Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [125]
Heraklides – in the front rank on the right – had the finest horsehair plume of any men among the Athenians. He removed it, combed it out and remounted it, which was a nice way of showing his contempt for the Medes, and did a lot for the rest of us.
Then Eualcidas threw one of his spears. He didn’t run or hop – he just stepped forward and threw with all his might, and, Ares, he was a hero. I had time to say something while it was in the air – I said, will you look at that?, or something equally inane while it cleft the heavens.
It struck point first, and then he ran along the front. ‘Unless you bastards think you can out-throw me,’ he said, ‘no one throws a spear until the Medes are closer than that. No waste!’
We cheered him.
And then the Medes came.
They knew their business. They poured around the corner of the pass – the bodyguard itself and then more Persians, their high hats and scale armour obvious, less than half a stade away. They halted and formed their front in a matter of instants, much faster than any of us had anticipated.
The first flight of arrows hit while we were still watching them in admiration. We were mostly veterans, and all our shields were off our insteps, up on our arms and held high. I doubt a man died in that first flight, but a few men took an arrow in the instep. Cleon had one ring his helmet and it dazed him, and all of us had shields moved by the weight of the arrows. Two arrows punched through the thin bronze on the face of my aspis, and the heavier one went right through the rim.
And that was just one volley.
The second volley came in and the third was in the air, and already men were losing their nerve. After the second volley there were screams, and I can’t remember the next five or six, except that it was as if a big man was throwing stones at my shield. I took a graze along the outside of my left thigh and another arrow hit my left greave so hard that I almost fell – but the bronze held despite the mediocre work.
I turned and looked because Cleon’s shield wasn’t pressed against my back. He wasn’t far away – an arm’s length – but he was also looking back.
‘Close up and get your fucking shields up!’ I yelled, and then the next pair of volleys hit. More screams. Now we had men down, and other men pressing back.
Heedless of the arrows, Eualcidas ran across the front of the phalanx. ‘Ten men to run with me!’ he shouted.
I had no idea what they had planned, but if Eualcidas was leading it, I was going.
‘Front rank!’ I shouted at Cleon. I stepped out as the next arrow storm hit.
Aristides was no coward. He stepped right out from his place as the strategos. ‘As soon as you rush them, we’ll march!’ he shouted.
Oddly, ten paces in front of the phalanx, only one arrow hit my shield. The Persians were lofting their arrows.
Now I understood what we were doing. And how suicidal it was.
Most of the men who stepped up were Euboeans. I think there were eight of them, and Eualcidas wasn’t waiting for more.
‘First man into the Medes will live for ever!’ he said.
And we ran.
We ran as if we were running in the hoplitodromos, the race in armour. We ran right at their line – three hundred Persians, a front rank of spearmen with big shields, scalloped like Boeotian shields, and then eight more ranks of men with heavy bows and short swords. Cyrus would be there, and Pharnakes, if I hadn’t put him down, and all the others I knew.
I thought all that in one step, as my sandal crunched the gravel.
I had about two hundred more strides to run, or die.
We must have surprised them, and we surprised them again by being so fast. We were fast. When I think of that run, I remember what it was to be young – to be so stupid that I would dare to cross a field of Persian arrows alone, and to be so strong that it seemed a reasonable risk.
We set the Medes a quandary – shoot the runners, or shoot the phalanx? The phalanx came in behind us, and they were not slow. They began to sing the Paean, and it wasn’t the best I’ve ever heard, but it was loud in the