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I’d performed the ritual at least a hundred times, but today it did little to still my mind.

“You of the thousand eyes and ten thousand ears,” I murmured under my breath to Mithra. “To the friend of the just and honest man, and also the goddess of the waters, we sacrifice to you.”

The air that stole through the floor cracks of the tent carried the cool of the month of
Bāgayādiš
, the season dedicated to the god Mithra, but my underarms grew damp. Bagoas and the other eunuchs fanned us with peacock-feather fans, which served only to rearrange the air with its stale scents of incense, smoke, and fear.

And then the ground rumbled beneath us and a harried servant burst into our tent. “The cavalry is here!”

I knew not which cavalry she meant, Macedonian or Persian, but fled from the tent to see with my own eyes. Too late, I reared back as a contingent of mounted soldiers surrounded us. A massive Persian barreled toward me on his armored warhorse, a flash of silver armor and yellow silk, just as my grandmother stepped from the tent.

“The Queen Mother,” the man yelled in blessed Aramaic, snapping his fist to his chest and calming his horse. I recognized him then as Bessus, my father’s cousin and
satrap
of Bactria. I was shocked that he’d found a horse able to carry his impressive girth, but his shield was dented and there was a wound at his temple weeping a scarlet trickle of blood. “Hello, cousins,” he said, his eyes flicking over all of us and lingering on my sister. “I came to escort you out of this Macedonian pit.”

For a single moment, there was a swirl of peace and hope. But only for a moment.

“Where is my son?” my grandmother asked.

“I rode into battle at the left of the King of Kings.” Bessus’ eyes scanned our camp and his horse pranced beneath him. “Just before he was engaged by Alexander.”

“And you abandoned him?” My grandmother’s eyes narrowed into a glare sharper than broken glass, regardless of the Persian soldiers and Indian mercenaries who streamed into our camp, their combined forces meant to halt Alexander’s progress.

“The King of Kings never intended to allow you to remain in enemy hands after this battle,” Bessus said. “I volunteered to lead the rescue while Alexander is engaged in the center.”

And from the way he was surveying the carts and our persons, I could imagine he was already tabulating the reward he’d garner from seeing all of it safely returned to my father’s camp.

He could have the entire treasury at Persepolis, so long as he got us out of here.

“And the
sarissas
?” I asked, cursing and choking on the growing cloud of dust. Barsine had said that the pike-wielding infantry would surround us, and I doubted that even a rout would cause Alexander to abandon his Persian prizes.

“Encircled by our right wing,” Bessus said. “But Alexander’s reinforcements will be on their way. We haven’t much time.”

So Alexander still lived. Dread unfurled from my belly, spreading its cold to the tips of my toes and fingers.

“Secure the baggage carts,” Bessus yelled, his chins quivering beneath his helmet’s too-tight chin strap. Hundreds of mounted Persians flooded around us, swooping about like dust-coated angels as they readied the carts filled with Alexander’s precious spoils of war. “Ready the queen mother and the royal family for transport!”

Our attendants scurried to follow the barked commands, to secure the carts and harness the horses. I expected my grandmother to issue her own orders, but she only stood as if frozen, silent and pale.

“We’ll ride together,” I yelled to Bessus. “We’d walk on our hands from here if necessary!”

Bessus grinned, revealing teeth that gleamed a painful white against the grime of his face and helm. “I hope it won’t come to that, daughter of Darius.”

I scrambled into a scythed chariot commanded by a lithe Indian driver with a pointed beard, pulling my trembling sister and grandmother into the basket with me, choking on the hope of the tantalizing taste of freedom denied us these past two years. Barsine was nowhere to be seen, lost in the shining sea of silver helmets and wild-eyed horses trying to break loose.

And then came the cry that tore the air from my lungs.

“Darius has fled! The Greeks are coming!”

Bessus glanced at us, and I knew he was tabulating again: the price of his own skin over the reward he’d reap if he managed to free us.

The odds were against us. He knew it, and I knew it.

“Retreat!” he commanded, but his men weren’t fast enough and a contingent of Greeks fell upon us like a swarm of armored locusts, their terrible battle cries ripping apart the very heavens. The last I saw of Bessus was the saffron flash of his robe as he galloped away.

And blood. Everywhere blood.

Following first my father and then Alexander from battle to battle meant that we’d seen blood and death before, but this was fresh blood from our attendants and soldiers alike, pouring in torrents from stab wounds wrought by
sarissas
and spears, spraying into the dust-choked air as swords slashed and clanged in hand-to-hand combat. There was a thud to my left and I turned in time to see our driver hit the floor of the chariot basket, impaled through his chest and out his back.

Stateira’s scream clawed the air and I grabbed the dangling reins, wrapping them tight around my hand while searching for an escape. A corridor opened between the men and horses to our left, as if Ahura Mazda parted them with his own two hands.

“Hold on!” I screamed to Stateira and our grandmother. I whipped the horses as the chariot lurched over bodies of the dead and dying. Wind whistled in my ears, blocking out the sounds of battle, and we might have made it had it not been for the black-haired Macedonian rushing toward us on horseback, one arm bloodied from a gaping wound while the other raised his sword, ready to fell us where we stood.

Our wretched horses reared, jerking us forward so fast that I lost my grip. The platform lurched beneath my feet and the world slowed as I careened over the basket into the maelstrom. But I’d wrapped the reins too tightly around my hand, anchored to the chariot tighter than the thickest chains. A catastrophe of white light cracked from my shoulder, a streaking pain with more red-hot heat than a thousand forges, and my body snapped back with a shriek of agony. I dangled loose, my feet precariously near the churning wheels, whirling scythes, and pounding horse hooves.

The pain ebbed and my vision faded, but the din of battle followed me into the dark.

The Greek battle cry, the clang of kissing swords, and the screams of the dying. The darkness folded around me until I could no longer fight its smothering embrace.

Everything went silent.

CHAPTER 8

Gaugamela, Persia

Hephaestion

I loathed the bloody Persian Immortals more than the yellow dust that their thousands of feet churned up, clouding my eyes and choking me like an invisible hand around my throat. I cursed the bastards to Hades and back, yet still they came at us, a never-ending hive of wasps that bit and stung and buzzed until I roared in fury and slashed at them from atop my horse while around me Alexander’s Companions took sword and spear wounds to their arms and legs. So close I could spit in his eye, some lucky Persian slashed at a Companion’s neck and was rewarded with a spurt of Macedonian blood.

I cleaved off his sword arm, then dispatched him to his gods.

Before us, thousands of Persian javelin throwers clashed with our lines, some of them pulled from their chariots and hacked to pieces by Macedonian swords.

Beyond the wasps would be Darius, a prize greater even than Homer’s Priam. But we couldn’t get to the Persian coward as one wave of fresh Immortals after another replaced their fallen comrades.

“Die, you filthy bastards,” I cried, feeling no small satisfaction as my sword found its home through a Persian soldier’s ribs. They might be called Immortals, but they died the same as any other men.

“Pests, they are,” Alexander yelled to me, his voice muffled by the metal of my helm and the crush of battle. I could just make out his demonic grin as he plunged his sword into another Persian from atop his warhorse. My sword arm grew weary as more Immortals met a similar fate, but I sensed the opening at precisely the same moment Alexander did.

Being in battle was akin to being lost in a sandstorm of writhing men, with opportunities opening and closing faster than the blink of an eye. It was Alexander’s gift that he saw those openings before they even happened and was willing to pounce on them regardless of whether they swirled close, whether the gods damned his men’s lives or his own.

This was a hole where the left wing met the center, like a gate swinging open to admit us to Darius himself. Even the dust parted for a breath to reveal the middle of the precious Persian defense, beckoning to us with more power than all the Sirens combined.

Alexander screamed the order. “Forward!”

And we charged, all of the Companions and the shield bearers, running double-time with swords and spears and
sarissas
toward victory and everlasting glory. Some were mired down by the enemy, but still we surged forward, swords flashing, and screaming our battle yell with one voice.

And there, beyond the Persian elephants—worthless beasts that had yet to join the fray—was Darius, the King of Kings, resplendent in his new golden chariot and his billowing red cloak. Alexander didn’t hesitate; he slashed with his sword as if cutting away vines in a forest instead of mere men, even as I fought off a snarling Immortal with a beard tangled with dust and spittle, his teeth bared like a rabid wolf’s.

And like a wolf, he lunged at my throat, but he attacked my left with his right, making it easy to parry his long knife as I slammed my shield into his other shoulder, then whirled around to finish him off with a blade in the back. The death wound was as neat as a sacrifice done by a priest’s hand.

I glanced up as the cursed Immortals launched a volley of spears at us in retaliation and ducked my head beneath my shield on instinct, feeling one of the weapons clatter off the edge. Then, like an idiot without the good sense he was born with, I straightened too soon and bellowed as one of the Immortals’ short throwing spears found a home in my right forearm. Dumbstruck, I stared at the wooden shaft embedded in my flesh.

I’d been wounded before, my legs and arms riddled with reminders of when I should have feinted instead of blocked, or withdrawn instead of lunging forward. But it’s a rare day when a man has a spear buried in his bloody arm.

And blood there was, although no pain. At least not yet.

The weapon had missed the bone and only pinioned the flesh of my arm—thank Zeus I had thick arms and this one wouldn’t be joining the other dismembered limbs strewn about the battlefield.

And there was no time to pull out the spear, not unless I wanted several more spears in my hide. Instead, I kicked my heels into my horse’s ribs, muttering a prayer to Ares to guide Alexander through the haze of dust, far too easy a target in his shining helmet with its white feathers and dyed red horse’s tail. And beyond that, within range and with only a handful of Immortals in between us, was Darius, the King of Kings.

Alexander saw the opportunity, lifted his spear, and launched it toward the target of Darius’ red cloak. It was a flawless throw, but we weren’t the only ones to realize that. In the basket next to the Persian king, the driver saw his chance for glory and shoved Darius to the side. Instead of marking its target, Alexander’s spear skewered the charioteer, the weapon thrown with such force that it pierced the boiled leather breastplate of his armor. The unfortunate man stumbled, then pitched backward from the golden chariot, leaving Darius alone and unprotected.

But Darius had experience in this sort of maneuver, and I knew before he grabbed the reins what he would do.

“Stop him!” Alexander thundered, but it was too late. The cowardly King of Kings flogged his horse, his Immortals clearing a path to safety for their beloved leader.

The Royal Road lay to the southeast of Gaugamela, a haven stretching all the way to Babylon. A place for Darius to lick his wounds, raise another army, and plot to fight another day.