He was six men from Antigonus when the world went black.
‘Go for their rear!’ Melitta shouted to Lysimachos. ‘We’ll do this!’ She pointed her axe at the solid wall of Antigonid pikemen, formed in a tight square, like a hedgehog, with steel and bronze points bristling from every wall and every corner.
Lysimachos either understood or came to his own decision, and his spear rose above the rout of the enemy cavalry, and pointed north then west. His Companions rode with him. So did Calicles and the Thracians.
They thundered past the two thousand pikemen holding the left of the Antigonid infantry line — men who had faced cavalry at Arabela and Issus, for whom lance and javelin and flashing hooves held little fear.
Melitta rode clear of her people, called her chiefs to her, raised her bow in her fist and punched it at the pikemen.
Before she reined in, the arrows had started to fly.
Unable to reply, the pikemen closed up, lapped their shields, and endured.
But the Sakje had no threat to contend with, and they pressed closer, shooting at feet, at shins, at faces — individual young men and woman began to compete at acts of daring. A girl barely in her teens, ash-blonde braids bound to her head, rode along the front face of the phalanx, a hand’s breadth from the reach of the sarissas, shooting down into the ranks. Assagetae cheers followed her. And behind her, a boy, bolder or crazed with battle, rode into the gap an arrow made — a gap that lasted for a few heartbeats — pushed his pony into the gap, and the horse’s hooves and his short sword wreaked havoc until he was killed, ten sarissas in his chest and horse. At one corner of the scrum, another girl lassoed a phylarch and dragged him from the ranks into the dust — he cut the cord, killed her in two sweeps of his sword, but was shot full of arrows like a pincushion. Before his body could fall, Thyrsis leaped from his horse on the man’s back, cut his throat, and ripped his helmet off his head and scalped him in full view of his men, raised the flapping hair and screamed, and all the Sakje screamed.
Desperate, the Argyraspids charged, scattering the Sakje, who ran like flies from the swatter, but the phalangites didn’t catch a single rider. And the Sakje turned and shot as they rode free, and old men died — men who had survived fifty battles.
Melitta halted with her fishtail standard by a well.
‘Change horses,’ she ordered.
Stratokles had been fighting for so long he couldn’t think. His sword arm rose and fell by itself; he ducked, his shield jarred on his shoulder, his mouth was dry as parchment, and still they pressed on.
He no longer knew which direction was front and which was rear.
He’d lost Lucius, lost Herakles, and only the sharp barks of eleu told him that the men behind him were his own.
He wanted to slump to the ground.
His hand was red with other men’s blood, and his own, and his fingers were stuck to the hilt, and he thought his jaw might be broken.
His sword arm rose and fell.
Someone was screaming like a stuck pig.
Satyrus had his knights in hand. He had a moment to snatch a drink of water — to pat his horse’s neck.
‘Well done,’ he said to his trumpeter. The Persian boy was as brave as a lion.
Artaxerxes grinned.
Pointed past Satyrus, who turned to see another Antigonid squadron forming against him. Another wedge. They formed so fast, Satyrus suspected they must be Companions before he saw the gold helmet and the purple plume and the white horse.
Demetrios himself.
Satyrus pointed to Eumeles.
Eumeles nodded. ‘What we came for,’ he said.
Satyrus slammed his sword back into the sheath under his arm. Some superstition — some piety — told him not to fight Demetrios with his guest gift. He took the long-handled Sakje axe from his saddle bow. Hefted it.
‘Demetrios is mine,’ he said. He took a deep breath against the weight of his breastplate and his fears, and his nostrils took in the smell of a wet cat.
Demetrios was annoyed that his best cavalry couldn’t seem to penetrate the line of elephants, but they merely blunted his attack without breaking it. Almost none of his men were killed — their horses simply refused to go forward.
It was the greatest frustration he had ever known — that victory was visible — the backs of the enemy phalanxes were just past the elephants. He could see them. The farm was open to him — as soon as he defeated either the elephants …
… or the cavalry covering their flank. He could see his father’s phalanx — the foot companions — pressing forward to the east of the farmyard.
This was the moment.
He raised his spear. ‘Blow rally,’ he ordered. Pointed to the right, into the flank of the blue cloaks by the farm. By the time he shredded them, the elephants would be bypassed. Forgotten.
Enemy cavalry began to emerge from the collapsing mêlée just to the south.
He laughed, for he was the King of the Earth, and threw his sword glittering into the sun, and caught it by the hilt, and his Companions cheered him.
There was Satyrus of Tanais, a stade away, at the head of his knights, and nothing — nothing — could have given Demetrios the Golden more pleasure in that moment than to ride to victory over his chosen adversary.
His men, as aware of victory as he was himself, raised the paean.
The sky above the dust was blue and in the distance, far out over the plain to the west, mountains rose in purple and lavender, the most distant golden in the noonday sun. Up there, in the realm of the ether, all was peace. An eagle, best of omens, turned a lazy circle to his right. Or perhaps it was a raven.
Satyrus spat water and raised his axe.
‘Forward,’ he said. He twisted in his saddle, his last plans made. To Eumenes, he said, ‘When I go for Demetrios, stay tight. Don’t follow me.’
Eumenes looked surprised. Behind him, voices started the Song of Athena, that the hippeis of Olbia had sung since Kineas led them.
Satyrus was fifty horse lengths from Demetrios when he put his heels sharply into Panic’s sides, and she shot forward like a bolt from a bow. Demetrios was covered in armour.
His horse was not.
Satyrus’s actions were hurried, but he had all the time in the world, because this is what Srayanka made them practise from the time they could ride. And because he held the battle in the palm of his hand. His left hand. His bow hand.
He didn’t need to kill Demetrios. But he had to stop him. Absolutely had to stop him. At any cost.
His axe was on his wrist, the haft back along his right arm just off axis from the shaft he had ready there, and his bow came into his hand as if he was practising with the girls and boys on the Sea of Grass, and an arrow fitted itself on the bowstring, the horn nock seating home and the string back and back — his draw thumb against the corner of his mouth …
Demetrios’s look of shock as his horse went down, Satyrus’s shaft buried to the fletching in its neck. His bow in its gorytos because Mother would yell, his axe up and the flick of his wrist that sent the second man in the wedge to Hades, and Panic lived up to her name and rode through the lesser horses like they were blades of grass.
Satyrus knocked another man from his charger, and had time to think I unhorsed Demetrios before a blow caught him unprepared. He saw it come … knew he would never parry it in time … raised the haft of his axe …
Stratokles wrestled his opponent, punched the man with his shield rim, with his fist — that hurt — and when he crumpled, tried to take his spear, but he could no longer get his right hand to close. The spear fell away from him, and Stratokles watched it dumbly.