Christian Cameron - King of the Bosphorus

Up and down the column of Sakje, every warrior changed horses. The farmers, three hundred strong, had only one pony each. Melitta mounted Gryphon and rode to Temerix's lieutenant, a big, ruddy smith named Maeton.

'Follow at your best speed. When you come, look for my banner. Do you understand? If all else fails, kill as many enemy as you can.' She took his hand, and he bowed his head. Behind him, she could see Gardan. She raised her voice. 'By this time tomorrow, we will be done. Eumenes is here from Olbia. We can win now, and we will never face foreign taxes and raids from Upazan again.'

They gave a cheer, and she waved and rode away.

When she got to the head of her Sakje, she drew her axe. 'Now we ride,' she said.

And they were off. Ten stades of open fields. Twice they crossed farm walls, following Thyrsis, who had left riders to guide them over, and then, faces to the setting sun, they came over a low ridge and they could see two full taxeis of enemy phalangites facing the last ford, and at the ford, Urvara's knights, all wearing scale armour from throat to ankle, standing with their axes at the top of the riverbank. The ground in front of her household was littered with bodies.

'Follow me!' Melitta shouted. She bent low on Gryphon's neck and kicked her heels, and he went from a canter to the gallop.

Sakje needed no orders to form for battle. They were in a long column, and now they spread wide across the plain, drawing their bows from their gorytoi as they galloped and nocking the first arrows, the faster horses pulling ahead of the slower.

Their hoof beats announced their arrival, and long before they neared Nikephoros, his pikes were changing direction, and they faced a wall of spear-points. Melitta was still a horse-length in advance of Scopasis and her knights. She didn't slow the big horse, but leaned her weight to the right and he turned away from the spear-points and she passed an arm's length from the glittering hedge, She shot her first arrow into the blur of faces and leather armour so close that her shaft was in a man's gut before her galloping horse carried her past.

As she nocked her second arrow, her thumb feeling for the burr on the nock, Scopasis buried his first in a man's shield and cursed.

'Lock your shields!' a phylarch shouted.

She she saw him, his mouth open for the next order, but Macedonian shields were small things compared to the great aspis that her brother carried, and she shot him over the rim of his shield – missing the open mark of his mouth, so that her shaft went in over his nose and right out again through his helmet.

The pikemen could do nothing but bend their heads to put the peaks of their tall helmets into the arrow storm and pray to their gods. The Sakje were riding so close that they could choose where to shoot – above the shield or below – and men fell with arrows through their feet. Eight hundred Sakje thundered along the flank of the phalanx, and a hundred pikemen fell, wounded and screaming, or dead before their helmets hit the ground.

Melitta released a third shaft, missed seeing the result, and then she was past the last man and in the open. She kept going until she pulled up by Urvara, who stood with a bloody sword between her banner and her tanist. The iron-haired woman pulled her helmet free and dropped her sword to catch at Melitta's hand.

'I knew you'd come,' she said. 'Between us, we might finish him.'

Melitta held up her quiver. She had eight arrows left. 'T hat was all bluff,' she said.

Urvara gave half a smile. 'There he goes,' she said. Even as she spoke, they saw a single figure on horseback arrive in the enemy phalanx.

'Messenger from the fort?' Melitta asked. 'Shall we harry them once more?' she asked.

Urvara shook her head. 'They're going to retreat – you can see it in the front-rank men. I've lost a lot of people today – I'm not sure I can help you. Let him go.'

There were dead pikemen and dead Sakje all the way across the plain – three stades of dead.

Nikephoros was less than a stade away. It was somehow odd that Melitta knew the sound of his voice. He was shouting at someone. And then the pikemen began to march, their ranks closing up over the dead, and they formed even closer. The back ranks walked backwards as they withdrew, and the spearheads were still steady.

'Good men,' Coenus said. He was in armour again, and had a fine Attic helmet on his head with a red crest. 'He's going to ride over and ask for a truce.'

'Give me all your arrows,' Melitta called to her household, and in seconds, her quiver was full – forty arrows, all they had.

She turned to Coenus. 'You're with me. The rest of you wait here. Scopasis – here!' More kindly, 'Coenus can protect me. And I want him to see a full quiver.'

Sure enough, Nikephoros was riding towards them, mounted on an ugly bay. He seemed unconcerned to be alone in front of a host of enemies.

'I wish that man was mine,' Melitta said.

Coenus nodded. 'If he lives, make him yours,' he said.

Nikephoros met them in a clear space among the dead. 'I would like a day's truce to collect and bury my dead,' he said. 'I concede that I was bested.'

Melitta shook her head. 'No, I'm sorry, Nikephoros. I like you, but no truce. We will finish you in the morning. Unless you'd like to ask for terms.'

'My master's ally Upazan is coming,' he said. 'You will not finish me in the morning.'

Melitta shrugged. 'I have no need to bluster or bargain. Begone.'

She turned her horse, and as she turned, she saw the shock on Nikephoros's face. Even as she saw it, she saw where his eyes were, and she followed them.

The bay was full of ships.

And closer, at the seaward edge of Nikephoros's camp, there was fire.

'No truce,' she spat. To Coenus, she said, 'Ride!'

They left Nikephoros in a swirl of dust and galloped back across the dead to where her people had dismounted. Most were swilling wine. Tameax spat a mouthful and it was like blood from his mouth – a poor omen, she thought.

'My brother is here,' she shouted.

Coenus pulled up behind her. 'Of course!' he said.

'Satyrus is attacking Nikephoros's camp,' she said. 'We need to harry him every step and slow his retreat, and we may yet have him in the last light of the sun.'

It is a hard thing for a warrior to believe that he is done – that he has lived another day, that he can drink, sit on the ground, enjoy the small pleasures that make life worth living even in the middle of the unbelievable tension of daily war – and then be summoned back to the risk of imminent death. It is a hard thing, and it is only the best who can rise to meet it.

'Now for revenge!' Thyrsis said, leaping to his feet as if he'd never shot his bow or ridden a stade all day.

'One more ride,' Scopasis shouted, and then they were all on their feet. Many changed horses. Many cursed.

Urvara leaned on her sword hilt and drove the point into the grass. 'We're done.'

Melitta was sorry, but she forced a smile. 'I can see Eumenes,' she said, pointing across the river, where a long column of horsemen were splashing into the river. 'Send him to me.'

Then she took her warriors and went back to the pikemen.

Nikephoros had plenty of time to see her coming, and at her orders all the Sakje shot carefully and slowly, riding close to be sure of every shaft, and the pikemen halted and closed even tighter. Melitta rode to Graethe. 'Take your Standing Horses and get arrows from the Grass Cats,' she said. 'Then come back.'

He waved his axe in acknowledgement and rode away.

Her numbers halved, she led her people past the phalanx again. Only fifty or so arrows flew, but men fell.

The phalanx shuffled into motion again.

She cursed the lack of arrows and rode past a third time. This time, pikemen leaped out of the spear wall and killed Sakje, dragging the victims down with charging thrusts of their spears – but every brave pikeman died, spitted or shot by the following riders.