Authors: Christian Cameron
Tyrant (66 page)
Kineas gave no more reaction than the Sakje. Instead, he turned to the king. And the king, who had sat slumped, relaxed, or perhaps tired while listening to the herald, now drew himself erect.
‘When news of your herald came,’ he said in his excellent Greek, ‘I was in council with my chiefs. Ever they urge me to battle, and ever I hesitate, because to fight a battle is to submit the fate of my people to chance and death. O Zopryon, your words have cleared the air for me, as the sun burns away every fog, in the end. Do you know your Herodotus?’
Zopryon’s face darkened. ‘Do not toy with me. Submit, or take the consequence.’
Even now, Kineas could see that the man was in a hurry. Even with Olbia in hand, just three hundred stades away, the desperation was still there. A flicker of hope relit in Kineas’s stomach.
The king reached out and took a basket from Srayanka, who rode at his side. ‘Here are your tokens, O Zopryon.’ He shrugged, and appeared as young as he really was. ‘I hadn’t time to catch a bird.’
He pushed his horse into motion. The horse took a few steps, and all of the Macedonians reacted. But the king handed the wicker basket to the herald. And then stopped his horse nose to nose with Zopryon’s horse.
Zopryon motioned impatiently. The herald took a linen towel off the top of the basket, and a frog leaped clear. The herald dropped the basket in shock. He turned to his master. ‘Vermin!’ he said. ‘Mice and frogs!’
The king reached into his gorytos and withdrew a handful of light arrows, which he threw on the ground at Zopryon’s feet. ‘I am the king of the Sakje. That is the answer of the Sakje. My allies may speak for themselves.’ The king glanced at Kineas and sat straight. And then he turned his horse and rode away.
Cleomenes was as red as a Spartan’s cloak. The herald’s horse shied from the mice in the grass.
Kineas leaned forward. His hands were clenched with tension, but his voice carried well enough. ‘His tokens mean just this, Zopryon. Unless you can swim like a frog, burrow like a mouse, or fly like a bird, we will destroy you with our arrows.’
Zopryon reacted angrily enough to confirm Kineas’s suspicion that the man was at the edge. ‘This embassage is ended, mercenary! Be gone before I order you dead.’
Kineas pushed his horse forward, floating on the promise of his dream. ‘Try, Zopryon,’ he said. ‘Try to kill me.’
Zopryon turned his horse. ‘You are mad. Drunk with power.’
Kineas laughed. It was a harsh laugh, a little forced, but it did the job. ‘Does Alexander know you wear the diadem?’ Kineas called. ‘Do you have an ivory stool to match it?’ He saw the shot go home. Zopryon whirled his horse. He put his hand on his sword hilt.
Kineas sat still, and his warhorse didn’t stir.
Cleomenes leaned forward over his horse’s neck. ‘You are a dangerous man. And now you will die.’
Kineas stood his ground. His laugh was derisive, and he was proud that he could conjure it. And he needed to goad Zopryon. He needed the man to commit to his desperation. ‘Your horses are starving,’ he yelled. ‘Your men walk like corpses. You are burning your wagons for firewood.’
Zopryon was two horse lengths away. His hand was still on his sword, and his face was moving.
Kineas pointed at the king’s arrows. ‘Cleomenes,’ he said mockingly. ‘You have chosen unwisely.’ He held the man’s eyes. ‘You are a fool. This army will never get to Olbia alive.’
Cleomenes didn’t flinch. ‘I demand that you give me my son, and all the men still loyal to the archon.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘If I sent Eumenes to you,’ he said, ‘he would kill you himself.’ To Zopryon, he said, ‘Olbia is on our side of the river. Your scouts will have told you that there is no ford south of here. Whenever you think you can force the ford, come and face us. If your horses don’t starve first.’
Zopryon’s rage began to boil out of him, and Kineas rode away.
At the ford, he caught the king. ‘He must not be allowed to march south.’
Marthax nodded. ‘We know.’
‘Let the Grass Cats cross the ford as soon as Varô their lord can be ready,’ the king said. ‘Let us show them their future.’
Kineas found that Kam Baqca was watching him. He met her eyes, and wondered if the same emptiness lay in his own.
The Grass Cats rode off across the ford as the rain tailed off to fitful spurts in early afternoon. And a damp sun made portions of the sky overhead lighter, if a man was an optimist.
Kineas ordered Diodorus to take a patrol across and scout the enemy camp - or their patrol line. He wanted to do it himself, but he needed sleep.
His nap was dreamless. But he had a sharp feeling of dream when it was the same damp arm that woke him, and Philokles’ voice in his ear.
‘Huh?’ he asked, as before.
‘Your prisoner?’ Philokles said. ‘The one Laertes brought? He’s a Kelt. One of the archon’s.’
‘Athena, protectress. Shield of our fathers, lady of the olive. All the gods.’ Kineas swore, but he was out of his wagon into late afternoon light - a pale sky, sun too weak to cast a shadow but drier than rain. He followed Philokles to the fire pit, where the prisoner sat on a stone, watched by a trio of the blacksmith’s friends. He had his head in his hands, and Kineas could see that the back of his head was swollen.
‘Look at me,’ Philokles ordered in his Ares voice.
The man raised his head, and Kineas knew him, despite the bruise over his eye.
‘So,’ Kineas said. ‘It was not hubris. The gods smile on us - unless others slipped past.’
Philokles shook his head. ‘A dozen Kelts and a pair of Macedonians and Cleomenes left the city together. Ataelus’s wife discovered them in the dark, and led Heron’s men to them. This one thinks they are all dead.’
Kineas rubbed his beard.
Balanced on a knife’s edge
. If he and Srayanka - if she hadn’t found Ataelus - if Ataelus didn’t have a new wife to ride with him . . .
Balanced on a knife’s edge
. If he and Srayanka - if she hadn’t found Ataelus - if Ataelus didn’t have a new wife to ride with him . . .
It wasn’t over yet.
Kineas rubbed his face with cold water. ‘Cleomenes made it to Zopryon,’ he said. ‘A day too late, I think. I hope.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m for hot water, a shave, and a strigil,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, we fight.’
Philokles nodded. ‘I’ll comb my hair,’ he said.
Marthax pushed more of his lightest, freshest cavalry across in late afternoon, with orders to cause as much chaos as possible among the Macedonians. The next hours saw a constant skirmish just out of sight of the ford. Sakje would ride back to change horses, get arrows, or tend a wound.
Kineas sent Diodorus to support them, and to gather what information he could.
There was yet an hour of light, or perhaps more, when Kineas saw the stir at the ford. He waved to Memnon, who approached at a run. Horsemen - Olbians - were coming across the ford at speed. He could see a Sakje messenger going up the hill to the king’s laager. Another Sakje coming from the north, on their side of the river - galloping through the herds at a reckless pace. And a Greek - Diodorus, as it proved - coming to Kineas at the gallop from the ford.
‘They’re moving,’ Diodorus panted.
Kineas rubbed his trimmed beard. ‘They’re going to fight now?’
Diodorus struggled to catch his breath. Memnon arrived. ‘They’re going north. The parley must have been to cover them. The whole army is in motion. There’s cavalry as a screen - we were lucky. And they’re tired. We got a glimpse.’
Kineas stretched as tall on his mount as he could, as if he could see farther. The last of the rain was blowing away in the east, but the visibility was still soft, and the middle distance of a few stades was already losing colour. ‘North?’ he said.
The reckless Sakje rider was coming to him. A stade away, Kineas could see it was Ataelus. His heartbeat quickened. He had a sense - almost the sense of his baqca dreams - of knowledge. Ataelus was coming from Heron. Heron was searching north. Diodorus said the Macedonians were marching north.
Kineas could see it - Zopryon’s desperate lunge.
The desperate boar gores kings.
The desperate boar gores kings.
Ataelus didn’t bother to dismount. He pulled up so close that horse sweat showered his audience. ‘Heron finds ford. North. And Macedon find ford too.’
Kineas felt the weight of the inevitable future clamp down. Another ford - with a wide shingle and a big dead tree, no doubt.
The ford was just north of their northernmost herds - just by the shrine of the river god. Ataelus said that it was as wide as four wagons and no deeper than a man’s knees, and that there were Macedonians on the far side - just a handful, but more arriving - and that Heron was determined to hold the ford as long as he could.
Kineas didn’t wait to hear it all. He turned to Memnon. ‘I’m off to see the king. Take the phalanx and march immediately. You have to beat the taxeis in the race. They have a head start, but you have the inside track.’
Memnon nodded. ‘They won’t cross tonight.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘They’ll try. Go!’
He turned to his own officers. ‘Eumenes - your men are the most rested. Every man take two horses. Mount all the Sindi. Ride like every one of you bestrides a Pegasus. Nicomedes - go with him as soon as your men can mount. I’ll push the slaves to get a wagon in motion and you’ll have a late dinner. Thirty stades?’ he asked Ataelus.
Ataelus shrugged. ‘An hour’s ride.’
‘Diodorus - pull your men back from the ford. Rest now. You’ll ride with me in an hour.’ Kineas looked around. ‘We must win the race to the ford.’
They all nodded.
Kineas said, ‘This is his last throw. This will be the battle. He’s stolen a march - and we know he can march fast. Now we show what we can do.’
Philokles put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Enough orders,’ he said. ‘See you at the ford.’
Kineas’s news only served to reinforce what the king had already heard.
Marthax was blunt. ‘Maybe the ford. Maybe not the ford.’ He made a motion with his hand. ‘We cannot allow him to march away - go south, go to Olbia.’
The king looked five years older. ‘We’re taking the Sakje across the river,’ he said. ‘We will follow him, crush his rear guard, impede his march.’
Kineas took a deep breath. ‘He will have a three hour head start. He will march all night. You won’t catch him until morning. If I’m right, he’ll be crossing.’ Kineas ran a hand through his hair. ‘We have the smaller army and we intend to divide it?’
The king shook his head. ‘We have the faster army. We watch all of his motions and we rejoin to fight.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘He may force you to fight on the sea of grass - and I’ll be hours away, unable to help.’
Marthax’s face was set. He spoke rapidly, and the king translated. ‘We have no choice. If he gets ahead of us to Olbia, we’ve lost.’
Kineas could see that their minds were made up. They were tired - everyone was tired, and there was no time to talk. He thought about a battlefield he had never seen, except in a dream. He thought about the king, his friend - and rival. Riding away to leave him.
He knew what mattered now. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, ‘Leave me a clan - I can’t hold the ford with the Greeks alone.’ He was more afraid of how the Olbians would feel, waking to find that they alone were to bear the weight of Macedon.
The king frowned, but Marthax nodded. ‘Grass Cats. Standing Horses. You keep both. You know chiefs. Grass Cats fight all days - tired. Not ride all night. Standing Horses take hardest fight yesterday.’ He sent Ataelus for the chiefs. Through the king, he said, ‘I think Zopryon will go to the ford. We will catch him two hours after dawn - I think. You hold him. We will catch him.’ The other chiefs were hurrying up the hills, those that weren’t already across the river, fighting. Kineas saw Srayanka, already mounted, giving orders to her household knights. Philokles ran by her at the head of his light-armed two hundred, setting out at a run, and even as he watched, Philokles lifted his spear to her, and she shrieked a war cry in return that was taken up by her clan. Eumenes’ troop was already vanishing into the gloom. Nicomedes’ men were mostly armed, and the slaves had two wagons loaded - the whole column was moving, with Memnon’s heavy phalanx marching at the rear.
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