Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Form three columns – one on each main street. There must be some defenders – put heart into them.’ Satyrus barked his commands and Apollodorus picked his three commanders, and even as men emerged from the rubble tunnels they were numbered off into three groups.

  ‘I’ll take the right,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I should stay with you,’ Apollodorus said.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘You’re no worse off if I die here – if the town holds,’ he said. ‘Besides, I have Draco and Amyntas,’ he said, catching their eyes. ‘They won’t let me die.’

  Both men managed a grunt that might have been mistaken for a chuckle.

  ‘Ares’ golden balls, this sucks like a flute girl at an ephebe’s symposium,’ Amyntas said. ‘I hate sieges.’ He turned to his men. ‘Have I ever told you lads how I saved Alexander?’

  ‘Not above a thousand times,’ Draco grumbled. ‘Come on, or the young king will try and do all the fighting himself.’

  Amyntas spat. ‘He’s just doing it to impress that girl,’ he said.

  ‘I can think of worse reasons,’ Draco retorted.

  Even in fear of imminent death and loss of the city, Satyrus found that his cheeks could burn.

  Into the streets west of the agora, new terrain for Satyrus and all the marines, they went slowly, well closed up, checking side streets as they came to them.

  They went half a stade before they found men looting. A dozen men, all enemy soldiers, who had decided that the town was fallen and they could start the promised sack.

  Their paralysis, their total surprise at his force gave Satyrus some hope.

  ‘Forget the side streets,’ Satyrus said. ‘Form close. At the double! Forward!’

  Their feet pounding the stones, the marines moved fast, flowing along the gently curving street at the speed of a running boy or girl who hears the call of a distant parent – and they saw the enemy, a clump gathered around a small olive tree in a town square no more than two horse lengths on any side. The square was packed with Antigonids sacking a rich house, raping two women they had caught, drinking fine wine – all the delicious, evil spoils of war in one place – and Draco’s marines slammed into them without slowing, and the slaughter was fast and their was blood in the spilled wine and the fountain at the centre of the square was choked with dead men.

  But behind the initial assault of plain pikemen had been a corps of veterans, a reserve, and now they reacted like professionals, coming up from the west and punching straight into Satyrus’ marines, and the pikes and spears were crossed, locked and the killing began in the square.

  They were pushed out of the square, step by step. Amyntas died there, who had saved Alexander’s life in far-off India, who had killed men from Thebes to the Hindu Kush and beyond. Draco saw him fall, and he planted his feet over his fallen lover and his spear rose and fell as if he were Ares incarnate, and the Antigonids feared to face him – indeed, as the enemy was reinforced, some of them shouted his name because they were facing the old veterans now, the best of Demetrios’ force, and the men in the front ranks of the Argyraspides knew Draco by sight and they drew back in respect.

  Another marine dragged Draco back, and Satyrus grabbed his ankles and pulled and they made it alive around a corner.

  ‘Rally!’ Satyrus said.

  Draco was weeping, all rationality gone, like a beast that has lost its child. ‘Give him to me!’ he shouted at Satyrus, and would have struck him if Satyrus hadn’t been watching. He let the body fall, backed away as a man would back away from a dangerous predator, and only when he saw Draco crouch over Amyntas did he turn his back on the man.

  ‘On me!’ Satyrus bellowed. His voice was failing, and he felt fatigue sapping his will to fight, and the fact that they could not hold the square suggested that the town had fallen indeed.

  ‘Satyrus!’ Miriam shouted. She was above him – it hurt him to look that far up, with the neck plate on his back armour biting into his neck under his helmet as he craned to see her. But there she was, a roof tile in her hand.

  ‘On me!’ he roared, his spirit soaring. And the change in his tone was more convincing than the words, and suddenly the marines hardened around him even as the Argyraspides charged around the corner—

  The corner took them by surprise, and the marines held the rush and thirty-year veterans died there, men who had climbed the banks of the Ipsus and the Jaxartes and stood their ground at Arabela. And Satyrus had no time to think: all he knew was the rush of blades, the hollow sound of his shield taking impact after impact, the endless roar of the battle cries and the screams and curses as men were hit and went down. He stood his ground, a front-ranker now, and the men on either side stood their ground, and that was all that could be said. He thrust with his spear as often as he dared, and had no idea if he was hitting or not – over his shoulder, men thrust, and there were screams – it seemed almost impossible to Satyrus that he could still be unwounded, and the fighting in the street seemed to have gone on for hours.

  Then, almost as if an order had been given, the marines backed away three steps – all across the street – and the Argyraspides did not follow. And now that the front-line fighting stopped, the silver shields had time to realise how many of their men were down – how hideously they had been thinned by falling roof tiles and mud bricks from the houses on either side, which were reaping them with more efficiency than the tired marines.

  Just as a young child, her knee skinned in a fall, may take long heartbeats to scream for her mother, so the Antigonid veterans stood for long seconds before realising how many dead they had.

  But they were the best soldiers in the world. And they had not lived so many years in the hands of brutal Ares without learning all the hard lessons of the battle haze. When they found how badly hurt they were, how deep they were in the noose of the women on the roofs and in the alleys – they did not fail. Calling to each other, because so many of their file leaders were dead, calling out from man to man, they lapped their shields and charged.

  Satyrus took the rush on his shield in a state of despair, because any other troops would have broken. All he could do was stand his ground, and die.

  The man on his left died almost immediately, and Satyrus and his rank-mate to the right – he saw that it was Jubal the sailor, a man who had no business being here – were pinned to the street wall by the rush of Macedonian veterans. But Jubal grunted, struck out with his spear and put a man down – a man with a shield rich in ivory and silver, and instead of flinching, the Nubian pushed forward and Satyrus got his shield up, lapped it on the Nubian’s and pushed his legs against the house foundation at his back. Someone filled in from behind, pushing into Satyrus’ left and lapping his shield, and suddenly they were filling the street. They held like a smaller wrestler holds a larger when his slipping feet find a small rock, buried in sand, wide enough to catch the flat of the foot and give the fighter that heartbeat to gather his wits—

  And then Apollodorus stormed into the side of the Argyraspides from the flanks of the square. The enemy commander had never understood that Satyrus’ counter-attack was in three columns. He’d committed everything in the centre. And in a street fight, ignorance is death.

  Apollodorus’ column burst into the square, fifty paces behind the Argyraspides’ front rank, but their shock was translated instantly and that was too much for the veterans. And they still didn’t break. They knew that to break was death. Instead, they retreated through the streets, leaving dead men at every step, dead at the hands of Satyrus, Apollodorus, Charmides – but more dead from the endless rain of mud brick and roof tile.

  They never broke.

  They moved fast, and they killed even as they retreated, and when their Macedonian comrades broke and deserted them, they covered the younger men’s retreat at the gates and died there as well, and Satyrus thought that they were the most magnificent soldiers he’d ever seen.

  And then they were outside the gates. And just beyond the gates, coming hard,
was a fresh phalanx – a whole taxeis – two thousand men. Two thousand fresh men.

  The gates were still there – a mystery to Satyrus. How in Tartarus did they get in? he thought.

  ‘Gates!’ he panted to Apollodorus.

  A file of Argyraspides came to the same conclusion – and turned to stand in the gates. Half a dozen men – men in their forties and fifties, with silver beards over their silver shields.

  The gates opened outwards. To close them, the Argyraspides had to go.

  The enemy taxeis was close. Close enough that he could see the puffs of dust their sandals raised as they ran – ran at him.

  Apollodorus didn’t hesitate. He ran forward, all mad recklessness. The Argyraspides braced, but he stopped just short, raised himself on his toes and thrust down into the back of one man’s helmet and nailed him to the ground. Satyrus was a half-step behind – he’d mistaken Apollodorus’ intention and he went hurtling over the smaller man, into the midst of the Argyraspides in a sprawl. He should have died, but he hit them like a missile and three of them went down – and suddenly they were all locked together on the ground, grappling desperately.

  Satyrus ripped his arm out of the porpax on his shield, got the dagger from its sheath beneath the porpax and stabbed – as fast as the strokes of Zeus when he sends the lightning – at anything his dagger hand could reach, while his free right hand – he’d lost his sword – caught a man’s throat and he squeezed and stabbed with all the ferocity of a pankration fighter in his last hold. Someone was biting his bicep as hard as he could, and another blow landed between his legs, the shattering agony of a groin shot, but he rode it, stabbed again and felt his opponent’s carotid collapse under his thumb, felt the crack of the cartilage of the man’s neck. His hand moved – he felt the man’s face, and buried his thumb in the soft not-flesh of the man’s eye.

  A blow caught him in the back and sent him rolling over, and the pain in his groin flooded over him like a wave. But he could see his marines cheering, all around him. He got to one knee and threw up, and then fell forward into his vomit.

  And they were still cheering.

  He rolled back and forth for an eternity, his knees locked tight, his back on fire. Gradually, it became merely pain. A sort of cold, evil ache that owned the whole lower half of his abdomen.

  Apollodorus was leaning over him. He was grinning.

  ‘You’ll live,’ he said.

  Lying on his back, Satyrus could see that what had hit him in the back was the gates as his men pulled them shut. And in the towers either side of the gates, Idomeneus’ men were pouring arrows down into the taxeis that lay helpless at their feet.

  Miriam came out of the fog of pain. She looked like a fury – blood and dust and a look to her face that was far from beautiful – far, at least, from the kind of beauty poets and potters praised.

  She studied him for a minute.

  ‘I think—’ She steadied her voice. ‘I think you’ve looked better, my lord.’

  ‘You—’ Satyrus said. And mercifully for everyone, he bit back what came to his tongue. ‘Well done,’ he said instead, like an officer to a well-disciplined spearman. ‘Well done, Miriam,’ he panted.

  But their eyes were locked, and her eyes spoke louder than the shouts of pain in his guts and his groin.

  25

  DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

  Satyrus had no more wounds than any man who has fought all day in armour – long scrapes, mysterious bruises, three deep punctures in his lower back where spear heads were held off by his leather armour – but the points had licked through. He had a bruise on his upper left arm that turned a horrendous colour so that other veterans winced to look at it, and he had another on his butt where the gates had struck him that made it almost impossible for him to sleep.

  Altogether, he felt wonderful.

  Part of the euphoria he felt was caused by the poppy juice that Aspasia had given him for the pain in his groin, and part due to his success – by any standard, he and his men had won a notable victory. Demetrios had launched his grand assault, with almost twelve thousand men involved at its height, and he had been repulsed – repulsed with hideous losses. The heaviest assault had fallen on the beaches, and been massacred.

  But the greatest part of the euphoria came from the casualties – or rather, the lack of casualties. Luck, planning, divine aid – for whatever reason, the phalanx of oarsmen had lost just fourteen men; the city ephebes had lost just six, and the combined marines of all Satyrus’ ships, engaged all day in the very heaviest fighting, had lost nineteen men – including Amyntas, the only one of Satyrus’ hetairoi, his close companions, to die.

  Panther and Menedemos had each held minor attacks – real attacks, but with fewer men – and each had lost fewer than twenty men.

  It was a miracle – sent by Athena, men said.

  Satyrus lay on his bed and ached, and thought that it was indeed a miracle, and it was sent largely by Demetrios’ arrogance, and a great deal of luck. And some forewarning from Herakles.

  The sun rose on a new day – the summer festival of Apollo – and Satyrus lay on a low couch, on a magnificent Persian rug in a tent crowded with furniture rescued from the wreck of Abraham’s house. The house was gone, hit four times by rocks the size of sheep. But his slaves had remained loyal and protected his belongings from looters, and now Abraham, his family, retainers and slaves had a compound of tents in the agora, made from Arete’s sails, at least temporarily out of the range of Demetrios’ machines.

  Slowly, cursing from time to time, Satyrus swung his legs over the edge of the low bed, sat up slowly and managed to rise to his feet.

  Helios appeared at his side. ‘My lord!’

  ‘You fought like a hero, yesterday, lad,’ Satyrus said. The word lad escaped from his teeth unbidden. I am growing old, he thought, if I can call men lads. Twenty-four years old. And another year for every day of the siege.

  Helios grinned at him. ‘I did, at that, lord. Charmides says so, as well.’

  ‘Well, that certainly makes it true,’ Satyrus joked.

  Helios grew more serious. ‘As you’re awake, there’s business, lord. After the pirate slaughter last night, Demetrios managed to throw some assault troops onto the mole – the town mole. They’ve barricaded the townward end, and they have a pair of great machines there.’

  Satyrus winced. ‘How many men?’ he asked.

  ‘Six hundred, and some ships in support. And Demetrios has pulled his engine-ships well back, and rebuilt the spiked boom. You can see it on the water. Panther was here, almost an hour ago. He’s asked for all the boule to meet. Abraham refused to have you waked.’

  Satyrus rubbed his jaw. ‘Gods, I stink. Abraham is a prince. Can you get me a bath and some sweet oil, Helios? And a cup of hot cider?’

  Helios handed him a cup – warm pomegranate juice. ‘I’m ahead of you, my prince.’

  Satyrus sat back, sipping the juice. The euphoria was still there. ‘We won a noble victory, didn’t we?’

  Helios laughed. ‘Only – lord – why does he not give up and sail away?’

  Satyrus finished the juice and stood up. ‘He’s barely started, Helios.’

  ‘Shall I wake the others, lord?’ Helios asked.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Let Neiron and Apollodorus sleep.’ They were stretched under awnings near his tent.

  Clean, in a chitoniskos short enough to cause comment in Athens, Satyrus walked out into the blaze of sun in the agora. He went to the boule by way of the square where Amyntas had died. He found the olive tree he remembered, and he cut a long frond and made a wreath and handed it to Helios.

  ‘Wear this, hero,’ he said.

  Helios knelt and took the wreath, and burst into tears.

  Satyrus cut three more and twisted them into wreaths as he walked. ‘When we are finished with the men of the city, we will return, set up a trophy and bury Amyntas,’ Satyrus said. Then he walked to the tholos where the boule met.

  ‘Lord Sat
yrus,’ Panther said, and came to meet him at the entrance. ‘The hero of the day. We have just voted you a statue, should our town ever rise from the rubble to have such things.’

  One by one, men rose and took his hand, or embraced him. These were good men – noble men, whatever their birth, and their thanks – their very heartfelt thanks – were better than a hundred golden wreaths.

  Panther indicated the podium. ‘I think we’d like to hear a few words from you, sir.’

  Satyrus smiled curtly and went to the podium. He cast his chlamys back over his shoulder – he was very informally dressed, for an orator – and he looked around the dim room, picking up every eye.

  ‘I’d like to bask in your admiration, gentlemen,’ Satyrus said. ‘Indeed, it is a great honour to have served you well. And yesterday was a victory. A very real victory.’ He nodded at their smiles and plaudits, and then he raised his voice and chopped at them with it like a woodsman with a sharp iron axe.

  ‘It will take a hundred such victories to preserve this city,’ he said, and they were instantly silent. ‘Every day, every assault, we must be as victorious as we were yesterday, and by such a margin. We lost sixty men, sixty good men. We killed two thousand pirates and perhaps five hundred of his Macedonian professionals. He has thirty-five thousand more soldiers and twice that many pirates. If we lose fifty men a day and he loses a thousand men a day, we will run out of men first.’

  Silence.

  ‘We have other enemies,’ Satyrus went on. ‘I live on the rubble of the agora now. I can smell the shit of three thousand people from here. We must do better than that. Soon enough, the whole population of the city will live on the agora. We must have sanitation, organisation, proper latrines, proper wells and districts measured off. No rich man should have more tent space than he actually needs.’

  Men looked around.

  ‘Further, we need to consider our slaves,’ Satyrus said. ‘Many have been loyal. But as the food fails – and mark my words, gentlemen, we face food shortages almost immediately – their loyalty to us will dwindle. We should consider inviting them to be citizens. And when this town survives, I promise you that we will need their numbers to make up our losses.’