By the time they came up to the Hellenes, Sostratos and the other men from the Aphrodite had already taken cover among the boulders by the side of the road. The sailors and Sostratos got their helmets from the pack donkey and jammed them down onto their heads. The Ioudaioi kept on toward the south, some of them trailing the butts of their spears in the dirt. They did not seem to own any body armor.
One of them waved to the Hellenes as he went past. “Peace be unto you,” he called. A couple of his pals laughed. Sostratos didn’t like the sound of that baying, mocking laughter. He didn’t answer.
“Maybe they’ll decide we’re a tough nut to crack, and they’ll go on by,” Moskhion said. “That’s what you said they do most of the time.”
“Maybe. I hope so.” Sostratos watched the young men head on down the track in the direction of Gamzo. “All the same, though, I don’t think we ought to leave this place for a while yet. They may try doubling back to catch us out in the open.” He thought about the hawk and about the little animal that had writhed-for a bit-in its claws.
Aristeidas peered out from a south-facing crevice between two good-sized stones. After perhaps a quarter of an hour had passed, he stiffened. “Here they come!”
“Oh, a pestilence!” Sostratos exclaimed. He’d been cautious, yes, but he hadn’t really believed the Ioudaioi would come back and try to rob his companions and him. But when he peered south himself, he saw that Aristeidas was right. The Ioudaioi were loping across the fields toward the boulders among which the Rhodians sheltered.
“Shoot the gods-detested catamites!” Moskhion said.
Sostratos put an arrow in the bow and drew a bead on the closest Ioudaian. The fellow wasn’t quite in range yet, but he would be soon. Sostratos drew the arrow back to his breast and then, in Persian fashion, back to his ear. The would-be robber ran straight at him-probably hadn’t seen him there among the rocks.
Well, too bad for him, Sostratos thought, and let fly. The bowstring lashed his wrist. Real archers wore leather guards. Sostratos knew as much but didn’t have one. But he felt very much like a real archer a moment later, for his arrow caught the Ioudaian square in the chest.
The man ran on for another couple of paces, clawing at the shaft. Then his legs might suddenly have gone from bone and flesh to wet clay. They gave way beneath him. He crumpled to the ground. The Ioudaioi shouted in surprise and dismay.
“Euge! Well shot!” The Rhodians were shouting, too. “Give ‘em another
one!
“I’ll try.” Sostratos nocked a second arrow. The onrushing foes weren’t trying to dodge. The only way they could have given him easier marks would have been by standing still. He drew the bow and loosed in one smooth motion.
A second Ioudaian toppled, this one with an arrow through the thigh. He let out a horrible scream of pain. Sostratos didn’t think that wound would be mortal, but it would take the man out of the fight. He couldn’t ask for anything better, not now he couldn’t.
“Knock ‘em all down!” Teleutas said.
“I’ll do my best,” Sostratos answered. Already he’d cut the odds against his side from two-to-one to three-to-two. But the Ioudaioi he hadn’t shot were getting dreadfully close.
He let fly at another man, a shot he should have made in his sleep-and missed. Now he scrabbled for an arrow with desperate haste. He’d have time for only one more shot before the fighting went hand-to-hand. He loosed again, at the same bandit, and hit him just above the bridge of the nose. The Ioudaian fell, dead before he hit the ground.
No one cheered this time. The surviving Ioudaioi were scrambling toward the Rhodians. A couple of them flung rocks to make Sostratos and his comrades keep their heads down. “Curses upon them,” one of the robbers said. “Already they’ve cost us too much.”
“We have to pay them back,” another Ioudaian said. “Come on! Be brave!”
They couldn’t know that Sostratos understood Aramaic. He hadn’t hailed them when they went by before. It didn’t matter, not yet, but it might.
A rock banged off a boulder just above his head, then hit him in the back on the rebound. He yelped. A Ioudaian with a sword came toward him. The fellow’s face wore a furious snarl.
Sostratos had only an eating knife on his belt. He stooped and picked up the rock the robber had flung at him. He hurled it back with all his strength. It caught the Ioudaian on the shoulder. He howled out an obscenity. Sostratos had to fight to keep from giggling like an idiot-the curse was the same as the one Moskhion had brought out on the road a few days earlier. The Rhodian grabbed another rock and threw it. It thudded into the robber’s ribs. With that, the Ioudaian decided he’d had enough. He turned around and ran away, one hand clutched to his chest. Sostratos hoped the rock had broken something.
He whirled to help his comrades. Moskhion and Teleutas were both fighting hard. Sostratos didn’t see Aristeidas among the rocks and didn’t have time to look for him. “Eleleu! Eleleu!” he shouted, dashing toward the pair of Ioudaioi besetting Teleutas.
Either the war cry or the sound of running feet was enough to discourage them. They ran like their companion. “I never thought we’d pay so dear,” one of them cried as he fled.
“We must have angered the one god,” his friend said.
Robbing travelers who’ve caused you no harm might do that, Sostratos thought. He and Teleutas turned on the pair Moskhion was holding off with his pike. Suddenly, Hellenes outnumbered Ioudaioi. The last robbers ran off, too. One of them also loudly wondered why their god had forsaken them. Sostratos understood him, but knowing Aramaic hadn’t mattered at all in the fight.
As quickly as that, it was over. “Aristei-” Sostratos began.
He heard the groan before he finished the sailor’s name. Most likely, Aristeidas had been moaning behind a boulder a few cubits away ever since he went down, but in the heat of the fight Sostratos hadn’t paid any attention. Now, with his own life not immediately in danger, he gave more heed to things around him.
So did the other Rhodians. “That doesn’t sound good,” Teleutas said. He was bleeding from a cut on one arm and a scraped knee but didn’t seem to notice his hurts.
“No,” Sostratos said, and scrambled over the rocks till he came upon the Aphrodite’s lookout. His breath hissed from him in dismay. “Oh, by the gods,” he whispered.
Aristeidas lay on his side, still clutching with both hands the shaft of the spear that pierced his belly. His blood ran down the smooth wood and pooled on the stony ground under him. It also poured from his mouth and from his nose. Every breath brought another groan. He was dying, but not fast enough.
From behind Sostratos, Teleutas said, “Pull out the spear, and that’ll be the end of it. Either that or cut his throat. One way or the other, get it over with.”
“But-” Sostratos gulped. Killing enemies from a distance with a bow was one thing. Ending the life of a shipmate, the bright, sharp-eyed sailor who’d been on the way toward turning into a friend, was something else again.
“He can’t live,” Teleutas said patiently. “If you haven’t got the stomach for it, young sir, move aside, and I’ll take care of it. It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”
Though Teleutas was obviously right, Sostratos might have argued further. But Aristeidas, through his pain, managed to bring out a recognizable word: “Please.”
“Do you want to do it, or shall I?” Teleutas asked again.
“I will,” Sostratos said. “It’s my fault he came here. I’ll tend to it.” Despite his words, he gulped again. He knelt by Aristeidas and tried to get the dying sailor’s hands away from the spear that had drunk his life. But Aristeidas wouldn’t let go. Sostratos realized a death grip was something real, not a clichй of bad tragedy.
“Pull it out,” Teleutas urged again. “He can’t last more than another couple of minutes after you do.”