they’ll spot Leucon and call their friends. The whole fight will now happen down by the river, and if we’re not quick, a lot of young men will die.’
Nicomedes shook his head. ‘You see this?’
Kineas had lived his whole life as a soldier largely unable to communicate just how clearly he could read a battlefield. ‘Yes,’ he said.
The head of the column rounded the flank of the bluff, and the village was immediately visible.
‘Form line!’ Kineas called.
Now a winter’s training told. Despite their fears, they responded crisply enough to the orders, and even the corner of a boundary hedge that blocked the last formation of the line didn’t slow them — the end files fell back and the line advanced in good order.
‘Ajax — collect the last four files and keep them as a reserve. Follow the main charge.’ Kineas waved at them, and Ajax turned out of the line at a gallop.
Kineas took a javelin in his free hand and raised it so that inexperienced troopers could see that it was time to ready themselves.
Nicomedes had his in hand. His face was set, and he looked old.
‘They still haven’t seen us,’ Kineas said. ‘That won’t last, and I want to get their minds off Leucon.’
Nicomedes shrugged. ‘You are commanding my troop,’ he said without bitterness. ‘I’m a trooper. Command me.’
Kineas felt vaguely guilty that he had seized command — but he wanted this to go well. The future morale and quality of the whole would depend on this one action. Victory would build confidence. Defeat would shatter it.
At the edge of town, a man in a red cloak rode into view, turned, and shouted.
A stade to go.
‘Shouldn’t we charge?’ Nicomedes asked, shouting to be heard.
‘Still too far,’ said Niceas. ‘It all looks closer than it is, the first few times,’ he said.
Kineas farted, and his hands began to shake. Red cloak was pointing urgently, and men were joining him. Kineas had time to wonder how a man fated to die at a different river weeks from now could be so afraid, and then he forced himself to turn his head, glanced north and south, and assured himself that he was not riding into the jaws of a trap.
‘Now!’ he said to Niceas.
Niceas’s trumpet came up, catching the sun in a blinding dazzle as he settled it to his lips and the long call began.
Nicomedes sang.
Come, Apollo, now if ever!
Let us now thy Glory see!
Now, Lord of Light, we pray thee,
Give thy servants victory!
By the third word, the troop vented their fear in song, and the Paean rose to the heavens like the smoke of the vanquished towns, and their hooves pounded the earth like a tide of vengeance flowing from the east.
Kineas leaned low over the neck of his grey stallion and dug in his heels for a final burst of speed, throwing his javelin side-armed into red cloak — his throw was high, and the point took the man in the mouth. His head seemed to cave in and Kineas was past him, whirling his heavy javelin like a scythe, seeking only to widen the hole he had made, but Niceas had killed his man and suddenly they were in the streets of the village. The handful of dismounted Getae died against the log walls, or pinned to the mud of the street, or trampled to death by a hundred hooves, and then the line burst out of the village. To the south, Nicomedes had led the right of the line around the town and they were in good order. To the north, there was chaos — a fight around a barn, and a tangle of hedge, and no officer.
‘Ajax!’ Kineas called. ‘Sort that out.’ He waved his sword at the melee at the barn. Where was his good javelin? Why was his sword out?
With half the men, he started down the slope towards the river, where he could hear sounds of fighting. ‘Line!’ he shouted. He didn’t slow down his canter, and they came on like veterans, galloping up to take their places in the line despite the many men missing. His horse was tired — almost blown, and the other horses would be worse. Too late for that. He pointed his line as best he could at where he imagined the fight to be, just past the crest of the low ridge that lined the river, waited a few strides of his stallion to let the line adjust, and raised his sword. Niceas put the trumpet to his lips, and the call rang out, and then they were over the rise — straight into the rear of the Getae, not a line but a series of knots of men facing Leucon’s outnumbered line.
Kineas had no javelin. He rode straight into one of the knots, cutting with his Egyptian blade. His horse reared, shying from a corpse, and then struck with his hooves. A blow on his back plate, and a line of fire along the top of his bridle arm — he cut back on instinct and felt the blade hit home, his eyes only seeing the target after the sword had fully severed the man’s hand above the wrist — Kineas’s horse danced again, and Kineas cut back with the whole weight of his arm and severed the man’s head, so that it rose a few inches and then fell, blood fountaining from the stump of the arm and neck and the trunk slipping from a now terrified horse. Kineas reined his stallion in a tight circle, looking for a new opponent. He saw Eumenes locked in a grapple with a Getae warrior, and even as he watched the two fell from their horses. Eumenes landed on top, and his opponent had the wind crushed out of him, and Eumenes’ fevered hands found a rock and smashed the man’s head.
A few strides away, Nicomedes killed carefully, fastidiously, like a cat, his javelin licking out into men’s faces and necks. In fact, he fought like a hoplite mounted on a horse — Kineas had never seen a javelin used that way, like a six-foot sword.
Just beyond the last knot of barbarians still fighting, Kineas found Leucon, clear of the melee, restraining a few files from the slaughter. The Getae were broken, panicked, seeking only escape, and the Olbians were not giving any quarter — they had ridden through the village to reach the fight, and they were in an angry mood. And they were fresh troops in their first action — all their fear was being vented on the beaten enemy.
‘I thought I should keep a few men back,’ Leucon shouted.
‘Well done,’ Kineas called, just as his stallion paused, and then, in a long, slow fall, collapsed and died, blood gushing from a wound in his neck.
The Getae had been surprised and disordered in each combat, and the Persian stallion was the only casualty among the Olbians. By the time the routed enemy were butchered, over a hundred Getae were dead, and the Olbians killed the seriously wounded barbarians at Niceas’s order. Few enough of the Getae had died fighting — most had been hacked down after they broke, pinned against the swollen waters of the river. More had drowned trying to swim to safety.
‘No prisoners, the way we’re moving. And no soldier worth a fuck leaves a man to die like that,’ Niceas said to a group of red-faced Olbians. They were cooling down. Now was the time to give quarter. ‘If they can walk, let them go.’ To Kineas, he said, ‘What do we do with all these corpses? Our rich boys won’t want to bury them.’
‘They seem quick enough to loot them,’ Kineas said. Even the most starry-eyed, Achilles-loving stripling among the cavalry was taking his turn cutting gold and silver rings from the fallen Getae.
‘How do you think they got to be rich boys?’ Niceas sneered.
‘Leave the dead for the crows,’ Kineas said. ‘I want to move as soon as we can. Make that Sindi farmer see sense — him and his fellows.’ Kineas turned to Ataelus, who had missed the action scouting north of the village but had managed to acquire four new horses anyway. ‘Ataelus — make him see sense. They have to come with us.’
‘Column of refugees will only slow us down,’ Niceas said.
Kineas smiled grimly. ‘I want to be slowed down,’ he said.
Ataelus shook his head. ‘Men stay to bury,’ he said.
‘Take me to him,’ Kineas said. He had to walk — his riding horse was lame and his stallion dead — the finest horse he had ever owned. To Niceas, he said, ‘Get the best horse available — get two or three.’
Niceas shook his head. ‘Sorry the grey bastard died. I’ll miss him. Like an old friend.’
‘Better a horse than a man,’ Kineas said, but he had kept that stallion alive for three years, and the grey bastard had done the same for him. He followed the Sakje to a group of Sindi men — heavily built, squat, with broad
