‘For a last stand?’ Ajax asked.
‘For whatever I order,’ Kineas said. He took a deep breath and drained the tea left in his cup, bowed to the woman and handed her back her cup, and then turned back to grin at his men. ‘Trust me,’ he said.
Again, he wondered if he could trust the king.
The Getae were as slow to rise as any barbarians, and they were two hours behind at mid-morning. Helios’s winged chariot was climbing in the sky, and the Sakje rode with their bowstrings across their knees to dry the sinew in the sun.
An hour later, the men had passed from cold to heat, and the ground was already dry, rolling out to the horizon in waves of grass. A few stades to the east, a single tall ridge rose above the plain. Kineas had scouted it on the trip out, just ten days ago.
Behind them the Getae were less than three stades away, and their flank companies were beginning to press forward, extending to the right and left in the high grass, calling to each other as they came. They were beginning to encircle him, like good hunters. They were pressing on quickly, assured of their prey and embarrassed by so much defeat in the last few days.
Kineas rode to the head of the column. ‘Straight up the ridge,’ he said. ‘At the gallop!’
The column was losing cohesion, the weary men showing a tendency to lose control of their horses, but the gallop galvanized them again. The Sindi in the centre of the column were mostly accomplished riders, but not all. Kineas rode back down when he saw them slow. He and Ajax took children and mothers on their own jaded horses, and the Sindi men took others, and the little band of Sindi pressed on. Kineas saw the base of the hill rising between his horse’s ugly ears, and prayed to Zeus. He looked back. The Getae were two stades back, forming a line, and their flanking bands were a stade distant to the right and left, but already level, pacing them. The Getae were calling back and forth, their war cries loud and shrill.
Kineas’s tired horse grunted as he started up the ridge. The child in his arms was a girl, perhaps three years old, with blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She looked at him curiously.
‘Horse is tired,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Are you tired?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
Leucon’s company was at the crest, forming a line as they arrived. They weren’t neat, but they were still under control, and he was proud of them.
‘Alyet. I’m three years old.’ The little girl held up three fingers, spread broadly. ‘Are we going to die?’ she asked with all the lack of understanding of the young. ‘My mother said we might die.’
‘No,’ Kineas said. He was three quarters of the way up the slope, and his animal was making heavy work of it. He let her take the slope at an angle and she responded well. Leucon’s men were formed, and Nicomedes’ men were passing the refugees, just as he had ordered, scrambling up the face of the ridge to form alongside Leucon’s company.
The Getae didn’t pause. They were coming on; so close that Kineas could see the plaques they wore as decoration on their harness and the designs on their cloaks. The companies to the right and left were angling in, eager to be in at the kill, hill or no hill.
Kineas made it to the crest. He rode to the huddle of Sindi and swung the girl into her mother’s arms. Mindful of the horror in the village, afraid that on the edge of victory they would despair, he patted the little girl’s head and raised a hand for attention.
‘Now we win,’ he said loudly, in Sakje.
A hundred doubting faces looked back at him.
He smiled, all the cares of the last few days lifted by what he could see from the top of the ridge. ‘Watch,’ he said, and rode away to the centre of his line.
The Getae were at the base of the slope, calling and shouting. The bolder spirits had pushed their horses up the first part of the slope.
Far out on the sea of green, beyond the farthest horns of the Getae advance, the grass moved as if pushed by a wind, and lines of Sakje rolled their horses erect — lines that stretched for a stade each, hundreds of riders rising from the grass like warriors grown from dragon’s teeth.
And from behind the ridge came the king and his nobles, riding easily on unwearied horses up the back of the ridge to form a compact line of armoured men to Kineas’s left. And another company appeared on the right — more and more riders. The Olbians and the Sindi gave a cheer, and the Sakje crossed the crest to fall like the bolts of Zeus on the Getae.
The king had come. The king had come. Kineas felt the weight fall from his shoulders, and then the slaughter began.
The Olbians played no role in the fight. They watched the revenge of the Sakje with the weary joy of men who know that they have accomplished much and can now rest. Before the last Getae fell, where a knot of nobles gathered around their leader and died in a heap, Kineas led his column the last few stades to the king’s camp, a great circle of wagons enclosing thousands of horses by yet another river, guarded by yet more Sakje deemed unnecessary for the massacre.
The Olbians were greeted as heroes. Kineas found that despite his weariness, he couldn’t listen to too much praise. He rode from group to group, watching their faces, amused that his men, exhausted moments before, suddenly had the energy to drink wine and boast. There was food, and fire, and soon they were joined by the first Sakje returning from the rout of the Getae. Many had heads tied to their saddlecloths. Later, Kineas saw a man scraping carefully at a whole tattooed skin. Others had loot — a little gold, a great deal of silver, and horses.
Ataelus returned just before dark, riding in with Srayanka’s Cruel Hands. She was covered in blood, but before Kineas’s fears could rise in his chest, she waved. He returned her wave, a broad smile across his face, and saw that his own skin was filthy, mud and blood and sweat fighting for possession of his wrists and hands. He hadn’t bathed or strigilled in a week.
Ataelus rode up proudly, sitting on his tired pony like a king. ‘I take ten horses!’ he said. ‘You great chief. All warriors say so.’ He glanced at Srayanka, issuing orders to her inner circle. ‘Lady say you hero. Say you airyanam.’
Kineas grinned again.
While Ataelus praised him, the king rode into the laager. His armour was gold, and it was blinding in the setting sun. He looked right and left, and finding Kineas, he rode up to him — a mass of gold from head to toe.
‘It worked,’ he said. He struggled with the chinstrap on his Corinthian helmet, got it, and lifted the whole gilt thing off his head. His hair was matted flat, and he had a trickle of blood running out of one nostril. ‘By the gods, Kineas! The Getae will feel this for ten generations!’
‘We were lucky,’ Kineas said. ‘I thought of all the things that could have gone wrong while we rode. A foolish plan, and far too ambitious.’ He smiled wearily. ‘And I seem to remember that you were to have no part in this fight. I seem to remember Kam Baqca extracting a promise.’ You came! he wanted to say.
‘I said I would not place myself in any danger,’ the king grinned. ‘Nor did I. They were broken before we rode down the hill.’
He dismounted and opened his arms in embrace, and Kineas hugged him, armoured chest to armoured chest. ‘Oh, we pounded them!’ the king boasted. ‘The Cruel Hands lay so still that their scouts practically rode over their lines without seeing them. I must have killed six.’ The boy ended the embrace. ‘I feel foul. Tired. This is my first big fight — my first victory as king — and you gave it to me. I won’t forget.’ Satrax was stripping armour while he babbled. He was still fighting the laces on his scale vambrace. ‘Marthax says I should stay out of the fight — but if I didn’t fight, I would cease to be king. We are Sakje, not Greeks.’ He grinned, the same relief from tension on his face that could be seen on every other leader. ‘Sometimes I think that Marthax wants to keep all the glory for himself. Or that he wants to be king in my place.’ He seized a proffered cup of wine and drained it.
Kineas stepped up close and started on the other lace. Other men and women did the same, so that the king’s disarming was itself a celebration. They babbled to each other, exalted by victory and survival.
When his scale breastplate was dragged over his head, the king stepped out of it and then embraced Kineas again. ‘Smile,’ he said. ‘Laugh. We are alive. And now I believe we will defeat Zopryon. I believe we could defeat Alexander!’
The young king pounded his shoulders, and he smiled at them, suddenly wanting to be free of their embraces and their praise, feeling dirty. He slipped away gradually, telling himself that he was as eager to be free of his armour as the king had been free of his. Kineas went to a fire that the Olbians had appropriated and was greeted
