Funeral Games by Christian Cameron, Cameron Read Free Book Online Page A

he watched them dart away from the point of her aim, gaining him another few strides.
    Thalassa crossed the road close to Philokles. Dust and sweat streaked the Spartan’s face like an actor’s mask of tragedy. Satyrus twisted in his seat and shot straight back and missed the man behind him, even though the range was just a few horse-lengths. But in his peripheral vision he saw the man duck, and then saw Philokles rip him from his horse with a spear point through the face, gaffing his jaw the way Maeotae farmers took the big salmon.
    Philokles’ kill broke the Sauromatae. It was not just that they were taking heavy casualties - it was the manner in which Philokles’ victim died, his head almost ripped from his body. The other Sauromatae flinched away, abandoning their wounded, and galloped off down the road.
    In heartbeats, the drone of the spring insects and the calls of a raven were the only sounds to be heard over the panting of men and beasts and the murmuring of a wounded Sauromatae boy with an arrow in his guts, calling for his mother. Satyrus thought that it would have been nice not to understand his thick Sakje. It might have been nice to think that the boy, just a few summers older than Lita, might live, but no one lived with an arrow in the guts.
    I did that , he thought.
    ‘We have to get across the river,’ Philokles said, as if nothing had happened.
    ‘Please motherohpleaseohhhhh,’ said the boy in the tall grass.
    It wasn’t a boy. Satyrus was close enough to know that his target was a maiden archer, one of their young women. ‘ Please! Ohmotherohhh— ’ she said.
    Satyrus looked away, afraid of what the girl in the grass meant about life and death, afraid of himself. Thalassa trembled between his thighs. He raised his eyes and met Philokles’ look.
    ‘ Please! ’ the girl begged.
    ‘War is glorious,’ Philokles said. ‘Do you want me to kill her? Another death will hardly add to the stain on my soul.’ His voice was without tone - the voice of a god, or a madman.
    Satyrus looked at his sister. She was retching in the grass, her head down. Bion was wrinkling his lips in equine distaste.
    ‘They’re forming up for another try,’ Theron observed. He was looting the downed Sauromatae. He had a sword, a back-curved Greek kopis.
    Satyrus drew an arrow from his quiver and rode over to the girl. She was rocking back and forth, arms crossed over the blood. Her face was white and her hair was full of sweat and dust. She had some gold plaques on her clothes. Somebody’s daughter. This close, she didn’t look any older than he was. Take her quickly, huntress , he thought.
    He was curiously far away, watching himself prepare to kill a helpless girl his own age, and his hands didn’t tremble much. The range was close.
    He shot her.
    He meant the arrow to go into her brain, but the shaking of his hands or the flexing of the shaft put it in her mouth. She shuddered, and made a choking sound, and then vomited blood like the fish.
    Like the fish.
    Her whole body spasmed again, and then she lay still. He watched her soul leave her body, watched her eyes become the eyes of a corpse.
    It was like being hit in the head by Theron. He couldn’t see much. He sat on his horse, and he heard the Sauromatae charge, and he heard his name called, but he couldn’t control his limbs. So he sat and watched the dead girl.
    Time was an odd thing, because this time yesterday she had been alive, but she would never be alive again.
    Philokles shouted his name.
    Lita shouted his name.
    And then there was just the grass in the breeze, and the sound of the insects, and the ravens calling.
     
    ‘You with us, boy?’ Philokles asked. He poured a mouthful of wine into his mouth.
    Satyrus spluttered and shook and swallowed some the wine the wrong way.
    They were still in the fields by the road, and Satyrus was lying on the ground. His head hurt, but he didn’t have a wound on him. ‘What happened?’
    Theron’s face appeared.