Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  He was curiously far away, watching himself prepare to kill a helpless girl his own age, and his hands didn’t tremble much. The range was close.

  He shot her.

  He meant the arrow to go into her brain, but the shaking of his hands or the flexing of the shaft put it in her mouth. She shuddered, and made a choking sound, and then vomited blood like the fish.

  Like the fish.

  Her whole body spasmed again, and then she lay still. He watched her soul leave her body, watched her eyes become the eyes of a corpse.

  It was like being hit in the head by Theron. He couldn’t see much. He sat on his horse, and he heard the Sauromatae charge, and he heard his name called, but he couldn’t control his limbs. So he sat and watched the dead girl.

  Time was an odd thing, because this time yesterday she had been alive, but she would never be alive again.

  Philokles shouted his name.

  Lita shouted his name.

  And then there was just the grass in the breeze, and the sound of the insects, and the ravens calling.

  ‘You with us, boy?’ Philokles asked. He poured a mouthful of wine into his mouth.

  Satyrus spluttered and shook and swallowed some the wine the wrong way.

  They were still in the fields by the road, and Satyrus was lying on the ground. His head hurt, but he didn’t have a wound on him. ‘What happened?’

  Theron’s face appeared. ‘You killed the girl. Then you fainted.’ Theron’s sword arm was red to the elbow.

  For the second time that day, Satyrus tried to get to his feet and threw up instead. He lay back and Theron gave him another mouthful of Philokles’ wine, while the Spartan collected horses and gear with Melitta.

  ‘Can you ride?’ he asked when he came back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Satyrus said. He was deeply ashamed.

  ‘Never mind sorry, boy. Can you ride?’ Philokles held his shoulders.

  Satyrus nodded and sat up slowly.

  Thalassa was bareback now. The arrow was gone from her rump.

  ‘We have a lot of horses now,’ Philokles said.

  ‘Ares,’ Satyrus said. ‘You killed them all?’

  ‘No,’ Philokles said. ‘Everyone helped.’

  Theron grinned, and then put his smile away as no one else seemed to think that winning the fight was something to be happy about.

  ‘There’ll be more, almost immediately. We have to get across the river,’ Philokles said. ‘All these people - they’re Upazan’s people. The man in the gold helmet had his badge, the antlers.’ He shook his head, clearly leaving some thought unspoken. ‘Get mounted.’

  Satyrus had never heard Philokles sound like this. He knew that it was because he had shown fear, had fainted. He got on to a dead man’s horse and hung his head, hot tears burning in his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry too, boy,’ Philokles said. ‘We’ll have to swim the river. Thalassa probably won’t make it.’

  Coenus gave a groan. He was tied roughly to a Sauromatae pony, and the red war paint was staining his chiton. ‘Leave me,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck that, you big Megaran snob,’ Philokles said. He put a gentle hand on Coenus’s shoulder.

  They were all mounted, and Philokles led them straight across the fields to the point. At the edge of the water, they could see all the way up the bluff to the town. Flames licked from above the wall, and there was fire in the gate like the mouth of a giant forge. There were men in armour up the hill, several stades away.

  More horsemen were coming.

  ‘Now or never,’ Philokles said. ‘Theron, can you swim?’

  Theron laughed and rode his steed recklessly into the river, which was four stades wide at its narrowest point. It was spring, and the current raced by them, as they were on the outward edge of the curve beneath the town where the river ran fastest.

  Satyrus might have hesitated, more afraid now of showing fear than of being afraid, but his horse followed its herd-leader and leaped into the muddy water. The animal bearing Coenus went in next, and in the time it took an eagle to catch a salmon, they were a line of heads swimming for their lives.

  Melitta swam like a Nereid, and Bion, though tired, kicked along beneath her. But Coenus struggled just to keep his head above water and his horse wasn’t much better. Without really thinking about the risks, Satyrus released his horse to make its own way and swam across the flow to Coenus, but he mistook the current, spun around and got kicked in the gut. In a heartbeat he was under the muddy brown water, sinking away from the noise, still exhaling. He got a fist tangled in something - hair - and suddenly his whole body jerked as he was towed forward. His eyes saw light and he pulled harder and his head came out of the water and he breathed - ahhh - and he was moving fast, his right hand wrapped in Thalassa’s mane. Her head was up, and despite her wounds and his weight she was powering through the water. He breathed again, choked and sprayed water and snot from his nose.

  Thalassa was turning, ignoring his struggles as she swam closer to Coenus. Coenus was coughing, his face out of the water but his horse sinking away under him.

  There were arrows falling from the sky. It took Satyrus a few heartbeats to realize that they were being shot at from the bank. He could hear a man shouting in the Sauromatae dialect for volunteers to go into the water and finish them off. He didn’t turn his head to look. His whole concentration was on Coenus. He was close - closer - he reached out a hand and tried to pull the man up, but he was twelve and Coenus was the biggest man he knew.

  Then Philokles was up with him, and Theron, swimming alone without a horse, and they cut Coenus free before he drowned himself and his horse. Theron pushed the Megaran’s head and shoulders into Satyrus’s arms and he pulled hard, eliciting a low scream of pain from the big man. And then they were swimming.

  Satyrus looked up and found that they were halfway across. But the current had moved them, and they were no longer at the narrows. He set his shoulders and concentrated on keeping Coenus alive.

  Time passed slowly. His shoulder hurt, and every other moment he thought that the dying man might drag him into the water. He was afraid for Thalassa, who made harsh noises though her mouth and nostrils, coughs and hacks almost as if the horse was attempting to curse.

  There were leaves and logs in the river, deadwood floated away by the spring rains in the high ground to the east, and once a dead sheep, bloated and stinking, passed them as they swam on. The point was so far behind them that even from his perpsective just above the surface, Satyrus could see the Bay of Salmon widening away. They were almost as far from the other shore as they had been when they slipped into the water. Even with the powerful aide of the horse swimming beneath him, even with his arms wrapped around her neck, Satyrus was tired.

  Coenus was a dead weight. Satyrus thought that the man’s cold body still had life in it, and he passed several minutes trying to find a sign of breath. He wasn’t sure. When he looked up, the stone farmhouse that marked the end of the Maeotae territory was in sight.

  He looked around for Melitta, and she was right there at his side, holding on to Bion with one hand and pushing against Coenus with the other, swimming strongly but with lines on her face like an adult. Their eyes met. She gave a push, probably all she had strength for, and Coenus went a finger-breadth higher on Thalassa’s proud back.

  ‘Poseidon, Lord of Horses,’ Satyrus said.

  She swam more strongly, and Satyrus tried to sing the hymn, and Melitta joined in, two thin voices singing, whole words left out as the singers struggled to breathe, but Thalassa seemed to relish it, and her ears went up, and she moved faster. The stone house on the shore was closer.

  ‘I think - he’s - dead,’ Lita panted.

  Satyrus thought of the dead girl. He shook his head.

  Thalassa’s legs kicked hard. They were half a stade from shore, but suddenly she rose out of the water, stumbled, scrambled and pushed, and she was walking. Satyrus could see the drowned meadow
beneath her hooves, the mud billowing away from her steps in brown-black clouds. She managed a few long strides and then she slipped and fell and they all went down in a splash, Coenus and Satyrus underneath, but Satyrus had his toes wrapped in her saddlecloth and when she came up in deeper water he was still clinging to her and he had Coenus wedged with desperate strength against her side.

  Theron was there, and Philokles, pushing against his sides, and Melitta with an arm around Coenus’s neck, holding his head clear of the water. He wasn’t dead yet, because he was spluttering.

  The marshy bank was just a few long strides away. Melitta let go of Coenus and she and Bion were first up on to the bank, followed by two unridden horses. Then Thalassa pushed herself up, one giant lunge to plant her hind feet on the mud and a struggling leap almost straight up, with the weight of a boy and a big man, and she was up, front feet scrambling over the edge. Satyrus lost his seat and slid free to fall on grass, and Coenus fell on top of him in a tangle and moaned.

  Philokles and Theron climbed the bank under their own power. Satyrus had been kicked at the end and he lay, just breathing, with waves of pain running from his right thigh to his brain. Theron lay breathing beside him. Philokles dragged himself to his feet. He went to Hermes, the big gelding, and pulled the Sauromatae spear from the horse’s saddlecloth where he had bundled it with the gear of the other men they had killed.

  Satyrus rolled over, ignoring the pain, determined not to be afraid this time. He looked for his other horse, and she was gone - lost in the river. So much for dry bowstrings. He pulled his bow out of his gorytos, which was still full of water. All his arrows were soaked and his bow felt odd, whipping in his hand, the bindings wet through.

  Strapped to the outside of his gorytos was the short, sharp steel akinakes that Ataelus had given him. He drew it. It was no longer than his forearm, a pitiful weapon against a grown Sauromatae warrior coming up the bank. He stumbled to the edge.

  There were four riders in the water, and they had had as hard a swim as he had. They were not armoured. Most had cast their helmets aside and only their heads and the heads of their horses came above the water. The Sauromatae didn’t even seem to know where they were. They let their horses swim them to shore, and the first horse touched the mud at the same spot where Thalassa had touched, scrambled in the shallows and then swam the last few lengths to the bank.

  Philokles leaned over the edge and killed the lead man while his horse gathered itself for the scramble up the bank - a single punch of his spear.

  The other Sauromatae milled around a few horse-lengths from shore, calling to one and other.

  ‘Come and die,’ Philokles yelled. ‘Did Upazan send you?’

  The barbarian warriors swam their horses back to the drowned meadow and got their legs under them. Then the one with gold in his hair shouted back. ‘Let us ashore and we swear not to harm you!’

  They were only a few horse-lengths apart. It was an easy bow shot - but no one had a bow that would function. Satyrus, exhausted, managed a laugh.

  ‘Did Upazan send you?’ Philokles called again.

  ‘Yes!’ the barbarian returned.

  ‘Then you can swim back to him,’ Philokles called. He stepped away from the edge. He sank on his haunches and looked at the children and Theron. ‘We can’t let them up the bank,’ he said. ‘I can’t go on much longer.’

  Theron looked around. ‘I can,’ he said. ‘Who has a javelin?’ The water was drying from his body. He looked like a god.

  Philokles went to Hermes, moving like an old man, and took a javelin out of the kit strapped to the gelding. He walked with an unaccustomed heaviness.

  Theron looked them all over. ‘We won’t get far,’ he said. ‘That house will have to shelter us.’

  ‘We can only stay a few hours,’ Philokles said. ‘Sooner or later they’ll send a ship.’ He gave the athlete the javelin.

  Theron unbound his hair and took the leather thong, wrapped it twice around the spear and made a loop. Then he tied the loop off. He appeared unhurried. He walked to the bank, measuring off his strides, right out to the edge and then back. After three times, he hefted the javelin, well out of sight of the barbarians. ‘I assume that if I kill one, the other two will charge us,’ he said.

  Philokles was silent. He took a deep breath and stood, the big spear in his fists. ‘Do the thing,’ he said.

  Theron ran three steps, skipped once and threw the javelin. It flew like a thunderbolt and hit one of the barbarians so hard that it went a third of its length through his body before he fell into the water.

  ‘Nice throw,’ Philokles said.

  The other two came forward. They were brave, and they knew they had no choice, so they urged their horses forward across the last stretch and up the muddy bank. The first man came up just where Thalassa had come up and died there, spitted on Philokles’ spear. The second man’s horse took him further upstream to an easier climb, and he made it up the bank. His horse had spirit, and he turned the animal and went straight for Philokles. He got his own spear out and up and parried Philokles’ butt-spike - the Spartan was just getting the weapon clear of his kill.

  He might have had Philokles then, except that Melitta got under his horse with her knife and ripped at his booted leg, slashing what she could reach, desperate to save the Spartan.

  Satyrus didn’t feel as if he was in control of his own body, because he didn’t recall pushing his body into panicked attack, but he was suddenly cutting at the rider with his akinakes, the blade locked against the other man’s long iron sword. Satyrus saw his blade skip over the bigger weapon and cut the man’s tattooed bicep, and then Theron was there, cutting with his kopis in big, overhand cuts like a slave hewing wood, and they swarmed the man until he was dead.

  When he was down, his cries stilled, they looked at each other, covered in blood. Theron made a sound like a fox’s cry, choked grief or rage, and they all looked away at once.

  Satyrus saw movement in the corner of his eye and he turned to see Thalassa give a little skip, almost rearing. She tossed her hooves at the heavens, and then she toppled and fell.

  Philokles walked over to her, a hand stretched before him in supplication. He put a hand on her withers, and then on her head. He shook his head.

  ‘Her heart went,’ he said.

  ‘Poseidon, Lord of Horses, take her to you,’ Satyrus said, and burst into sobs, heavy, wrenching sobs of a kind he hadn’t cried for people. And Melitta fell across him crying. They went to the horse, patting her head ineffectually and weeping.

  ‘We need to eat,’ Philokles said. His voice had a dead quality to it, as if he wasn’t letting himself think about his words. ‘There’ll be another pursuit as soon as they find a way to cross the river.’

  Melitta shuddered. ‘I thought we were safe,’ she said, and immediately sensed the illogic in her words.

  ‘You’ll never be safe again,’ Philokles said. ‘Get your packs and follow me.’

  All they had was their fishing kit, and they had it on their shoulders quickly. Satyrus stood looking at Thalassa in the grass. ‘We should burn her or bury her,’ he said.

  ‘We should, but we can’t. I’m heading for that house.’ The Spartan pointed at a distant stone house - a Maeotae farmhouse, perhaps the farthest along the shore.

  The yard was empty and the man didn’t want to raise the bar on his door. Philokles threatened him from the yard until he complied, and the twins were afraid of Philokles’ rage. Melitta and her brother had exchanged looks of horror. Yesterday, they had had the love of these farmers. Now they couldn’t trust the man whose roof gave them shelter.

  ‘Hey!’ the man called, scared, as Theron scooped sausage from the rafters.

  ‘We need to eat,’ Theron said.

  ‘We have fish!’ Satyrus said, and Theron managed a smile.

  ‘We do, at that,’ he said. He and Satyrus each had a fish in their soaking leather bags, and the fish were no worse for their swim in the Tanais. Theron bro
iled them on the hearth and shared the fish with the farmer. It didn’t make him love them any more, but he shared some sour wine, and they were quickly asleep.

  Theron woke them at the edge of dawn, a heavy hand on their heads, and pulled them stumbling into the cold spring morning past the terrified farmer.

  ‘Boat on the water,’ he said. ‘Time to go.’

  Out on the swollen river, they could just see the flash of oars as a pentekonter rowed steadily against the current. The boat wasn’t making much headway, but it was coming. The first rays of the sun were pink and red.

  Their horses were all lame, the riders equally spent despite ten hours of sleep, and they had to walk slowly away from the stone house. Theron had a bag of sausages and he handed everyone a link - heavy garlic and spice, overpowering in the morning.

  Or so we thought. Melitta pondered her brother’s sullen silence. He seemed ashamed, when he should be proud. He had fought well.

  I put two in the grass myself, she thought. My mother will be proud, and I will not go to Hades without slaves. Then she thought of her father’s horse - a tangible link to the man she knew only through her mother and Philokles and Coenus’s stories. Dead. She frowned away a new bout of tears.

  As they crossed the farmyard to fetch the horses, she saw a rough bundle on the manure pile. She had to turn her head away, and her eyes met Philokles’. ‘Is that . . .’ She paused, ‘Coenus?’ she asked quietly, so that her brother wouldn’t hear.

  ‘You think I’d leave Coenus on a manure heap?’ Philokles asked, and didn’t meet her eye. He wasn’t sober - she could tell - and there was something wrong with him.

  Melitta made bright small talk to hide the corpse from her brother. She knew who was on the manure pile. The farmer wasn’t going to betray them, because Theron or Philokles had killed him.

  Coenus, on the other hand, had lived through the night. He was stiff, but his wounds had stopped bleeding, and he had the farmer’s whole store of linen wrapped around his torso. He was in better shape than Philokles, who could barely walk.