Ben Bova - Orion 4 - Orion and the Conqueror

Ben Bova

Orion and the Conqueror

To Michael, Michelle, Michael, Lindsey and Hayley

CONTENTS

PART ONE

continued

PART TWO

PART THREE

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Epilogue

Author's Note

Acknowledgments

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;

They kill us for their sport.

Prologue

In the timeless city beneath the golden energy dome, Anya healed me of my

wounds, both physical and spiritual. The other Creators left us alone in that

empty mausoleum of a city, alone among the temples and monuments that the

Creators had built for themselves.

My burns healed quickly. The gulf between us caused by her seeming betrayal,

less so. I realized that Anya had had to make me think she had abandoned me;

otherwise Set would have seen her trap when he probed my mind. Yet the pain

was still there, the awful memory of feeling deserted. As the days quietly

passed and the nights, the love we felt for each other slowly began to bridge

even that gap.

Anya and I stood on the outskirts of the city before the massive bulk of the

enormous Pyramid of Khufu, its dazzling white coat of polished limestone

gleaming gloriously in the morning light, the great Eye of Amon just starting

to form as the sun moved across the sky toward the position that created the

shadow-sculpture.

I felt restless. Even though we had the entire empty city to ourselves I could

not overcome the uncomfortable feeling that we were not truly alone. The other

Creators might be scattered across the universes, striving to maintain the

spacetime continuum that they themselves had unwittingly unravelled, yet I had

the prickly sensation in the back of my neck that told me we were being

watched.

"You are not happy here," Anya said as we walked unhurriedly around the base

of the huge, massive pyramid. I had to admit she was right.

"It was better when we were back in the forest of Paradise."

"Yes," she agreed. "I liked it there, too, even though I didn't appreciate it

at the time."

"We could go back there."

She smiled at me. "Is that what you wish?"

Before I could answer a shimmering sphere of glowing gold appeared before us,

hovering a few inches above the polished stone slabs that made up the walkway

around the pyramid's base. The globe touched lightly on the paving, then

contracted to form the human shape of Aten, dressed in a splendid military

tunic of metallic gold with a high choker collar and epaulets bearing a

sunburst insignia.

"Surely you're not thinking of retiring, Orion," he said, his tone just a

shade less mocking than usual, his smile radiating more scorn than warmth.

Turning to Anya, he added, "And you, dearest companion, have responsibilities

that cannot be avoided."

Anya moved closer to me. "I am not your 'dearest companion,' Aten. And if

Orion and I want to spend some time alone in a different era, what is that to

you?"

"There is work to be done," he said, the smile fading, his tone more serious.

He was jealous of me, I realized. Jealous of the love that Anya and I shared.

Then the old smug cynicism came back into his face. He cocked a golden eyebrow

at me. "Jealous?" He read my thoughts. "How can a god be jealous of a

creature? Don't be ridiculous, Orion."

"Haven't I done enough for you?" I growled. "Haven't I earned a rest?"

"No. And no. My fellow Creators tell me that you have grown much like us in

your powers and wisdom. They congratulate me on producing such a useful...

creature."

He was going to say "toy" until he noticed my fists clenching.

"Well, Orion," he went on, "if you are going to assume godlike powers then you

must be prepared to shoulder godlike responsibilities, just like the rest of

us."

"You told me that I was your creature, a tool to be used as you see fit."

He shrugged, glancing at Anya. "It comes out to the same thing. Either you

bear responsibilities like the rest of us or you obey my commands. Take your

choice."

Anya put her hand on my shoulder. "You have the right to refuse him, my love.

You have earned that right."

Smirking, Aten replied, "Perhaps so. But you, goddess, cannot evade your

responsibilities. No more than I can."

"The continuum can struggle along without me for a while," she said, almost as

haughty as Aten himself.

"No, it can't." Suddenly he was utterly serious. "The crisis is real and

urgent. The conflict has spread across the stars and threatens the entire

galaxy now."

Anya paled. She turned her fathomless silver-gray eyes to me, and I saw real

pain in them.

I knew that we could escape to Paradise if we wanted to. To those who can

control time, what matter days or years or even centuries spent in one era or

another? We could always return to this exact point in spacetime, this

individual nexus in the continuum. The crisis that Aten feared would still be

waiting for us.

Yet how could we be happy, knowing that our time in Paradise was limited? Even

if we remained there for a thousand years, the task awaiting us would loom in

our minds like the edge of a cliff, like a sword hanging over our heads.

Before Anya could reply I said, "Paradise will have to wait, won't it?"

She nodded sadly. "Yes, my love. Paradise will have to wait."

BOOK I - MERCENARY

War therefore is an act of violence

intended to compel our opponent

to fulfil our will.... War is a mere

continuation of policy by other means.

Chapter 1

Their tread was like the pacing of a giant, some ten thousand men marching in

perfect unison, making the air quiver and the ground shake with the weight of

each booted step.

They were coming straight toward us, the heavy long sarissas of their front

ranks pointed at our eyes, those in the rear still held upright. It looked

like a forest of spears advancing upon us.

"Steady," yelled our phalanx commander. "Let them tire themselves out marching

toward us. Hold your places."

We stood at the crest of a modest rise in the stony, bare ground. Hardly a

blade of grass was growing here. The morning sun was already hot, the sky so

bright it almost hurt to look at it. On the other side of the rocky hills

before us stood the besieged city of Perinthos; we were here to lift the

siege.

I was in the tenth rank of our twelve-deep phalanx, on the right end of the

row, with no man's shield to protect my right side. The officers were up

front, of course, except for the quarter-file and end-file commanders, who had

stationed themselves on the left ends of their ranks. I was bigger than most

of the other hoplites and could handle a twelve-foot spear easily. But the

army we faced had those sixteen-foot-long sarissas and a reputation for

winning their battles.

Their right wing was the heavy one, as usual. At least sixteen ranks deep; it

was hard to tell because they were kicking up a fair amount of dust as they

advanced across the open ground toward us. Behind them and to our left, off by

the scrawny trees that dotted the hillside, I could see their cavalry

shuffling nervously, waiting for the order to strike. We had no cavalry, and I

feared that once the fighting began the Perinthians' own hoplites would

quickly turn tail, leaving us to be butchered. They were civilians, after all,

citizens of the city we had been hired to help protect. I doubted that they

could stand up before the professional army advancing upon us.

"Steady," our commander repeated. He was a tough old vulture, his bronze

breastplate and shield dulled and dented from many a battle, his arms covered

with white puckered scars. Diopeithes, the leader of our mercenary band, was

mounted on a lovely white steed well to the rear, ready to run all the way

back to Athens if the going got bad. He was more of an opportunist than a

soldier; I doubted that he had ever led his men against trained professional

troops.

I worked a finger through the chin strap of my helmet. I was sweating, and not

merely from the hot morning sun. We were professional soldiers, mercenaries,

but we were badly outnumbered and forced to fight at a time and place of the

enemy's choosing. The politicians of Perinthos may have known how to govern

their city, but they made poor generals. Their biggest mistake was to expect

that Athens would fight for them. The Athenians had not even paid Diopeithes;

or so he told us. We were forced to live off the land, which hardly pleased

the Perinthians we were supposed to be defending.

The distance between our spear points and theirs was shrinking steadily. Our

commander stepped out in front of the phalanx and bellowed, "On my word-

forward!"

We started marching toward the advancing enemy, each one of us stepping out

with his left foot, spears levelled, shields raised. I felt exposed on the

right end of our rank, with no shield to protect my right side, though I knew

I could take care of myself once the fighting started. Yet, as I marched in

step toward the advancing enemy, my thoughts churning, I found I could

remember nothing about the battles I had fought. Nothing at all. My brows knit

in puzzlement. My memory was as blank as a newborn baby's. I could remember

nothing earlier than a few hours ago, when we had picked up our weapons and

formed our ranks.

This was no time for soul-searching. Skirmishers appeared from behind the

files of the advancing phalanx, firing arrows into us, pelting us with stones

and javelins. Someone screamed and went down with an arrow in his neck. A

fist-sized stone banged off my shield. They wanted us to raise our shields

against their missiles, or, better yet, break ranks. Then their phalanx would

hit us at the run and shatter us completely. We were trained to ignore the

skirmishers and close ranks whenever a man went down. I knew that but I could

not remember when or where I had learned it.

Their cavalry off in the woods started to move. Horsemen could never attack a

solid phalanx; our spears were like the spines of a hedgehog, and the horses

shied away no matter how much their riders urged them. But cavalry could swing

around our flank and attack us in the rear. And once a phalanx is broken the

cavalry enjoys riding down individual soldiers. More men are slaughtered in

the flight after the battle than during the battle itself.

The skirmishers melted away like the annoying insects they were. The bare

stony ground between us and the enemy was shrinking rapidly. Our pace

quickened. So did theirs. Trumpets on both sides blared and we yelled as loud

as we could and broke into a run and the two phalanxes smashed into each other

with a thunderous bloodthirsty roar and the screeching, clanging, terrifying

clamor of iron spearpoints against shields and bronze breastplates-and flesh.

The world seemed to slow down for me. Time stretched out like an elastic

ribbon. Everyone around me began to move in sluggish, torpid slow motion, as

if they were all underwater or in a labored blood-soaked dream. I saw the men

in our front ranks go down under those sixteen-foot-long sarissas, skewered or

pummelled or just shocked off their feet before their own spears could reach

the enemy soldiers. Men were trampled underfoot as the two phalanxes ground

into each other, each still advancing despite the shredding of our front

ranks. Spears snapped, men howled with anger or pain or blood-lust, shields

split apart under the tremendous impact of collision.

I reached over the men in front of me and drove my spear into one of the enemy

hoplites. I saw him raise his shield as my point came toward him so I hooked

the edge of his shield with the rear barb of my point, jerked the shield

aside, then rammed the point into his throat. He looked surprised and then his

gushing blood spattered me as he began to fall and I wrenched the spear point

free.

Our front ranks had collapsed under the enemy's impact and I was suddenly

shield-to-shield with them, shoving and struggling, pushing against the men in

front of me as I jabbed with my spear. It was too long for this close-in work

and out of the corner of my eye I saw their skirmishers sneaking around our

right flank, firing arrows and javelins into our exposed side.

I ducked an arrow as it flew in lazy slow-motion toward me, then rammed my

spear through the shield and breastplate and body of a hoplite. The battle was

becoming a chaos of screaming, bloodied, falling men; all order gone among our

side. My rank was being shredded by the enemy. I saw a javelin coming at me.

Leaving my spear in the falling body of the man I had skewered, I batted the

lighter javelin aside and then reached for my sword before the two hoplites in

front of me could react in their dream-like slow motion. I cut them both down

but there were more of them moving with mechanical discipline, spearing,

stabbing, using their shields to knock men off balance, moving forward in an

unstoppable tide.

There were too many of them and they were too well led, too disciplined, for

us to overcome. My fellow mercenaries fought well, but we were clearly

outmatched. We did not turn and run because we knew that would be sure death.

But we were cut off from the Perinthian citizen troops, separated from what

remained of their phalanx and driven backward across the field toward the

trees. Sure enough, the Perinthians broke and fled. And, even surer, the

enemy's cavalry came thundering out of the woods, shrilling their exultant

battle cries, and started to cut them down without mercy. The cavalry leader

could not have been more than a boy, golden hair streaming in the wind as he

bent eagerly over the mane of his magnificent black charger, sword held high

and eyes intent on the fleeing men who had foolishly thrown down their shields

and helmets in their frenzy to escape.

There was hardly more than a handful of us left as we retreated slowly,

grudgingly, up the slight slope toward the trees. Our phalanx had been slashed

to ribbons; there were only a few knots of individual men fighting now. Still,

everything seemed to be moving as slowly as a beetle trapped in honey. Sword

in hand, I could see the moves my enemies were going to make by the shifting

of their eyes, the knotting of muscles in their legs or arms. I ducked under

one of the long sarissas and drove my sword point through the man's leather

cuirass into his belly. He shrieked and I wrenched his long spear from him

with my left hand.

And saw that I was alone now, my back to a tree, sarissa in one hand and sword

in the other. A dozen wary soldiers ringed around me, eyes ablaze, armor

smeared with blood, watching me, waiting for an opening. Most of them had lost

their sarissas and were gripping swords. They were veteran troops; they

intended to take no chances against a man who had killed so many of their own.

But they were not going to let me escape them, either. The best I could hope

for was to take as many of them down with me as I could before they finally

did me in. Then I saw one of them signalling to a handful of archers. They

were going to take no risks at all.

"Hold!" called a gruff-voiced man on horseback. He rode up and stopped at the

edge of the ring facing me. His armor was white with gold filigree, but caked

now with dust. His helmet was topped with a white horsehair plume, and he had

unfastened the cheek flaps so I could see his face. A bristling black beard,

streaked with what looked like crusted blood on one side. Then I saw that he

had lost the eye on that side of his face long ago. It was half closed, and

beneath its drooping lid I could see the blank whiteness of dead flesh.

He was obviously one of their generals. The men backed away from me slightly,

but none of them lowered their weapons. Another general rode up and I realized

that both of them were mounted on powerful chestnut brown horses, but had

neither saddles nor stirrups, only a pad that seemed to be made of layers of

blankets.

"There's been enough killing," said the black-bearded one. Some of his men

nodded. To me he raised his voice, "I have need of good soldiers. Would you

accept employment in my army?"

I looked around. My companions were either dead or prisoners. I did not have

much of a choice, but at least he was offering me something better than being

sold into slavery or slaughtered outright.

I thought it over for all of a half-second. "Yes," I replied. "I would like to

be on the winning side, for a change."

He threw his head back and laughed. "Very well, then! How are you called?"

"My name is Orion."

"From where?"

I started to reply, then realized that I did not know. I could not remember

anything more than a few hours ago.

"From the North," I temporized.

"Must be a Scythian, from the size of you. I'd recognize those gray eyes

anywhere. But where's your beard? Why are you shaved?"

I hadn't the faintest idea. "A beard gives your enemy a handhold to grab," I

heard myself answer.

He tugged at his own thick beard. "Does it, now? You sound like my son." Then

he turned and called to one of the soldiers standing closest to him, "Nikkos,

take him into your troop. I don't think he'll need much training. Looks to me

as if he already knows how to use a sarissa."

He pulled at the reins and trotted off, grinning, the other officer riding

beside him.

That was my first sight of Philip, King of the Macedonians. The golden-haired

boy who led the cavalry turned out to be his son, Alexandros.

Chapter 2

We camped at the battlefield that night, to burn the dead and then rest after

the long hard day's exertions. Nikkos, to my surprise, was a Thracian, not a

Macedonian at all.

"In my father's time we raided into Macedon and stole their horses and

cattle," he told me as we sat by a crackling wood fire and chewed on roasted

mutton. "And their women, too," he added with a leering wink.

He could not have been thirty. His hair was dark brown and wild as an untamed

forest. His black beard was smeared and sticky with mutton drippings. About a

dozen of us were sitting around the fire while a physician from far-off

Corinth went around applying salves and bandages to men's wounds.

"And now you serve the Macedonians," I said.

He gulped at his goatskin of wine, splashing much of it over his beard and

chest. "You bet we do! Old One-Eye has changed everything. When he became king

he beat the shit out of us. And everybody else around him. Struck us in the

winter, in the summer. Made no difference to him. He never lost a battle. He

knows how many beans makes five, he does."

"Philip conquered your people," I murmured.

Nikkos shook his shaggy head vigorously. "No. Not conquered. We still have our

own king. He just showed us that we'd be better off allied with him than

fighting against him."

A diplomat, I thought. Then I realized that Philip had done the same thing to

me this day.

"Now all the country tribes are allied with Macedon," Nikkos went on, "and

Philip even makes war against Athens."

If Nikkos was unhappy with this situation he did not show it. Indeed, he

seemed to be quite pleased with it all.

Then he leaned closer to me. "D'you know what I think?" he asked in a low

voice.

His breath was foul and I could see things crawling in his beard. "What?" I

asked, trying to keep the distance of a flea's jump between us.

"I think it's her that's done it."

"Her?"

"The witch. Philip's wife."

"The king's wife is a witch?"

He lowered his voice even more. "Priestess of the Old Cult. Worships the Snake

Goddess and all that. She's a sorceress, all right. How else can you explain

it? I was already big enough to help my father tend his flock when Philip

pushed his brother off the throne. Macedonia was being sliced up by all the

tribes around it. Not just us, but the Illyrians, the Paionians-all of us. We

raided and plundered every year."

"Philip put a stop to that?"

"In the blink of his one eye, or so it seems. Now all the tribes serve him. It

must be that Molossian bitch of his; that's the only way to explain it."

I glanced uneasily at the other men sitting around the fire.

Nikkos laughed. "Don't worry, I can't say anything about the witch that Old

One-Eye hasn't said himself. He hates her."

"Hates his wife?"

Several of the men nodded agreement, grinning.

"If it weren't that she's the mother of his son and heir he would have sent

her packing back to Epeiros long ago."

"He can't do that," said one of the others. "He's afraid of her."

"She can cast spells."

"Spells my ass. She poisons people."

"Not poison. Magic."

"Look what she did to the other son, the one by the Thessalian woman."

"Arrhidaios? The idiot?"

"He was a healthy baby. She fed him poison that made him feeble-minded."

"Or cast a spell to make certain her own son would be Philip's heir, even

though he's a couple of years younger."

The men fell to arguing over whether the king's wife was a poisoner or a

sorceress. I listened with only half an ear. The men around me, the battle we

had gone through, this chill, dark night with the black bowl of the heavens

strewn with brilliant glittering stars-all of it was strange and new to me. I

had no memory of anything farther back than that morning. Each of the men

around me had a family and clan and tribe, each of them could recall their

kings and histories from generations back.

I had nothing. A blank where my memory should have been. The men spoke of the

gods they worshipped; their names meant nothing to me. Until one of them

mentioned Athena, the warrior goddess, the patroness of Athens.

"She's more than a warrior goddess," said Nikkos grudgingly. "She's the

goddess of wisdom. Or at least, the Athenians think so."

"They should," one of the others said. "She gave them the olive tree, didn't

she?"

"And the spinning wheel."

Athena. A picture of her formed in my mind: tall and slim and incredibly

beautiful, with lustrous dark hair and solemn silver-gray eyes.

"We're all playthings for the gods," Nikkos was saying. "They pull the strings

and we jump."

"I don't believe that," said the man next to him. "I live my own life; nobody

pulls my strings."

But we are here to do the gods' bidding, I thought. At least I am. I felt

certain of that. Yet-what did the gods want me to do? Who was I, really, and

why was I here? There was no answer in my mind, no message from the gods to

enlighten me.

The fire sputtered low and the men began to wrap themselves in cloaks or

blankets and stretch out for sleep. I had nothing but the grimy, skirted

chiton of sweat-stained linen that I was wearing. My bronze breastplate and

Ben Bova - Orion 4 - Orion and the Conqueror

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