The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

  Kephalos met me at the outskirts of Naxos, and we rode home together in the wagon.

  “How goes the rest of our plan?” I asked him.

  “It is as you would wish, Lord,” he answered, smiling to himself as if he had swindled the whole world. “Three of the forges have been dismantled and the sections carried out into the countryside in farm carts—I judged it best to leave one in place, lest the king’s watchdogs grow suspicious. The blacksmiths are presently at work, the spearheads are nearly finished, and, since the day after tomorrow is a market day, I thought that would be a convenient moment to smuggle them back into the city for distribution to our soldiers. Each man has only to present himself at the brothel of Melantho the Thessalian woman and he will come away with something crammed into his loincloth a good deal stiffer than anything he ever found there before.”

  “You have done well, my friend. As always, where cunning and good management are required to achieve a thing, you have done very well.”

  Kephalos closed his eyes and nodded, acknowledging the justice of my praise, for indeed he possessed a great talent for duplicity and was never so happy as when he had a chance to exercise it.

  “It is like the old days, is it not, Master,” he said at last. “I might almost believe myself back in Nineveh, when you were almost the lord of the world. Sometimes I miss those days.”

  He did not seem to require an answer, and I was happy enough to hold my tongue.

  I spent most of the next few days carrying stones to clear a new field. Each evening I felt as if my back had been broken for good and all, and I was glad to have found such weariness, for it freed my mind from all thought of what was to come. At night I buried myself in Selana’s arms and prayed that no dreams would find me.

  But in the cold black hours before the fifth dawn, I loaded my horse with provisions and weapons, put on my leather corselet, and set out for the Plain of Clonios, there yet again to take up the work I once imagined I had put behind me forever.

  . . . . .

  Fresh from home, my Greek neighbors were at least beginning to look like soldiers. Drawn up in their battle squares, the new iron points on their spears glittering in the sun and their leather shields massed like the stones in a fortress wall, the Naxos militia presented the appearance of a formidable army. They were brave, and willing too, but still I harbored doubts, for I was building this house with green wood. These men had never seen blood spilled in anger—who could say they would not break and run when the moment came?

  Ducerius certainly was not impressed.

  “Is this the force with which you plan to conquer the world?” he inquired mockingly that third morning after our return, when he rode a fine gray stallion down from his citadel on his way to a day’s hunting. “It is a strange manner of fighting, more suited to a festival dance than a war. Have you cobbled together this army to drive me out that you may take my place upon the throne?”

  He lowered his gaze to where I stood on the hard-packed earth before him and grinned, and his retainers, their horses jostling each other nervously, laughed at his wit. I even laughed with them.

  “No, Great King—I have done no more than assemble a small hunting party, perhaps not so very unlike your own. Perhaps, when we return from our sport, you will accept a trophy.”

  The Lord of the Sicels was not amused by this suggestion, and the eyes glittered dangerously as they scanned the rows of iron-tipped spears.

  “You prepare a disaster for yourself, Tiglath Ashur. What do you imagine can be done with a mob of dung-raking Greeks? In their hands, those spears are only good for lancing boils. Paugh!”

  His gaze returned to me, as if he had dismissed my two hundred armed men as no more than a phantom.

  “One is either born with a warrior’s fire in his belly or he is not, and if I am any judge of men you are not someone who has spent his whole life behind a plow. So I would expect you to know better—even brigands are better fighters than such as these.”

  I had almost lost interest in what he said. A cart piled to the top with loose hay was drawing toward us over the plain. When it stopped, Diocles looked to me for a signal and I nodded. At once several men climbed onto the cart and began throwing its contents to the ground—mixed in with the hay were over a hundred new-forged swords, their blades so bright it hurt one’s eyes to look at them.

  I turned back to Ducerius, my very silence a challenge.

  Suddenly he laughed, as if he had only just seen the jest.

  “Yes, Tiglath Ashur—play with your new toys. We will have good sport, you and I, before we are done.”

  With a vicious yank on the reins, he turned his horse about and rode away, his retainers close behind. The pounding of their hooves died away slowly across the wind-swept plain.

  I waited until the king was out of sight and then stalked over to the wagon, my legs feeling as stiff as though I had spent the whole day with my knees locked straight.

  “By the Mouse God’s navel, what was that about?” Diocles asked, making a gesture toward the still-visible spiral of dust from the king’s riders.

  “He is pleased with us,” I answered. “He is pleased that we prepare for war. He looks forward to meeting us in battle, although in his view it will hardly be a battle at all. We are only ‘dung-raking Greeks,’ weak in numbers and unprepared to face a seasoned army like his own. He is happy because now he will have the pretext to destroy us.”

  “But is he right?”

  What could I do except shrug my shoulders?

  “The gods know, my friend. We are in their hands now.”

  . . . . .

  “This is the hardest time, when everything is still to come. It is worse for you than for me.”

  “Are you then not afraid?”

  “Yes, I am afraid. But I know that when the moment comes my fear will desert me.”

  In the darkness, as we lay together on our sleeping mat, Selana pressed her hands against my chest, as if to assure herself that I had not vanished. The house was quiet around us. There was not even an oil lamp burning in our room. Tomorrow I would become once more the Tyrant of Naxos, leading an untried army into the mountains to test the will of the gods. But for what was left of that last night, I was only hers.

  I felt her lips against my throat and heard her weep.

  “It is terrible,” she whispered through her tears.

  “Yes, it is terrible. But it is the same for everyone. In every Greek household tonight, a man lies in his woman’s arms. It is no different for them. It has always been just so, whenever men have had to go away to fight.”

  “That makes it no less terrible.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “If you let yourself be killed, I will not forgive you.”

  “I will not forgive myself.”

  “How am I to stand this?”

  “You will find a way.”

  And at last, even as the black night moved across the sky, we found sleep, and forgetfulness.

  XXVII

  Moving single-file over the switchback trails that wind through marshy valleys from one chain of mountains to another, hampered by the persistent, haunting threat of ambush, even an army of only a hundred men travels as slowly as a wounded snake. We were five days reaching the flatlands watered by the Salito River—a man alone, with no enemy patrols counting his steps, might have covered the same terrain in less than three.

  Yet at last we found ourselves able to look back on the western slope of Mount Aetna. We had reached the interior of the island, and so far the brigands who were supposed to control this whole region had not thought to attack us. I wondered why.

  And then, when we reached the Salito Plain, I understood. It was level country, where men on horseback would feel themselves to hold the advantage. In the mountains they could only harass us, wear us down and perhaps make us lose heart and turn back. But a series of inconclusive skirmishes was not what they hoped for. They wanted to settle this quarrel forever. They wanted
a pitched battle. They wanted to catch us in the open and destroy us.

  Thus as soon as we descended from the mountains, while we still had those walls of sheer and ragged rock at our backs, I gave orders that an encampment be laid out and earthworks dug to protect our exposed flanks.

  “The men are tired, Tiglath. They need a night’s rest before they will be ready for such a task.”

  “Is this such a fair place that you would care to lie here forever? They will likely rest a good deal longer than just one night if the brigands choose to strike before dawn.”

  Thus, with much grumbling, the thing was done. Great fires were lit that the men might see to work and trenches were dug thirty paces long on each side, the earthworks behind bristling with sharpened stakes. By morning it was possible for at least some of us to sleep in safety.

  “Now we are at liberty to look about us and decide what to do. Their plans are clear enough—it is time we made a few of our own.”

  With the first gray light of dawn I left Epeios in command and borrowed his horse to scout the surrounding area alone.

  “Keep them at the work,” I told him. “And I will try to bring your precious gelding back still fit to pull a cart.”

  “Be sure you bring yourself back. Just try to remember, Tiglath, we will be in a fine mess here if anything should happen to you.”

  “I promise to remember.”

  As I rode away from the encampment, I could not but experience a certain sense of escape, as if I had broken the tether that held me back. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to be alone for a time. I gave the horse its head to gallop off in whatever direction it chose.

  Although it did not look as if a plow had ever broken the earth here, this was rich country. The sun-yellowed grass reached as high as a man’s knees, and clumps of trees here and there indicated the presence of water if a man would only take the trouble to dig for it. The Sicels appeared to understand almost nothing of irrigation, for otherwise they would be a rich people instead of a nation of beggars and these plains would be waist-deep in grain.

  I was aware, of course, that I was being watched. Two riders followed at a discreet distance but made no move to approach or challenge me. I had expected something of the sort, nor did it alarm me particularly, since our arrival was not a secret—the brigands could hardly be expected to ignore the presence of a force like ours, and the movements of our scouts would be of interest to them.

  The Salito river, from which the region took its name, was not more than an hour’s march from our encampment. It was swift flowing and wide enough to constitute a formidable barrier, yet I found two or three places where foot soldiers could cross safely.

  It divided the plain into north and south, and the other side, I gathered, was less sparsely populated—I could see thin trails of smoke on the northern horizon, probably from cooking fires, and, once I had gained the opposite bank, even a few huts made of rough-hewn stone and hardly big enough for a man to stand up in.

  I rode into the farmyard of one of these and came upon an old man in the process of feeding his geese. He was remarkably surprised to see me—or perhaps only frightened—and stared openmouthed, as if I had come wrapped in a mantle of fire like one of the deathless gods.

  “Good morning to you,” I said, without dismounting from my horse. My Sicel was in those days awkward at best, so while I waited through his long silence for some reply I wondered if perhaps he hadn’t understood me at all.

  “Is Your Honor one of the Lord Collatinus’ men?” he finally inquired. “My woman is old, dried up with years, and we have hardly enough to feed us. There is nothing here anyone would want, yet if Your Honor will show us mercy I will kill one of my geese and cook it in milk for you to breakfast on.”

  “I want nothing from you, my friend. I mean you no harm. I am Tiglath the Greek, and I owe service to no one. Who is the Lord Collatinus?”

  “You say you are a Greek?” The old man clawed at his beard with blackened fingernails—he seemed to be trying to remember if he had ever heard what a Greek might be. “The great lord’s horsemen raid across the mountains, where it is said strangers dwell. Are you from across the mountains?”

  “Yes,” I answered, glimpsing a possibility. “I have come with a mighty army of my neighbors. We are here to take revenge for the murders of our children and the plundering of our farms and women.”

  “The great lord has weapons of bronze, and many horses. He is powerful and cruel. He is without pity, and if any speak against him he burns their crops in the fields and crucifies them on the very doors of their houses, taking their women as slaves.”

  All the while he spoke he seemed to be assessing me, measuring my chances of success against this Collatinus who filled him with such terror. From time to time he would glance toward the horizon, for doubtless he too had seen the riders watching from a distance—a distance that now appeared to shorten every minute.

  “A man who is wise enough to stay alive does not challenge those who are stronger than himself,” he went on, his eyes on the spiral of dust that was coming ever closer. “He is prudent, and keeps his nose pressed against the earth. Or, if he has a horse, as none here do except the great lord’s men, he runs away.”

  “I thank you for your timely warning, my friend, but sometimes a man is wiser still when he stands and fights.”

  I reined my horse about and drew a javelin from the quiver I was carrying slung behind my back. The two riders who had been following me all morning were now no more than a hundred or so paces away and closing at a trot.

  Why had they chosen this moment to confront me, I will never know. Perhaps merely to give the old man a lesson. There are those who must forever be displaying their might, afraid that any restraint will be seen as weakness. These two were so sure of themselves, I almost could have found it in me to pity them.

  I prodded Epeios’ horse to a canter and then to a full gallop, not allowing myself to wonder what this gelding was made of, if he would stand the shock of battle. With my javelin couched under my arm like a lance, I bore down on the two riders, making straight for the man in the lead.

  It was not what they had expected. For an instant they drew to a complete stop and then, when they saw what I intended, the man in the lead tried to rein his horse to the side, out of my way, while the other drew his sword. But they had already waited too long.

  This style of combat I had first seen among the Medes, against whom I made war in my father’s name. Their leader, the brave and noble Daiaukka, a man possessed of every excellence and whom it was an honor to have killed, almost stripped me of my life fighting with a lance from the back of a horse, and on that day I had learned from him that momentum was everything. Thus these Sicel brigands were already food for the dogs.

  Epeios’ horse was no plow beast—gelding that he was, he had a stallion’s heart. He did not shy or falter, but stretched out his neck and burned the earth with his furious charge.

  The first man’s horse panicked, trying at once to escape a collision and to buck off its now unwelcome master—it succeeded at the first, if only by the space of a few fingers, but it was I who tore the rider from its back, my point catching him just below the rib cage so that he fell to the ground with his guts spilling out onto the dust.

  The second man, his sword in his hand, could not seem to decide between flight and attack, so I decided for him. I drew my own sword and went for him.

  Our horses slammed together, shoulder to shoulder, and my sword caught the edge of his. We stumbled apart, both of us still on our mounts, still within reach of each other’s swords.

  I never fancied myself as more than just adequate with a sword. In the house of war, where I learned the soldier’s trade, there were many who excelled me with that weapon, and I never improved upon the skills I learned there.

  This poor fool, however, cut and sawed as if he thought we did battle with kitchen knives. At only his third or fourth thrust he overreached himself so badly that I was
able to grab him by the sleeve with my free hand and pull him straight off his seat—he fell into my point, which buried itself in his heart, and he was dead before he touched the ground.

  The fighting done, I collected the two horses and slung the corpses of their riders over their backs, tying them down with the reins. A slap on the rump with the flat of my hand sent each in turn galloping off over the level landscape. After a time they would find their way back to their own stables, and Collatinus, this king of brigands, seeing their burdens, would be free to draw what conclusions he wished.

  I rode back to the old man, who waited on the same spot where I had left him, except that now his wife had joined him and was standing by his side.

  “What will you do, Your Honor, if you kill the great lord?” he asked. “Will you rule here in his place?”

  I shook my head.

  “Rulers are a burden to all men,” I said, “and there is nothing here I want. I will take the Lord Collatinus’ head and carry it home to mount on a stake. I will leave his body for the crows to feast on.”

  “And his riders, with their bronze weapons?”

  “I will scatter them to the winds like chaff. I will make of them an example, that others will not be tempted to plunder their neighbors.”

  The man glanced at his wife, who answered him with a nod. Then he turned back to me.

  “Your Honor, these men, or ones like them, murdered our only son before his parents’ eyes—not for any offense of his, but only for their own cruel sport. I am but a farmer, defenseless and old, and to seek revenge against such as these was merely to embrace death, yet I am not so meager in spirit as not to know a father’s grief, and his shame. The grief I will feel while there is breath under my ribs, but today, perhaps, I may wipe out some small measure of the shame. My name is Maelius, Your Honor, and I am old and poor and good for little. Yet tell me, if you will, what gift or tribute might a humble man like myself offer to one such as you?”