Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities (52 page)

Then, almost as if an order had been given, the marines backed away three steps – all across the street – and the Argyraspides
did not follow
. And now that the front-line fighting stopped, the silver shields had time to realise how many of their men were down – how hideously they had been thinned by falling roof tiles and mud bricks from the houses on either side, which were reaping them with more efficiency than the tired marines.

Just as a young child, her knee skinned in a fall, may take long heartbeats to scream for her mother, so the Antigonid veterans stood for long seconds before realising how many dead they had.

But they were the best soldiers in the world. And they had not lived so many years in the hands of brutal Ares without learning all the hard lessons of the battle haze. When they found how badly hurt they were, how deep they were in the noose of the women on the roofs and in the alleys – they did not fail. Calling to each other, because so many of their file leaders were dead, calling out from man to man, they lapped their shields and charged.

Satyrus took the rush on his shield in a state of despair, because
any other troops would have broken
. All he could do was stand his ground, and die.

The man on his left died almost immediately, and Satyrus and his rank-mate to the right – he saw that it was Jubal the sailor, a man who had no business being here – were pinned to the street wall by the rush of Macedonian veterans. But Jubal grunted, struck out with his spear and put a man down – a man with a shield rich in ivory and silver, and instead of flinching, the Nubian pushed forward and Satyrus got his shield up, lapped it on the Nubian’s and
pushed
his legs against the house foundation at his back. Someone filled in from behind, pushing into Satyrus’ left and lapping his shield, and suddenly they were filling the street. They held like a smaller wrestler holds a larger when his slipping feet find a small rock, buried in sand, wide enough to catch the flat of the foot and give the fighter that heartbeat to gather his wits—

And then Apollodorus stormed into the side of the Argyraspides from the flanks of the square. The enemy commander had never understood that Satyrus’ counter-attack was in three columns. He’d committed everything in the centre. And in a street fight, ignorance is death.

Apollodorus’ column burst into the square, fifty paces behind the Argyraspides’ front rank, but their shock was translated instantly and
that
was too much for the veterans. And they
still
didn’t break. They knew that to break was death. Instead, they retreated through the streets, leaving dead men at every step, dead at the hands of Satyrus, Apollodorus, Charmides – but more dead from the endless rain of mud brick and roof tile.

They never broke.

They moved fast, and they killed even as they retreated, and when their Macedonian comrades broke and deserted them, they covered the younger men’s retreat at the gates and died there as well, and Satyrus thought that they were the most magnificent soldiers he’d ever seen.

And then they were outside the gates. And just beyond the gates, coming hard, was a fresh phalanx – a whole
taxeis
– two thousand men. Two thousand
fresh
men.

The gates were still there – a mystery to Satyrus.
How in Tartarus did they get in?
he thought.

‘Gates!’ he panted to Apollodorus.

A file of Argyraspides came to the same conclusion – and turned to stand in the gates. Half a dozen men – men in their forties and fifties, with silver beards over their silver shields.

The gates opened outwards. To close them, the Argyraspides had to go.

The enemy
taxeis
was close. Close enough that he could see the puffs of dust their sandals raised as they ran –
ran
at him.

Apollodorus didn’t hesitate. He ran forward, all mad recklessness. The Argyraspides braced, but he stopped just short, raised himself on his toes and thrust
down
into the back of one man’s helmet and nailed him to the ground. Satyrus was a half-step behind – he’d mistaken Apollodorus’ intention and he went hurtling over the smaller man, into the midst of the Argyraspides in a sprawl. He should have died, but he hit them like a missile and three of them went down – and suddenly they were all locked together on the ground, grappling desperately.

Satyrus ripped his arm out of the porpax on his shield, got the dagger from its sheath beneath the porpax and stabbed – as fast as the strokes of Zeus when he sends the lightning – at anything his dagger hand could reach, while his free right hand – he’d lost his sword – caught a man’s throat and he squeezed and stabbed with all the ferocity of a
pankration
fighter in his last hold. Someone was biting his bicep as hard as he could, and another blow landed between his legs, the shattering agony of a groin shot, but he rode it, stabbed again and felt his opponent’s carotid collapse under his thumb, felt the crack of the cartilage of the man’s neck. His hand moved – he felt the man’s face, and buried his thumb in the soft not-flesh of the man’s eye.

A blow caught him in the back and sent him rolling over, and the pain in his groin flooded over him like a wave. But he could see his marines cheering, all around him. He got to one knee and threw up, and then fell forward into his vomit.

And they were still cheering.

He rolled back and forth for an eternity, his knees locked tight, his back on fire. Gradually, it became merely pain. A sort of cold, evil ache that owned the whole lower half of his abdomen.

Apollodorus was leaning over him. He was grinning.

‘You’ll live,’ he said.

Lying on his back, Satyrus could see that what had hit him in the back was the gates as his men pulled them shut. And in the towers either side of the gates, Idomeneus’ men were pouring arrows down into the
taxeis
that lay helpless at their feet.

Miriam came out of the fog of pain. She looked like a fury – blood and dust and a look to her face that was far from beautiful – far, at least, from the kind of beauty poets and potters praised.

She studied him for a minute.

‘I think—’ She steadied her voice. ‘I think you’ve looked better, my lord.’

‘You—’ Satyrus said. And mercifully for everyone, he bit back what came to his tongue. ‘Well done,’ he said instead, like an officer to a well-disciplined spearman. ‘Well done, Miriam,’ he panted.

But their eyes were locked, and her eyes spoke louder than the shouts of pain in his guts and his groin.

25

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

S
atyrus had no more wounds than any man who has fought all day in armour – long scrapes, mysterious bruises, three deep punctures in his lower back where spear heads were held off by his leather armour – but the points had licked through. He had a bruise on his upper left arm that turned a horrendous colour so that other veterans winced to look at it, and he had another on his butt where the gates had struck him that made it almost impossible for him to sleep.

Altogether, he felt wonderful.

Part of the euphoria he felt was caused by the poppy juice that Aspasia had given him for the pain in his groin, and part due to his success – by any standard, he and his men had won a notable victory. Demetrios had launched his grand assault, with almost twelve thousand men involved at its height, and he had been repulsed – repulsed with hideous losses. The heaviest assault had fallen on the beaches, and been massacred.

But the greatest part of the euphoria came from the casualties – or rather, the
lack
of casualties. Luck, planning, divine aid – for whatever reason, the phalanx of oarsmen had lost just fourteen men; the city ephebes had lost just six, and the combined marines of all Satyrus’ ships, engaged all day in the very heaviest fighting, had lost nineteen men – including Amyntas, the only one of Satyrus’
hetairoi
, his close companions, to die.

Panther and Menedemos had each held minor attacks – real attacks, but with fewer men – and each had lost fewer than twenty men.

It was a miracle – sent by Athena, men said.

Satyrus lay on his bed and ached, and thought that it was indeed a miracle, and it was sent largely by Demetrios’ arrogance, and a great deal of luck. And some forewarning from Herakles.

The sun rose on a new day – the summer festival of Apollo – and Satyrus lay on a low couch, on a magnificent Persian rug in a tent crowded with furniture rescued from the wreck of Abraham’s house. The house was gone, hit four times by rocks the size of sheep. But his slaves had remained loyal and protected his belongings from looters, and now Abraham, his family, retainers and slaves had a compound of tents in the agora, made from
Arete
’s sails, at least temporarily out of the range of Demetrios’ machines.

Slowly, cursing from time to time, Satyrus swung his legs over the edge of the low bed, sat up slowly and managed to rise to his feet.

Helios appeared at his side. ‘My lord!’

‘You fought like a hero, yesterday, lad,’ Satyrus said. The word
lad
escaped from his teeth unbidden.
I am growing old
, he thought,
if I can call men lads
. Twenty-four years old. And another year for every day of the siege.

Helios grinned at him. ‘I did, at that, lord. Charmides says so, as well.’

‘Well, that certainly makes it true,’ Satyrus joked.

Helios grew more serious. ‘As you’re awake, there’s business, lord. After the pirate slaughter last night, Demetrios managed to throw some assault troops onto the mole – the town mole. They’ve barricaded the townward end, and they have a pair of great machines there.’

Satyrus winced. ‘How many men?’ he asked.

‘Six hundred, and some ships in support. And Demetrios has pulled his engine-ships well back, and rebuilt the spiked boom. You can see it on the water. Panther was here, almost an hour ago. He’s asked for all the
boule
to meet. Abraham refused to have you waked.’

Satyrus rubbed his jaw. ‘Gods, I stink. Abraham is a prince. Can you get me a bath and some sweet oil, Helios? And a cup of hot cider?’

Helios handed him a cup – warm pomegranate juice. ‘I’m ahead of you, my prince.’

Satyrus sat back, sipping the juice. The euphoria was still there. ‘We won a noble victory, didn’t we?’

Helios laughed. ‘Only – lord – why does he not give up and sail away?’

Satyrus finished the juice and stood up. ‘He’s barely started, Helios.’

‘Shall I wake the others, lord?’ Helios asked.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘Let Neiron and Apollodorus sleep.’ They were stretched under awnings near his tent.

Clean, in a
chitoniskos
short enough to cause comment in Athens, Satyrus walked out into the blaze of sun in the agora. He went to the
boule
by way of the square where Amyntas had died. He found the olive tree he remembered, and he cut a long frond and made a wreath and handed it to Helios.

‘Wear this, hero,’ he said.

Helios knelt and took the wreath, and burst into tears.

Satyrus cut three more and twisted them into wreaths as he walked. ‘When we are finished with the men of the city, we will return, set up a trophy and bury Amyntas,’ Satyrus said. Then he walked to the
tholos
where the
boule
met.

‘Lord Satyrus,’ Panther said, and came to meet him at the entrance. ‘The hero of the day. We have just voted you a statue, should our town ever rise from the rubble to have such things.’

One by one, men rose and took his hand, or embraced him. These were good men – noble men, whatever their birth, and their thanks – their very heartfelt thanks – were better than a hundred golden wreaths.

Panther indicated the podium. ‘I think we’d like to hear a few words from you, sir.’

Satyrus smiled curtly and went to the podium. He cast his chlamys back over his shoulder – he was very informally dressed, for an orator – and he looked around the dim room, picking up every eye.

‘I’d like to bask in your admiration, gentlemen,’ Satyrus said. ‘Indeed, it is a great honour to have served you well. And yesterday was a victory. A very real victory.’ He nodded at their smiles and plaudits, and then he raised his voice and chopped at them with it like a woodsman with a sharp iron axe.

‘It will take a hundred such victories to preserve this city,’ he said, and they were instantly silent. ‘Every day, every assault, we must be as victorious as we were yesterday, and by such a margin. We lost
sixty men
, sixty good men. We killed two thousand pirates and perhaps five hundred of his Macedonian professionals. He has thirty-five thousand more soldiers and twice that many pirates. If we lose fifty men a day and he loses a thousand men a day,
we will run out of men first
.’

Silence.

‘We have other enemies,’ Satyrus went on. ‘I live on the rubble of the agora now. I can smell the shit of three thousand people from here. We must do better than that. Soon enough, the whole population of the city will live on the agora. We must have sanitation, organisation, proper latrines, proper wells and districts measured off. No rich man should have more tent space than he actually needs.’

Men looked around.

‘Further, we need to consider our slaves,’ Satyrus said. ‘Many have been loyal. But as the food fails – and mark my words, gentlemen, we face food shortages almost immediately – their loyalty to us will dwindle. We should consider inviting them to be citizens. And when this town survives, I promise you that we will need their numbers to make up our losses.’

Grumbling.

‘And finally, gentlemen, for all that we managed to incur Nike’s good pleasure yesterday,
someone opened the west gate to Demetrios
.’ Satyrus glanced around. ‘Let’s not mince words. If not for Miriam, Abraham’s sister, the town would have fallen. No amount of heroism by our converged marines, by our ephebes, by anyone could have saved us, except that Miriam came to the beach and told us that the west gates were open. The women of the town – your wives, gentlemen – bought us the minutes we needed, and then helped break the best men Macedon has to offer – and still, they would never have been in the town except that
someone let them in
.’