God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great by Christian Cameron Read Free Book Online

of the oldster pages, shook his head. ‘Alexander is off with Erigyus,’ Philip said. ‘What the fuck?’
    ‘Illyrians!’ I said. ‘A raiding party. Laodon sent me to warn the camp.’
    Philip was a year older than me, a right bastard to the younger pages, an obsequious lickspittle to the older men. He looked around desperately.
    There wasn’t a free adult male in camp. There were ten or twelve pages and fifty slaves and some flute girls.
    Some men have it. Some men don’t.
    ‘Right,’ Philip said. I swear his face changed. He looked at me. ‘The prince went north. Go and warn him.’ He looked around again and saw Black Cleitus. ‘Arm the pages, Cleitus! Right now! And get every slave a bow!’
    Simple orders. Obvious stuff, you say. But Philip the Red made the grade, right there. Even if he had beaten me to a pulp once.
    I had a body slave – a sort of dog-of-all-work, a gift from my pater to go with my new horse – that I called Polystratus. He was older, a Thracian, and I tolerated him and he wasn’t all that fond of me. But as I turned Poseidon to head north, he was at my side with a spear and a bow. He put the spear in my hand.
    Philip the Red wasn’t the only one making the grade.
    Polystratus ran with my horse. It’s something city people don’t know – a horse isn’t that much faster than a man, especially over broken ground. The longer the two go on, the more even the race becomes. Over the course of a day, a man and a horse will about break even, except that over ten days, that man on the horse wins, because the man on foot is too tired.
    Polystratus and I went north, over a low ridge. It was all very well for bloody Philip to tell me to find the prince, but I really had no idea how to go about it.
    Polystratus did. He picked two more Thracian slaves as we went – men hauling deer carcasses into the clearing, big tattooed men with knives.
    He looked up at me. ‘We follow water,’ he said. Shrugged. That was his plan – to follow the stream that fed the next meadow. It made sense – animals need water, and it was probably what Alexander had done. But he’d done it seven hours ago.
    ‘Listen, boys,’ I said, leaning down. ‘I’ll free all three of you if we live and find the prince. Got that?’
    Grins all around. One Greek word every slave knows – Eleuthera . Freedom.
    ‘I’m going north of the stream. Polystratus stays on the stream. You two – spread out a stade – south of the stream and another stade farther south. And run . When you have to stop to breathe – shout!’ I looked under my hand into the sun to the west – saw riders on the crest of the distant ridge. ‘Tell the prince that there are Illyrian raiders to the north and the west. Philip the Red is organising a defence in the camp. Got it? Now go, by Hermes!’
    They grunted – Thracians make Macedonians look very civilised indeed – and ran off, all together at first, and then separating by degrees as they crossed the marshy meadow.
    I went due north, avoiding the meadow altogether. The first time Polystratus stopped to draw breath and shout, I heard him, and that put heart into me. Then I was back on the low mountain, riding through enormous tumbled rocks and that startling perfume of mighty Artemis, up and up again. I called and called.
    After an hour I crossed a stream and realised that I was lost. The ridge had plateaued – in another marsh, and how marshes grow at the top of steep ridges is a bafflement to me still. I had to dismount to get Poseidon around the marsh, and then there was another hill to my left, and I was completely lost. Was this Polystratus’s stream? Or another stream?
    I stopped at the edge of the meadow, remounted and turned Poseidon to look at the sun, and only that turn saved me.
    I heard the buzz of the sling-stone. I knew it for what it was, but the information took far too long to percolate through my head. Then I put my head down and galloped for the treeline.
    I crashed into the