Christian Cameron: Storm of arrows

The wall of Sauromatae was pressing forward now — Kineas could feel it. He was too far into the Macedonian formation but he could see Alexander just another rank away, Companions pulling at his bridle. He was hit — hit hard. Kineas took a blow in the side — the wounded side — pain blinded him and training made him lash out with the spear point to cover his agony, and a blow he never saw severed his heavy spear between his hands so that he had two pieces, but this was a moment for which Phocion trained you, and he lashed out with both pieces, raining blows on his opponents, his whole being focused on getting to Alexander, but his vision was tunnelling and he almost lost his seat when a kopis bit into his right side under his arm, scattering scales and drawing a new line of pain on his chest. Thalassa felt the change in his weight and reared, kicking, buying him precious heartbeats. He dropped the halves of his spear and pulled the Egyptian sword easily from its scabbard. He couldn’t breathe.

A long lance reached out from behind him and tipped a Companion into the dust, and he cut at his opponents, missing wildly but still alive, eyes clearing to his peril. He parried, and there were Macedonians on either side of him, so close that his booted knees were crushed against theirs, and his riding whip came into his bridle hand like a gift from Ares. He slashed backhanded to the left and then rammed the butt of the whip under the rider’s jaw and turned back, the whole weight of his body and Thalassa’s motion behind his sword, and he cut through the man’s guard and his blade skidded down the man’s shoulder and still had enough power to cut a long fold of flesh clear of his unarmoured sword arm. Kineas cut with the whip — one, two, three consecutive blows to the man’s face over their locked weapons — and the man fell free, more flesh shredding off his arm as he went, and he screamed but he couldn’t fall because the press of men and horses was so tight. ‘The king is down!’ shouted in Macedonian-accented Greek, and new strength flooded through Kineas. But with Thalassa’s muscles straining between his legs, he couldn’t move, trapped with the men he had put down, and the Companions just beyond the range of his sword were leaning far out over their horse’s heads, trying to cut at him, and he had to parry to protect Thalassa’s head. Thalassa tried to rear and Kineas hung on her neck to keep her down, afraid in this press that she’d lose her footing and fall.

‘Take it!’ over his shoulder. Again the lance struck over his shoulder and he risked a glance back — Lot was behind him. ‘Take it!’ he shouted.

Kineas didn’t want a lance in this insane press. ‘Cover me!’ he shouted, parrying again to protect his horse, and the Sauromatae prince drove his lance into the Macedonian’s unprotected head, killing him. And then Darius was there, and Carlus, and then Sitalkes, clearing his way through the press like a young Achilles, his helmet lost and his spear red and gold in the setting sun.

Darius did an insane thing, rising on his own horse’s back and then jumping to the horse of the last man Kineas had dropped, moving like an acrobat. His sword licked out, blinding a man and then showering blows on his helmet until he ducked and fell away.

Carlus, on his elephantine horse, simply pushed through the press, and for heartbeats it seemed that he might unhorse Kineas in his eagerness. Next to him, at the edge of Kineas’s awareness, was Philokles, raining blows without pause on his opponents like Ares come to earth.

Like a log jam in a Thracian river in spring, the Macedonians gave slowly. Thalassa went forward a short lunge — a single step. Kineas could only parry, his arms too weak to make the strong cuts required to put an armoured man down in the dust. But there were no blows coming at him to parry. Darius and Carlus had taken his place in the line. He hauled on Thalassa’s reins and let Lot squeeze past him, thrusting strongly. Sitalkes cut down the trumpeter even as he set the instrument to his lips, and Sitalkes snatched the golden trumpet and raised it high, exulting, and died like that with a Macedonian lance in his side.

When another Sauromatae knight pushed past him, Kineas sagged and let them all past as the melee grew farther and farther away — a few feet, and then an ocean of sound away. He took a blow on the back from a Sauromatae who thought he was the enemy and he reeled, and the man apologized and rode clear with him, holding him against Thalassa’s back.

‘You did me no damage,’ Kineas said.

‘You are badly wounded,’ the man said. Decorus — he had a name that sounded like that. Kineas couldn’t get his head up.

‘No,’ he said. He was, in fact, wounded, somewhere under his shirt of scale armour. High on his left side, something wet had happened and there was a cut on his right side as well, and a lot of bruises. And breathing hurt again — more — more still. ‘Go back to it, Dekris.’

‘Thank you, lord.’ The young man tipped his helmet down, pulled his lance out from under his thigh and looked right and left. ‘Sounds more open over there,’ he said, and plunged away to the left.

Kineas sat on his charger, alone, long enough to wish that he had a skin of water. Some random blow had cut the strap to his clay bottle. He got his head up, blew the snot from his nose and looked around. There was still no wind and the hanging dust made the air seem heavy and sick.

The prodromoi were still behind the fighting formations. While he took deep breaths, Ataelus came up, and Samahe, and Temerix. They competed to give him water. Temerix had some wine. He felt better immediately. Temerix gave him a piece of sausage with garlic in it — loot from some skirmisher fight, because the Sakje had nothing like it — and he wolfed it down. He hadn’t eaten in hours — so he sat a quarter stade from the hottest cavalry fight he’d ever seen, sharing a sausage with his scouts. His sense of the battle began to return despite the dust.

The sun was setting and the air on his sunburned, dirty face seemed cooler. ‘Thanks for the sausage,’ he said to Temerix, who grinned. ‘Let’s go and win this thing,’ he said, which sounded pompous, but that’s the way it looked to him.

The melee had left him behind. The Companions weren’t breaking — they were simply losing. All around Kineas, Scythian horsemen and women — not armoured nobles, but simple warriors from all the tribes — cantered up. Some peered at him. A few saluted him and called Baqca, and all threw themselves into the melee, often shouting for the prodromoi to join them. But the scouts waited with the discipline of two years of campaigns.

This, he knew, was what Zarina had meant. The Scythians had a lifetime of coordinated hunting on the plains. They knew when a beast was wounded, and they rode to the fight, every warrior choosing their own moment. His few hundred were now just the tip of the spear, and thousands of Dahae and Sakje were coming in behind them, riding into the war-storm to fire arrows or thrust with their swords. Many had changed horses after their initial panic, and they were comparatively fresh. The shock was over and they scented victory.

Kineas could smell it too, and it smelled like horse sweat and dust, and a hint of apples far away. Thalassa gave a cry and took a step forward — rare for her to move unbidden — and Srayanka came out of the murk.

‘Aiiyee!’ she shrieked and they embraced. And then she backed her mare. ‘You are injured.’

Kineas just smiled at her. Then he reached out with his right hand and pulled her close, her gorget scraping dully against his scales, and they kissed like people who might have lost everything, despite everything.

‘We could ride away!’ she said when they parted. Her hand where she had embraced his left side was covered in blood.