Tyrant: Storm of Arrows by Christian Cameron

But now that you are a commander, you are the man who holds the sword. Beware what you cut.
    Please send my greetings to young Graccus, and to Laertes, son of Thallus, and Diodorus, son of Glaucus, and Coenus the Nisaean.
    Kineas read Phocion’s letter with pleasure, because he could hear the man’s growl as he said the words aloud, and he could see on the scroll where words had been scraped out and others added with care. Phocion was the greatest Athenian soldier of his generation, perhaps of all time, and one of his father’s closest friends and political allies.
    The second scroll was from Lycurgus, or rather from a scribe in his service. It had no greeting, and no salutation.
    Your exile will be lifted immediately. Consider the restoration of Amphipolis your next task, and Athens will again be great.
    Amphipolis was an Athenian colony in Thrace, long since taken by Macedon. The recovery of Amphipolis - an old ambition of the Athenian assembly - would require the complete overthrow of Macedon as a power. Kineas made a face.
    Diodorus came in from the exercise field fingering a bruise on his arm. ‘Ares is my witness, I need more time to heal. Little Clio just pounded me on the palaestra floor.’
    ‘The summer has put muscle on the boy, and you are getting old,’ Kineas said.
    Diodorus winced.
    ‘Here is something that will lift the sting,’ Kineas said, holding out the letter from Phocion. Diodorus read it while drinking wine, then sat and drank again. ‘He can’t have known of the battle yet,’ he said.
    Kineas handed over the other message. ‘It is not a long journey from the battlefield to this city by river. Nor to Athens, by sea, for a swift ship.’
    Diodorus shook his head. He began to read.
    Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘Something going on here that is beyond me,’ he said. ‘Amphipolis? Are they insane?’
    Diodorus put down the second scroll. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I fear that Demosthenes and Lycurgus are so desperate to restore their party that they will dare anything. And we cost them nothing. They can cast us as dice and pay no political cost.’ He looked at the scroll. ‘Did they lift all of our exiles, or just yours?’
    ‘All of us,’ Kineas said. ‘Poor Laertes.’
    ‘He’d have done anything to win praise from old Phocion,’ Diodorus said, and then he grinned. ‘So would I.’
    Kineas nodded. ‘I thought it would make you feel better.’
    ‘You won’t take us to war in Thrace?’ Diodorus asked.
    Kineas shook his head. ‘I’m going east,’ he said. ‘And if I can find the money and the men, I’ll take an army.’
    Diodorus picked up the letter from Phocion and pointed it at Kineas. ‘Against Alexander?’
    Kineas narrowed his eyes, squinting against an invisible sun. ‘Against Alexander,’ he said. And then, because he and Diodorus were closer than most brothers, he grinned and said, ‘To Hades with Alexander. I want Srayanka, and to keep her, I’ll war down invincible Macedon. I swear that I would storm Olympus.’
    Diodorus grinned, and put a hand on his knee. ‘We all know,’ he said, and then avoided Kineas’s blow.
    Isokles’ enduring grief did not pass in a day. Kineas sent the prodromoi out to find the best landings on the Bay of Salmon, and still the man grieved. Kineas began the complex problem of moving men and horses by ship, sending grain and cash to the selected landing sites, and still Isokles grieved. He moved listlessly around the barracks until Leon moved him to Nicomedes’ house - Kineas’s house, now. He came to the barracks every day and sat with the veterans to hear tales of his son - tales every man had to tell. Ajax and his relentless heroism were part of the tradition of the company. The boy had been reared on the heady wine of the Poet and the feats of Achilles had fired his blood. He had left a trail of single combats and brilliant exploits across that bloody summer, and his father heard them all, embellished by the passage of time, until