God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

flunkies we became after Gaugamela that every man within a stade knew that Nicanor led the charge and Nicanor had his orders from the king.

Nicanor slammed into the Greek mercenaries – the best infantry Darius had, except possibly his Immortal Guards. His attack was executed faultlessly, at the double – the most difficult speed for formed troops, but devastating if delivered perfectly, and the hypaspitoi were the essence of perfection that day. They struck the Greeks, who were waiting at a stand, crumpled their front ranks and shoved their entire phalanx back ten horse lengths.

The Greeks held. But only just, and as soon as the pushing started, they were at a disadvantage – literally, rocked back on their heels.

Now every man in the Persian ranks opposite my taxeis was looking to his left, watching. Because suddenly the Persian Immortals were naked – their own left flank now hanging in the air.

I stepped forward. The Immortals were lofting arrows, but from a stade’s distance, they were more an irritation than a threat. And it told me that the Immortals were shaken.

‘Ready!’ I bellowed like a bull.

Sixteen hundred voices roared.

‘Spears! Down!’ I ordered. Two hundred and fifty files, covering more than a stade – only four or six deep. But the spears came down from the high carry to the attack.

I tucked myself back into my place. Latched my cheek-flaps. Now my view of the battle was cut again – from the panorama of the dusty line to the tunnel that led from me to the sun disc standard of the Immortals. Under their standards, they stood in perfect rows – sons of noblemen, in fine scale armour, with heavy spears and beautiful recurved bows; their alien trousers tucked into boots made of the finest leather; every man had on him enough gold to pay a file of Macedonian phalangites for a year. The officers had long beards like old-fashioned Greeks, and a few had them hennaed bright red.

‘Front! March!’ I called.

Opposite me, orders were being roared in Persian.

To my left, Coenus was matching his front rank to mine. He was eight deep, and would be more fearsome. His men overlapped the Persian guards and were facing more Greek mercenaries.

A few arrows came in, and then a volley, all loosed together – someone had fucked that up, as we were still well out.

‘At the double! March, march!’ I roared. I had not, until that moment, intended to duplicate the prowess of the hypaspitoi and charge at the double. But the early, sloppy volley of arrows gave me a slight edge. If we hurried. Perhaps Apis inspired me, or Herakles, my ancestor.

Had even one sarissa-man in the front rank tripped over a rock, or taken an arrow in the throat, it might have unravelled our front rank.

Ten horse lengths out. You can see men’s faces under their helmets.

Five, and all you feel is the gravel under your feet. There are no more thoughts, no more observations. You are no longer hot or cold, nervous, terrified, or even calm.

You are the spear. And the moment.

Men tell wonderful tales of combat. I do myself. Most of it is lies and impressions gathered up by the mind after the fact, with the lies of others added in for good measure. But I remember two parts of that fight.

Our line was well formed when we hit. That, by itself, was a miracle. So I was neither ahead of nor behind the rest of the rank when I struck, and because we slightly overlapped the end of the Immortals’ line where the Greeks had been shoved away from them, I passed the end of their line, ran a few paces and watched my men crash into the Immortals like a mighty wave on a calm beach which heralds the coming of a storm. Five or six files were with me, and we wheeled – an orderly not-quite-mob – into their left flank. A man’s left flank is his shielded flank, and ordinarily, this flank is not particularly productive to strike – especially as we were so few, just thirty men, and we couldn’t strike deep.

But the Immortals had kept their bows in their hands too long, and were still getting them back in their cases, and someone had ordered the rear ranks to keep shooting.

I had my best new spear in my hand, overhand as on the old vases, and I was killing men before I reached their line – shieldless men with too little armour. The overhand spear thrust comes down from above, into the throat, into the top of the thigh, into the breastbone, into the helmet. Without a shield, a man is all but helpless before it.

We were just thirty men, but we must have put twice that number on the ground in the time it took Perdiccas’s men to give our charge and Coenus’s three cheers. The Immortals were already jumpy – the Greek mercenaries had recoiled again – and they flinched from our attack into their flanks, and the front didn’t stand its ground.

I still had my eyes on that great golden disc. I didn’t know whether it was the king’s or just the banner of the Immortals, but I killed my way towards it.

I had a wonderful new sword – my favourite, I think, of all the swords I’d ever had. Thais gave it to me. It was a simple kopis, neither long nor short, not even fancy – but magnificently balanced, so that it felt like a feather – a deadly feather – in the hand. And yet, whatever I hit, parted. Flesh, leather, bronze – at one point, my beautiful sword cut through the iron rim of a Persian shield.

My Ionians were singing the paean. I had forgotten – we Macedonians don’t usually sing it after we leave camp. But it was beautiful. And the brashness of it killed the Persians as thoroughly as our spears.

A big man came out of the dust. A man with a hennaed beard – an officer with more gold on him than Thais wore as an Aegyptian priestess, and his first blow took the head off my best spear, and he hammered me with a long-handled axe, and his blows began to destroy my aspis.

I made myself push forward into his blows, but a blow from outside my field of vision knocked the sword from my hand. I got a hand on his right elbow and shoved him – turned him – hammered the rim of my aspis into the small of his back and he roared, and I got a leg behind his as he cut back into me, put his arse against my hip and flipped him with my sword arm, over my hip and into the dust – kicked him, and then fell on him with my dagger from my side, and he was leaking in the sand and I was up and moving.

Another man – smaller, with a hooked sword that scored past my dented aspis on my greave, but didn’t penetrate – hurt anyway – and I left my dagger in his guts. And by sheer luck and the will of Ares, or Zeus-Apis, my Athenian sword was lying so close to my feet that I all but cut my foot on the blade. I reached down and she came to my hand like a lover. I stood straight and looked around.

I’d left all my men behind. I’m a good strategos but sometimes a poor soldier. How often did phylarchs tell new men never to leave the ranks?

But the disc of the golden sun was right there. It was as if I could hear the king telling me: Whatever you do, if your men are advancing into the Persians and killing them, you are doing my will.

Off to the right, behind my head, the earth trembled. Two thousand horses went from a walk to a gallop, aimed at a gap only slightly wider than the base of Alexander’s wedge – but the shoulder of the gap was held now by the hypaspitoi, and the Persians could no longer move front-line men to fill the gap.

I’ve used this metaphor before – but it’s like that moment in a match, in pankration or wrestling, when you know – you know – that you have made an error, and it is going to hurt. You have bought a feint, or you have missed a hold, and now, before your heart beats again or you can do anything, his elbow is going to slam into your head. You know?

That’s what Darius must have felt. The battle proper was still less than half an hour old, and Darius must have known, right then.

The rear ranks of the Immortals were a bloody shambles, but they were game, and every one of them was struggling to push back the front-rankers, stabilise the formation and save the standard. My moment of calm was past, and I was all but buried in opponents. Spears rang off my aspis and my helmet, and I staggered.

But combat is a complex dance, and what can I say? I was lifted above myself. A blow pushed my helmet back against my face, and the pain transformed the fight – in an instant, I was a little faster for the rage, a little stronger . . .

My aspis swung at nose height, flat like a plate, and two men took its force, their faces crushed, and I was into the hole like water through a breaking dam, my kopis like a predatory bird taking insects at the edge of night,