Storm of arrows t-2

by Christian Cameron

  Ataelus nodded enthusiastically. ‘And Persian. And Sakje.’ He pointed to two small ponies with iron-grey hides and bloodstains.

  ‘What about Philokles?’ Kineas asked.

  Ataelus shrugged. ‘Eight days ahead. More? For riding hard.’ Ataelus waved east.

  Kineas nodded. ‘And Nihmu?’ he asked.

  ‘For child?’ Ataelus asked. ‘Nihmu yatavu child? For being somewhere! For being under the foot of my pony when I fight, or for dropping rocks on bandits. Who knows where the child is for going?’ He grinned. ‘Her horses I am for having.’ Sure enough, the dozen royal chargers towered over the scout’s remounts like a separate genus.

  Niceas explained that Diodorus was a day or two behind, and Lot a week behind him.

  Ataelus watched the ridges behind them while Niceas spoke. When Niceas finished, Ataelus pulled at his nose and drooped an eyelid. ‘Time to find bandits,’ he said. ‘For taking their horses, bring them fire. When Diodorus for coming, bandits scatter.’ He pointed down the other side of the ridge, towards the Kaspian and Hyrkania. ‘Bandits thick as rain, for fighting. Out on the high plains. All way to Rha. Lost two men getting Spartan to coast.’

  Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘How many bandits, Ataelus?’

  ‘Many and many,’ Ataelus replied. ‘Kill bandits here, for making others feel fear. Yes?’

  Kineas could see that Ataelus already had a plan. So he nodded.

  Ataelus grinned. He motioned to one of the Sauromatae girls. She slipped off her mare, pulled her saddle blanket off her horse’s back and threw a double armful of dew-wet bracken on the fire. Thick grey-blue smoke pulsed into the sky. The Sauromatae girl put her blanket over the fire in one smooth motion, so that the smoke was cut off. Then she whipped it clear and another pulse of smoke shot upward.

  She repeated this three times.

  Ataelus grunted in satisfaction.

  ‘Neat trick,’ Kineas said.

  ‘Have we ever seen them do that before?’ Niceas asked.

  ‘No,’ Kineas answered.

  Already there was a picket galloping up the ridge from the eastern road. He pulled on his reins in the camp and Samahe, Ataelus’s wife from the Cruel Hands, barked orders at him. He grinned, dismounted, cut another pony out of the herd, remounted and galloped away.

  A pair of Sauromatae girls galloped in from another direction. Before the sun rose three fingers more, there were a dozen riders gathered, and they were riding hard along one of the many stream beds that criss-crossed the wooded ridges. A trickle of water flowed over rocks under their horse’s hooves, but the banks were clear of leaves or brush on either side up to the height of their horse’s withers, indicating how full these little valleys ran when the rains fell.

  Ataelus seemed to know just where he was riding. Kineas was content to ride along.

  The shadows stretched away when they stopped. All the Sakje and the Sauromatae dismounted and relieved themselves without letting go of their reins. Kineas and Niceas imitated them.

  There was a hint of smoke on the cold wind over the strong smell of urine. A clear-eyed blonde woman handed him a gourd of water and he raised it in acknowledgement before he drank. She looked to be fourteen or perhaps fifteen. She had two skulls on the ornate saddle of her horse.

  Kineas grinned at her and she returned the grin.

  ‘We for hitting them at dark,’ Ataelus said. ‘Understand for hitting?’ he smacked his right fist into his left hand.

  ‘I understand,’ Kineas said.

  ‘For watching two days, since girls get in fight and Samahe for finding camp.’ Ataelus shrugged.

  There was something untold, some story that made Samahe wrinkle her nose and made one of the girls blush and wriggle in her saddle. A story he’d never know, Kineas thought.

  ‘You knew we were coming?’ Kineas said, suddenly making the connection.

  ‘Nihmu says for coming, says “protect him king”.’ Ataelus shrugged. ‘Not for needing child for telling for protecting.’

  ‘You watched us last night?’ Niceas asked.

  ‘No. For today since sun rose this way.’ Ataelus closed one eye and raised a hand, palm flat, just over the horizon.

  Niceas shook his head. ‘They were on us last night. If they watched us meet…’

  Kineas took a deep breath, suddenly eager to have it over with. ‘If they intended to ambush us, they’ve had all day to do it.’

  The shadows lengthened across the meadows below them, and the air grew frostier as the sun’s rays fell further away. Niceas and Kineas had to work to curb the impatience of their horses. Kineas’s Getae horse was the worst, fretting constantly and jerking his head at any motion, so that Kineas had to dismount and hold his head.

  The blonde woman gave him a glance of pity — pity that his horse was so ill-trained.

  Twice they heard voices, both times Persian speakers getting water from the Tanais below them. Then, while the sun was just visible, they saw a pair of riders come out of the meadow and ride a short distance up the ridge, from where they had a good view of the eastern road at their feet.

  Ataelus grunted in disgust, because by chance or purpose, the new pickets had a much better chance of warning the camp below of his approach than the pair they replaced. He clucked his tongue in his cheek as he watched them, and after a few minutes, he summoned one of the Standing Horse warriors in his band and the two of them rode off down the back of the ridge. Samahe dismounted and lay in the leaf mould, her hand shading her eyes.

  Time dragged by. The Sauromatae women were as nervous as kittens, but their horses were calm, munching quietly on anything in reach and otherwise immobile. Niceas drew and resheathed his sword a dozen times. Kineas was busy keeping his under-trained horse from mischief.

  He was amazed at their discipline. All over again. He couldn’t have kept a dozen Greek troopers so quiet without the hope of massive gain.

  Even as he thought it, he wondered if he was making a poor assumption. Perhaps the Greeks could do as well. Perhaps with training, some rides out with Sakje patrols…

  Samahe rose to a crouch and Kineas snapped from his reverie to watch the ground below him. The two mounted pickets were almost invisible, even from above, but little movements in the trees betrayed their position to a careful watcher. But unlike Samahe, Kineas couldn’t see Ataelus or his partner, so the first he knew of their movement was a pair of arrows appearing from the rocks to the right and falling silently on the pickets.

  ‘Now!’ Samahe said in Sakje, and she vaulted on to her mare and set off down the hillside at a speed that terrified Kineas, who was right behind her and couldn’t, for the sake of honour, go any slower. He reached the valley floor at a gallop, already past his fear because the ride had been so bad in itself, and he readied a javelin as the pair of them raced across the meadow. He could see the camp now, and it seemed to be full of men and horses — dozens of them. A few had bows. One raised his and loosed, but the arrow flew well over Kineas, who ducked down on his horse’s mane and galloped on, straight at the heart of the bandit camp.

  Samahe’s horse sidestepped some obstruction in the meadow grass, and on her next rise she shot, her arrow licking across the flowers and the sweet grass to drop one of the few bandits to get mounted. Her second arrow was in the air.

  The Sauromatae girls weren’t shooting. They were screaming with all the gusto of the young warrior, screaming away their terror and their exhilaration, and they bore straight at the bandits by the river.

  Kineas went through the camp without touching his reins. No one opposed him and he rode past the huddle of bandits at the riverbank and then up a short rise to a clearing in the riverbank woods, where there was an abandoned farmstead and the bandit horse herd. There were ten men in the clearing and despite the screams from the riverside, they seemed surprised when he appeared in their midst, and two of them were down before any got weapons to hand.

  Kineas wheeled his horse and extended his arm, using the momentum of the mo
ve to twirl the shaft in his fingers so that he changed grips in a single stride of his mount, and a circle of blood drops flew from the point of his rotating javelin.

  He felt like a god, at least for a moment.

  One of the men had a bow and shot his horse, who crashed to the ground in another stride, and he fell, getting a leg under him and then rolling, javelin lost. He came up against a tree and he rolled to put the bole between him and the archer.

  The archer laughed. ‘Try this!’ he called, in Persian. He shot. The arrow hit the tree and shattered, and the man laughed again. He had a black beard and kohl-rimmed eyes like a Bactrian nobleman.

  Down by the river, men were dying. Blackbeard drew another arrow. ‘Get horses,’ he called over his shoulder, and two boys sprang to do his bidding.

  Kineas pulled his cloak off and whirled it around his arm, moving to his right to a larger tree.

  ‘Try this, Greek!’ Blackbeard shot again, and his arrow hit the new tree.

  Kineas jumped out and retrieved his javelin, avoiding the slashing hooves of his dying Getae mount and leaping behind another tree just as a third arrow skipped along the bark and slapped into the rolled cloak on his arm.

  ‘Try this, harlot!’ Kineas yelled, and threw his javelin. Then he charged, leaping a downed tree as he ran, heedless of the odds. It was better than letting a master archer take his time, and something had gone wrong in the fight by the river.

  His javelin hit the man by the archer’s side, knocking him flat like the deer. The archer turned and ran, and Kineas ran after him. There were men in the clearing and they set themselves to stop him, but none put the archer’s life higher than his own, and Kineas ran through them, downing one with a sword cut as he ran by.

  The two boys had grabbed a pair of horses apiece, and Blackbeard took the first he came to, tossed the boy clear of the saddlecloth and vaulted astride, pulling the horse’s head around. At the other side of the clearing, Samahe appeared, shooting as she came, and the other boy went down with an arrow in his guts, screaming. Kineas found himself crossing blades with yet another Persian — another nobleman, from the rags of purple on his cloak. The man had a good sword, and he was aggressive.

  Blackbeard pulled his horse around and shot. So did Samahe. Neither hit. Both were moving fast, flat to their horse’s backs, and then Kineas had no attention to spare.

  The Persian leaped in and cut hard at his head. Kineas parried and the blades rang together, and the Persian kicked at his shin under the locked iron. Kineas pushed his hooked blade up and over his opponent’s guard and then slipped a foot behind the man’s ankle and pushed, hoping for a throw, and the Persian jumped back, cutting high.

  He was a swordsman.

  Kineas parried and cut back, a short chop at his opponent’s hand, but the Persian had seen such a move before, and he made a hand-high parry that turned into an overhand cut to the head — and Kineas just managed a parry, taking a blow that was not quite a cut to the shoulder. His left hand closed on his Sakje whip in the sash at his back, and he pulled it clear and changed his stance to lead with his left foot, the whip out as a shield.

  The Persian had a knife in his left hand and he stamped forward, leading with the knife.

  Kineas backed away, kicked pine needles and risked a glance over his shoulder. Ataelus was shooting behind him — shooting back the way he had come. Something was wrong.

  The Persian was smiling. He flicked with the knife — a feint with just enough power to draw blood. Kineas retreated a step and the Persian’s smile grew wider. He suddenly changed tempo, pivoting on his front foot and thrusting with his sword and then trying to trap Kineas’s sword against his own with the dagger.

  Kineas just barely evaded the trap, twisting his body, pulling a muscle in his neck, inwardly cursing. Again he backed away, aware that this fight was taking too much time. Ataelus called out in Sakje — something about a wound.

  Kineas made a high attack with his sword, scoring just a touch of a cut against his opponent’s forearm and drawing the same high counterattack — but this time, Kineas gave the man’s sword hand the full weight of the lash of his riding whip and then cut low with his blade, catching the Persian just on the hip bone and cutting him deeply. The man fell back. He wasn’t grinning, but he had the grace to salute with his dagger hand.

  Kineas leaped forward, cut hard at the Persian’s sabre and knocked it right out of the man’s hand — the lash had hurt, as Kineas could see.

  ‘Yield,’ he said in Persian.

  The Persian glanced over his shoulder, where Samahe had an arrow pointed at his back. He nodded three times, as if some point of philosophy had just come to him, and tossed his dagger on the ground. ‘I yield,’ he said.

  Kineas raised his own blade, stepped well back and looked for Ataelus and Niceas. Ataelus was at the horse herd, calling orders. Niceas was nowhere to be seen.

  The swordsman was the only prisoner. His cousin — Blackbeard — hadn’t survived the archery duel with both Samahe and Ataelus, and the rest of their troop had been cut down or had fled. Kineas was a little surprised at the savagery of the Sakje — but only a little. He was more worried about Niceas.

  Niceas lay out on the meadow of flowers with an arrow in his ribs. He wasn’t dead, but he was deeply unconscious from the fall, and the arrow had skidded up his ribs and ripped open his shoulder as well.

  ‘Shit,’ Kineas said.

  ‘I’ll save him,’ said Nihmu.

  Kineas whirled. He hadn’t seen her approach, hadn’t seen her horse. She had a strung bow over her shoulder and her quiver was empty. She turned and ran across the meadow towards the bandit camp, and Kineas was left to make his comrade as comfortable as possible. He rolled Niceas’s cloak and put it under his head and cut the remnants of his tunic free from his body.

  Nihmu came back with a copper beaker of water, still steaming hot from the bandits’ fire. ‘It looks worse than it is,’ she said with the confidence of an adult. Then, more quietly, ‘Sirven died.’

  ‘Sirven?’ Kineas asked.

  ‘Lot’s daughter older. The blonde girl.’ Nihmu shrugged. ‘I told her she would die if she fought here. But when she went down, they all fought over her body. Ataelus took a cut.’ She pointed at a red-haired girl of fourteen weeping. ‘Her sister lost a finger and took an arrow in the leg. They are all angry.’ She sounded like the child she was — and like an upset child, at that.

  Kineas felt his post-battle fatigue come on him, as the daimon that animated him to fight left his body empty of feelings except sorrow.

  Nihmu was washing the wound with hot water, her dark hair hanging in uncombed tangles over her face so that he couldn’t see her. ‘They are all angry.’ She repeated. ‘So they killed all the bandits.’

  ‘All?’ Kineas asked, turning to look for his prisoner.

  ‘You should stay by him. He will do you a good turn one day, that one. If Ataelus doesn’t take his hair.’

  Kineas turned and trotted off into the dusk to find his Persian.

  The man was burying Blackbeard. Kineas listened to the Sauromatae mourning Sirven and her sister. Mosva, he thought. She’s called Mosva. Kineas left his Persian prisoner working and walked down to the river to find Ataelus.

  ‘Stupid girl,’ Ataelus said bitterly. ‘Stupid Sauromatae barbarian girl.’ He had tears in his eyes and a quaver in his voice. ‘Fight like wild things, sword to sword with grown men — hard men. And me for fool! Too long fighting stupid Greeks.’

  Kineas hugged the little Sakje, and pressed Samahe’s hand, and embraced the little red-haired princess, who clung to him and wept until he was embarrassed, and then for a good time beyond, so that he stared into the gathering darkness and patted her hair, thinking bleak thoughts about the quality of right and wrong, good and evil, and about how far he was from being a man of virtue when he couldn’t comfort a bereft sister. But eventually she felt his awkwardness and drew back with an apology, and then he punished himself and went to help t
he Persian bury his cousin. Later, he sat by the fire making barley soup for Niceas, who was deeply unconscious.

  ‘I came to find you,’ Nihmu said, kneeling by him. ‘I didn’t like it when they killed the prisoners. It made me afraid.’

  ‘Killing prisoners is never good. Sometimes it must be done — when they are wounded, and you can’t help them. Sometimes it — happens.’ He shrugged, the image of the Getae man he had killed a year before rising in his mind, so that he gave a little shiver of revulsion.

  ‘It is time. Are you climbing the tree yet?’ she asked.

  Kineas nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I saw you in the dream world — three nights ago, I think it must have been. You are an eagle.’

  Kineas shuddered again with a different disgust. Speaking of the dream world this way was like discussing sex — he knew men who did it, but he didn’t himself. Speaking of the dream world with this — this child — was almost impossible. ‘Yes,’ he said, repressing his feelings as well as he might.

  She flicked a smile at him and put some herbs into the barley soup. ‘He won’t die,’ she said, as if Niceas’s continued existence were obvious to anyone.

  Kineas looked at Niceas and felt tears come to his eyes. His throat threatened to close, and he couldn’t speak. He knew that Niceas might die — in any skirmish, on any day — but the reality of his unmoving body was deeply painful.

  ‘You need a horse,’ the girl said.

  Kineas took a deep breath to deny it and then slumped. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I have a horse for you,’ the girl said. ‘A magnificent beast, who will carry you from now to the day you fall.’

  Kineas smiled. ‘The way I ride, I may fall later today.’

  Nihmu looked back at him with a child’s intensity and a child’s impatience for adult humour. ‘You know what I mean. Take the horse.’

  And Kineas agreed.

  11

  The Persian’s name was Darius — every first-born son in his generation was Darius, it seemed. He was tired of war, which had been his life since he was seventeen. He was twenty-three.