God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great Read Online Free PDF

another.
    And then Cleitus’s dark face filled with blood. Maybe he thought he was being mocked – maybe one of the blows hurt more than the others. He grunted – it caught my attention, because, to be honest, watching one man carve the crap out of another is dull, and I’d stopped watching, but that grunt had hate in it. He stepped in, took Alexander’s blow on his shoulder and caught the prince’s elbow – and threw him to the ground. Classic pankration.
    Alexander got to his feet, came on guard, measured the distance and knocked Cleitus unconscious. One-two- three . Black Cleitus crashed to the ground as if dead.
    The sword master looked at him, and then flicked his glance over to me.
    ‘Well done, my prince,’ he said. ‘A little harder than it needed to be.’
    Black Cleitus was not dead. He let out a great snort, and blood flowed from his nostrils, and then he snorted like a boar and got up on his knees and vomited.
    Alexander held his hair – we all wore ours long. Then he came over and stood by me – according to our traditions, the winning boys stood together.
    ‘Did you see me?’ he said. ‘I used the new step.’
    ‘Me, too,’ I said.
    He turned to me so fast I thought he had tripped. ‘You what?’
    ‘I put Amyntas down with the same blow you used on Black Cleitus,’ I said. I wasn’t paying attention to the signals – we were victors together, and I thought . . .
    His smile came off his face like water draining from a dropped pot. He stood quivering with anger. ‘It was mine,’ he said. ‘Not yours. I should have been first .’
    He had the same look in his eyes that Erigyus had when he punched his eating knife through the highlander’s throat-bole. I admit I stepped back.
    When the sun was high, Aristotle came out to find us and take us to the cold stone benches. As always, he asked Cleitus and Leonidas to tell him what we’d done.
    ‘Alexander downed his opponent with the Harmodius Blow,’ Cleitus the sword master said. He wasn’t a clever man, and his flattery rarely went well with the prince. He was a good swordsman, though.
    ‘Every idiot knows how to do it,’ Alexander spat. He stood by himself, arms across his chest, the very image of adolescent anger.
    Aristotle looked around. I fancied he caught my eye – perhaps it was just my imagination. ‘Victors should be gracious,’ Aristotle said.
    ‘I am gracious,’ Alexander retorted.
    ‘No,’ said Aristotle. ‘You are not.’
    Their eyes locked, and all the other boys shuffled away.
    ‘You desire to be Achilles? You strive always to be first and best?’ His old tutor, Lysimachus of Acarnia, who had complete control of the younger Alexander before Aristotle came, called himself Phoenix, called Hephaestion Patroclus and called Alexander Achilles. Aristotle was human enough to resent the old tutor and his lickspittle ways.
    Alexander looked away in angry silence.
    Aristotle stepped closer. ‘Which boy did you put down with this Harmodius Blow, Prince?’
    Alexander shrugged. ‘It does not matter.’
    ‘Ptolemy?’ Aristotle asked.
    ‘No,’ Alexander spat. ‘He . . .’ Then he lapsed into silence.
    ‘It was me, lord,’ Black Cleitus said. He was rueful. ‘Had it coming.’
    Aristotle looked at Cleitus. Then at me.
    Leonidas’s straight back and flared nostrils suggested that he was none too pleased by this intrusion of the academic into the athletic. ‘Held the boy’s hair. He was decent enough.’
    Aristotle looked around again, like a good hunting dog catching the scent of a distant and elusive prey.
    He looked at Amyntas, with a heavy bandage around his temples. The same bandage that Cleitus wore. ‘Who fought Amyntas?’ he asked.
    ‘I did,’ I allowed.
    ‘The same way?’ Aristotle asked, splaying two fingers on Amyntas’s head and measuring the blow.
    I shrugged.
    Alexander flushed.
    Aristotle laughed. ‘Alexander, excellence lies in being better than other men – not in other men being worse than