It was only now that the men realized the extent of their accomplishment, and of the danger they had faced. For all our awesome bluster, our attack was a precarious one-the men had kept their shields in an even line out of sheer discipline, but the unintended effect of this was to hide the enemy's view of what lay behind our front. We had, in fact, stretched ourselves so thin, in order to cover the entire length of the massed Persian forces facing us, that our phalanx was only four ranks deep-half the normal depth. We had had only one chance to break through the enemy, and against all odds, we had succeeded.
Clearchus dismounted and walked solemnly among the dazed men, lending a shoulder to one on which to lean momentarily, helping another to rise from the spot where his knees had given way in the shock of the killing. I was astonished to see him offer calm, quiet words of encouragement, amazed at the visible strength he lent to each man as he strode among the ranks. The groups through which he passed stood noticeably taller and stronger than those whose shoulders he had not yet touched. This, I reflected, was the source of Clearchus' own strength, his fierceness, this restorative and inspirational effect on the men at his command. After a few moments, he found a small boulder on which to stand, and throwing his helmet back from his face and raising his blood-encrusted sword to the heavens, he lifted a heart-stopping cry to the gods: "Lord of the Gods, Protector of Armies, these men-these men are Greeks! Savior Zeus and Victory!"
The troops leaped to their feet in triumph, clanging their swords upon shields with deafening effect, repeating the terrifying war chant. Hearing a strangled "Eleleu, eleleu" voiced with great effort from somewhere nearby, I glanced behind me and realized it was coming from the parched, constricted throat of Xenophon as he too stared at Clearchus, an expression of murderous triumph in his eyes.
The men settled back down to rest for a moment, silent in their exhaustion and gratefulness at remaining alive, and gulping watered wine from their skins. At Proxenus' request, I galloped atop a small rise for better visibility, peering through the heat waves rising from the earth to where Cyrus' cavalry and the Greeks' left flank stood awaiting the outcome of our skirmish. The dust was still heavy in the air, but as it slowly cleared, I could perceive the outline of our other troops, a mile or so distant. I raised Proxenus' battalion flag and waved it in mad circles, and as I did so I saw their pennants lift high in jubilation, men raising their weapons above their heads. A moment later I heard their throaty cheer come rolling toward me over the plain. I glanced at Proxenus, and his eyes smiled beneath the uptilted brim of his visor.
The most imminent danger was from the king's right wing, which extended to our front as far as the eye could see, far overlapping Cyrus' relatively short left line. The king himself had maneuvered to face Cyrus, and had apparently ordered an encircling movement, for his hyperextended right wing was now folding in and around the prince's left side. Even the most ignorant battle squire could see that unless immediate action were taken, Cyrus' troops would either be surrounded, forced to retreat leaving our group separated and vulnerable, or driven back toward its right to the river, leaving all of us to our own fates, trapped between an enormous army in the front and an impassable river in the rear. Seeing the prince's quandary, Clearchus ordered the men up and in battle order, and we wearily began a forced trot in the blazing sun back across the field whence we had just come, to support Cyrus' forces. Tissaphernes' cavalry, however, was nowhere to be seen, and when I pointed this out to Xenophon, he looked up, startled. Proxenus had assigned him to observe their movements, but in the exhaustion and glow of our rout over the Persians facing us, he had neglected this task for several minutes.
Cyrus was not about to wait for us to arrive, and for his own forces to be encircled, before he attacked. Astonishingly, he sounded a trumpet and began charging toward the king's heavy infantry, his own six hundred horsemen beside him in close formation, struggling to keep up with their racing leader, screaming the horrifying, ululating Persian battle cry as they sprinted. The king's men halted their march immediately, standing stock still in amazement. These were well-trained troops, not about to turn tail at the first approach of the adversary like those we had met; yet they were not so foolhardy as to continue advancing in the face of Cyrus' flying cavalry.
The king shouted an order, and his ranks of bowmen launched their arrows, forming a thick cloud as of evil birds, whizzing and humming through the air. Some struck home among Cyrus' lead horses, tripping them up, throwing their riders and creating chaos as those behind them stumbled over the writhing bodies of the fallen. Another volley of arrows was launched, this time more of them finding their mark; still Cyrus raced on, his long mane of hair streaming behind his helmetless head like a torch in a stiff wind.
With a roar of frenzied men and horses and a ringing crash of metal on metal, the prince's cavalry hit the king's armored troops in what seemed an explosion. Terrible screams rose from men and beasts, as the first ranks of the Persians were mercilessly trampled and Cyrus' lead horses were run through with javelins, or their legs hamstrung by enemy swords, toppling their riders into the dust. We were now running as fast as our fatigue would allow, determined to support the prince in his impossible charge against the king's hugely superior forces, yet also scarcely daring to believe what we were seeing: none of Cyrus' horses were retreating from the whirling cloud of dust, and that in fact a steady stream of broken and terrified enemy soldiers were flying toward the King's rear, shifting the cloud steadily back and obscuring what little we could see of the battle.
At this point my vision failed me for the dust and lengthening shadows of the day, and I shall have to rely on what I was told after the battle by Cyrus' comrades. Even by the light of day it is impossible for those doing the fighting to see everything, and in fact in battle, as in much of life, no one really knows anything more than what is happening right around himself. When we finally arrived at the prince's initial point of impact with the enemy, there was no one there still living. The battling forces had raced away, like rabid dogs rolling over each other down a street in a frenzy, and Cyrus' initial line of six hundred cavalry had been broken up and dispersed in the confusion into small bands that were running down Persians by the dozen. The prince had personally launched himself against the king's general, lancing the officer's horse through the haunches to trip him up and make him throw his rider, and then using the lance again to impale the man through the neck as he lay helpless on the ground.
The sight of their general pinned twitching and writhing by the broken lance point broke the nerve of the few enemy forces who were still maintaining order, and they began fleeing, singly and in small groups, across the wide plain, scattering to avoid being run down by Cyrus' marauding cavalry. His strategy was working, for as he routed the king's guard, the Persian right wing stopped advancing in its encircling movement as its officers tried to discern the outcome of the battle before committing themselves further to an attack against Ariaius' and Menon's forces.
After a frantic sprint across several hundred yards of the plain, Cyrus finally spied the king and the remnants of his guard attempting to maintain order in the retreat. "There he is!" shouted the prince. "Death to anyone who strikes the king before me!" Galloping up to Artaxerxes he struck him on the chest with the blunted end of his broken lance, knocking him off his horse. Just as he struck, however, one of the king's guards, throwing his own lance to ward off the blood-mad prince, struck Cyrus in the cheekbone under the eye, knocking him unconscious and off his horse. The king's bodyguards and Cyrus' nobles began viciously hacking at each other over possession of the respective bodies of their leaders. Neither side knew even whether the king and the prince were still alive, for they lay still as stones, brothers almost touching each other with their outstretched arms. After a few seconds, the king groggily arose, and himself actually began contributing to the fighting, which was no longer a kinglike affair on splendid stallions, but rather like one fought by common soldiers, on the ground in the piss and the mud, and the king was fighting for his very life.