‘I actually knew a guy that happened to,’ Wolf commented. ‘Made a hell of a—’

Ben looked at him. ‘Jaden. Please.’

Madison shrugged, hacked-off faces and dismembered bodies apparently being par for the course in her world. ‘So now that his personal mission against Bessus had been taken care of, you’d have thought that maybe Alexander would have called it a day and gone home to enjoy being the ruler of the biggest empire in the world. And maybe that’s what he wanted, deep down – but of course that would’ve meant leaving this huge new territory he’d conquered vulnerable to anyone else who might think to challenge his claim on it. The main threat came from the tribal hordes of what’s now Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other lands beyond the mountainous borders. They had plenty of able warriors and were always looking for an opportunity to gain new footholds. With that in mind he kept marching onwards, and founded yet another new city to act as an outpost to guard the most northerly edge of his empire in central Asia.’

‘Let me guess,’ Wolf said. ‘Another Alexandria?’

‘You get the picture. This one was called Alexandria Eschate, “the furthermost Alexandria”. It’s not there anymore, nothing more than a few ancient foundations lying across the border in Tajikistan. But in its day it became his military base while he went on waging war against the tribes and warlords of Afghanistan. He had his hands full, because by now there was a full-scale uprising going on as the local warlords started to resent the rule being imposed on them. The revolt spread fast, and Alexander’s response to it was to march his army against a number of Afghan towns and cities. He laid siege to them, smashed their resistance and massacred their whole populations down to the last man, woman and child. It was the exact same situation that happened with the British in 1879 when troops under the command of Lord Roberts were attacked, sparking off a bloody series of punitive strikes against the locals, burning and killing everything in sight.’

‘Not one of our better moments,’ Ben said ruefully.

‘But it’s another nice example of how history just keeps on repeating itself,’ Madison said. ‘In both cases, what had started out looking like a successful imperial campaign by an unstoppable superpower had begun to turn bad. Like the Brits, Alexander found himself beleaguered, his supply routes cut off, surrounded on all sides by a wily guerrilla force with far better local knowledge than his own, who could strike anytime, anywhere, nibble at the vulnerable edges of his army and then melt back into the safety of their hills and mountain passes where the bulk of the troops couldn’t follow.’

‘That’ll do it,’ Ben said. ‘Works every time.’

Wolf nodded. ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.’