"Hephaistion! Touch me again and I'll damned stab you!"
Even though he was half-asleep, Hephaistion rolled away from me as fast as a bolt of lightening.
I didn't care how cold it was – he wasn't cuddling up to me for warmth.
And it was cold here on the high mountain tops, waiting for the dawn to break. It had been getting colder over the last few days. The air was dry and cold. You could smell the snow on the wind. It wouldn't be long before we got the first snowfalls of winter.
We needed to find some winter quarters – and soon.
The ground was frozen hard. We were lying on it, trying to catch some sleep before launching our assault against the hilltop above us as soon as the dawn broke.
It was a familiar routine by now.
Pretty much every hilltop we passed seemed to have some impregnable fort on it. Progress was slow.
In his haste to get away from me, Hephaistion crashed into Alexander. Alexander woke with a start to find Hephaistion on top of him.
"Not now, Hephaistion," Alexander snarled as he roughly pushed him away. "I've got a battle to fight."
Alexander was always a miserable bastard when he first woke up, and being freezing cold in the dark wasn't going to help his mood.
"Slioch, you ignorant barbarian, go back to dreaming of sheep." Hephaistion's insult was a desperate attempt to hide his mortification at Alexander's rejection.
"Eff off."
Alexander snorted somewhere in the dark.
I wished I'd paid more attention in Aristotle's lessons – I might have been better at trading witty insults if I had.
Mind you, it probably wouldn't have made any difference if I had. Aristotle always reckoned I was as sharp as a bag of rocks. Hephaistion always reminded me of that.
Our bickering hid the nerves that we always had before a fight.
The first rays of the sun came over the horizon and pierced the gloom.
Our banter fell silent.
We would soon renew our acquaintance with Death.
In the half-light of early dawn, Death's cold breath chilled the nape of my neck.
I shuddered and muttered a curse to ward off the Evil One.
I launched another series of quick sword thrusts at the two veteran fighters facing me. They had been pressing me hard and I knew I could be in trouble.
As we moved deeper and deeper into these wild hills, the tribesmen got fiercer. We were going to have some tough times ahead.
They repulsed my attack and I fell back, waiting for their counter attack.
Before they could pounce, a spear came hissing through the air and skewered one of them in the chest. His companion hesitated momentarily.
I pushed forward and felled him with two swift swords thrusts.
I stepped back from him as his body crumpled and he fell to the rocky earth.
I was conscious of someone beside me. I spun round to face them. It was Hephaistion.
"If you learned to chuck a spear like a man, not a girl, you'd live longer, sheep shagger," he laughed as he pulled his spear out of the dead fighter's chest.
I grinned at him.
"Eff off."
Alexander appeared at Hephaistion's side. Those two were like each other's shadow, especially on the battlefield.
"Slioch, even after all this time you have as much command of Greek as the average child." Alexander sounded jocular.
He patted Hephaistion on the shoulder and they moved swiftly forward up the ramparts.
"And you can eff off as well," I shouted after Alexander. Luckily the din of the fight drowned me out.
It was a tough but brief fight.
I was squatting recovering from the bruising encounter by the side of a meagre fire. I was tired.
A boy ran out of the large hut in the centre of the hill fort. He accosted the nearest warrior and exchanged some hasty words with him. The warrior pointed in my direction.
I smelt trouble.
The boy ran towards me, skidded to a halt and pointed towards the hut.
"My lord Iskandar commands that you attend him," he exclaimed in broken Greek.
From his poor Greek and his strange garb, I guessed that he was a boy from the fort. His skin was a strange light brown colour, not the olive colour of the Greeks.
I sighed. This had trouble written all over it. Around Alexander you quickly learnt to spot trouble – or you ended up dead pretty quickly. Trouble stuck to Alexander like shit to a blanket.
I stood up and spat on the thin soil to ward off the Evil One.
"Lead on, boy," I said.
We walked across the small flat area at the heart of the hill fort; carefully picking our way through the throng of weary warriors sprawled on the ground.
When we got to the hut, we ducked under a low stone lintel and entered a gloomy passageway. I paused, waiting for my eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. An old warrior's trick – I'd seen too many fighters blunder into buildings and be hacked down by its defenders.
The boy ran on ahead down a small corridor and left me in the doorway. I could hear low voices ahead so I moved down the passageway and emerged into a small circular room. The low roof trapped the smoke from the hearth.
Alexander caught sight of me through the swirling smoke and beckoned me towards him.
"Slioch," he hailed. "Over here."
"Yes my lord," I replied, a slight note of hesitancy in my voice. I knew I wasn't going to like whatever was coming my way.
Alexander nodded towards the man on his left. The man was heavily bearded like most of the local tribesman. His long flowing robe was of rich material. I guessed he was the chieftain of the hill fort.
"Karzai here is the head of this fort." He spoke in Greek.
At the sound of his name Karzai grinned and flashed his broken brown teeth.
Alexander gave him an indulgent smile, knowing Karzai couldn't understand him.
"And he tells me of an impregnable fortress that is full of riches beyond measure."
Karzai suddenly became more interesting, so I studied his face closely. It was the face of a hardened warrior, the skin scarred by battle and beaten to the toughness of leather by the brutal harshness of the mountain winters. If men like him defended this impregnable fortress, then it was going to be hard to take.
Alexander saw my interest piqued by the prospect of treasure. He laughed and threw himself back onto the bearskins behind him.
"Slioch, you are a man after my own heart!" he exclaimed. "An impossible challenge and the glory of achieving the impossible! These things we live for."
I gave him a puzzled look. I wasn't bothered about the challenge of an impregnable fortress. It was just the treasure I wanted. That was the difference between Alexander and me. He was always chasing glory and immortal fame. Me? I'd help him do it, but what I was really interested in was the booty - and the women.
"What's this fortress called?" I asked to hide my puzzlement.
Alexander pointed at Karzai, who gave us another toothy grin. "He says it's called the Sogdian Rock."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Never heard of it."
"Exactly!" cried Alexander. "It is hidden deep in the mountains and few know where it is so that its many treasures are kept safe."
I noticed something move in the shadows behind Karzai. My hand moved the hilt of my sword. I relaxed when I saw it was the boy.
Alexander saw him and motioned that he should come closer to the dim light thrown off by the dying fire.
"This is Aftab. He is Karzai's nephew. He is from a village near the Sogdian Rock. He will be your guide."
I looked from the boy to Alexander and back again. I didn't like the look of the shifty little kid. He looked like he'd sell his own mother for a loaf of bread. There was an awkward silence before Alexander's words hit me.
"My guide?" I suddenly realised what he had said. The smell of trouble was overpowering.
Alexander smiled. "Why yes Slioch!" he proclaimed. "You will spend the winter finding, and then scouting, this impregnable fortress so that we may take it next spring. In the meantime I will take the army back to Alexandria Eschate for the winter."
He could see the disappointment on my face. I'd been looking forward to a winter of rest in the taverns and brothels of Alexandria Eschate. Now I was going to freeze my backside off in the snows of a bleak winter in the high mountains.
"You'll enjoy wandering about here in the mountains, Slioch," Alexander said trying to make it sound like he was doing me a service by sending me off into the remote mountain valleys in the middle of winter. "It'll be just like being at home for you."
I was struggling to hide my annoyance at being given such a task. "Just me and the boy?" I asked flatly.
"No, I've got a couple of Bactrian princes I want you to take."
Great! A shifty little urchin and a couple of pointy-heads to drag around the wild remote mountains! It wasn't getting any better. Trouble had come looking for me and found me all right.
I nodded and turned on my heel to leave the hut.
"Aftab", go with Slioch," Alexander commanded.
The morning air was thick with dust as the army tramped back along the track towards Alexandria Eschate.
Me, the boy and the two Bactrians were standing at a crossroads. The main track back to Alexandria Eschate was heading west. Our path, not much more than a goat track, was heading south.
We stood to one side as the head of the long column of soldiers reached us. I looked down the long line of marching men. It stretched as far as I could see and I wished I was part of it. I had a bad feeling about this trip.
Alexander looked every inch the ruler of the world as he rode past us. He had always ridden well and he looked majestic on the powerful Bucephalus. He touched the rim of his glittering helmet in acknowledgment as he rode past.
Several of the Companions around him also made the same gesture as they too rode past us.
Hephaistion bent down from his horse as he approached. When he was close to me, he slowed his horse and made a sheep-like "Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!" at me.
"Eff off."
I vowed I was going to get even with that pansy.
