Eumenes looked at the map. ‘If he’s on the Polytimeros, we’ll catch him against the northern wall of the valley.’
‘Exactly,’ Alexander said. He glanced out of the door of his tent — checking for Hephaestion, no doubt. ‘If he was smart enough to beat Craterus, he’ll be smart enough to avoid getting trapped.’
‘If he’s not on the Polytimeros?’ Eumenes asked.
‘Track him. But mostly, keep him — and Spitamenes — off me while I manoeuvre. I have thirty thousand men to concentrate on the Jaxartes, and if one of these bandits gets into my rear-’ He shrugged. Morale among the Macedonians was low. They weren’t likely to desert or fight poorly, but mutiny was always possible when they felt hard done by. Both men knew it. They would march for ever without wine or oil — when they were happy.
‘So you’re going to the Jaxartes?’ Eumenes asked. He’d heard rumours, but armies were full of rumours.
‘Now. I’ve already started some of the troops in motion. I need to beat the Massagetae before they join hands with Spitamenes and make themselves a nuisance.’
Eumenes nodded. ‘The Massagetae have made no move to attack us,’ he said.
‘Except to send their men to harass our outposts and loaning horsemen to Spitamenes.’ Alexander’s tone was commanding. ‘When I beat them, Spitamenes will fold.’
Eumenes hadn’t risen to power with the king by cowardice. ‘I disagree, lord. Spitamenes will fold anyway. We have no need to fight the Massagetae. In fact, a message acknowledging their ownership of the sea of grass would probably end their campaign.’
‘Should I offer to pay them tribute, too?’ Alexander asked. His voice was very quiet.
Eumenes nodded slowly. ‘Very well, lord,’ he said. ‘Your mind is set.’
‘It is. Go and punish this Greek. Recruit the survivors and rejoin me. I won’t move to fight this Zarina for twenty days.’
‘Hephaestion wants this command,’ Eumenes said — not because he had any love of the king’s companion, but because he absolutely did not want to go chasing a wily Greek with Sakje allies on the sea of grass.
Alexander nodded. ‘I love Hephaestion with all my soul,’ he said, ‘but he is not suited for independent command. And if I ever hear that you repeated those words…’
Eumenes cast his eyes down to hide the gleam that must be there. Ahh! he thought. Now the game is worth playing. ‘I’ll catch this Greek, then,’ Eumenes said. ‘Perhaps I’ll bring you an Amazon, as well.’
Alexander sighed. ‘I liked the one I had,’ he said. ‘Even gravid, she had a presence. And her eyes!’ Alexander laughed. ‘Why do I tell you these things, Eumenes?’
Because you can’t tell Hephaestion, Eumenes thought with satisfaction.
Alexander stopped him at the door of his tent. ‘Take the savage. What’s his name? Urgargar?’
‘Upazan, lord?’
‘That one. He knows the country and he has a good hate in him. Let him focus it in our service.’ The king sat back and drank a little more wine.
28
‘ There’s cavalry behind us,’ Diodorus said as soon as he rode up. It was four days since they had left the Polytimeros to ride north, the hills of the Abii on their right and the Sogdian mountains a smudge to the south. Diodorus was so covered with dust that his cloak and his face and his tunic were all the same shade. His wide straw hat had frayed around the edges. ‘ Phewf — riding through our drag is enough to discourage any thoughts of glory.’
‘How many?’ asked Kineas. He looked back, although there was nothing to see but the tower of dust. They were a day and a night north of the last stream, and despite the heaviest load of water they could carry, the dash across the waterless plains had already brought equine casualties.
‘Eight hundred? A thousand? No remounts, according to Ataelus.’ Diodorus used the shawl over his head to wipe his face. ‘They were gaining on us, but Ataelus gave them a sting when they were watering. ’
The last water was almost a hundred stades behind them. ‘They’ll never catch us,’ Kineas said.
Diodorus smiled. ‘That’s what Ataelus said,’ he said, and coughed. ‘And that’s before he lifted fifty of their horses.’
Philokles pulled the shawl off his nose to speak. ‘Don’t dismiss them. They crossed mountains and deserts to get here.’ He nodded. ‘If we get into water trouble — we can’t go back.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I needed more to worry about,’ he said.
‘That’s why you’re the strategos,’ Diodorus said. ‘I used to command a couple of squadrons of cavalry, but now I’m a patrol leader.’ He laughed. ‘At this rate, another few weeks will see me where I started — as a gentleman trooper.’
Kineas wound his own shawl back over his face. ‘Was it so bad?’ he asked.
‘Nope,’ Diodorus said.
That night there was water — enough to madden the horses, but not enough to fill them. There was trouble, even with precautions. People became surly, mounts injured themselves and Greek notions of discipline clashed with Sakje ideas of horse care.
Kineas tried calm authority, and when that failed, he punched a Keltoi who was losing his head and then yelled himself hoarse. Angry with himself and with his command, he went to his cooking fire and sat holding his children while Srayanka checked her pickets with Diodorus. The one sandy hole in the stream bed emitted enough water to please one horse every few minutes — which mostly threatened to keep everyone awake all night.
Srayanka came back after the moon went down. She sighed and sank against his back, and together they watched the stars. ‘They slept?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Kineas said. He had kept his water bottle for them all day and given them the whole contents before they went down. They’d left enough in the bottle to make an attractive sloshing sound. He handed it to his wife and she took a sip, rolled it around her mouth and swallowed. ‘You take the rest,’ she said.
It tasted like ambrosia.
And then they were all asleep.
He was standing at the base of the tree, and Ajax and Niceas stood before him. ‘Are you ready?’ Niceas asked.
‘No,’ Kineas said.
Niceas nodded. ‘Get ready,’ he said. Beyond him, on the plain, stood thousands of corpses — some rotting, some dismembered. Close to Ajax stood a Getae warrior with a hand gone and a neat puncture wound in his abdomen. ‘Do the thing!’ he said in Greek. Those had been his last words. But they had a certain urgency. He cut at a Sakje warrior in a fine suit of scale — Satrax, of course. But the king broke him with a single swing.
Behind the Getae were more men, mostly Persians. Darius’s half-brother was trying to push past Graccus.
‘These are all the men I have killed,’ Kineas said. He began to be afraid, even in the dream. The men he had killed were so many. And for what? As he stood to lose his own life, he found that he had never valued it more. And every one of them had valued his life the same.
Now they were trying to push past other shades, the rage of combat still fresh on them.
Niceas took his hand and pushed him to the tree. His hands were bony. ‘Go!’ he said. ‘Climb!’ He looked desperate. ‘Don’t let this be for nothing!’ he shouted.
And then Kineas was on the tree, looking down at where a circle of dead friends stood fast against a rising tide of corpses. He tore his eyes from the sight and climbed higher, swinging from branch to branch at a rate that wouldn’t have been possible in the waking world, but feeling fatigue as well. His mouth was dry. He was high enough that the tree itself, despite its immensity, had a motion to it, so that the top seemed to sway like a ship’s mast — or had his thoughts of a ship’s mast imparted the motion?
The climb became much harder as he neared the top, the immensity of the darkening sky filling his head. Lightning played on every hand and the top moved like a wild animal under him.