Stealing Fire (14 page)

“Wait,” I said, raising a hand. “Wait for my signal.”

And then I heard the sound of hooves, and a great shout as Glaukos and his men thundered down the wadi behind them, swords drawn and in full charge.

They broke into the back of Polemon's men like boulders falling down a mountain, the screams of injured horses competing with the cries of men.

Orders or not, every man looked around.

“Forward!” I shouted, and touched my heels to her sides as we started forward across the smoldering ashes.

After that it was hard to tell what was happening more than a length from my own horse, cut and thrust and guard, the nimble mare dancing over the fallen. Blood was in my eyes, in my hair, and I could see nothing except the plunging horses around me, a trooper of my own to my right on a big bay horse.

“Forward!” It was hard to tell who was whom. We all wore the same armor, friends and foes alike, all had familiar faces. We had been friends, not two years ago. We had all fought for Alexander.

Polemon appeared out of the chaos, his helmet askew on his head. I saw him mark me and was not surprised.

He came straight for me, but at the last moment the movement of the battle shifted, so that we should pass wrong-sided, left to left rather than right to right. I tried to switch over, but his horse was bigger than mine, and in a moment our horses were shoulder to shoulder. He lifted his sword, but it was an awkward thrust, fully across his body.

I could not parry all the way across in time. I saw it rise, and the seconds elongated.

It was nothing but animal reaction to throw my left arm up to guard my head. So close were we, and so awkward the thrust, that I caught the guard just above his hand, the full weight of the descent with the horse's weight behind it caught on my left hand, the wrist bent entirely back. I heard the bones break, snapping like dry twigs.

And then we were past him, the pass incomplete, my horse taking her head from the suddenly slack reins.

“Retreat! Retreat!” Someone was shouting. “Retreat and form up!” I thought it was Polemon. All about us in the wadi men were down. Perhaps he thought more of them were his.

My arm was on fire, my hand completely useless. I gathered the reins in my sword hand, holding both together.

“Don't pursue!” I shouted. “Men of Ptolemy's Ile, do not pursue!”

“Form up!”

Everyone was shouting to form up.

I wheeled the horse about one-handed. We needed to back off, give it some room and see what we had compared to them. There was no dishonor in yielding the field. One bit of this wadi was like another.

“Ptolemy's Ile, back up!” I shouted. I guided my mare back over the embers with my legs, my left hand entirely unresponsive. I could not move my thumb at all.

“Back up, you fornicating slobs!” That was Glaukos, shouting at the first ranks, getting them back.

“Pick up the wounded,” I directed. “Anyone you can carry.”

“Form up!”

We backed down the wadi slowly, our eyes on them. They were also backing off a little.

I could not tell who precisely we had lost, but it looked as though many more of them were on the ground than of us.

They did not pursue. I did not think they would, not with night falling, a bitter mauling, and no idea what further backup we might have. They would not pursue until morning.

I looked about for Glaukos. “Put an hour's ride between us. We need some breathing room.”

He glanced down at the reins in my sword hand, and a furrow came between his eyes. “You hurt?”

“I broke my fucking wrist,” I said. “But I can ride.” Truly, it did not feel so bad at the moment, merely useless. But battle makes it so. I have seen men continue on mortally wounded, seeming not to feel the wounds that have already killed them.

Night was coming swiftly down as we stopped at last, an hour along the track. I sent scouts back immediately, but there was no pursuit.

“Numbers,” I said. “I want numbers from every column leader. What have we got?” By now it was starting to throb, and when I glanced at my wrist it looked misshapen, bones in entirely the wrong places beneath the skin. I could only move the last two fingers at all. The thumb and the first two did not respond.

Troop by troop we formed up. The numbers were not as bad as they might have been. Sixty-seven wounded, including myself, forty-one of whom needed camp and medical attention immediately. Twenty-six men missing, presumably dead on the field. Polemon and Attalos would burn them honorably with their own dead, I thought. We were not so far gone from the time we had been brothers.

Glaukos frowned. “Roughly one man in eight wounded or killed,” he said.

I tilted my head to the side. “Tolerable for facing fifty percent above our own numbers.”

“We can try to hold on here,” he said.

I shook my head. “We don't need to hold ground. We need to keep them away from the hearse. It's all about delay, my friend. The hearse needs to get to Pelousion.” I looked up at the stars coming out brightly. It seemed years since last night. “Three more days down to Pelousion, at the hearse's pace. But they're not supposed to stop tonight. They're supposed to drive the oxen on with only a short rest.” I looked about. “Get me the two gamest men you've got. They need to go ahead at their best pace, catch up to the hearse and pass it, and go on to Pelousion. They'll carry orders for the infantry phalanx there to march this way to meet the hearse. That should get the hearse coverage in…” I closed my eyes for a moment, calculating. A full day and a bit more for the riders to reach Pelousion, their horses tired as they were. Given that the phalanx marched in a few hours, they should meet the hearse in two days, a critical day before the hearse could reach Pelousion. So we needed a day's delay.

Had we already bought it? It might be. It looked as though Perdiccas’ forces had made camp for the night. We needed to ride on and get a night's march on them. We would have to leave the wounded who could not travel behind with an escort. I thought it would be safer for them than dragging on through the night. Polemon would behave with that much honor, and besides they knew nothing he did not, save that Ptolemy had an infantry phalanx at Pelousion, which he should have guessed.

No, I thought. The question Polemon will be asking is where is the phalanx? He does not have the men to take it on, not all cavalry on a solid phalanx, not in this terrain. Of course, twelve miles from Pelousion the road comes out of the wadis and into the river delta, with plowed fields watered by canals and drainage ditches. It is that last twelve miles that will be the hardest.

“We push on,” I said. “The badly wounded will stay behind, and the fourth cohort will stay with them to tend them. Otherwise we ride through the night.”

W
E CAME UP
to the hearse at dawn. By then my arm hurt, stabbing pains running all the way up and into my shoulder and chest, hurting with every breath, with every step of my horse. They had stopped for three hours, letting the oxen breathe a little.

“Make camp,” I said to Glaukos through gritted teeth. “Walk the horses down and put out scouts. We rest till noon.”

Glaukos looked at me, and I wondered if I looked as tired as he. “Are you all right?”

“No,” I said, low. “But I have to be. Just let me rest a couple of hours. I'll be ready to go again.”

I
WOKE BEFORE
noon, conscious that someone was sitting beside me. My arm was on fire, and I shivered, though it was bright sun.

“Water?” Bagoas said, and handed me a cup.

I drank it down with my right hand. “Thanks.”

He nodded. “There is bread too.”

“Later,” I said, feeling that I could hardly stomach anything just now.

“You will be lightheaded,” he observed.

I opened my mouth to insist I wouldn't be, but thought better of it. I probably would be. Instead I took it.

He nodded and got to his feet with one graceful motion. Glaukos was coming over. Behind him I saw the stir of breaking camp, the mounting up beginning.

“Ready, sir?”

“Ready,” I said. I looked about for Bagoas to thank him for the bread, but he was already swinging up on the stoop of the hearse, nimble as a gymnast.

Glaukos had to help me mount, and I ate the bread as we rode. We stuck close to the hearse, urging the oxen to a better pace, our eyes on the road behind.

An hour short of nightfall our scouts to the rear came up, reporting that they had seen Polemon and Attalos’ scouts, two men following us who had wheeled about and cantered back the way they came when they rode after them.

I blew out a breath. Less than a day behind, perhaps only half a day. Perhaps only a few hours.

“We ride through the night,” I said. “Anyone who can't keep up, fall out and come along as you may.”

By midnight, when the stars were high, I wondered if it would be me. I rode in a waking dream, the pain in my arm throbbing like distant drums. But my horse followed after the others, and as long as I could stay on her I should ride. She, at least, was sound.

Spirits came beside us. I saw a lean black dog loping along beside the hearse like a shadow, its golden eyes bright as stars. Above, against the distant stars a white ibis flew by night, its wings ghostly under the moon. A lioness paced us, her padded feet silent on the stones, ever watchful, looking behind.

I saw them by moonlight, and the lioness nodded to me gravely, Her green eyes bright as Bagoas’.

The gilded hearse glittered palely under the Huntsman rising, Sothis lifting clear of the hills in the sky before dawn. On the roof of the hearse was a hawk, its wings folded and head down, Horus bound to Alexander's body as the gods of Egypt escorted him home.

“Ride,” I whispered. “Help me ride, Lady of the Desert.”

The lioness paced beside my horse, Her head at my knee. “I will help you, Son of Egypt. I will walk with you. I will be there when you kindle fire.”

“Fire,” I whispered. I was made of fire, and the night was made of whispers.

“The powers of the Black Land rest in your hands,” She said. “Powers of earth and air, powers of water and fire. You guard Horus Undescended, and yours is the strength to wield it.”

“I do not know how,” I said.

The lioness looked at me, and I wondered if a cat could smile. “You do,” She said. “You will remember when you need it.”

T
HE SKY PALED
. Morning was coming. From the high cliffs a hawk lifted calling, spreading his wings in the clear bright air.

“They are behind us,” I said. I could feel them, as though the ground beneath their hooves was my own body. “They will be here soon.”

I pulled myself up on my horse. “Glaukos! Send the hearse ahead at all possible speed. We will go to that incline and wait. Get in line to receive cavalry!”

Glaukos looked startled, as we had not had scouts come in.

“Hurry!” I shouted.

Now I saw the incline better. The wadis opened out. Beyond, there was a smooth descent and the green of plowed fields not far away, the lazy line of the Damietta branch of the Nile meandering through. The road turned north again to meet it, toward the pale half-shell line of the sea in the growing dawn. Where road and river and sea met was a dark lowering shape—the walls of Pelousion, now less than twenty miles distant.

I heard the drivers pushing the exhausted oxen, exhorting them with whips. We formed up. Glaukos took the commander's position, and I stood behind. I could not fight with my useless hand at all. My fingers would not even close about the reins. We stood, and behind us the hearse rattled downhill.

And then I saw them, halfway across the plain, a dark streak on the road, like a snake against the green land, Ptolemy's phalanx in column, marching toward us at double time. But they were still five miles distant at least.

The blood thundered in my ears. I stood above all on the breast of the wind, soaring like the hawk over the land. I could see them coming down the wadi at a quick trot, Perdiccas’ cavalry still some eight hundred strong.

“Stand to receive!” I shouted, feeling myself jolt back into my damaged body.

Glaukos looked back at me worriedly, as we had so far seen nothing to receive.

I looked straight back at him. I could feel them riding down the wadi, preparing to go into the wedge the moment they were clear of the confining walls.

“Stand to receive!” Every man did so, six hundred or a bit more.

The game was up, I thought. Even if they overwhelmed us, the infantry would catch them in a day once they were burdened with the hearse, and they'd never stand against a thousand heavy infantry.

Whether I lived or died, I had already won.

“Ready to charge!” I shouted. We would not receive. We'd charge them in column before they were clear.

Horses stomped, each man falling into position, Glaukos on the point.

The sun rose from behind the wadis before us, glittering on my sword point and on the distant sea.

Fire, and the memory of fire.

It seemed I could shape it, craft it like a lance. The first rays of the sun blazed off the Victory that adorned the hearse, rattling down the hill behind us.

“For Ptolemy and Egypt!” I shouted.

At that moment the first cavalry came clear of the wadi and checked. They had expected to come down on our rear as we hurried away, not to meet a charge.

We stood like an arrow to the bow. The air trembled around me, waiting for the word forward.

I raised my sword and fire ran down the blade. To kindle fire, She said. To throw it like fear, like a lance into their hearts. The power of Egypt ran through me, blue and gold, licking along the edges of the blade, as though I were nothing but a channel for the mighty flood.

My horse stamped. If I swept the sword forward, I would loose the arrow. The wave would break. We would charge as one man.

The fire ran through me, light and clear and painless as water.
Ptolemy and Egypt.

And they checked. They stopped at the mouth of the wadi.

Before them we waited on the road, six hundred strong, ready to charge on their first cohorts. Beyond, the hearse labored. And beyond that, coming closer every minute, the infantry at their best pace, sun glancing off the bright points of their sarissas.