Tyrant: Storm of Arrows by Christian Cameron Read Free Book Online Page B

Sauromatae girls, he’d never have had to worry about scouting.’
    ‘And he’d never have written Anabasis ,’ Philokles said. His voice was flat.
    Kineas laughed - his first real laugh of the day. ‘I’ve spent all day thinking about Xenophon,’ he said.
    ‘Because we have to get to Olbia alive?’ Philokles asked. ‘Marthax won’t follow us. His army is going home.’
    ‘I saw,’ Kineas said.
    ‘You saw, my friend, but did you think? Marthax went to council to represent the faction that demanded that the war be over. Now he pays the price - even if he wanted to fight us, or Srayanka, he couldn’t.’
    Kineas hadn’t thought of it that way. ‘I knew I kept you around for a reason, Spartan.’
    ‘I’m an Olbian citizen now,’ Philokles said. ‘Don’t you forget it.’
    They stood together as the army passed, on their way home at last, and the rain fell.

3
    T he late summer rain flattened the sea of grass and filled the rivers to a depth that only a mounted man could cross, even at the best fords. It washed away the blood and carried the glut of corpses at the Ford of the River God down to the sea, where the people of the city of Olbia watched them float by, bloated, gross and stinking. Being merchants, most of them kept a rough count of what they saw, and smiled grimly.
    The rain fell for days, so that every hearth was wet and there was no place in a Greek house that was really dry, as woollen blankets and woollen tunics clung on to the damp. Smoke rising over the city told of fitful fires from sodden wood, and the scent of woodsmoke competed with the reek of wet wool and the underlying itch of wet manure.
    Those who counted the corpses in the river looked at the gates and the roads beyond and wondered what had transpired on the sea of grass. They waited for word from their brothers, fathers, sons and husbands, lovers - virtually the whole free male population. A few had floated by. Women wept. Men looked at the citadel above them, with its Macedonian garrison, and their curses rose to heaven.
    As the days passed and the rain continued to fall, the curses flowed like the rain. The imprecations began to flow by day and by night. A pair of Macedonians - farm boys, really, for all their airs - were caught in the agora and beaten by slaves. The garrison commander, Dion, responded savagely, throwing two-thirds of his garrison into the market at dawn and killing a dozen men, including a citizen.
    After that, the city was quiet. Dion told the tyrant that he had the city cowed.
    The tyrant called him a fool, and drank more unwatered wine.
    Next evening, another Macedonian farm boy had his throat cut. The fools that did it dumped his body at the gate of the citadel. Dion gave his orders - in the morning, he’d make them rue it.
    The rain had made the city wall slick. The men climbing along the wall in the damp darkness were grateful for the heavy hemp rope with knots every span, and even more grateful for the strong arms of their friends and slaves at the top of the wall. They were up in a few terror-filled moments - embraced - and gone into the dark.
    ‘We’re too far from the gate,’ an older man said. His recent wounds pained him, and his temper - never really quiet - was savage. ‘If they have archers on the walls, we’re all dead.’
    The men around him were leaning forward, keen as hunters, listening for any sound from the city below them. The nearest walls were two stades away. Every man stood at the head of his horse, both hands up, ready to stop a whinny or a neigh.
    ‘Shut up,’ the hyperetes said. ‘Watch for the torches.’
    ‘They ought to be in there by now.’
    ‘Caught on the wall, maybe,’ someone else said.
    ‘ Shut the fuck up. ’ The hyperetes’ whisper carried all the savagery of his full voice.
    Feet pounding through the lower city - too much noise, and no help for it. Wood slamming on stone as a woman leaned over her balcony to see what the fuss was and, seeing bronze,