Authors: Christian Cameron
Tyrant (52 page)
‘Zeus, they take their time,’ he muttered.
Niceas refused to answer, knowing this mood of old, and busied himself checking the column. Kineas decided to join him. He rode along the ranks. Most of the troopers looked nervous.
‘Let your horse do the work,’ he heard Niceas saying to a group of Leucon’s young men.
‘No different from a hunt. Place your javelin and ride on,’ Kineas said to the men behind Eumenes. Even Eumenes looked pale.
Nicomedes and Leucon came down the hill at a rush. Kineas met them at the head of the column. ‘You see it?’ he asked.
Leucon was paler than Eumenes. ‘I - think so. South around the bluff here, and then along the river bank under what cover I can find, and then hard back into the town to cut their retreat and break their resistance.’
Kineas put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘You have it well enough.’ He wanted to get on with it but he took the time to say, ‘This may not work. There may be an irrigation ditch or something that blocks your movement. Perhaps the Getae have scouts down that way.’ He shrugged, despite the weight of his armour. ‘From this moment - take it as it comes to you. You’ll be fine.’
If his words had any good effect, Kineas couldn’t see it. Leucon looked almost paralysed.
‘On your way, Leucon,’ Kineas said crisply.
Leucon saluted, arm across his chest, and waved to Eumenes. The first troop moved out at the trot, and Nicomedes’ older troop watched them go, calling encouragement - sometimes, fathers encouraging sons.
‘First action,’ Kineas said. He had his own nerves.
‘They ain’t bad, for rich boys,’ Niceas said. He was picking his teeth with a tough grass stem. ‘They needed a speech - something about the gods and their city.’
‘No, they didn’t,’ Kineas said. He put his horse to the slope, and Niceas followed him with Nicomedes just behind. ‘Hold the horses,’ he said to Niceas. He and Nicomedes crawled on their bellies the last few feet to the summit. The Sakje had pulled branches from weedy bushes to cover their hide.
From the bluff, Kineas could see ten stades in every direction. The Getae had been fools not to put a sentry here, but they really were barbarians, and they thought they were at liberty to loot in an undefended land.
To the south, Leucon’s column was now in a file of twos, a blue and gold caterpillar crawling across a narrow ditch. Nonetheless, he was making good progress.
Kineas’s own tensions shot up as he realized how close his timing would have to be.
The Getae in the village street were preparing to rush the last house. Five houses had their roofs afire. The body of the woman lay naked and unmoving in the street.
There were two hundred Getae, give or take a dozen. Most were gathered thick around the town, looting the houses or preparing to take the last one. A few were straggling to the north, chasing some goats. And a dozen more to the south.
‘Fuck,’ Kineas said. He leaped to his feet and ran for his horse, Nicomedes hard on his heels.
‘They’re going to see Leucon any second. We have to go.’
Nicomedes looked at him without comprehension, but he followed, leaping on to his horse’s back like a professional. Niceas got up and raised an eyebrow.
Kineas got to the head of the column and waved to the right. ‘Column until we round the bluff. We’ll form line as soon as we’re in the fields. Right through the town - kill anyone in your path and keep the line straight even if you have to go around buildings. This won’t be like drill. And gentlemen - if all else fails, kill every Getae to come under your hand. They’re the ones with tattoos.’
No one laughed. Veterans would have laughed.
‘Walk,’ Kineas called. Niceas’s trumpet was out, but silent. Surprise was still possible.
Nicomedes said, ‘I don’t understand.’
Kineas turned on his mount. ‘Trot!’ he shouted. To Nicomedes, he said, ‘There’s Getae south of the village - they’ll spot Leucon and call their friends. The whole fight will now happen down by the river, and if we’re not quick, a lot of young men will die.’
Nicomedes shook his head. ‘You
see
this?’
see
this?’
Kineas had lived his whole life as a soldier largely unable to communicate just how clearly he could read a battlefield. ‘Yes,’ he said.
The head of the column rounded the flank of the bluff, and the village was immediately visible.
‘Form line!’ Kineas called.
Now a winter’s training told. Despite their fears, they responded crisply enough to the orders, and even the corner of a boundary hedge that blocked the last formation of the line didn’t slow them - the end files fell back and the line advanced in good order.
‘Ajax - collect the last four files and keep them as a reserve. Follow the main charge.’ Kineas waved at them, and Ajax turned out of the line at a gallop.
Kineas took a javelin in his free hand and raised it so that inexperienced troopers could see that it was time to ready themselves.
Nicomedes had his in hand. His face was set, and he looked old.
‘They still haven’t seen us,’ Kineas said. ‘That won’t last, and I want to get their minds off Leucon.’
Nicomedes shrugged. ‘You are commanding my troop,’ he said without bitterness. ‘I’m a trooper. Command me.’
Kineas felt vaguely guilty that he had seized command - but he wanted this to go well. The future morale and quality of the whole would depend on this one action. Victory would build confidence. Defeat would shatter it.
At the edge of town, a man in a red cloak rode into view, turned, and shouted.
A stade to go.
‘Shouldn’t we charge?’ Nicomedes asked, shouting to be heard.
‘Still too far,’ said Niceas. ‘It all looks closer than it is, the first few times,’ he said.
Kineas farted, and his hands began to shake. Red cloak was pointing urgently, and men were joining him. Kineas had time to wonder how a man fated to die at a different river weeks from now could be so afraid, and then he forced himself to turn his head, glanced north and south, and assured himself that he was not riding into the jaws of a trap.
‘Now!’ he said to Niceas.
Niceas’s trumpet came up, catching the sun in a blinding dazzle as he settled it to his lips and the long call began.
Nicomedes sang.
Come, Apollo, now if ever!
Let us now thy Glory see!
Now, Lord of Light, we pray thee,
Give thy servants victory!
By the third word, the troop vented their fear in song, and the Paean rose to the heavens like the smoke of the vanquished towns, and their hooves pounded the earth like a tide of vengeance flowing from the east.
Kineas leaned low over the neck of his grey stallion and dug in his heels for a final burst of speed, throwing his javelin side-armed into red cloak - his throw was high, and the point took the man in the mouth. His head seemed to cave in and Kineas was past him, whirling his heavy javelin like a scythe, seeking only to widen the hole he had made, but Niceas had killed his man and suddenly they were in the streets of the village. The handful of dismounted Getae died against the log walls, or pinned to the mud of the street, or trampled to death by a hundred hooves, and then the line burst out of the village. To the south, Nicomedes had led the right of the line around the town and they were in good order. To the north, there was chaos - a fight around a barn, and a tangle of hedge, and no officer.
‘Ajax!’ Kineas called. ‘Sort that out.’ He waved his sword at the mêlée at the barn. Where was his good javelin? Why was his sword out?
With half the men, he started down the slope towards the river, where he could hear sounds of fighting. ‘Line!’ he shouted. He didn’t slow down his canter, and they came on like veterans, galloping up to take their places in the line despite the many men missing. His horse was tired - almost blown, and the other horses would be worse. Too late for that. He pointed his line as best he could at where he imagined the fight to be, just past the crest of the low ridge that lined the river, waited a few strides of his stallion to let the line adjust, and raised his sword. Niceas put the trumpet to his lips, and the call rang out, and then they were over the rise - straight into the rear of the Getae, not a line but a series of knots of men facing Leucon’s outnumbered line.
Kineas had no javelin. He rode straight into one of the knots, cutting with his Egyptian blade. His horse reared, shying from a corpse, and then struck with his hooves. A blow on his back plate, and a line of fire along the top of his bridle arm - he cut back on instinct and felt the blade hit home, his eyes only seeing the target after the sword had fully severed the man’s hand above the wrist - Kineas’s horse danced again, and Kineas cut back with the whole weight of his arm and severed the man’s head, so that it rose a few inches and then fell, blood fountaining from the stump of the arm and neck and the trunk slipping from a now terrified horse. Kineas reined his stallion in a tight circle, looking for a new opponent. He saw Eumenes locked in a grapple with a Getae warrior, and even as he watched the two fell from their horses. Eumenes landed on top, and his opponent had the wind crushed out of him, and Eumenes’ fevered hands found a rock and smashed the man’s head.
A few strides away, Nicomedes killed carefully, fastidiously, like a cat, his javelin licking out into men’s faces and necks. In fact, he fought like a hoplite mounted on a horse - Kineas had never seen a javelin used that way, like a six-foot sword.
Just beyond the last knot of barbarians still fighting, Kineas found Leucon, clear of the mêlée, restraining a few files from the slaughter. The Getae were broken, panicked, seeking only escape, and the Olbians were not giving any quarter - they had ridden through the village to reach the fight, and they were in an angry mood. And they were fresh troops in their first action - all their fear was being vented on the beaten enemy.
‘I thought I should keep a few men back,’ Leucon shouted.
‘Well done,’ Kineas called, just as his stallion paused, and then, in a long, slow fall, collapsed and died, blood gushing from a wound in his neck.
The Getae had been surprised and disordered in each combat, and the Persian stallion was the only casualty among the Olbians. By the time the routed enemy were butchered, over a hundred Getae were dead, and the Olbians killed the seriously wounded barbarians at Niceas’s order. Few enough of the Getae had died fighting - most had been hacked down after they broke, pinned against the swollen waters of the river. More had drowned trying to swim to safety.
‘No prisoners, the way we’re moving. And no soldier worth a fuck leaves a man to die like that,’ Niceas said to a group of red-faced Olbians. They were cooling down. Now was the time to give quarter. ‘If they can walk, let them go.’ To Kineas, he said, ‘What do we do with all these corpses? Our rich boys won’t want to bury them.’
‘They seem quick enough to loot them,’ Kineas said. Even the most starry-eyed, Achilles-loving stripling among the cavalry was taking his turn cutting gold and silver rings from the fallen Getae.
‘How do you think they got to be rich boys?’ Niceas sneered.
‘Leave the dead for the crows,’ Kineas said. ‘I want to move as soon as we can. Make that Sindi farmer see sense - him and his fellows.’ Kineas turned to Ataelus, who had missed the action scouting north of the village but had managed to acquire four new horses anyway. ‘Ataelus - make him see sense. They have to come with us.’
‘Column of refugees will only slow us down,’ Niceas said.
Kineas smiled grimly. ‘I want to be slowed down,’ he said.
Ataelus shook his head. ‘Men stay to bury,’ he said.
‘Take me to him,’ Kineas said. He had to walk - his riding horse was lame and his stallion dead - the finest horse he had ever owned. To Niceas, he said, ‘Get the best horse available - get two or three.’
Niceas shook his head. ‘Sorry the grey bastard died. I’ll miss him. Like an old friend.’
‘Better a horse than a man,’ Kineas said, but he had kept that stallion alive for three years, and the grey bastard had done the same for him. He followed the Sakje to a group of Sindi men - heavily built, squat, with broad faces and red hair, most of them. They were burying children, and the woman who had been raped and killed. Kineas tried not to look at her - wondered if he could have saved her by a simple charge into the town.
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