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.