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northern frontier might be useful. They lay opposite him and Everard and, after the amenities, got directly to the way things were. It was not pleasant.
    “—the latest courier,” growled Creon. “The army should get here day after tomorrow.” He was a burly, scar-faced man, second in command of the garrison left behind when King Euthydemus departed.
    Hipponicus blinked. “The whole expeditionary force?”
    “Minus the dead,” said Creon grimly.
    “But what about the rest of the country?” asked Hipponicus, Shalten. He had hinterland properties. “If most of our men are bottled in this one city, Antiochus’ troops can plunder and burn everywhere else, unhindered.”
    “First plunder,
then
burn!”
Everard recalled. The twentieth-century joke, which doubtless had a hoary lineage, was not very funny when the reality drew nigh, but a man was apt to grab at any straw of humor.
    “Fear not,” soothed Zoilus. Hipponicus had explained to Everard that this minister of the treasury had connections throughout the realm. Beneath the big nose, gaunt features creased in a pursy little smile. “Our king knows well what he does. With his forces concentrated here, the enemy must stay close by. Else we could send detachments out to take them from behind, piecemeal. Isn’t that right, Creon?”
    “Not quite that simple, especially over the long haul.” The officer’s glance at his couchmate added,
You civilians always fancy yourselves strategists, don’t you?
“But, true, Antiochus is playing it cautious. That’s plain to see. After all, our army is still in working order, and he’s far from home.”
    Everard, who had kept a respectful silence in the presence of the dignitaries, decided he could venture a query.“Just what did happen, sir? Can you tell us, from the dispatches you’ve gotten?”
    Creon’s reply was slightly condescending, but amicable, as one fighting man to another. “The Syrians marched along the southern bank of the River Arius.” On the maps of Everard’s milieu, that was the Hari Rud. “Else they’d have had desert to cross. Euthydemus knew Antiochus was coming, of course. He’d expected him for a long time.”
    Naturally
, Everard thought. This war had been brewing six decades, since the satrap of Bactria revolted against the Seleucid monarchy and proclaimed his province independent, himself its king.
    The Parthians had taken fire about the same time and done likewise. They were more nearly pure Iranian—Aryan, in the true meaning of that term—and considered themselves the heirs of the Persian Empire which Alexander had conquered and Alexander’s generals divided among each other. Long at strife with rivals in the West, the descendants of General Seleucus suddenly found an added menace at their backs.
    At present, they ruled over Cilicia (south central Turkey, in Everard’s era) and Latakia along the Mediterranean seaboard. Thence their domain sprawled across most of Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran), holding much directly, some in vassalage. Therefore language commonly lumped it under the name “Syria,” although its lords were Graeco-Macedonian with Near Eastern admixture and their subjects wildly diverse. King Antiochus III had drawn it back together after civil and foreign wars nearly shattered it. He went on to Parthia (northeastern Iran) and chastened that new power—for the time being. Now he was come to reclaim Bactria and Sogdiana. His ambitions reached southward from them, into India….
    “—and kept his spies and scouts busy. He took position at the ford he knew the Syrians would use.” Creon sighed. “But I must say Antiochus is a wily one, and asdaring as he’s tough. Shortly before dawn, he sent a picked force across—”
    The Bactrian troops, like the Parthian, were principally cavalry. That suited Asian traditions and, most places, the Asian land; but it left them terribly handicapped at night, when they always withdrew to what they hoped was a safe