The Pillars of Hercules (23 page)

“If we had turned immediately and landed on the shore to support our army there, we’d have just been feeding more men into the slaughter. Deploying cavalry behind infantry would have been pure catastrophe. But now we’ve broken through. So we can turn their flank. So when the doors go down, follow me and ride like the hounds of Hades are baying at your heels”—he kept talking, his voice growing ever louder, as what had been a tactical analysis swelled into the exhortation that everybody had been expecting all along. A raucous cheer filled the hold—only to be drowned out by the yell of the beat-timers screaming reverse. The deck shook as the ship ground into the shallows—Eumenes was blinded momentarily by a burst of sunlight as the ramp at the front of the ship dropped; even before he’d reattained full vision, he was spurring his horse forward along with all the others—charging down the ramp, splashing through the water and onto the river bank. Alexander galloped out ahead, turning sharply, the stallion he’d chosen the spitting image of his first steed Bucephalus, now long dead in the Afghan hills. Other ships kept hitting the shore; their own ramps dropping as more cavalry poured out into the mass of horses already charging back toward the barricade and the pitched battle still raging further downstream. And now the first of the barges reached the shore—unlike the warships, it didn’t need to beach in the shallows. It plowed onto the beach, the entire front side dropping open to reveal men.

Except they weren’t men.

Their bodies were as metal as the swords they carried. A clanking noise came from their innards—the noise of the gears inside them. They were one of Aristotle’s inventions, and now they were being put to the test. Eumenes knew their inner workings better than any man who wasn’t a mechanist, but he still felt a chill ran along his spine as the golems broke into a run that was fast enough to allow them to keep up with the cavalry. Those horses had been acclimated to their presence: trained in long sessions in the fields at the mouth of the Danube not to panic under such circumstances. Now they regarded the golems as they would men. Indeed, those automata had been coated with human sweat to make that adjustment easier. Somehow Eumenes found that fact more disturbing than any other. The golems and cavalry raced along the shore, past the burning barricade. For a moment, Eumenes was entirely surrounded by smoke—and then he emerged from the haze to see the pitched battle raging almost immediately in front of him. The phalanx had been forced back into the water; the men were standing in the shallows, battling ferociously, contesting with the onrushing Scythians for every step—but they had no more room to fall back into. They had lost the asset most precious to battling infantry: maneuverability, and were being hacked down where they stood in the water.

But then the first wave of Macedonian cavalry hit, plowing into the flank of the barbarians like a spear through exposed flesh. Many of the barbarians were packed too tightly against the phalanx to even turn—the Macedonians trampled them underfoot, spearing them like fish as they went. A shout of triumph went up from the phalanx, which surged forward again, finally forcing their way out of the river and back onto the shore. The same scene was being repeated on the far bank of the Danube. The barbarians were turning, breaking into full flight now.

Only to find the golems moving in behind them. While the cavalry had struck the flank, those metal automata had slanted inland. Now they were cutting off the Scythians’ retreat—and those barbarians were doing everything they could to get away from creatures that seemed like nothing short of abominations. Eumenes saw more than one barbarian turn back to die under a Macedonian sword, rather than be sent to the underworld by creatures that weren’t human. It was like the Scythians’ own gods had turned against them. The only way out was further downstream, along the shore. Some of the barbarians headed that way.

Except now the elephants appeared.

Alexander had been too impatient to wait for their full marshalling, so they’d been left behind at the Danube. Eumenes had known that they’d set out, were catching up with the army—but he hadn’t realized how close they’d come to doing so. Presumably when the elephant-masters had seen the smoke billowing up ahead, they’d charged forward. Now they’d reached the battle just in time to cut off the Scythians’ last route of escape. A despairing cry went up from the barbarians as they watched the grey monstrosities charging toward them, trumpeting furiously. What had started as an almost perfect ambush was quickly becoming an encirclement. What had been a fight became pure slaughter as the elephants began trampling Scythians beneath their feet. Eumenes remembered very little of what followed. For long minutes he was transported back again to the plains of Asia, when the Macedonians had wreaked such havoc amidst the Persian hosts. It was the same way now—the rise and fall of steel, the scream of men, the wash of blood. Glory days had come again. And glory meant the blood of enemies. The Macedonians set about their task with relish.

Hot, pitiless wind blew along a barren shore that had no beginning and no end. The army had left Cyrene more than two weeks earlier. The journey to that city had been bad enough. The last Greek outpost on the African desert, four hundred miles west of the now-renamed city of Alexandria at the head of the Nile delta: it wasn’t even in Egypt. It was in a place called Libya. Men were starting to die of thirst even before they got there.

None of which had boded well for venturing west of Cyrene. There was absolutely nothing out here. Not even a road, unless you could dignify the hardened strip of sand between desert and beach with that title. Which the messenger certainly wasn’t about to do. Not for the first time, he cursed the gods that he’d gotten swept up into this crazy march. Though it wasn’t like he’d had a choice—he was a soldier, he did what he was ordered. And as a courier, that meant you either carried messages to their intended destination or you waited to be given such messages.

He fell into the latter category now, thanks to the events of the last several weeks. He had made all haste down the Levant and across the Sinai, had arrived at the Nile bedraggled and exhausted, whereupon he’d immediately been ushered into the presence of Craterus, commander of the Macedonian forces in Egypt. That bear of a man had broken the seal, unfurled the scroll, read the message with a growing smile that afforded the messenger no little relief, since this was the part where those who bore bad tidings sometimes got carved into pieces or fed to crocodiles. The latter type of death was quite fashionable in this part of the world. The priests of Egypt had resorted to it often, and all of Macedonia had heard how Alexander had employed it himself to such dramatic effect only a few months before.

But for the messenger there were no such punishments—only the wine and refreshments that were the reward of one who had brought good news. That suited him just fine. Cavorting in the whorehouses of Alexandria suited him even better. One never had time for such distractions while en route. Especially because such diversions might be the artifice of those seeking to intercept the message. No courier could afford to take to strange beds while on the job. Once the destination was reached, of course, it was a different story. Pleasure was something to wallow in; one never knew when one would be able to do so next.

The messenger’s relief lasted only as long as he was in the dark about the contents of the correspondence he’d been carrying. Within hours it was all over the city: they were marching west. They were going to cross the African desert and capture Carthage. At first the messenger figured that the rumor-mill had gotten it wrong. Or that he’d gotten so drunk in the bars and brothels he was starting to hear things. But everyone had the same news, and by dawn the messenger had a splitting hangover and the sickening knowledge that he’d been the one who brought the tidings that set all this madness in motion.

Because madness was what it was, of course. There was no way an army could reach Carthage without the navy the Macedonians didn’t have. Nor did the common soldiers have any knowledge of geography, because if they did they wouldn’t have been so happy about marching again. Egypt had given them a chance to rest, and now they were hungry for more booty. Too bad they had no idea how far away it was. Though they were starting to get it now.

Of course, the messenger had known all along. Distances weren’t something his profession was ignorant of. Even if he didn’t know precisely how long it was to Carthage—even if he’d never be called upon to deliver a message to it—he knew just how impossible it would be to ever reach it. Not that it really mattered. It was too bad that Macedonia felt the need to throw a whole army away in the same harebrained way that Cambyses of Persia had once done, but ultimately it wasn’t the messenger’s concern. Taking word of the expedition’s departure back to Pella was.

Except it wasn’t.

Two days later, with all of Memphis buzzing with the marshalling of the army for the march into the western desert, there was a loud knocking on the whorehouse door. The messenger paid no attention until bodyguards of Craterus himself entered his own room and ordered that he report for duty. The messenger extricated himself from the arms of the less-than-conscious woman he’d hired earlier that day, splashed cold water on his face and went with the bodyguards. He figured that he’d be heading back to Pella within the hour.

No such luck. Instead he was ordered to join the headquarters of Craterus. That’s when his worst fears were confirmed. He wasn’t going back to Macedonia at all. He was going with the army to certain death. His only hope now was that he was one of the first messengers to be dispatched back to Egypt to say how terrible everything was going and beg for reinforcements. After he’d delivered
that
message, if he was sent back to the expedition again, he figured he’d salute, say yes sir, and then promptly desert. That was the one advantage of being a messenger—no one kept tabs on you between stops. And he’d seen plenty of places he could hide during his various travels—various out-of-the-way towns, seaports, hillside forts, forgotten temples. It didn’t matter, as long as he could go incognito. Something he was good at, since messengers didn’t exactly advertise themselves while on the road. He spoke several languages, and could pass for a native in more than one place. Blending in with the local inhabitants was a specialty of his.

But the the only inhabitants of the desert were crazed savages who stalked the army by day and picked off stragglers by night.
Berbers,
they were called. There’d be no blending in with them. The messenger wondered where they were coming from—how they survived out in those tractless wastes. Presumably there were oases out there. Everyone had heard of the one at Siwah—the one that contained the god that had spoken with Alexander and told him he was one too—but that place was fortified and civilized. These barbarians must be coming from oases that no one knew of, from places deep within the desert. Places that would remain unseen to civilized eyes. It wasn’t like anyone was about to ride off and look.

“Why the fuck not?” said Perdiccas.

“What good would it do us?” said Craterus.

The two men stared at each other across the table. A flagon of wine sat between them. The torches that lit the tent were burning low. Craterus sighed—picked up the flagon, refilled his goblet. He downed half of it, set it heavily back on the table. Gazed at the still-silent Perdiccas.

“I’ll answer that for you,” he continued. “None at all. We’d lose every man who rode off into the desert. And that’s exactly what these savages
want
us to do.”

“But how else do we stop them?” Deep circles underlay Perdiccas’ eyes. He wasn’t getting much sleep. The march was taking its toll on him. Much as he hated to admit it, so was the lack of Alexander, who would have known how to get this army to do the impossible. Sure, he’d himself said that a march on Carthage would be pure folly. But that was back in that conference chamber in Memphis. Now things had changed. They had a specific plan of operations. But having a plan was one thing, executing upon it was another. And neither man was Alexander.

Much though Craterus was trying to be.

“We
don’t
stop them,” he said. “They’re going to keep raiding, they’re going to keep picking off our men here and there. That’s how attrition works. Besides, you’ve got to keep your eye on the big picture. We’re losing a lot more to thirst than we are to raiders.”

Now it was Perdiccas’ turn to reach for the wine. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” he asked.

“It’s not supposed to make you
feel
anything,” replied Craterus. “You’re the commander out here. Second only to me. So rise above these petty emotions. Armies lose men every day even while they’re just on garrison duty. Put an army in the desert, the rate increases. The only question is whether the rate’s acceptable.”

“I’m starting to think it’s not.”

“Again, that’s your feeling.” Craterus shoved figure-laden papers across the table. “These say differently.”

Perdiccas scanned the casualty rates. His eyes widened. “Are you nuts? These show a loss of—”

“That’s among the mercenaries. The auxiliaries. The foreign hirelings. Not among the Macedonian core. We’ve scarcely dropped below the ten thousand we started out with. Meaning we still have a phalanx that can roll through anything. So the Persian conscripts are dying like flies. So what? That’s what they were meant to do.”

“No one explained that to them.”

“You’d make a shit recruiting sergeant.” Craterus’ laugh rattled around the tent like some disembodied and perverse extension of himself. Perdicas smiled wanly, but all he could think of was what lay beyond the tent. The largest desert known to man….

“Cheer up,” said Craterus. “We’d never have conquered Persia with that attitude.”

“Persia had cities. Not like this—”

“What do you think Carthage is?”

“It’s not taking the city that I’m worried about,” said Perdiccas. “It’s getting there—”