‘Very well. Take your troop to the south of Philokles, and cover his left flank. If we are pushed off the river bank, we retire south — so you will be the pivot. Nicomedes — where are the Sindi — at the shrine?’
‘Yes. They went into the trees, and now all that comes out is arrows.’ Nicomedes laughed with a nervous edge.
Kineas nodded. ‘We’ll leave them there.’ He looked to the south and east to find Memnon’s column. They were coming slowly across the marsh. Kineas gestured with his whip at Philokles, and then led the mounted officers towards the Spartan to reach him faster. He rubbed his beard, looked across the river again, felt his heartbeat increase, and reined in his horse with Philokles at his feet.
‘They’ll try for us in a few minutes, gentlemen. Philokles, those are Thrake; peltasts, really, but with big swords. They’ll come for you at a rush, their flanks covered by the cavalry.’
Philokles had his big Corinthian helmet on the back of his head. He looked himself — a big, pleasant man. The philosopher. But when he spoke, he sounded like Ares.
‘We’ll stop them right here,’ he said. ‘I have never fought them myself — but I know them by repute. Only their first charge is worth a crap.’ He smiled, and it was the sarcastic smile of Philokles. ‘I think we can manage them.’
Kineas caught the eye of his cavalry officers and pointed at the very slight rise in the ground to the south. ‘If we are broken, we rally to the south. Let the Thrake come — Philokles will hold them. When their cavalry comes across, they will be badly ordered — let them get across, and then charge them before they form. Look to me for the timing, but don’t fear to make your own call. I’ll ride with the infantry.’
In fact, it felt odd to be sitting on a horse, well clear of the front line, giving orders. But that was his work, now.
He rode back to the small phalanx — really, more like a handful of peltastoi, with Philokles. The big Spartan gave him one grin, and then tipped his helmet back down on his head, and ran to the front of his men. He pointed across the river, and the two hundred gave a cheer like a thousand men, a cheer that sent a surge of energy through Kineas like a beneficial lightning bolt.
Across the river, the Macedonian slingers were retreating. On the far bank, clear in the fading light, Kineas could see the Thrake and the cavalry. And beyond them, something. It was hard to measure distance, and harder to detect troops moving on wet ground, without dust — but there was something there. A taxeis perhaps — still a few stades away.
The Thrake bellowed a cheer, and then another, and they raised their shields. There were quite a few of them. They beat their big swords against their shields, and they began a chant. Then they started across the ford. They kept no kind of order, and their ranks spread as they crossed.
Kineas had dismissed the handful of Sindi — the blacksmith’s men — as unimportant, but from their position on the thumb, immune to the Thrake and unafraid, they shot arrows right into the side of the charge. The Thrake flinched away from the thumb, crowded to the north side of the ford and came up the bank too slowly, with much of the impetus of their charge lost to the water and the arrows. A chief rallied them at the river’s edge, and led them forward — a hundred or more — and they crashed into the front of Philokles’ men with a noise like a dozen blacksmiths working on as many forges. The chief leaped — a fantastic move — straight from the run of his charge up to the rim of the shield wall and then down, his long sword taking a Greek head even as he fell, but four spears pierced him before his body came to rest and the gap that he opened was filled in three thuds of Kineas’s heart with dead men, Greek and Thrake, and then the epilektoi pushed from the second rank, and the wound in the phalanx was healed as they closed their shields.
More Thrake were coming up the river bank — every man seemed to make his own decision, and some ran off towards the base of the thumb, to end the galling fire of the archers, while others threw themselves into the fight in front of them.
Kineas tore his eyes away from the fight to watch the enemy cavalry. They were trapped in the ford — now they were the victims of the deadly archery, and they couldn’t push forward because of the crowd of Thrake.
The width of an Athenian street away, Philokles’ plume showed in the front rank, and his roar shook the air. Kineas saw the great black spear rise and fall — back and forth, held one-handed on the Spartan’s shoulder, and he punched with it as if it had no weight — back and forth, like a machine for killing men. He was not alone — he was at the corner of his threatened line — yet he killed five men in as many breaths, the great black spear shooting forward with brutal economy, straight through a nose, into a mouth, into the soft flesh under a man’s chin — and out, the broad blade never sinking past its greatest width. Philokles’ arm was black at the hand, red as high as his shoulder, and he was red down his side where the blood of other men ran down his naked skin. Even as Kineas watched, the Greek line solidified, and Philokles’ roar was answered by a push — a heave that threw the Thrake back on their heels, some men actually falling to the ground, and the line stepped over them, and spears in the rear rank rose and fell, the whole phalanx like a loom weaving death.
The Thrake broke. They were being massacred against the round shields, the strength of their charge was spent, and fear took them. They broke and fled into the ford, already choked with latecomers and their own cavalry supports.
Kineas rode up next to Philokles, who was leading his men forward. They were singing, and Kineas had to bellow to be heard. ‘Halt!’ he yelled. He poked Philokles’ helmet with the butt of his javelin. ‘Halt!’
The black spear whirled, and the butt-spite paused a fraction of a foot away from his face. Philokles glared at him with dull recognition. He shouted. His pipe player shrilled a call, and the victorious men of Pantecapaeum stopped. Kineas whirled his mount, put his heels to the stallion’s flanks, and raced to Eumenes.
‘Now!’ he yelled. ‘Into the ford!’
Eumenes wasn’t ready. Clearly, he had been waiting for the fight to develop as Kineas had predicted.
It hadn’t. Kineas had expected the rush of Thrake to push Philokles’ little band back, to give the trap space to develop. Philokles’ victory had happened too fast.
‘Now!’ Kineas bellowed.
Eumenes waved at Clip. ‘Sound: Advance!’ he called.
Kineas rode away, wishing for Niceas. This was too slow — the trap would never be sprung, now. The men of Pantecapaeum had fought too well, and the Thrake had broken too soon. He waved to Nicomedes — harder to see now.
Nicomedes started for the ford, but halted before Kineas reached him.
There wasn’t room for both troops abreast. Eumenes’ men swept by, already at a gallop, and hit the river in a spray of water.
‘Reform the line!’ Kineas yelled. He waved with his sword, and Nicomedes led his cavalry back the little distance they had advanced. Philokles’ men walked backwards, their shields to the enemy. Heron’s troop had never advanced — they were too far to the flank to even see the fighting.
Niceas rode up. ‘We’ll have a camp in an hour,’ he said. He pointed at the ford. ‘What’s that?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘A trap gone wrong,’ he said. ‘Sound the recall.’ Out in the ford, Eumenes’ men were killing fugitive Thrake, but the enemy cavalry were already formed on the far bank.
Eumenes’ men returned in good order, the sting of their rout expunged, and the ford was full of dead men, but the actual damage inflicted on the enemy was slight. He peered into the dusk, trying to read what lay on the other side of the ford. He felt that a taxeis had come up, but he saw no proof.
Behind him, on the ridge, a fire winked into life, and then another.
Memnon’s column marched on to the edge of the dry ground and began to form.
Kineas watched the ford. He praised the men, riding along the line. He took the time to manoeuvre Memnon into the line, right in the centre, facing the ford, with the main phalanx of Pantecapaeum on his right and the epilektoi under Philokles on his left, and the cavalry covering their flanks. By the time they were all in line, Kineas couldn’t see across the river. And there were fires all along the slope of the ridge behind him.
He gathered his officers again, and sent Niceas to get the Sindi blacksmith from his fortress of trees. When they were all present, he saluted them.
‘We stopped them,’ he said. ‘We won the race. We almost hurt them badly. Now we have to hold them until the king comes.’ He looked around in the last light at all the faces — new men and old friends. And Philokles — he couldn’t adapt to Philokles as a killer.
‘This is my plan. The whole army will retire to the ridge, to camp and eat. We’ll hold the ford with a rotation of pickets — cavalry and infantry in every watch, four watches. But…’ He looked around, gathering eyes, making
