Out in the dark, a man urged a general attack. Kineas could hear him demanding that they all ‘go together’. And argument - in Sakje. Human. Kineas took a deep breath and steadied himself, the last fumes of his dream forced down.
His brain was working. They were men - mere men, not vengeful spirits who would have no need for weapons and orders. And they cared nothing for him - they were here to kill Srayanka. That was the only explanation for the hesitation of the first attackers.
It appeared that Marthax had found a solution to the succession problem.
The plan and its execution followed each other in two breaths, and Kineas leaped down from the wagon bed and charged straight at the voice in the darkness. The Egyptian sword cut down a man who was just turning to confront his rush, and he pushed past the collapsing body and ploughed straight into a man in full armour. The man cut at him and their blades rang together as Kineas parried.
Kineas stepped back, placing the armoured man between him and a fire, so he could see. The man he’d cut down was screaming (no monster from the dark world, then), masking all other sound. The armoured man swung at him and Kineas retreated, ducking the heavy blows, but his ripostes fell on thick scale armour. He didn’t have enough light for fine work, and he felt the press of time - at any second, he could get a blade or an arrow in the back, and his naked flesh made a better target than these black-painted attackers.
He caught the next swing on his sword, pushed the other blade high, and stepped inside the man’s guard. Then he grappled the armoured man around the waist and threw him to the ground, where every scale on the man’s armour scraped against his naked chest. This was the fighting that Greeks trained for, and Kineas knew there was no Sakje who could stand against him. Down to the ground - fingers in the nose, thumb in the eye, knee in the groin - a spatter of blood, the smell of shit and his man was dead. Kineas listened while he wiped off the gore of the man’s eyes on the tunic under his armour and his gorge rose, because it was one thing to practise killing a man so close, and another to do it.
The wounded man was still screaming, and off to the left, closer to the wagon, there was fighting. He lost precious seconds finding his sword again and ran, terrified that he had taken too long and she was dead.
She was not dead. She was on the wagon, shooting down, and just below her, Philokles the Spartan stood with his heavy black spear. He had an arrow in his shoulder and another in his lower leg, and two dead men at his feet. A ring of adversaries stood beyond the reach of the black spear. There were more on the other side of the wagon, where Srayanka was shooting.
Kineas came up silently and cut, the Egyptian blade going cleanly through the man’s neck, and then he cut again, low, severing the tendons in a man’s legs. Then he bellowed ‘Athena!’ and Philokles made two rapid lunges with the spear. A man slammed into Kineas’s side and he was suddenly in a mêlée, blades all around him.
‘Apollo!’ from the other side of the wagon. Diodorus’s voice.
Kineas fell, both feet sliding out from under him - blood on wet grass - and a blade whistled through his hair. He rolled towards Philokles, rose to his feet and cut at a new adversary, who parried and came in close to grapple. Kineas caught at his sword hand and froze - it was Parshtaevalt.
‘Kineas!’ he said, and fell back. Then the two fought back to back for an eternity - perhaps a minute - their backs touching, the warmth of that touch meaning life and safety.
‘Apollo!’ again in the darkness, and then another and another, and the pressure on Kineas was lifting. He cut low - always dangerous in the dark - and his man went down with a grunt. Kineas leaned back until he felt Parshtaevalt’s back, and then took a deep breath. ‘Athena!’ he called.
‘Apollo!’ came the cries - and then they were all around him. He pushed through them, a horde of Greeks and Sakje mixed. Urvara stood, as naked as Srayanka, a bow in her hand, with a ring of Grass Cats around her. Behind her, Bain, the young war leader of the Cruel Hands, stood with a bow, covering Urvara. He threw back his head and howled like a wolf.
Kineas had no time for them - he ran for the wagon.
Srayanka still stood in the wagon, beautiful and terrible by the light of the oil lamp. She had a shallow cut on her neck and it had seeped blood all down her right side, so that she seemed to be a statue in black and white.
‘Marthax did this,’ she said.
‘You’re alive,’ he said.
‘Marthax did this,’ she repeated. ‘He means war. Fool! Fool - why did he not talk to me?’
‘He fears us too much,’ Kineas said. He was conscious that they were both naked - indeed, everyone but the dead and wounded attackers was naked.
She nodded. ‘Get me the chiefs who are loyal to me,’ she said to Parshtaevalt, who had come up.
Kineas turned to find Niceas at his shoulder. The man was shaking his head.
‘What do you intend?’ Kineas asked the women he loved.
‘To take the people who will go, and run,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, there will be war when the sun rises, and the Sakje will never unite again.’
‘He betrayed us and his guest oaths,’ Urvara said.
Srayanka shook her head. ‘Perhaps.’ She spoke rapidly in Sakje - too rapidly for Kineas to follow, and the younger girl nodded.
To Kineas, she said, ‘Either this attack came from one of his men, and he will be forced to accept it in the day - or he planned it himself, and he has another thousand horsemen waiting to fall on us with the dawn. I am taking my people and the Grass Cats and any others who will come.’
‘Now?’
‘Now. I go north and east. I will ride north to the City of Walls. If they admit me, I will take money and grain. From there, I will follow the sea of grass.’
Kineas stood in the dark, still fogged from sleep, with the sick-sweet wash of combat in his veins, and tried to think. ‘I will never see you again!’ he said.
She smiled at him, and climbed down from the wagon to embrace him. ‘That is the will of the gods,’ she said. ‘But I think that we are not two clansmen, lost on the plains. You are baqca and I am a priestess. You will see me,’ she said. ‘Go and reclaim your city. Then, if you wish it, follow me. You can go by sea to the Bay of Salmon - any Euxine Greek can show you the way. We will be slow - we will have many horses, and wagons, and children. If you miss us on the sea of grass, find us at Marakanda on the trade road. It is the greatest city on the plains.’
‘Marakanda?’ he asked. A city of myth. He shook his head. ‘If I can catch you, so can Marthax!’ Kineas said. His wounds hurt - the new ones, and the old ones more. But what she was saying made sense. And the plains were not as empty as he had once thought. There were roads and paths.
‘Marthax will not want to catch me,’ she said. She grabbed his head and pulled it down and kissed him until, despite his wounds and the blood on her, he was conscious of their nudity and the darkness.
‘I must be the Lady Srayanka!’ she said, breaking the embrace and pushing him away. ‘Go!’
‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Listen, my love - I can rally my men in an hour. Marthax will never stand against us - the Grass Cats and the Cruel Hands and my phalanx will break him in the dawn. You will be queen.’
She smiled - a smile that showed him that she had thought all of this through, and didn’t need his political guidance, however much she loved him. ‘I would be queen of nothing,’ she said. ‘This way, my child will be king. Now go.’
‘Child?’ he said, dumbstruck, as she pushed him away and yelled for Hirene, her trumpeter.
And then he was no longer a lover or a warrior, but a general, and he had work to do. Srayanka’s column, with herds of horses, goats and sheep, and a hundred heavy wagons, moved east just after dawn. Kineas’s Greek cavalry shadowed their departure, and Ataelus’s scouts watched Marthax.
Marthax was mounted, the rising sun flashing on his gold helm and his red cloak, and his warriors had their bows in their hands, but they didn’t move.
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The sun was high in the sky by the time Kineas’s hoplites marched south, but they were going home and they were happy to be moving. They sang the paean as they marched past Marthax’s men. They had fought Macedon together, and neither side seemed interested in conflict.
Kineas ignored Diodorus’s hand on his bridle and his admonitions and rode clear of his column. He trotted up a short slope to where Marthax, massive and red, sat on his war charger - a great beast easily two hands taller than any horse in the army. Around him sat his knights and his leaders. Kineas knew them all. They had been comrades, until yesterday.
‘Are we enemies?’ Kineas asked, without preamble.
Marthax looked sad. He shrugged. ‘Will you marry her?’ he asked.
‘The Lady Srayanka? Yes, I intend to marry her.’ Kineas had a linen sack in his hand, and he toyed with the knot of the string securing the neck of the bag.
‘Then we are enemies,’ Marthax said slowly. ‘I cannot allow you - the king of Olbia - to wed my most powerful clan leader.’
Kineas met his eyes, and thought of the last year - planning a campaign and executing it, with this man at his side, his humour, his great heart, his invincible size and clear head. ‘You are making a mistake,’ he said quietly. ‘I am not the king of Olbia. I do not want your throne - and nor do you.’
Marthax - a man who never quailed, who knew no fear - glanced away, looking over the plains. ‘I will be king,’ he said. ‘And I am not Satrax, to tolerate her scheming. She will wed me, or no one.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘You are being a fool. Who is giving you this advice? She will not marry you - you don’t even want her! And her claim to the kingship is better. The first time you make a mistake, the tribes will desert you.’
Marthax turned slowly back to him. He shrugged. ‘I have spoken my words,’ he said. ‘If she returns from the east, she will be my subject, my wife or a corpse.’
Kineas opened the sack and dropped the contents on the ground. ‘She was almost a corpse last night,’ he said.
Around them, the knights shifted and a murmur of discontent came like a breeze over grass.
Marthax looked at the head lying there. ‘You have murdered one of my knights,’ he said, but he appeared more confused than angry.
‘This one attacked her yurt in the night,’ Kineas said, pointing at the head of Graethe. ‘He had fifty men. They are all dead.’ Kineas looked around. ‘You are making a terrible mistake, Marthax, and someone is leading you to it.’ Kineas raised his voice. ‘Let me be clear. You - and you alone - have split the clans. This one paid for his attempt to murder the lady. Now she is riding east, to fight the monster. You will let her go. You will let her go.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I am the lord of the walking spears, and of the flying horses. And I am baqca. Harm her on her march east, and I will burn your City of Walls, and no merchant will ever come to the sea of grass again.’
‘Go and fuck yourself, Greek,’ Marthax said, rising to his full height in the saddle.
‘No gold. Nowhere to sell your grain. The end of your way of life. How long will you be king, Marthax? Will you last out the summer?’ Kineas rode his horse right up close. Marthax towered over him, but Kineas was too angry to be afraid.
‘Go, before we do you harm,’ Marthax said through his teeth.
And then the child was there, pushing between the horses unseen. She stood by Kineas. ‘He will pretend to be king until the eagles fly,’ she said. ‘They will pick his bones.’
‘And take this carrion-imp with you,’ Marthax said.
Kineas scooped the girl up, turned his horse and rode back to his column. She squirmed for a while and then dropped off his lap to the ground.
‘I must get my horses,’ she said.
Kineas let her go. A Scythian - even a child - was nothing without her horses, and Kineas understood the pull. Even as he watched her running across the grass towards the royal herd, he saw Prince Lot and the Sauromatae mounting up. They had fewer remounts and no wagons, and lived in tents made of heavy felt. There were two hundred of them, with another fifty wounded on travois dragged behind spare animals.
Prince Lot saw him and approached. His Greek was terrible and his Sakje stilted. After a minute, Kineas had gathered that the Sauromatae wanted to travel with the Greeks. Kineas rode on, calling for Eumenes. The boy - scarcely a boy now - had three wounds and was still in a wagon, but he was well enough to sit up and translate.
‘He says, “I wish to travel with you. I spoke to the lady - she rides too fast for my wounded.” He says, “Srayanka said that you would follow her by the Bay of the Salmon.” He says, “I can show you the road, and my wounded will have more time to rest.”’ Eumenes listened to Lot’s last phrase and gave a weary smile. He pointed at the fading dust cloud that was Srayanka and her clans. ‘He says, “She should have been queen.”’
Kineas smiled at the first good news of the morning. ‘I will be delighted to have you with us,’ he said. He repeated this until Prince Lot smiled broadly.
Kineas also had a handful of Sakje prodromoi. Ataelus had recruited them - almost twenty now - with liberal promises of horses, and made them into his own small clan, including his new wife. None of them had deserted, even the two Standing Horses, and they gave Kineas eyes far in advance of his little army wherever they marched. Another of old Xenopon’s recommendations, even though the man had probably been too conservative to approve of Kineas’s use of ‘barbarians’ for the role.
Kineas waved Ataelus in from his intense watching of the main Sakje host, and told him to include the Sauromatae in his calculations. Ataelus grunted. He rode over to the column of travois, where the adolescent girls rode lighter horses, with their bows in their hands.
‘For them, for scouting,’ Ataelus said. He spoke to Lot, who nodded.
Kineas turned to leave them to it, and started for the head of the column, but suddenly Ataelus’s wife screamed a war cry, and other scouts were shouting. He turned his horse in time to see the lanky figure of Heron, the hipparch of the hippeis of Pantecapaeum, bringing up the rearguard. He wore his perpetual scowl as he watched his troop ride by.
There was movement from Marthax’s camp. Out on the plain of grass, a dozen horses ran. Behind them came a troop of Sakje, all in armour. They were slower than the horses they pursued, and they were losing ground. Farther back, Marthax’s main line had begun to move forward.
‘Shit,’ Kineas said. He knelt on the back of his ugly warhorse and tried to see through the dust already rising over Marthax’s line. The man had three thousand cavalry - no more - and he couldn’t hope to win a pitched battle against Kineas’s hoplites and his Greek cavalry. But he could do a lot of damage by harrying Kineas’s march. He could force Kineas to waste weeks. He could cost Kineas the city of Olbia and leave the army stranded on the plain, at the mercy of the winter.
It all went through Kineas’s head in a few seconds as he watched a little girl on a white horse galloping towards him with a dozen more pale horses following her. The riders pursuing her were abandoning the chase as Heron’s rearguard blocked their way, contenting themselves with curses and bow-waving. Heron himself continued to scowl as he shouted orders to his hyperetes.
Lot had formed the Sauromatae into a block and wheeled them into line with Heron’s troop. The hoplites were already deploying to the right. Philokles the Spartan had taken his young men out of the line and was running to Heron, his transverse scarlet plume bobbing as he ran. The Greeks had been at war all summer. They could form line from column in any direction, at speed, without wasted orders.
Marthax’s line halted well out on the plain, a good two stades clear of the Greeks and the Sauromatae.
Ataelus had an arrow on his string, and he was looking at Kineas. Kineas shook his head and rode to the girl. ‘What the fuck have you done?’ he shouted at her, harsher than he meant.
‘Taken what is mine, and what is yours,’ she said. Around her milled two dozen horses, all white and flashi
ng silver.
‘You have stolen the royal chargers?’ Kineas asked.
‘My father said that after Satrax you would be king,’ she said with the simplicity of childhood. ‘Satrax is dead. They are yours - except for the white foals. Those are mine.’
Kineas was tempted to put her over his knee. ‘Ares and Aphrodite. Heron - give me four men with a flag of truce to return these horses.’
Heron told off troopers, who looked afraid. He rubbed his forehead and allowed his bronze Boeotian helmet to dangle on its cheek strap. ‘I prefer to be called Eumeles,’ he said. ‘At least in front of my men.’
Kineas smothered annoyance. Heron took himself very seriously, but when he wasn’t acting like an ephebe with his first lover, he was becoming a fine officer. ‘Very well, Eumeles,’ Kineas said.
The Sakje host sat silently at a distance.
Prince Lot took Kineas’s arm. He spoke quickly, emphatically, gesturing at Marthax in the opposite line.
Ataelus kneed his horse forward and translated. ‘For saying, Marthax not king. Give horses, Marthax for being king. You for making him king.’ Ataelus nodded.
The girl laughed. ‘You don’t want to be the one who makes Marthax king of the Sakje, do you?’
Kineas sat and cursed, but he didn’t want to offend Srayanka. He wished she was there to advise him.
The two forces watched each other for an hour, and then the Sakje began to trickle away. They had discipline when they needed it, but Marthax’s force was not as unified or as singular of purpose as Kineas had feared. Before his eyes, men and women rode off, collected their camps and departed - small lords first and then great lords. In three hours, Marthax had just two thousand horsemen.
At that point, Kineas ordered his line to form column. He briefed his officers - Memnon and Philokles for the foot, Diodorus and Heron and Lot for the cavalry. They were careful and slow - forming a hollow square from a line was not child’s play - and they marched with the spears on the outside and the cavalry in the middle with the wounded and the baggage.
Tyrant: Storm of Arrows Page 4