Christian Cameron - King of the Bosphorus

Melitta understood. 'Urvara is committing us to a battle.'

Coenus nodded. 'Yes.'

'Just to cover her archers, who she needed to close the river, which she did to keep us alive up here.' Melitta ticked the points off with her fingers.

Coenus nodded again. 'Yes. You are your father's daughter, Melitta. Many grown men with ten campaigns never understand the cause and effect like that.'

'I love your praise, Uncle. You knew of this in the morning, when you recommended that we close the ford.' She wasn't accusing him, just asking.

'I didn't know,' he said with a shrug. 'I merely suspected. Urvara means to fight – or close the fort – tomorrow. The Cruel Hands and all of Eumenes' cavalry are riding all day to join her, and the phalanx of Olbia will come when they can. I don't see how we can get them over the river, but we'll do that when we have to.'

'And the farmers?' Melitta asked.

'Swimming with the Sakje horses. Not something most Greeks can do.' He shook his head. 'Any movement from Upazan?'

Melitta looked upstream, where the calm day devoid of dust showed that her enemy was resting. 'Nothing.' She sat on a stump. 'But if Urvara commits to fight Nikephoros – then what? It is a very unequal fight, all cavalry against all infantry.'

Coenus nodded. 'Just so. It will, in fact, be a race between Eumenes' phalanx and Upazan. Upazan has more cavalry than all of ours combined – twice over, even now. But he has no infantry. If we can destroy Nikephoros before Upazan arrives, he will be helpless. But if Nikephoros holds us until Upazan arrives…'

Melitta shook her head. 'Urvara has committed us to a mighty risk. What if I call her back?'

Coenus sat down. Men were gathering around – Scopasis and Graethe, Ataelus, his eyes red with weeping, and Buirtevaert with his hand on Ataelus's shoulder, his son Thyrsis behind him and Tameax the baqca watching from under his eyebrows. But they all stood silent and listened. This was not their way of war.

Coenus looked around. 'If you call her back, then we face Upazan on this side of the river, and Nikephoros recovers his wits, puts all his men on ships and comes across.'

'Ahh,' Melitta said. Now she saw it. 'This is not risk. We are, in fact, desperate.'

Coenus put his hands on his knees. 'Unless your brother comes,' he said, 'we have little choice.'

Melitta stood. 'Then let us strike with what we have. Upazan has lost a day. We will march at dawn – across the ford. Temerix, your best two hundred, with ponies, to hold the ford. If Upazan crosses north of us, scouts will inform your men and they can ride to join us. Otherwise, you hold the ford until you die. The rest of your archers follow me. Perhaps we can bury Nikephoros in arrows.'

Ataelus shrugged.

Graethe looked at the men making arrows. 'Only if we have them to shoot,' he said. Upazan's scouts found them in the dark, but they were ready enough, and Melitta slept through the fight and rose to be given hot wine and a report.

Scopasis pressed the wine into her hand, and she could see blood under the nails of his hands.

'We hit them, but many got away.' He shrugged. 'We killed more than some.' He frowned. 'But they saw the stakes in the ford.'

She kissed him then. He was shocked – he stumbled back. 'Lady?' he mumbled.

She smiled. 'Life is not all war, Scopasis. One day, we will not be wearing armour.'

She caught a glint – the outlaw lived. 'Lady,' he growled.

She felt better than she had in days, and she swallowed the wine in four hot gulps. 'Armour,' she called, and then remembered that she no longer had Samahe to braid her hair. She was surprised – appalled, actually – at how quickly the dead were left behind in her head. They died so fast.

She shook her head to clear it. That way madness lay.

Gaweint came with her armour, and the day was moving.

She got her rearguard across the ford without incident, and she clasped hands with Temerix and a dozen of his archers. Then she turned and rode west along the south bank of the river. It seemed odd – a reversal of the natural order.

Ataelus was closed to her, and she tried to reach him.

'I missed Samahe this morning,' she said bluntly.

'I miss her for every beat of heart,' he said in Greek.

'I-' she began.

'I want her body back,' he said in Sakje. 'I failed to recover her, and she will go mutilated to the after-life, and wail for revenge, and what can I give her?'

Melitta leaned close. 'Upazan's head?' she asked.

Ataelus shook his. 'Upazan will never die by the weapon of a man,' he said. 'It is told. Even Nihmu said it.'

Melitta summoned her Greek learning. 'If Philokles were here,' she said, 'he would tell you that Samahe lived a good life with you and gave you two sons and a daughter, and that what happens to her body after death means nothing, because she is dead.'

Ataelus looked at her with a face almost alive, it was so full of grief. 'But you and I know better, eh?' He shook his head.

'We'll find her and build a kurgan,' Melitta promised.

Ataelus said nothing, and they rode west. She sent Coenus to find Urvara, or Eumenes, and bring her a report, and then they rode all day. The sun was low in the west, the rays direct in their faces, so that they could hear the fighting and yet not see it.

Melitta found Thyrsis riding with her baqca, and she smiled at them. 'I need a scout,' she said to Thyrsis.

Tameax frowned. 'Why send him? He wants to fight and he can't count above ten. Send me.'

She frowned. 'I need a good account of what is happening in the sun.'

Thyrsis nodded. 'I'll find a dozen riders, and we'll go together,' he said. She was glad to see how much spirit he had. He was handsome like a Greek, and his armour was clean and neat – mended every day, the mark of a first-rate warrior. He had wounds, and he had killed – he was perhaps the best warrior of his generation. And yet nothing about him moved her in the way Scopasis moved her.

'Keep my surly baqca alive,' she joked, and rode away, leaving Tameax frowning at her back. How many army commanders have to worry about men competing for their affections? she asked herself. But in an odd way, she was happy. Today, she was in command. Not Coenus, not Ataelus and not Graethe, or even Tameax or Thyrsis. They obeyed.

It was Scopasis who saw the beacon first. He scratched the scar on his face, and she looked at him, but he was looking south and west.

'I think that the beacon is alight,' he said. 'The beacon on the fort.'

'You can see a fire in the eye of the sun?' she asked.

He shrugged.

Tameax galloped out of the falling darkness like a raven, all black wool on a black horse. 'Urvara is on this side of the river,' he said. 'I saw her standard but didn't ride in. She is fighting on foot.'

Melitta felt a chill of fear. 'Spear to spear with a phalanx?'

'She has dismounted all her household,' Thyrsis said. 'They make a shield wall on the Hill of Ravens.'

'The beacon on the fort is alight,' Tameax said.

'Read me this riddle,' Melitta said. 'Why is the beacon alight? Why does Urvara fight?'

The other men were silent. Tameax scratched his beard. 'I think that Eumenes must have come,' he said. 'He came and lit the beacon, so that Urvara knows he is here. Now Urvara fights to protect the lowest crossing, so that Eumenes comes behind her.'

Ataelus spoke up, his voice rough. 'He is a wise man. I think he has this right in his head.'

Melitta gave Tameax a long look. 'If you are right…' she said.

He nodded. 'I am right,' he said.

Melitta looked around. She had about eight hundred riders left. They had been in action for seven days. 'We must appear on Nikephoros's flank and make him draw off,' she said. 'We may have to fight in the dark. Eumenes of Olbia must get across to the south bank and join us.'