Chapter 48: Race Against Time (I)

“What’s wrong?” Davos felt the strange look on her face.

“…back to Greece…what do you want to do?” Cheiristoya asked softly.

“Oh… I haven’t thought about it yet…” Said Davos, but in fact, he was thinking about it all this time, but he hadn’t figure it out, “But one thing is for sure, no matter where I go, I will take you!”

Cheiristoya put her face on Davos’ broad shoulder, stroked his rough skin and firmly said, “I’ll follow you wherever you go!” After that, she thought of something and stressed one sentence, “But you’d better not go back to Asia Minor!”

“Why?” Davos was slightly surprised.

“Because it could become a battlefield.” Cheiristoya’ words surprised Davos, “I heard from Cyrus the Younger-“

Cheiristoya subconsciously glanced at Davos once more and saw that there was no abnormality on his expression, and so she added, “The conflict between Sparta and Tissaphernes is deep, and the Spartans were involved in the Persian rebellion. Now that Tissaphernes is back in Asia Minor, he will not miss this chance to punish Sparta. Because Sparta is now the protector of the Greek city-states, and is bound to replace Athens as the protector of the Greek city-states in Asia Minor. However, in order to get the support of the Persians, Sparta reached an agreement with them, Sparta agreed to hand over the Greek city-states in Asia Minor to Persia. At the end of the war with Athens, Sparta had been dragging out this agreement, and… Cyrus the Younger, for some reason, did not urge Sparta. So…”

“So, now that the new king sat on the throne, Tissaphernes will return to Asia Minor and will surely urge Sparta to fulfill the original agreement on behalf of the Persian king!” Davos didn’t expect that there was such a secret between Sparta and Persia. Sparta acting shameless suprised him, but it was understandable. If Sparta agreed, then it’s a betrayal for the Greek hegemon to actually give the land of his countryman to the enemies of the Greeks, this is simply “betraying the motherland”! There is no doubt that it will greatly damage their prestige that they had established after winning the Peloponnesian War, and even some city-states will rise up against its hegemon due to dissatisfaction. If they disagree, then it will be a violation of the agreement, and a war may erupt.

Davos stroked his chin and was deep in thought, ‘Did Cheirisophus took the initiative to talk to me in order to win me over?’ He thought about it and suddenly made him recall something, “Cheiristoya, I’m not going to Asia Minor, but are you not gonna go back to Miletus?”

“I just said that I would follow you!” Cheiristoya then said with a slight gloom on her expression, “Besides, I will bring disaster to my family if I go back now.”

Davos immediately understood what she meant, as a concubine of Cyrus the younger, she is an important family of a rebel, her return will undoubtedly attract the Persian authorities to her family in Miletus.

Thinking about this, Davos comforted her and said, “You can rest assure that one day, I will let you go home!”

Cheiristoya looked at Davos, who was very serious, and the haze on her face gradually fade, “I believe in you!”

She put the himation on her head and said, “Now that you made me manage the medical camp, I will start exercising my rights. I will give those female slaves their freedom, so that they will work harder to take care of the wounded.”

“This is your right. But I have to speak to Mersis first.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 days later, the mercenary troops began marching.

In the afternoon, Tissaphernes came with his army.

When the leaders got the news from the scouts, they quickly led the troops to the nearby village and started camping since there are too many soldiers in the mercenary troops who can’t fight at this time; the wounded, the soldiers carrying the wounded, then the soldiers carrying the weapons of the wounded and the soldiers carrying them. The reduction of a large number of soldiers who can fight made it impossible for the mercenaries to march and fight at the same time like they did before.

When Tissaphernes army arrived at the village, the mercenaries found that the flag representing Orontes and Siste was nowhere to be found. The officers speculated that the reason why Tissaphernes didn’t appear for a while was due to him seeing off the two royal nobles. At the same time, they began to worry about the later routes. They don’t have to worry about the Persian king’s brother, but Orontes is the satrap of Armenia, and will likely intercept the mercenaries on their way to Armenia.

The Persian army was attacked by the slingers of the mercenaries, then they also started shooting arrows in front of the camp, and the two sides started their daily long-range attack on each other. Due to this method of attack, the Persian army suffered losses, specially now that the mercenaries have the protection of a camp and the advantage is more obvious. The leaders couldn’t understand why the shrewd Tissaphernes was in a rash.

The battle lasted only for a dozen minutes, and Tissaphernes then retreated with his army. The camp of the Persian army is 5km away from the mercenary camp because they are afraid of getting attacked at night due to them having many cavalry, which will lead to chaos.

After the leaders discussed, they decided to let the soldiers rest at dusk, march before dawn, and camp if the Persian army catches up. This is not only to ensure the safety of the troops, but also won’t delay their march.

In fact, this arrangements of the leaders seemed superfluous, since the Persian army did not appear for 3 consecutive days until the 4th morning, the cavalry ahead of them reported that the path ahead was narrow, and there are several peaks on the side of the road, among which, traces of Persians were found on the lower mountain. The previous lesson made the leaders extremely cautious.

“Just like before, I will lead a unit around the right side of the mountain in order to drive them away.” Because of his previous success, Xenophon said it with his face full of confidence.

Just then, the scouts at the rear came to report that they had found the great army of Tissaphernes!

This news immediately made the leaders nervous, since the combat effectiveness of the mercenaries is not as good as before, and they have too many wounded, so the mercenaries are afraid to fight with all their strength. At this time, the whole troops is located in a hilly area, the terrain is narrow which is not conducive to the deployment of the troops. In addition, the amount of people is too dense which will greatly increase the casualties under the long-range attack. It is obvious that this time, Tissaphernes carefully planned to give the mercenaries a huge blow.

Emergency! Cheirisophus was not able to discuss with the other leaders, and seriously said to Xenophon, “You need to get rid of the Persians that occupied the mountains as fast as possible in order to ensure our smooth passage. As long as you captured the mountain, we will be able to guard the mountain path, and Tissaphernes won’t dare pursue us anymore.”

“I need some light infantry!” Xenophon immediately made his request.

“I can’t give you the archers and slingers since they are the only one that can fight Tissaphernes.” Cheirisophus made a statement in advance.

“I have 500 peltast that I can dispatch.” First of all, Davos had said that they can’t save their strength at this time and must work together in order to weather the storm.

Xenophon was very grateful to Davos because he has expressed his support to him many times in public.

“I’ll give you 800 Thracian peltast!” Timasion glance then said it out loud. Because the former leader of Timasion, Clearchus, used the money given to him by Cyrus the Younger to recruit mercenaries in Chersonese and attacked the Thracian army near Hellespont for more than a year, and so he recruited many Thracians, which made his camp have the most peltast among the Greek mercenaries.

Xenophon once more expressed his gratitude, he then quickly set off together with his 200 infantry, for a total of 1,500 soldiers.

The leaders also ordered the whole mercenary troops to speed up their march and move closer to the mountain path while raising their guard.

When Xenophon led his troops to the foot of the mountain and found that the Persians occupied a mountain, as he was about to order an attack, at this time, Epiphanes, the leader of the first peltast unit under Davos, put forward his opinion. He pointed to the mountain and said, “Xenophon, look at the mountain next to the Persians. If we attack the Persians directly, they may retreat to the higher mountain again…this will not only delay us, but also make our attack more difficult. It’s better for us to occupy the higher mountain peak first, and then throw javelins and stones at the Persians, so that we can easily defeat them.”

The peltast captains all said that the approach of Epiphanes was good, and so, Xenophon followed it and ordered the troops to quickly occupy the mountain peak!

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