Tyrant by Christian Cameron Page A

ground. Antigonus was on his other flank with his heavy sword out. His horse was giving him trouble, skipping and hopping. Smell of blood. New horse. Kineas didn’t have to think about these details, he just knew them, just as he could see the shape of a fight in his mind.
     
    Coenus and Agis were side by side, a few horse lengths away. Coenus was just finishing a man in the grass. He had a long red mark down his right thigh. None of the others appeared to be hurt.
     
    Kineas used his knees to push his horse around in a tight circle. One man was down - his count was one short. There were dead and dying Getae all around him in the grass and a double handful already a hillside away. Even as he watched, one of them took an arrow full in the back from Ataelus’s bow and the man fell slowly, losing his seat and finally collapsing to the ground. His horse stopped and began to crop grass. The other Getae continued to run. Agis tried a long javelin throw from horseback, missed, swore, and then the surviving Getae were swallowed by a hillside and the fight was over.
     
    No time at all had passed since Kineas had first spotted the Scyth coming back. The blink of an eye. Kineas had done something to his back and had the pain of a pulled muscle in his shoulder. He felt as if he had pushed a plough in a field for a whole day. He turned to Niceas. ‘Who’s down?’
     
    Niceas shook his helmeted head. ‘I’ll find out, sir,’ and he rode away.
     
    After a few moments. Niceas rode back, his shoulder hunched like an old man. ‘Graccus,’ he said. He turned away, hand on his amulet, then looked at Kineas. ‘He got an arrow in the bole of his throat as soon as we went to the gallop. Dead.’
     
    Kineas knew that Niceas and Graccus had been friends - sometimes more than friends. ‘What a waste. Stupid barbarians - we must have killed ten of them.’
     
    ‘More than ten. And three prisoners. The boy you levelled. You want him?’
     
    Kineas nodded. ‘That’s why I didn’t kill him, yes. He and Crax can plot behind our backs.’
     
    Niceas nodded heavily. ‘The other two - they’re wounded.’
     
    Kineas could hear someone making a horrible, pitiful mewling alternating with a full-throated roar of anguish. He rode back to the first man he had downed, it was a good throw - the javelin was through his chest and had probably cut his heart. He gave the shaft a half-hearted tug without leaving the saddle. It didn’t budge. He kept going, riding carefully over the tussocks until he came to the wounded men. The loud one was hit in the guts by a throwing javelin. He might live a long time, but it would be horrible. The other man had lost a hand to somebody’s heavy sword. He was bleeding out, his face empty. He was trying to stop the flow of blood with his other hand, but he wasn’t really strong enough. He had also soiled himself from the pain.
     
    It was like the end of every action. War in all its glory. Kineas rode over to the screaming man and thrust his heavy javelin through the man’s upturned face. Thrust, twist. The man fell forward across his own lap, instantly silent. The other man turned and looked up at him. He raised his eyebrows a little, as if surprised. ‘Do the thing,’ he said in weak, guttural Greek.
     
    Kineas saluted his courage and prayed to Athena that when it was his turn he’d be as brave. Thrust. Twist. The second man died as fast as the first. ‘Graccus can have them to work the ferryman’s oars. Poor bastards. Niceas, get the slaves moving. We need all the javelins back - I left mine about a stade deep in that poor bastard over there. Anyone else hit?’ He looked around. ‘Put Graccus over his horse.’
     
    Ajax was looking at him with loathing. He was clutching his arm.
     
    Kineas pointed at him. ‘Ajax. Show me your arm.’
     
    Ajax shook his head. But the corners of his mouth were white.
     
    ‘Antigonus, get Ajax off his horse and see to his arm. Ajax, that’s what war is.