Tyrant: Storm of Arrows Read Online Free PDF

they fear that.’
    He shook his head. ‘I have no desire to rule,’ he said.
    ‘But you would, if you thought it was for the good of all.’ She rattled off the phrase ‘good of all’ in his own intonation.
    He shrugged. ‘Listen, my love. Together, we could force the will of the army. Make it your army.’ There, it was said. His own officers wanted to be gone, but he had to offer - to support her claim.
    She took his head in her hands and kissed him. ‘No, Airyanãm . I thank you, but no. It was Satrax’s army - and he is dead.’ She made a motion with her hand indicating the unknowable will of the gods. ‘If he had lived another year, I would have been his heir - we would have been.’ She shrugged again. ‘I will not pit Greek soldiers against clansmen.’
    Kineas sat up with her. ‘What will you do?’ he asked. ‘What will we do?’
    She was silent for a long time, and they could hear thousands of horses cropping grass - the ever-present sound of the Sakje camp. Somewhere, men shouted by a fire.
    ‘I will go east,’ she said. ‘Many of the younger warriors are still willing - even eager - to fight the monster in the east. I will tell Marthax that I will lead them, and he will accept, because that path avoids war.’
    Kineas had felt the decision coming. He had known from the first that Srayanka favoured sending an expedition east to support the Massagetae. He hadn’t imagined that she would go herself.
    ‘But ...’ he said. And stopped himself. But what of us? was too selfish for him, or for them. Her choice was clear, and she had made it like the hero she was. Could he do less?
    ‘I must seize Olbia from the tyrant,’ he said. ‘Then I can join you.’ Just like that - and the future was set. Join you echoed in his head - echoed in the world of dreams, like prophecy, and suddenly he was cold.
    She shook her head. ‘No. That is - what is the Greek word? Folly? Madness? You Greeks have so many words for stupid thinking. You can be the tyrant of Olbia - you can be king. They worship you like a god. You have made their city something, and your army is now a strong one. The grain will make you rich, your hoplites will make you secure and your alliance with the Sakje will make you great.’
    Kineas knelt and took her hands. ‘I don’t want to be rich,’ he said, and even as he said the words, he knew that they were as true as they were trite. The image of a long trek east to fight Alexander at her side stretched away like a dream, and beside it, the day-to-day world of patronage and politics seemed like a nightmare. ‘I don’t want to be tyrant,or king. I want you.’ He grinned like a boy. ‘I have had a dream that I will defeat Alexander.’
    She smiled then, and he feared her a little, because it was not the smile of love, but the smile of triumph. ‘Then you shall have me, Airyanãm . And we will go far,’ she said, and put her lips on his. ‘Even to the mountains of the east, and Alexander.’
    When they had made love again, she wrapped herself around him despite the damp heat and their sweat, and together they fell asleep. And no sooner had he acknowledged the pleasure of such sleep, her smooth, hard leg pinned between his, than instead he was ... astride the tree, a branch clenched between his legs. Farther along the branch, two eagles demanded food from a nest between Srayanka’s thighs. Their screaming demands drowned out her words. When he reached out to her, the larger chick nipped him, and he fell ...
    He glanced around, and all the warriors behind him were strange, all Sakje, in magnificent armour, and he himself wore a vambrace of chased gold on the arm he could see through the slits of his helmet. He was dry, sitting tall on a horse the colour of dark metal, and the battle was won, the enemy broken, and across the river, the survivors tried to rally in the driftwood and by the single old dead tree that offered the only cover from the bronze rain of Sakje arrows, and he raised