It shouldn’t have happened.
Because it did, the first relief taxeis on the road was caught in the disaster, with routers and tent-mates bursting through their ranks, and the ephebes and the slightly late city hoplites crashed into the disordered second phalanx and drove it back.
And then the fighting lost any kind of order. The attack of the city hoplites was the last moment in the action when Satyrus could see anything, or tell his friends from his foes — or claim to be in command.
The marines were cheering all around him, and the women in the rear ranks ran forward with fire pots and in heartbeats the timbers of the leviathan were aflame. Assembled war engines around the great wheels were shoved together, and the flames began to light the sky, and Satyrus tasted victory.
But he knew the taste was false. He had two thousand men, and Demetrios, however surprised, had thirty thousand.
Demetrios’ counter-attack fell like a hammer on the victorious Rhodians.
The marines were still together — Charmides was close to his back and Apollodorus was on one side and Anaxagoras on his other, with Abraham’s skeletal figure at his back, when the counter-attack smashed into them. Satyrus took a shield against his own shield, abandoned any thought of command and was a hoplite — shield to shield, his spear sliding off his enemy’s shield as his enemy’s spear probed for his eyes and rang against his helmet, pressed so close that he could smell the cardamom on the other man’s breath. So close that he hooked the man’s shield with his own and punched with his rim — larger shield, stronger arm — and the man went down, and Satyrus was in his place. ‘On me, marines!’ Satyrus called, as if it was a ship fight.
Charmides got his next opponent, through luck or precision; the man was down before he could set his hips, a spear point in his eye. The enemy phalangites were silhouetted against the burning machines, and they paid.
Apollodorus downed his man and stepped forward and fouled a spear — Anaxagoras pushed with his shoulder, and the man facing Satyrus flinched, fear rising in his eyes as he saw the whole rank in front of him die, and he backed away. Satyrus pushed into him, slamming shield to shield and stabbing under the shield rush — sword into something soft, and he pushed, and a blow rang off his helmet. He managed a guard with his sword, stepped forward — right in front of left, rotated his hips and swung his sword like a meat cleaver into the next aspis rim and split the badly made shield clear through, breaking the owner’s arm with a shriek that Charmides ended. Not just luck, then — the boy was a master spearman.
The men in front of him started to blur, and Satyrus gave and received blows — a heavy blow to his right side under his arm when he pushed forward too fast, a cut to his left leg from a spearman who was fast and bold. Darkness favoured aggression and teamwork, and Charmides saved him ten times and Anaxagoras another ten — and he saved them, parrying high with his sword to keep blows off Anaxagoras, killing Apollodorus’ opponent with a wrap blow to the back of the man’s neck. Abraham’s weak spear thrusts were precise.
The enemy died.
Satyrus lost track of opponents and blows. He was alive — and then another moment, and he was alive. Alive.
Still alive.
He lost his sword in a dying man, and as if gifted by Herakles his right fist closed on his next opponent’s spear and tore it from his grasp as if he’d danced a move in the Pyrriche. Satyrus killed that man with the saurauter of his own weapon, reversed the blade and slammed it into the next man. And on.
Still alive.
Usually in combat, men fall back after a fight — a hundred heartbeats of chaos and horror is all most men, even the bravest, can stand. Men will flinch from combat if they can — stand at spear’s length and shout insults.
But in the darkness, men slammed unheeding into each other, and died. The fire in the mammoth tower threw enough light to make survival possible.
Satyrus parried with his spear, a sweep across his body, and slammed the shaft back into the man’s helmet, knocking him to the ground, where Charmides finished him.
Still alive.
New armour — more bronze, less dirt. Satyrus saw this when he got a lucky hit — his right hand was so tired he could barely grasp the spear, but he got the point into the other man’s eye-slit on his next attack and the man went down.
Still alive.
The sun was rising. Men were backing away from them. Apollodorus spat in contempt and pushed his short spear through an opponent’s armour and into his groin, right over the man’s shield. Charmides caught a man turning away and slit him over the kidney where he had no armour. Anaxagoras was toe to toe with a man as big as he, and they swapped blows like dogs fighting, and their swords threw sparks and then Anaxagoras hammered his pommel into the other man’s teeth and Abraham’s timed thrust went into his helmet and his head seemed to explode and he went down-
Still alive.
The five of them had put so many men into the earth that the enemy flinched away and the marines were able to survive, wheeling from a defeated flank, secure while their king and his companions bought them room to breathe.
The enemy had recaptured the tower. Thousands of them were dousing the fires — the engines were black with men in the new sun, like ants covering food left outside.
Again the enemy flinched back, and Satyrus, in his turn, retired a step to link his shield with Anaxagoras. He coughed.
Still. Alive.
Satyrus breathed. He looked right and left, and saw that most of his marines were still alive, too.
He got his canteen to his mouth. Drank it, never taking his eyes off the enemy. They were a well-armoured mob, and a man in gold armour pushed through the front rank and gleamed like fire in the rising sun.
‘Your men have done a fair job against my Aegema,’ Demetrios said. ‘You still wear that helmet.’
Satyrus spat water and blood. He smelled the wet cat fur, and he knew he was where he needed to be.
Demetrios was magnificent in gold and leopard skin, fresh and neat and strong, with the physique of a statue of Herakles. ‘It is fitting that we finish this — Achilles and Hektor. Would you care to run a few times around the walls?’
‘Let me have him,’ Anaxagoras said.
Apollodorus snorted. ‘Give me a drink and I’ll fight him. Only if I can keep the armour.’
Charmides tapped Satyrus. ‘If allowed, I would be delighted-’
Satyrus laughed. He stepped forward out of the ranks and saluted Demetrios. Demetrios’ Aegema — his companions — had made a space by retreating. Satyrus pulled his canteen strap over his head and handed it to Apollodorus. Almost as an aside, he said, ‘Demetrios, you must confess — your men flinch from me, and my men long to fight you. Ask yourself who is Achilles, and who is just another mortal man in golden armour.’
Demetrios raised his spear. ‘I think we should fight, instead of talking.’
Satyrus grunted. ‘You want this to be the Iliad, not me.’
Demetrios rushed at him, a simple shield rush, and then his spear licked out — once, twice, three times, as fast as a man could think — high, middle, low, a brilliant combination.
Satyrus blocked, blocked and blocked without shifting a finger’s width, and as their shields rang together, he pushed.
Demetrios landed on his back.
‘I am Satyrus, son of Kineas,’ Satyrus said to the wind. ‘My father was hipparch of Olbia and founder of a great city. Get up.’
Demetrios rose to his feet. ‘Well struck,’ he said.