Tyrant: Force of Kings (51 page)

Stratokles had been standing with his men, and with Herakles – now the taxiarch of two thousand Ionian hoplites. Herakles saluted smartly. Satyrus waved, and Stratokles mounted, and they rode back up the column.

Stratokles took Lysimachos aside and spoke to him – low tones, urgency.

Then he came back out of the tent to Satyrus and mounted. ‘The thing is done,’ he said. ‘I’m going to lead my men.’

Satyrus went back into the tent – already too hot. Lysimachos was putting on his armour.

‘You may stay here,’ he told the Macedonian strategos. ‘The Bosporons and my Thracians are marching. And we will march all night.’

The first cavalry skirmish was so obviously a feint that Demetrios ignored it and led his cavalry east, looking for Lysimachos. But before the day was two hours old, his pater sent a recall, claiming that there were thousands – that was the word the messenger said – thousands of cavalry coming up the lake road from Synadda.

Demetrios’s men were in high training, and they responded perfectly, so that his rough skirmish line going west changed front to the south in half an hour, and they began to sweep back south and west. The centre of the line contacted enemy cavalry north of the road, and Demetrios ran out of daylight trying to cut them off. But at nightfall, he rode the line of his campfires. He had secured his father from surprise. And his best men picked up a pair of prisoners that confirmed his suspicion. He was facing Seleucus. From the south.

‘Good for Neron,’ he said.

In the mists before true dawn, he brought up the best of his own Companions. He briefed his officers in the courtyard of the temple at Cybele, and many of them prayed there. The omens were all auspicious.

His enemy’s omens must have been auspicious, too. Demetrios came down the hills into the denser mist of the valley floor, his cavalry line formed parallel to the road, visible across the plain, and the enemy charged him – formed wedges of professional cavalry on superb horses.

Both sides charged twice. They were well matched. Demetrios killed a Macedonian officer in the second charge – someone important – and then there were armoured troopers in blue cloaks on his southern flank, and he extricated his Companions as carefully as he’d engaged them, picked up his Greek mercenaries and came down the hills a third time, to find the road empty.

Throwing out scouts in all directions, he followed them.

He caught them again just as the last mist burned off – a brilliant day with a few high clouds. And there were the blue cloaks – almost a thousand of them. He was close enough to see that their leader was an old man.

Demetrios knew them. They’d captured him as a boy. He nodded.

‘Horns of the Bull,’ he ordered his Greek cavalry on either flank.

And then the folds of earth north of the road sprouted Persians, like Jason sowing dragon’s teeth.

Demetrios had to allow himself to be pushed all the way back to his hills. Only there, when he linked up with his father’s cavalry, could he rally.

But with four thousand more cavalry, he could rule them. He turned about one more time, despite the fatigue of his best men, and pushed down the hills one more time.

The blue cloaks and their Persians had to give the ground now. There was no fighting at all. Both sides were too professional to waste men on a declined engagement. The blue cloaks retreated south down the road, and the Persians covered their flanks.

And then something struck Demetrios in the left flank like a thunderbolt.

Scopasis reined in, wrenching his lance from the corpse of the man he’d gaffed like a fisherman would gaff a salmon in the Tanais River. It took both hands and the strength of his horse to drag the head clear. And the point was bent – the spear ruined.

Melitta put her head down and galloped clear of her own line, headed uphill. Her trumpeter stuck with her. They climbed away from the fight until she could see.

The sun was setting and the road shone like a silver ribbon in the pale green fields on either side. The dust clouds of the cavalry moving below her looked like dandelion tufts.

She was in some enemy’s flank. Her people had ridden all day for this moment, and she wasn’t going to stop them, even though below her a pair of adolescent girls were beheading a man, and another was being scalped, alive.

She took a deep breath.

‘Blow “look at me”.’

The trumpeter put her gold trumpet to her mouth and blew, long and hard, and every tribesman’s head turned.

Melitta raised her spear and pointed south, into the rear of the enemy formation. They outnumbered her twenty to one, but the sun was setting at her back, there was dust in the air, and fleeing men count every foe thrice. Or so the Sakje said.

Demetrios heard the trumpet and his heart sank.

More Persians, or worse, their Saka allies. All the way around his flank – they must have slipped along the ridge.

Demetrios ordered his companions back. The rest, mercenaries and allies, were realists. They’d begun retreating as soon as they heard the trumpet.

They lost men, but they fought through – the enemy were either timid, or far, far fewer than fear had made them. But Demetrios couldn’t risk a defeat – Seleucus was rich in cavalry. So he retired all the way back to his hills, and his horsemen camped where they had started.

But the enemy did not. It was only when dark fell and fires were visible that Demetrios saw that the blue cloaks had broken contact. The road south was empty.

Some of his men cheered. But Demetrios felt alone, and he sent three messengers to his father.

‘You thought perhaps I’d march away and leave you?’ Antigonus said the next morning. ‘We have Seleucus. Lysimachos may still be up near Heraklea – scouts out as far as Gordia and no reports at all.’

Demetrios drew on a wooden table with his dagger. ‘What if Lysimachos were east of us – on the Sangarius?’

Antigonus nodded. ‘It’s possible, but if we strike today, it won’t matter a damn.’

‘Pater—’

‘I make the strategy, boy. Knockout blow. We don’t piss on them – we kick them in the crotch. Right down the road, fast as we can – you cover my left.’ He looked at the scratches in the table. ‘With a little luck, we catch them in mid-afternoon and that’s the war.’

The moon was high when Satyrus found Melitta. Her men were mourning their losses – two gone to the shades.

‘You are too far north,’ she said. ‘We need to fall back to the ridges.’

‘I’m already south of here – there’s a village, Malos, twenty stades south. Nikephoros is resting the infantry there. I came for you.’ Satyrus sat like a statue in the moonlight.

Melitta took his hand. ‘You have finally become a Sakje, brother,’ she said. ‘How many stades have you ridden this week?’

‘All the stades the winds crosses,’ Satyrus said, wearily. ‘And now we need to cross twenty more.’

Even in the moonlight, they could see that the plains at the base of the ridges were alive with moving men and fires. Lysimachos had been even more daring than Satyrus had hoped; he’d launched his army in a race across the plains, and trusted that he’d have time to sort them out if a battle occurred. The best units – Prepalaus’s Macedonians, Lysimachos’s veteran mercenaries, the Thracians – had moved almost as fast as cavalry.

Satyrus found Lysimachos, Stratokles and Prepalaus under the vine trellis of a tavern in Malos. The streets were packed with soldiers, and men were simply lying down on their shields and sleeping.

‘If Antigonus catches us tonight, we’re done,’ Lysimachos said. ‘But we marched a hundred stades today, and crossed a river. We couldn’t have done more.’

‘Seleucus fought a delaying action today,’ Satyrus said. ‘We need to march at dawn. I’d like you to agree to give me all the cavalry at first light – even the Thracians. I can be up with Seleucus by midday.’

Prepalaus shook his head. ‘You can have my cavalry and welcome, but it is our infantry that Seleucus needs.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘But our cavalry will show that we are near. And perhaps … perhaps Antigonus will make a mistake.’

Demetrios had to admit that the blue cloaks were excellent cavalry. He ushered them around the valley floor but he couldn’t corner them, and their Persian allies stayed loyal, despite gifts of money sent blatantly across the valley to them. Neron came back from one such foray shaking his head.

‘I spoke to a noble named Darius. They are all named Darius. He said that such behaviour would be despicable, and did he look like a Greek?’ Neron shrugged.

Demetrios sent more and more men up the ridges, trying to flank the Persians or cow them into retreat, and by late morning he had moved them back. But his horses were still tired from the day before and needed water and better food – grain.

The sun was high above them, grilling man and horse together, when the blue cloaks turned by squadrons to the right and formed four deep rhomboids, the points facing him, and their outriders, armed with bows, began to gall his Greek cavalry.

Demetrios looked back up the road to the north. He’d screened his father rather well, he thought – the pikemen were coming on in long columns of files, ready to form at a moment’s notice but free to walk their fastest, and their pikes travelled in carts to save their energy in the broiling sun.

Demetrios shook his head at Neron. ‘He can’t actually mean to make a stand,’ he said, pointing at the old man on the horse, a stade away.

‘That is Antiochus with him,’ Neron said. ‘I have it from a prisoner.’

‘My would-be rival,’ Demetrios said. He rubbed his chin. ‘Apple.’

His groom-slave handed him an apple.

Demetrios took a bite and gave the rest to his horse. ‘Have we got a charge in us, Philip?’ he asked his phylarch.

‘Not unless the horses can smell water, King.’ Philip shook his head and dismounted.

Demetrios agreed, but this was taking too long. That’s all the old bastard over there wanted – to waste his time.

‘That can’t be good,’ Philip said from behind him. Before he was done speaking, Neron swore and galloped away, headed for the ridge, where a little knot of Greek cavalry were rallying, silhouetted against the ridge line.

More men came streaming over the ridge.

‘Lycos, go with Neron. Get me a report and bring it to my father.’ Demetrios turned his horse and trotted his horse all the way to where his father sat, sweltering in his armour. He and all his officers were peering up the ridges.

‘Kick them in the crotch, I said.’ Antigonus shook his head. ‘You’re pissing on them.’

‘Pater, my horses are blown and need water, my remounts are all with you, and the fucking Persians have outflanked my stupid Greeks again,’ Demetrios said.

Antigonus cursed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you needed to water your horses?’ This from a man who grumbled ‘don’t trouble me with details’. ‘Aphrodite’s quivering cunny, boy, if we need water, we’ll water. I’ll push the pikes at them. Bring the cavalry back through us. I’ll put elephants on my flanks. They have no infantry – they’re not going to stand, are they?’ He motioned for his officers.

Neron rode into the command group like a lightning bolt. ‘It’s Lysimachos,’ he said. ‘The cavalry behind our flank are
Thracians
.’

Antigonus paled under his tan. Demetrios thought he saw something go out of his father then – perhaps the daimon that men spoke about.

‘Lysimachos,’ Antigonus said. He was looking down the road towards the blue cloaks, who had just faced about and begun to retreat. And they were cheering as they went. ‘Ares fucking Aphrodite and all the gods watching. Missed him by that much.’

Demetrios sighed. ‘We can still push forward.’

Antigonus shook his head. ‘No. No … we’ll roll the dice we have. Camp here, rest everyone. Fight tomorrow. Edge us west until our flank’s on the Kaistros river. And fortify the front. Let’s not make it easy for them.’

Six stades away, Satyrus sat with Diodorus and Antiochus, Crax and Melitta, Andronicus and Scopasis, Calicles, Anaxagoras and Charmides. On the ridge just east of the extreme flank of Demetrios’s cavalry line, the rightmost file of the Persian satrapal cavalry was linked up with the leftmost file of Satyrus’s bodyguard and the Thracians. Their line was continuous, and Melitta’s knights had already turned the flank further north. The Greek cavalry were retreating as fast as they could out of the shower of arrows, and Melitta’s men were stopping to retrieve every shaft they shot. The impetus had already gone out of the fight.

Coenus rode up out of the dust with his Tanais hippeis, and Eumenes of Olbia with his. Satyrus embraced them both.

‘Will your men be my Companions?’ Satyrus asked Coenus. ‘Will you command them?’

Coenus shook his head. ‘No. I dislike command. Let Eumenes have it – he has the spark. But I’ll ride at your side.’

Satyrus turned to Eumenes. ‘It seems rude to offer second best,’ he said.

Eumenes smiled at Coenus. ‘It would be odd if you offered it to me before you offered it to my teacher.’

Charmides was delighted at the news. ‘Too much responsibility for me,’ he said.

Eumenes put his arm around the young man. ‘You remind me of a young man I once knew.’

Coenus remained mounted. ‘That’s the problem with age and nostalgia, Eumenes. After a while, they all remind you of someone.’

Almost at his feet, Apollodorus came toiling up the ridge, two hundred hoplite-armed marines at his back, running like the athletes they were, and behind them, the Apobatai, running just as hard, with Nikephoros.

Apollodorus stopped at the top of the hill, tilted his helmet back on his head, and bellowed, ‘Finish as you started!’

The laggards put on a burst of speed, and the column closed up. Apollodorus stopped at Coenus’s feet and saluted.

Coenus laughed. ‘You want to impress the crap out of the King of Babylon,’ he said, leaning from his mount. ‘He’s the well-dressed fellow – right there.’

Apollodorus smiled and led his marines over the ridge.

Coenus watched as he ran up to Seleucus. Saw Seleucus salute.

Satyrus came up next to him. ‘I have that feeling,’ he said.