Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Are you taking command?’ Neiron asked quietly.

  ‘No,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’ll board with the marines.’

  Neiron nodded, and Satyrus winked at Helios, suddenly feeling as if he had the stature of the gods. Win or lose, he was done. He’d brought his fleet to Tanais, and now it was down to muscle and spirit.

  We are the better men.

  Theron handed him his helmet. He pulled it on, fastened the cheekpieces and together they ran forward.

  ‘Oars in!’ Neiron roared, and Philaeus echoed in his singer’s voice. Even as Satyrus ran, he had to jump to avoid the oar shafts coming across the lower deck.

  It was eerie, the silence as they hurtled forward. Satyrus stopped just short of the marines’ box in the bow, grabbed the rail and pressed tight. Helios did the same.

  ‘Brace!’ yelled the marine captain.

  Satyrus caught a glimpse – they were going in bow to bow. Poseidon, they were going in right on the enemy ram! It was terrifying in the bow, where the ram was part of you. His sphincter tightened and his whole body convulsed.

  Neiron flicked the steering oars and the bow of the Golden Lotus seemed to dart to the left the length of a man – just enough to change the angle of their attack. The bow of the Lotus slammed into the enemy’s upper-deck rowers’ box and pushed the enemy bow, just a horse-length, but suddenly the enemy ram was pointing east and not south, and their own bow was ripping the strakes off the enemy ship.

  As the impact brought them almost to a stop, Satyrus leaned forward to the marine captain. ‘Clear the command deck. Ignore the rowers.’

  The marine grinned.

  ‘Blood in the water!’ Satyrus yelled and leaped up on to the rail, heedless of the weight of his armour. He was on the rail for a fraction of a heartbeat, but for that instant time froze, and he saw the length of the enemy vessel – saw that he would be the first to board – and he felt that he was a god.

  Then he was on their deck. One leg slipped from under him and a deck sailor went for him with a spear and died with an arrow in him, then Satyrus was up on his feet, pushing his shield into a man’s gut. Hacking under it, over it, he brought the man down and pushed forward, pushed again then dumped his next opponent into the rowers and set his feet on the narrow catwalk. The marines on the command deck rushed him, but they had to come one at a time and the reforged Aegyptian sword sang in his hand. He glanced a heavy overhand cut deliberately off the man’s shield, then rotated on his hips, driving forward with his sword foot and cutting back with the long kopis. He took the first marine’s head clean off at the neck with the power of his blow, and his men let out a cry together.

  The next man flinched and died with Helios’s spear in his groin, pushed under both their shields, and Satyrus was free to push forward again. He could feel the weight of his own men behind him – and then more men were dropping on to the deck.

  ‘Clear the command deck!’ Satyrus roared.

  The man behind the man he was facing was already turning to run.

  Satyrus took a blow on his shield – an immense blow – and his shield split. He cut twice, as fast as he could, and then a third time, and then a fourth, and his opponent fended off every blow, but Satyrus’s blows were so fast and so hard that the man couldn’t launch an attack, though his shield was being pounded to splinters in turn.

  Satyrus cut low, cut high and the man blocked, their swords ringing together like a hammer and anvil, the strokes keening over the wind. Satyrus began the feint for the Harmodius blow and his opponent stepped back to void his attack. He tripped over the body of a sailor behind him and went down. Satyrus stepped over him on to the command deck, leaving his fate to Helios. He had fought well.

  He felt Helios’s shoulder pressed into his back, and then it was gone as the boy pushed up the catwalk next to him. Then Theron was on his right, and as soon as he had flanks, he advanced, his shield foot forward. The man who faced him across the deck wore elaborate purple plumes in a plain Attic helmet and a long red cloak. Marines stood on either side of him and he cursed them for running, and there was a lull – one of those moments when men stop fighting for no reason, or every reason.

  ‘Eumeles!’ Satyrus called.

  The man in the purple feather laughed. It was a hollow laugh, but not a coward’s. ‘Eumeles has run,’ the plumes said. ‘I’m Aulus, the navarch of Pantecapaeum.’

  Satyrus took a deep, shuddering breath, and then another. Disappoint ment flooded him. ‘I want Eumeles,’ he said. ‘Drop your sword and I’ll spare every man on this deck.’

  Aulus shook his head. ‘When I’m bought, I stay bought,’ he said, and slapped the face of his aspis with his blade. ‘Come and take me.’

  ‘Herakles!’ Satyrus roared, and he went across the deck like a dart from a war machine. His aspis shattered as he rammed it into the enemy navarch’s, but his sword was already moving and he ignored the massive pain in his shield arm and cut from high to low. He felt his blade bite into the man’s thigh below his shield and the man screamed into his face.

  And then the deck was clear, and they were moving on the waves. He looked down from the platform into the rowing decks, and the rowers looked back with slack, exhausted faces, almost uncaring if they lived or died.

  He dropped the remnants of his aspis on the deck.

  ‘Theron,’ he panted. ‘Theron – take command of this ship.’

  Theron saluted silently.

  Satyrus got over the rail with a hundred times the effort with which he’d come aboard and all but fell into his own ship. But willing hands caught him and put him on his feet, and Philaeus embraced him.

  ‘Look, lord!’ he shouted in Satyrus’s ear, as if Satyrus might have become deaf.

  Neiron was pounding his back.

  The sea battle, such as it had been, was already over. And the enemy squadron on the distant beach was still there, bows moving in the gentle seas, sterns still clenched in the mud. One enemy ship was skimming the waves, just going ashore.

  ‘That will be Eumeles,’ Satyrus said. ‘We’re not done yet.’

  Neiron pointed at the enemy camp beyond their line of ships. At the landward edge of the camp, an army was formed, and beyond it, men were dying.

  ‘Ares,’ Satyrus muttered.

  ‘They started the battle without us,’ Neiron said.

  Satyrus couldn’t make out who was fighting, although he could see Urvara’s Grass Cat standard on a far hill.

  ‘But . . .’ Satyrus shook his head. His sword arm was a dead thing, and he massaged the muscle at the top of his arm. ‘To Tartarus with them. We’ve won. We don’t need a land battle.’

  Neiron pointed at a swirling cavalry melee several stades away to the east. ‘Try telling them.’

  Satyrus took a deep breath, tempted to rail against the gods. A land battle just risked his sister without accomplishing anything. By crushing Eumeles at sea and trapping him here, far from his city, the war was over. He breathed again.

  ‘Helios!’ he called. ‘Signal “All ships rally on me”.’

  Helios had a bandage on his arm and a blank look on his face.

  ‘Helios!’ Satyrus said again.

  ‘Lord?’ the boy answered.

  ‘Signal “All ships rally on me”!’ Satyrus put a hand on the boy’s head. ‘You going to live, lad?’

  Helios nodded sheepishly.

  Satyrus turned to Neiron. ‘As soon as Panther comes up, I’m putting him in charge with orders to burn those ships or take them. Then I’m going ashore by boat – to the beacon.’ He pointed at the beacon burning in the strong fort on the opposite headland.

  But Panther didn’t come. Abraham did, and Satyrus gave him the command.

  ‘Don’t delay. Go in and drag their ships off the beach, or throw fire into them under cover of your archers.’ Satyrus was going to continue, but he could see irritation on Abraham’s face.

  ‘I think I can be trusted to burn some ships,’ he said. But then he smiled. ‘By god, S
atyrus – we’re doing it!’

  ‘Not done yet,’ Satyrus cautioned. Then he dropped into the small boat that they towed under the stern. ‘Row!’ he said.

  24

  The day after Samahe died saw the least combat of any day since the start of the campaign.

  Both sides were exhausted.

  At dawn, Melitta moved her camp, dragging her tired army by force of will to go south and west along the Tanais another thirty stades. They went up the ridge behind the Ford of Apollo’s Shrine and camped behind the crest. The weather was clear and the sun high, and as soon as they stopped moving, most warriors were on their backs, sleeping in the sun.

  Melitta arranged guards and put every man in the camp that could make an arrow to fletching. She did these things herself, or through her guard, because the level of exhaustion was so high that she could no longer trust that her chiefs would get everything done. So Laen and Agreint stalked the camp, waking men up to ask after fletchers, while the rest of them under Scopasis stripped their armour and became scouts.

  Coenus seemed unfazed, despite riding a thousand stades and fighting. He shrugged. ‘This was my life,’ he said simply.

  Ataelus shook his head. ‘I for horse – every day for horse. But you? Greek man.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘You served with Kineas. I had eight years of it.’

  Ataelus nodded. ‘We need for Kineax.’

  Melitta didn’t know what to make of that. So she said nothing.

  After she had her guards out and when the pile of arrows was growing at a rate that seemed glacial but would have to do, she went to Coenus. ‘I need to be in touch with Urvara every day,’ she said. ‘Will you be my herald?’

  Coenus nodded. ‘T hat’s good thinking. I’m away. Can I put the seed of an idea in your head?’

  Melitta shrugged. ‘Of course.’

  Coenus pointed at Temerix. ‘The farmers could hold that ford all day. Against the whole of Upazan’s force.’

  Melitta shook her head. ‘So? Upazan’s on the same side of the river as we are.’

  ‘He is now,’ Coenus said. He already had the reins of his horse. ‘If you retired across the river, he’d be stuck on the wrong side. Quite a ride north to get to the next ford, or take truly staggering casualties to get through Temerix.’

  Melitta rubbed her chin. ‘I see it.’

  Coenus nodded sharply. ‘I’m not saying that it is the right thing to do. But . . .’

  Melitta looked downstream. ‘No enemy boats for two days.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘Makes you wonder. I’ll be back in three hours.’ And he was gone. Melitta saw, with the eyes of a commander, that his horse’s hooves raised dust today where yesterday the ground had been soft.

  Good to know.

  She lay down and slept.

  Coenus returned while she was drinking beer with Temerix, outlining for him how she’d like him to drive stakes into the ford. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Eumenes of Olbia is a day’s march away – I saw a girl called Lithra, a spear-maiden of the Cruel Hands, who’d just ridden in with a message.’ Coenus said this in a loud voice, and men making arrows looked up, and many of them smiled. The Cruel Hands were the royal tribe, and heaviest in warriors.

  ‘By the Warrior and the Ploughman,’ Buirtevaert said. ‘I’m sorry I doubted you, Greek.’

  Graethe came up. He had a wound on his chest that was suppurating through his wool coat. Melitta embraced him anyway.

  ‘That was a bold charge, Lord of the Standing Horse. It will long be remembered, that we followed your banner to victory.’ She took his hands, and he winced as some movement of his arm caused him pain, but his face lit up at the praise.

  ‘If Kairax of the Cruel Hands is two days’ ride away,’ he said, ‘I owed you that charge.’ He grinned. ‘And I had to strike hard before he comes and steals all the glory!’

  Melitta came back to Coenus. ‘But you do not look like the bearer of good tidings.’

  Coenus squinted in the bright sunlight. ‘I don’t know if it is good or bad, but you need to hear it. Urvara is taking her Grass Cats and all the farmers in the fort across the river. She’s been feeding riders across for two days, raiding Nikephoros’s foragers and cutting into his ability to send out parties. Now he has his boats crewed all the time, trying to catch her people, but they swim the river and now they can shoot his rowers from both banks.’

  ‘And that is why we no longer see boats up here!’ she said. She clapped her hands. ‘No bad news there!’

  ‘No. But in pushing so many of her warriors across the river, Urvara is committed to fight. Today, I saw Nikephoros march his whole force out of their fort and form a square. They marched up-country, seizing food. Urvara’s men shot at them but did little damage. Now she’s determined to cross in force and hem him in his camp. And of course, with Eumenes right behind her, she can do it.’

  Melitta understood. ‘Urvara is committing us to a battle.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just to cover her archers, who she needed to close the river, which she did to keep us alive up here.’ Melitta ticked the points off with her fingers.

  Coenus nodded again. ‘Yes. You are your father’s daughter, Melitta. Many grown men with ten campaigns never understand the cause and effect like that.’

  ‘I love your praise, Uncle. You knew of this in the morning, when you recommended that we close the ford.’ She wasn’t accusing him, just asking.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I merely suspected. Urvara means to fight – or close the fort – tomorrow. The Cruel Hands and all of Eumenes’ cavalry are riding all day to join her, and the phalanx of Olbia will come when they can. I don’t see how we can get them over the river, but we’ll do that when we have to.’

  ‘And the farmers?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘Swimming with the Sakje horses. Not something most Greeks can do.’ He shook his head. ‘Any movement from Upazan?’

  Melitta looked upstream, where the calm day devoid of dust showed that her enemy was resting. ‘Nothing.’ She sat on a stump. ‘But if Urvara commits to fight Nikephoros – then what? It is a very unequal fight, all cavalry against all infantry.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘Just so. It will, in fact, be a race between Eumenes’ phalanx and Upazan. Upazan has more cavalry than all of ours combined – twice over, even now. But he has no infantry. If we can destroy Nikephoros before Upazan arrives, he will be helpless. But if Nikephoros holds us until Upazan arrives . . .’

  Melitta shook her head. ‘Urvara has committed us to a mighty risk. What if I call her back?’

  Coenus sat down. Men were gathering around – Scopasis and Graethe, Ataelus, his eyes red with weeping, and Buirtevaert with his hand on Ataelus’s shoulder, his son Thyrsis behind him and Tameax the baqca watching from under his eyebrows. But they all stood silent and listened. This was not their way of war.

  Coenus looked around. ‘If you call her back, then we face Upazan on this side of the river, and Nikephoros recovers his wits, puts all his men on ships and comes across.’

  ‘Ahh,’ Melitta said. Now she saw it. ‘This is not risk. We are, in fact, desperate.’

  Coenus put his hands on his knees. ‘Unless your brother comes,’ he said, ‘we have little choice.’

  Melitta stood. ‘Then let us strike with what we have. Upazan has lost a day. We will march at dawn – across the ford. Temerix, your best two hundred, with ponies, to hold the ford. If Upazan crosses north of us, scouts will inform your men and they can ride to join us. Otherwise, you hold the ford until you die. The rest of your archers follow me. Perhaps we can bury Nikephoros in arrows.’

  Ataelus shrugged.

  Graethe looked at the men making arrows. ‘Only if we have them to shoot,’ he said.

  Upazan’s scouts found them in the dark, but they were ready enough, and Melitta slept through the fight and rose to be given hot wine and a report.

  Scopasis pressed the wine into her hand, and she could see blood und
er the nails of his hands.

  ‘We hit them, but many got away.’ He shrugged. ‘We killed more than some.’ He frowned. ‘But they saw the stakes in the ford.’

  She kissed him then. He was shocked – he stumbled back. ‘Lady?’ he mumbled.

  She smiled. ‘Life is not all war, Scopasis. One day, we will not be wearing armour.’

  She caught a glint – the outlaw lived. ‘Lady,’ he growled.

  She felt better than she had in days, and she swallowed the wine in four hot gulps. ‘Armour,’ she called, and then remembered that she no longer had Samahe to braid her hair. She was surprised – appalled, actually – at how quickly the dead were left behind in her head. They died so fast.

  She shook her head to clear it. That way madness lay.

  Gaweint came with her armour, and the day was moving.

  She got her rearguard across the ford without incident, and she clasped hands with Temerix and a dozen of his archers. Then she turned and rode west along the south bank of the river. It seemed odd – a reversal of the natural order.

  Ataelus was closed to her, and she tried to reach him.

  ‘I missed Samahe this morning,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘I miss her for every beat of heart,’ he said in Greek.

  ‘I—’ she began.

  ‘I want her body back,’ he said in Sakje. ‘I failed to recover her, and she will go mutilated to the after-life, and wail for revenge, and what can I give her?’

  Melitta leaned close. ‘Upazan’s head?’ she asked.

  Ataelus shook his. ‘Upazan will never die by the weapon of a man,’ he said. ‘It is told. Even Nihmu said it.’

  Melitta summoned her Greek learning. ‘If Philokles were here,’ she said, ‘he would tell you that Samahe lived a good life with you and gave you two sons and a daughter, and that what happens to her body after death means nothing, because she is dead.’