The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

  They carried few spears but trusted to their short swords, for combat to them was but a series of personal duels. Their arms were of bronze and thus we had the advantage of them in weaponry, yet a man can die upon the point of a wooden stake if he lacks either skill or luck. I did not think that iron or bronze would make the difference.

  And they had no chariots, this being a style of warfare unknown to them. We had one, of indifferent construction, driven by a pair of horses that until the day before had never pulled together. It was a questionable asset.

  If the Greeks held, how much blood would these Sicels be willing to spill to contest the field? How badly did they wish to triumph?

  The whole art of war is the application of strength against an opponent’s weakness—what was their weakness? I had little enough time to discover it.

  I wheeled the chariot out in front of the five battle squares into which the Greek militia was arranged. Back and forth I rode, back and forth, encouraging them while we waited for Ducerius’ army to draw up into ranks.

  “Hold it in your minds that this army has but one neck—we have only to hack it through and we will triumph, no matter how many soldiers they field. Drive for the center. Break them without being broken. Only have the bowels to conquer and by sunset their women will be howling like beaten dogs. Ducerius the king thinks he will make a meal of us, but so did the bandit Collatinus and we brought his head home in a leather bag. Be stubborn—take them by the throat and do not let go until your jaws close.”

  “We will be dog soldiers,” someone called out from the ranks, making everyone laugh.

  “And, Tiglath, you thief, mind you take good care of my horse,” I heard Callias shout after me. The men were in high spirits—frightened, as was only reasonable, but cheerful. This was a good sign.

  All the time, as the Greeks bandied jests with me and with each other, I had one eye for Ducerius’ army, watching as they formed their lines for battle.

  And that was all they were—merely lines, five rows of men, one after the other, separated by eight or ten paces. They thought they could overwhelm us with sheer numbers. We would have to see.

  It is not an easy thing to face so many men across perhaps a hundred paces of empty plain. The waiting is what makes it hard.

  Then, quite suddenly, it began. As if startled awake, the Sicel horsemen charged, screaming wildly as they brandished their swords overhead. It was beautiful, in its way.

  My men had forgotten nothing since the campaign against the brigands. When the enemy riders had crossed half the distance to our lines, the five battle squares launched their arrows, in five waves following one upon the other. I think perhaps as many as twelve of the Sicels dropped lifeless from their saddles or had their horses killed under them—of itself it was almost enough to break their charge. A second volley, and then a third, and no more than twenty of the enemy horsemen reached our lines.

  And of these, many perished on the spears of our first line, but the rest, those who broke in on men who had not fought on the Salito Plain, or had not learned its cruel lessons, before they were driven off, those few brought a terrible slaughter to the Greeks. In war men pay with their blood when they forget to angle their spears properly, or suffer an instant of failing courage, and many were crushed beneath the hooves of the Sicel horses, even as those horses stumbled and died, spilling their guts onto the parched ground.

  Yet that one charge, bitter and costly though it was, was the last Ducerius’ cavalry could mount against us. When it had spent itself, the king’s horsemen could only mill aimlessly about, hacking at a spearman here and there, reduced to a nuisance rather than a threat.

  From then on it was a foot soldier’s war.

  And it was only after the cavalry charge that the battle began for me. I had driven the chariot out, hoping to distract the Sicels a little and to help blunt their attack, but they seemed not to know what to make of me and, being more agile, declined my challenge and kept away. But when Ducerius unleashed the first two waves of his infantry, men who had only their own legs to carry them, then my moment came.

  There is nothing like a chariot for spreading terror. And terror is the mother of confusion, whose child is defeat. I cannot claim I killed so many Sicels that day, although more than a few bodies were broken beneath my wheels, but I made the king’s soldiers know that fear which burns on the tongue like the taste of copper. They learned there was no safety in their lines of attack and their short swords. I scattered them like the dust.

  When first they beheld me driving down upon them, their mouths dropped open with astonishment. They seemed unable to move, as if they could hardly believe that I actually intended to ride over them. And at the last second they parted before me—those who were quick enough—like standing grain before the charge of a wild boar. As I passed I gave out death with a generous hand, stabbing many with my javelin.

  There is an excitement in battle that is like no other. Men hacked at me with their swords. Arrows flew past me, yet I heeded them no more than the buzzing of flies. I did not think of danger. I felt as if my skin were gray iron that nothing could pierce. I was not so much brave as, I think, a little mad.

  But I taught the Sicels fear. Their lines weakened, they had no time to reform them, and when they charged our battle squares they broke as does the sea against an outcropping of rock.

  And my valiant Greeks, how they fought! Theirs was not the witless frenzy of war but the true, steady courage of men who face death with cold hearts. And many did die, for the Sicels were true soldiers and understood the arts of killing. But the Greeks never faltered. They kept their squares tight, and when a man in the first rank fell, another stood in his place before his spear could touch the ground. Where the Sicels each fought bravely, each one alone, the Greeks fought bravely together, making of themselves an engine of slaughter.

  Ducerius released wave after wave of his soldiers, but as the Sicel attack began to weaken, the five battle squares began to advance. The middle square pushed ahead of the others so that the whole was like a wedge, splitting the enemy in two, and those unlucky enough to be caught between our formations were ground as under a millstone.

  It was a time of great carnage, and many men died on both sides. I tore back and forth across the field until at last my chariot lost a wheel and I had to cut the horses free and fight my way back to the Greek lines, killing four men before I reached them.

  No one even greeted me as I took my place in the front line—there was no time. We were all covered with sweat and bloody dirt. There was no glory now, only the hard, hazardous work of war as we fought to live and conquer.

  I caught a glimpse of Ducerius only at the end. I saw him riding away on his fine gray stallion, back up to his citadel, followed by a group of officers. It was a clear sign he knew the day was lost.

  I was not the only one who witnessed Ducerius’ flight, and men will not fight when they have been deserted by their leaders. Defeat spread among the king’s soldiers like a contagion. Just as they had made war as individuals, as individuals, first one and then another, they decided they were beaten. As with one who suddenly realizes that his hand is in the bear’s mouth, they started to pull back, and soon they were running away in a mob. Theirs was not a withdrawal, but a rout.

  What followed was little less than a massacre. With a wave of my hand I called in our horsemen, who had been waiting until that moment, and they swooped down upon the scattering army like hawks after mice. In their panicked flight the Sicels left behind them a wide trail of corpses.

  At last, exhausted, we gave up our pursuit. Ducerius’ army was in full retreat, streaming back toward his citadel, leaving fully two thirds of his men dead or dying on the field. We looked about us, feeling like butchers. None of us had any more taste for killing.

  The sun was already on the horizon. In a quarter of an hour it would be dark. As the battle ended, the Greek women took possession of the field their men had won. Some looted corpses, the rest tende
d the wounded and the dying.

  But most of us walked away from this battle. We looked about us, a little astonished to be alive, none more so than Kephalos, who had sustained a cut about three fingers wide just above the elbow. It was bleeding copiously but did not look dangerous—indeed, he seemed very pleased with it.

  “We won,” he exclaimed, so breathless that the words were hardly more than a murmur. “Master, we have conquered.”

  His eyes were wet, whether from joy or simple fatigue it was impossible to say, but he was a happy man.

  “Yes—now all debts are paid.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, several times, as if the significance of the fact were only just beginning to sink in. “Yes, now all debts are paid.”

  “Have that wound cleaned out,” I told him. “Have one of the women. . .”

  “I shall see to it myself, Lord,” he said, taking his hand away to examine the blood on his fingers. “I am, after all, a physician, and the pain is nothing.”

  I watched him trudge back to our camp, weary but satisfied. He would be all right now. There would be a limit to his grief, for he had avenged Ganymedes and was at peace with himself. And he would have a fine scar to prove it. That was all, just a scar.

  Not everyone, however, had been so fortunate.

  “Tiglath?”

  I heard a weak voice and glanced down. It was Diocles, lying on the ground, half covered by his shield and with a sword cut in his side—the hand that held it together was caked with blood. I knelt down beside him. He smiled.

  “We won,” he murmured. His joy was the same as Kephalos’, as that of all the others, a mixture of astonishment and relief. It did not seem to matter that he had sacrificed his life to achieve it.

  “By the Mouse God’s. . .”

  And then death darkened his eyes.

  I rose to my feet, black anger welling up in me once more, as if this battle were still to be fought.

  Perhaps not all debts had been paid.

  . . . . .

  But we had won. Diocles had at least seen us victorious, although his life was only one of many this victory had cost us. In all, some thirty-two Greeks perished on the Plain of Clonios, a heavy toll in a force of less than two hundred men, yet our own losses were small compared to the enemy’s. The next morning, when it was light enough to survey the field, we counted over three hundred Sicel corpses. The army of Ducerius had been bled white.

  When we had gathered up our dead, and their ashes were in copper urns for their families to bury, it was time to think what must come next. It was time to turn our eyes to the stone walls of Ducerius’ citadel and to consider how now we might end this war.

  And no more did I need to worry that the Greeks would lose heart, for victory had turned their courage into recklessness.

  “We should press our initiative. Let us attack the acropolis at once!”

  “And will you run it through the belly with your sword?” I would ask. “It is not a man—you cannot slay it. The problem is not so simple as that. Ducerius will not come out, so how will you get in?”

  This forced them to think, which was at least a beginning. They raised their heads to gaze at the sheer rock faces that surrounded the only road up, trying to imagine what it would be like to storm such a heavily fortified position, and a little of their bravado left them.

  “Can it be done?”

  “Possibly—provided everyone is willing to pay the price. I am speaking of at least three months of hazardous, back-breaking labor to make a breach in the walls and then an assault in which perhaps one out of every three of us will be killed. And the attack, of course, might be repulsed. There are no guarantees of success, but the thing can be attempted.”

  “Perhaps they can be starved out!”

  “Does any one us know for certain how much food they may have in storage? Enough for four months? Six? And how are we to feed ourselves while we keep them under siege? We cannot simply slink back to our farms and expect them to wait quietly up there until we have finished our harvest. And if we plunder the Sicel peasants of their grain and livestock, we will have an enemy at our backs as well as ahead of us. I do not believe that way holds much promise of success. I do not believe our people are prepared to be that patient.”

  “Then what you say is that we are beaten.”

  “No. That is not what I say.”

  “Then what, Tiglath?”

  Then what, Tiglath? This was the gods’ punishment upon my arrogance, for in honesty I was forced to admit—at least to myself—that I had no idea.

  “I will consider the matter,” I told them.

  And this I did. And the more I considered it, the more entangling the problem seemed to become.

  Had I been in command of one of my father’s armies, there would have been no difficulty. The soldiers of Ashur fought for the glory of their king and their god, and thus they did not question if a thing should or should not be done, or if the prize was worth the labor and risk of seizing it. They had camped for fifteen months outside the walls of Babylon, painstakingly undermining the walls and waiting for the order to attack, and all because the Lord Sennacherib, King of the Earth’s Four Corners, had willed it thus.

  The Greeks were not so. They had no king, and the sense that they were now a community to which each man owed allegiance, even onto death, had as yet shallow roots. And, of course, their gods were lazy, pleasure-loving creatures, too indifferent to the affairs of men to be concerned with the outcome of one little war fought out on a distant island. No sensible Greek ever went to war for the glory of his gods.

  Thus I feared to begin this siege of Ducerius’ citadel, for when the walls did not come down after half a month my neighbors would start quarreling among themselves, and soon the men who had conquered a mighty enemy on the field of battle would simply melt away, leaving final victory behind them as their thoughts turned to their farms and their accustomed lives. I did not want the Sicel king left thus unpunished. I felt I still owed that debt to the men who had perished here on the Plain of Clonios.

  But sometimes when a man cannot see to do a thing for himself, luck and the bright gods will do it for him.

  Three days after the battle, at first light, a rider came down from the citadel under token of truce. He dismounted and led his horse to the center of the battlefield, where I and other members of the Greek council walked out to meet him. He was the same man whom Ducerius had sent once before.

  “I would speak with the Lord Tiglath Ashur,” he said as his first words, glaring around at my colleagues as if he thought each of them concealed a dagger in his cloak.

  “There is nothing you can say which these men are not privileged to hear,” I answered.

  Nevertheless, he only shook his head, maintaining a grim silence.

  “Oh, very well then,” said Epeios, dismissing the matter with a wave. “Tiglath, I suppose we can depend on you not to sell us to this villain?”

  The others laughed and started back toward the camp. I had the impression they were even a little relieved. I heard Callias laugh, as if at some jest.

  The Sicel nobleman seemed to peer into their backs as we watched them go. Then, at last, when the only sound we could hear was the wind in the dry grass, he turned to me.

  “You are not like them,” he said, breaking the long silence. “You would not be wise, I think, to trust them as completely as they do you.”

  “I am exactly like them.”

  He smiled tightly, as a man does when he hears a lie he is too polite to contradict.

  “The question is, what will you do now?” he said. “You have won a victory, of sorts. You cannot hope to win anything more.”

  “You told me once that I could not hope for anything more than defeat.”

  “In the long view, that is still the case.”

  “You no longer even believe that yourself,” I said. “You cannot hope to make me believe it.”

  “The walls of the king’s citadel have never been breached.
”

  We both glanced up at those walls, those huge blocks of granite that seemed fitted together as tightly as the scales on a snake’s back. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth.

  “With fortresses, as with maidens, there is always a first time. I will not pretend the thing would not be difficult, but it can be done. It will cost many lives, but in the end we will rend open those walls like a bride’s wedding tunic, and then there will be no mercy.”

  Once again, and for a long time, we listened to the silence of the wind. Did he believe me? Did I believe myself? I had no confidence about either.

  “We would fight you for every handspan of wall,” he said, as if it were a conclusion he had just reached. He did not look at me as he spoke. He never took his eyes from the gray stones of his master’s citadel. “Men would die for every foothold. It would be an expensive victory.”

  “I have no doubt of it. Do you think, after what this ground witnessed three days ago, that any of us imagine the Sicels are women? Of course many would die—I have said so. Many Greeks, and your own forces to the last man. I would prevent it if I could; however, the power to do so lies not with me but with you.”

  “What would you have of us, Tiglath Ashur?”

  The question was asked in the most offhand manner, almost as if he were posing me a riddle. I found myself wondering if he did not perhaps see through the emptiness of my threat.

  “The same as before, my Lord. I would have Ducerius.”

  From the expression on his face I might have asked him for the life of his first-born child, for it is no trifling matter to abandon one’s sovereign king to death. Yet I think we both understood that nothing else would serve.

  “He has become a burden to us all,” I went on, hardly knowing if he heard me—hardly knowing why I troubled him with reasons he must have understood as well as I did. “The Greeks and the Sicels had no quarrel before he made one. This war is his alone, and there will be no safety for anyone so long as he lives and rules.”