Alexander's Legacy: To The Strongest Page 21

  PHILO,

  THE HOMELESS

  THE EQUINOX WAS approaching; the snows had melted in the valleys of the east but lingered still on the surrounding peaks. Philo looked west, from a high window, across the lands they would traverse if they were to reach the sea. Barren and brown after a winter beneath the snow, the terrain was as uninviting as he had ever seen it, yet on this day, for once, he did not resent it; for this day was the last day he would feel trapped by the endless wasteland stretching further than could be imagined. This day they would begin their march to the sea.

  Philo felt the excitement of the moment jittering in his belly and he had to hold his hands firmly on the window ledge to stop them from shaking, such was his tension. Rising up from below came the din of excited voices, thousands of them, as the Greek mercenaries of the eastern garrisons mustered on the parade ground of Alexandria Oxiana. Into their taxeis, units of five hundred to a thousand men, they formed, having loaded their possessions onto the long line of wagons waiting, on either side of the bridge spanning the Oxus, together with the camp followers and those families that were to be taken back.

  There must be five or six thousand civilians, Philo guessed as he tried to estimate the number of useless mouths he would have to feed on their journey. I should have forbidden the bringing of hangers-on. But even as that thought crossed his mind, he knew it would have been an impossible order to enforce: how would he have stopped them? Order his men to attack anyone who tried to follow the column? Have them kill their own women and children? Of course they would not have obeyed and he would have lost face and authority; so they were lumbered with the civilians and would, doubtless, be slowed by them. Casting the problem from his mind as an unnecessary consideration seeing as there was naught he could do about it, Philo turned and looked around his room for the last time; it was almost completely bare save for a bedframe, a table with an earthenware bowl upon it and a chair, all of which he would be leaving behind. Who will use them next, I wonder? Or will the town get sacked by a people who have no use for such things? Deciding that he did not care what happened to Alexandria Oxiana after he had gone, he picked up his leather kit-bag, shield and helmet and strode from the room, leaving the door wide open, without a backwards glance.

  ‘We’re just about there, sir,’ Letodorus said as Philo emerged onto the parade ground. ‘We’ve eighteen taxeis with a total of just shy of twelve thousand all told.’

  ‘Have all the couriers come back in?’

  ‘Almost all; they have promises of another seven or eight thousand men joining us on the way; now that they know our route, they shouldn’t have any difficulty in locating us.’

  ‘That’s very good news, Letodorus; safety in numbers is the key to our success. It would take a brave man to attack an army of twenty thousand seasoned mercenaries trying to get home; with luck they’ll just watch us pass and feel thankful that their men don’t try to join us.’

  Letodorus looked less than convinced. ‘Let’s hope that’s their attitude, but my guess is that we will have to fight at some point.’

  Philo sighed and let his kit-bag drop to the ground and rested his shield on it. ‘Do you really think that they would be prepared to lose hundreds, maybe thousands, of men just to stop us?’

  ‘The Macedonians will be mightily pissed off with us and my experience of Macedonians is that when they’re mightily pissed off they tend to hit people without wondering about the cost, if only because it makes them feel better.’

  Philo considered this for a few moments. ‘Well, there is nothing we can do about it except be prepared for that eventuality and therefore keep scouts out to all sides of the column so that we don’t get any nasty surprises.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘I’ll address the men before we set off,’ Philo said, mounting the dais at the centre of the parade ground, his helmet tucked under his arm.

  He stood, looking down at all the bearded, expectant faces waiting for him to speak and felt the weight of leadership settling on his shoulders. Many times he had led men into battle but never had he led men on such a desperate journey across nearly three thousand miles of, what must be assumed to be, hostile terrain. He knew that they would not be able to trust anyone but themselves and those that join them on the way. But if we do this then we will eclipse Xenophon and this paltry ten thousand who barely covered a third of that distance.

  ‘Friends,’ he declaimed as silence became manifest, ‘or should I say brothers, for we are to be like brothers over the coming months, supporting each other, looking out for ourselves alone and trusting one another. And that is how it must be if we are to reach our goal of the sea.’

  At the mention of their ultimate aim the parade ground erupted into thunderous cheers; helmets were waved in the air, bronze sheening in the growing sun and horse-hair plumes, red, white, black and golden rippled in the breeze.

  Philo let them cheer for a while before holding up his hands for silence. ‘We may be allowed to walk free, there will be enough of us to make anyone think twice before challenging our progress; however, I will not lie to you, my brothers, there is a chance that we shall have to fight our way to the sea.’

  Again, at the mention of the sea, cheering broke out and helmets waved.

  ‘But I promise you this,’ Philo continued as soon as he could make himself heard, ‘that if we have to fight, then we will do so, no matter who they send against us; not even if we know the faces staring at us from over their shields, brothers from another age, for they will no longer be our brothers if they stand in our way. No one will stop us if we remain united in our purpose. We will walk out of this wasteland to which we were condemned for the crime of wanting to return home. But now the monster who condemned us, despite the service we had rendered him, is dead and good riddance to him for it leaves us free once more. So follow me, my brothers, follow me to the sea.’

  To a massive roar, Philo took his helmet, almost full-faced with eye-holes and a shortened nasal piece between the enclosing cheek-pieces and resplendent with a high, full plume; with an exaggerated swagger, he placed it on his head. Down he came from the dais and, picking up his kit-bag and shield, marched with purpose through the throng of cheering mercenaries towards the town’s west gate.

  Past all the wagons he marched, then across the stone bridge over the slow-flowing Oxus, with his men surging behind him, until he was at the head of the column. There he halted, throwing his kit-bag onto the leading vehicle; he raised his clenched fist into the air and pumped it thrice.

  To the largest cheer of the day, he brought his arm down to point west and with that gesture he took the first step to the sea. And the taxeis followed him, filing past the wagons until just the rear guard remained, letting the baggage train move off before them.

  It was wearisome and it was endless the march west; the road – for there was one to follow – was more of a track this far out east; a track made by messengers and the caravans travelling to and from India and the half-believed, veiled lands beyond. Soon the road veered south towards Zariaspa and despite the change in direction every step was still a step towards freedom and the harshness of the terrain that the road traversed was softened by that thought.

  On the second day they came to Zariaspa where another three and a half thousand mercenaries awaited them and it was with tears of joy and hope that Philo and his men greeted their new brothers; men like themselves, toughened fighters who had known of little else but a life in the field since they had come of age. Men of all ages cheered as they joined the column; some, even, in their seventies, with over fifty years of battle-scars earned fighting for Persia and Macedon to prove it, marched in step to younger men, new to the east and liking not what they found. And once the new arrivals had taken their places, Philo again set his face to the west and led his followers off the road; for the road meandered and would carry on south and then east as it made its way through the tall peaks of the Parapanisus Mountains and then on down into Arachosia wher
e it would again turn to the west before veering to the north crossing into Aria and from there to Parthia. And it was in Parthia, just to the south of the city of Susia, that Philo planned to re-join the road having led his men across over a hundred leagues of wild country that was the heartland of Bactria, crossing the Margus River at Alexander Margiana and then the Ochus River at Siraca.

  Food and water became scarce the further they travelled from habitation and the Bactrian tribes that called the wild interior home were not of the sharing habit; however, due to their numbers, the tribes left Philo and his followers alone, content just to shadow them across their lands and pick off any foraging party or group of scouts unwary enough to stray too far from the main column. On they went through the sun and the wind and the rain; now and again smaller bands of mercenaries would join them, deserters from the northern border garrisons, looking for a better life than the bleakness of plains, uplands and deserts and the constant skirmishing with the Dahae and Massaegetae, the bloodthirsty horsemen with a hatred for all but themselves.

  Within a few days the weather brightened, but it was still too early in the year for the midday sun to be an issue and so it was from dawn to dusk they marched without a break even for the midday meal, of dried bread and hard cheese, eaten on the foot. Stragglers were few and those that did fall by the way were picked up by the wagons of the baggage train, for none would leave a brother to the cruelties, known or imagined, of the Bactrians.

  Philo thanked the gods each day for the improving weather for although there was not much rainfall in this arid land, neither was there an excess of heat to make burning thirst a curse. Smaller rivers were forded and almost drained as thousands of water-skins were filled and the beasts hauling the wagons drank their fill; then another score of leagues would need to be covered on that small, precious supply until the next stream was encountered.

  Thus they travelled, a column almost a league in length but dwarfed by the vastness of the terrain, topped by an overbearing sky; thousands of men made to seem but a small snake slithering across the desert floor by the magnitude of their surroundings.

  And it was with great relief that Philo beheld the walls of Alexandria Margiana built to guard the bridge over the River Margus close to the western borders of Bactria; here another four thousand mercenaries waited, their bags packed and their posts deserted. Now they had over half of the eastern and northern garrisons in their number and those that remained were nearly all behind them and, therefore, no longer a threat.

  ‘Two days, Letodorus,’ Philo said as the mercenaries set up their camp on the western side of the Margiana Bridge. ‘Two days we shall stay here to rest and then we shall attempt the next stage.’

  Letodorus grinned, his beard and skin covered with the dust of travel making the whites of his eyes seem brighter than the norm. ‘To be honest, sir, I didn’t think we would get this far unmolested and with so many of our lads still on their feet. I’m told that only a couple of hundred have been unloaded from the wagons to stay here after we leave.’

  Philo sighed as he contemplated the fate that may well lie in waiting for those unable to carry on. ‘Poor bastards; leave what money you can with the town’s suphetes, that might just buy them some compassion and prevent them from being slaughtered and robbed.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  Philo sucked the air through his teeth. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I do too; but what can we do? If we wait for them to convalesce then others will fall ill. So we leave in two days, come what may.’

  And at dawn on the second day the camp was struck, the column formed and the journey west to the sea continued. Soon they had crossed the border from Bactria into Parthia and the terrain began to rise and fall and the vegetation grew lush. Foraging became easier, both for abundant game and fruits and because of a lack of wild tribesmen ever willing to have sport with the foraging parties. On they walked, over rising hills, before coming down into the verdant valley of the Ochus River, with the town of Siraca astride its banks. Here they did not tarry, for the journey had been but five days from Alexandria Margiana; paying a fraction of the colossal toll demanded by the town elders, who were left in the certain knowledge that they were lucky still to have a town to be the eldest in, Philo led his men along the west bank of the Ochus for a further two days as the terrain slowly rose until the floodplain between the Ochus and the impressive hill range to their right was less than a third of a league wide. But it was here that Philo remembered from his journey out east, with Alexander’s army, that the road slipped through the hills as it came up from the south and then again turned west to head for the sea by way of the Caspian Gates.

  And there it was, just where he remembered it to be, and his men celebrated that night as, from now on, their journey would be easier. No more would they stumble across rough land; now they would follow a road that had existed for almost two hundred years since Cyrus the Great had ordered its construction.

  ‘Now we can afford to send scouts much further in advance,’ Philo said to Letodorus as they ate a stew of rabbit and wild garlic in his tent on their first evening back on the road. ‘They should be relatively safe here in Parthia but make sure they travel in groups of no less than twenty. Keep them a couple of leagues to our flanks and as far along the road as they dare go.’

  ‘They’ll leave at first light, sir,’ Letodorus said, licking gravy from his fingers and then wiping them on his chiton. ‘I’ll order them to go as far as the border with Media.’

  ‘Do that. How far do you estimate that to be?’

  ‘About a hundred leagues; light horse like our scouts could cover it in five days and be back with us three days later provided we keep moving at this pace.’

  ‘Oh, we will, Letodorus; I’ve never known a body of men march so willingly.’

  It was exactly eight days later, as Letodorus had predicted, that the scouts rode into the evening camp.

  ‘There is nothing ahead of us, sir,’ their leader reported, sipping with pleasure on the best wine that Philo could find. ‘We went past Hecatompylos and then on to the border, nothing to be seen, sir. So I divided my men and sent ten further into Media and came back with the rest.’

  Philo slapped the man on the shoulder in approval of his actions. ‘You’ve done well. Rest for the night and then go back out in the morning to replace the men you sent on.’

  It was three nights later that the scout officer returned and, with a voice grim with foreboding, reported to Philo: ‘Peithon has brought an army east, almost twenty-five thousand, I should reckon. He’s chosen his ground; he’s waiting for us just beyond the Caspian Gates.’

  ANTIPATROS, THE REGENT

  ‘THE BRIDGES ARE all ready,’ Magas said as Antipatros inspected the work-party in the agora at Lamia. ‘Two hundred of them as you requested, sir.’

  Antipatros surveyed the piles of ten-paces-wide, two-paces-long flat wooden constructions piled in tens down the centre of the agora. Gone were the market stalls for they had all been commandeered to build what Antipatros believed to be the key to extracting his army from the siege: the means to bridge the siege-lines. Indeed, most of the wood in the city had been stripped to build the bridges: doors and window shutters had been ripped away, there was hardly a piece of furniture worth its name left and almost all the inhabitants now slept and ate – if they ate at all – on the floor. Even roofs had been dismantled for their valuable beams and wood considered insufficiently strong for construction had been burnt to keep the ravages of a Thessalian winter at bay.

  But now, soon after the equinox, the weather had improved and each day Antipatros knew that the time for escape was nigh, for surely the roads were passable once more. ‘Very good, Magas; now all we need is for Leonnatus to appear.’

  ‘It had better be soon; I had reports of the first townsfolk dying of starvation yesterday.’

  Antipatros rubbed his shrunken belly. Once they start to go, the rate speeds up remarkably. ‘How many yesterday?’

  ‘Three.’<
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  ‘And today?’

  ‘Five.’

  Tomorrow will be eight and by the end of the month we’ll be on fifty or more a day and then the men will start dropping too. Hunger had gnawed his insides for many days now but it had been for his men that Antipatros had been concerned, not himself; in the situation that he had found himself there was nothing that he, personally, could do for if they were to break out it would be through the strength of his men – as many of them as possible. And so he and his officers had reduced their rations to a level less than the ordinary soldier. The townsfolk received no rations whatsoever anymore but were too weak by now to rise up in rebellion against the besieged garrison who had confiscated all the foodstuffs they could find. Already there were more than dark rumours of murder and cannibalism; Antipatros had been confronted with the evidence.

  ‘Have all the bridges moved to the North Gate, Magas,’ Antipatros said, pushing from his mind the image of a roasted human thigh with slices already carved; the two men who had been caught attempting to sell it for a small fortune had been crucified in the agora. The remaining portions of the body, however, had not been found and Antipatros rather suspected they would never be; someone had made himself rich. ‘We’ll break out in that direction and head for rough country when the time comes; my guess is that they will expect us to take the East Gate and so follow the road, but I won’t give their Thessalian cavalry the pleasure.’

  ‘We’ll find the rough terrain just as hard going, sir, and the phalanx will have trouble keeping a tight formation.’

  And that is the risk that I have to take if I’m ever going to sit and have a quiet meal with my wife again. Gods, I’m too old for this; I should be warming my feet by the fire with a cup of spiced wine and a grandchild on my lap and instead… he looked around at the desolation that Lamia had become and, sighing, shook his head at the misery of it all. Instead I need to break out of here and then I need to make the rebels pay for what they have done otherwise I’ll never find peace by my hearth. ‘We’ll manage, Magas; we always do. Keep the picked men at their training with the bridges and keep a lookout to the north and the east.’