Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  He galloped past and his fears changed from terror of the elephants to concern that his gelding had started to move heavily, starved of air, his flanks heaving and shuddering. Despite his panic, Satyrus got his mount clear of the last elephants and then pulled him in to let him breathe. Off to his right, he could see the flash of bronze and steel and hear, clear as a play, the desperate rage of another kind of monster - the two phalanxes grinding away at each other.

  Satyrus’s mind began to function for the first time since he escaped the Bactrians. He felt deeply ashamed at his own panic, but he knew that he had no hope of finding Eumenes in the dust.

  On the other hand, Diodorus and the hippeis were just on the other side of the phalanx. The phalanx had sixteen thousand men - at the normal fighting depth, they were a thousand wide, or three thousand podes at battle order. Five stades.

  Philokles had said that Diodorus needed to know about the camp.

  He rode around the shoulder of the phalanx, pushing the poor gelding as hard as he dared. The horse was used up - the elephants had caused it more fatigue in five minutes of terror than the rest of the ride put together. But he was safe for the moment. He was riding down the back of the army, and he was surprised at how empty the battlefield was. A few bodies lay on the ground, and a few men cried out for water, but his charger’s hoof beats hid the worst of the sounds, and he detoured around the biggest piles of bodies as best he could in the thick salt dust, which bit at his throat and his eyes. He was so thirsty he thought of plundering a corpse for its canteen.

  It took him too much time to realize that he had a canteen. He cursed his own panic and got some water in his mouth, even as his mount stumbled from a canter to a slow trot. He could feel the change in the battle line here - he could no longer see the back of the phalanx, and the sound of the shouting to his left was more triumphant. He turned his weary horse towards the shouting, hoping he had ridden five stades. It was hard to measure time in the battle haze.

  Ahead, in the white-grey clouds, there was a trumpet call - a familiar trumpet call. That was Andronicus with the silver trumpet of the hippeis.

  Wasn’t it?

  At his feet, there were smiling men with crescent-shaped shields. They were loping forward and pointing, and they ignored him. He rode past them. Farther on he saw more peltastai, all moving forward, and he guessed that the enemy’s flank was crumpling. The men he passed were drinking water, or shouting to each other, or plundering bodies. What they weren’t doing was turning into the open flank of the enemy phalanx.

  He thought about what Philokles had said about men who had won a fight being hesitant to enter a second fight. And he kept his horse moving, because he suspected that when the big gelding stopped, he wouldn’t move again. They kept moving east, or what seemed in the haze to be east, roughly parallel to Eumenes’ original battle line, as best he could tell in the heat and the haze.

  Then there were no more infantrymen. He heard several trumpet calls, one of which might have been familiar. Satyrus couldn’t see anything, and he couldn’t hear anything except the sounds of the fighting behind him. So he turned his horse further to the left, hoping that Diodorus had continued to win on his flank, and thinking that he had heard the trumpet in that direction.

  If Diodorus had lost the initial cavalry action, Satyrus reasoned, the peltastai would hardly have pushed so deep into the enemy’s lines.

  The sun was enough past noon that he began to become confident in directions - even with the haze, the sun was a hard, round, white disc in the sky, and he could reason out north and south, east and west. The phalanx fight was now west. Diodorus’s trumpet was east and north.

  Probably.

  The longer Satyrus rode, the less certain he became. By the time his canteen was almost empty, he had again begun to wonder where he was. The solidity of the phalanx was long gone, the haze rose like a live thing, choking him and limiting his sight to a few horse-lengths, and the noise of the phalanx was so far away that he might have been off the battlefield.

  The Median peltastes arose out of the dust like a mythological creature, stabbing with a javelin, trying to unhorse Satyrus. Satyrus took the first thrust in the centre of his abdomen where his cuirass was strongest and he lost his seat. His gelding stopped, kicked out weakly at the peltastes and stumbled a few steps forward. Then the horse came to a stop and with the slow inevitability of winter avalanche in the mountains, he fell. Satyrus kicked clear and rolled to his feet, tangled in his cloak. When he got up, his side was wet where his clay canteen had broken, and the peltastes was on him, stabbing twice with his javelin, fast as the strike of an adder. Satyrus stumbled back, stunned, with sweat and salt in his eyes. He got his right hand under his left armpit and drew his sword, and the Mede hesitated.

  Satyrus wiped his eyes with his damp cloak. The Mede measured him and looked at the dying horse, stepped back and threw his javelin like a thunderbolt, but he miscast and it tumbled, and the shaft struck Satyrus a heavy blow on the tip of his left shoulder, and a lance of pain shot down his arm. Then the man turned to run and hesitated again.

  Satyrus stepped forward, pulling his cloak over his left arm, and cut at the man before he could flee. The Mede jumped back, a look of panic on his face, and they both heard a trumpet, quite close.

  Now that his horse wasn’t moving, Satyrus could hear the sounds of fighting just to the north - horses and men. Somewhere nearby, a maddened steed gave a trumpet of rage. Somewhere else in the murk, men were wounded and screamed their pain, In a matter of heartbeats, the sound was all around him, and so were phantoms of battle, movements in the opaque curtain of salt.

  The Mede came back at him, a knife held high in his right hand and his small shield of wicker and hide thrusting from the left.

  Satyrus had time to think, He has no training whatsoever. It was a thought that gave him a feeling of calm and superiority, and he side-stepped and cut the man’s knife hand at the wrist. He was too weak to cut through the bone, but the man’s weapon went flying and the man fell to his knees, clutching his maimed hand like a mother with a sick child. In two beats of his heart, the Mede was transformed from a monster of violence to a helpless victim.

  Satyrus left him. He stepped past, to the body of his horse, but there was nothing for him to take, and the feeling of success, of survival, left him as fast as it had come.

  His breastplate weighed on his chest like an iron anvil, and he was soaked in sweat, and his mouth was dry as sand, and his head ached. His left shoulder hurt as it had after a fall from his horse as a child, and he was afraid to look at it to see if there was blood. And he was still lost.

  His father had been famous for his ability to navigate a battlefield on sound alone.

  Tears stung his eyes.

  ‘I will not cry,’ he said aloud, and started to walk forward, towards the sounds of combat. He kept his sword in his hand, more for the symbolism than for any use a sword would be to a dismounted man in a cavalry melee.

  A riderless horse ran out of the curtain, eyes white with fear, and knocked him flat. He rolled from under the beast’s hooves and there were horses all around him.

  ‘Rally on me!’ a voice shouted. ‘Sound the rally!’

  The trumpet rang out - a trumpet he had heard a thousand times as a child in Tanais, and he pushed to his feet, heedless of the hooves flying around him.

  ‘Rally on me! Form a rhomboid! Phylarchs sound off!’ Diodorus shouted.

  The trumpet rang out again, a long call. The horses around Satyrus were jostling for position, every man struggling to get his mount to the right place in a haze of dust and a crowd of animals. Satyrus was crushed between two horses, and he ducked to get under a belly and got kicked in the back of his head by a rider.

  ‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Hey, help!’ The last came out more like a squeak. He was that close to finding his uncle and he was going to be trampled or crushed.

  A spear point glittered wickedly in front of his face. ‘Stand where you are,�
� Hama said.

  ‘Hama, it’s me!’ he yelped back.

  Hama reached out and grasped his wrist, sword and all, and hauled him up on his crupper. ‘Men die on foot when horses are this thick,’ the big Keltoi chief said. ‘Little lord, what for fucking gods are you here?’

  Satyrus got his leg over Hama’s horse. ‘I will not cry,’ he said aloud. The relief was so great that his eyes filled and his throat hurt from more than salt dust.

  The trumpet sounded again.

  ‘Anyone have a clue where the fuck we are? Phylarchs, sound off!’ Diodorus said.

  ‘File one! Two men missing!’

  ‘File two! All present!’

  ‘File three! One man dead!’

  ‘File four! Four men missing!’

  ‘File five! All present!’

  Hama shouted, ‘File six! Two men missing! Lord Satyrus on my horse!’ He pushed his own horse forward and men made way for him.

  Off to the left, file seven and eight reported. Hama got his horse next to the hyperetes. Diodorus glanced at Hama. Satyrus opened his mouth and his uncle’s hand came up like a blow, demanding silence.

  ‘File nine! All present!’

  ‘File ten! Three men missing!’

  Diodorus nodded sharply. ‘Thirteen are missing out of a hundred. That’s bad.’ He looked around. ‘Anybody see Crax or Andronicus?’

  ‘No, sir,’ came a chorus of answers. The salt dust swirled.

  ‘Dion - take file one off to the right. Don’t go far - ten horse-lengths a man. Return on one trumpet blast. See if you can find anybody. Paches - take file ten and do the same to the left. Go!’

  He turned to Hama and Antigonus. ‘Where the fuck are we?’ Without waiting for an answer, he turned on Satyrus. ‘What are you doing here, child?’

  Satyrus took a breath and concentrated on having his voice level. ‘I came with a message,’ he said.

  ‘What message?’ Diodorus was all but kneeling on his horse’s back, trying to see over the dust.

  ‘But first, you are about five stades beyond the rightmost point of the enemy phalanx, Uncle. And all the peltastai have been driven off. I rode from there.’

  Diodorus looked at him for a long breath. ‘You are sure? Men’s lives depend on this.’

  Satyrus choked a little. ‘No,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I’m not sure.’

  Hama steadied him with a hug. ‘But pretty sure, yes?’

  Satyrus met his uncle’s eyes. ‘Pretty sure, Uncle.’

  Diodorus nodded sharply. ‘If you’re right, I’ll never doubt you again. Hama - get Paches back in and put him in front - we feel our way along the path Satyrus indicated. One troop of horse behind our own phalanx would panic them in this crap. One more trumpet call, hyperetes.’ He took Satyrus from Hama. His hard grey eyes locked on Satyrus’s eyes. ‘Message?’ he said. He held out his hand and a canteen was put in it.

  ‘There are Saka and Bactrians in the camp,’ Satyrus said. His uncle’s beard was grey. It had once been red.

  ‘Ares’ balls, boy!’ Diodorus looked around. ‘I have a hundred men - less. What the fuck?’

  A flash of gold, and Crax cantered out of the dust. ‘You called,’ he said, his armour flashing.

  Diodorus laughed. ‘Tyche is smiling!’ he shouted, and there was an answering roar from the rank behind him. ‘You have fourth troop?’

  ‘Six missing,’ Crax said, with a salute. ‘I’ll get them lined up with you.’

  ‘Satyrus says we’re on the flank of the phalanx, and that it’s that way. What do you think, Crax?’ Diodorus handed the canteen to the Getae officer.

  Crax took the flask, drank deeply and put the wooden stopper back. ‘Sounds right to me,’ Crax said with a wink at Satyrus - a wink that Satyrus appreciated. Suddenly there was a great weight on his shoulders - the burden of everyone’s lives.

  Crax was gone into the salt and Diodorus shouted, ‘Remount! Anyone have a horse!’

  A trooper that Satyrus didn’t know pushed forward. ‘Here, Strategos!’

  Satyrus went straight from his uncle’s crupper to the back of a dark bay with a beautiful animal-skin saddlecloth and silver mounts on the bridle.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You owe him for the horse, boy!’ Diodorus said. ‘And the tack!’ He gave a wicked smile. Then he got his horse under him and motioned to Satyrus. ‘Someone get him a spear and a helmet. Right up with me, boy. You’re the guide. If we fight, get your animal in behind mine and keep your Ares-addled head down. Put that toy sword away. Now, which way?’

  Satyrus found, to his immense joy, that he could feel which direction the phalanxes were. ‘If they haven’t moved,’ he muttered. His heart raced and felt a very different fear from the fear of being torn to pieces by elephants. This was the fear of disappointing his friends - of being a child. He nudged his horse into motion. ‘This way,’ he said.

  ‘March - walk!’ Diodorus called, and the trumpet rang out.

  Satyrus sat straighter. He was actually leading a troop of cavalry.

  Men rode up to Diodorus and then rode away, and there were more trumpet calls and more orders.Satyrus, an arm-length from the man he called his uncle, understood that Diodorus was trying to get his two troops aligned while still searching the battlefield for his two missing troops.

  ‘You know what you’re doing, boy?’ Diodorus asked after a few minutes’ riding.

  ‘Listen!’ Satyrus said. He could hear a low roar to the front and right.

  ‘Halt!’ Diodorus shouted. ‘No trumpet! Paches - get out there and tell me what you find - go a stade or two, no more!’

  They were halted in a vast, rolling cloud of white and grey. There were bodies under their hooves, and as Satyrus watched, a pair of Thracian peltastai emerged from the white dust. They were so shocked that they stopped.

  ‘Eumenes?’ one asked. He gestured at the chaplet of roses he wore over his fox-hide cap.

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Eumenes!’ he called.

  By his shoulder, Crax rattled away in a barbarian tongue, and the two Thracians turned and ran off into the salt.

  ‘I said we were about to charge,’ Crax said. ‘I’ve found some troopers from second troop, but they’re lost. Maybe ten men.’

  Diodorus took his helmet off. ‘I fucking hate this. Somebody could smack us silly and we’d never know they were coming. This dust could hide anything.’

  ‘Canteen’s empty,’ Crax said. He spat. ‘Worst dust I’ve ever seen. Fucking salt.’

  Paches came out of the swirl. ‘Boy’s dead on,’ he said, with a salute towards Satyrus, whose heart filled with joy. ‘Less than two stades - the back ranks of their phalanx. Nothing in our way,’ the man continued, his voice rising with excitement.

  Diodorus looked around. ‘Well,’ he said, pulling his helmet back on and tying the cheekpieces, ‘This is where we all get to be heroes.’ He looked at Satyrus. ‘Get in the middle, boy, so I can get you home alive.’ He turned his horse. ‘Everyone get it? Into the shieldless flank. Don’t fuck around. Get in deep and cause panic. Stay with me till you hear the trumpet. When they break, let someone else kill them - go forward to our lines. Understand? If you lose me, rally on the ravine. The camp is gone. READY?’

  Two hundred parched throats found the energy to shout, Yes!

  ‘March - walk! No trumpets!’

  They were off. Now Satyrus was pushed back and back until he was in the sixth rank, the very centre of the rhomboid. He knew the drill, but it was different in the dust. He was between two complete strangers, but the one on his left turned a pair of bloodshot eyes from deep within a Thracian helmet. ‘Nothing to worry about, kid!’ he said. ‘Safe as being home. First time?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes!’ Satyrus shouted over the rising noise of their passage.

  ‘Careful with that spear, then!’ his new file-mate said. ‘Don’t hit Kalyx with it. He’s not the forgiving kind.’

  The other men laughed.

  Half a stade passed very qu
ickly.

  ‘Paean!’ said his uncle’s voice. ‘Make them hear you!’

  The Paean of Apollo began with four beats of carefully measured rhythmic silence, and Andronicus beat his trumpet with a knife hilt - crack, crack, crack, crack - and the paean bloomed like a flower in the rising dust, an offering to a god who valued more than just slaughter.

  Satyrus sang with them, and he was so moved his voice choked, and he felt as if he was one with all these men around him - one pair of arms and legs in a beast with a hundred arms and legs like the titan of legend.

  They began to trot.

  ‘Close up!’ shouted the man on his right. Satyrus was embarrassed to see that he had lost ground. His horse responded beautifully, closing the gap in a few anxious heartbeats, and they were at a canter, the files a little spread from the speed, and then, in an instant, there were men all around him shouting, screams of terror and panic as if the gods had rendered every man witless. Satyrus couldn’t see anything - there was no one to fight, and then, out of nowhere, a sarissa head slid past his knee, the sharp edges cutting his thigh where one enemy soldier, at least, had tried to change his front.

  Then they were plunging through the enemy phalanx - Satyrus hoped that it was the enemy phalanx - among hundreds of men in heavy armour, but they were casting their sarissas to the ground and running or dying under the hooves. There were men on foot all around Satyrus and his horse had almost stopped.

  He stabbed overarm with his spear at the first hand to try to seize his bridle. These men were desperate - and terrified. Most of them weren’t even fighting back, just trying to push past him, but some either intended to die fighting or simply wanted his horse. A blow in the back nearly unseated him.

  He punched back with his spear on reflex and almost lost his seat again as he failed to hit anything.

  It looked to him as if the cavalry had lost all of its momentum and cohesion in the impact and now spilled out along the rear face of the phalanx, but the centre of the rhomboid had penetrated deeply - and Satyrus was in the part that had penetrated, lost in a sea of enemies.