Funeral Games by Christian Cameron, Cameron Page A

head. ‘It’s been a hard ten days, lord. The boys need some—’
    ‘Some rape? I recommend that they practise on each other, then. Listen, you fuckwit. These people are Heron of Pantecapaeum’s citizens .’ Stratokles shook his head.
    ‘We done worse when we took that town - Tanais. You weren’t so high and mighty then.’ The phylarch knew he had the rest of the men with him.
    Stratokles shrugged. ‘Sometimes men have to do evil deeds to attain an end. Tanais had to be sacked. It was a symbol - a symbol your master can’t afford. But one day of sacking a town - an event that should have sated your urges for a little longer - does not give you the right to rape your way across the countryside.’
    The phylarch shrugged. ‘They all hate us anyway.’
    Stratokles nodded. He sheathed his dagger, and the Macedonian breathed again. Stratokles shook his head. ‘Are you surprised?’ He picked the girl up. She had a broken nose, two black eyes and blood all down the front of her chiton, but she tried to resist him. He grabbed her wrists and threw her over his shoulder, then carried her around the barn to where other soldiers had the wife and the farmer himself penned in the house.
    ‘Let me past, you idiots,’ Stratokles roared. He walked up the steps to the stone house and put the girl on the floor. ‘I’m sorry for what my men have done here, but her virtue is not stolen, and her nose will heal. Sooner than mine,’ he said with an attempt at humour, but it fell to its death on the iron-hard faces of the farmer and his wife. She leaped to her daughter, put her arms around her and the two began to talk - fast - in the local tongue.
    ‘We know you had the twins here - three days back? Perhaps four?’ Stratokles looked at the boy, cowering against the hearth. ‘I’m doing my best to restrain these animals, but it could get ugly here and I’m just one man. If you tell us what we need to know, we’ll be gone the sooner. And no one needs to get hurt.’
    ‘This is what Heron of Pantecapaeum stands for, is it?’ the farmer spat.
    Yes, it is , Stratokles thought to himself. Politics made strange allies - and for Stratokles, a democrat of the most rabid sort, a man of principle, dedicated to the freedom of Athens, to be forced into a yoke with the tyrant of Pantecapaeum was the richest sort of irony.
    ‘Please,’ Stratokles said. ‘Help me to help you. When were they here?’
    The farmer wilted. His eyes went to his son and daughter. Outside, the mercenaries were moving around with heavy footsteps, their very silence ominous.
    ‘Three days back,’ the farmer said. ‘They took our horses.’
     
    The best of the mercenaries was an Italian named Lucius, a big man with a brain who had stood by Stratokles repeatedly during the chase. Stratokles demoted the phylarch on the spot and promoted the Italian in his place. There was a lot of ugly muttering.
    Stratokles rode in among them, pushing his horse right up against the Macedonians. ‘Listen, children,’ he said. ‘I could have killed fuckwit here for mutiny and rape - but I chose to assume that his useless phylarch shared some of the blame. So you get to live.’ Stratokles grinned around at the ten of them. ‘If you annoy me enough, I’ll just start killing the ones I find most annoying - get me? I can take all ten of you - together, apart, one at a time, any way you want it. Care to start dancing? If not, shut up and soldier.’
    ‘You ain’t our officer,’ the ex-phylarch said - in a whine. ‘We’re paid men - mercenaries. We have our own rules.’
    Stratokles’ smile widened. ‘I’m your officer now.’ He looked around at them again - a useless assortment of boys and thugs. ‘And the only rules here are mine.’
     
    They were badly mounted, and he suspected that the children he’d been sent to kill were now better mounted, but he knew horses and they made the best time he could manage, five days across the hills and down the valleys to the