Storm of arrows t-2

by Christian Cameron

  Phocion’s wooden sword slapped him on the side of the head. ‘Beasts fight with rage,’ he said. ‘Greeks fight with science. Any barbarian can out-rage you, boy.’

  ‘I am not a boy!’ Kineas bellowed. He meant it as a bellow. It came out as more of a squeak. The other young men waiting their turns tittered and giggled, or stood in embarrassed silence.

  Kineas’s crime had been to state as a matter of fact that he was the best of Phocion’s pupils. Phocion had responded by disarming him — repeatedly — and beating him with soul-destroying ease, not once but ten times running. He used the same simple move over and over again, moving with lazy elegance, and Kineas’s responses grew more and more foolish with each engagement, until Kineas burst into tears.

  Phocion stepped back. ‘If you are a man, then pick up that sword and use your brain.’

  Kineas walked across the sand to his fallen sword and retrieved it, his mind hot with the desire for revenge. But he thought of Niceas, and Graccus, and the fight in the alley, and the pain and the blood. And how much he owed Phocion. He stood straight despite ten new bruises. He pushed his brain to consider Phocion’s attack — something subtle in the feint. He decided on a simple solution.

  ‘I am ready,’ he said, settling into his stance, shield forward, sword back. He moved out cautiously and Phocion danced around him, but this time Kineas didn’t offer his sword. He stayed behind his shield, accepted a light blow on his hip and a stinging cut that drew blood from his shield-side knee. Phocion made a back cut and Kineas exerted the full force of his will to avoid the response he had been taught — a cut at the opponent’s wrist. Instead, he simply stepped back and blocked with his shield. It was dull, and the weight of the shield pulled at his arm, and after some minutes Phocion feinted low and thumped him on the head and he fell. Phocion extended a hand and drew him to his feet.

  ‘You are a man,’ he said. He grinned. ‘I suspected as much.’

  Kineas nodded. His head hurt.

  Phocion smiled at him. ‘What is my new feint, Kineas?’ he asked.

  Kineas rubbed his head. ‘No idea, master. It starts with a faked sloppy back cut.’ He smiled wryly. ‘It only took me ten tries to establish that.’

  Phocion nodded. ‘And how do you defeat it?’ he asked.

  Kineas shook his head. ‘No idea, master.’

  Phocion grinned, looking much younger. ‘You may yet be the best of my students, young blowhard. Go and oil yourself and get a rub.’

  Graccus shook his head. ‘I don’t understand, master,’ he said.

  Phocion shrugged. ‘You will,’ he said.

  Kineas smiled at Phocion. ‘I understand,’ he said.

  And then he was on a branch of the tree, higher than he had ever been.

  And then he dreamed that he was a god — Zeus incarnate — and that in his hand he held the thunderbolt, which gleamed with white fire and jumped in his hand, and yet seemed to be composed of men and horses..

  And he awoke with the taste of hubris in his mouth.

  In an hour, the whole column was moving. They rode north and west along the Oxus, with Mosva’s brothers, Hektor and Artu, as well as Gwair Blackhorse all out front guiding the column. They had ten thousand horses and the combined force was four stades long from Kineas at the front to the last Sauromatae maidens, wreathed in scarves, who rode in the dust clouds at the rear, herding the cattle.

  Twice they saw distant figures on horseback. Kineas ordered the scouts not to pursue, but he put more Sauromatae out as a screen. He didn’t want every tribal chief within a thousand stades to know the make-up of his column.

  Now they were at the Macedonian frontier. The Polytimeros was the edge of Alexander’s lines.

  Late in the second morning since Nihmu’s return, scouts reported that the forks of the Polytimeros were ahead, and an hour later, as they ate their cold porridge while their horses cropped grass, Ataelus returned. He kissed Samahe, the two entwined like two trees on a wind-blasted island in the Aegean, and then Ataelus wrenched himself from her and turned to Kineas. He grinned.

  ‘Philokles say “Come now!”’ he said. ‘Luck for standing at shoulder. More stuff like Philokles for saying.’ Ataelus shrugged, grinning.

  Kineas gestured at the column. ‘Here we are,’ he said.

  ‘Come now!’ said Ataelus.

  ‘I told you,’ said Nihmu. Ataelus ruffled her hair and she grinned.

  ‘How far?’ Kineas asked.

  ‘Two days, for riding like Sakje.’ Ataelus emphasized this with his fist. ‘Like Sakje.’ He grinned again. ‘Come for rescue Lady Srayanka. Strike blow against Iskander.’ His fist smacked into his open hand with a noise like a breaking gourd. ‘Hurry! Philokles says for…’ the chief of the prodromoi scrunched up his face, remembering, ‘ utmost hurry. Yes?’ He looked around at his friends. ‘Ride like Sakje!’

  Kineas turned to Diodorus. ‘Water the horses. Every man to have his remount handy.’

  Diodorus saluted. ‘Ride like Sakje!’ he said with relish.

  20

  Philokles met them in a grove of willows four hundred stades further east, on the banks of the Polytimeros, which swelled there to be more than a stade wide and flowed just dactyloi deep. The willows were ancient and there were three different altars arrayed beneath the canopy. Darius was asleep under an awning of cloaks held on spears.

  Kineas dismounted in the cool shade and they embraced.

  ‘I have seen her,’ Philokles said.

  Kineas felt the slow flame of hope rekindle in his heart.

  ‘Get your column under cover of the trees and let’s talk,’ he said. He looked thinner, and beneath his eyes were circles of darkness like a mask of despair.

  Eight hundred warriors with ten thousand horses are difficult to hide, but Diodorus and Andronicus and Bain did their best while Kineas drank water and Darius roused himself from sleep. He looked as wrecked as Philokles.

  When he was seated, Philokles began.

  ‘We were lucky,’ he said. ‘And I disobeyed you. I convinced Ataelus to stay with me and let the queen’s messenger find his own way home. I took Darius to Alexander’s camp. Alexander has so many stragglers since the massacres on the Jaxartes that I walked straight through the sentries without a question.’ He shrugged. ‘I won’t make an epic of it. Darius found the women by posing as a slave. I learned — almost without effort, I must concede — that a column of mercenaries was to march to the relief of Marakanda.’

  Darius nodded. ‘I learned that Alexander ordered the Amazons to Kandahar. One of them is pregnant and Alexander wants her to deliver among his women. She is to be escorted by the relief column for Marakanda.’ He gave Philokles a smile. ‘It was as if the gods intended us to know — the Amazons are a three-day wonder in the camp, and there is no security. Tribesmen come and go. Alexander is recruiting Sogdians, and any barbarian with a bow can ride in through the gates.’

  Kineas shook his head. ‘This is so much like a miracle that it seems like a trap. How many in the column?’

  ‘Two thousand men. Greek mercenary infantry, and a more polyglot crew of scum you can’t imagine. I’d have been decarch in another day. I had to leave before they placed me in command of the whole expedition. ’ He gave a tired smile. ‘Four hundred mercenary cavalry under an officer I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘Listen, Kineas, Alexander is mad. Worse, the distrust and the politics of that camp are as bad as anything I’ve ever seen. It is not so much an army as a collection of factions. The death of Parmenion has cut them hard.’

  Kineas nodded. ‘He did a lot of the work,’ he admitted.

  ‘And a handful of Hetairoi, with some mounted Macedonian infantry as prodromoi and a hundred Macedonian cavalry under Andromachus,’ Darius said, completing the report. He jerked a thumb at the men in column picketing their horses. ‘We can take them.’

  Kineas winced. ‘Companions?’ he asked. His tone reminded them of what a tough proposition a few hundred Companions on wretched played-o
ut horses had been a year before.

  Philokles rubbed his beard. ‘You are right to be cautious. The Macedonians are dangerous — every one of them is as good as a Spartiate. They’ve been out here so long that war is the only life they know.’ His tone was frankly admiring.

  ‘So much for the philosophy of peace,’ Kineas said mockingly.

  ‘I was born a Spartan,’ Philokles said with slow dignity. ‘Philosophy was learned later.’

  ‘Yet you think we can take them.’ Kineas started to ease himself out of his breastplate.

  Philokles stood. ‘Right here,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here in two days. I sat in the command tent and listened to Cleitus tell Pharnuches, their commander, his march route. I sent Ataelus north and waited until the column marched. There’s not another crossing this easy for a hundred stades.’

  Darius chuckled. ‘We even marched with the column,’ he said. ‘The Amazons have a cavalry escort — a dozen of Hephaestion’s own Companions.’

  ‘He commands the Companions now,’ Philokles put in, as Diodorus came up with the other officers.

  ‘Who does?’ Diodorus asked. His armour was off, and he took a helmet full of muddy water from Ataelus and poured it over his head. ‘Damn, that’s good.’

  Ataelus grinned. ‘For sick making — too much water,’ he said.

  ‘Hephaestion commands the Companions,’ Philokles said.

  ‘Fucking catamite,’ Diodorus said. ‘Alexander must be hard up for cavalrymen.’

  Philokles shrugged, and Darius flushed. Diodorus raised his hands to mollify them. ‘Well, he is a catamite. He manipulates Alexander — always has. Hephaestion couldn’t command a squadron of cavalry in a religious parade.’

  Philokles raised an eyebrow at Diodorus. The two men fell silent and something passed between them. Philokles rolled his shoulders, as if he had been carrying weights and they had finally been put aside. ‘Have it as you will — you two know these people better than I. But the troopers guarding Srayanka are the best of the best. They’re right in the centre of the column.’

  Kineas nodded. ‘Then that’s where the blow needs to fall,’ he said.

  He put out pickets, a few of the Sakje riding as much as fifty stades south and east, and then he and his selected officers rode the banks of the river for twenty stades north and south, but Philokles’ ambush site was the best. To the north of the island of willows was another island covered in poplar, and to the south was a third island covered in rose bushes and tamarisk. More tamarisk grew in a shield-shaped tangle to the north and east along the bank and spreading away south, blocking the line of sight of the approaching force.

  That night, he gathered all the officers down to the lowliest file leader and drew a map in the sand. He oriented them on the island of willows where they stood.

  ‘Here is the river,’ he said, showing the course of the Polytimeros. ‘Here is the trade road they will come up. The trees from the spring banks shade the road and offer cover.’ He allowed the tip of his stick to follow the road. ‘Just south of here is a stand — really a thicket — of tamarisk and poplar. The road winds between the trees and the river.’ Kineas indicated the riverbank and the current river bed. ‘The battlefield will be shaped like a diamond. They enter the diamond here, when they begin to pass between the woods and the river. Their scouts will not find Temerix in the tamarisk trees,’ (a ripple of laughter for the pun), ‘and will pass down the road. If any of them are really professional, they’ll ride right around the trees to the south. If so, we can forget them. The bulk of the column will enter the defile here,’ he indicated the top of the diamond, ‘and march along the road. There will be eight hundred of them in the front division and they’ll cover two stades of road. When the head of the column is ready to cross the Polytimeros here,’ and he indicated the island of willows where they stood, ‘the middle of the column will be passing Temerix. Understand?’ He received a chorus of nods and grunts. ‘I’ll show you in the morning, in any case. Unless some hothead screws it up, the column will keep marching across the Polytimeros. The infantry in the first division will either cross and keep marching, if they’re idiots, or they’ll cross and form in battle order to cover the second division, if they’re acting like soldiers.’

  Eumenes, translating at his side, paused. Kineas understood him to be explaining to the Sakje why the Greek mercenaries would form a battle line on the other side. Kineas waited for him to finish. The Sakje nodded and pursed their lips in approval of such a professional move — the assumption that every river crossing was an ambush impressed them.

  ‘The Sakje squadron will be behind the island of poplars here,’ he said. They’d be well down the river bed, hidden by the next island to the north and by the habit of scouts to get across watercourses as quickly as possible. The notion that the watercourse was itself a highway might not occur to them. Even if it did, few of them would ride two stades off the line of march to check out an island.

  He hoped.

  ‘When the signal is given, the Sakje show themselves and attack the rear of the first division. Harass them, shower them with arrows, but do not close. All I require is that the first division be unable to fall back to support the second division.’

  Bain agreed, but the gleam in his eye told another story. Kineas resolved to send Eumenes to keep him in check.

  ‘The Olbian cavalry will be here.’ Kineas indicated the base of the woods, just a stade from the crossing. ‘The woods will screen us until it is too late. If they see us early,’ Kineas shrugged, ‘we fight it out. But if they don’t see us, we charge straight for the prisoner escort. If they run back along the road, they’re meat for Temerix. If they flee into the river, we’ll hunt them down. Remember that Srayanka and Urvara are waiting. Pray for some luck.’ He paused. ‘At the same time, Temerix starts punching arrows into the second division. They either counterattack into the thorns or they flee down the sides of the watercourse into the stream bed.’ Kineas pointed at the far side of the diamond. ‘The Sauromatae knights are here, behind the island of roses. If the Macedonians come down into the river, the Sauromatae deal with them. Again,’ and here Kineas turned to Lot, ‘we are not here to fight a battle. We are here to get Srayanka and Urvara. Kill some Macedonians if you can, but listen for the second trumpet.’ He looked around them, Sakje and Olbians and swarthy Temerix, again in the position of maximum danger. ‘When the second trumpet sounds, you break like a cloud of swallows fleeing a hawk on the plains and vanish like morning mist. We rally at the last camp on the Oxus. Unless we fuck up massively, there will be no pursuit because they don’t have the horses to follow us across the plain. Right?’

  Nods and grunts.

  ‘Sounds beautiful,’ said Diodorus. He was grinning. ‘What do you think will really happen?’

  Kineas couldn’t help but grin back, because the dream of the thunderbolt was still with him, and because the power to see Srayanka and hold her in his arms again lay in his own hands, and he was not a boy. ‘It will all go to shit and we’ll fight our way through it,’ he said. ‘Look, friends. If all else fails, cut your way to the middle of the column and get the girls. Unless the gods are against us, they’ll get free of the escort on their own.’

  Philokles leaned in. ‘Srayanka is heavily pregnant,’ he said. He looked around with the embarrassment most men kept for discussions of sex and women’s matters. ‘I may have forgotten to mention this.’

  A thunderbolt. Kineas looked at his friend with his mouth gaping like a landed fish.

  Philokles cocked his head to one side. ‘I did forget to mention it,’ he said. ‘She told Darius that if she weren’t so heavy, they’d all have ridden free weeks ago. They may not be able to escape on their own.’

  Kineas took a deep breath — he had known, in a vague way, that she was pregnant. This was more real. He felt a blow in his gut and the sudden pierce of anxiety like an arrow in his side. But he thought of Phocion and refused to bow to fate.

  ‘Cut your way t
o the middle of their column. Get the women. And then run like fire on the plain.’ He pointed at Temerix. ‘As soon as they try for you, you run down the trails you’ve cut and out of the back of the woods — right past us and on to your ponies. Understand?’

  Temerix never smiled. He gave a curt nod, like a man given unnecessary and patronizing instructions.

  ‘Hey!’ Ataelus said. He rattled off some rapid Sakje to the chiefs, and they all grinned together. He turned back to Kineas. ‘If the wind for us, give them fire in the faces.’

  Kineas pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  In the morning, he led them on a ride around the invisible boundaries of his diamond until every man understood his orders. At nightfall, Samahe came to tell him that the Macedonian column was camped eighty stades up the Polytimeros.

  That night, he dreamed again of the thunderbolt in his hand and Ataelus awakened him before the sun with a report from the outer pickets. The Macedonians were moving.

  It was difficult to hide eight hundred men. Teams of Sindi brushed the main road clear of tracks while the little army set itself in its positions. Men hurried unnecessarily and were injured. A horse fell down the spring bank of the river and had to be killed, and the process of butchering and disposing of the horse took so long that Kineas was close to screaming with frustration.

  Even after a hundred helmets full of water, the place where the horse had died was a mass of blood and flies.

  Kineas clamped down. ‘Leave it,’ he said, his teeth clenched, glaring at the miserable Sakje rider who had caused the disaster. ‘To your places.’

  Kineas was mounted on Thalassa. It was the mare’s first time in combat, and she stood tall and firm as Kineas mounted. She snorted, raised her head and then settled herself.

  ‘You are quite a horse,’ Kineas said. He clucked his mare into motion and played with the catch on his breastplate. A fine piece of work last spring, the piece of armour had taken so many blows that it was misshapen, and the shoulder catch no longer seated firmly in the back plate. When it popped, the two moving plates rubbed his shoulder raw. He determined to get a new one.