the Athenians were backing up into the wooded terrain in front of and to the right of their camp. That terrain had been their friend over the past days, screening their right flank from the Persian cavalry; now it turned traitor, causing the phalanx to begin to lose its cohesion. Now it was individual fighting, more a brawl than a battle, and the awkward hoplon, intended as an interlocking component of the phalanx rather than an individual defense, was almost more hindrance than help.
Jason saw a huge Saka—instantly recognizable as such by the distinctive pointed hat they wore—break free of the press and turn toward him, swinging his battle-axe in a powerful downward cut. Jason managed to raise his heavy shield in time to block it, but the hard-driven axe, striking off-center, knocked the hoplon aside. With a roar, the Saka recovered and brought his axe around for a second blow before Jason could get the sixteen-pound shield back in line. Jason raised his sword to parry the cut, deflecting the axe’s arc, but it struck his helmet a glancing blow that caused stars to explode in his eyes. He instinctively whipped the sword around and drove it into the Saka’s midriff, a vicious twisting thrust that brought a rope of entrails out with it when he withdrew the blade.
As the Saka sank, groaning, to the ground, Jason looked around him, cursing the helmet’s limited field of vision. To his left, he saw Callicles, using the butt-spiked stump of his broken spear to fend off an akenake-wielding Persian. But exhaustion was finally beginning to tell, and the old hoplite was slowing. With a visible effort, he raised his shield to counter what turned out to be a feint. The Persian rushed in under it and brought his short sword upward, driving into Callicles’ groin. Callicles shrieked. The Persian heaved the akenake out and stabbed again.
Jason lunged, swinging his hoplon around like a weapon. Its edge caught the Persian on the back of the neck, smashing his face into Callicles’ shield, crushing his nose and breaking his teeth. Before the Persian could recover from the stunning impact and pain, Jason raised his sword and chopped down where neck met shoulder. Blood sprayed. The Persian and Callicles collapsed together, their blood mingling. It was all the same color.
At that moment, Jason became aware of a sea-change in the battle. He must, he thought, not have heard the second trumpet call. For now the Persian center, so exultant mere minutes ago, was dissolving in consternation. A deafening cacophony of shouts and clashing weapons and armor to left and right told Jason why. The victorious Greek flanks, having wheeled inward in a way impossible for any but veteran troops well-briefed on a prearranged plan, were crunching into the Persian center, which was now boxed in on three sides. The Leontis and Antiochis men of the Greek center were now advancing again as the screaming Persians and Saka fled for their lives in the only direction left open to them, having had their fill of the horror, the sheer awfulness, of hoplite warfare. But as always in warfare at this technological level, running for one’s life was precisely the wrong thing to do, for fleeing men could not protect themselves. The Athenians of the center went in pursuit, cutting them down in the ever-shrinking killing ground as the flanks pressed in from the sides. Jason was left behind.
He sank to his knees, feeling in his left temple the pressure from a dent the Saka’s axe stroke had made in his helmet. He laid down his sword and shield, pulled the helmet off, threw it away, and took great gulping breaths now that he was free of its stifling confines. He also looked around, relishing the full field of vision. The slope was littered with the dead and dying, a wrack left behind as the roaring tide of battle receded. Otherwise, he was alone.
Now’s my chance to get away, go up this hill to the aircar, get back to Athens and retrieve Chantal’s TRD from Themistocles’ house—assuming that Franco and his merry men haven’t already beaten us to it, he told himself. First, I have to find Alexandre. He forced his brain, still numb from what he had just experienced, to start forming the mental command that would bring up a map of the locality complete with TRD locations. . . .
At that moment, he saw out of the corner of his eye that he wasn’t