Free Funeral Games by Christian Cameron, Cameron

splash.
    ‘By the Maiden!’ Coenus said. His voice sounded as loud as a trumpet.
    Melitta looked upstream, and saw a horse thrashing in the deep water of the next long pool above the ford.
    ‘The bank collapsed under him,’ Philokles said. ‘Stay still!’
    The horse thrashed again, and then the rider emerged on the bank, just a few horse-lengths away. He was cursing in fluent Greek. He was an officer - his breastplate showed fine workmanship.
    ‘Dhat you, Lucius?’ called a voice from where they’d come. A voice that couldn’t be more than ten horse-lengths away, and sounded as if it had a horrendous cold.
    ‘Yes!’ Lucius shouted, his voice betraying his annoyance. ‘My fucking horse put me in the drink.’ He stood on the bank and wrung out his cloak. ‘That you, Stratokles?’
    ‘Yes!’ The man addressed as Stratokles was closer. ‘More tracks!’ He emerged as he was calling out, walking into the grey light and the rain just as Lucius came up the bank to meet him. They were perhaps three horse-lengths away, and a long peal of thunder rolled across the hilltops and echoed from the valleys.
    Only the overhang of the bank and the thin greenery of a single bush stood between Melitta and her pursuers.
    Thunder barked overhead, and a lightning flash followed close, the bang almost intimate.
    ‘Fuck Eumeles, and fuck this. What tracks?’ Lucius demanded. ‘No one’s paying me enough to do this shit. If Zeus throws one of those bolts at me—’
    ‘Look!’ Stratokles said. His voice was thick, and even without moving her head, Melitta could see that he was the man with a wound on his face.
    ‘Whatever. One horse. Maybe two. We’re looking for six men - isn’t that right? And a pair of children?’
    Lightning struck again, just as close, and a gust of wind tore through the trees.
    ‘They aren’t moving in this crap. I can’t move in this crap.’ Lucius looked around. ‘There are bandits here, and I don’t really want to find them. They’ll fight back! And this storm is going to flood this stream. Let’s get moving.’
    ‘The peasants said—’ Stratokles began.
    ‘Screw the peasants, my lord! Listen, that fool you caught last night - he’d say anything. You wouldn’t let that creepy Sicilian torture him - well, good on you, lord, but sometimes it is the way. We asked the question ten times before he answered. If he’d known, he’d have told us right away.’ Lucius snorted. ‘Give me a hand up.’
    There was a squelching noise.
    ‘Anything down there?’ came a call from up the hill. Melitta could hear the jangling of bridles and all the music of a troop of horses.
    The rain came down, heavier than ever, and Stratokles pulled his wool cloak up over his head. ‘Fuck the weather,’ he said. ‘We’ll never get a scent. And I’m not all that sure we saw a hoof print. Everything fills with water as soon as - bah. To Hades with it. Let’s go back.’
    ‘Let’s find a rich peasant and kick him out of his house,’ Lucius said.
    ‘Ndothing down here!’ Stratokles called. ‘Sound the rally.’ He put a hand to his nose and shook his head.
    Then Melitta could hear the sound of a horn being blown, three calls repeated over and over. She clung to her patch of bank and shivered, moving as little as possible. She couldn’t feel her leg.
    Time passed. She had time to wonder if she could do any lasting harm to her leg by leaving it numb, and to watch a fish swimming in the current and wonder if she could become a fish, and she had time to wonder how Coenus was doing, and then Philokles’ hands reached down, grabbed her shoulders and lifted her clear of the stream.
    ‘Sometimes the gods are with us,’ he said. ‘Where’s your brother?’
    ‘Somewhere in the water,’ she managed to choke out, and then she collapsed against Bion, who nuzzled her.
    Theron dragged Satyrus out of the water where he had taken cover in a bed of reeds, downstream at the bend. He couldn’t walk.
    ‘We can’t