Tyrant (62 page)
Authors: Christian Cameron
The king rode among them, congratulating the victorious, speaking softly to the wounded, teasing a reluctant clan leader and praising another for brave deeds.
Kineas dismounted to drink water and stretch his legs, and then remounted. In mid-afternoon, the thunder heads finally came to them, and the long line of darkness that seemed like the herald of the Macedonians moved into the river valley, and the rain began.
A few messengers had ridden up every hour since mid-morning, their hoof beats the only sign that time was moving, but as the rain came faster and harder, the number of messengers increased. The king had moved down the hill to the ford. As Kineas watched, the king’s household knights joined him. He dismounted and two men began to help him into his armour.
Kineas rode down the hill with his own staff. He knew Ataelus as soon as the man rode out of the wall of rain to the west. Ataelus had been with Srayanka. Kineas found his heart beating faster.
Kineas pushed his horse through the king’s household. They were grim-faced. Ataelus greeted him with a weary smile. ‘Too tired for fighting,’ he said. ‘Too much damn fighting.’
The king had just settled his scale hauberk on his shoulders. ‘Srayanka is covering the last group. She’s pressed hard.’
Ataelus put a hand on Kineas’s arm. ‘Big fight - Cruel Hands and Standing Horses and some Patient Wolves. We trick them - they trick us - we trick them. Fight like . . .’ He swept his hand like a man stirring a pot, round and round. ‘We shoot until for no arrows. Bronze Hats fight until horses fail. Then draw off, and the Lady Srayanka lets for go. Let Patient Wolves ride. Then let Hungry Wolves ride.’ He pointed out into the rain. ‘Just there. They come. And Cruel Hands come after.’
Kineas stared into the gloom. ‘I have two troops across the stream - a hundred heavy horse. Let me fetch her in.’
Marthax nodded vehemently. ‘Good. Take Greek horse and Sauromatae, here. Go!’ With one hand he physically restrained the king. ‘You sit here and wait,’ he said. To Kineas, he called, ‘Remember, brother! This is
not
the battle we want!’
not
the battle we want!’
The king had his armour on. He spoke in rapid Sakje, his voice imperative. He was telling Marthax that he intended to ride to support Srayanka himself, with his household knights.
Kineas turned his horse back. ‘Lord, you must not!’ he said. Self-interest and the needs of the allies marched together, and he spoke with confidence. ‘This is not a risk we can take!’
The king drew himself up, his mouth was hard under the sides of his helmet. ‘Do I command here?’ he asked.
Marthax grabbed his bridle. ‘No!’ he said. And to Kineas, he shouted. ‘Ride!’
Kineas didn’t hesitate. He turned his horse and rode for the ford. He had Niceas at his heels. ‘Sound the rally,’ he said. To Sitalkes, he called, ‘My charger!’
The trumpet rang out, echoing strangely in the moist air. Kineas waved to Leucon, who could still see him. Sitalkes came with Thanatos. Kineas mounted his tall black and pushed him into the ford. The ford seemed vast in the rain. Kineas felt too slow - as if his men were riding in honey, not water.
‘Are you calling us back?’ called Nicomedes, from the far shore.
Kineas clenched his knees and rose on the horse’s back. ‘No! Form on your bank! Leave room for Leucon!’
Disembodied, Nicomedes called assent. He could be heard wheeling his men into line. Other voices could be heard to the south. The rain came down harder, trickling cold between the shoulder blades and back plate of bronze, running over the helmet to soak into a man’s hair.
Thanatos’s hooves were on gravel, and then on grass, and he was clear of the ford. He put his horse to a canter and aimed at Nicomedes’ voice. Niceas was right with him, still blowing the rally. It was hard to look straight into the rain, but Kineas finally saw Nicomedes - his cloak was unmistakable. His men were already formed in a solid block. Half a stade to the south, Diodorus was rallying his pickets and forming. Kineas reined in and pointed to Niceas. ‘Leucon right there,’ he said, pointing to the north of Nicomedes’ troop. Leucon’s men, and the troop from Pantecapaeum, were coming across the ford in good order. Beyond them, the heavily armoured Sauromatae were crossing. Just the way they moved showed that their mounts were tired.
Ataelus rode up. Kineas leaned over and put a hand on his back. ‘I need to know exactly where Srayanka is,’ he said. ‘Can you link us up?’
Ataelus grinned. He blew his nose in his hand, jumped off his horse, and swung up on a remount he had on a lead. ‘Sure,’ he said. He waved and rode off into the rain.
Kineas rode to Leucon. ‘I need Eumenes,’ he said. Leucon nodded. Kineas continued. ‘Hold the line. Don’t lose your place. If we have to charge, halt the moment you hear the signal and retire in good order. If everything goes to shit, get back across the ford. We do
not
want a battle tonight. Understand?’
not
want a battle tonight. Understand?’
Leucon saluted. ‘Line. Retire in order. Avoid a general engagement.’
Kineas returned the salute. ‘You’ll make a general yet.’ He turned to Eumenes. ‘Leave your troop and go to the Sauromatae. Stay with them and pass my commands. For the moment, they are my reserve. Try to explain reserve to them without twisting their reins.’
Eumenes nodded and rode away, shoulders slumped. Leucon had not yet said anything about his father’s murder - but neither had he spoken a word to his hyperetes in three days, except to give an order.
Kineas rode back to Niceas. The line was formed - three dense blocks of men, with a looser line of Sauromatae in the rear.
‘Sound: Advance,’ Kineas said to Niceas.
The whole block began to walk forward. In twenty steps, the ford was gone behind them. In forty steps, they began to lose sight of the hills beyond the ford.
A band of Sakje appeared out of the rain, riding hard. Their first appearance gave alarm, but just as quickly they were identified - Patient Wolves. They showed their empty gorytos as they rode by, and indicated by gestures that the enemy was close.
Lightning flashed. In the time it took to illuminate the faces of his men, Kineas realized that this might be it. The fight. His death.
Silly thought - equally true for every man there.
Kineas rode along the front, too busy to dwell on mortality. He ordered all three troops to put their flank files out to prevent surprise. They passed another band of Patient Wolves, and then the first Cruel Hands - easily identified because every horse had the painted hand on its rump. Then, more and more - hundreds of them pouring by. Not routed - but drained. Done.
Ataelus rode up to him. ‘She just ahead now,’ he said. ‘Bronze Hats not so close. Careful since heard for trumpets.’ He pointed at Niceas for emphasis.
The rain was coming right into their faces. ‘Halt!’ Kineas called. Niceas played it.
They sat on their horses as the rain fell, drowning out the noise of the plain, and even whatever sound of fighting there might have been. Kineas couldn’t hear anything but the beat of the rain on his helmet. He pulled the thing off, tucked it under his arm. He turned to Niceas, intending to speak, and Niceas pointed silently over Kineas’s shoulder.
She was right in front of him, just a few horse lengths’ away. She was riding looking over her shoulder. Kineas tapped his stallion into motion and cantered up to her. The hoof beats warned her, and she turned in time to see him, and she gave him a tired smile. It was the first smile he’d had from her in a long time, even if it was only the smile of one commander to another.
‘Almost, they are beating me,’ she said. She was feeling in her gorytos for an arrow, and not finding any.
‘Take your people straight through,’ Kineas said - useless admonition. She had only a dozen of her household about her.
He put his hand to her face and withdrew it - it had gone there without his conscious volition. ‘Straight through my line - I’ll cover you,’ he said, as much to re-establish their military roles as to inform her.
‘Cruel Hands cover the rear. Always.’ Her eyebrows were up, and her eyes still had a spark in them. Then she rolled her shoulders. ‘Bowstrings wet. No more arrows. Long day.’
Kineas saw more and more Cruel Hands emerging from the murk. It wasn’t just the rain - afternoon was turning to evening.
Srayanka raised a bone to her lips, and blew on it, and her trumpeter rode up. Hirene had a length of linen around her arm and blood on her saddle, but her face had fewer lines than Srayanka’s. She raised her trumpet and blew a two-tone note with a trill - a barbaric sound that rang harshly through the rain and was soaked up by the grass, and suddenly the rain was spitting Cruel Hands, pushing their jaded horses into a gallop, or changing horses, abandoning the most blown. Kineas had the impression of many wounds, and immense fatigue, and then the last of them were past him, streaming through the gaps between his troops.
‘Get across the ford,’ he said in his command voice. He pointed with his whip.
She raised an eyebrow and motioned with her whip, touched her heels to her mount, and galloped off, her back straight and her head high. As she rode off, he thought of all the things he might have said - instead of bellowing orders at her.
Instead, he turned to Ataelus. ‘How far?’ he asked, pointing into the rain. ‘How far to the enemy?’
Ataelus pulled a strung bow from his gorytos, set an arrow to the string, and shot it in one fluid motion, the arrowhead pointed almost to the sky before he loosed, arcing away into the grey and dropping.
A horse screamed.
‘Just there,’ Ataelus said.
‘Zeus, father of all. Poseidon, lord of horses.’ Kineas swore, and then turned to Niceas. ‘Sound: Advance!’
Niceas blew the signal as they walked forward. ‘I thought we were avoiding a general engagement?’
‘Sound: Trot!’ Kineas called. He could feel his three blocks keeping their line, feel it in the sound of their hooves and the vibration of the ground. It could all be a vast trap.
He was half turned to order the charge, his throwing javelin just transferred to his right fist, when he saw the plumes, and then the whole man, emerge from the rain - two horse lengths away.
‘Charge!’ he bellowed. They were Thessalians - yellow and purple cloaks, good armour, big horses - and they were at a stand. Kineas’s charger leaped from the trot to the gallop in two strides, and Kineas’s javelin hit the Thessalian’s horse.
Their ranks were well formed, firm and tight, but he took in their fatigue in his first glance. Kineas’s horse shouldered past the wounded beast and pushed between the next two, lashing out with teeth and hooves to clear a way, and the whole troop flinched at his assault. Kineas used his second javelin like a sailor with a boarding pike, sweeping it to the right and left, tangling the troopers and knocking them off their mounts, and then the whole weight of his Olbians arrived, and the enemy formation shattered. Whatever their cautious officer had expected, a charge out of the rain by formed cavalry wasn’t it.
They were gone in an instant - they ran like professionals, leaving only a handful of bodies on the ground. The rain swallowed them up.
Kineas rose on his horse’s back and bellowed, ‘Niceas!’ in a voice that threatened to burst his lungs.
‘Here!’ replied his hyperetes. ‘Here I am!’
‘Sound: Recall!’ Kineas pushed his horse out of the mob of his own troopers - too many of them were gone into the rain, showing their inexperience by pursuing the Thessalians. He rode back along the line of their advance, until he saw the damply gleaming shapes of the Sauromatae.
‘Eumenes! We’re retiring. We had a fight - no idea what we hit. We’ll rally at the ford. Cover us.’ He turned and rode back to his own men, who were falling in on the trumpets and turning about - a dangerous manoeuvre with the possibility of an unbeaten enemy somewhere in the rain. Kineas watched them - it seemed to take an eon, and then another. He could see movement in the rain - bright colour to his right. Red cloaks. New enemy cavalry.
Nicomedes’ troop was half a stade to the rear and well formed, Ajax’s voice ordered men into the line, to close tight, close tight. Diodorus was well clear - gone into the rain. Leucon was having more trouble with the mix of men he had. Kineas rode over. ‘Now, Leucon!’ he called.
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