“Look what crawled in through the bunghole.” He was pointing to the knoll behind the Arkadian camp, where deserters from the Persian lines were being interrogated beside the watch fires. I squinted but my eyes refused to focus. “Look again,” he said. “It’s your seditious mate, Rooster. He’s asking for you.” Alexandros and I went over together. It was Rooster, all right. He had crossed from the Persian lines with a party of other deserters; the Skiritai had him bound, naked, to a post. They were going to execute him; he had asked for a moment alone with me before they opened his throat. On all sides the camp was rousing; half the army stood already on station, the other half arming. Down the track toward Trachis you could hear the enemy trumpets, forming up for Day Two. We found Rooster next to a pair of Median informers who had talked a good-enough game that they were actually being given breakfast. Not Rooster. The Skiritai had worked him over so hard that he had to be propped up, slumped against the post where his throat would be slit.
