'Get him back! ' he yelled, pointing the way they had come.
'What about you?' Callisthenes draped Amenmose's arm over his shoulder.
'Our infantry is coming! Only have to hold for a few more minutes!' And with that Ibebi plunged into the fighting. He and the others stood firm in the gateway, slowly forcing the Greeks back. Swords and spears licked out. One of Ibebi's flankers went down, his entrails spilling across the stones. Three arrows avenged the fallen youth, slashing into the charging peltast. His corpse snarled the feet of his mates as they pressed forward, intent on securing the gate and, with it, their freedom.
'They only need to hold a moment longer! ' Callisthenes muttered. Already, elements of the Egyptian regular infantry streamed through the northern entrance.
Ibebi hurled the young man at his side back and was turning to make room for the Egyptian soldiers when a Greek spear took him low, in the spine. He fell, clawing at the dust as a half a dozen more spears ended his life.
'Where is he? I cannot see him,' Amenmose said.
'He is with Osiris, now.' Callisthenes slumped against the wall of the gate and looked out over the roiling sea of bodies, his eyes moist. This madness owned nothing of glory. Nothing!
Barca descended the stairs inside the gate, shaking drops of blood from his sword blade. The Greeks had not fought well, but they died well. It was enough for their gods. He wished their shades the best as they crossed the river. The Phoenician's skin burned with fever and he could feel warmth oozing from his gashed side, but he felt no pain. Perhaps it was true about the thrill of battle negating the effects of wounds. Matthias had told him that, once. A pang of guilt stabbed Barca's heart. He had caused the deaths of too many of those closest to him. Matthias. Ithobaal. His men. Neferu.
Guilt turned to rage.
He emerged from the gate and found Jauharah aiding the priests who were tending to the wounded. Her arms were covered in blood up to the elbow; blood streaked her forehead where she had pushed her hair out of her eyes. Those eyes glanced up, catching sight of Barca. She disengaged herself from a young man whose screams of agony intermingled with pleas for his mother. She drifted across to the Phoenician, moving like a woman caught in the grip of a nightmare.
'I–I never imagined …' she trailed off, her eyes roving over the carnage.
'Most never do. This is how peace is kept.'
She glanced down. 'You're bleeding.' Barca followed her gaze. Blood seeped out from under his cuirass, soaking the hem and side of his kilt. She reached for the buckles holding the heavy breastplate in place, but Barca brushed her hands away.
'Later.'
'What will you do now?' she said.
Others had clustered around him, their lips framing the same question. He saw Thothmes and Hekaib, Pentu and his temple guardsmen, and beyond the circle of Egyptians, he spotted Callisthenes and Amenmose sitting with their backs against the foot of a pharaonic statue, passing a wineskin back and forth. The merchant of Naucratis had an odd look in his eyes, a look Barca had seen a thousand times over. The look of innocence shattered.
Barca glanced out over the battlefield. 'I have my men to avenge.'
'I'm with you,' Thothmes said. Hekaib nodded. 'And me.' Several other Egyptians expressed an interest in joining their Pharaoh.
'Fine,' Barca said. 'But know this. Once we leave these walls, you men are on your own. If you fall behind, I'll not drop back and guide you by the hand.'
'So be it! ' Thothmes bristled. Barca nodded. He stooped and grabbed a fallen shield. The Egyptians followed his lead. Men with no armor stripped the dead, taking their greaves, their helmets. In a twinkling, the farmers and masons and artisans were gone, and in their place stood a score of Egyptian soldiers, faces grim and bloody.
Without a word, Barca led them out through the northern entrance.
The men alongside Phanes fought like the sons of Achilles. They used their spears, their shields, even their bodies to repulse the first wave of chariots. Horses screamed and died. Men leapt from their chariots as their mounts ran amok. Chassis of wood and bronze split apart, tumbling end over end to crush friend and foe without prejudice. Peltasts ranged along the borders of the fray, using javelins, arrows, and sling bullets where they could, to dubious effect.
Phanes perched his blood-blasted helmet on his forehead, inhaling great lungfuls of dusty air as he surveyed the battlefield. He could read it like a scroll, and its didactic text told a tale of defeat. Pharaoh's infantry chipped away at his right flank; his center bore the inverse bulge of an imminent break. Already, his Greeks were falling back, giving ground as the chariots broke over their ranks in endless waves, eroding their numbers with each successive crash. Once their center broke, once the formation split in two, the battle would be over. Phanes tasted gall; the bitter sting of ambitions lost. He cursed himself for falling for the Pharaoh's ruse, his scouts for not properly assaying the Egyptians, his captains for not stoking the fire in his men's bellies. Most of all, though, he cursed the oracle at Delphi for promulgating lies. By his own hand? Bah! With each passing moment, his reign as king of Egypt became more and more a thing of smoke and fog. A fever dream.
Phanes reseated his helmet and waded back into the thickest of the fighting, where men, horses, and chariots tangled in a morass of thrashing limbs and murderous bronze. Egyptians fought on foot, hurling themselves against a wall of Greek armor. Here, with their commander at their side, the phalanx held firm, their shields locked and their spears ripping through man and beast with equal ease.
A weight struck Phanes' shield; from instinct he braced his legs and thrust back, sending an Egyptian sprawling. As the soldier struggled to his feet, Phanes lashed out, cleaving the man's head to the teeth. Another Egyptian charged, spear leveled at Phanes' belly. The Greek commander sidestepped and drove the edge of his shield into the hollow of the man's throat, all but decapitated him.
Beyond the sea of helmets and faces, Phanes spotted Pharaoh's banners. He could see the blue war crown, the axe that rose and fell amid a scarlet rain. Phanes longed to get closer, within sword's reach, but a cordon of Calasirian guardsmen made that impossible. His line could not hold, not for much longer. The cost of Greek lives in stopping the chariots had been too high; too many men died repulsing their infantry charges. With each successive wave, his lines crumbled like a sand bank. It was time to think of cutting free.
'Fall back!' Phanes ordered those men nearest him. 'Fall back to the quay! ' He could yet save himself, and perhaps a handful of his men.
Corpses littered the Square of Deshur. The Egyptians in Barca's wake drew a collective breath as they rounded the northwestern corner of the temple of Ptah, awed by the carnage that cut a broad arc from the Saqqaran Road to the Western Gate. Most had never seen a battle up close, never smelled the stench of death or heard the plaintive cries of a man dying from a sword-cut to the belly. This was uncomfortably new to them; to a man of Barca's experience, it was commonplace, almost banal. He felt nothing as his eyes scanned the field, fixing on an empty chariot.
Skittish, the horses danced and gamboled, their eyes rolling in fear. Barca leapt onto the platform of the chariot, ignoring the blood left behind by its previous occupant. True to his word, he did not wait for the Egyptians. The Phoenician seized the reins. Thothmes and Hekaib had barely scrambled on, grasping the side rails, before the horses found their rhythm and shot forward. The Egyptians stared at each other as Barca, his face a mask of grim determination, snapped the reins, lashing more speed from the team.
He angled them toward the thickest of the fighting, to where Pharaoh's battle-standard floated above the wrack.
As they drew closer, the sound of armored men in close contact, fighting for their lives, was nothing less than chilling. Even to Barca, who had heard the sound for most of his adult life, the crash of armies sent a thrill down his spine. It was the sound of a vast engine of destruction, its grinding blades lubricated with slick, hot gore.
It was music to the Beast.
The Phoenician gritted his teeth. His chariot crossed the intervening ground. A forest of clashing spears rose before them, swaying like saplings in a squall. The wounded crawled among the dead, some begging for succor, others for death. Barca hauled on the reins, his muscles knotting as he slewed the chariot sideways. The wheels
