Christian Cameron - Funeral Games

And then they watched as the Phalanx of Aegypt charged home. Dust rose, and the sound of a thousand cooks beating a thousand copper pots. Satyrus. Xeno. The Foot Companions halted just short of contact with their opponents.

Watching the rear ranks, Melitta had no idea what she was seeing. Idomeneus walked off and started collecting archers, and then she saw that her uncle Diodorus was sitting on his charger just a dozen horse-lengths to the right, watching the other side of the field and then watching the dust cloud where the phalanxes had engaged.

There was a roar – something had happened – and she saw the rear of the Aegyptian taxeis ripple as if a breeze had stirred wheat on a summer day, and then they roared again.

She felt the shadow and looked up. Diodorus loomed over her.

‘You fought the elephants,’ he said.

‘We did,’ she said with pride.

Diodorus pointed at the back of the phalanx. The Foot Companions were moving forward now, as if they could no longer resist the attraction of the enemy. ‘Philokles has just given us the chance to win the battle,’ Diodorus said with quiet satisfaction.

‘What?’ Melitta asked.

Diodorus turned and looked across the field, where squadrons of enemy cavalry sat motionless. He raised his arm. ‘See that cavalry? They outnumber me. And they aren’t coming forward.’ He gave her half a smile. ‘I’m just supposed to keep them in check – but I think that Philokles has just broken golden boy’s centre. I think I may just go and widen the hole. Care to come?’ He grinned. ‘Let’s go and show Macedon why we’re the best.’

Melitta sprang to her feet, fatigue forgotten. ‘Of course!’

Diodorus waved to Crax, who trotted up with a cavalry mount. ‘Ah, the mysterious archer,’ Crax said when he handed her the reins. He grinned at her. ‘Some people think they can fool other people,’ he said.

Melitta was briefly abashed. ‘I just wanted to-’

‘Save it for Sappho,’ Diodorus said. ‘Myself, I wouldn’t keep Kineas’s daughter off a battlefield any more than Kineas’s son. Second squadron, third rank. Go and find your place, Now.’

Melitta saluted and followed Crax. She waved to Idomeneus, who shook his head and then waved back.

Behind her, the Phalanx of Aegypt surged forward. She caught the movement, and Diodorus nodded. ‘Just as I thought,’ he said. ‘Ready to move, hippeis!’

The enemy’s centre taxeis never fought – they just melted away, the rearmost men running first, so that the whole regiment seemed to unravel like moth-eaten fur in a strong wind. Satyrus halted when the White Shields halted. He was amused to see the Foot Companions close up on his right at the double. He wondered if the bastards had even seen any fighting. But they were there and now they were committed.

Then the whole right of the army, formed at a ninety-degree angle from their original line, swept from right to left, and the rest of the enemy centre collapsed. The enemy’s easternmost phalanxes were heavily engaged against Ptolemy’s loyal Macedonians and they had no chance to run and many were cut down and more of them surrendered rather than be butchered from the open flank.

Satyrus had no idea what the cavalry were doing, but the infantry battle was over, and the enemy’s infantry were gone, destroyed or surrendered or run. His taxeis was now in the centre of the canted line, facing a wall of dust and whirling sand. All he wanted to do was walk back and find Philokles, but he knew his duty and when the line halted he ran down the front rank, all the way to the left, where he found the polemarch of the White Shields.

‘Now what?’ Satyrus demanded.

The polemarch had a purple shield with inlaid ivory. He looked like Achilles come back to earth, but when he took his helmet off, he was bald as polished marble. ‘Fucked if I know, son,’ he said. ‘You in command of those Aegyptians, right? Those boys are on fire.’ He grinned. ‘Not that we did too badly ourselves. And I’m so pleased that our Foot Companions chose to join the dance. Where’s your big Spartan?’

‘Wounded,’ Satyrus said. He got his canteen to his lips – no easy feat in armour – and drank deeply.

‘Hope he makes it. Don’t know. Never been in a battle like this. Never seen the enemy phalanx so badly broken. It must be over – what can they do?’ He shrugged. ‘What have they got left to fight with?’

Just then, some of the Macedonian file-leaders started to shout, and Satyrus turned to look.

Demetrios’s other forty elephants were shambling out of the battle haze.

Diodorus had the hippeis – the Exiles – and six other squadrons of mercenary cavalry. From the third rank, Melitta couldn’t see much, but she thought that they were all going forward together. They rode forward at a walk, and when she knelt on her borrowed charger’s back, she could see over the left squadron to the phalanx.

They moved and then halted, then moved at a walk again – and then halted. She drank water and waited.

‘You look bored,’ Carlus said from two ranks ahead. He laughed his big laugh.

Tanu, the Thracian who was just ahead of her, turned and joined in the laugh. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry to fight!’ he said. ‘Pay’s just the same!’

‘I can’t see!’ Melitta said.

‘The cavalry in front of us are unsteady,’ Carlus said. ‘Their whole centre is gone.’ The big man shook his head. ‘Never seen anything like it, and I’ve been in a few fights.’

Diodorus cantered over to Crax at the head of her troop.

‘Melitta, front and centre,’ he called.

She rode out, sure that she was about to be sent to the rear for all his protestations. But he waved her forward impatiently.

‘You know this Amastris?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Good. Stay with me. I’m going to have a go at breaking right through into his camp. If we make it through that cavalry, I don’t think there’s anything to stop us – and then, my dear girl, we’ll all be rich.’ Diodorus smiled and his beard, which was mostly grey, glinted with red.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘we are mercenaries. But shouldn’t we be finishing off those infantrymen?’ She waved at the thousands of broken pikemen who were racing, weaponless, for the safety of the fortified town of Gaza.

Diodorus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. He grinned. ‘If you kill them, who will you use to retake Tanais? What we need is the money to pay them.’ His grin grew broader, and Crax’s grin and Eumenes’ grin echoed his. ‘And there it is – Demetrios’s camp. Let’s go and get it, shall we?’ He gave orders and turned back to her. ‘Stay right at my stirrup,’ he said. ‘Your friend the princess ought to be close to golden boy’s tent. We need to get to her before all of Ptolemy’s other cavalry.’

He turned and backed his horse until he was facing his squadrons. ‘Over there,’ he cried, his voice carrying easily, ‘are all the riches of Asia. All you have to do is take them!’ They were the words of Miltiades at Marathon, and the Exiles roared their approval.

They went from walk to trot, and then from trot to canter, the files opening uncontrollably the farther they moved, but the enemy did not await their onset. Rearguard squadrons who had stayed together this long fell apart when they saw themselves charged. No one stayed to fight a lost battle – especially against the same cavalrymen who had harried them for weeks out in the desert.

Crax dropped off five files to round up prisoners – mostly men whose horses were so poor that they couldn’t outrun their pursuit. And then the whole line was rumbling up the long, gentle slope towards the fortified town of Gaza.

The gates were open.