They gave a cheer, and she waved and rode away.
When she got to the head of her Sakje, she drew her axe. ‘Now we ride,’ she said.
And they were off.
Ten stades of open fields. Twice they crossed farm walls, following Thyrsis, who had left riders to guide them over, and then, faces to the setting sun, they came over a low ridge and they could see two full taxeis of enemy phalangites facing the last ford, and at the ford, Urvara’s knights, all wearing scale armour from throat to ankle, standing with their axes at the top of the riverbank. The ground in front of her household was littered with bodies.
‘Follow me!’ Melitta shouted. She bent low on Gryphon’s neck and kicked her heels, and he went from a canter to the gallop.
Sakje needed no orders to form for battle. They were in a long column, and now they spread wide across the plain, drawing their bows from their gorytoi as they galloped and nocking the first arrows, the faster horses pulling ahead of the slower.
Their hoof beats announced their arrival, and long before they
neared Nikephoros, his pikes were changing direction, and they faced a wall of spear-points. Melitta was still a horse-length in advance of Scopasis and her knights. She didn’t slow the big horse, but leaned her weight to the right and he turned away from the spear-points and she passed an arm’s length from the glittering hedge, She shot her first arrow into the blur of faces and leather armour so close that her shaft was in a man’s gut before her galloping horse carried her past.
As she nocked her second arrow, her thumb feeling for the burr on the nock, Scopasis buried his first in a man’s shield and cursed.
‘Lock your shields!’ a phylarch shouted.
She she saw him, his mouth open for the next order, but Macedonian shields were small things compared to the great aspis that her brother carried, and she shot him over the rim of his shield – missing the open mark of his mouth, so that her shaft went in over his nose and right out again through his helmet.
The pikemen could do nothing but bend their heads to put the peaks of their tall helmets into the arrow storm and pray to their gods. The Sakje were riding so close that they could choose where to shoot – above the shield or below – and men fell with arrows through their feet. Eight hundred Sakje thundered along the flank of the phalanx, and a hundred pikemen fell, wounded and screaming, or dead before their helmets hit the ground.
Melitta released a third shaft, missed seeing the result, and then she was past the last man and in the open. She kept going until she pulled up by Urvara, who stood with a bloody sword between her banner and her tanist. The iron-haired woman pulled her helmet free and dropped her sword to catch at Melitta’s hand.
‘I knew you’d come,’ she said. ‘Between us, we might finish him.’
Melitta held up her quiver. She had eight arrows left. ‘T hat was all bluff,’ she said.
Urvara gave half a smile. ‘There he goes,’ she said. Even as she spoke, they saw a single figure on horseback arrive in the enemy phalanx.
‘Messenger from the fort?’ Melitta asked. ‘Shall we harry them once more?’ she asked.
Urvara shook her head. ‘They’re going to retreat – you can see it in the front-rank men. I’ve lost a lot of people today – I’m not sure I can help you. Let him go.’
There were dead pikemen and dead Sakje all the way across the plain – three stades of dead.
Nikephoros was less than a stade away. It was somehow odd that Melitta knew the sound of his voice. He was shouting at someone. And then the pikemen began to march, their ranks closing up over the dead, and they formed even closer. The back ranks walked backwards as they withdrew, and the spearheads were still steady.
‘Good men,’ Coenus said. He was in armour again, and had a fine Attic helmet on his head with a red crest. ‘He’s going to ride over and ask for a truce.’
‘Give me all your arrows,’ Melitta called to her household, and in seconds, her quiver was full – forty arrows, all they had.
She turned to Coenus. ‘You’re with me. The rest of you wait here. Scopasis – here!’ More kindly, ‘Coenus can protect me. And I want him to see a full quiver.’
Sure enough, Nikephoros was riding towards them, mounted on an ugly bay. He seemed unconcerned to be alone in front of a host of enemies.
‘I wish that man was mine,’ Melitta said.
Coenus nodded. ‘If he lives, make him yours,’ he said.
Nikephoros met them in a clear space among the dead. ‘I would like a day’s truce to collect and bury my dead,’ he said. ‘I concede that I was bested.’
Melitta shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, Nikephoros. I like you, but no truce. We will finish you in the morning. Unless you’d like to ask for terms.’
‘My master’s ally Upazan is coming,’ he said. ‘You will not finish me in the morning.’
Melitta shrugged. ‘I have no need to bluster or bargain. Begone.’
She turned her horse, and as she turned, she saw the shock on Nikephoros’s face. Even as she saw it, she saw where his eyes were, and she followed them.
The bay was full of ships.
And closer, at the seaward edge of Nikephoros’s camp, there was fire.
‘No truce,’ she spat. To Coenus, she said, ‘Ride!’
They left Nikephoros in a swirl of dust and galloped back across the dead to where her people had dismounted. Most were swilling
wine. Tameax spat a mouthful and it was like blood from his mouth – a poor omen, she thought.
‘My brother is here,’ she shouted.
Coenus pulled up behind her. ‘Of course!’ he said.
‘Satyrus is attacking Nikephoros’s camp,’ she said. ‘We need to harry him every step and slow his retreat, and we may yet have him in the last light of the sun.’
It is a hard thing for a warrior to believe that he is done – that he has lived another day, that he can drink, sit on the ground, enjoy the small pleasures that make life worth living even in the middle of the unbelievable tension of daily war – and then be summoned back to the risk of imminent death. It is a hard thing, and it is only the best who can rise to meet it.
‘Now for revenge!’ Thyrsis said, leaping to his feet as if he’d never shot his bow or ridden a stade all day.
‘One more ride,’ Scopasis shouted, and then they were all on their feet. Many changed horses. Many cursed.
Urvara leaned on her sword hilt and drove the point into the grass. ‘We’re done.’
Melitta was sorry, but she forced a smile. ‘I can see Eumenes,’ she said, pointing across the river, where a long column of horsemen were splashing into the river. ‘Send him to me.’
Then she took her warriors and went back to the pikemen.
Nikephoros had plenty of time to see her coming, and at her orders all the Sakje shot carefully and slowly, riding close to be sure of every shaft, and the pikemen halted and closed even tighter. Melitta rode to Graethe. ‘Take your Standing Horses and get arrows from the Grass Cats,’ she said. ‘Then come back.’
He waved his axe in acknowledgement and rode away.
Her numbers halved, she led her people past the phalanx again. Only fifty or so arrows flew, but men fell.
The phalanx shuffled into motion again.
She cursed the lack of arrows and rode past a third time. This time, pikemen leaped out of the spear wall and killed Sakje, dragging the victims down with charging thrusts of their spears – but every brave pikeman died, spitted or shot by the following riders.
And again the phalanx retreated, opening a gap.
She rode by a fourth time but scarcely a dozen arrows flew, and the
phalanx didn’t even stop. Nikephoros was on to her. He was going to march away.
But Graethe returned and led his men straight to the attack, and his first run blocked out the first stars with arrow shafts, and fifty more pikemen fell. Again they halted and closed up.
‘They may be the best infantry I’ve ever seen,’ Coenus said. ‘They won’t break. By the gods, they’re good.’
Graethe rode back. ‘Now what?’
‘Give every warrior one arrow,’ she said. ‘We’ll hit both of their flanks together and try to make them fold.’
Graethe agreed, and they rode out to the flanks. On the left, where Melitta rode, she could see horsemen crossing the last ridge. She had no idea who they were, but they were clear in the last light of the sun.
‘Rally at the ford if we do not break the Greeks!’ she shouted.
There was no answering shout. Her people had no life in them – they rode, and obeyed. That was all. Every face had the lines of exhaustion.
She led them wide to the left and the Greeks began to march, and then she turned inward, just as Graethe’s men did the same on the right. This time they would go straight at the Greeks instead of riding along the face of their formation. If men flinched, if the arrow storm took enough lives, a rider might slip into the ranks, and then another behind, and then . . .
The Cruel Hands were across the ford. She could see Parshtaevalt leading his warriors forward – a thousand fresh Sakje with full quivers.
But the sun was gone, and the last light was augmented by the beacon on the fort and the line of fires burning on the beach. They had a few minutes of ruddy light, and then it would be dark.
Nikephoros had halted and was again closing his files.
Melitta put her heels to Gryphon and they went forward.
And the infantry held them. Not a Sakje died, but they were tired. A young warrior who might, in the morning, have risked his life to thread the little gap where the phylarch died with a barb in his throat reined up and turned away instead. And as the very last light died, the Sakje rode away.
It was not for nothing. All along the beach, Eumeles’ second squadron lit the night sky with the fires in their hulls. And Nikephoros, driven from his camp without a fight, turned his still unbeaten
phalanx from the burning gates and marched away north and east. A rider joined the phalanx, a lone man in a purple cloak. Melitta was watching him as his cloak turned from purple to black in the failing light.
‘Eumeles!’ a voice by her elbow called. The man turned his head and then rode on, joining the retreat of the phalanx. She turned to see who had shouted.
‘To Tartarus with him,’ Satyrus said, and threw his arms around his sister.
T
hey camped on the field with the dead. Temerix came in an hour after dark with all his men and reported that Upazan had crossed the river to the north and was coming up fast.
Satyrus was bigger than she remembered. He seemed to have swollen to fill the role of king. She let him do it. Men called him
Wanax
, the old title, and
Basileus
, and he was like a demi-god. She felt tired and dirty next to his magnificent armour, his perfect physique and his unscarred face.
Before the night was an hour old, he had set the camp and together, the two of them walked from fire to fire, visiting Sakje and Olbians, farmers and sailors.
‘My men are annoyed that they have to put out the fires they started,’ Satyrus joked. His ships were still working, transporting the Olbian infantry over the river after disgorging all the Macedonians who had served as marines. ‘We could have had all Eumeles’ ships. But we didn’t know you and Urvara could hold so many men for so long.’
Melitta smiled. ‘We did it with our teeth,’ she said. ‘Don’t you sleep?’
‘We’re going to fight in the morning,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any mistakes. Most of our people fought today, Lita. If we don’t put spirit in them—’
‘You could start by putting some of that spirit in me, brother,’ she said. ‘If I thought I could, I’d desert. I’m done.’
He put his arms around her, and she stayed there. ‘You are superb,’ he said. ‘You were going to do it all without me, weren’t you?’
‘We thought that you were dead, until we landed and heard the news,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Listen, honey bee. We’ve got them.
We’ve got them.
’ He pulled his shoulder blades back sharply and flexed his arms. ‘Their
fleet is gone. Upazan is nothing – a horse lord with his power base a thousand stades away, deep in our territory.’
She shook her head. ‘Spirit is all, Satyrus. If we lose tomorrow, we are the ones who are finished.’ She paused. ‘I wish Diodorus were here.’
They were between fires. Behind them, Olbians shouted and poured libations. They were fresh men, and their father’s friend Memnon, hoary with age and still hard as a rock, led them in the hymn to Ares.
Memnon came and embraced them both. ‘Tomorrow, we will put Eumeles in the dust, where he belongs, the cur,’ he said.
‘May Ares protect you, Memnon,’ Melitta said. ‘You have grown old in his service – and few of his servants grow old!’
Memnon looked around. ‘I had to come,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t miss this. My last fight, I suspect – some kid will put a spear in my throat and I’ll curse the dark when it falls.’ He thumped his chest. ‘I was at Issus with the Great King. This will be my tenth battle in the front rank.’
Satyrus was moved by the old man. He put a gentle hand on Memnon’s back. ‘May Herakles protect you. You deserve better than a death in battle.’
Memnon laughed and went back to his men. ‘Better a spear to the throat in the storm of bronze than dying of the shits in painful old age, lad,’ he called.
At the north end of the camp, Ataelus’s clan was a silent, mournful knot – those who were awake. As they walked there, Satyrus stopped, looking out over the sea in the moonlight. He could hear the sound of wild beasts rooting in the bodies.
Satyrus set his face. ‘About Diodorus – you are right – and right to remind me.’ He shook his head. ‘I left the horse transports to catch Eumeles at sea. I had to do it – but a thousand professional cavalry would be the balance of this battle.’
Melitta had to smile at her brother. ‘People and spirit,’ she said. ‘With or without Diodorus, what will win tomorrow is spirit. So let us talk to every man and every woman, even if we get no sleep.’
At Ataelus’s fire, Ataelus was awake, with his son by his side. The little man embraced Satyrus. ‘You look for your father,’ he said, enigmatically.
Satyrus nodded. ‘I look like him?’ he asked.
‘For him,’ Ataelus said. ‘You have looks for him.’
Melitta introduced her brother to Tameax as her baqca, and to Thyrsis, and to all the nomads with whom she had lived in the weeks before she’d made her bid for kingship.
And while they stood on the low hill, Urvara came with Eumenes of Olbia and many of their people, all carrying torches. Nihmu came, and Coenus, and Lykeles and Lycurgus from the Olbians. All the old people, the ones who had gone east with Kineas and Srayanka twenty years before.
They surprised Satyrus by singing. First the Sakje sang, and they clapped while they sang, and Melitta joined them, her low voice merging seamlessly with the tribesmen and women around her. They sang about Srayanka and her horse, and how her eyes were the blue of winter rivers in the sun. And then they sang about Samahe, and how she had nursed infants, and how many men she had killed in battle, and how she had killed a snow leopard in the high mountains north of Sogdiana. And another song about how she and Ataelus had hunted something monstrous in the east, and lived.
Then Coenus and Eumenes rose and sang, and many of Eumenes’ young men took parts. Abraham appeared with Panther and Demostrate, Diokles, Neiron – dozens of the sailors and marines from the camp on the beach. They all knew the Greek songs. Satyrus walked from his place by his sister to stand with the new archon of Olbia. They sang a song from the
Iliad
, and another about Penelope, and a third song about Athena, the warrior goddess, that men said was by Hesiod, or perhaps Homer himself. They sang well, for men who didn’t sing together, and when they were finished, Ataelus stepped into the firelight.
‘Sometimes, a Sakje is lost,’ he said. His voice was tired with weeping, and he didn’t attempt Greek, so that Eumenes, who had so often interpreted for Ataelus, did the office once again. ‘Sometimes, a rider vanishes in the snow, or on a scout, and we never find his body. So my beloved was lost, although she fell in full view of a thousand of the people.’
He walked to Melitta, and then led her to Satyrus. ‘Our spirit is back with us,’ he said. He pointed at the sword Satyrus wore. ‘T hat is the sword of Kineax, that has returned. The stories of this spring will live for ever. You, every one of you, are in the songs now. You are
in
the songs
.’ He nodded. ‘Samahe was in the songs from her youth. If we lose tomorrow, all these songs will be forgotten. If we win, she will live for ever.’
He let go of the hands of the twins.
And then the Sakje passed wine around, and drank.
‘My father does not expect to live through the battle,’ Thyrsis said to Melitta.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘I hear that too often,’ he said.
Satyrus felt as if he had never been to sleep – and he had had a straw bed and two heavy cloaks, and Helios to massage the muscles of his arm.
‘Nikephoros has asked for another parley,’ Helios reported.
Melitta had insisted on sleeping with Ataelus’s people, and Satyrus wasn’t sure whether to go to her or send for her – but that was just foolishness, and he pulled a chiton over his head, arranged the folds, clasped his cloak. ‘Boots, Helios. I’ll probably ride. Panther – will our sailors serve as peltasts?’
Panther was drinking wine at Satyrus’s fire. He had a wound – all of them had wounds. But he smiled. ‘Satyrus, I have done more fighting in the last ten days than in the last ten years – and you are asking me for another fight. I’ll arm them and hold the camp. If we get bold, we might harry a flank. Think of the rowing these men gave you yesterday.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘Too true, and I will not offend the gods by asking more. Care to come to the parley?’
Panther nodded. ‘Yes. I may tip the scales.’
Together they made their way across the camps in the first light. Satyrus was stiff in both shoulders, but the massage helped. ‘Helios? I need a new shield.’
‘I’m on it, lord,’ Helios answered.
Melitta was up and drinking wine – Satyrus never drank wine so early, and he was worried to see his sister drink down two cups of unwatered wine for her breakfast.
‘Parley?’ Satyrus asked, and she gathered her war leaders. Eumenes and Memnon joined them, and they all clasped hands and embraced, one by one, with Parshtaevalt and Ataelus, Coenus and even Graethe.
‘Like old times,’ Graethe said.
‘We need Diodorus to be complete,’ Eumenes said. He suddenly appeared older, taller, in a white chiton and a purple-edged white cloak. He had a chaplet of gold oak leaves in his hair.
‘You’re out-dressing me,’ Satyrus said, and smiled, because when you are a king, men mistake humour for assault.
Eumenes grinned, suddenly the young man they’d grown up with. ‘I knew I’d be in brilliant company,’ he said.
They poured a libation from an old cup that Eumenes had.
‘This was Kineas’s,’ he said. ‘Every time we fought, we poured wine from this cup, and then we all drank from it. To all the gods,’ he said, and one by one they drank.
When it came to Satyrus, he saw that it was a plain clay soldier’s cup. But he drained it, and in the bottom he saw his father’s name in the old letters, and tears came to his eyes.
He looked around. His hand reached out and he took his sister’s hand. ‘This is my father’s dream,’ he said. ‘And my mother’s. A kingdom on the Tanais, where free men and women can make their lives without fear. Upazan and Eumeles decided to destroy that dream.’
Melitta spoke up, as if they had planned the speech together. ‘Today we reverse fifteen years of their evil,’ she said. ‘Many of you have fought for days already. This will end it. And when we look at the kurgan by the river, we will remember Kineas and Srayanka as the founders, not as the defeated.’
Panther spoke up. ‘Is there anything that you would accept from this parley?’ he asked. ‘I am the closest thing to a neutral party here, as a man of Rhodos.’
Satyrus and Melitta looked at each other.
‘Let’s hear what they have to say,’ Satyrus said. But they shared a different message.
‘We would confirm you in your kingdom,’ Eumeles said. His voice was reasonable. He had Upazan behind him, and Nikephoros, and his advisor, Idomenes, and a dozen other officers, Sauromatae and Greek. ‘You will have restored to you all the kingdom that your mother held, and we will recognize your sister as the lady of the Assagatje on the sea of grass. And my friend Upazan will go back to his land, keeping only the high ground between the Tanais and the Rha.’
Melitta watched Eumeles the way a farmer watches a snake while
he repairs a fence. The farmer knows that if he goes too close, the snake will bite, but from a distance, the snake is merely – fascinating. She looked at her brother. He looked back, and they shared a thought as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud.
And he left it to her to speak.
She stepped forward. Eumeles bowed – Eumeles, who had murdered her mother. She let herself look at him, and in her mind, she allowed Smell of Death to take her face from Melitta, so that her face settled into a mask, and the scar was her face to the world.
‘No,’ she said. She spoke in a calm, low voice, more like a mother soothing a child than the voice of doom. ‘No,’ she said again, even more quietly, so that Upazan leaned forward to listen.
Eumeles shrugged. ‘Tell us what you want,’ he said.
‘Your head on my spear,’ she said, and looked him full in the eyes, so that he could see the hate, feel it come across the gap of air and go down his spine.
And it did.
‘No peace, killer of my mother. No peace, killer of my father. You are dead men. Go from here and be
dead
.’
Even Upazan flinched.
‘We will have peace when Upazan and Eumeles lie in their blood and rot,’ she said, her voice still quiet and calm. ‘If the rest of you wish to give them to us, so be it. We will then arrange a peace. Otherwise,’ she smiled for the first time, ‘let’s get down to the thing.’
‘You are mad,’ Eumeles said. He stepped back. Satyrus’s lip twitched.
‘Goodbye, Eumeles,’ Satyrus said softly.
‘You are mad!’ Eumeles said again, his voice rising.
Upazan shook his head. ‘You are a fool, and I am sorry I have a fool for an ally. But I am strong.’ He turned to Melitta. ‘You will not find me easy. And if you come under my spear again, it is you who will feed the ravens.’ He had shrewd eyes, and he was tall, strong and fearless. ‘We could make peace. I killed Kineas with a fair arrow, not a back-stab at a parley.’ He looked at Eumeles with contempt. Then he looked at Nikephoros and the Greek commander met his eye.
Melitta’s voice did not waver. ‘How many times must I say no?’ she said.
Upazan drew himself up. ‘So,’ he said.
Nikephoros spoke for the first time. ‘Then we’ll fight.’
Eumeles gathered his dignity. ‘Expect no mercy,’ he said.
And that was the parley.
Satyrus and Melitta arranged their armies in the order they had camped. Eumenes had the left, facing Nikephoros, with all the infantry, including the Macedonian marines. Satyrus was in the centre with Melitta and the best of the Sakje knights all formed together, and opposite them was Eumeles’ banner, and the aristocracy of Pantecapaeum and all the Euxine cities he held save only Olbia, flanked by thousands of Upazan’s warriors. But Upazan himself faced Urvara and Parshtaevalt and Ataelus on the right by the beach and the remnants of the fortified camp, now full of javelin-armed sailors who had enough spirit to annoy Upazan’s horsemen as they attempted to move forward.