Tyrant: Force of Kings

by Christian Cameron

  Like Diodorus, less than a stade away, Satyrus had come to the conclusion that the farm was now the key to the battle. Diodorus and Apollodorus held the farm.

  Satyrus waved his sword and pointed south, towards the flank of the next wedge. ‘Sound rally – rally left.’

  Nikephorus had extended his right as far as he could without surrendering any hope of his men holding when struck. Despite his efforts, there was a gap a taxeis wide between his rightmost file and Stratokles’ left – and the Athenian had charged off down the field with his flank in the air – vanished into the dust.

  Elephants came out of the dust – mostly riderless, some with crews. The gap had this advantage – elephants and peltasts funnelled harmlessly down it, an alley between the spear points.

  Two elephants came together, just a few spear lengths west of his position – both with crews intact– and the two animals reared up, trumpeted, and their sounds were more terrifying than their savagery. Quick as lightning, both beasts seemed to be sweating blood – tusks ripped, and shattered – the pikemen in the opposing howdahs thrust at each other and at the opposing animal, and the archer in the Seleucid howdah shot furiously from a long, cane bow, his heavy arrows taking the Antigonid crew, one at a time, until the Antigonid beast stopped fighting – despite the blood, despite the continuing efforts of his adversary – to place a gentle foot on the dead meat of her master, fallen from his perch between his ears. Then he turned away with a sound like a mother mourning a dead child, and fled.

  Nikephorus’s men roared their approval.

  And then Antigonus came out of the dust.

  They came slowly, carefully – spears down, marching at the slowest pace. Nikephorus saw Antigonus immediately, near the very right file – a proper man.

  His own taxeis was only half depth on the right so he had to go forward or risk being broken. Nikephorus stepped out of his line. ‘Spears down!’ he roared.

  And as the points glittered, he lowered his. ‘Nike!’ he roared.

  Three thousand voices answered him. ‘Nike!’

  ‘Forward!’ he bellowed.

  And then the elephant, wounded and furious, stumbled into a run between the two closing phalanxes. Men flinched away on both sides and in a few heartbeats, both sides were like tangled skeins of wool yarn, files every which way, all order lost as the pain-maddened elephant crashed back and forth, taking long, deep wounds from brave men’s spears, but snapping them, trunk flashing, bronze-capped tusks dripping blood and ordure and he slayed men and no more men could touch him. It was every soldier’s nightmare – a mad elephant trapped in a phalanx. Men died like wheat or oats scythed down at harvest time.

  Nikephorus stood fast, put his spear into the elephant’s side – mad beasts have no allies – and drew his sword.

  ‘Close up!’ he cried. ‘Get in your files!’

  His men began to give ground.

  ‘Apobatai!’ he shrieked ‘Hold the line!’

  His very best men died there, putting their shoulders behind their shields, trying to push at Antigonus’s best men while they defended themselves from thousands of pounds of pain-crazed war-elephant. They dug in their heels and pushed, they cut high and low with their swords when their spears broke, they punched and bit when they lost their swords.

  Nikephorus aimed himself for Antigonus, and killed – forward, a step at a time, an eye for the elephant, still wreaking havoc to his right – but in the chaos of the mêlée, where there were no ranks, no files, just the vortex of death that was the elephant and the sight of Antigonus’s gold helmet and red plumes, he pushed himself to the limit, cut, step, shield up, step—

  He was six men from Antigonus when the world went black.

  ‘Go for their rear!’ Melitta shouted to Lysimachos. ‘We’ll do this!’ She pointed her axe at the solid wall of Antigonid pikemen, formed in a tight square, like a hedgehog, with steel and bronze points bristling from every wall and every corner.

  Lysimachos either understood or came to his own decision, and his spear rose above the rout of the enemy cavalry, and pointed north then west. His Companions rode with him. So did Calicles and the Thracians.

  They thundered past the two thousand pikemen holding the left of the Antigonid infantry line – men who had faced cavalry at Arabela and Issus, for whom lance and javelin and flashing hooves held little fear.

  Melitta rode clear of her people, called her chiefs to her, raised her bow in her fist and punched it at the pikemen.

  Before she reined in, the arrows had started to fly.

  Unable to reply, the pikemen closed up, lapped their shields, and endured.

  But the Sakje had no threat to contend with, and they pressed closer, shooting at feet, at shins, at faces – individual young men and woman began to compete at acts of daring. A girl barely in her teens, ash-blonde braids bound to her head, rode along the front face of the phalanx, a hand’s breadth from the reach of the sarissas, shooting down into the ranks. Assagetae cheers followed her. And behind her, a boy, bolder or crazed with battle, rode into the gap an arrow made – a gap that lasted for a few heartbeats – pushed his pony into the gap, and the horse’s hooves and his short sword wreaked havoc until he was killed, ten sarissas in his chest and horse. At one corner of the scrum, another girl lassoed a phylarch and dragged him from the ranks into the dust – he cut the cord, killed her in two sweeps of his sword, but was shot full of arrows like a pincushion. Before his body could fall, Thyrsis leaped from his horse on the man’s back, cut his throat, and ripped his helmet off his head and scalped him in full view of his men, raised the flapping hair and screamed, and all the Sakje screamed.

  Desperate, the Argyraspids charged, scattering the Sakje, who ran like flies from the swatter, but the phalangites didn’t catch a single rider. And the Sakje turned and shot as they rode free, and old men died – men who had survived fifty battles.

  Melitta halted with her fishtail standard by a well.

  ‘Change horses,’ she ordered.

  Stratokles had been fighting for so long he couldn’t think. His sword arm rose and fell by itself; he ducked, his shield jarred on his shoulder, his mouth was dry as parchment, and still they pressed on.

  He no longer knew which direction was front and which was rear.

  He’d lost Lucius, lost Herakles, and only the sharp barks of eleu told him that the men behind him were his own.

  He wanted to slump to the ground.

  His hand was red with other men’s blood, and his own, and his fingers were stuck to the hilt, and he thought his jaw might be broken.

  His sword arm rose and fell.

  Someone was screaming like a stuck pig.

  Satyrus had his knights in hand. He had a moment to snatch a drink of water – to pat his horse’s neck.

  ‘Well done,’ he said to his trumpeter. The Persian boy was as brave as a lion.

  Artaxerxes grinned.

  Pointed past Satyrus, who turned to see another Antigonid squadron forming against him. Another wedge. They formed so fast, Satyrus suspected they must be Companions before he saw the gold helmet and the purple plume and the white horse.

  Demetrios himself.

  Satyrus pointed to Eumeles.

  Eumeles nodded. ‘What we came for,’ he said.

  Satyrus slammed his sword back into the sheath under his arm. Some superstition – some piety – told him not to fight Demetrios with his guest gift. He took the long-handled Sakje axe from his saddle bow. Hefted it.

  ‘Demetrios is mine,’ he said. He took a deep breath against the weight of his breastplate and his fears, and his nostrils took in the smell of a wet cat.

  Demetrios was annoyed that his best cavalry couldn’t seem to penetrate the line of elephants, but they merely blunted his attack without breaking it. Almost none of his men were killed – their horses simply refused to go forward.
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  It was the greatest frustration he had ever known – that victory was visible – the backs of the enemy phalanxes were just past the elephants. He could see them. The farm was open to him – as soon as he defeated either the elephants …

  … or the cavalry covering their flank. He could see his father’s phalanx – the foot companions – pressing forward to the east of the farmyard.

  This was the moment.

  He raised his spear. ‘Blow rally,’ he ordered. Pointed to the right, into the flank of the blue cloaks by the farm. By the time he shredded them, the elephants would be bypassed. Forgotten.

  Enemy cavalry began to emerge from the collapsing mêlée just to the south.

  He laughed, for he was the King of the Earth, and threw his sword glittering into the sun, and caught it by the hilt, and his Companions cheered him.

  There was Satyrus of Tanais, a stade away, at the head of his knights, and nothing – nothing – could have given Demetrios the Golden more pleasure in that moment than to ride to victory over his chosen adversary.

  His men, as aware of victory as he was himself, raised the paean.

  The sky above the dust was blue and in the distance, far out over the plain to the west, mountains rose in purple and lavender, the most distant golden in the noonday sun. Up there, in the realm of the ether, all was peace. An eagle, best of omens, turned a lazy circle to his right. Or perhaps it was a raven.

  Satyrus spat water and raised his axe.

  ‘Forward,’ he said. He twisted in his saddle, his last plans made. To Eumenes, he said, ‘When I go for Demetrios, stay tight. Don’t follow me.’

  Eumenes looked surprised. Behind him, voices started the Song of Athena, that the hippeis of Olbia had sung since Kineas led them.

  Come, Athena, now if ever!

  Let us now thy Glory see!

  Now, O Maid and Queen, we pray thee,

  Give thy servants victory!

  Satyrus was fifty horse lengths from Demetrios when he put his heels sharply into Panic’s sides, and she shot forward like a bolt from a bow. Demetrios was covered in armour.

  His horse was not.

  Satyrus’s actions were hurried, but he had all the time in the world, because this is what Srayanka made them practise from the time they could ride. And because he held the battle in the palm of his hand. His left hand. His bow hand.

  He didn’t need to kill Demetrios. But he had to stop him. Absolutely had to stop him. At any cost.

  His axe was on his wrist, the haft back along his right arm just off axis from the shaft he had ready there, and his bow came into his hand as if he was practising with the girls and boys on the Sea of Grass, and an arrow fitted itself on the bowstring, the horn nock seating home and the string back and back – his draw thumb against the corner of his mouth …

  Demetrios’s look of shock as his horse went down, Satyrus’s shaft buried to the fletching in its neck. His bow in its gorytos because Mother would yell, his axe up and the flick of his wrist that sent the second man in the wedge to Hades, and Panic lived up to her name and rode through the lesser horses like they were blades of grass.

  Satyrus knocked another man from his charger, and had time to think I unhorsed Demetrios before a blow caught him unprepared. He saw it come … knew he would never parry it in time … raised the haft of his axe …

  Stratokles wrestled his opponent, punched the man with his shield rim, with his fist – that hurt – and when he crumpled, tried to take his spear, but he could no longer get his right hand to close. The spear fell away from him, and Stratokles watched it dumbly.

  As far as he could see in the dust, men were killing other men.

  He raised his shield on nothing but instinct, got his numb right hand onto the porpax to add strength. Took a wound in his thigh and kept his feet.

  ‘Down!’ shouted Lucius, and Stratokles let himself fall.

  He turtled under his shield, so he didn’t see Plato and Gorgias cut into the men he’d been facing – killing two. Didn’t see Lucius behead a man with a single back-cut of his kopis.

  Then Lucius offered him a hand. ‘I had no idea you were such a hero,’ he said.

  Stratokles couldn’t tell whether it was said with irony, so he just smiled. He lacked the energy to say … anything.

  Even drinking from his canteen was almost too much.

  There was shouting to the left.

  And cheers to the right.

  ‘We aren’t fighting anyone,’ Stratokles ventured.

  Lucius stopped, listened. ‘Ares, he’s right.’

  ‘Where’s Herakles?’ Stratokles asked.

  ‘Down. Dead or wounded – I don’t know.’ Lucius shrugged. ‘I followed you.’

  He had something of his taxeis – it was hard to tell, but most of the men around him had been front or second rankers. The cheers from his right could be anyone’s, but if they were Antigonid cheers, then the whole line was shattered, fuck it all. If they were Seleucid cheers, on the other hand …

  After all, they had beaten their opponents – hadn’t they?

  The sheer ignorance of his position made him want to laugh. Stratokles the Informer – the master spy – lost on a battlefield where he didn’t know friend from foe.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Lucius asked.

  ‘Me,’ Stratokles said. ‘We’re wheeling left! Rally, you bastards! Athena! Athena!’

  Apollodorus led his third charge out from the farmyard into the flank of the enemy phalanx. He had become aware that the only thing that was holding Nikephorus’s men together was his own hornet-sting attacks.

  Every man in the farmyard was fighting for his life – Andronicus had thrown his own elite taxeis and every man he could rally at the walls.

  Apollodorus knew he was holding the linchpin of the alliance. He knew that the Exiles were dying in the fields to the south and west to keep him alive, and he did his best to support them with arrows and javelins. But they were dying.

  ‘Nikephorus is dead!’ came a panicked shout from the right.

  Apollodorus wished there was someone to tell him what to do. But he was not a man to waste time.

  He ran along the wall itself, jumped down into the flank file of the wreck of Nikephorus’s pikemen and grabbed a sarissa from a frightened man.

  ‘Nikephorus will live for ever! And so will we! Forward!’ he shouted, and the echo of the stone wall, or the voice of Athena at his shoulder, seemed to amplify his voice to the voice of a god.

  Perhaps they never went forward. But for as long as a running man’s heart beat fifty times, they held.

  And then they heard the shouts: ‘Athena, Athena.’

  Soldiers have ways beyond the rational of understanding the carnage and the chaos and the fear, of navigating where no man could sail with his mind intact, of holding firm when the merely rational demands flight. Like sailors, soldiers are superstitious because they know in their hearts that the world of the mêlée is beyond the comprehension of the rational.

  Nikephorus’s men – horrified by the elephant and demoralised by the death of their commander – had held. And as soon as they heard ‘Athena’ they knew that they had not lost.

  They had won.

  It was not a rational decision, because where they stood they were pinched between Antigonus’s finest infantry and the first signs of Demetrios’s cavalry, a few scattered riders trickling past the Exiles or past Satyrus’s Olbians, enough to have sent them reeling in panic just two minutes before.

  Now, they raised their shoulders, set their hips, put their faces to the enemy, and pushed.

  The second time forward, and Melitta led her knights halfway round the enemy formation, shooting as they rode – flowed her knights from a long, shooting file to a three-deep line facing the westernmost corner of the enemy square – and the arrows began to fall in sheet
s.

  On the opposite face, the youngest tribesmen went too close and were gaffed like fish, but they shot and shot, from so close that a heavy war arrow might punch through an aspis and into an old man’s arm, or skip off his rim to break his nose. And old men’s shields begin to slump – who can keep a shield nose high for an hour?

  The Macedonians charged again.

  This time, Melitta’s knights didn’t flee far … and then they turned their horses. Melitta hauled her mare around on her haunches, perilously close to toppling, and was away. The Macedonians had spread in their charge and she was in among them, killing with her axe, and then they had closed their ranks again, leaving a carpet of dead and a smaller square.

  They were superb.

  Melitta intended to kill them all.

  But it was Thyrsis and the young warriors who did the deed.

  A boy – an eager boy – shot a phylarch above the knee, gave a whoop, and put his pony into the gap. An over-eager file closer thrust his spear into the boy’s horse; the horse twisted and fell, dumping the boy into the face of the square, falling on six men and twenty pike heads …

  Quick as a trout takes the lure in a mountain stream, a pair of girls struck into the opening, shooting as they rode – one died, cut in half by a kopis, but the other girl’s horse crashed into the effectively disarmed men of the sixth and seventh ranks and died there, her rider cutting at men’s sandalled feet with her knife. Another boy raced through the widened gap, threw his weight forward, and died, punched from the horse’s back by a pike driven with the precision of a twenty-year veteran …

  Thyrsis rode into the gap, killed a phylarch with his axe, and as his horse sank onto its haunches the Sakje Achilles urged him with his voice and the horse rose, powered by back legs the size of fence posts, and leaped – and Thyrsis was loose in the centre of the Argyraspid square.