Christian Cameron - Funeral Games

‘I’ll go for Theron,’ Satyrus said.

‘No time,’ Philokles said. His knees went, and he slid down his spear, but he didn’t turn his head. ‘Right into their flank – now, boy, before they recover.’ His arm shot out, pointing at the uncovered flank of the enemy phalanx, and Philokles fell just that way, his face to the enemy, his arm pointing the path to victory.

And Satyrus did not flinch. He stepped across Philokles, the same way he’d stepped across the deck of the Golden Lotus, as if he’d done it all his life – although the man he loved best in all the world lay in the sand at his feet.

Diokles snapped forward to fill his place.

‘We will wheel the taxeis to the left!’ Satyrus called. ‘On my command! ’

Through the cheekpieces of his helmet, it sounded remarkably like Philokles’ voice, right down to the Laconian drawl. ‘March!’ he roared.

The taxeis pivoted on Theron, the left-most man – unless he, too, was dead. This was the manoeuvre they had so often done wrong – this was where the centre of the line would fold, eager men going too fast, terrified men going too slow.

Halfway around. All the time to consider how much like sailing a trireme it was to command a phalanx. All the time to watch the men opposite him. They were turning, but men at the back were already giving way, running for their lives past their file-closers. There was no hope for a phalanx taken in the flank.

The taxeis of Alexandria pivoted well enough. The centre buckled at the end – someone tripped, a man got a butt-spike in the head and the spears were still down, not erect. Too close for that.

Too late to worry. ‘Three-step charge!’ Satyrus called.

Rafik sounded it.

Only half the files responded. The centre was a wreck, just from two men going down and the spears of their files flying in all directions. Theron’s end of the line never heard the command, or if they did they didn’t respond.

It didn’t matter. Because the fifty files that did respond covered the distance to the enemy at the run, and their shields deflected the handful of sarissas that opposed them, and then their spears were into the flank of the enemy, and the enemy regiment collapsed and ran like a herd of panicked cattle – two thousand men turned into a mob in a matter of heartbeats. Satyrus, the rightmost man of his line, never reached an enemy – by the time he’d crossed the space, they were gone.

They were gone, and the White Shields were unblocked. They had started to cheer. However late they had come into the fight, they were moving – wheeling to the left, just as the Alexandrians had done.

Philemon, the polemarch of the White Shields, was calling to Theron, and Theron came running across the face of the victorious Alexandrians. ‘Drink water!’ Satyrus called. No one left the ranks to pursue the fleeing Macedonians. Instead, a few men cheered, the rest simply stopped. Like exhausted runners at the end of a race.

‘Philokles?’ Theron asked. His nose was broken under his helmet, and blood covered his breastplate. He had blood on his hands.

‘Down,’ Satyrus said.

‘Philemon wants us to march to the right to make space for him,’ Theron said. ‘I’ll take your orders,’ he continued.

‘Good,’ Satyrus said. He stood straight. He wanted to laugh at the notion that the taxeis of half-soldiers from Alexandria were being asked to face to the right and advance by files – a hard enough manoeuvre on the parade square – on a battlefield.

He did what he’d seen Philokles do. He ran all the way down the front rank, repeating the command – again and again. He waited precious seconds, the polemarch of the White Shields yelling from further to the left. He ignored him, waiting for the phylarchs to pass the word back. Then he sprinted to Rafik, cursing his greaves. They were eating his ankles.

‘Face to the spear side!’ he ordered. ‘March!’

As one – almost as one, because he watched Dionysius face the shield side and then pivot on his heel – the Phalanx of Aegypt faced to the right and marched off – one hundred, two hundred paces deeper into the enemy lines.

From here, on the front right of the phalanx, Satyrus could see all the way to the cavalry fight on the left – could see the forty-elephant reserve.

‘Theron,’ he shouted. Satyrus pulled his helmet off. ‘Face to the shield side! Restore your files! Dress!’

They knew the facing order was coming and they did it like professionals, and then the ranks dressed. Next to them, the White Shields wheeled up into the new line, while to their front, the next enemy phalanx began to shirk and flutter and men on the flanks realized what was coming.

Theron appeared from the dust as if by the hand of some god. ‘Polemarch?’ he asked.

‘Go and find Philokles. Save him if you can.’ Satyrus had his war voice on – no quaver of emotion. Why can’t you be like this all the time? Melitta had asked him once. He wondered where she was and if she was alive.

‘I’m the left phylarch-’

‘If we don’t flinch from the contest, nothing on earth or in the heavens can save the army of Demetrios,’ Satyrus said. He pointed to where, before they were even charged, the centre phalanx of the enemy was melting away, throwing down their sarissas. Even the sudden arrival of the reserve elephants might not save Demetrios now. His centre was lost.

Satyrus looked back to where the Foot Companions waited in the sand, unblooded, less than a stade away.

Theron needed no second urging. He turned and ran off towards the site of the first fight. Around Satyrus, all his men had canteens at their lips.

Satyrus sprinted out to the ranks and found the White Shield polemarch.

‘My men need a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go shame the Foot Companions into joining the line.’

Philemon had a helmet shaped like a lion’s head. He tipped it back on his head and glared at the Foot Companions. ‘They’re supposed to be our best,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘We won’t beat the elephants without them.’

Satyrus saluted the older man and ran back across the sand – just a stade, the same distance as a hoplitodromos, the race in armour at the Olympics. A stade had never seemed so long.

The Macedonians stood in neat ranks, their plumes undisturbed by a breeze. Panion was nowhere to be seen.

Satyrus pulled his helmet off his head. ‘Do you want men to say that we won this battle while you watched?’ he shouted. ‘Or are we better men than you?’

He spat, turned on his heel and ran back to his own taxeis. When he reached his place in the ranks, he was so tired that his knees shook.

‘The Foot Companions are wheeling into line,’ Diokles said.

Satyrus pulled his helmet back down, got his aspis back on his shoulder – a shoulder that hurt as if it had been burned – and raised his spear.

‘Alexandria!’ he shouted, and fifteen hundred men roared.

And then they were moving forward, the White Shields strong on their flank, the Foot Companions on their other side, and Satyrus could all but see Nike holding her wreath over the end of the enemy line.

Melitta and the rest of the toxotai finished their battle when the elephants broke. When the phalanxes started forward in earnest, the light troops ran in all directions, and Melitta wasn’t ashamed to run with them. They ran so far to get around the flank of the Foot Companions that she was severely winded. They all were. It beat being dead. She knelt on the ground, breathing so hard that she almost retched.

‘Look at that,’ Idomeneus wheezed. She followed his gaze.

The Foot Companions had slowed to a walk, and the Phalanx of Aegypt moved away from them.

Idomeneus spat. ‘Fuckers been bought,’ he said, sitting back on his heels. ‘We beat the elephants for nothing.’