My senses came crashing back to me with a roar, the mayhem that surrounded me bursting and flooding back into my consciousness and the din of the battle nearly knocking me off my feet by its sudden ferocity. My eyes did not waver from the blade. Tissaphernes, whirling quickly, slashed it viciously through the air almost faster than the eye could see, slicing off the head of the guard who had struck Asteria, as a gardener lops off a wayward branch from his fruit tree. Two thick streams of blood rose writhing and snakelike from the stump of the neck, crossing and twining about each other as they curved in a smooth arc to land with a spatter in the dust at Tissaphernes' feet. The dead guard stood upright for an instant, incephalic and spouting, stiffened and propped by his heavy cavalry armor, before his knees buckled and he slowly toppled into the dust, blood bubbling like black broth from the still-quivering flesh of the stump of his neck and mingling with the black, sour-smelling pools forming under his feet. Tissaphernes glared at the knoblike head lying several feet away, the helmet knocked askew from the impact, exposing the unfortunate guard's eyes and mouth, which were wide open in his now perpetual astonishment.
Tissaphernes then dropped his sword arm, and barely glancing at the cringing Asteria, shouted something to another of his guards standing nearby, and then strode back to his horse. The new guard roughly seized the girl by the collar and began dragging her again. She flopped jerkily like a fish being drawn in on a line, clawing desperately at her collar to relieve the pressure on her throat and keep from being garroted as she was finally forced behind the Persian lines.
Something snapped inside me, that instinct for self-preservation with which all men are born and which to a greater or lesser extent governs all our activities. At that moment, that instinct died, and I did things that no sane man should do. Throwing my shield up to my face to guard against the thrusting spears, I raced blindly into the Persian lines, slashing at any living being I could find, parrying and blocking in desperation. To my surprise, I suddenly found no resistance, as the enemy troops simply parted to let me pass through, a single maddened Greek being of little consequence to the Persians intent upon rushing the Boeotian fire and screaming camp followers. Each Persian soldier assumed that the man at his shoulder would dispatch me instead.
I did not let Asteria leave my sight, and although the entire lapse since she had been dragged kicking from the tent could not have been more than a minute, it seemed like an eternity to me as I hacked my way after her. When I had advanced to within several yards, her eyes fixed on me; though it is impossible that she could have known who I was through the helmet and nasal shrouding my face, and the sheets of blood and gore on my breastplate and limbs, a gleam of recognition seemed to spark in her eyes, reviving her from her half-strangled state. Suddenly summoning every fiber of strength remaining to her, her eyes bulging and her face an apoplectic red, she dug her feet once more into the ground, seized the silk fabric that had knotted and bunched around her throat in the guard's grasp, and pulled with all her might, ripping the robe from neck to waist.
The sudden release of her weight as she fell to her buttocks on the ground threw the struggling guard off balance, and he pitched forward onto his face. I was still several yards away, but just then was confronted by a Persian cavalryman who was startled to realize that a single, armed Greek was racing rampant through the middle of his lines. The man reined in his horse just in front of me, and with an evil grin raised his battle-axe, preparing to split my head like a melon. It was all I could do to tear my eyes off Asteria, who sat panting on the ground, ripping at the shreds of the long robe entangling her neck and legs. The guard who had been dragging her was struggling to regain his feet, hampered by the unwieldy cavalry armor he was wearing and the rushing mobs of men surrounding him and knocking him off balance.
I turned my attention to the rearing horse in front of me, and putting my head down, dove with every ounce of strength directly into the horse's belly. I felt the metal edge of my helmet crest bite deep into the soft solar plexus, and sensing, rather than hearing, his enormous gasp as the air exploded out of his diaphragm and lungs. I bounced back away from the horse from the shock of the impact and the rider's battle-axe cut through the air, shearing the crimson horsehair crest of my battle helmet. The animal stumbled in its pain, doubling over and writhing on its side, slathery strings of saliva trailing from its mouth and splattering onto my face and neck, its eyes rolling in terror. The horse's tongue, bleeding from having been bitten in the shock of the blow, lolled crazily out the side of its mouth.
The rider fell screaming beneath the animal, but I too tripped and fell, and spent precious seconds struggling to my own feet, trying desperately to dodge the flailing hooves. There was scarcely any strength left in my arms and legs, and I tottered like an ox after being poleaxed in a sacrifice. I turned frantically toward the spot I had last seen Asteria. There stood her captor, having finally gained his own feet, still clutching a long piece of silk in his hand like a torn banner, looking befuddled and searching for the girl where she had fallen from his grasp. There on the ground was the remainder of her robe, which she had finally disentangled from her flailing limbs and neck. And there, by now ten yards away and increasing the distance with every second, was fleet-footed Asteria, racing stark naked through the middle of the astonished enemy soldiers, wearing only the courtesan's ruby in her navel and an oversized wicker shield she had snatched from a dead Persian, protecting her from both blades and intemperate stares.
I leaped over the panting horse I had just felled, landing full in the face of its still struggling rider with my hobnailed leather sandals, and tore after her, laboring to slash with my now-deadened right arm, as she burst out of the Persian lines and scampered nimbly through a gap in the flames of the Boeotian engines like a spooked rabbit. I was not so fleet myself, preferring instead to assume my tried-and-true posture of putting my head down and barreling straight through, hoping for the best. Miraculously, the best occurred, and I too was unscathed by the flames.
With my last bit of remaining strength, I raced among the mob of followers, who grasped at me as if I were their saving god, as I searched desperately for where Asteria might have run among the chaotic defenses. I finally found her, against all likelihood, and without a thought for her tattered modesty, assisting a line of women with the bellows powering an engine. I rushed up, threw my blood-soaked and torn scarlet cloak over her shoulders, and then assumed my own place among the line of defenders.
The single rider's thundering hoofbeats had startled Clearchus' troops out of the mechanical marching rhythm into which they had fallen in exhaustion after their battle.
They were miles away from the camp, seeking the site of Cyrus' battle, and believing themselves to have been victorious on all fronts. Most were praying that they might avoid further engagement that day, for victory in surfeit can drive a man trembling to his knees as much as can defeat, and the men's only wish now was to return to camp, remove their armor, and rest. No one knew of Cyrus' fate, save those who had witnessed it first-hand, and the Greeks simply assumed that he had been successful in the general charge and was marauding and plundering to exhaustion.