I turned before the first men could catch me and I was off again, a different fire in my blood. And close at my heels, afire with emulation, came a mix of Agrianians and Macedonians – about fifty men, all together in a bunch.

Men were laughing.

We ran on.

After another stade, we couldn’t really pretend to be running. We were just climbing. It was steeper, the rocks were bigger and the copses of stunted trees came thicker. I was panting every breath, and my mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck to its roof. I was no longer first, either – Philip passed me, and then several Agrianians all together, and then more men.

We were all together when we caught the slaves, though. They were just slaves, and had no wind, and suddenly all our weapons were red.

And as if their blood fed us, we all gained another wind from the gods, and we ran.And down in the valley, the pezhetaeroi were cheering – the same Alaialaialaialaiwe’d screamed as we started, and it carried like the very voice of the gods, and rebounded from the slopes of Olympus.

The top of the ridge was only a few horse lengths above us now, and men had to pull themselves from scrubby tree to scrubby tree – and suddenly the ridge above us was full of Thessalians, hundreds of infantrymen. Not true hoplites, more like Peltastoi, with small crescent-shaped shields and leather hats and javelins.

Their problems were twofold. First, it’s not that easy to throw a javelin accurately in thick brush, and we were climbing the last of the ridge through dense spruce and old ash – little trees, but probably ancient, starved of water and of food.

Second, by luck or the will of Zeus, the portion of the ridge we’d come up at the last had an odd hump and twist, so that the men above us couldn’t actually see us until we reached the very last few feet.

What was best – for us – is that they tried hurling javelins at the sounds we made climbing – because such was the fire in us that we never slackened our assault, even when it became clear that we were climbing into a force larger than our own.

Philip Longsword shot out of the spruce first, and took a dozen javelins in his aspis.

When I came out next to him, I was at the base of a rock taller than a man’s head. The enemy was atop the rock and behind it.

Javelins were thudding into my shield like an ill hail.

I looked left and saw a route to the top, and I ran up it, into a swarm of Peltastoi.

It was like the bear hunt all over again, except that this time I had a lot of friends and armour. I took a javelin in my instep and another ripped a finger-deep gouge in my right calf, because I had no greaves. In fact, I’d never have made it to there with greaves. But my good thorax held some blows, and my helmet took its share of abuse, and my javelins were gone – who knows where – and then Philip’s long Keltoi sword was flashing in the sun by my side, and then Agrianians were shouting in their own barbarian tongue and one of their phylarchs – I didn’t know his name yet – was beside me, with a spear as big as the one Achilles carried.

At first, the Thessalians poured into our position, trying to overwhelm us and push us back off the rock.

We were bigger, stronger and better trained. So we held on, although at least one of my Agrianians fell to his death in that fight.

But as they poured into the centre to repel my thrust, the rest of my hypaspitoi caught up, spread half a stade on either side, and some of them were suddenly atop the ridge with no opponents at all – and with no plan whatsoever, or at least no plan I made, they folded in from either flank like the horns of a great bull.

I could see it from my rock. All I wanted to do was stop fighting – one minute and I was exhausted, and ten minutes and I was wrecked, and spears were coming past my guard routinely. Only my thorax saved me, as many as twenty times. Men – good men – fell there because they had nothing left after the climb, and didn’t have armour to keep them alive.

But I could see the wings of my taxeis closing in, and it was glorious.

I took a deep breath, and Athena stood at my shoulder and whispered honeyed words in my ear.

‘Hypaspists!’ I roared. Or perhaps I croaked it. But they heard. ‘The king is watching! And there is Olympus, and the gods themselves are watching!’

And the battle cry came back – from the valley, from the heights above us, from every throat that could still draw breath, so that the very air around us thickened with the sound.

Alaialaialaialaialai!

The Peltastoi broke. I thinkthey thought from the sound that we’d got behind them. But it doesn’t matter. They turned and ran.

They all lived, because none of us followed them. We sank down on our ridge-top and bled.

I drank water, and Polystratus appeared with twenty mounted grooms and bandaged my calves and my instep, and put me in riding boots.

Cassander rode up the shallow end of the ridge, three stades away.

At our feet, two thousand slaves were cutting steps in the hillside. They were fast. They’d been promised cash payment and freedom for the best, and they worked with a will – so fast that we could watch the progress they were making.

Cassander saluted. We were not friends – I’ve said that. But he grinned. ‘That was worthy of the heroes of the Iliad!’ he said. ‘Alexander all but pissed himself with pleasure. Now he wants you to clear the ridge heading south.’

I nodded.

Polystratus handed me a roll of sesame seeds in honey, and I sucked a mouthful out of the sausage skin. The sugar went into my blood like ambrosia. I drank a mouthful of wine, finished the seeds and stood up, a new man.

Youth! How I miss it.

‘Hypaspists!’ I called. Very little came out.

I looked at Philip, who was busy with two slaves, wrapping the mess he’d made of his sword arm. He shook his head and croaked something.

‘My voice is strong,’ Alectus rumbled. He had a bandage around his head. ‘I missed a good fight.’

‘I thought you had your doubts about fighting,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘You should listen more carefully,’ he said.

I had to whisper loudly to get words out. ‘We need to sweep the ridge.’

Alectus nodded. He walked out along the ridge and raised his big spear. ‘Hypaspitoi!’ he called in his barbaric accent. ‘Not finished yet, philoi! Take a deep breath, think of happy things and get your helmets back on.’

Not exactly like my speeches, but it did the job.

Alectus led, and we followed. Whatever fire had run through my veins was gone, and I was washed clean – and empty. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t form words. Which was fine. Alectus spread us out in a skirmish line across the ridge, as if we were Peltastoi ourselves – perhaps the terrain, or perhaps it was just the Agrianian’s way. And we walked slowly, and the remaining Peltastoi and Psiloi simply popped up like hares in a hunt and fled, and we let them go. They wasted some stones on us, and we didn’t trouble them with our javelins.

Now, in truth, we lost three men for every one the Athenian mercenaries – that’s what they were – lost to us. And in truth, we outnumbered them by at least two to one when all our men reached the hilltop.

But if you ever ride through the Vale of Tempe, look up at Mount Ossa, and tell me it wasn’t one of our finest hours. We pushed them off the ridge.

And after that, they weren’t going to make a stand anywhere. Maybe they thought we were insane. And perhaps we were.

We camped that night at the southern end of the ridge, overlooking the Thessalian camp. Behind us, the whole Macedonian army was coming up the steps cut by the slaves.

That night, Marsyas came to me. I had no tent – the baggage was still down on the plain. I was eating more sesame and honey, and my heart burned with the sting of it, but Polystratus had found milk, and warm milk and honey is a fine meal on a cold night in the mountains.