Christian Cameron - God of War - The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

‘We’re about to ride down the barbarians who kept us up all night!’ I called. ‘Stay together and stay on me, or I’ll beat you bloody!’

My first battlefield speech.

Met by silence.

We walked our horses out of the square and wheeled north. Gordias was on to me in a heartbeat – he began to wheel the ‘back’ faces of the square – the faces with no opponents – out on to the plain, unfolding the square like a ‘W’.

The Thracians hadn’t come for a field fight, and as soon as they saw us approaching them it was over, and they started to fade into the trees – first a few, and then the whole of their front.

Over on the west side of the valley was a squadron of horse – or, rather, some tribal lords on ponies. I aimed at them. They’d have a hard time riding into the trees, and I was going to get a fight. I was mad.

The Thracians didn’t want that kind of fight, and they turned their horses and rode for it, a few of them shooting over their horses’ rumps with bows, and one of my boys took an arrow and died right there – young Eumedes, a pretty good kid.

We were half a stade away. Too damned far. They turned like a flock of birds and ran.

I put my heels into my charger’s side. I had a fresh horse, a bigger, faster horse, and I was mad. I hadn’t even named my new chargers – that’s how much of my time oats and cartwheels took.

The Thracians were mostly gone into the trees. Nearer to hand, the chief and his retinue were beginning to scatter along the valley.

I got up on my charger’s neck and let him run. I ignored the followers and stayed on the chief. He turned, made a rude gesture at me and turned his horse into the sopping woods.

I didn’t give a shit, and followed him, closing the distance between us at every stride. I’d picked a good remount – this horse could move and had some brains, as well, and we were hurtling though the trees, never more than a heartbeat from being thrown or scraped off on a tree – just try galloping through open woods.

But my mount was eating the distance. The chief looked back at me – he was a bigger man, much older. He looked back, measured the distance, looked back again, and we both knew it was too late for him to turn his horse and fight. So he drew his sword and prepared to fight as I came up on him – jigging like a hare, trying to get me off his bridle-hand side.

I wasn’t having it. And my mount was smart – as I said. He turned on his front feet, right across the pony’s rump, and in a flash we were up with them and I got an arm round his neck and ripped him off the horse – just as the instructor taught. I never even let go of my spear.

He went down hard, rolled. Before he was on his feet, my spear was at his throat. His leg was broken, anyway.

He wasn’t the warlord. But he was the warlord’s sister’s son. And I got him back to camp, having collected my pages from their pursuit. We had a dozen prisoners, and Eumedes was our only loss.

I didn’t try and move. Our infantry had seen the Thracians off, and they were a lot better for it. I got a cheer as I rode in with the Thracian, covered in gold – he had a lot of gold on. I ordered all the prisoners stripped of their jewellery and all of it – and everything off the men killed by the infantry – put in a pile in the middle of camp. I had my herald announce that all the loot would be divided among the whole army, share and share alike.

And the sun rose. The low clouds burned off, and it was early summer at the edge of the hills instead of late autumn, and the men were warm. No one grumbled when I sent forage parties into the hills for more fuel.

Gordias slapped my back. ‘Well done,’ he said.

‘You mean I fucked almost everything away, but it came out well enough?’ I asked. I was feeling pretty cocky. But I knew I’d done almost everything wrong.

Gordias nodded. ‘That’s just what I mean, son.’ He shaded his eyes, watching the distant Thracians. ‘We have a word for it. We call it war. ’

That night, I decided to press my luck. Gordian and Perdias, my other mercenary officer, were completely against it.

Even Polystratus was hesitant.

I decided to attack the Thracians in the dark. There was some moon. And we’d had forage parties out all day – there’d been steady low-level fighting, our woodcutters against theirs, all day. We’d had the best of it – mostly because our farm boys had chased their farm boys off in the early morning, and that sort of thing makes all the difference. And while they had a few tattooed killers, it seemed to me an awful lot of my opponents were as raw as my own troops.

No, I’m lying. That’s what Perdias said, and later in the day Gordias agreed. I didn’t have a clue – but once they’d said it, I took it as true.

At last light I put a minimum of men on watch and sent the rest to bed. Myndas had my tent back up and all my kit dry – there’s a hard campaign all in itself – and he’d built a big fire, built a drying frame – quite a job of work for a Greek mathematician. But he was still trying to overcome my anger, and he had a long way to go.

We stood at the fire – the two infantry officers and the commander of the Thessalians, a wild bastard named Drako, who wore his hair long like a Thracian, with twisted gold wire in it, and the Thracian auxiliary commander, Alcus. He and Drako were like opposites – Drako was slim, long and pretended to a false effeminacy, as some very tough men do; Alcus was short, squat, covered in thick ropes of muscle and heavy blue tattoos.

‘We’re going at them, across the ridge-top trail at moonrise,’ I said.

Gordias shook his head. ‘Son, you did well enough today—’

‘I’m not your son. We have them on the ropes—’

Alcus spat. ‘Thracians attack at night, not Greeks.’

I wasn’t sure which side he was supporting, but I chose to interpret it my way. ‘Exactly. They won’t even have sentries.’

Gordias sighed. ‘Listen – my lord. We’ve done well. But we don’t know where the prince is. This is his expedition. If we fail, we’ll be crushed. And – listen to me, my lord – if we succeed, Alexander may not be too thrilled. You know what I’m speaking of.’

I considered that for a few heartbeats. ‘Point made. We attack at moonrise.’

I heard an enormous amount of bitching when we woke the troops – the camp was too small for me to be isolated from their discontent. The only trooper more unwilling than a beaten man is a victorious man – he’s proved his mettle and got some loot, and he’d like to go home and get laid.

They went on and on – they were still bitching about my sexual habits, my incompetence and my errors of judgement when I roared for silence and marched the lead of the column off into the trees.

My plan was fairly simple. I sent the Thracians and the Thessalians down the valley – they were to start an hour after us, and make noise and trouble only after we struck. All the infantry were with me. The pages were staying in camp as a rallying point, and because they were so tired that most of them didn’t even wake up for the rallying call. Thirteen-year-olds – when they collapse, they’re like puppies, and it takes a day or two to get their strength back.

We crossed the ridge more slowly than I could believe – we seemed to be held up by every downed tree, and we lost the trail over and over, despite the moonlight. Finally I pushed up to the front of the column and led it myself – and immediately lost the trail. People say ‘as slow as honey in winter’, but really they should say ‘as slow as an army moving at night’.

After a couple of hours, the moon began to go down, the light changed and I discovered that I had perhaps two hundred men with me and the rest were gone – far behind, on another trail, or hopelessly lost.