Kineas looked around, catching their eyes. ‘Get the prodromoi out. We’ll make a stand here. Perhaps even try a little negotiation.’
Diodorus raised a red eyebrow, but then he hurried out. Philokles stood by. ‘Which one would you negotiate with?’ he asked.
Kineas shook his head, staring at his map in the dust. ‘Alexander is the enemy we came to fight,’ he said. ‘Spitamenes sold Srayanka to Macedon.’
Philokles stroked his beard. ‘I’m tired of war,’ he said. ‘Neither of them seems so very bad to me. Alexander is a tyrant, but a Hellene. Spitamenes is a Mede, but a patriot.’ He shrugged. ‘Who is the enemy?’
Kineas looked at his map. ‘Craterus will be here first, if he’s coming,’ he said. ‘If we held him, and sent a messenger to Spitamenes — we could defeat him here.’ Kineas looked around.
Philokles waved a hand dismissively. ‘Do we need to fight?’
Kineas nodded. ‘The wagons will roll in two hours,’ he said. ‘We need to hold here at least until darkness, or we could have Craterus’s outriders in among the columns.’
Scythians travelled the sea of grass in two or three parallel columns of wagons, with the herds penned between them and watched by a vanguard and a rearguard of young riders. The columns raised so much dust on the summer plains that they could be seen for fifteen stades and the rearguard was often blind owing to the dust raised.
‘He’ll push his men after the columns of dust,’ Coenus added. ‘May I speak frankly, friend?’
Kineas was surprised by his tone. ‘Of course!’
Coenus finished his water. ‘Do you really want to ambush Craterus? To what purpose?’
Philokles nodded as if in agreement, but after a pause of shocked silence, he said, ‘For the liberation of Greece.’ He stood up like an orator. ‘Any defeat Alexander suffers weakens his choke hold on Greece. If he is beaten out here, all the states of Greece will rise up and be free. Sparta — Athens — Megara.’
Coenus laughed. ‘Don’t you believe it, Philokles. They’ll find a way to fuck it up, trust me. They’ll fight among themselves.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I’m not much interested in liberating Greece. I’m a gentleman of Olbia now.’
Srayanka licked her lips, and then smiled. ‘We should defeat Alexander because he is dangerous,’ she said. ‘Because he is like a wild dog, and if he is not killed, he will savage our flocks.’
‘Craterus is the enemy. Spitamenes is a possible ally — otherwise, just an interruption. Spitamenes poses no threat to Olbia.’ Kineas looked around and got nods of agreement. ‘Glad that’s settled,’ Kineas said. He was armoured — so were most of the men he could see. ‘Let’s move.’
The columns rolled off before the sun crested the sky. The Sauromatae led the way, although Lot and his best warriors were left behind with Kineas’s force holding the high ground just west of the Oxus. The Sauromatae held the right of the line, hidden in a fold of ground behind a low ridge that ran parallel to the track of the trade road. Kineas placed the trained Greek horse in the centre under Diodorus, with the Olbians on the right under Eumenes and Antigonus and the Keltoi on the left under Coenus and Andronicus. On the right, Srayanka led the Sakje with Parshtaevalt and Urvara. Kineas kept a reserve of mixed Sakje and Greek cavalry — men and women who had trained together for a month — under his own command in the rear. The total force was a little less than eight hundred, because more than a third of their strength was guarding the columns and herding the animals.
Darius was off to find Spitamenes and, if he could, persuade the partisan to alliance or at least tolerance, over Srayanka’s objections.
Ataelus and his prodromoi, with Coenus and his picked men, were out in the trough of the Oxus valley and farther south and east.
It was noon before the battlefield was prepared and all the men in place. Kineas sat atop the ridge with Leon, Philokles, Diodorus and a handful of Sakje maidens as messengers. There was no shade and the sun painted them in fire; not a breath of wind stirred the dust. Anywhere that the casual exercise of riding caused bare skin to contact armour — all too common — left a line of pain. Kineas used his cloak to cover his armour and then sweltered in the gritty heat of a wool cloak.
His mouth was so full of dust that even after he rinsed and spat, his molars ground together as if he was chewing pottery.
Leon watched the wooded ground in the valley with all the stress of a lover worried for his friend. Which he was. Mosva was down there with Ataelus instead of back behind the ridge with her father.
An hour passed, and then a second hour.
A third hour.
A fourth hour.
The sun was sinking appreciably. The day was cooler. The horses were restless, eager for the water they could smell in the bed of the Oxus, signalling their displeasure with shrill calls and a great deal of stomping and rein-chewing.
Kineas watched it all in an agony of indecision and doubt. If I water the horses, and he comes — if Spitamenes refuses to cooperate — if Spitamenes comes first — if Craterus comes from the east on this side of the Oxus — if the horses require water — now? — now? — now? Where is he? Where is he?
Where is Craterus?
They saw the dust cloud before they got a report. The cloud looked to be forty stades distant, or more, but distances could be misleading on the plains. While all his friends debated its meaning, Samahe rode in, the cloud towering over her shoulder like a thunderhead. Her red leather tunic was almost brown with dust, but her chain of gold plaques glinted in the sun.
‘Craterus comes,’ she said. ‘For killing one enemy I shot.’ She mimed her draw and release. ‘Ataelus for saying “Ride and tell Kineas — he comes!” and Ataelus say word. Say “Iskander deploys!”’ She pointed. ‘And for dirt-eating Sogdii! Fight for Iskander, fight for Spitamenes. Same.’
Kineas leaned forward. ‘Samahe, are you sure these are Craterus’s men? Not Spitamenes’ Sogdae?’
‘Greek men in bronze with cloaks like yours,’ she said, nodding. She pointed.
Kineas looked around. ‘Time for the army to water their horses?’ he asked.
‘Easy,’ she answered. ‘Hour. Maybe more.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Water the horses,’ he said. ‘Craterus is on to us. We have about half an hour. Bring the whole army down; give the beasts a good drink and then straight back to your places. Push the prodromoi right across to cover the watering. Tell Eumenes to have a section ready to reinforce the picket line at need.’ And he watched in agony, waiting for the Macedonians to come and crash into his horses as they drank.
No Macedonians appeared, but there was someone out in the tamarisk scrub on the far side of the Oxus, and there was more and more dust above the flood line, and glints of colour, flashes of steel, movement. After half an hour, Ataelus’s prodromoi were under constant, if inaccurate, arrow fire from the high ground of the opposite spring bank. Nihmu came back, walking her royal stallion, which was calling loudly in pain with an arrow in his withers. Nihmu was bleeding from her shoulder. She was pale, but she came up to Kineas. ‘Ataelus asks that you send him some force. We are hard-pressed.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Get that wound looked after,’ he said. The girl was at most thirteen years old — to Kineas, too young to be in battle. But as he watched, she was taking the arrow out of her horse’s rump, crooning to the beast while she used a tiny knife to slip the barbed head free. He never kicked. When she was done, the work of a moment, she vaulted into the saddle.
‘Ride down to the river and tell Eumenes to take his sortie across,’ Kineas said. The watering was taking too long, and sending Olbians to clear the Sogdae would only slow it further.
Eumenes took almost half his troop across the Oxus. Kineas watched them trot across at the main ford and turn south in the tamarisk scrub in the valley, spreading out in a skirmish line. Every man had his javelin in his fist, ready to throw. They swept south and east, and suddenly there was a swirl of dust and a keening yell and Kineas’s guts clenched. There were Sogdae riding out of the brush, at least forty of them.