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.The sky began to show light - the first touch of the wolf’s tail.‘If they’re coming, they’ll come now,’ Kineas said.They didn’t.When the sun was up, they found hoof prints in the stream bed that ran around the base of their hillside camp.A little further west, Niceas found the print of a shod horse, with a heavy toe iron like a Macedonian horse.He shook his head.‘Could be anything,’ he said.‘Might have been one of ours from yesterday.Ataelus, perhaps.’Kineas couldn’t get over the notion that he was being watched.High ridges rose on either side of the river, and anything might be moving in the trees up there.‘As soon as we ride out of the stream bed, we’re visible,’ he said.‘So?’ asked Niceas.‘Fair enough.Let’s get out of here.’ Kineas went back to their camp and finished the tea, then retied his cloak behind him.They rode along the stream bed until it rejoined the road (such as it was) a couple of stades downstream, and then they rode quickly along the road, alternating trotting with short canters.The Tanais was entering a great curve, and the valley broadened and deepened.The river was flowing almost due north.As the ground rose, Kineas watched for the path to fork east.‘There’s a sight for sore eyes,’ said Niceas.Kineas, intent on the trail, looked up to find a bare-chested Sauromatae girl sitting on a pony just half a stade away.Ataelus met them at the top of the pass where the eastern road crossed the ridge before continuing east to the Rha and the Kaspian.He had half a dozen riders with him.Two of them were wounded.‘For making happy!’ Ataelus proclaimed, and grasped his arm.Kineas embraced the Sakje man.Then he pointed at one of the Sauromatae girls who was boiling a human skull in a pot.‘What in Hades is that?’‘Wedding present!’ Ataelus said, and laughed, slapping his knee with a calloused hand.He was so pleased with his retort that he translated it into Sakje and repeated it.All of his prodromoi howled.Kineas shook his head.‘Wedding present?’ he asked.‘Sauromatae girl for needing to kill man before wedding,’ Ataelus said.‘Clean skull for stinking less, yes?’ He grinned.‘Who did she kill?’ Kineas asked.‘Bandits,’ Ataelus said.‘For finding bandits in hills.Farmers say “bandits kill us steal our grain” and I say “for finding bandits.”’Niceas twisted his mouth and made a noise.‘Macedonian-shod?’ he asked.Ataelus looked at him without comprehending.Ataelus’s Greek was good enough, but it never seemed to get better than ‘good enough’ no matter how much time he spent with them.Niceas got down and lifted a hoof of his Macedonian charger.He showed the shoe.Ataelus nodded enthusiastically.‘And Persian.And Sakje.’ He pointed to two small ponies with iron-grey hides and bloodstains.‘What about Philokles?’ Kineas asked.Ataelus shrugged.‘Eight days ahead.More? For riding hard.’ Ataelus waved east.Kineas nodded.‘And Nihmu?’ he asked.‘For child?’ Ataelus asked.‘Nihmu yâtavu child? For being somewhere! For being under the foot of my pony when I fight, or for dropping rocks on bandits.Who knows where the child is for going?’ He grinned.‘Her horses I am for having.’ Sure enough, the dozen royal chargers towered over the scout’s remounts like a separate genus.Niceas explained that Diodorus was a day or two behind, and Lot a week behind him.Ataelus watched the ridges behind them while Niceas spoke.When Niceas finished, Ataelus pulled at his nose and drooped an eyelid.‘Time to find bandits,’ he said.‘For taking their horses, bring them fire.When Diodorus for coming, bandits scatter.’ He pointed down the other side of the ridge, towards the Kaspian and Hyrkania.‘Bandits thick as rain, for fighting.Out on the high plains.All way to Rha.Lost two men getting Spartan to coast.’Kineas rubbed his beard.‘How many bandits, Ataelus?’‘Many and many,’ Ataelus replied.‘Kill bandits here, for making others feel fear.Yes?’Kineas could see that Ataelus already had a plan.So he nodded.Ataelus grinned.He motioned to one of the Sauromatae girls.She slipped off her mare, pulled her saddle blanket off her horse’s back and threw a double armful of dew-wet bracken on the fire.Thick grey-blue smoke pulsed into the sky.The Sauromatae girl put her blanket over the fire in one smooth motion, so that the smoke was cut off.Then she whipped it clear and another pulse of smoke shot upward.She repeated this three times.Ataelus grunted in satisfaction.‘Neat trick,’ Kineas said.‘Have we ever seen them do that before?’ Niceas asked.‘No,’ Kineas answered.Already there was a picket galloping up the ridge from the eastern road.He pulled on his reins in the camp and Samahe, Ataelus’s wife from the Cruel Hands, barked orders at him.He grinned, dismounted, cut another pony out of the herd, remounted and galloped away.A pair of Sauromatae girls galloped in from another direction
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