God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great (55 page)

The last of our Thracian cattle were killed and eaten, and we started on the food available in the little valley below the fortress. I knew – it was my job – that we had about five days’ food.

Alexander knew. We had an officers’ meeting – forty senior officers.

Alexander laid out his plan – a simple one – and we all listened in silence.

Nicanor waited until the king was done. ‘This is foolishness, lord. Send me to negotiate. If this army is lost, the army of Asia will have to be recalled.’

Alexander ignored him, and the rest of us saluted and headed for our units. On the way out of the tent, Hephaestion could be heard asking Nicanor how his shoulder was. And if he’d ever worried that the other one might be made to match it.

How Nicanor must have hated us. It still pleases me.

We marched off by regiments, out into the grain fields at the centre of the plain. We only had about seven thousand men, and we filled less than five stades’ frontage.

I’d written Alexander’s orders down on wax when he gave them, and there they are, copied fair in the Military Journal. We moved in line – eight deep – to the centre of the plain, and then we wheeled by subsections – ten files to a subsection – wheeled to the right to form a column, and then marched a few stades and formed front by inclining our subsections, so that we started in column, moved into a deep echelon, and then as the formed phalanx moved at half-step, the rest of the expended column gradually caught up – a beautiful manoeuvre, with the hypaspitoi on the right and the Agrianians on the left – the new Agrianians, not the ones integrated into the hypaspitoi. The Hetaeroi squadrons were on the wings, split left and right, as usual.

Then we retired from the centre by sections – right/left/right, the phalanx facing an imaginary enemy shrinking and shrinking while the column marched away to the rear – a manoeuvre we practised to be ready for a day of heavy defeat. And to the rear, the phalanx suddenly expanded at the run and faced in the new direction.

It was all well done – and best of all, it was done in total silence. Oh, here and there some awkward sod got struck by his phylarch or his file closer, but the effect was awe-inspiring.

We did it for three hours. We could see the Illyrians, up on the ridges above our little valley, moving around – gathering to watch – wandering down the hills to the edge of the woods. The bolder ones came right out into the fields to watch.

The whole valley was only twenty stades long and ten wide, and every time we changed formation or direction, we eased a little closer to the valley entrance. There was a low knoll there between two steep hills where the enemy had posted some armoured infantry and some archers to stop us from getting out of the valley.

We changed front to the right and then to the left. We faced about. We advanced with ponderous slowness, our lines perfectly dressed, our officers silenced. Even the horses were silent.

And every manoeuvre brought us a few paces closer to the knoll.

We advanced by wings, leaving the centre standing fast, and then wheeled the whole army all the way around, silently, swinging like an enormous and very slow door.

At the completion of that silent, slow wheel, the centre under Alexander was just about two hundred paces from the knoll.

Alexander raised his right arm and pumped it, once, and every man in the army gave the war cry. And then the whole army charged. The spears slammed down into the fighting stance, and the men of the pezhetaeroi charged at a dead run. No ponderous slowness at all. We were on the knoll before the Illyrians could react – and the cavalry rode right up those steep hills.

Cavalry doesn’t need cohesion to fight. It’s a lesson that infantry get to learn over and over.

I was the first man up the left-hand hill, and it was thick with Illyrians, many of whom were completely unarmed. But more of them were armed, and a lot of them had spears and bows, and we took hits. And every one of us had to pick our way over rocks and steep slopes.

Well – that’s what courage is for.

My long spear was perfect for the fight – I could reach up and punch it at a man a little above me on the hill, and it was long enough to pierce an eye socket a horse length away.

Illyrians are brave, and skilled hill fighters, and they tried to get under Poseidon, who was well recovered from his wound. But I used my javelins carefully and then my lance, which I ended up throwing into some bastard who needed it, and then I had the Keltoi sword in my hand, and I was at the top of the rocky hill, and I had beaten Perdiccas, who was still climbing the far hill.

Down in the valley below me, on the knoll, Alexander had the hypaspitoi formed in a small phalanx – now facing the way we had come, because we’d cleared the hills on either side and now, by the grace of the gods and pure luck and daring, the Illyrians were in the valley and we held the knoll.

My men cleared our hill – but we could already see that the victory would be fleeting. We couldn’t charge down the hill, and only surprise – complete and total fucking surprise, may I add – got us up that hill. Now the Illyrians were coming to their senses, and their chieftains were arming up and getting their warriors ready to rush us.

I sent Cleomenes down to ask Alexander if we were to dismount and hold the hilltops.

He waved us away as soon as he heard Cleomenes. I didn’t need to wait for orders. I ordered my troopers to file down the back of the hill – shallower, and better riding – but some men still had to dismount to negotiate the paths. Despite which, we were down the hills before the Illyrians could come at us, and we formed wedges in the rear of the hypaspitoi.

The hypaspitoi demonstrated the retreat by files from the centre manoeuvre that the pezhetaeroi had done earlier. The hypaspitoi did it in the face of a real enemy, but as soon as their front had shrunk enough to make them vulnerable, I charged from behind them with my squadron. We dispersed the Illyrians and rode over them, past them, and into our camp.

We had almost no baggage, you’ll recall, but I was damned if I was losing Ochrid or the little girl. I got him on a horse and her across my saddle-bow, and then we cut our way back through the Illyrians – who were as angry as hornets and just about as organised.

Perdiccas’s squadron charged as soon as we were on the knoll, and by the time they came back, the hypaspitoi had marched away. Then Perdiccas retired, and I covered him. It was all just like parade-ground practice, because the Illyrians didn’t really have any cavalry and they weren’t really interested in pursuit, anyway.

We had no food and no baggage and we’d just lost all our slaves.

It was ten days’ march back to Macedon.

But we hadn’t lost a fight and we were intact, and I thought that Alexander had done very well indeed.

Just goes to show how little I knew him.

We marched for two days, a little more than a hundred stades through the mountains. We had no reports from anywhere, and that, by itself, was suspicious. Someone was killing our couriers.

Two hours before sun-up on the third day, Cleitus wakened me.

‘The king wants you,’ he said.

Well – no interruptions in Illyria. I was sleeping in my boots. I got up, pulled my Thracian cloak around me in the pre-dawn cold and followed Cleitus.

For the first time in ten days, it started to rain.

Morale was going to plummet.

The king was standing by a huge fire – a fire made by cutting down three dead trees and lighting a small fire under the intersection. You can warm a great many men that way.

If the fire is big and hot enough, it launches a column of smoke and heat so dense that the rain won’t penetrate it. Seriously – you can sleep dry, if you can stay close enough to the fire. And remember, we had no tents of any kind by this time – even Alexander’s pavilion had been abandoned to the Illyrians.

‘We march in one hour,’ he said. It was Nicanor and Hephaestion, me and Perdiccas, and the three remaining regimental commanders of the pezhetaeroi. Black Cleitus was the unofficial commander of the Psiloi.

Cleitus frowned. ‘Lord, they are not behind us.’ He shrugged. ‘We have all the time in the world.’

Alexander grinned. ‘We’re not going to Macedon,’ he said. ‘We’re going back to Pellium.’

Of course we were. Where had I been?

Alexander gave me charge of the ‘new’ Agrianians and my Hetaeroi, and we moved as fast as unencumbered, hungry men can march – all the way back up our own trail. The whole valley was deserted. We rode fast, and the tribesmen ran alongside us like hounds. Behind my last files came the hypaspitoi and the other Hetaeroi and the archers, under Perdiccas and Alexander. Ahead of us were the Prodromoi. They picked up or killed every Illyrian on the road – the track, the pair of cart ruts and deep mud puddles that passed for a road in Illyria.

But we moved.

And when darkness fell, we had a new wrinkle. The Prodromoi had spaced men out along the track, with torches – guides – every half a stade.

We kept moving.

All night.

That was new.

I was done in when the sky started to get lighter. I was leading my light riding horse, saving Poseidon for the battle. My legs were like hot lead, and my ankles had twisted and twisted going over the rocks, and my feet were soaked and I had thick crap between my toes, because in the dark you can’t see where the worst puddles are.

Nicanor halted just behind me. He was the first man in the hypaspists, and I was shepherding the rear of my vanguard.

‘He’s either insane, or brilliant,’ Nicanor said. ‘And if you try for me right now, I have a sword in my hand.’

I looked back at him. He wasn’t afraid of me. None of Parmenio’s sons were yellow. ‘It wasn’t personal,’ I said. ‘You had it coming. If you obey the king and join with us, the king will accept you.’

‘Hmm,’ Nicanor said. ‘If the king pulls this off, I may be convinced.’ He shook his head. ‘My pater’s going to take even more convincing, though.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. It was. I knew the king didn’t want conflict with Parmenio’s faction. He wanted them to join him, and he was winning Nicanor over. He was, after all, the most charming man ever born, like one of the very gods when he chose.

‘But I owe you for the shoulder, and no mistake,’ he added.

‘Think of Pausanias’s fate with Attalus, and count yourself lucky,’ I said.

We were never friends.

An hour after first light, the Prodromoi reported that the whole enemy army was down in the valley in our old camp, and that they had no guards, no earthworks, no fortifications and no ambushes.

Alexander detached the Hetaeroi, the Agrianians and the archers to hit them immediately, while the hypaspitoi formed in close order on the knoll. Messengers were sent back for the pezhetaeroi, to hurry them along. They’d fallen behind in the dark.

We didn’t wait for them, and they were never required.

We fell on them when most of them were still in their blankets. The Agrianians went in first, and then the archers came in from the west, and they were silent and grim. I never saw them, and Illyrians died – throats slit, spears in bellies – without waking. By the time the alarm was given the ‘battle’ was over. My Hetaeroi charged the camp on horseback, and we were the least effective part of the raid. And the raid turned into the ‘battle’, because the Illyrians lost their nerve – Cleitus lost his nerve and ran for his fortress, and the silent Agrianian killers ripped his retinue to shreds.

It was horrible work, and we did it without much thought – I wasn’t in a single ‘fight’ and my life was never at risk. I killed men who were running, and I killed men who were sleeping, and I killed a great many men who were simply cowering away from my lance-point with empty eyes.

And then we were done.

It was noon before the pezhetaeroi caught up. They’d taken a wrong turn in the mountains. By then we’d recovered our slaves and camp servants, taken a horde of prisoners and we were mostly asleep. Except that we had sentries, and order.

I was awakened from a brief and exhausted sleep to find the King of Macedon standing over me.

‘Something wrong?’ I murmured, or something equally banal.

His eyes sparkled, and he seemed to be bursting with energy. ‘Everyone’s asleep!’ he said. By which he meant Hephaestion.

I got up and dusted the pine needles off my chiton. ‘Everyone’s exhausted,’ I said.

Ochrid got up when I got up. He raised a bronze kettle and an eyebrow.

I nodded. Ochrid was an essential part of my life – he knew I wanted something, and he made hot wine and water with spices without interrupting my conversation.

‘That was the best battle,’ Alexander said, out of nowhere. He was all but bouncing up and down. ‘Did you see – did you see me? I was with the Agrianians. I was the first man into the camp.’

I hadn’t seen him. It had been dark, and I’d been worried about everything from enemy alertness to my retreat route if it all went wrong.

‘I was the first into camp and I killed a sentry. Alectus said I did it perfectly.’ He grinned.

These moods were delicate and easy to puncture, and the blackness that followed was worth avoiding.

‘Well done, lord. Killing a sentry is the most dangerous task, and deserving of the highest honour.’

‘That’s just what Alectus said!’ Alexander’s smile grew wider. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d understand. You don’t always.’

I shrugged. I was looking around for help. This was Hephaestion’s job, not mine. ‘I don’t always agree with you, lord.’

Alexander looked away. ‘I’m supposed to admire that in you, but to tell the truth, I’m not sure you are ever right. Sometimes I think you disagree just to be contrary.’

That was scary talk. ‘Lord, I try to keep you in touch with the common men.’

He nodded. ‘I know you think so, Ptolemy. But I understand them perfectly. They are cattle – but glorious cattle, and I know how to make them rise above themselves. You want them to stay comfortable, down in the mud.’

I want to keep them from cutting your throat, you arrogant popinjay. Demosthenes isn’t all wrong, either.
I can remember thinking that.