The Greeks, for their part, ceased their pursuit. They began to regroup their forces and advance slowly.

Excluding the Pyxous and Veii warriors, as well as the wounded from the other three city-states, the Lucanian force forming up outside the camp numbered more than nine thousand men. Their battle line stretched for several miles from north to south, a vast conglomeration of the various clans subordinate to Grumentum, Niutum, and Laos, and their formation was painfully slow.

Before this behemoth of an army, the two thousand Greek mercenaries looked frail and insignificant. But as they slowly advanced to within a hundred meters of the enemy line, they suddenly accelerated, veering sharply to their left.

Before the Lucanian chieftains could even react, the Greek force had closed in on the far-right end of the allied flank. The Lucanian warriors, still struggling to get into formation, watched in horror as the Greeks unleashed a volley of javelins and then crashed into them with ferocious momentum.

In the blink of an eye, the rightmost section of the Lucanian flank collapsed into chaos.

“The despicable Greeks have no honor! They attacked before we had even finished forming our lines!” Sevella roared in fury.

Akperu realized his mistake. Sending a massive, sprawling army against a small, elite Greek force was like pitting a bull against a nimble mouse; his army was ponderous and unresponsive.

“Sound the horns! Order the warriors to attack at once!” Akperu commanded swiftly, even as the Greeks began to roll up his flank, continuing their assault leftward along the broken line. “Surround them! Don’t let them escape!”

At the same time, the other chieftains issued similar orders.

Like hounds unleashed, the Lucanian warriors surged forward, freed from the constraint of holding a formation. They were going to tear this band of Greeks, who had repeatedly tricked, humiliated, and infuriated them, limb from limb.

The Greek army immediately turned and ran east. As they fled, they began to discard their equipment such as round shields, spears, and short swords to ensure they could outpace the frenzied Lucanians hot on their heels.

The Greeks sprinted for their lives, with the Lucanian army in close pursuit. The chase gradually stretched out, forming a dense, serpentine column of men that snaked for miles.

The Greeks rounded the mountain ridge and followed a descending mountain path eastward for about ten miles. The soldiers were gasping for air, but a glance over their shoulders showed the Lucanians were still right behind them.

Leaving the mountain path, the Greeks drew near the banks of the Tino River. Then, they descended a gentle slope and emerged onto the great riverbed on the opposite side of the famous hot spring marsh. Here, though the earth was damp and soft, yielding with every footfall, the ground was flat. Compared to the uneven, rock-strewn mountain trail, running here was easier, faster, and required far less effort. The Lucanians, of course, followed them down onto the riverbed, otherwise they would lose their prey.

“Brothers, just a little longer! We’re almost… almost there!” Philesius, running at the front, gasped out words of encouragement to the soldiers around him, his voice raspy. In truth, he was encouraging himself. For a veteran commander over forty years of age, this long-distance run had drained nearly every last ounce of his strength.

The Greeks crossed the riverbed and scrambled up a gentle slope on the other side. The Lucanians followed close behind. But just as the first of them reached the crest of the slope, they were met with a terrifying sight: rank upon rank of fully armed Greek hoplites, already in formation, surging forward to meet them.

“It’s an ambu—!” The warning cry died in the lead warrior’s throat as a Greek spear punched through his chest.

The Lucanian warriors, utterly exhausted from the long chase, had lost all of their normal agility. Under the relentless forest of spears thrusting from the hoplite phalanx, they tumbled down the slope in heaps. The warriors further back, unaware of what was happening up front, were still charging blindly forward.

Meanwhile, behind the Tarentine reinforcements who were holding the front line, the soldiers of Davos’s mercenary company—the ones who had just acted as the lure—were wolfing down still-warm bread and gulping down water. The women and slaves of the quartermaster corps moved among them, handing out fresh shields, spears, and swords, swiftly re-equipping each man. The mercenaries knew their time was short. They had to replenish their energy as fast as possible and then rush to the front to complete the final stage of the encirclement.

Mersis knew his time was just as short. After resupplying the mercenaries, he was to lead his own detachment—the heavily armed supply depot guards, the camp slaves, the slaves from Thurii, and a few dozen mercenary soldiers acting as their squad leaders—a force totaling about a thousand men, along with a dozen supply carts. Their mission was to rush to a narrow point on the mountain path and establish a defensive line to block any Lucanian reinforcements.

Drakos, Adrianx, and Sextus, leading about fifteen hundred of their own mercenaries, lay in ambush along the side of the great riverbed, which stretched for over two miles. Their line was perilously thin. To back them up, a second line consisting of about seven hundred peltasts and light infantry was positioned behind them, and behind them, another seven hundred armed mine slaves. Positioned between these two forces were Davos and his personal guard.

“General!” Axistes rode up, his voice shaking with excitement. “Our men have begun their rapid advance toward the western mountain path!”

Davos nodded, doing his best to suppress the storm of excitement and anxiety in his chest. The initial lure had been incredibly effective. A quick glance at the dense mass of enemies below told him there were at least eight or nine thousand of them—more than half of the entire Lucanian army was trapped here. Factoring in yesterday’s casualties, the enemy camp could hold no more than five thousand men. If they could annihilate the force before them, the Lucanians would no longer have the strength to wreak havoc on the Sybarite Plain. He had to take advantage of the chaos on the riverbed and strike now.

“Light infantry, attack!” Davos ordered decisively.

Upon receiving the command, Epitenes and Tspites led their peltasts forward through the ranks of the mercenaries in front of them. Alphens ordered his slingers and archers to load their ammunition.

With their path forward blocked, the Lucanians in the rear, driven by momentum, continued to surge forward. Soon, thousands of warriors were crushed together, a writhing mass packed onto the riverbed, which was about half a mile wide and over two miles long. Many of them sensed that something was terribly wrong and began shouting anxiously to one another.

At that moment, countless Greek soldiers appeared on the slope to their flank.

“Enemies!”

“We’ve been ambushed!”

***

As cries of panic filled the air, a storm of javelins, arrows, and sling-stones rained down upon them.

The warriors were packed so tightly together, and most, in their eagerness to chase, had thrown away their shields and helmets. Some had even stripped off their breastplates. Without protection, the mercenary light infantry didn’t even need to aim. Every javelin, every stone, every arrow found its mark with ease.

“Retreat!” Companions fell screaming all around them, and the terrified warriors tried to flee. But with nine thousand men crammed into a narrow, confined space, escape was impossible. Some were trying to dodge the projectiles, others were trying to fall back, and a furious few were trying to charge the Greeks on the slope and fight their way out. Each man acted on his own impulse, and like headless flies, they crashed into each other, throwing the entire army into a state of complete, disorganized chaos. An orderly retreat was impossible; instead, they created a deadly stampede. In their terror, warriors shoved aside their own kinsmen who blocked their path, trampling them underfoot where they vanished without a sound beneath the surging tide of bodies.

The clan chieftains and elite warriors saw what was happening and were frantic. But in the deafening roar of the panicked crowd, any shout, any attempt to restore order, was futile. And the alliance’s horn players were far to the rear of the column, completely out of reach.

“Fight your way out! Follow me and fight your way out!” Sevella, using his powerful physique, shouldered his way through his panicked kinsmen. Hoisting his spear, he roared continuously, his eyes blazing with fury as he charged up the gentle slope on the side of the riverbed.

His reckless, one-man charge caught the attention of both sides. It served as a rallying point for the warriors who had been cowering under the missile fire. A small number of them began to follow him, braving the enemy’s ranged attacks to charge up the slope.

Tspites drew a javelin. He wound a thin leather strap, looped at one end, around the middle of the shaft and hooked the loop over his finger. He drew his body back like a fully strung bow, his eyes fixed on the approaching Sevella, but he remained perfectly still. He watched as Sevella used his shield to knock aside a javelin thrown by a peltast, the force of the blow causing the chieftain to stumble. At that exact moment, Tspites unleashed his own javelin. The leather strap uncoiled, imparting a powerful spin to the projectile. It flew with incredible kinetic energy, and in the blink of an eye, it punched straight through Sevella’s linen breastplate.