opponent was down and Satyrus was forward a step. Rafik’s man was uncovered to his right, and his spear was there, scoring a clean hit on the man’s helmet. His point didn’t penetrate but the man’s head snapped back and he stumbled and Rafik stepped on the man and went forward and Rafik’s file-follower put his butt-spike through the man’s chest. Satyrus’s opponent roared, pushed his shield and Diokles killed him over Satyrus’s shoulder and Satyrus leaped forward to cover Philokles, who had put another man down and was moving forward again. The men behind the man facing Philokles were flinching away.
Now Satyrus was chest to chest with another man. His opponent dropped his sarissa and ripped his sword from the scabbard and Satyrus felt the wash of the man’s onion breath on his face and he was pushed back and the ranks locked – Abraham grunting, and Namastis shouting in Aegyptian.
Satyrus’s spear broke in his hands, trapped against a shield. He swung the butt-spike like a mace and scored against the tip of the big Macedonian’s shoulder where his shield didn’t cover it, and then his body moved as if he was making a sacrifice – hand up, grab the hilt under his armpit, sword drawn, down, over, the feint – back cut. The Macedonian missed his parry, his kopis over-committed, and his wrist bones parted as Satyrus’s blade cut through his arm and glanced off the faceplate on the other man’s Thracian helmet. The blood from his severed hand sprayed and blinded Satyrus, and he flinched, stumbled – but forward, because Diokles shoved him and then stabbed at his next opponent over his head, saving his life. A sword scraped along Satyrus’s helmet and he lost a piece of his left ear, although he didn’t feel it.
‘One more step!’ the voice of the war god said. ‘Now!’
The whole Phalanx of Aegypt planted and pushed. The Macedonian phalanx shuddered, and then, as if, having given one step, they could give another, they fell back.
And now the Aegyptians caught fire. Maybe they’d never believed. Or maybe they’d just hoped – but in those seconds, those heartbeats, the same message went out to every man in the taxeis.
We are the better men.
‘Alexandria!’ Namastis called. He was the first, Satyrus thought, but then everyone was shouting.
Then there was no battle cry that any one man could discern but a roar, a roar of rage and triumph and fear – the bronze-lunged voice of Ares – and the enemy phalanx gave another step, another. Something had broken at the back and the spears were dropping, and suddenly there was Nothing. Scattered men stood confused in front of Satyrus, the enemies too foolish to have broken, and Satyrus killed one without thinking, stepping up to the man and cutting – one, two, three, as fast as thought.
‘Ares,’ Philokles said. He sounded weak. ‘Satyrus! We’re not done. Rally them. Rafik, sound the rally!’
Satyrus looked back. He couldn’t see anything behind him but his own men, but to the side, there were still enemies – some so close that he could hear the orders their officers shouted.
The notes of the rally sounded. Philokles was leaning on his spear. Satyrus thought that he was just breathing hard, but then he saw that there was blood all down the Spartan’s legs – pouring away from under his bronze breastplate.
‘I’ll go for Theron,’ Satyrus said.
‘No time,’ Philokles said. His knees went, and he slid down his spear, but he didn’t turn his head. ‘Right into their flank – now, boy, before they recover.’ His arm shot out, pointing at the uncovered flank of the enemy phalanx, and Philokles fell just that way, his face to the enemy, his arm pointing the path to victory.
And Satyrus did not flinch. He stepped across Philokles, the same way he’d stepped across the deck of the Golden Lotus, as if he’d done it all his life – although the man he loved best in all the world lay in the sand at his feet.
Diokles snapped forward to fill his place.
‘We will wheel the taxeis to the left!’ Satyrus called. ‘On my command! ’
Through the cheekpieces of his helmet, it sounded remarkably like Philokles’ voice, right down to the Laconian drawl. ‘March!’ he roared.
The taxeis pivoted on Theron, the left-most man – unless he, too, was dead. This was the manoeuvre they had so often done wrong – this was where the centre of the line would fold, eager men going too fast, terrified men going too slow.
Halfway around. All the time to consider how much like sailing a trireme it was to command a phalanx. All the time to watch the men opposite him. They were turning, but men at the back were already giving way, running for their lives past their file-closers. There was no hope for a phalanx taken in the flank.
The taxeis of Alexandria pivoted well enough. The centre buckled at the end – someone tripped, a man got a butt-spike in the head and the spears were still down, not erect. Too close for that.
Too late to worry. ‘Three-step charge!’ Satyrus called.
Rafik sounded it.
Only half the files responded. The centre was a wreck, just from two men going down and the spears of their files flying in all directions. Theron’s end of the line never heard the command, or if they did they didn’t respond.
It didn’t matter. Because the fifty files that did respond covered the distance to the enemy at the run, and their shields deflected the handful of sarissas that opposed them, and then their spears were into the flank of the enemy, and the enemy regiment collapsed and ran like a herd of panicked cattle – two thousand men turned into a mob in a matter of heartbeats. Satyrus, the rightmost man of his line, never reached an enemy – by the time he’d crossed the space, they were gone.
They were gone, and the White Shields were unblocked. They had started to cheer. However late they had come into the fight, they were moving – wheeling to the left, just as the Alexandrians had done.
Philemon, the polemarch of the White Shields, was calling to Theron, and Theron came running across the face of the victorious Alexandrians. ‘Drink water!’ Satyrus called. No one left the ranks to pursue the fleeing Macedonians. Instead, a few men cheered, the rest simply stopped. Like exhausted runners at the end of a race.
‘Philokles?’ Theron asked. His nose was broken under his helmet, and blood covered his breastplate. He had blood on his hands.
‘Down,’ Satyrus said.
‘Philemon wants us to march to the right to make space for him,’ Theron said. ‘I’ll take your orders,’ he continued.
‘Good,’ Satyrus said. He stood straight. He wanted to laugh at the notion that the taxeis of half-soldiers from Alexandria were being asked to face to the right and advance by files – a hard enough manoeuvre on the parade square – on a battlefield.
He did what he’d seen Philokles do. He ran all the way down the front rank, repeating the command – again and again. He waited precious seconds, the polemarch of the White Shields yelling from further to the left. He ignored him, waiting for the phylarchs to pass the word back. Then he sprinted to Rafik, cursing his greaves. They were eating his ankles.
‘Face to the spear side!’ he ordered. ‘March!’
As one – almost as one, because he watched Dionysius face the shield side and then pivot on his heel – the Phalanx of Aegypt faced to the right and marched off – one hundred, two hundred paces deeper into the enemy lines.
From here, on the front right of the phalanx, Satyrus could see all the way to the cavalry fight on the left – could see the forty-elephant reserve.
‘Theron,’ he shouted. Satyrus pulled his helmet off. ‘Face to the shield side! Restore your files! Dress!’
They knew the facing order was coming and they did it like professionals, and then the ranks dressed. Next to them, the White Shields wheeled up into the new line, while to their front, the next enemy phalanx began to shirk and flutter and men on the flanks realized what was coming.
Theron appeared from the dust as if by the hand of some god. ‘Polemarch?’ he asked.
‘Go and find Philokles. Save him if you can.’ Satyrus had his war voice on – no quaver of emotion. Why can’t you be like this all the time? Melitta had asked him once. He wondered where she was and if she was alive.
‘I’m the left phylarch-’
‘If we don’t flinch from the contest, nothing on earth or in the heavens can save the army of Demetrios,’ Satyrus said. He pointed to where, before they were even charged, the centre phalanx of the enemy was melting away, throwing down their sarissas. Even the sudden arrival of the reserve elephants might not save Demetrios
