Scott Oden - Men of Bronze

Battle raged as the day wore on. Beyond the gray pall of clouds, the sun reached its zenith and descended into the west. On the ground, the lines swelled and ebbed like a tide of flesh. A wall of Hyrkanians forced Nebmaatra's men back, beyond the palisade and onto the upper slopes of the hill. The center reeled from the savage onslaught of the Immortals; the regiment of Amon drew strength from the Sekhmet and Osiris regiments on its flanks. The Egyptian ranks were thinning. On the left, Barca's mercenaries stood their ground. The Nubians shattered charge after charge of Cissian and Assyrian infantry, sloughing the remains off to the Libyans on their right and the Greek allies on their left. The Medjay stood like a stone bulwark in a storm.

Barca slung his shield down, its bronze face staved in, and snatched another from the ground. He stood in the eye of the storm, in the pocket of calm formed by the natural ebb and flow of battle, and peered out toward the Egyptian regiments. The mercenaries were well forward of the remainder of the army; so far, in fact, that they risked exposing their flank. They would have to fall back before some enterprising Persian commander drove a wedge between them and the regiment of Ptah.

Amid the pandemonium Barca located his trumpeter cowering in the mud beside the standard bearer. He grabbed the man up and ordered him to ply his instrument. "Fall back to the hilltop!" The notes skirled, weak at first then growing stronger as the trumpeter found his wind again. At the same time, Barca signaled for the men of Cyrene to join the fray. Andriscus and his fresh troops could screen the strategic withdrawal. "Fall back to the hilltop!"

Slowly, like a rock split by ice, the two armies disengaged.

That's when disaster struck.

Barca himself could not be certain what happened. One moment, his front lines were falling back through the palisade and the screen of Cyrenaen troops, and the next chaos ruled.

Chaos in the guise of an enemy phalanx.

Phanes' soldiers, hoplites of Ionia and Caria, smashed into the withdrawing Medjay. Their exact moment of impact could not have had a more devastating effect. Barca watched, helpless, as the loose, fluid formations of his men were shattered by the interleaved shields and jabbing spears of the enemy.

The Horus-eye standard dipped and fell as the Medjay desperately sought to repel the enemy hoplites. It was like trying to stop a bronze-bladed threshing machine. Barca saw Tjemu stumble, clutching at the man beside him. His shield went awry. Barca flinched as a spear, thrust overhand, plunged down between the Libyan's helmet and cuirass. His body vanished under foot.

The hoplites scythed through the Medjay and plowed into the Nubians and Libyans. Ahead of them, the men of Naucratis closed ranks with the Cyrenaen troops, presenting a wall of shields to the onrushing foemen. A hymn to Poseidon rose from the throats of the allies.

The two Greek phalanxes, kinsmen bound by blood and separated by politics, met in a grinding crash of armor. Bronze and muscle strained against one another. Spears thrust over the tops of shields struck their targets with homicidal precision. Helmets were punctured; breastplates pierced.

Barca let Greek fight Greek while he rallied the Libyans and the Nubians. A handful of Medjay staggered to his side, loyal unto death. The Phoenician knew where the enemy would be the most vulnerable. A strike against their exposed left flank would shatter their cohesion, forcing them to wheel and defend against this new threat. If he …

A sound forced its way through Barca's battle-heightened perception, shattering his tactical mind set; a sound he had heard many times and in many places. The commotion arose from his right, from among the native Egyptian regiments, radiating from the center with a convulsive force that stripped breath from lungs and left knees weak. He turned and peered through the drizzle.

"Psammetichus, you son of a bitch! "

The Immortals were relentless. Wave after wave crashed against the Egyptian center, eroding it like a sand wall in an ocean squall. Under the eyes of Pharaoh, the regiment of Amon fought with magnificent valor, repulsing each attack despite heavy casualties. Men stumbled past Psammetichus, reeling from their wounds, their weapons hanging forgotten in fists too cramped to open. Others rushed forward to take their places. The sounds floating up from the front lines, the furious clangor of bronze and iron, the screams of the fallen, sent tendrils of fear through Pharaoh's belly.

He stood in his chariot, the horses calmed by a pair of grooms, as the battle raged a few hundred feet away. He had intended to take his place in the front line, but the javelins had changed his mind. Now, he was working up the courage to join his men.

Nebmaatra and Barca both fought amongst their troops. As Pharaoh, could he do any less than his generals? He had to do something. Order a charge, maybe? Send reserves in to fill gaps in the faltering line?

As Psammetichus watched, the Egyptian line ceased to falter and began to crumble. A wedge of Immortals drove through the regiment of Amon and split the Calasirians in two. The breach filled with Persians. He knew he had to make a choice now: charge or withdraw. Pharaoh glanced left and right. The thick, steady drizzle cloaked the flanks in a gray haze; he could see neither Nebmaatra nor Barca. Were they still alive? Terror clutched his heart in icy talons. Charge or withdraw?

A faceless Mede, howling in fury, burst through the retaining wall of Egyptian soldiers, a spear cocked above his left ear. Just as his weight shifted in anticipation of the cast, his arm extending, a mortally wounded Calasirian rose up behind the Mede and bore him to the ground. Their thrashings were lost from view. A second Persian followed on their heels, slinging his spear haphazardly seconds before a sword tore through his guts. The shaft wobbled in mid-flight and went awry, but it was enough for Psammetichus.

"Withdraw!" he screamed, hauling on the reins of his chariot and trampling his own grooms. "Withdraw! "

Like an infection, Pharaoh's panic spread.

Against Nebmaatra, the Hyrkanians fought like madmen. The first few hours served to pare the fat from the Egyptian lines. Soldiers who were too slow, too afraid, or too reckless fell first. They were good men, all, but they lacked the killer instinct of the survivors. Those who remained were harder than granite. Again and again the Egyptians hurled the enemy down the slope, only to watch them reform and charge once more. They were relentless.

"Watch the flank! Don't let them overlap us!" Nebmaatra shouted to his captains during one of the many lulls in the fighting. Below them, a wall of snarling faces surged up the hillside. "Here they come again!"

A scream pierced the din of combat, a sound unlike any Nebmaatra had heard this day. It wasn't fury or pain that wrenched that yell from a soldier's lips. It was defeat. Another scream, this one closer. Then another. Sensing something wrong, the Egyptians grew panicked. They rolled their eyes toward the center, toward Pharaoh's banners, and saw the core of the army in retreat. Panic turned to fear, and despite their granite-hard exteriors, that fear sapped any vestige of honor they might have had. They threw down spear and shield and ran, following the example of the Son of Ra.

The Hyrkanians, sensing imminent victory, redoubled their efforts.

"Stand! " Nebmaatra roared as Pharaoh's army crumbled. "Stand and fight, damn you!" A few heeded his cry, but not enough. The Hyrkanians crushed the right flank as if it were made of pottery.

Nebmaatra found himself alone. His guard lay dead about him, crowning the small hill in a ruin of flesh and bone. The Hyrkanians gave him little respite. Already they were streaming past him, a river split by a lone rock, to fall on the unprotected flank of the center. The Egyptian swayed. He was covered in blood, much of it his own, his corselet in tatters and his helm long since lost in the wrack. Gore clotted the blade of his sword.