up.’
‘Huh?’ he asked. He felt as if he’d been beaten like bread dough.
‘Dawn. Eumenes is ready to ride. Your orders — are you awake?’ asked Philokles. He was naked, and wet. ‘Laertes is here, with a prisoner.’
Kineas sat up. The tunic he had stripped off before sleep was as wet now as it had been when he put his head down. So was his cloak. He threw the cloak over his shoulders and swung down from the wagon, stifled in the smell of wet wool. Philokles swung down behind him.
‘It’s not cold,’ he said.
‘We’re not all Spartans,’ Kineas said. In fact, he was, as always, hesitant to show his body naked. Even on the edge of battle. He smiled at his own vanity.
Ataelus was sitting at his fire with Laertes, Crax, Sitalkes and another warrior — a man lay at Laertes’ feet, with curly blond hair and bare legs, covered by a dark red cloak — the prisoner, unless he was already a corpse. The rest of them were passing around a horn cup that steamed. Kineas intercepted it. ‘Morning,’ he said. The meaning of Ataelus’ presence hit him through the last of his sleep. He put a hand on Crax’s shoulder. ‘Where is Heron?’ he asked. And then he pointed at the stranger in the cloak. ‘Who’s he?’
Crax grinned. ‘He’s a fool. I caught him.’ He prodded the recumbent form with his boot. ‘Sitalkes hit him too hard.’
Kineas began to stretch his muscles. ‘I think I need the whole story.’
Laertes grinned and snatched the cup back. ‘Heron’s thorough, Hipparch. Give him that. We went sixty — maybe even eighty stades, and we pushed our spears into every bank on the damn river.’
Sitalkes spoke quickly, tripping over the Greek in his excitement and showing a scalp on his spear, but Laertes spoke over him. He pulled an arm free of his cloak to point at Ataelus. ‘Thank the gods you sent him,’ he said. ‘All the feeder streams are full — hard to cross themselves. We were lost in the dark when Ataelus found us.’ He gestured at Sitalkes. ‘We tangled with their patrols twice, but they couldn’t make it across. This idiot,’ Laertes ruffled Sitalkes’s hair, ‘killed a man with a javelin and then swam across to get his hair. Barbarian.’
Kineas felt the warmth of the tea spreading through his stomach. ‘So there is a crossing south of here?’
Laertes shrugged, exchanged a glance with Ataelus. ‘There’s a dozen crossings — if you want to swim your horse, or if you can pick your way in single file. Nothing for an army — not really even a crossing for a patrol.’
Kineas rubbed his eyes. ‘How’d you end up fighting these?’ he asked, indicating the prisoner.
‘They must have had boats,’ Laertes said. ‘Heron made us look for them, but we never found them. It took time, in the rain. And then we got lost.’ He shrugged.
Ataelus grinned at the other warrior with him. Kineas realized she was his wife — Samahe. The Black One. She gave her husband a wry smile. ‘I for find Greek horse,’ she said. ‘See in dark.’
Ataelus gave her the tea. ‘Good wife,’ he said. ‘Find Greek horse — find Crax — find enemy all same- same.’
‘Where is Heron?’ Kineas asked. He looked at the prisoner again. The man looked familiar — or the cloak did.
Laertes held the horn cup out, and one of the camp slaves came and refilled it. ‘Rolled in his cloak. He means to go north as soon as we have a rest.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Give him my thanks. Get some rest yourselves.’
They all grinned, pleased with themselves and pleased with his praise, spare as it had been. They made him feel better.
Philokles took the cup and drained it. ‘Eumenes is waiting,’ he said acerbically. He wiped his mouth. ‘I’m going out with him.’ He put the cup on the ground. ‘I’ll see what I can get from our prisoner when I get back.’
Kineas walked down the hill, thinking about Macedonian patrols south of the ford. His intuition, which had burned all night, had been right. Then he understood what he had heard. Philokles was not often an active soldier. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why are you going out?’
The rain was soaking him again, and his beard was too full — it felt like an alien on his face. He wanted to shave. Too many days in the saddle.
Philokles shrugged. ‘It is time to fight,’ he said.
Eumenes was mounted at the head of Leucon’s troop. The hippeis of Pantecapaeum were mounted as well, and beyond them in the rain were half of the phalanx of Pantecapaeum. Most of them were naked, holding their shields and a single, heavy spear. Beyond them, a pair of heavy Sakje wagons.
Kineas walked up to Eumenes. ‘Straight across, retrieve the bodies, and get back.’
Eumenes had his eyes on the ford. ‘We won’t disappoint you. There will be no repeat of yesterday,’ he said in a hard voice.
Kineas stepped in close, where he could feel the warmth of the horse. ‘Yesterday could have happened to anyone. That’s war, Eumenes. Claim the bodies and get back here and no heroics.’
Eumenes saluted.
A Sindi, one of Temerix’s men, trotted up to Philokles and handed him a helmet, which he pushed on to the back of his head, then a heavy spear — hard, black, longer by a span than other men’s, and as thick as Kineas’s wrist. Philokles hung a shield on his shoulder — a plain bronze shield with no mark on it.
‘You’re going with him?’ Kineas asked again. He was at a loss.
Philokles smiled grimly. ‘Memnon made me the commander of this two hundred,’ he said. He raised an eyebrow. ‘The benefits of a Spartan education.’ Philokles turned on his heel, his old red cloak billowing behind him. With a casual shake of his head, he dropped the helmet off his brow so that the cheek pieces covered his face. From the helmet came an inhuman voice — so different from Philokles’ voice that Kineas would have said it was a different man.
‘We’ll run all the way,’ said the voice. ‘Any man who falls behind is left for the birds. Ready?’
They growled. Spears beat on shields. Kineas watched them run off to the ford, keeping their space in close order, and wondered.
The expedition to cross the ford and retrieve the dead from yesterday’s running fight was almost uncontested. Kineas kept the phalanx standing ready, held the balance of the Olbian horse under his hand, and then crossed himself for a quick reconnaissance in the second hour. Before the third hour the men of Pantecapaeum were back, still running, singing the paean of their city as they came. Behind them came the wagons, full to the beams with their grim cargo, and a handful of wounded who had survived a night in the rain. Last came Eumenes and his troop. They had seen a handful of Macedonians, as had Kineas. Eumenes had another prisoner.
Kineas called his officers, and they gathered around the fire by his wagon.
‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to the king. Zopryon should have tried to close the ford.’
Eumenes didn’t agree. ‘I’m new to war, but I think they felt beaten last night, and retired from the ford to get clear — fearing the same battle we feared.’
Niceas gave the young man a proprietary grin. ‘Sounds like sense to me,’ he said.
Kineas nodded. ‘It is possible. I have to guard against all the possibilities. Get the men under cover — rotate the pickets — and see to the horses. This weather will cost us more horses than a battle. Diodorus, you’re in command of the pickets. Has anyone seen Heron?’
‘Already gone,’ Diodorus said. ‘Tried to find you when you crossed the stream, and said your orders wouldn’t wait and he was headed north with our scouts. He seemed to know what he was about. I sent Ataelus with him.’
Kineas couldn’t stifle a grin. ‘He ought to — he has all our best men. Send him to me the moment he returns, or any of his men. I’m for the king.’
Philokles, still an alien figure in a heavy helmet, spear in hand, spat expertly through his helmet. ‘I’ll see to the prisoners,’ he said. ‘Niceas has them separate. We’ll see what they say.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Eumenes — if you can stay awake, I need you.’
Eumenes nodded wearily, and Kineas dismissed the rest.
Up the hill, the view was better. As his legs brushed through the wet grass, Kineas could see the herds, well off to the north, and the camps of each of the clans. The rain would be debilitating for both armies, but the Sakje, with their huge herds of horses and their dry wagons for sleeping, would be more comfortable.
The sky was lightening, the clouds raising. Wisps of low cloud obscured his view, but on other lines he could see five stades or more, and although the rain was steady, it lacked last night’s vehemence. In Athens he would
