They camped on the field with the dead. Temerix came in an hour after dark with all his men and reported that Upazan had crossed the river to the north and was coming up fast.
Satyrus was bigger than she remembered. He seemed to have swollen to fill the role of king. She let him do it. Men called him Wanax, the old title, and Basileus, and he was like a demi-god. She felt tired and dirty next to his magnificent armour, his perfect physique and his unscarred face.
Before the night was an hour old, he had set the camp and together, the two of them walked from fire to fire, visiting Sakje and Olbians, farmers and sailors.
'My men are annoyed that they have to put out the fires they started,' Satyrus joked. His ships were still working, transporting the Olbian infantry over the river after disgorging all the Macedonians who had served as marines. 'We could have had all Eumeles' ships. But we didn't know you and Urvara could hold so many men for so long.'
Melitta smiled. 'We did it with our teeth,' she said. 'Don't you sleep?'
'We're going to fight in the morning,' he said. 'I don't want any mistakes. Most of our people fought today, Lita. If we don't put spirit in them-'
'You could start by putting some of that spirit in me, brother,' she said. 'If I thought I could, I'd desert. I'm done.'
He put his arms around her, and she stayed there. 'You are superb,' he said. 'You were going to do it all without me, weren't you?'
'We thought that you were dead, until we landed and heard the news,' she said.
He smiled. 'Listen, honey bee. We've got them. We've got them.' He pulled his shoulder blades back sharply and flexed his arms. 'Their fleet is gone. Upazan is nothing – a horse lord with his power base a thousand stades away, deep in our territory.'
She shook her head. 'Spirit is all, Satyrus. If we lose tomorrow, we are the ones who are finished.' She paused. 'I wish Diodorus were here.'
They were between fires. Behind them, Olbians shouted and poured libations. They were fresh men, and their father's friend Memnon, hoary with age and still hard as a rock, led them in the hymn to Ares.
Memnon came and embraced them both. 'Tomorrow, we will put Eumeles in the dust, where he belongs, the cur,' he said.
'May Ares protect you, Memnon,' Melitta said. 'You have grown old in his service – and few of his servants grow old!'
Memnon looked around. 'I had to come,' he said. 'I couldn't miss this. My last fight, I suspect – some kid will put a spear in my throat and I'll curse the dark when it falls.' He thumped his chest. 'I was at Issus with the Great King. This will be my tenth battle in the front rank.'
Satyrus was moved by the old man. He put a gentle hand on Memnon's back. 'May Herakles protect you. You deserve better than a death in battle.'
Memnon laughed and went back to his men. 'Better a spear to the throat in the storm of bronze than dying of the shits in painful old age, lad,' he called.
At the north end of the camp, Ataelus's clan was a silent, mournful knot – those who were awake. As they walked there, Satyrus stopped, looking out over the sea in the moonlight. He could hear the sound of wild beasts rooting in the bodies.
Satyrus set his face. 'About Diodorus – you are right – and right to remind me.' He shook his head. 'I left the horse transports to catch Eumeles at sea. I had to do it – but a thousand professional cavalry would be the balance of this battle.'
Melitta had to smile at her brother. 'People and spirit,' she said. 'With or without Diodorus, what will win tomorrow is spirit. So let us talk to every man and every woman, even if we get no sleep.'
At Ataelus's fire, Ataelus was awake, with his son by his side. The little man embraced Satyrus. 'You look for your father,' he said, enigmatically.
Satyrus nodded. 'I look like him?' he asked.
'For him,' Ataelus said. 'You have looks for him.'
Melitta introduced her brother to Tameax as her baqca, and to Thyrsis, and to all the nomads with whom she had lived in the weeks before she'd made her bid for kingship.
And while they stood on the low hill, Urvara came with Eumenes of Olbia and many of their people, all carrying torches. Nihmu came, and Coenus, and Lykeles and Lycurgus from the Olbians. All the old people, the ones who had gone east with Kineas and Srayanka twenty years before.
They surprised Satyrus by singing. First the Sakje sang, and they clapped while they sang, and Melitta joined them, her low voice merging seamlessly with the tribesmen and women around her. They sang about Srayanka and her horse, and how her eyes were the blue of winter rivers in the sun. And then they sang about Samahe, and how she had nursed infants, and how many men she had killed in battle, and how she had killed a snow leopard in the high mountains north of Sogdiana. And another song about how she and Ataelus had hunted something monstrous in the east, and lived.
Then Coenus and Eumenes rose and sang, and many of Eumenes' young men took parts. Abraham appeared with Panther and Demostrate, Diokles, Neiron – dozens of the sailors and marines from the camp on the beach. They all knew the Greek songs. Satyrus walked from his place by his sister to stand with the new archon of Olbia. They sang a song from the Iliad, and another about Penelope, and a third song about Athena, the warrior goddess, that men said was by Hesiod, or perhaps Homer himself. They sang well, for men who didn't sing together, and when they were finished, Ataelus stepped into the firelight.
'Sometimes, a Sakje is lost,' he said. His voice was tired with weeping, and he didn't attempt Greek, so that Eumenes, who had so often interpreted for Ataelus, did the office once again. 'Sometimes, a rider vanishes in the snow, or on a scout, and we never find his body. So my beloved was lost, although she fell in full view of a thousand of the people.'
He walked to Melitta, and then led her to Satyrus. 'Our spirit is back with us,' he said. He pointed at the sword Satyrus wore. 'T hat is the sword of Kineax, that has returned. The stories of this spring will live for ever. You, every one of you, are in the songs now. You are in the songs.' He nodded. 'Samahe was in the songs from her youth. If we lose tomorrow, all these songs will be forgotten. If we win, she will live for ever.'
He let go of the hands of the twins.
And then the Sakje passed wine around, and drank.
'My father does not expect to live through the battle,' Thyrsis said to Melitta.
Satyrus shook his head. 'I hear that too often,' he said. Satyrus felt as if he had never been to sleep – and he had had a straw bed and two heavy cloaks, and Helios to massage the muscles of his arm.
'Nikephoros has asked for another parley,' Helios reported.
Melitta had insisted on sleeping with Ataelus's people, and Satyrus wasn't sure whether to go to her or send for her – but that was just foolishness, and he pulled a chiton over his head, arranged the folds, clasped his cloak. 'Boots, Helios. I'll probably ride. Panther – will our sailors serve as peltasts?'
Panther was drinking wine at Satyrus's fire. He had a wound – all of them had wounds. But he smiled. 'Satyrus, I have done more fighting in the last ten days than in the last ten years – and you are asking me for another fight. I'll arm them and hold the camp. If we get bold, we might harry a flank. Think of the rowing these men gave you yesterday.'
Satyrus nodded. 'Too true, and I will not offend the gods by asking more. Care to come to the parley?'
Panther nodded. 'Yes. I may tip the scales.'
Together they made their way across the camps in the first light. Satyrus was stiff in both shoulders, but the massage helped. 'Helios? I need a new shield.'
'I'm on it, lord,' Helios answered.
Melitta was up and drinking wine – Satyrus never drank wine so early, and he was worried to see his sister drink down two cups of unwatered wine for her breakfast.
'Parley?' Satyrus asked, and she gathered her war leaders. Eumenes and Memnon joined them, and they all clasped hands and embraced, one by one, with Parshtaevalt and Ataelus, Coenus and even Graethe.
'Like old times,' Graethe said.
'We need Diodorus to be complete,' Eumenes said. He suddenly appeared older, taller, in a white chiton and a purple-edged white cloak. He had a chaplet of gold oak leaves in his hair.
'You're out-dressing me,' Satyrus said, and smiled, because when you are a king, men mistake humour for assault.
Eumenes grinned, suddenly the young man they'd grown up with. 'I knew I'd be in brilliant company,' he said.
They poured a libation from an old cup that Eumenes had.
'This was Kineas's,' he said. 'Every time we fought, we poured wine from this cup, and then we all drank from it. To all the gods,' he said, and one by one they drank.
When it came to Satyrus, he saw that it was a plain clay soldier's cup. But he drained it, and in the bottom he saw his father's name in the old letters, and tears came to his eyes.
He looked around. His hand reached out and he took his sister's hand. 'This is my father's dream,' he said. 'And my mother's. A kingdom on the Tanais, where free men and women can make their lives without fear. Upazan and Eumeles decided to destroy that dream.'
Melitta spoke up, as if they had planned the speech together. 'Today we reverse fifteen years of their evil,' she said. 'Many of you have fought for days already. This will end it. And when we look at the kurgan by the river, we will remember Kineas and Srayanka as the founders, not as the defeated.'
Panther spoke up. 'Is there anything that you would accept from this parley?' he asked. 'I am the closest thing to a neutral party here, as a man of Rhodos.'
Satyrus and Melitta looked at each other.
'Let's hear what they have to say,' Satyrus said. But they shared a different message. 'We would confirm you in your kingdom,' Eumeles said. His voice was reasonable. He had Upazan behind him, and Nikephoros, and his advisor, Idomenes, and a dozen other officers, Sauromatae and Greek. 'You will have restored to you all the kingdom that your mother held, and we will recognize your sister as the lady of the Assagatje on the sea of grass. And my friend Upazan will go back to his land, keeping only the high ground between the Tanais and the Rha.'
Melitta watched Eumeles the way a farmer watches a snake while he repairs a fence. The farmer knows that if he goes too close, the snake will bite, but from a distance, the snake is merely – fascinating. She looked at her brother. He looked back, and they shared a thought as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud.
And he left it to her to speak.
She stepped forward. Eumeles bowed – Eumeles, who had murdered her mother. She let herself look at him, and in her mind, she allowed Smell of Death to take her face from Melitta, so that her face settled into a mask, and the scar was her face to the world.
'No,' she said. She spoke in a calm, low voice, more like a mother soothing a child than the voice of doom. 'No,' she said again, even more quietly, so that Upazan leaned forward to listen.
Eumeles shrugged. 'Tell us what you want,' he said.
'Your head on my spear,' she said, and looked him full in the eyes, so that he could see the hate, feel it come across the gap of air and go down his spine.
And it did.
'No peace, killer of my mother. No peace, killer of my father. You are dead men. Go from here and be dead.'
Even Upazan flinched.
'We will have peace when Upazan and Eumeles lie in their blood and rot,' she said, her voice still quiet and calm. 'If the rest of you wish to give them to us, so be it. We will then arrange a peace. Otherwise,' she smiled for the first time, 'let's get down to the thing.'
'You are mad,' Eumeles said. He stepped back. Satyrus's lip twitched.
'Goodbye, Eumeles,' Satyrus said softly.
'You are mad!' Eumeles said again, his voice rising.
Upazan shook his head. 'You are a fool, and I am sorry I have a fool for an ally. But I am strong.' He turned to Melitta. 'You will not find me easy. And if you come under my spear again, it is you who will feed the ravens.' He had shrewd eyes, and he was tall, strong and fearless. 'We could make peace. I killed Kineas with a fair arrow, not a back-stab at a parley.' He looked at Eumeles with contempt. Then he looked at Nikephoros and the Greek commander met his eye.
Melitta's voice did not waver. 'How many times must I say no?' she said.
Upazan drew himself up. 'So,' he said.
Nikephoros spoke for the first time. 'Then we'll fight.'
Eumeles gathered his dignity. 'Expect no mercy,' he said.
And that was the parley. Satyrus and Melitta arranged their armies in the order they had camped. Eumenes had the left, facing Nikephoros, with all the infantry, including the Macedonian marines. Satyrus was in the centre with Melitta and the best of the Sakje knights all formed together, and opposite them was Eumeles' banner, and the aristocracy of Pantecapaeum and all the Euxine cities he held save only Olbia, flanked by thousands of Upazan's warriors. But Upazan himself faced Urvara and Parshtaevalt and Ataelus on the right by the beach and the remnants of the fortified camp, now full of javelin-armed sailors who had enough spirit to annoy Upazan's horsemen as they attempted to move forward.
Both sides were tired, and neither side formed quickly. Nikephoros's men marched to the right and then back to the left, and the phalanx of Olbia shadowed them, moving east and west along the riverbank.
'Should we worry that our backs are to the river?' Melitta asked her brother.
'Yes,' he said. Then he shot her a grin. 'You scared the shit out of Eumeles.'
She nodded. 'I've been to some dark places.' She retied the sash at her waist for the thirtieth time. 'But I'm glad they taught me something useful.'
Satyrus nodded. 'Me, too.' He took her hand again, raised it and called to the men and women around them. 'If I fall,' he said, 'I name Melitta's son Kineas my heir.'
No one cheered, but people nodded. It was good to know that there was continuity. A man who saw him fall might keep fighting if he thought that Satyrus's death didn't mean defeat.
'We aren't making a speech?' Melitta asked.
'If they take any longer forming up, we'll be fighting tomorrow,' Satyrus said. He looked for Coenus, who was at his shoulder. None of his companions – Helios, Abraham, Neiron, Diokles – were horsemen. But Satyrus was fighting mounted in the middle of the aristocrats of Olbia because that was where the king had to be. Melitta had all of her guard to back them up, and Satyrus had Coenus.
Coenus pushed his big mare forward.
'Should I be making a speech?' Satyrus asked.
Coenus pointed across to where Upazan was trying to get his flank to refuse so that he wouldn't lose more men to the javelins and arrows coming from the sailors. Even as Satyrus watched, he saw the Cretan Idomeneus stand up on the pilings of the camp and shoot one of Upazan's knights out of his saddle at two hundred paces. The whole of the Sauromatae line moved.
Satyrus turned to Melitta. 'You, or me?'
Melitta touched Gryphon's side. 'Together. You talk. I'll wave.'
They rode the line from one end to the other. At the eastern end were the farmers – almost three thousand of them, facing Nikephoros's few peltasts and open fields beyond. They were eager. They began to cheer. Satyrus raised his sword and Melitta took off her helmet and shook out her hair so that it streamed behind her, and they rode.
After the farmers were the hoplites of Olbia and the taxeis of Draco's veterans. The Olbians cheered hard enough, and the Macedonians stood their ground – resigned to another day fighting for foreigners. Satyrus reined in to the front of Amyntas.
'Macedonians!' he said. 'If we triumph today, every one of you will be a farmer on the Euxine tomorrow!'
That got a cheer, and they were off again, crossing the centre. There, Satyrus waved. 'Do you remember my father?' he called to the Olbians, and they roared. 'Say Kineas!' and they roared it out, and he was away, Melitta at his heels, riding across the front of the Sakje. Satyrus reined up, but it was Melitta who spoke. She reared Gryphon and pointed at her brother.
'I promised Eumenes, and he is here. I promised Satyrus, and he is here. I promised one last battle, and it is here. Avenge my mother! Avenge my father! Avenge your own dead! Today!'
And they cheered – men and women who had been in action for seven days, but they cheered. Some of Ataelus's Sakje had fewer than twenty arrows in their quivers, but they cheered.
'He's got to come or he's done,' Satyrus said, pointing at Upazan's golden helmet. 'The sailors are hurting him. Either he charges or he rides away.' He put his heels to his horse and rode towards the camp, where Abraham was standing on the wall with Demostrate and Panther and Diokles. Satyrus reined in under the wall.
'Anything you can do,' he said. 'Just the archery is helping.'
Panther nodded. 'We'll do what we can,' he said.
Abraham had his armour on and a shield on his arm. 'I have two hundred marines,' he said. 'If I can, we'll come into their flank. Right now, we cover the archers.'
Satyrus snapped a salute and Melitta blew Abraham a kiss. He turned as red as blood over his beard, and men laughed at him.
And then they saw Upazan's line start forward.
'Back where we belong!' Melitta called, and they rode like the wind.
Satyrus got a new horse – his was already blown – but Gryphon was still as strong as an ox, and Melitta stayed with him. She had forty arrows. She loosened her akinakes in her scabbard and watched her brother check his weapons.
'Long time since I fought mounted,' he said.
And then Eumeles raised his arm a stade away, and the whole enemy line came forward.
Satyrus looked at the sky. 'Already late,' he said. He drew his sword – Kineas's sword – and just the sight of it caused men among the Olbians to shout.
'Nike!' he cried.
Eumenes' trumpeter sounded the call, and they went forward.
Satyrus went from the walk to the trot with the front line and let himself obey like a trooper. He saw Melitta's set face – she was aiming for Eumeles.
So was he.
He angled to cover her flank, and saw Scopasis, her guard commander, do the same on the other side.
Ten horse-lengths from the enemy, and they were a wave of riders, their mouths open, the horses as wild-looking as the men. Eumeles was a rank or more back, not in the front.
Both sides shot their arrows, but the Sakje bows were dry and strong, and the Sauromatae arrows reaped half the shades that the Sakje arrows took.
Satyrus felt a blow as an arrow hit his chest and all the breath went out of his body. He tried to get his arm up but something hit his head and he almost lost his seat. As his horse burst through the first line of enemy riders he was struggling to breathe but he managed to get his sword up and parry a cut from a man going by.
Coenus was there, and his arm moved as fast as a striking cat's paw. A Sauromatae knight went down, armour clattering even over the rage of battle, and that fast the air was full of dust.
Satyrus finally ripped some air into his lungs and the pain almost made him vomit, then he put his bridle hand to his gut, glanced down-
The arrow was point-deep in the muscle of his stomach. He pulled at it. The barbs ripped his flesh and the leather lining of his thorax – caught. Growing fear and pain powered his arm until he tore the head free and blood coursed out, but he could breathe and he was not dead.
He dropped the arrow. The fight was all around him. He put his knees to his mount, sawed the reins and caught a long cut from a Sauromatae knight. He pushed forward and cut the man from the saddle, the sword easily penetrating his leather armour. He was deep in their formation now – no fault of his own – but the men around him seemed uninterested in fighting him. He cut down two more, riding in close and stabbing, and saw Coenus's blue plume. He leaned and his horse obeyed his change of seat, turning sharply. He parried a cut and got his charger in close to Coenus.
And there was Melitta. He watched her shoot a man out of the saddle. She used her bow the way another fighter would use a lance – close in. Even as he watched, she put the point of an arrow almost against a man's chest and released as she rode by, so that he exploded backwards over the tail of his horse.
And then he saw Eumeles. The tall man was fighting with a mace, a long-handled weapon with a head of solid gold. Whatever his failing, he was no coward.
If Satyrus had had a javelin, he could have killed the man easily.
Nothing worth doing is ever easy.
Satyrus pushed his borrowed horse forward and slammed into Eumeles' horse, head to flank, so that the other horse stumbled – a magnificent white charger, probably a Nisaean.
Eumeles turned and swung the mace, catching Satyrus's horse a glancing blow on the head – and then their eyes locked.
'Here's where we settle the battle,' Eumeles said.
Satyrus's horse was hurt – it bucked, rose on its haunches and shook. Satyrus struggled to keep his seat and Eumeles swung at him with the mace, catching his left hand on the reins.
Satyrus rammed his heels into his horse to no effect. He cut at Eumeles, but the taller man had a better horse and managed to stay just out of his reach. He flicked the mace and Satyrus only just avoided losing his sword.
'I kill you, and the rest is easy,' Eumeles said.
Satyrus couldn't control his mount, and Coenus was locked spear to spear with another man. Satyrus's thoughts flashed to Sappho: Eumeles could say the same of your mother! He killed her because he feared her!
Satyrus's horse was shuddering. The mace blow had hurt it – there was blood in one ear.
'Kill me, and you will still lose this battle.' Satyrus had to shout, but Eumeles heard. 'And your kingdom. You are a fool, Eumeles.'
Eumeles flushed with anger. Being smarter – cleverer – than other men was the measure of his life. The word 'fool' carried. It struck like a blow.
Satyrus followed it up as if it was part of a combination. Just for a moment, the gods gave him control of his horse. He thumped its sides like a boy on his first horse and it leaped forward, breast to breast with the big Nisaean. Satyrus let go of the reins and got his left hand on Eumeles' elbow as he cocked back his mace for the final strike and pushed – the simplest of pankration moves. Then he smashed the pommel of his father's sword into the open face of Eumeles' helmet.
Satyrus's horse stumbled but he managed to cut the tyrant across the thigh under his guard, then he caught at Eumeles and dragged him from the saddle as his own horse went down. The tyrant screamed, front teeth gone, and rolled clear. Satyrus grabbed his ankle and got a kick in the head from his free leg. Satyrus was on the ground but he cut overhand with the sword in his right hand and landed a blow on Eumeles' breastplate. It held. Eumeles had his hand on his sword and he drew it and kicked Satyrus again. Satyrus rolled and parried. He locked his legs around the other man's trunk and sat up. His side flared like fire, but he got his sword point in under Eumeles' arm-
An arrow had appeared in Eumeles' throat. Satyrus looked up and Melitta was leaning over, reaching for another arrow.
'We got him!' she shouted. 'Now it's our time!'
Satyrus sat still for long heartbeats, looking into the empty eyes of his enemy. There was, truly, nothing there.
'You need a horse,' Coenus said.
Satyrus forced himself to his feet, his gut throbbing. Coenus had the tyrant's Nisaean. He looked taller than a mountain.
I get to try this once, Satyrus thought. And then I just won't be able to.
He got up on an aspis and flung himself – fatigue, hurt gut, arm wound and all – at the saddle. He got his right knee over the horse's back and clung – a pitful figure of a king, he assumed – for a long moment, and then his knees were locked against the tall horse's sides and he had the reins in his hand. He pulled off his helmet and gulped air. No one was watching except Coenus, who looked concerned, and Satyrus managed a smile.
He looked around. Eumeles' centre was going with his death. The Sauromatae in the middle had had enough, and they broke, and the Olbians and the best of the Sakje knights exploded through them, shredding their formation and then harrying the survivors. Satyrus let them go, pulling up in the dust to check his own wound. He felt weak. But he was alive.
The blood from his gut ran all the way down his crotch, but it was slowing. Unless the tip had been poisoned…
The thought made him feel weak. And it hurt.
Coenus reined in at his side. 'How bad, king?'
Satyrus had to smile. 'You've never called anyone king, old man!'
Coenus pointed behind them. 'Eumeles is dead. You are the king. I ought to get you off the field.'
Satyrus shook his head. 'No king worth following would quit the field until it was won. Upazan's still on the field,' he said, 'and Nikephoros. Find me that trumpeter and rally the Olbians. We need to help somebody. My money is on Ataelus.'
Coenus found the hyperetes, and the trumpet calls to rally rang out over the rout of the centre. Melitta heard the calls and she slowed Gryphon. She was unwounded, and he was still as strong as he'd been when she mounted in the morning. She patted his neck and looked for Scopasis – right at her elbow.
Behind him, Laen and Agreint and Bareint and all the rest of her knights. No one seemed to be missing.
No brother.
'Where's my brother?' she asked.
Scopasis shook his head. His full-faced Thracian helmet made him look sinister, a monster with a beard of bronze. 'I saw him remount,' he said. 'Coenus put him up on Eumeles' horse.' He shrugged. 'You ride away. I follow you.'
The Sindi waved an axe. 'We broke them!' he shouted.
She wished she had her own trumpeter. The Olbian hyperetes was sounding a recall, but he was a stade behind her and half of the centre was with her, the rest far down the field.
'We should go to the left,' she said.
No one questioned her. So they turned their horses east, ignoring the call of the trumpet. Men formed on her household – many of them Sakje, like Parshtaevalt, who came and rode with her as they turned.
'Lady!' he said.
'Parshtaevalt!' she called. 'I need to know what's happening on the left!'
She borrowed his trumpeter and together they rallied much of the centre and faced them to the left. It took time, and she could hear fighting – heavy fighting – in the haze to the east.
Kairax went himself, and came back when they had three hundred knights, all facing east with the setting sun at their backs.
'The Greeks are spear to spear and breast to breast,' Kairax said. 'No one will give a step. The farmers carry all before them, but they will not try the flank of the phalanx. And who can blame them?'
Melitta took a deep breath. With one order, she would expend her last throw of the dice. Could her three hundred break Nikephoros?
They had failed the day before.
She rode out a pace and turned her horse so that she faced the Sakje knights.
'We will go right into the back of the phalanx,' she said. 'There must be no hesitation. No warning. There will be no second time and no arrow rush. Are you ready?'
Most men nodded, tipping the plumes of their helmets so that they seemed to ripple.
'Let's do the thing,' Parshtaevalt said. Satyrus felt the pain in his gut spreading to his limbs, and he wondered again if there was poison, or if cowardice was spreading to his groin like the pain. While the Olbian cavalry rallied – slowly, because they were not his father's men, for all they claimed the title – he had time to think about his wound, and Coenus's willingness to take him off the field. To lie in a tent and wait for news.
The battle was won. Nothing here to fight for, except reputation.
What if he was poisoned?
Satyrus sat on the horse of his dead enemy, surrounded by corpses. If I am poisoned, he thought, it is in my blood, and these are my last hours.
His head came up, and he straightened his back. He was a son of Herakles, and Kineas, and he was not going to ride away and die in a tent, of blood poisoning.
When the Olbians were rallied, he put them in a rhomboid – a formation they knew – and they walked their horses west into the setting sun, moving slowly, looking for a new foe.
In a stade, they found one. Upazan had not routed Ataelus – but he had numbers and he had arrows, and only Ataelus's rage and ten years of bitter resistance sustained Ataelus's outnumbered riders. They fought like demons – like dead men. And when their backs were to the river and they couldn't run, they died.
Satyrus didn't see Ataelus fall. Upazan put him down with an axe, from behind, while the little Sakje commander put an arrow into Upazan's tanist in the swirl of the melee.
Satyrus didn't see Graethe die. The wolf lord went down covered in wounds, and when he fell the men of his household stood over his body and died with him.
Nor did he see Urvara die, almost the last warrior standing as her banner was swamped by enemies determined to ride down the flank and win back the battle. She, too, died on the blade of Upazan's axe, her arms too tired to parry it one last time.
But their warriors didn't break. Some of their horses were up to their hocks in the river, but they fought on, desperate, often out of arrows, sword to sword, axe to axe.
Satyrus heard the shouts of Greeks before he ordered the charge, and he knew that Abraham was leading whatever he could from the camp by the river into Upazan's flank. It had to matter.
Satyrus had put himself at the point of the rhomboid. He smiled, despite the pain in his gut. He heard the fighting, and he knew the shouts were Sauromatae, and he didn't need scouts to find the next fight.
He raised his sword. 'Ready!'
The Olbians shouted his father's name and charged, and then they were into Upazan's men.
Satyrus struck and struck again, neither weak nor godlike, but merely the warrior he'd been trained to be, and his father's sword flashed like fire in the red sunlight and his helmet took a blow here and there, but he fought on, looking for Upazan's golden helmet. That was his goal now.
He had too few men. He could feel it. Just a few hundred more and the Sauromatae would have broken from his impact, but the Olbians were too slow and too few, and although his wedge went deeper and deeper into the horde of Sauromatae, they were not breaking.
He could hear Abraham and Panther now. They were less than a stade away, all but surrounded, and their charge, too, had lost its impetus, so that they were being pressed back to their camp.
Satyrus could see it, as if he was above the battle – could read the sounds, the shouts, the screams. Ataelus's flank had held long enough. Upazan might win here, but he could no longer win the day.
Tired men swung heavily at tired men. The Olbians were better armoured and fresher.
It wasn't quite enough. But for a while, it was better than nothing, and the Olbians were lifted above themselves, possibly just because they were the men of Olbia, who had once been Kineas's men. They pushed forward, even when they should have been stopped.
Satyrus cut a man down – the man had a wolf-tail banner, and Satyrus could only hope it was Upazan's. His sword arm was bloody to the elbow. His shoulder was weak, the muscles burned with the effort of a thousand overhead cuts, and he could barely manage his captured horse.
But he could feel Herakles at his shoulder.
I am going to die well, he thought.
He blocked a blow, catching a heavy axe blade far back in its cut, and his blade slipped down the haft so that the head caught him a weak blow in the left shoulder. Most of it fell on the yoke of his corslet, but the axe blade still sliced his skin. He got his bridle hand up and on the shaft of the axe, and his sword went up and over the haft, only to have his wrist grabbed by the axe-man.
Upazan.
Their eyes came together as they caught each other's attempted death blows – arm to arm, hand to hand.
Upazan rose on his horse's back, trying to use his immense strength to bear Satyrus down.
At a great distance, Satyrus heard Greek singing and wondered what it meant. Then his full attention was on Upazan. He met him, strength for strength, and their horses moved under them, and then Satyrus's arms began to break Upazan's hold. Upazan redoubled his effort, and he gave a great shout as he threw his weight on Satyrus.
Satyrus held him and bore him back.
He lost Upazan's left hand – their horses were pulling apart – and he snapped a short cut with his sword. It went home, cutting deeply into Upazan's left arm just as Upazan rammed a dagger with his own left, so that it cut right into Satyrus's sword arm and he dropped the Aegyptian sword to dangle from its chain around his wrist.
Satyrus's horse stepped back and a blow hit his side, but Coenus was there. He hit Upazan twice – hard blows to the helmet that rocked the big man in his saddle. And then, as if he'd practised the move all his life, Coenus cut back into another Sauromatae, using the bounce off Upazan's helmet to speed his back cut, and he lost his sword in the man's head – it sheered into the helmet and wouldn't come free.
Satyrus stripped the chain off his right wrist and took the sword in his left. He was backing his horse now – the captured Nisaean responded beautifully, turning on its front legs. Satyrus managed a clumsy parry that saved Coenus from a spear in the side.
It was getting dark. He fought on, determined to save Coenus, who had always been there for him and who had done as much to win this kingdom as any other man.
Coenus took the dead man's spear from his limp fingers – the press was now so tight around Upazan and Satyrus that the dead could not fall to the ground, and a man's knees could be broken by the press of horses.
Upazan was recovering. He had his axe in a short grip, one-handed. He landed a weak blow against an Olbian, who fell backwards across the rump of his horse but could not fall to the ground.
He cut at Satyrus, and Satyrus blocked it.
The sound of the melee had changed. The horses were moving and suddenly Upazan was slipping away, but Satyrus, wounded and without the use of his sword arm, followed him, cutting almost blindly at Sauromatae who were as tired and used up as he was.
'UPAZAN!'
Satyrus stopped and let his sword slump to his left side.
'UPAZAN!'
Now the Sauromatae were giving way. Something had happened. And Satyrus knew that voice.
'UPAZAN!' shouted Leon the Numidian as he burst through a ring of Sauromatae, the only man in the fight with a big round oxhide shield, his spearhead glinting in the red sun, his beard white.
'You!' Upazan growled in recognition. He turned his horse to face his nemesis and lengthened his grip on the axe.
'Remember Mosva?' Leon said.
Upazan swung, the whole weight of his axe up.
Leon pushed in close and the tip of his spear rammed into Upazan's face and out through the helmet. Blood fountained. 'T hat's her spear!' Leon shouted, but Upazan was already dead.
And all around them, the Exiles rode through the Sauromatae like a Sindi farmer's scythe goes through ripe wheat in the last days of summer.
Satyrus sat on his horse and watched the last moments, as the Sauromatae broke or died.
He watched as Diodorus threw his arms around Coenus, and he watched as Leon's horse trampled Upazan's broken body into the hard-packed earth.
It all seemed far away.
After a while, he realized that men were cheering. There was Crax, pointing at him, and there was Abraham of all people, holding his sword in the air like Achilles. And Diodorus, turning his horse and rearing.
And Melitta, and she was crying and smiling at the same time.
He was crying too.
But he was not dead. And neither was she.
He straightened his back.
And slowly, with all the will he could muster, he raised his father's sword over his head, so that it caught the light of the setting sun, and then the sound came at him like a final blow – suddenly the cheers were like a song, and the song was for them. It was everywhere, on and on.