Tyrant (70 page)
Authors: Christian Cameron
Memnon, who most often professed his love of war, smiled, took a drink, and stayed silent.
Later, Kineas, who wanted no anger on his conscience on his last night, went and flopped on the ground by Ajax. ‘I snapped at you,’ he said, ‘because I, too, am afraid of death, and you seem immune.’
Ajax embraced him. ‘How can they say such things?’ he asked. ‘When they are so like the heroes themselves?’
Kineas’s eyes were suddenly hot with tears. ‘They are better than the Poet’s heroes,’ he said. ‘And they speak the truth.’
Wine and song, and the company of his friends, kept thoughts of death and the absence of Srayanka at bay until they went to their cloaks. Kineas walked among the fires, saying a few words to men who lingered awake, and then, spent, circled back to his own. As it chanced, Kineas chose not to lie in his tent alone, but threw his cloak next to Philokles, and found Ajax on his other side, as if a year had vanished from their lives and they were crossing the plains north of Tomis. He smiled at the warmth of his friends, and before death could haunt him, he was asleep.
But death caught him later, in his dreams.
He was wet with blood, and beneath him flowed a river of the stuff, and it smelled like every festered wound he had ever known, septic and evil, and he climbed to drag his body clear of the corruption. His hands were on the tree, his feet clear of the roots, and he climbed, wishing to take the form of an owl and fly free, but the blood on his hands prevented him somehow, and all he could do was climb. He thought that if he climbed high enough, he might see across the river, count the fires of the enemy, or see the worm, and know . . . He couldn’t remember what he wanted to know. He climbed, bewildered, and the blood on his hands ran down his arms, and from his arms down his sides, and it burned where it touched fresh skin, burned like saltwater on sunburn.
Sunburn on his face, clear of the water, salt in his eyes, and his hands tangled in the mane of the great horse, the water dragging at his legs and his heavy breastplate pressing him down at every attempt to mount.
A weapon rang off his helmet, turning it so that he was blind. A blade scored across his upper arm, scraped across the bronze of his cuirass and then bit into his bridle arm. The grey startled, bolted forward and dragged him out of the stream and up the bank he had so recently left, hanging from her mane, which panicked her so that she tossed her mighty head. Luck, and the strength of her neck, dragged him a hand’s breadth higher than his best effort had reached before, so that he got a knee over her broad back.
He glanced around, and all the warriors behind him were strange - all Sakje, in magnificent armour, and he himself wore a vambrace of chased gold on the arm he could see through the slits of his helmet - he was dry, sitting tall on a horse the colour of dark metal, and the battle was won, the enemy broken, and across the river, the enemy tried to rally in the driftwood and by the single old dead tree that offered the only cover from their arrows, and he raised her whip, motioned three times, and they all began to cross the river.
He was ready for the arrow when it came, and he almost greeted it, he knew it so well, and then he was in the water - hands grabbing at him . . .
Again. He woke because Ajax was shaking him. ‘That was an evil dream,’ Ajax said.
Kineas had thrown his cloak free of his legs in his sleep. He was cold. Philokles had rolled away - probably looking for a quieter partner. A glance at the stars and the moon told him that he had slept well enough, and that dawn was less than an hour away. He rose. Ajax rose with him. Kineas pushed at him. ‘You have an hour,’ he said.
Ajax hung his head. ‘I cannot sleep,’ he said.
Kineas pushed him back down and threw his own old cloak over the younger man. ‘It’s a magic cloak,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep now.’
His fire was burning bright, and a dozen Grass Cats lay around it while two troop slaves heated water in a bronze kettle. One of the slaves handed him a bowl and he took it in silence, wolfed down the contents - odd, how the body continued the tyranny of its needs even when he had only hours left to live. He threw on a cloak and picked up a javelin - not even his own.
He felt very alive. He felt tall and strong, free. Even the fear of the last month - the fear of death, the fear of failure, the fears of love - were far away.
He walked to the horse lines and caught Thanatos. The horse was restless, and Kineas fed him carefully, whispering to him in the dark, and then mounted him bareback and rode down the ridge to the marsh, and across the marsh. A handful of Grass Cats greeted him - they were alert, and they all pointed across the river.
Something in the dark - lots of motion, and a steady hum of noise. The noise of an army. Kineas rode right down to the water’s edge, the Grass Cats hard at his heels. No arrows whistled out of the dark. He could hear the hum even over the river noises.
Dawn was just two streaks of purple-pink against the dark sky, but already there was more light.
He had to know if Zopryon was there. And he suspected that they would be in a state of chaos as their column formed up. He pushed his horse into the stream.
One of the Grass Cats laughed, fear and delight mingled in a single giggle, and all of them slid into the water, their splashes covered by the steady cacophony on the far bank. Midstream, and they were still undetected.
Kineas felt a wild spirit rise in him - as if a god had dared him - and he pushed his horse forward, and the big stallion responded, rising from the water like Poseidon’s own son and springing to a gallop in a few strides.
A man shouted, his guttural Macedonian clear in the dark, ‘Who the fuck is that?’
‘Scouts!’ called Kineas. Thanatos’s hooves were on solid ground now. He could see the head of column, men with their shields propped against their legs and their enormous pikes planted erect in the ground, and other men with torches. Relief washed over him. Win or lose - he had been right. The taxeis were here. Zopryon was here.
He galloped at the front of the phalanx. Men looked up - a little fearful in the dark, but hardly panicked. He put his javelin into a man who looked like an officer and turned Thanatos on his haunches. He saw all of the Grass Cats shooting, drawing and loosing and drawing and loosing with smooth and deadly efficiency, and then he put the stallion at the river. Behind him, he heard the Grass Cats laughing. The air was full of arrows in the dark, coming from both banks. Kineas kept his body low, and something passed a few inches from his face. The stallion hesitated a moment on the far bank and then they were up, safe. One of the Grass Cats had an arrow through his bicep, and another warrior, a woman, cut the head free and pulled the shaft out through the entry hole - all in a few strides of their mounts, without stopping.
Kineas had to prod Thanatos to turn - he was suddenly sluggish. He reined in at the base of the thumb, and Temerix emerged from the dark foliage at his call.
‘Hold as long as you can. They’ll come in half an hour. Then run back south before they cut you off. Understand?’
Temerix leaned on his axe, and the shadow hid his eyes. ‘Yes, Lord.’
Kineas’s horse was already in motion. ‘I am not your lord,’ he called over his shoulder. He thought guiltily that he had never arranged for the Sindi refugees to meet with Srayanka. Another task left uncompleted.
The stallion made such heavy work of climbing the ridge that Kineas dismounted and checked his hooves for stones, but they were clear. The animal’s eyes were wild, and Kineas put a hand on his neck. ‘Today,’ he said. Then he remounted, and the horse finished the climb.
Kineas went straight to his own fire, where most of the officers were waiting. The light was already bright enough to show them the points of the Macedonian pikes across the river.
Memnon swatted him as soon as he dismounted. ‘Are you a boy, or a strategist? Ares’ Prick, that was a stupid thing to do!’ He grinned. ‘Of course, since you lived, and since every spear in the army watched you do it, they’ll all think you are a god.’
Kineas’s face was red. He couldn’t explain what had driven him across the river.
Niceas just shook his head. ‘I thought I taught you better than that,’ he said.
Ajax’s eyes sparkled.
Philokles glared.
Ataelus came up mounted, and pointed to the south and east. ‘Kam Baqca,’ he said. ‘And some friends.’ He leaned down from the saddle. ‘The Grass Cats say you airyanãm.’
Niceas touched his amulet and downed some tea. ‘The Grass Cats are idiots, too.’
Kam Baqca came up the ridge in the full regalia of a priestess, with a high helmet of gold, topped by a fantastic winged animal. She had a gorget and scale armour all covered in gold, and she wore it over a hide coat of unblemished white. She rode a dapple grey mare, and behind her came another rider as magnificent, carrying a tall pole decorated with bronze birds and horsetails, and it was covered in bells that made an eerie noise like waves of the sea as she moved.
With her were half a hundred men and women as well armed and armoured as she. Every horse had a headdress that made the animal look like a fantastic beast - horn and leather worked to give each horse antlers and a crest of hair, and their horses, where their skin showed beneath all the armour, were painted red. Their manes were filled with mud and had dried erect. Most of the horses had scale armour of gold and bronze like the warriors, so that they might have been griffons or dragons born from myths.
They were the most barbaric sight Kineas had ever seen.
Behind them came Petrocolus, and the last troop of Olbian horse.
In the wedge of time before the fresh cavalry arrived, Kineas issued his orders, or rather, reviewed them. At his feet, they were already being carried out. Licurgus was forming the Olbian phalanx at the edge of the marsh, and the men of the main force of Pantecapaeum were filing down the hill and over the marsh, forming up as soon as they were clear of the wet ground.
Petrocolus came up on his right hand. He looked down the hill under his hand, and then saluted. ‘We’re in time,’ he said wearily.
‘A late guest is still a welcome guest,’ Kineas said. He offered his hand and they clasped.
‘We tried to catch Cleomenes,’ Petrocolus said with a shrug.
‘He made it to Zopryon,’ Kineas said.
‘I know,’ Petrocolus said. ‘So we pushed on here.’
Kineas leaned over and embraced the old man. ‘Welcome.’ Then his stomach rolled over, and he made his mouth move. ‘Leucon is dead,’ he said.
Petrocolus stiffened in his arms, and his face was grey as he pulled away. But he was a man of the old school, and he pulled himself erect. ‘He died well?’ Petrocolus asked.
‘Saving his troop,’ Kineas said.
Petrocolus grunted. ‘Cleitus’s whole line, dead. He has no other children alive. The archon will take his fortune.’
‘No he won’t,’ said Kineas. ‘When we are done here, you and Eumenes will go settle accounts in Olbia.’
‘That viper’s son still walks the earth?’ Petrocolus spat.
‘Do not hold Eumenes responsible for his father’s treason,’ Kineas said.
Petrocolus avoided his eye and spat again.
Kam Baqca came up on his left side. Her face was a white mask of paint, and the paint and the gold rendered her inhuman.
‘I thought you would go with the king,’ Kineas said.
‘This is where the monster must be stopped,’ she said. ‘So this is where I will die. I am ready.’ The inhuman face turned towards him. ‘Are you ready?’ she asked.
Their eyes met, and hers were calm and deep. The hint of a smile cracked the paint at the corner of her mouth. ‘I see it to the end,’ she said. ‘And it is still balanced on the edge of a sword - indeed, on the point of an arrow.’
‘I’m ready,’ he said. He had his armour on, and all his finery - a little worn from two days in the saddle, but still fine. ‘And the king?’ he asked.
‘Gone to the sea of grass,’ she answered.
‘Will he come in time?’ Kineas asked.
‘Not for me.’ she answered.
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