Chapter One: East of Nisa...


Tirdad took a long swallow from his goatskin canteen, waiting for his scouts to return. Ever since he was a boy he had patrolled these plains, watching for bandits and hostile tribes. Now he was watching for the people he had been protecting, he was certain that they were arrogant enough to march west on foot, expecting numbers to win over ability and honour. The scouting party crested the top of a hill to his north and shot a flaming arrow in an easterly direction, they were coming then...

Rather than split his forces up to flank the enemy, Tirdad kept the group together and rode to the hill where his scouts were waiting. He wanted to have a look at the enemy himself, numbers and troop types, before he committed to a course of action. The scouts were sitting around, drinking from their own canteens, eating fruit and berries they had collected, clearly the enemy weren't close enough to be a threat.


As the main force reached the top of the hill the scouts remounted their horses, the enemy were closer than Tirdad had imagined, the scouts had simply been showing their disdain for the Greeks with their nonchalant attitude. "You better have some of that forage left for after the fight." Snarled Darman, Tirdad's second in command and son of Harasp.


Looking over at Tirdad, Darman nodded his head toward another hill to the left of the approaching Greeks. Tirdad nodded assent and half the horsemen moved down the hill, out of sight of the approaching army, and galloped to the hill.

Tirdad was now able to see the force approaching him, around three hundred men, most of them infantry with maybe a quarter light cavalry. A small number were heavily armoured spearmen, the rest amateur warriors taken from their fields to die. Tirdad felt a sudden anger at the arrogance of the Greeks to think such a force could take Nisa.

He forced himself to stay calm, rash action would see him lose men today, these Greeks would be defeated with the bare minimum losses to his forces. Just then he saw Darman reach the hilltop to his right, he was in arrow range of the Greeks and he sent volleys into the tightly packed spearmen. As they turned to their left to move toward Darman they came into Tirdad's range, he raised and lowered his arm to signal his men to fire. Two volleys hit the spearmen, who stopped in panic. They couldn't run or they would be shot down from behind, so the entire force charged at Tirdad.


His men waited until the enemy were almost upon them, then swung right and rode away, shooting at them as they ran. The infantry were unable to keep up, and Tirdad wheeled his men back and charged the Greek light cavalry. The heavy Parni horsemen smashed right through the Greeks and wheeled around for another charge. The enemy cavalry were running from the field. As Tirdad looked back to Darman he saw the remnants of the Greek infantry steady itself for Darman's charge. He urged his men forward and charged the Greek rear as Darman hit the front. The Greek army, already shattered by the volleys of arrows and seeing their own cavalry swept from the field so easily, was unable to resist and tried to flee. They were cut down by sword, lance, axe and arrow. The only Greeks who left the field alive were the cavalry who had fled minutes before. Tirdad sent word back to his father in Nisa and moved further east, toward Greek land.

Nisa.

Arshak prayed before the holy flame in the temple of Ahura Mazda, asking for a sign of how he shoudl proceed against the Greeks. Was he to be the instigator, or should he would for the inevitable betrayal? He received no answer, and was reminded of his father's belief that the Gods don't tell man what to do, rather they support the bold and decisive man who interprets their desires himself. Leaving the temple he noticed a filthy horseman riding into the city, he had clearly been on the road for many days.

"My Lord!" The man exclaimed, having seen his King. "A message from your son!" Swiftly dismounting the man told Arshak of the Greek attack and Tirdad's victory."Good man, go get yourself something to eat and a bath. You have earned it my friend."

Back in Arshak's tent a meeting of the great men of the Dahae confederation took place.

"The war begins then, I have waited many years for this." Said Harasp, he expected to be given a large force of men and free reign to attack the enemy as he saw fit in the old Parni tradition. He would be disappointed.

"This is a new war for our people," began the King, "we cannot fight in the old style against this enemy. They have cities, cities teeming with men they can throw against us. To defeat them we need to take their cities, and our old way of fighting will not let us do this. We need to be clever, fight them hit and run, harry them until we have an army that can take cities and bend the populace to our will. This will take time."

Keyarash, first minister of the Dahae confederation spoke next. "My Lord, I haven't yet made you aware of one of your father's great secrets. Every city within twenty days ride of our lands has a spy within it's leadership, working for us. Your father wasn't quite as naive as you may have believed, he understood this day may come and made sure he would be ready for it. No Greek army will get into our lands without our knowledge, you can be assured of that."

The King turned to his eldest son, "I want you to gather up as many able bodied men as you can. The blacksmiths have been making spears for the last few weeks. Arm them, train them. I need them in the field within six months, we need to learn how to fight like these heirs of Iskander if we are to win this war."