by Max Overton
Nikometros bent over the figure with interest. "A woman?" he asked. "Who is she?"
"I think I recognise her, sir," said Timon. "Though I don't know her name. She is an 'Owl', one of your lady's warriors."
"Diratha is her name, and yes, she is a Massegetae warrior-woman," Parasades said slowly. "What I would like to know is what she is doing here, and coming from enemy land."
"Then we must ask her, if you haven't killed her," commented Nikometros. "Timon, see if you can revive her." He glanced up at Diratha's trembling horse. "No horse should be abused like that. Agarus, would you please attend to it."
Timon knelt beside the young woman and probed her dark hair with his fingers. He glanced up at Parasades with a disapproving look. "You couldn't have been a touch more gentle with her?" His fingers came away with blood on them.
Parasades snorted. "If I had known she was a woman before I struck her then yes, Timon." He beckoned to Certes. "Ride up the way she came a ways," he said. "See if she is pursued." Certes nodded and turned to his horse. "Certes," added Parasades quietly. "Do not engage the enemy alone. Come back and warn us." He watched until the young man rode out of sight around the hill.
Timon took the skin flask from his belt and trickled the thin sour wine over the wound. He soaked a cloth with the liquid and dabbed the woman's face until she moaned. Diratha opened her eyes and stared up at the faces uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then she gasped and tried to shield herself with her arms.
Parasades leaned down and grasped one of her arms, dragging it aside. He stared at the woman with a fierce expression for a few moments before nodding and pursing his lips. "Be at ease, Diratha. You are among friends." He released the young woman's arm and gestured around at the others. "See, here is your mistress' champion, Nikomayros the Lion. Also Timon, his friend. You remember them, do you not?"
Diratha lowered her arms slowly and looked around. She nodded, wincing from the pain in her scalp. "Yes, my lord," she whispered.
"What are you doing here, Diratha?" asked Parasades. "I certainly did not look to see a Massegetae woman riding out of Serratae lands."
"My lord, I came to look for my mistress, the lady Tomyra."
"Alone? You are either brave or very foolish."
"No, my lord. The lady Bithyia led us..."
"Bithyia!" broke in Timon. "She is here? Where is she now?" He grabbed the young woman's shoulder and turned her to face him.
"I do not know, sir, she was not with us when the enemy struck."
"Why not? Where did she go?" yelled Timon.
"What enemy is this, Diratha?" Parasades asked. "Do you mean Dimurthes?"
"She went...I do not know who...we followed the lady Tomyra..." Diratha looked from one to the other of her interrogators then burst into tears.
"Gods!" exploded Nikometros. "Have you no regard for this girl's troubles? She has fled the enemy only to be set upon by those she would consider friends. Let her gather her wits." He knelt beside the distraught young woman and rubbed her hands in his. "Diratha, you are safe now. We will protect you. We need only to know what lies up ahead." Nikometros smiled encouragingly at her. "Take your time and tell us from the beginning."
A clatter of hooves on the stony ground made Nikometros look up. Certes pulled his horse up abruptly and slid to the ground. He looked at Parasades and shook his head. "No sign of pursuit," Certes said quietly.
"There, Diratha," smiled Nikometros. "Certes says there is no one nearby. You are safe."
Diratha sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She struggled into a sitting position and looked at the men's faces slowly. "We followed the trail of our mistress from the Oxus River, leading west and north. We knew it was her we followed as we recognised the mark of her mare. We followed into the hills then across the grassland then..."
"Just a moment, Diratha," broke in Nikometros. "Who do you mean when you say 'we'?"
"Bithyia led us, my lord. Also Sarmatia, her deputy and Domra, though she was no warrior." Diratha thought for a moment. "Prithia, Tarmia, Stallias, and Portas also. And myself of course."
Nikometros nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Diratha. Now continue, please. You followed until today?"
"Yes, my lord. Before daybreak, while our enemies still lay encamped below us, Bithyia took two others to forage for food. She left Domra in charge with strict instructions to wait on their return and not to take any actions that might endanger the others. But at daybreak our enemies moved on and Domra decided to follow instead of waiting for Bithyia." Diratha paused and passed a dirty hand over her face. "We should have overruled her, my lord, but as she only meant to follow we left signs for Bithyia and went with her." She looked up at the men with a trembling lip. "If we had obeyed, we would all be alive."
Nikometros looked around at the others with a troubled expression. He made no comment and raised a hand to stop a question from Timon. Diratha took a ragged breath and continued.
"We came to a wide valley with a stream. There was no cover but we could see no sign of the enemy. Domra wanted to cross immediately but Tarmia argued that we should wait there for the others. Domra rode into the valley and we followed. We could not let her ride out alone, my lord." Diratha sighed. "It was an ambush. Tarmia was the first to die under the arrows, then Domra. We fought but it was hopeless, we were three against a dozen. Portas and I fled but Portas' horse was lame. I heard her die behind me." Tears trickled down Diratha's cheeks. "Her death bought me time and I escaped."
The men stood and knelt silently round the crying girl, anger and distress warring within them. Diratha's sobs grew louder. "I should have stayed and died with my sisters. Instead I fled in shame. I deserve to die."
"No, Diratha," said Nikometros gently. "You could do nothing. You are safe now."
Parasades stepped forward and put a hand on Nikometros' shoulder, squeezing it firmly. "Yes, Diratha," he said grimly. "You fled the battle and left your companions to die. You deserve to die too." He drew his dagger from his belt and held it out hilt-first to the girl. "Does your guilt prompt you to take your own life?"
Nikometros twisted round to stare up at Parasades in astonishment. Timon shifted uncomfortably and looked down at the ground. Certes and Agarus watched with interest as Diratha stifled her sobs and stretched out a trembling hand toward the dagger.
As the girl touched the dagger, Parasades drew it back sharply. "Or will you rather seek to revenge yourself by helping us find the killers of your sisters?" he asked softly. He waited while Diratha hesitated, emotions contorting her features. "If you wish to die I will not stop you but do not waste your death, woman. Help us first."
The young woman stared up at Parasades for several minutes then sighed again and struggled to her feet. "I will help you, my lord. I will seek to avenge my sisters before I die."
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Chapter Eight
"We cannot just ride into the village."
"Why not?" inquired Prithia. "Nobody knows us here. They are only ignorant peasants."
"For the most part, yes," conceded Sarmatia. "But we do not know if our mistress and those we pursue are still down there. They know of our presence now and will be on guard."
Bithyia turned from her scrutiny of the several paths that merged in front of them. The paths, now almost a road, bore the signs of wheeled carts and many horses. Only close examination revealed one or two prints of Tomyra's distinctive mare in the hard packed soil.
"We won't enter the village," she stated flatly. "We'll ride around and see whether there are other roads leading out of here." She remounted her horse and pointed off to her left.
The three women urged their horses off the converging paths and into the trackless pine forests. They picked their way carefully across the rocky ground made slippery by a thick covering of pine needles. The trees shielded them from the bitter winds that blew down from the low mountains around them, the mournful sigh of the gusts in the foliage rising and falling.
By noon they had completed a circuit of the village, finding only three other paths. None of these showed any sign of recent usage and indeed, seemed scarcely capable of sustaining much traffic.
Bithyia examined the crossroads again and nodded in satisfaction. "Good. They are still in the village. We'll wait for them to come out." She looked around, scrutinising the cover critically before choosing a small densely vegetated hillock some distance from the road. Leading the group to it, she dismounted and pushed through the bushes into a small clearing. "This will do. Prithia, attend to the horses please. Sarmatia, perhaps some food?" Bithyia wet her finger and held it up. She grunted and nodded. "The wind, such as it is, blows from the road to us. I think we can risk cooking those chickens now. Keep the fire small and the smoke will lose itself quickly in the trees."
While Prithia groomed and fed the horses with a few handfuls of grain and water from a depleted skin container, Sarmatia started a small, almost smokeless fire of pinecones and twigs on a bare patch of rocky soil. When it burnt down to red coals she gutted the birds and placed them carefully on the embers. The feathers crackled and emitted a stink and a cloud of smoke curled up into the treetops. Presently, the skin of the chickens started to char and the bodies hissed gently, juices leaking out into the fire as they cooked. The stink of burning feathers was replaced by the pleasant odours of cooking meat.
A faint noise carried to Bithyia as she lay beneath the dense bushes of the hillock, scanning the distant crossroads. She signaled behind her with one hand, silencing the muttered conversation of the other two women. Bithyia listened intently then hissed a warning.
"Horses coming. Cover the fire. Quickly!"
Prithia quickly lifted the almost-cooked chickens from the embers and laid them onto fresh green pine needles. Sarmatia scooped earth over the fire, dampening down the nearly smokeless ashes. The two women scrambled to the edge of the copse and lay alongside Bithyia, staring through the trees at the road.
Minutes passed, through which the faint clop of horse's hooves came and went with the breeze. At last a figure appeared on the road leading up from the village, followed by a column of men on horseback.
"Yes. It's our quarry," whispered Bithyia in satisfaction. "But I cannot see our mistress."
"There." Sarmatia pointed near the front of the column. "See, she wears a different cloak."
"Then who is that that rides beside her?" asked Prithia in a low voice. She stared hard at the apparent figure of another woman alongside her mistress. "And there, too. See, further back. Another woman."
Bithyia shook her head. "What are they doing picking up other women?"
"Wives, maybe? Or village girls for their pleasure?"
"They are not young," said Sarmatia. "Even on an easy path they ride slowly and with care."
The column passed slowly, the men gesturing and laughing together, relaxed and careless. At the rear rode the single figure of a man. Though the women were too far away to see his face, the way he sat astride his horse and the carriage of his shoulders told them he was tense and alert. Abruptly, he reined in his horse and stared around at the pine forest stretching away on all sides. He raised his head and wafted air toward him with one hand. The man turned his head and looked back down the road to the village then at the forest again.
Bithyia glanced at the extinguished fire anxiously then sniffed the air. A faint odour of wood smoke and cooked chicken drifted on the cold air. Surely he cannot smell the fire at that distance, she thought. And against the wind...With horror she realised the wind had changed, the odours of their campsite now carrying toward the road.
The man kicked his horse gently and twitched the reins, urging it off the path and in the general direction of the wooded hillock. Bithyia edged backward cautiously and scrambled to her horse. Hastily stringing her bow and grabbing a handful of arrows, she slithered back into position. Mother Goddess, she prayed. Please not. To kill him here would betray our presence.
The man rode slowly toward them. Bithyia carefully selected a straight arrow and checked the feathers. She set it in place and drew back on the sinew, holding the bow flat and parallel to the ground. Sighting the arrow, Bithyia prepared to kill the man.
Unaware of the threat of his imminent demise, Dimurthes brought his horse to a halt less than twenty paces from the hidden women. He sniffed audibly and looked back toward the road and the village. He shrugged and muttered "Just the village," then turned his horse back to the road.
Bithyia waited with bow drawn and arrow trained until the man disappeared from sight before relaxing. "Thank you, Great Mother," she whispered.
"You should have killed him while you had the chance," grumbled Prithia. "One less of the murdering swine."
"He would be missed too easily and his death would alert them to our presence," said Sarmatia reprovingly.
The women returned to their horses and repacked their meagre gear. Prithia picked up the cooling chickens and tore off a leg. She bit into it and grinned as the hot juices ran down her chin. "Gods, that tastes good." She divided one of the birds and handed the pieces to the others then wrapped the other one in a cloth and tucked it into a bag slung across the neck of her mare.
"Eat quickly," said Bithyia. "We must keep close to them now. We are getting near Zarmet and no doubt there will be other villages. If we are to rescue Tomyra, it must be soon."
Flinging the bones and fragments of uneaten flesh to the ground; they wiped the grease off their hands with handfuls of fallen pine needles then mounted their horses.
The road used by the column of men with Tomyra and the two old women branched off the old path to the south and east only a few yards back. The new road wound to the south and west, rising slowly to follow the increasing elevation of the mountains. The road was stony and hard-packed, the hooves of the many horses leaving only faint tracks.
Bithyia forced the pace, catching up to their quarry as quickly as possible. Once almost within earshot of the column, she became more circumspect. Each twist in the road was approached with caution, each new stretch viewed carefully from cover before moving swiftly to the next clump of trees or rocky outcrop. The landscape itself prevented the women from following under cover of the thinning forest. Steep ravines with rushing streams bisected the rocky slopes and loose shale slipped beneath their horses as they guided them as best they could along the edges of the narrow road.
The loose stones of the steep hillside that threatened their safety ultimately proved a blessing. A clattering of rocks from around the shoulder of the hill sent them scrambling for the nearest cover behind a massive boulder perched precariously amid recently crushed shrubs. Peering around the edges, the three women saw the column of men milling around a branch in the road as the party broke into two unequal groups. Orders were shouted and several spare horses were ushered by the larger group toward the main road. One of the old women pointed at Tomyra then at the mountains above her. The man that had nearly discovered Bithyia and her companions shrugged and snapped out an order. Tomyra was ordered off her mare and remounted on one of the smaller, wiry hill horses. The mare was led to the larger group.
The old woman signaled and guided her horse toward a narrow but well-worn path leading up the slope. Tomyra followed, together with the other old woman and three men. The man giving the orders nodded to the main group and waved them on before turning his own horse up the mountain. The large group of a dozen men and the spare horses clattered off down the main road.
"Now what is the reason for that?" mused Bithyia from her cover behind the boulder.
"Does it matter?" asked Prithia. "There are now only four men guarding our mistress. We can take them now and free her."
"That is true," urged Sarmatia. "We may never have a better opportunity."
"Look upward," Bithyia said softly. "We yet have a problem."
The two women turned to look up the slope of the mountain to where the small party of men and women followed the rough path upward. Only a short ride
above them the last of the thinning scrub died away completely, leaving expanses of bare rock and loose scree slopes stretching across the mountain.
"There is no cover," said Sarmatia in horror.
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Chapter Nine
At about the time that Bithyia and her companions watched the small group of riders moving away across the bare slopes of the mountain, Nikometros and his men approached the village of Turkul. They too, noted the faint marks of Tomyra's horse in the stony ground of the crossroads, leading both into the village and back out of it.
"They rode back the way we came?" puzzled Timon. "Surely we would have seen them?"
Nikometros shook his head. "Obviously they took one of the other roads. We must look carefully." He turned his horse Diomede back toward one of the other paths, followed by Timon.
Parasades halted and sat looking at Nikometros until the Greek turned inquiringly toward him. "We need provisions, Nikomayros. The village can provide those and information too."
Nikometros thought for a moment then tossed his head in assent. "Very well. Let us ride into the village." He turned his stallion.
Parasades smiled. "There may be soldiers stationed here. What do you think their reaction would be toward a fair-haired stranger and an armed woman?" He shook his head. "No, Certes and I will go down. You must remain here with the others. We will return soon." He kicked his horse into motion and trotted down the road into the village with Certes at his heels.
"Who in Hades does he think he is?" muttered Timon. "Ordering you around like that, sir. I have a good mind..."
Nikometros grimaced sourly at the disappearing Scythians then shrugged. "He's a powerful Scythian lord, Timon, in a land that he knows well. We're at a disadvantage for the time being." He turned his horse off the road, looking for a suitable place to wait for their companions' return. Only one place looked to provide sufficient cover from casual scrutiny of any passers-by; a small wooded hillock a hundred paces from the crossroads. "Over there, I think."