Satyrus laughed. ‘He’s an ephebe in a man’s body.’
Stratokles shook his head. ‘He asks all the time — how does Satyrus do it? What does Satyrus wear?’ Stratokles smiled. ‘Look at his hat — he had to find the same peasant who made your straw hat.’
Satyrus laughed, but then he nodded his head. ‘Everyone needs someone to follow,’ he said. ‘I had Philokles. The boy could do worse than me.’
Stratokles looked at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re an arrogant sot, you know that, lord?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘If I can’t be a model for ephebes as the war-king of the north, what good am I?’ he asked.
‘Right, then,’ said the Athenian. ‘I’ll just keep him away from Jews, shall I?’
Satyrus counted twenty steps before he allowed himself to answer.
‘Sorry,’ Stratokles said. ‘Meant it as a joke.’
Lucius, trudging along in the rank behind them, laughed. ‘The men I’ve killed because of your so-called sense of humour.’
‘Tell me your story, Lucius,’ Satyrus said, to pass the time.
The Latin pushed forward, his long legs eating the rocky trail. Now the army was just two abreast, strung out along the passes for twenty stades and more. Satyrus and the Apobatai were the rearguard — except for scouts and archers posted to annoy Antigonus and his vanguard. When Satyrus topped a big ridge, he could see the distant, watery twinkle of iron and bronze. One-Eye.
Lucius turned and looked down the back trail. They were almost last. Satyrus had the strangest feeling, all of a sudden, that he was alone with Stratokles and Lucius and that this was just the sort of carelessness that his sister had warned him against. They weren’t really alone — he knew Philos and Miltiades in the clump ahead — but he tried not to be too obvious as he eased his sword in the scabbard — felt it stick, and flicked his glance at Lucius.
The Latin was gazing down the back trail. ‘I think Antigonus got up early this morning,’ he said.
At the base of the ridge, in the valley they’d just left, a dozen horsemen and a thick column of infantry appeared, trotting strongly right at them.
Satyrus pulled at his sword again, and it came free of the scabbard fitfully, the blade red with rust.
Lucius looked at him. ‘Where I’m from, that’s a crime,’ he said.
Satyrus nodded. ‘If my tutor saw me with a rusty sword,’ he said. Then he looked into the valley. ‘Apobatai!’ he called.
Heads turned.
‘Philos!’ Satyrus called. ‘Run up the track and tell Nikephorus to start forming the rearguard — One-Eye’s making a grab for us. Look on the heights above us!’
Philos dropped his shield and ran, sprinting up the steep trail with the hoarded energy of the professional soldier.
Lucius was looking at the cliffs above them. ‘We’re fucked,’ he said.
Satyrus was shaking his head. ‘I have scouts in every valley!’ he said.
‘They went over the ridges,’ Lucius said. ‘Once you climb to the top, moving along isn’t that hard.’
Rocks began to roll down on them from the heights.
The first attack was really just a probe — fifty tribesmen of one sort or another, charging out of the rocks.
Satyrus stood his ground between Herakles and Lucius. Herakles was afraid — terrified — and he talked and talked, his young voice carrying over everything. He talked about his mother, and about a contest he’d won — a pitiful story — and about how he wasn’t afraid.
‘Here they come,’ said Lucius. His first words in an hour.
By luck, good or ill, the only determined attackers — a pair of men too young to understand the word feint, or so it seemed to Satyrus — made unerringly for their part of the line while javelins fell like rain. Herakles took a javelin in his shield and stepped back half a step, reached around it to pull it free — and they were on him.
Lucius got one — a simple, brutally well-timed thrust into the man as he ran at them, full tilt. A running man is vulnerable. Most men slow when they hit the shield wall, but not these Mysians. He went down.
Satyrus tried to do the same but Herakles, in his panic, was shuffling and then — full of fear — thrust forward at the tribesman, effectively cutting Satyrus out of the fight.
The enemy spear hit him just over the heart, glanced off his bronze thorax, skipped up his neck, across his face, and past. Herakles caught the shaft — hurt and desperate — and they were face to face, and Herakles’ hand went up under his arm as he was trained, caught at his sword hilt — backwards — ripped it clear of his scabbard overhand and thrust it into his attacker’s face, by luck or Tyche through an eye, and the enemy — a boy Herakles’ own age — went down, and his shade left his body.
The fall of javelins had stopped.
‘I killed him!’ Herakles said, elated. ‘By the gods! I stood my ground!’
Lucius nodded. ‘Yep,’ he said. He flipped the two dead men over and checked them. They had nothing.
‘I–I killed him! Man to man! You saw me, Satyrus!’ the young man said, and he almost danced — skipped a little, and his eyes were bright.
‘That was the easy part,’ Lucius said. ‘Now they come at our flanks. Where is Nikephorus?’
Satyrus was on the same message. ‘Back!’ he told the Apobatai.
‘He … smells like … a deer.’ Herakles was looking at the boy at his feet. The dead boy’s lank hair was in his own blood, and flies were already landing on the mass of potential food. Slowly, and with awful certainty, the corpse voided its bowels.
‘Oh … gods!’ Herakles said, and threw up on the corpse at his feet.
Lucius had his hair. He stood there until the boy was done, and Satyrus gave him some wine from his pottery canteen.
‘I … killed him,’ Herakles said.
Satyrus’s eyes met Herakles’ eyes. ‘We know,’ he said, his voice as soothing as a mother’s. ‘Have some wine.’
‘Welcome to the brotherhood of Ares,’ Lucius said.
Satyrus slapped the younger man on the shoulder of his armour-yoke. ‘Move faster, or you’ll lie with him.’
They began to trot up the pass.
More rocks began to fall.
Just short of the top of the pass, they found Philos, dead, his throat cut.
‘Uh-oh,’ Lucius said.
‘Herakles, stand with us,’ Satyrus said. ‘Right.’ He had most of the Apobatai — almost two hundred men. The obvious choice was to form them in the open space at the top of the pass and hold off all comers until Stratokles or Charmides or Nikephorus sensed what was wrong.
Against that solution, the top of the pass was overhung by two big ridges within a stone’s throw. The men holding the top of the pass would be bombarded with small rocks and scree — not the end of the world, but annoying. And there was a light fog — almost a haze — as far as Satyrus could see. If his messenger was dead, it could be an hour before Nikephorus inquired.
‘Any great ideas?’ Lucius asked.
Satyrus found he had the daimon on him, and the smell of wet cat that he hadn’t smelled in years. Perhaps I die here, he thought. It would be like Herakles to grant his worshippers the time to get their thoughts in order so that they could die like heroes.
‘Yes,’ he said. He looked around for phylarchs. ‘All officers,’ he said. ‘On me. Form your ranks, gentlemen.’
The phylarchs of the Apobatai gathered around him, and Delios tipped his helmet back, looking around through the haze. ‘We can hold here, lord,’ he said.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘That’s just what they want us to do,’ he said. ‘As soon as all the boys are together, we’re going up the ridge — there. Don’t point. All together. Men at the flanks will have to scramble and fight. But if we get up there we’ll hold. Who has water left?’
No one did.
‘There’s a stream right there. Every file waters up. Then we go. Phylarchs, take the time to look for your way up.’
‘Ares — this will suck,’ Delios said. He shook his head. ‘But … you’re right. Better to die like lions.’