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

I’d say we were at three hundred paces when they released the carts.

As I said, my Hetaeroi were on the right of the line. We were crammed into the last ‘open’ ground in the pass, and our end files were virtually crushed against the low cliff that gradually sloped in from our right, narrowing the pass and packing us tighter and tighter.

At five hundred paces, I had six files – almost half my strength – doubled in behind the left files to make space, and there was no place for us to climb above the pass, or I’d have gone.

My point is, we weren’t eight deep, we were sixteen deep, and all along the front, phylarchs and taxitoi doubled files to cut their frontage and keep room to manoeuvre.

And then the carts came.

There was no way we could drop files back, because the carts had no predictable path. They bounced, slammed into each other, stopped, exploded against rocks – or hurtled at us like fists from Olympus.

It was a brilliant stratagem.

I’d say we had five carts on our frontage. The fact that the pass was ‘v’-shaped – an inverted ‘v’ like a lambda – with the point at the top of the pass, the narrowest part, and the floor of the pass vaguely rounded out by a small watercourse, meant that all the carts tended to run towards the centre.

Of the five rolled at us, two collided and stopped on the slope above us, and two deviated off towards the pezhetaeroi and vanished.

And one came right at us.

‘Lie down!’ I roared. It seemed like an insane thing to do, with a ton of cart roaring and bouncing down at us, but Aristotle and Alexander agreed that the wheels should pass over us so fast we’d be uninjured. I got down and put my aspis, sloped slightly, over my head and upper back.

The front right wheel hit my aspis and went over it, then right over my butt and missed my right leg. The rear wheel kicked my aspis hard enough to slam it into my head – my helmeted head – and then ran off down the slope and over the file behind me.

I got to my feet.

Aristotle, damn him, was completely correct. Behind me, Nearchus got to his feet, and then Cleomenes and then Pyrrhus.

The cart that hit us stopped in the seventh file, because the shields slowed it so much. Two files had to roll it off young Calchus. But he sprang to his feet.

In the whole army, men were getting to their feet.

Which was good, because the Thracians were charging.

‘Close up!’ I roared.

I wanted my men at the closest order – the synapsis, where the shields overlapped. I might as well mention that all the Hetaeroi in the assault had aspides, albeit the smaller, rimless type Iphakrates invented.

The way to achieve that close order was to move the half-files forward into the gaps between files. But what I wanted to do was to get the full files – my right files, my very best men – to move forward through the left files – remember, the right files were all pushed to the rear by the narrowing of the pass. Right?

I could see Cleitus. He could see me. And this is where the trust part – and knowing each other like brothers – came into it.

I caught his eye and yelled, ‘Files forward! Synapsis!’ Took a breath. ‘Not half-files – the rear files! Now!’

Cleitus had it from the first syllable. He was bellowing at his phylarchs, and my front phylarchs were pushing to the right and left to make room, and the Thracians were one hundred and fifty paces away and coming down the slope at a dead run.

Changing formation in the face of the enemy is the very worst thing you can do. It requires rock-solid confidence and enormous quantities of practice. Great officers and file leaders. And no errors, because at this point, two men tripping over each other could spell doom.

But we were Macedonians.

The Thracians were about thirty paces away when the rear files locked their shields to the front-file phylarchs.

I was on the left, by choice – I wanted to be in contact with the centre. So my full-sized aspis – call me old-fashioned – locked up with Laodon, who was commanding his pezhetaeroi from the right file, which was more the norm.

‘Spears – DOWN!’ I ordered, and Laodon roared the same words, almost at the same moment, and our front ranks put their spears at the ready and the rear ranks pushed forward, locking up so that every man had his shield pushed into the back of the man ahead of him, his spear either point forward, overhand, ready to kill, or, in the rear ranks, erect, the point at the sky, safe until needed. The pezhetaeroi had sarissas, eighteen feet long, but we Hetaeroi had our cavalry spears, just eleven feet long.

No matter.

The Thracians hit us.

Ares, they were brave.

The front men, those who had run the fastest to reach us, were the bravest of the brave, men who sought to make a reputation for ferocity among Thracians . They were coming down a steep slope and they were above us, and several men leaped into the air and fell into our ranks, seeking to break our wall of shields and spears, shatter our formations and make room for their friends to reap us like summer wheat.

A man leaped in front of me.

My spear took him in the air and slammed him to earth, and then it was a blur of bodies and edges and threats and parries. The sun was just rising, and cast a red light over everything, and the noise was everywhere, the full-throated roar of the brazen lungs of Areas, and men died, fell wounded, collapsed to earth all around me.

The pressure of the shield at my back was gone, and I stumbled back – downhill – looking for that reassuring pressure, and it wasn’t there.

My spear broke. I remember that, because it was disorienting suddenly to have no pressure behind me and no spear. I raised my shield to cover my head and took a full step back, reaching with my back foot.

Nearchus was down. I found his shield with my foot.

Got my hand on my sword.

Drew.

The Keltoi long sword doesn’t come free like the xiphos. A xiphos glides into your hand like a friendly snake, all under the comfortable cover of your shield, as fast as thought and just as safe, but the long sword has to be drawn all the way free of a scabbard almost twice as long. You have to roll your shoulders and raise the rim of the aspis. There’s a reason most men don’t carry them.

Lucky, or alert to my difficulties, a tribesman slammed into the face of my shield with his metal shield boss while I drew, and down I went, losing my weapon, cutting my hand on my own blade. I fell back down the slope, and for the second time that day my helmet absorbed a major impact – this time, when my head hit a rock.

But Tyche was with me, and my back came up against Nearchus’s aspis, so that I got my butt under me and then one foot before the Thracian could finish me, and I slammed my aspis into him two-handed, one hand in the porpax and the other holding the rim. He stumbled back.

I looked down, but couldn’t see my Keltoi sword or anything else.

He rifled his spear at me and I knocked it down.

Another thrown spear appeared and I knocked that down, too.

I backed again, still looking for a file partner, and now I was starting to panic – no weapon, and nobody behind me. Had the Hetaeroi really been broken? My helmet cut off my peripheral vision and my hearing, so I really didn’t know where the fight was.

I stepped back again. In my head, that meant I’d gone back four steps, and that was not good. But my booted heel was on something springy, and that meant my sword.

I knelt, put my right hand down and grabbed the hilt.

A flurry of blows hit the face of my shield. But a full-sized aspis is like a wall for a kneeling man.

A big red-haired man tried to push his spear over the top of the aspis, thrusting down into my neck, but I tilted my aspis and pushed to my feet, lifting his spear away and thrusting the long blade under my tabled shield, passing my right foot past my left to ram the thrust home, and he was dead.