Tyrant: Storm of Arrows

by Christian Cameron

  Kineas sat still. Thalassa stood between his knees, back unmoving, head up as if it were a cool spring morning and she was eager for a run. He’d never had such a horse. He patted her neck affectionately. ‘Have the hyperetes sound “advance by squadrons”,’ he said.

  ‘We’re attacking?’ Diodorus asked.

  ‘We’re looking confident. The afternoon is bleeding away and we need nightfall.’ Kineas pointed with his Sakje whip. ‘Look - it’s the Farm Boy.’

  They had all had an affectionate nickname for the man - a royal Macedonian bastard named Ptolemy. Unlike Craterus the Dog, who’d been hated and feared, the Farm Boy had many friends. ‘Commanding Companions.’

  ‘No, he’s with the Sogdians,’ Kineas said. ‘Poor bastard.’

  Behind Kineas, Andronicus blew the trumpet call. The Olbian squadrons surged forward across the ridge. Their line was neat and the afternoon sun turned the bronze of their armour to fire.

  ‘Sound “halt”. Let’s see what they do.’ Kineas watched.

  A minute later, and there were messengers flying among the Macedonians on the other side of the river. ‘They only have, what, eight hundred horse?’ Kineas asked.

  Eumenes was looking up and down. ‘Twice that, surely!’

  Diodorus laughed. ‘Youth is wasted on the young,’ he said. ‘Kineas is right. And half of them are Sogdians.’

  Kineas looked up and down the riverbank. A stade from the river on both sides, the ground was like desert, with sun-scorched grass and gravel. But the valley itself was two stades wide and it was green - sometimes marshy, sometimes meadows of grass with stands of tamarisk and rose brush. On the far side, there were two distinct groups of Sogdian cavalry, and on Kineas’s far left, a pair of tight-knit squadrons of Macedonian professionals. The whole line moved, because the enemy horses were restless. They were moving so much that they were raising a new dust cloud, making it hard to see them.

  ‘I’m going to go for him,’ Kineas said, suddenly decisive. He felt better immediately, his guts settling. He saw it. ‘We’ve little to gain, sitting in the sun. His horses are tired and mine aren’t. If we get beaten, we retire into the sunset. He’s a thousand stades from his camp. Sound good to you?’

  Diodorus responded by taking his helmet, which hung by the chinstrap from his sword hilt, and putting it on. He was smiling as he tied his chinstrap.

  Kineas looked around for a messenger. His eyes fixed on Leon, who had blood on the white leather of his corslet and a heavy bandage under his wide-brimmed Boeotian helmet.

  ‘Leon, ride all the way to Ataelus. You listening, lad? You fit?’

  The Numidian nodded fiercely.

  ‘All the way to Ataelus. Tell him to get across and harass the far left of the enemy line. Understand? Say it back.’

  Leon pulled off his helmet to listen better. ‘All the way to Ataelus. Harass the enemy left flank.’

  ‘Go!’ said Kineas. He looked around for another messenger. He found Hama, the chieftain of the Keltoi. ‘Hama, go to Srayanka and tell her to move forward into bow range and start plucking at the Macedonian cavalry - those right there. See?’

  Hama nodded.

  ‘Tell her to support Ataelus on her left. You understand?’

  Hama nodded and gave the smile of a man who’d captained a few fights. ‘Tell your wife to harass the horsemen in front and help Ataelus turn their flank,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve got it. Go!’ said Kineas. He rode over the ridge and waved his arm at the Sauromatae until Lot noticed him. Then he waved towards the eastern bank. Lot waved back.

  Kineas rode back to the top of his ridge, took one more look at the Macedonian positions and pulled his cheek plates down. ‘Ready?’ he called. ‘Slow and steady over the rough ground. Keep your line and look tough and the Sogdians will vanish. Be ready to wheel left by squadron. I’m going to get us up the bank and turn north into the flank of their real cavalry. Got it?’ He looked back over his shoulder and the Sauromatae were moving, Lot’s helmet gleaming as the Sauromatae started down the tail of the ridge on Kineas’s right. Water flashed under the hooves of the lead horses. On the far bank, the rightmost Sogdian group began to mill in confusion.

  ‘Sound “advance”,’ Kineas yelled.

  The Olbian line moved forward at a walk, picked their way down the spring riverbank, slipping and sliding on the sand, and then re-formed neatly on the broad meadow in the river valley. Kineas took the point of the leftmost Olbian rhomboid, with Carlus and Diodorus behind him.

  As soon as they entered the green valley, Kineas lost his lofty view of the battlefield. He gripped his first javelin and rolled his hips as Thalassa felt her way across the rough meadow, avoiding the clumps of scrub. The Olbians, old hands at rough riding, flowed around the scrub and re-formed automatically, without orders.

  ‘Ready?’ Kineas called. They had the green valley to themselves - the Sogdians weren’t coming down off the spring bank.

  They came to the river itself and Thalassa splashed across. The spray from her hooves felt good. He gathered his reins. ‘Straight up the bank. Spread out. Go up that bank as fast as you can.’ He waved his arms. ‘Spread out! Double intervals!’

  No trumpet call for that, but he was obeyed and the other two troops followed suit. A stand of tamarisk hid the Sauromatae. Too late to worry. ‘Trot!’

  He put the knees to his horse and wound the throwing strap on his his first javelin.

  Antigonus sounded the call and they started up the slope. Thalassa was up in two bounds, and arrows flew by him - one hit his helmet. He leaned forward, and she was up, hindquarters surging, and he pressed his heels into her sides, rose higher in his seat and roared ‘Charge!’

  A single enemy rider met him. His back was to Kineas, and he was bellowing at the Sogdians to stand, stand fast. The man was an officer with a white sash around some Bactrian garment worn over his breastplate. He had a shawl over his head, but Kineas knew him. The Farm Boy.

  Kineas grinned and swung his heavy lonche javelin like a two-handed axe, blindsiding him and knocking the Macedonian from his saddle. Then he shouted at his hyperetes, already reining his mount. ‘Rally!’ he called, and the trumpet rang out.

  Kineas nodded at Antigonus as troopers fell in behind. ‘Stay together!’ he ordered. ‘Let’s go!’

  The trumpet sounded again. Somewhere in the dust, Ataelus would hear it and so would Lot and Srayanka.

  Kineas headed into the cloud, following the fleeing enemy.

  The grey-brown cloud was suddenly full of horsemen. Kineas was shocked to see how many. Bactrians, he thought, from the heads of the horses and the colourful saddle cloths. And then he was on them.

  They didn’t stand, seemed confused, unaware until the last seconds that they were in danger. Kineas didn’t trouble to throw his javelin, but simply unhorsed men to the left and the right with the haft. Behind him, the broadening point of the rhomboid blew through their line and it unravelled like a moth-eaten garment. Men and horses boiled away from Kineas and his escort to vanish underfoot or away into the dust.

  ‘Rally! Rally!’ Kineas called, and again the trumpet call rang out.

  ‘Change face - left!’ Kineas called to Antigonus. The Gaul raised the trumpet and the call rang out. Kineas couldn’t see past the next two files, because now the sand and dust moved like a heavy fog full of spirits, but he pivoted his own horse and went from being the point of the formation to being its rightmost flank.

  Trust your men. If the manoeuvre had been carried out, his rhomboid now faced directly along the Macedonian flank. In the dust, he couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Charge!’ Kineas called.

  Antigonus sounded the trumpet. The formation moved, gathering speed, and Kineas began to encounter opponents - confused men whirling their horses in the battle haze. The path of the charge and the enemy formation - or lack thereof - left Kineas and his flank without opposition. They rode slowly, maintaining contact with the centre of the formation, which was doing a
ll the fighting.

  Samahe knew exactly where to find him, reading his mind as neatly as a shaman, probably riding to the trumpet sound. ‘Heh! Kineas!’ she called as she came out of the dust.

  Kineas called out. ‘Samahe! On me!’

  ‘For fucking like gods!’ Ataelus’ grin was so wide that it split his round face in two as he cantered out of the dust behind his wife. ‘Hah! I own them all!’ He waved his uninjured arm. ‘I ride all the way around their flank. Craterus is for retreat. Yes?’

  Kineas had to grin at that. ‘I’m going to the north,’ he shouted.

  Ataelus shouted ‘Yes!’ and rode back into the dust.

  ‘Halt!’ Kineas called to Antigonus, and waited while the trumpet sang. ‘Face to the right!’ Kineas said, and again the trumpet’s brazen voice carried above the dust. He couldn’t hear very well and he couldn’t see ten horse-lengths. He had only his last glance at the battlefield and his guess to go by.

  He was again the point of the rhomboid - if there was a formation at all. ‘Trot!’ he called, putting his knees to Thalassa. She was calm as ever and she carried him easily. He put a knee in the middle of her back and sat up for a moment but could see nothing and almost lost his seat as she flowed over an obstruction.

  When he felt that enough time had passed, he began to angle towards the west, leading the formation - if he had any formation - into a gradual wheel along the river, but a stade north, sweeping for the Macedonian cavalry.

  The dust began to clear. In as many strides of his horse, he could see his hands on the reins, see a clump of grass in his path, and then he was clear and could see the dust cloud and the squadron of Sogdian horse waiting with obvious indecision just clear of the rising column of dust. The dust of the battle haze was so thick that it rose into the air as if the grass itself were afire.

  Kineas unwrapped the sweat scarf from his throat where he wore it to keep his cuirass from chaffing against his neck, and wrapped it again, sweat stinging his face, around his mouth.

  He kept angling west. He looked back.

  The rhomboid was still there. Carlus and Antigonus and Diodorus emerged from the wall of sand behind him, and then Hama, Dercorix and Tasda, and behind them four more. The spacings were far from perfect and there seemed to be a whole wing missing - perhaps ten men - but after two blind facings and a charge, it was like a miracle.

  The other two troops were nowhere to be seen.

  The Sogdians to their left front had only just seen them. They were moving - the subtle movement of men and horse like a wind through tall grass that betokens indecision and fear.

  Kineas whirled, keeping his seat. ‘Straight through them!’ he yelled.

  His men gave a weary shout. They gathered speed.

  Out of the dust to their left, a single rider on a black horse emerged like a dark thunderbolt. Kineas knew it was Leon from the moment he saw the bull’s-hide shield on the man’s arm.

  Leon shot straight at the Sogdians. Their leader, a big man with a grey beard, wheeled his horse at the last moment, as if he hadn’t expected the Numidian’s charge to go straight home - and he was too late. Leon’s thrown javelin hit him low in the gut and knocked him to the earth, and Leon’s big gelding crashed past the other horse and right into the front of the Sogdian formation.

  The local men were as stunned as if a real thunderbolt had levelled their chieftain. Leon vanished into them. Their standard-bearer, another big man on a grey horse with a bronze bull’s head on a pole, shouted shrill orders and the Sogdians began to close their ranks. Arrows leaped out of their formation and fell towards Kineas.

  Ten strides away, Kineas cocked his light javelin back. Five strides out, he threw, and just as his horse’s head passed over the corpse of the chieftain, he lowered the point of his heavy spear to unhorse the man with the bull’s-head standard. Thalassa knocked the man’s horse flailing into the sand and sprang over, and Kineas lost his javelin in the man’s corpse.

  The fleeting moments of clear sight were gone, and again they were deep in the haze of Ares. Kineas reached for his Egyptian sword, gripped it and it wouldn’t budge from the scabbard. He raised his bridle gauntlet to block a blow and took it in the side. Pain, like rage, exploded. Thalassa whirled under him.

  Another blow against the scales of his corslet and then he was free in the swirling grit. His side hurt, but the daimon of combat was on him and he pinned his scabbard between his bridle arm and his side and ripped the sword free, almost losing his seat in the desperation of his efforts.

  He was alone. He turned Thalassa’s head in the direction he thought was right and urged her forward.

  Carlus emerged from the dust, his heavy spear dripping gore. ‘Hah!’ he grunted in greeting.

  Behind him, Hama pressed forward. ‘This way, lord,’ Hama called.

  The three of them rode into the veil of swirling sand.

  A man with a cloth wound around his domed helmet crashed his horse into Thalassa, and Kineas was back in the mêlée. He cut and parried, ever more conscious of the pain in his side and the rising tide of sound. This was a stand-up fight, not a rout. The Sogdians were no longer giving ground.

  The Olbians weren’t winning. He could hear their calls and the growing shouts of the Sogdians.

  He pushed Thalassa straight into his opponent’s horse and cut three times, sacrificing finesse for brute force and speed. One of his blows got through and the man reeled, his hands across his face as his horse twisted, all four legs plunging for balance. Kineas was past him.

  ‘Apollo!’ he shouted.

  All around him in the battle haze, he heard the shout taken up, and ahead of him: ‘Apollo!’

  He could see the horsehair crests on some of his men off to the right - just a glimpse as a fitful breeze whipped the flying dust. He bellowed ‘Apollo!’ again and pressed Thalassa with his knees. She responded with another surge of strength, bulling over another rider without Kineas landing a blow. Then a small man who seemed to be covered in gold landed a spear thrust straight into Kineas’s chest. The scales of his mail turned the thrust - the man had over-reached. Kineas cut at the shaft, failing to break it but swinging the head wide, so Kineas was in close. He grabbed the haft with his bridle hand and pounded the Medea head of his pommel into the man’s face and their horses engaged, so that the two men were pressed breast to breast as their mounts whirled like fighting dogs, biting and kicking. Kineas reached his bridle hand around the man’s back - he was heavily armoured. Kineas’s left hand closed on the man’s sword belt and he wrenched the blade of his own sword up from where it was pinned between their chests - up and up again with each heave of their mounts. Thalassa rose on her hindquarters, biting savagely at the other horse’s rump and striking with her front hooves, and Kineas turned his wrist so that the Egyptian blade came up under the other man’s jaw . . .

  A spray of blood, and the gold man fell away, dead weight that almost carried him off Thalassa, and a blow against his helmet . . .

  Carlus roaring like a mad bull at his side, propping him up. Apollo! Hama on his other side and Leon’s shield coming out of the suffocating haze. He sat up, pain ebbing, muttered unheard thanks to Carlus and Hama.

  He’d lost the sword. He loved that sword - the sword Satrax had given him.

  Stupid reason to die, though. Antigonus was pressing through the haze.

  ‘Rally! Sound “rally”!’ Kineas said. His voice sounded odd. He’d lost his helmet.

  He glanced down, hoping to see the glint of Medea’s face on the golden grass at his feet. Instead he saw the blood running over his thigh from somewhere under his corslet.

  The world became a tunnel. At the far end, Antigonus - or was it Niceas? - was shouting ‘Rally! Rally!’

  Niceas turned around as if the world had slid sideways and the ground rose to meet him. Then there was a skull, speaking from a wall of sand.

  ‘Listen, Strategos. We will turn the monster south, away from the sea of grass. Let him play with the bones of
other men! Your eagles will rule here, and the life of the people will be preserved. That is my purpose, and your purpose, too.’

  Kineas shook himself. ‘I am no man’s servant.’

  ‘By the crooked-minded son of Cronus, boy! You could die. Pointlessly, in someone else’s fight - a street brawl, defending a tyrant who despises you. Or from a barbarian arrow in the dark. It’s not Homer, Ajax. It’s dirty, sleepless, full of scum and bugs. And on the day of battle, you are one faceless man under your helmet - no Achilles, no Hektor, just an oarsman rowing the phalanx towards the enemy.’

  He heard himself - a younger and far more feckless man - speak the words.

  The skull spoke with the voice of Kam Baqca, as if they sat together in the sun-dappled contentment of Calchus’s paddock. ‘That would have been your fate - face down in the slime of a street brawl, the tool of vicious men. And you are better.’

  Kineas found himself stitching away at a headstall - dear gods, he thought, I seem to have spent my entire adult life repairing horse-leathers. He was facing one of the commonest annoyances of a man sewing leather - he was just three stitches from completion and he was out of thread. Almost out of thread. He would have to stitch very carefully, taking the needle off the thread at every stitch to get it in again at the end. Even then, he wouldn’t make it - he could see that.

  The handsome warrior leaned over and pulled at the dangling thread, and it lengthened - just a fraction. ‘You were a mercenary, and you chose to be something better. Go and die a king . . .’

  It was dark. He was Kineas. The babes were crying and Srayanka’s hand was on his hand.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ she said in Sakje. She pressed his hand hard, so hard that the pain in his bones almost matched the pain in his left side.

  ‘I gather we won?’ Kineas asked.

  She kissed him again. ‘I almost lost you,’ she said.

  ‘But we won the victory?’ he asked urgently.

  ‘Eumenes rallied the Olbians and came into the fight on your flank, breaking the last resistance. My Sakje harried the Macedonians for thirty stades. Some of my warriors are still riding.’