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could turn a routine mission into a small victory, and then return home to casually present his father with details of a blank spot on their map. It was a risk, yes, and it was beyond his orders, but had not the Barca sons always been instructed to think on their feet? He imagined the dour look his father might turn on him if he went home with the news of this opportunity offered and passed upon. And that he could not face.
    He turned the column for the defile and entered it two days later. The guide moved forward to scout with an advance party of cavalry. The route largely followed the course of a narrow stream, hemmed in on both sides by trees. It was narrow enough that the line thinned, first to four abreast and then to three. It broke down even further as the men jumped from rock to rock or splashed through small pools. It was a fair day, warm enough that the soldiers drank handfuls of the cool water and talked rapidly in their native tongue. Hanno led the company from horseback, he and a group of twenty of the Sacred Band at the front of the line. There was a nervous energy among them, the Band looking one to another, whispering that the guide should have returned by now, or they should have caught up with him. But still they came on no settlement, nor were there many signs that an armed force had passed this way recently. Hanno took note of this and yet, inexplicably even in his own reckoning, he did not halt the march. The column moved on into slightly easier territory, although steeper on both sides and still tree-lined.
    They had all but cleared the rise at the far end of the ravine when it happened. He knew he had been led into a trap when he heard the first arrow sink into the soil a few feet from him. It was almost silent, a muted thwack that only in its wake carried the whistle of its falling and only in its quivering shaft betrayed the speed with which it had appeared. For a few moments Hanno was frozen. He saw and felt the world in surreal detail: the feathers of the arrow gray and imperfect, the breeze on his skin as if it were a gale across a fresh wound, a single bird clipping its song and rising, rising up from the ground and away. Then another arrow struck home, not into the soil this time but through the collarbone of an infantryman a few feet behind him.
    Hanno spun to give his orders—exactly what they would be, he had not yet formulated—but it did not matter. The din and confusion were beyond his control already. The arrows fell in a hail, glancing off armor and some finding their homes in flesh. The soldiers ducked beneath their shields and sought to see from beneath them. The Betisians crashed down through the trees, tumbling at an impossible speed and angle, more falling than running. Some tripped and whirled head over heels, others slid on their backsides. All screamed a war chant at the top of their lungs, a song they each sang the same but not at the same time. Two ragged walls of Iberians smashed into the thin column from either side, instantly shredding any semblance of order. Before the battle had even progressed beyond this chaos, a new wave of war cries fell upon them. The archers had put down their bows and were now running to join the others, swords in hand.
    A lieutenant tugged on Hanno's arm. “We must go,” he said. “Those men are lost.”
    “Then I, too, am lost.” He tried to spin his horse but the Sacred Band drew up close around him. One snatched his reins from him and another prodded his horse and all of them moved forward, forming one body. Hanno cursed them and lashed out and even moved to draw his sword. But it was no use. A moment later they were over the rise and all was downward motion. They were soon met by a contingent of Numidian cavalry and with these in their rear they kept up a running fight for the rest of the afternoon and sporadically over the next two days. But the Betisians chased them halfheartedly; they had more than achieved their goal. Hanno was not