There was a stream that crossed part of the foothills, not far from the base of the mountain. It was a poor, meandering thing, but still a vital source of life. There were even a few thin trees clinging to existence on its banks. Each evening and morning, Aristides organised a raiding party to replenish their supplies. Whenever he did, the Persian master of horse would bring his men up from the plain to mill and swarm, looking for the perfect moment to attack. It was hard to know if the man truly wished to deny them water, or whether he only wanted to kill a few Greeks, to blood his young warriors.

Higher on the slopes of the mountains behind, Pausanias and his Spartans had found a place to observe the enemy. Their favoured spot was a natural ridge, overlooked on one edge by a boulder that was its own moss-furred peak. It was dry and level enough to let men lay out their cloaks to sleep. The rest of the allied force spread across the mountainside in smaller pockets, clinging like bird nests, wherever there was room.

While Pausanias made battle plans, they waited, watching food and water dwindle. In such a harsh place, the officers had already cut rations of beans and grain mush in half. There was enough still for a week, but they had not crossed the mountains with a huge baggage train. Without secure lines back to a city, there was a real danger of them becoming too weak to fight. Pausanias had sent scouts back across the mountain passes, of course, but they had not yet returned. If those men drove pigs or goats before them, they all knew it would be many days before they saw them again.

Aristides never took his eye off the watching horsemen. That force of riders had taken to shrieking as they came, as if it were all some sort of game. He supposed it was, to them. They did not fight for hearth and home as he did, for water and survival. As far as he understood them at all, they had come because their king had ordered them to war. They fought because obedience was the only possible response.

He wondered, though, if the horsemen were not a cut above the common soldiers of Lydia or Egypt. Their fine coats had jewels glittering in the stitching. He did not know yet if they were well trained or merely gaudy – nor was he much of a judge, at least when it came to horses and those who rode them.