Tyrant: Force of Kings (32 page)

Stratokles was the last officer to join them. He looked old.

‘Too much wine?’ Satyrus asked.

Stratokles swung onto his mare’s back with easy agility. ‘Or not enough,’ he said.

Outside the gates, they picked up an escort – twenty-four of Apollodorus’s marines who could ride, each with his infantry equipment hung from his back, with a pair of javelins and a spear. Satyrus, reared to the standards of the Sakje, thought they might just be the worst troop of cavalry he’d ever seen – at least one man had no notion of how to handle a trot, and when they took their first rest, forty stades from the city, most of the men slid from their horses and walked like porne after a night at a wild symposium. Nor did most of them have any sense of horse management; Satyrus had to catch a young mare himself, and then he found himself giving one of the phylarchs – Lykaeaus, from
Olbia
– a lesson in how to set a picket line and how to hobble a horse.

Satyrus found that his preoccupation with his escort had a positive side – he crested the ridge of the Paktyes Mountains behind Ephesus and found that he hadn’t thought about Miriam or Lysimachos in hours.

He found that he was quite angry at Melitta. Nor did he want to discuss his anger – rather, he wanted to treasure it, almost as if he enjoyed it. Upon examination, that seemed an unworthy approach.

And Miriam.

Lots to be angry at, really.

How could she refuse him?
He didn’t think her feelings for him were abated by the width of a knife’s edge. So why? Because her father was dead? Because Abraham would disapprove? Because she was a Jew?

Satyrus made a note to himself to learn more about the beliefs of the Jews.

‘Cavalry in the next gully – sixty or more,’ said Lucius, trotting back. ‘Unless they’re complete ninnies, they saw us crest the ridge.’

Satyrus snapped out of his blackness. ‘I’d rather not get in a fight right now,’ he said, flicking his eyes over their escort.

Lucius grinned. ‘That’s both of us, lord.’

Satyrus glanced back at Anaxagoras, who was riding better than he usually did – but not much better. ‘My sister might at least have left us
all
of her Sakje,’ he called.

Anaxagoras reined in and sat back with a groan. ‘I can’t dismount. I might not ever get up again.’

‘Here come a pair of them,’ Lucius said.

Satyrus pointed at Lykaeaus, who could ride well enough, and Lucius. ‘Be careful, Lucius,’ he said. ‘They’ll be afraid and desperate.’

As Lucius trotted toward the two riders, Stratokles pulled up beside him. ‘My man,’ he said. He smiled, but his eyes were hard. ‘Mine! Hands off.’

Satyrus grinned, happy for once to have annoyed the informer. ‘Of course,’ he said, in a tone calculated to mean the opposite. ‘Although you seem free enough in giving orders to
my
men.’

Stratokles shrugged. ‘You have so many. I have one.’

Satyrus was watching Lucius under his hand. He was backing his horse carefully, talking and pointing, but refusing to let his mount close enough to the other two for a javelin throw.

‘He’s a good one, though,’ Satyrus said.

‘You don’t know the half,’ Stratokles said.

Satyrus laughed. ‘You know, if you don’t watch yourself, I could start liking you, too,’ he said.

Stratokles loosened the sword in his sheath. The wordplay ended as the situation worsened. ‘I don’t like this.’

Lucius whirled his horse and cantered for them, Lykaeaus at his heels.

‘Form up,’ Apollodorus ordered.

Apollodorus had drilled his men, and they surprised Satyrus by dismounting and forming on foot, with four men told off as horse holders. Bows appeared.

Satyrus nodded to Stratokles. ‘Going to stay mounted?’

Stratokles agreed with a jut of the chin. ‘If they come at us?’

Satyrus swung up to get a better view, clamping his mare’s back with his knees, and made a motion with his hand. ‘We go right.’

Lucius arrived in a local cloud of dust, and Lykaeaus dismounted and threw his reins to his horse holder.

‘Not Lysimachos’s men. Those are Antigonus’s men.’ He spat.

Apollodorus trotted over. ‘Lord?’

Satyrus regretted a number of things, and one of them was not bringing a hundred marines. He looked at Stratokles, who shrugged. ‘Yesterday, we were in contact. Today, the noose is closed.’

‘I need to see … by Herakles, I need to get through these men. Will they charge us?’ he asked.

Lucius nodded. ‘There’s fifty or more of them. They think we’re beaten.’

Satyrus turned. ‘Lykaeaus – back to Ephesus. The whole army – now. Nikephorus in command, the full phalanx – everything we have. Leave a hundred marines in the citadel.’

‘Antigonus has at least forty thousand men,’ Stratokles said.

‘And I have four thousand. I’m not planning to go down onto the plains. I’m planning to extricate Lysimachos.’ He pointed at the dust cloud in the centre of the valley, off toward Magnesia. ‘That must be him.’

‘He may surrender,’ Apollodorus said,

Stratokles looked at Satyrus, and his face showed his thoughts. ‘Lucius?’ he asked. The Latin turned his horse. They walked a few steps aside and had a hurried conversation.

Satyrus was watching the Antigonid officer. He was pointing out something to his prodromoi.

‘How many bows, Apollodorus?’ he asked.

‘Six,’ Apollodorus said.

‘No time like the present,’ Satyrus said. ‘See if you can blunt him and kill some horses.’ He turned back to Anaxagoras and Stratokles. ‘The moment is now. I should have brought the whole army. Either we extricate Lysimachos … or board the ships and leave. That’s what it comes down to. I plan to save the bastard.’

The six archers jogged forward a few horse lengths and began to shoot.

Their first arrows had no effect. As they overshot the enemy scouts, it seemed possible that the prodromoi never saw the shafts fall. But somewhere around the fourth or fifth arrow, a barbed point went deep into the rump of a horse, which immediately threw its rider, and by luck of the will of the gods, the seventh arrow fell into the shoulder of the enemy officer. He fell like a sack of sand, and suddenly his command dissolved, men trying to rescue him, a phylarch yelling for them to rally …

‘If I had a troop of real cavalry, I could end this fight right now,’ Satyrus said.

‘Since you’ve been bold enough to commit your army,’ Stratokles said, ‘I feel I must do the same. As soon as we can, Lucius and I will ride for Lysimachos. To tell him to push this way.’ He hesitated. ‘If you trust me to do it.’

Satyrus was watching the enemy. ‘I guess I have to,’ he said. His scale corselet was weighing on him and the day was hot and his horse was too small for a long fight. He rather fancied the look of the enemy commander’s horse, currently cropping grass by its prone master. He turned and gave Stratokles a smile and his hand. ‘May the gods go with you, Stratokles. If you’ve planned all this … well, you are more cunning than Athena.’

Stratokles laughed. ‘I wish,’ he said. ‘Will you flank them?’

Satyrus caught Achilles’ eye. The big man was still mounted, watching the developing fight carefully. ‘We’ll all go right together. If you can ride clear, just keep going.’

Satyrus noted that a phylarch had at least half of the enemy troopers in hand and moving forward. His archers were shooting cautiously. At this range, and now that they were warned, the enemy cavalrymen could watch the shafts coming in, and avoid them. Mostly. As he watched, another man fell from his saddle.

‘Half done!’ shouted the lead archer, indicating his quiver.

Satyrus trotted to Apollodorus. ‘When they charge, we’ll go hard right,’ he said. ‘Try and split them.’

Apollodorus nodded. ‘Why don’t you just ride clear?’

Satyrus frowned. ‘Because I will not leave my men.’

Apollodorus shook his head. ‘There’s some illogic there.’

Anaxagoras spat. ‘At least I have my feet under me,’ he said.

‘Here they come!’ called a hoplite, and then all of the archers were sprinting for the line of spears. Every man in the line had a shield – the smaller Macedonian aspis. The line was only two deep, but with a deep pile of rocks – the result of an avalanche – on their left, they were solid enough.

Satyrus rode back to Achilles, Lucius and Stratokles. ‘Ready? Follow me.’ He rode off to the right, cantering around a copse of old oaks that briefly hid them from the Antigonid cavalry.

The enemy made a simple mistake – they were cautious when boldness would have saved them time and casualties. Their cavalry came on slowly, trotting from cover to cover. Satyrus thought that they were almost certainly mercenaries, and perhaps hadn’t been paid recently. Despite overwhelming numbers, they were casualty-averse to a surprising degree.

As was so often the case in war, their caution cost them. The archers began to shoot again, the range closed, and they were loosing flat. The shafts aimed with care – and horses began to fall.

Twenty horse lengths out, and every arrow seemed to take its toll.

Satyrus had both succeeded and failed, in that his inexperienced opponent hadn’t even noticed his flanking motion – four men weren’t enough – but now they were coming in unopposed, and Satyrus, at least, had a bow and a lifetime of training in its use. He cantered along, riding downhill, diagonal to the enemy approach, and his small mare responded well to his knees, and he began to shoot. Five arrows caught at least two targets, and still they hadn’t noticed him. He pushed in closer, changed direction so that he was riding with them, and when their flank group paused in the cover of the oaks, he reined in and shot at point-blank – emptied two saddles, and
then
they realised that he was not on their side.

Achilles cut a man from the saddle when he tried to flank Satyrus.

Satyrus rose on his horse’s back and put an arrow in yet another man. There was yelling from the line ahead, and at least a dozen of the enemy cavalrymen were turning towards the two of them.

Satyrus assumed that Stratokles had already ridden clear, and he turned his horse’s head and ran for the next patch of oaks, turning in his seat to flip an arrow over his shoulder like a true Sakje. His shaft was over-hasty, but it gave pause to the man behind him.

Satyrus felt his horse stumble – he reacted on rider’s instinct; sliding from the stricken animal before he fully understood that the little mare had a javelin in her side. He hit the ground well enough, but his quiver caught between his legs and he was down, bow thrown from his hand, arrows everywhere.

He rolled, avoiding the lance that he had to expect in the next heartbeat, and he heard the hooves, rolled again and stumbled to his feet, but his pursuer was lying in a pool of his own blood with Stratokles’ javelin in his guts, and the Athenian was riding beautifully, galloping clear after a good throw. Even as Satyrus watched, he collected the horse of a downed enemy and came back towards Satyrus.

Achilles and Lucius were holding their own, splitting half a dozen enemies and dispatching them as if they practised together every day. Satyrus had the time to reverse the gorytos where it had tangled, get it out from between his legs, gather a fistful of arrows and drop them in the top, and find his bow – an aeon of time in a fight. He placed a shaft in a young man hanging back from the mounted fight, and Stratokles raced by the back of the fight, threw a javelin; he threw flat and hard, and Satyrus had seldom seen a man throw mounted with such accuracy.

Then he ran for the horse Stratokles had dropped off. This horse was a big gelding with odd spots – almost like a wild pony made into warhorse size. He got a hand on the reins before the gelding shied, and he almost lost his new mount right then, but he got a hand on its nose and began to murmur, and then, before the big horse had time to think about it, he had a leg over and he was up, blessing the long practice he and his sister had of riding strange horses at all hours, and he was away across the grass, headed downhill to where Achilles, Stratokles and Lucius were facing four men, sword to sword and javelin to javelin.

Lucius was down – unwounded, but his horse was running free.

Satyrus punched into the back of the knot of mounted men, and his sword licked out and caught the man whose spear was about to finish Lucius, and they broke.

Satyrus had no notion of how his bodyguard and friends were doing – the oak woods hid the main action, and he pursued his broken opponents downhill, away from the fighting.

He didn’t go far – these men weren’t coming back. He turned his horse the big gelding was a natural warhorse, and wanted no part of turning. Satyrus used the reins, hard the bit was soft, leather or bone, like a Sakje bit, and the gelding didn’t feel a lot of need to respond. They plunged downhill.

Satyrus was carried a stade or more before he got the gelding’s head turned. Achilles was right at his shoulder.

‘Are you insane?’ the big man asked.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘This big idiot is,’ he said. He started uphill, and Achilles stuck with him.

The line still stood. Satyrus could see them now, standing at the top of the pass. There was a hummock of dead cavalrymen and horses in front of them, and the rest of the enemy cavalry were spread across the pass.

Satyrus pointed them out. ‘As long as they don’t have bows,’ he said quietly. He and Achilles rode up the centre of the deep valley, unimpeded, for two stades.

By then, Apollodorus’s men were gathering their javelins and cutting the throats of the wounded, or dragging them to shelter. Apollodorus had a Syrian man over his shoulder when Satyrus rode up, and he grunted, put the man in the shade, and began to give him water.

They had six prisoners, all of them wounded.

‘Lydians,’ Apollodorus said, when Satyrus had dismounted. ‘Mercenary officers, all militia from the towns.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Thank the gods,’ he said.

‘Almost had us anyway,’ Apollodorus said.

Satyrus was looking for friends. Anaxagoras was giving water to a wounded marine.

‘Two dead,’ Apollodorus said. ‘And an archer wounded. It’s the next attack I’m afraid of.’