penetrating his leather armour. He was deep in their formation now – no fault of his own – but the men around him seemed uninterested in fighting him. He cut down two more, riding in close and stabbing, and saw Coenus's blue plume. He leaned and his horse obeyed his change of seat, turning sharply. He parried a cut and got his charger in close to Coenus.
And there was Melitta. He watched her shoot a man out of the saddle. She used her bow the way another fighter would use a lance – close in. Even as he watched, she put the point of an arrow almost against a man's chest and released as she rode by, so that he exploded backwards over the tail of his horse.
And then he saw Eumeles. The tall man was fighting with a mace, a long-handled weapon with a head of solid gold. Whatever his failing, he was no coward.
If Satyrus had had a javelin, he could have killed the man easily.
Nothing worth doing is ever easy.
Satyrus pushed his borrowed horse forward and slammed into Eumeles' horse, head to flank, so that the other horse stumbled – a magnificent white charger, probably a Nisaean.
Eumeles turned and swung the mace, catching Satyrus's horse a glancing blow on the head – and then their eyes locked.
'Here's where we settle the battle,' Eumeles said.
Satyrus's horse was hurt – it bucked, rose on its haunches and shook. Satyrus struggled to keep his seat and Eumeles swung at him with the mace, catching his left hand on the reins.
Satyrus rammed his heels into his horse to no effect. He cut at Eumeles, but the taller man had a better horse and managed to stay just out of his reach. He flicked the mace and Satyrus only just avoided losing his sword.
'I kill you, and the rest is easy,' Eumeles said.
Satyrus couldn't control his mount, and Coenus was locked spear to spear with another man. Satyrus's thoughts flashed to Sappho: Eumeles could say the same of your mother! He killed her because he feared her!
Satyrus's horse was shuddering. The mace blow had hurt it – there was blood in one ear.
'Kill me, and you will still lose this battle.' Satyrus had to shout, but Eumeles heard. 'And your kingdom. You are a fool, Eumeles.'
Eumeles flushed with anger. Being smarter – cleverer – than other men was the measure of his life. The word 'fool' carried. It struck like a blow.
Satyrus followed it up as if it was part of a combination. Just for a moment, the gods gave him control of his horse. He thumped its sides like a boy on his first horse and it leaped forward, breast to breast with the big Nisaean. Satyrus let go of the reins and got his left hand on Eumeles' elbow as he cocked back his mace for the final strike and pushed – the simplest of pankration moves. Then he smashed the pommel of his father's sword into the open face of Eumeles' helmet.
Satyrus's horse stumbled but he managed to cut the tyrant across the thigh under his guard, then he caught at Eumeles and dragged him from the saddle as his own horse went down. The tyrant screamed, front teeth gone, and rolled clear. Satyrus grabbed his ankle and got a kick in the head from his free leg. Satyrus was on the ground but he cut overhand with the sword in his right hand and landed a blow on Eumeles' breastplate. It held. Eumeles had his hand on his sword and he drew it and kicked Satyrus again. Satyrus rolled and parried. He locked his legs around the other man's trunk and sat up. His side flared like fire, but he got his sword point in under Eumeles' arm-
An arrow had appeared in Eumeles' throat. Satyrus looked up and Melitta was leaning over, reaching for another arrow.
'We got him!' she shouted. 'Now it's our time!'
Satyrus sat still for long heartbeats, looking into the empty eyes of his enemy. There was, truly, nothing there.
'You need a horse,' Coenus said.
Satyrus forced himself to his feet, his gut throbbing. Coenus had the tyrant's Nisaean. He looked taller than a mountain.
I get to try this once, Satyrus thought. And then I just won't be able to.
He got up on an aspis and flung himself – fatigue, hurt gut, arm wound and all – at the saddle. He got his right knee over the horse's back and clung – a pitful figure of a king, he assumed – for a long moment, and then his knees were locked against the tall horse's sides and he had the reins in his hand. He pulled off his helmet and gulped air. No one was watching except Coenus, who looked concerned, and Satyrus managed a smile.
He looked around. Eumeles' centre was going with his death. The Sauromatae in the middle had had enough, and they broke, and the Olbians and the best of the Sakje knights exploded through them, shredding their formation and then harrying the survivors. Satyrus let them go, pulling up in the dust to check his own wound. He felt weak. But he was alive.
The blood from his gut ran all the way down his crotch, but it was slowing. Unless the tip had been poisoned…
The thought made him feel weak. And it hurt.
Coenus reined in at his side. 'How bad, king?'
Satyrus had to smile. 'You've never called anyone king, old man!'
Coenus pointed behind them. 'Eumeles is dead. You are the king. I ought to get you off the field.'
Satyrus shook his head. 'No king worth following would quit the field until it was won. Upazan's still on the field,' he said, 'and Nikephoros. Find me that trumpeter and rally the Olbians. We need to help somebody. My money is on Ataelus.'
Coenus found the hyperetes, and the trumpet calls to rally rang out over the rout of the centre. Melitta heard the calls and she slowed Gryphon. She was unwounded, and he was still as strong as he'd been when she mounted in the morning. She patted his neck and looked for Scopasis – right at her elbow.
Behind him, Laen and Agreint and Bareint and all the rest of her knights. No one seemed to be missing.
No brother.
'Where's my brother?' she asked.
Scopasis shook his head. His full-faced Thracian helmet made him look sinister, a monster with a beard of bronze. 'I saw him remount,' he said. 'Coenus put him up on Eumeles' horse.' He shrugged. 'You ride away. I follow you.'
The Sindi waved an axe. 'We broke them!' he shouted.
She wished she had her own trumpeter. The Olbian hyperetes was sounding a recall, but he was a stade behind her and half of the centre was with her, the rest far down the field.
'We should go to the left,' she said.
No one questioned her. So they turned their horses east, ignoring the call of the trumpet. Men formed on her household – many of them Sakje, like Parshtaevalt, who came and rode with her as they turned.
'Lady!' he said.
'Parshtaevalt!' she called. 'I need to know what's happening on the left!'
She borrowed his trumpeter and together they rallied much of the centre and faced them to the left. It took time, and she could hear fighting – heavy fighting – in the haze to the east.
Kairax went himself, and came back when they had three hundred knights, all facing east with the setting sun at their backs.
'The Greeks are spear to spear and breast to breast,' Kairax said. 'No one will give a step. The farmers carry all before them, but they will not try the flank of the phalanx. And who can blame them?'
Melitta took a deep breath. With one order, she would expend her last throw of the dice. Could her three hundred break Nikephoros?
They had failed the day before.
She rode out a pace and turned her horse so that she faced the Sakje knights.
'We will go right into the back of the phalanx,' she said. 'There must be no hesitation. No warning. There will be no second time and no arrow rush. Are you ready?'
Most men nodded, tipping the plumes of their helmets so that they seemed to ripple.
'Let's do the thing,' Parshtaevalt said. Satyrus felt the pain in his gut spreading to his limbs, and he wondered again if there was poison, or if cowardice was spreading to his groin like the pain. While the Olbian cavalry rallied –
