“Will Persia also fall?” Axistes asked curiously.

“And what about Greece?” Marigi immediately turned and shot back, not to be outdone.

Davos glanced at the two of them and said, half-joking and half-serious, “If you live long enough, perhaps you’ll see it in fifty years.”

“Is that a prophecy?” Axistes asked, his voice filled with excitement.

Marigi was clearly skeptical.

Davos simply smiled and said no more. If the flapping of his butterfly wings was too weak to alter the course of history, then in a few decades (he couldn’t recall the exact time), Alexander of Macedon would conquer the Greek mainland and then destroy the Persian Empire. Since the Greeks did not consider the Macedonians of the north to be their kin, it could be said that, in a sense, he would conquer the two most powerful forces in the Mediterranean in a single campaign.

***

For the next two days, the Greek mercenary army continued its march unhindered.

On the third day, the army of Tissaphernes appeared.

By now, the fifty-man light cavalry troop was being used almost exclusively by Davos as scouts. After all, the Persian cavalrymen were superior individual fighters, and the Greek horsemen were no match for them in one-on-one combat. They therefore operated in groups of five, never straying more than two or three miles from the main army. The moment they spotted the Persian forces, they immediately rode back to report.

“The Persians are coming! Prepare for defense!”

“By order of Chrysophus, prepare for defense!”

Runners galloped swiftly around the perimeter of the massive formation, relaying the command.

The Greek mercenary army was marching in a large hollow square, with the baggage train protected in the center. It was impossible for them to change formation before engaging the enemy. They simply had the baggage train consolidate toward the middle, while the soldiers gripped their shields and spears, heightened their vigilance, and slowed their pace to maintain the integrity of their formation.

Soon, the Persians appeared at the army’s rear. From the tall banners flying high, the soldiers knew that Tissaphernes himself had arrived. The Greek mercenaries, who had easily routed his forces at the Battle of Cunaxa, were not overly concerned.

Then, another army appeared on Tissaphernes’s left flank. As the column advanced, a sense of unease rippled through the Greek ranks. It was another force of no less than ten thousand men. The sigil on their banner was familiar to everyone: Orontes, the Satrap of Armenia, had arrived. This, at least, had been anticipated by the leaders.

But then, yet another great army appeared on Tissaphernes’s right, also numbering no fewer than ten thousand, its banner vaguely familiar.

“Oh, I remember now!” Axistes cried out. “That’s the army we encountered on the road, the one said to be led by the Persian king’s brother!”

“An army that should have been marching in the opposite direction has appeared here! They must have been following us in secret all this time! Tissaphernes has harbored ill intentions toward us from the start!” Philesius said, his expression grave.

Davos nodded, his movements slightly stiff, his hands gripping the reins tightly.

Tissaphernes’s army also contained the remnants of Cyrus’s forces led by Ariaeus. The four great armies converged, spreading out in a massive flying goose formation, and slowly advanced on the Greeks.

It was the largest, most endless sea of men the Greek mercenaries had seen since the Battle of Cunaxa. But last time, they had Cyrus to rely on and were only responsible for the right wing. Now, they had to face the entire Persian host. It was impossible for any man not to feel a surge of anxiety.

But despite their nerves, every Greek knew that their only path to survival was through a bloody battle. Cleanor, his eyes fixed on the advancing enemy, waited until they were just within the range of his slingers. He immediately gave the command, “Slingers, prepare!”

The slingers, positioned throughout the rearguard, began to whirl their slings. At a distance of over three hundred meters, the accuracy and force of the stones were diminished, but the Persian ranks were so vast and dense that nearly every stone that fell elicited a cry of pain. The center of the Persian line was thrown into disarray, and their advance nearly ground to a halt.

“Lord Satrap, the enemy’s attack is too fierce! Should we temporarily fall back and let the wings press forward first?” an aide suggested to Tissaphernes.

Tissaphernes’s face was grim, but he rejected the suggestion without hesitation. Though the king had appointed him as the supreme commander for this operation to expel the Greeks, with Orontes merely assisting and the king’s brother-in-law, Sositheus, providing friendly support, the reality was different. Orontes was a satrap of equal rank and the king’s son-in-law; the other was the king’s own brother-in-law. If he didn’t commit his own forces fully, how could he expect them to give their all? Furthermore, given their close relationship with the king, they could easily return to court and privately report on his performance to Artaxerxes, ruining the favorable impression he had worked so hard to build.

Tissaphernes shot his aide a harsh glare and immediately commanded, “Quicken the pace! Continue the advance!” This time, he had concentrated a total force of nearly fifty thousand men. He had men to spare. If the Greeks wanted a contest of ranged firepower, then so be it. They would see who was more accurate, who could endure longer. In any case, he had no intention of engaging the Greeks in close combat. The memory of the hoplite charge at Cunaxa, which had so easily shattered the Persian left wing right before his eyes, was still seared into his mind.

The Persians pressed forward amidst screams of pain. Tissaphernes even sent his personal guard to act as a rear guard, cutting down any deserters as a warning to the rest. Under this pressure, the Persian wings also swiftly began to envelop the mercenary army. Because the Persian force was so large and the Greek formation was a square, the Persian line stretched out until it had almost completely surrounded the mercenaries.

Davos had long since dismounted, his horse taken to the baggage train in the center of the square. Facing the approaching enemy, he was no longer as nervous as he had been at the start. “Shield wall!”

Axistes and his two runners relayed Davos’s command throughout the left flank.

The four ranks of heavy infantry companies began to close in, pressing tightly together, shield overlapping shield, quickly forming a long bronze wall. The Greek hoplite’s shield, the aspis, was a masterpiece among the infantry shields of the Mediterranean. It was a meter in diameter, with a wooden core and a bronze facing. It wasn’t held by a single grip but was secured to the entire forearm by two straps, making it less tiring to hold and less likely to be dropped. Its size and strength made it incredibly difficult for arrows to penetrate.

The archers, who had been moving loosely behind the heavy infantry, now pressed up against the shield wall to minimize their exposure to enemy fire. After the annihilation of Artaozus’s six thousand men, the Cretan archers among the mercenaries had not only helped themselves to the superior Persian composite bows but had also recruited soldiers from the heavy infantry and light shieldbearers who were skilled with the bow. This brought the number of archers in the mercenary army to five hundred, dispersed among the rearguard and the two flanks.

When the Persian army closed to within a hundred meters, both sides loosed their arrows almost simultaneously.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

An endless series of bowstrings snapped. An innumerable volley of arrows soared into the air like a great black cloud, blotting out the blue sky and the blazing sun. So dense was the volley that many arrows collided in mid-air. When the bulk of the “cloud” descended upon the mercenary army, it was met with a chorus of metallic clangs, punctuated by one or two screams of pain. When the smaller part of the “cloud” fell upon the Persian army, however, it was answered with a symphony of agonized cries.

The arrows flew back and forth.

The Persians advanced to a distance of about fifty meters and then halted, moving no further. They knew that if they got any closer, the Greek light shieldbearers would join the fight.

***

The archery duel continued for some time.

The ground around the long, square shield wall of the mercenaries was thick with arrows, while the ground beneath it was still clean. The Greek archers, their quivers now empty, had no need to worry. They simply bent down, plucked an “arrow-weed” from the ground, and sent it back at the enemy.

Davos had grown accustomed to the sound of arrows striking the shields. What worried him more were the occasional, muffled grunts that signified another man had been hit. His left arm was growing numb and sore, but he held his position without flinching, not daring to lower his shield. Now, it was a battle of wills, a test of who could endure to the end.