Gaweint came with her armour, and the day was moving.
She got her rearguard across the ford without incident, and she clasped hands with Temerix and a dozen of his archers. Then she turned and rode west along the south bank of the river. It seemed odd – a reversal of the natural order.
Ataelus was closed to her, and she tried to reach him.
'I missed Samahe this morning,' she said bluntly.
'I miss her for every beat of heart,' he said in Greek.
'I-' she began.
'I want her body back,' he said in Sakje. 'I failed to recover her, and she will go mutilated to the after-life, and wail for revenge, and what can I give her?'
Melitta leaned close. 'Upazan's head?' she asked.
Ataelus shook his. 'Upazan will never die by the weapon of a man,' he said. 'It is told. Even Nihmu said it.'
Melitta summoned her Greek learning. 'If Philokles were here,' she said, 'he would tell you that Samahe lived a good life with you and gave you two sons and a daughter, and that what happens to her body after death means nothing, because she is dead.'
Ataelus looked at her with a face almost alive, it was so full of grief. 'But you and I know better, eh?' He shook his head.
'We'll find her and build a kurgan,' Melitta promised.
Ataelus said nothing, and they rode west. She sent Coenus to find Urvara, or Eumenes, and bring her a report, and then they rode all day. The sun was low in the west, the rays direct in their faces, so that they could hear the fighting and yet not see it.
Melitta found Thyrsis riding with her baqca, and she smiled at them. 'I need a scout,' she said to Thyrsis.
Tameax frowned. 'Why send him? He wants to fight and he can't count above ten. Send me.'
She frowned. 'I need a good account of what is happening in the sun.'
Thyrsis nodded. 'I'll find a dozen riders, and we'll go together,' he said. She was glad to see how much spirit he had. He was handsome like a Greek, and his armour was clean and neat – mended every day, the mark of a first-rate warrior. He had wounds, and he had killed – he was perhaps the best warrior of his generation. And yet nothing about him moved her in the way Scopasis moved her.
'Keep my surly baqca alive,' she joked, and rode away, leaving Tameax frowning at her back. How many army commanders have to worry about men competing for their affections? she asked herself. But in an odd way, she was happy. Today, she was in command. Not Coenus, not Ataelus and not Graethe, or even Tameax or Thyrsis. They obeyed.
It was Scopasis who saw the beacon first. He scratched the scar on his face, and she looked at him, but he was looking south and west.
'I think that the beacon is alight,' he said. 'The beacon on the fort.'
'You can see a fire in the eye of the sun?' she asked.
He shrugged.
Tameax galloped out of the falling darkness like a raven, all black wool on a black horse. 'Urvara is on this side of the river,' he said. 'I saw her standard but didn't ride in. She is fighting on foot.'
Melitta felt a chill of fear. 'Spear to spear with a phalanx?'
'She has dismounted all her household,' Thyrsis said. 'They make a shield wall on the Hill of Ravens.'
'The beacon on the fort is alight,' Tameax said.
'Read me this riddle,' Melitta said. 'Why is the beacon alight? Why does Urvara fight?'
The other men were silent. Tameax scratched his beard. 'I think that Eumenes must have come,' he said. 'He came and lit the beacon, so that Urvara knows he is here. Now Urvara fights to protect the lowest crossing, so that Eumenes comes behind her.'
Ataelus spoke up, his voice rough. 'He is a wise man. I think he has this right in his head.'
Melitta gave Tameax a long look. 'If you are right…' she said.
He nodded. 'I am right,' he said.
Melitta looked around. She had about eight hundred riders left. They had been in action for seven days. 'We must appear on Nikephoros's flank and make him draw off,' she said. 'We may have to fight in the dark. Eumenes of Olbia must get across to the south bank and join us.'
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.'