of life he tried to see, tried to remember if the battle was won, but it all went away beyond his eyes leaving only her voice singing, and he couldn’t remember her name — he listened to her…

‘Dawn, somewhere above the rain,’ said a voice. A hand, pulling at his shoulder. ‘Good news for you. Get up.’

‘Huh?’ he asked. He felt as if he’d been beaten like bread dough.

‘Dawn. Eumenes is ready to ride. Your orders — are you awake?’ asked Philokles. He was naked, and wet. ‘Laertes is here, with a prisoner.’

Kineas sat up. The tunic he had stripped off before sleep was as wet now as it had been when he put his head down. So was his cloak. He threw the cloak over his shoulders and swung down from the wagon, stifled in the smell of wet wool. Philokles swung down behind him.

‘It’s not cold,’ he said.

‘We’re not all Spartans,’ Kineas said. In fact, he was, as always, hesitant to show his body naked. Even on the edge of battle. He smiled at his own vanity.

Ataelus was sitting at his fire with Laertes, Crax, Sitalkes and another warrior — a man lay at Laertes’ feet, with curly blond hair and bare legs, covered by a dark red cloak — the prisoner, unless he was already a corpse. The rest of them were passing around a horn cup that steamed. Kineas intercepted it. ‘Morning,’ he said. The meaning of Ataelus’ presence hit him through the last of his sleep. He put a hand on Crax’s shoulder. ‘Where is Heron?’ he asked. And then he pointed at the stranger in the cloak. ‘Who’s he?’

Crax grinned. ‘He’s a fool. I caught him.’ He prodded the recumbent form with his boot. ‘Sitalkes hit him too hard.’

Kineas began to stretch his muscles. ‘I think I need the whole story.’

Laertes grinned and snatched the cup back. ‘Heron’s thorough, Hipparch. Give him that. We went sixty — maybe even eighty stades, and we pushed our spears into every bank on the damn river.’

Sitalkes spoke quickly, tripping over the Greek in his excitement and showing a scalp on his spear, but Laertes spoke over him. He pulled an arm free of his cloak to point at Ataelus. ‘Thank the gods you sent him,’ he said. ‘All the feeder streams are full — hard to cross themselves. We were lost in the dark when Ataelus found us.’ He gestured at Sitalkes. ‘We tangled with their patrols twice, but they couldn’t make it across. This idiot,’ Laertes ruffled Sitalkes’s hair, ‘killed a man with a javelin and then swam across to get his hair. Barbarian.’

Kineas felt the warmth of the tea spreading through his stomach. ‘So there is a crossing south of here?’

Laertes shrugged, exchanged a glance with Ataelus. ‘There’s a dozen crossings — if you want to swim your horse, or if you can pick your way in single file. Nothing for an army — not really even a crossing for a patrol.’

Kineas rubbed his eyes. ‘How’d you end up fighting these?’ he asked, indicating the prisoner.

‘They must have had boats,’ Laertes said. ‘Heron made us look for them, but we never found them. It took time, in the rain. And then we got lost.’ He shrugged.

Ataelus grinned at the other warrior with him. Kineas realized she was his wife — Samahe. The Black One. She gave her husband a wry smile. ‘I for find Greek horse,’ she said. ‘See in dark.’

Ataelus gave her the tea. ‘Good wife,’ he said. ‘Find Greek horse — find Crax — find enemy all same-same.’

‘Where is Heron?’ Kineas asked. He looked at the prisoner again. The man looked familiar — or the cloak did.

Laertes held the horn cup out, and one of the camp slaves came and refilled it. ‘Rolled in his cloak. He means to go north as soon as we have a rest.’

Kineas nodded. ‘Give him my thanks. Get some rest yourselves.’

They all grinned, pleased with themselves and pleased with his praise, spare as it had been. They made him feel better.

Philokles took the cup and drained it. ‘Eumenes is waiting,’ he said acerbically. He wiped his mouth. ‘I’m going out with him.’ He put the cup on the ground. ‘I’ll see what I can get from our prisoner when I get back.’

Kineas walked down the hill, thinking about Macedonian patrols south of the ford. His intuition, which had burned all night, had been right. Then he understood what he had heard. Philokles was not often an active soldier. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why are you going out?’

The rain was soaking him again, and his beard was too full — it felt like an alien on his face. He wanted to shave. Too many days in the saddle.

Philokles shrugged. ‘It is time to fight,’ he said.

Eumenes was mounted at the head of Leucon’s troop. The hippeis of Pantecapaeum were mounted as well, and beyond them in the rain were half of the phalanx of Pantecapaeum. Most of them were naked, holding their shields and a single, heavy spear. Beyond them, a pair of heavy Sakje wagons.

Kineas walked up to Eumenes. ‘Straight across, retrieve the bodies, and get back.’

Eumenes had his eyes on the ford. ‘We won’t disappoint you. There will be no repeat of yesterday,’ he said in a hard voice.

Kineas stepped in close, where he could feel the warmth of the horse. ‘Yesterday could have happened to anyone. That’s war, Eumenes. Claim the bodies and get back here and no heroics.’

Eumenes saluted.

A Sindi, one of Temerix’s men, trotted up to Philokles and handed him a helmet, which he pushed on to the back of his head, then a heavy spear — hard, black, longer by a span than other men’s, and as thick as Kineas’s wrist. Philokles hung a shield on his shoulder — a plain bronze shield with no mark on it.

‘You’re going with him?’ Kineas asked again. He was at a loss.

Philokles smiled grimly. ‘Memnon made me the commander of this two hundred,’ he said. He raised an eyebrow. ‘The benefits of a Spartan education.’ Philokles turned on his heel, his old red cloak billowing behind him. With a casual shake of his head, he dropped the helmet off his brow so that the cheek pieces covered his face. From the helmet came an inhuman voice — so different from Philokles’ voice that Kineas would have said it was a different man.

‘We’ll run all the way,’ said the voice. ‘Any man who falls behind is left for the birds. Ready?’

They growled. Spears beat on shields. Kineas watched them run off to the ford, keeping their space in close order, and wondered.

The expedition to cross the ford and retrieve the dead from yesterday’s running fight was almost uncontested. Kineas kept the phalanx standing ready, held the balance of the Olbian horse under his hand, and then crossed himself for a quick reconnaissance in the second hour. Before the third hour the men of Pantecapaeum were back, still running, singing the paean of their city as they came. Behind them came the wagons, full to the beams with their grim cargo, and a handful of wounded who had survived a night in the rain. Last came Eumenes and his troop. They had seen a handful of Macedonians, as had Kineas. Eumenes had another prisoner.

Kineas called his officers, and they gathered around the fire by his wagon.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to the king. Zopryon should have tried to close the ford.’

Eumenes didn’t agree. ‘I’m new to war, but I think they felt beaten last night, and retired from the ford to get clear — fearing the same battle we feared.’

Niceas gave the young man a proprietary grin. ‘Sounds like sense to me,’ he said.

Kineas nodded. ‘It is possible. I have to guard against all the possibilities. Get the men under cover — rotate the pickets — and see to the horses. This weather will cost us more horses than a battle. Diodorus, you’re in command of the pickets. Has anyone seen Heron?’

‘Already gone,’ Diodorus said. ‘Tried to find you when you crossed the stream, and said your orders wouldn’t wait and he was headed north with our scouts. He seemed to know what he was about. I sent Ataelus with him.’

Kineas couldn’t stifle a grin. ‘He ought to — he has all our best men. Send him to me the moment he returns, or any of his men. I’m for the king.’

Philokles, still an alien figure in a heavy helmet, spear in hand, spat expertly through his helmet. ‘I’ll see to the prisoners,’ he said. ‘Niceas has them separate. We’ll see what they say.’

Kineas nodded. ‘Eumenes — if you can stay awake, I need you.’

Eumenes nodded wearily, and Kineas dismissed the rest.

Up the hill, the view was better. As his legs brushed through the wet grass, Kineas could see the herds, well off to the north, and the camps of each of the clans. The rain would be debilitating for both armies, but the Sakje, with their huge herds of horses and their dry wagons for sleeping, would be more comfortable.

The sky was lightening, the clouds raising. Wisps of low cloud obscured his view, but on other lines he could see five stades or more, and although the rain was steady, it lacked last night’s vehemence. In Athens he would have expected the rain to end towards evening.

To the west he could see a line of fires at the limit of his perception. The fires were small, and their smoke was black.

Almost out of firewood, Kineas thought. Out of wagons, out of food. He’d flirted with Zopryon twice in the rain, and despite the outcomes, he had a feeling for Zopryon’s army.

They were desperate.

Kineas had a thought, so beautiful that it was dangerous. He didn’t want to express it to himself, much less say it aloud to others, lest he somehow change the world by speaking of it. But it kept poking into his plans and his worries, and the thought was: Zopryon does not yet know that Cleomenes has betrayed the city.