Salamis by Christian Cameron Page A

Just when I was picking the sausage skin out of my teeth, Kassander, one of the older oarsmen in a good leather spolas dyed bright red, called me from the rock above the road.
    ‘Ari! Cavalry!’
    ‘Arm!’ I shouted. We were resting in our ranks – a very basic precaution I’d learned at Marathon – and we got to our feet and got our aspides on our arms before the sound of hoof beats was clear.
    ‘Drink water!’ I shouted. It is amazing how fast fatigue and black depression falls away when you can hear your foe advancing.
    Obediently, men drank from their canteens and leather water bottles, handing them round to the awkward sods who had none, and then, at my wave, Onisandros got the baggage animals moving.
    I was between Alexandros, one of my marines, and Sitalkes, another. I had Styges at my back and all ten of the men who blocked the road were in full panoply. In fact, I’d put on my arm and thigh guards since the last halt. I wasn’t going to eat any more splinters. They hurt.
    The Saka were cautious. They came on slowly, stopped as soon as they saw us across the road, and they loosed arrows. My best aspis began to take hits.
    The next hour was like a long, brutal fencing match. Between shafts, we’d back step – when we went around a curve in the road, we’d run, our ears cocked for the rush of hooves, but the Saka were too cautious, and we’d gain a hundred paces and halt, breathe. sometimes only to run again. Sometimes they’d come on.
    After an hour of this, which included one all-out charge – of course we caught no one, but we surprised them and made them run – as I say, after an hour, my legs were made of rubber and I couldn’t have hurt a Saka if he’d laid down under the edge of my xiphos.
    Then we switched with Moire and his ten. He was as wily as I and his ten were faster than we had been. I had to admit, watching them from the massed safety of the column, that his ten-fleet oarsmen in light armour were better at the whole game – until a Saka arrow took a man in his shin, where he had no greave. He went down, and the Saka were on him in a moment, shooting down into his body. A few began loosing light shafts at our column, but the gods had allowed our baggage animals around the next turn and the shafts only rattled around off of shields.
    The road was steep. We were only making ten stades an hour and I knew we were running out of daylight and we couldn’t deal with a night on the mountain with the Saka.
    I told Styges what I had in mind and I ran off along the column. I wasn’t running very well and I had to stop – often. Not my best day.
    But I got to the head of the column and then I ran, still in full panoply with my aspis on my arm. I ran along the road for what seemed like an eternity, worried about what was behind me and afraid that I’d lost contact with my ambushing force …
    ‘Pater!’
    Hipponax was on the grassy slope above me. He came out.
    ‘Perfect,’ I said. It was. To the left, the road fell away in a cliff that gave a magnificent view of Boeotia – the first one a traveller coming from Attica saw. Above us there were some volcanic rocks and some stubby olive trees, but the slope was gentle enough to a man to run down, and steep enough for a few rocks to be rolled.
    ‘I need you to stay hidden until the enemy is well past you,’ I said. ‘We can’t just frighten them. We need to kill a few and break contact.’
    My son pointed proudly at his hillside. It was true – I couldn’t see a man.
    ‘What if they try to ride up the hill?’ I asked. But that was rhetorical.
    I ran back to the column. Now, on the return run, I had to worry that they’d been savaged in my absence. Losing Teucer loomed again. I thought of Antigonus and Leonidas, their bodies shamed by barbarians.
    Philosophers are always praising the solitary life, but I don’t recommend too much reflection for the captain. It can be dark in there.
    At any rate, they were all still alive. I ran back to