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There was nothing quite like the taste of wine after a fight, Bratomaris thought.

The whole cupful went down his gullet in a single long swallow, and he called for more,

Vinol.

Ritomaris remembered the first time he'd drunk the stuff on the long boat trip from Missalia to Syracuse.

The older men of his tribe had gotten the young Brutamara's good and senseless, and soon he was puking over the rail into the churning sea.

That was back when he'd been young and foolish. No bald spot atop his head, no missing teeth or fingers, but also no wealth and no name.

Brutomaris had come a long way since then. Four gold rings around his upper arms, one on each wrist,

another around his neck. They marked him out as a powerful man. So too did the bronze helmet on

his head, the long iron sword in his non-wine drinking hand, and the male shirt covering his chest.

He had seen many a cato, a battle in his years. The first had been just before that initial encounter with wine on the boat,

a little scrapped between his tribe and the next.

Then there was that big fight with the Carthaginians,

then the Brutians and the Romans and the Illyrians and all the rest.

They all ran together after a while.

The wine and the blows to the head made much of it a blur.

He only half remembered those hard years, but they had given Brutamarus a name that mattered in this world of

swords and gold. Hundreds of strong warriors followed him now. Only a few leaders in this vast host

had brought more to their assembly point in the spring before the long march through the mountains

here to Macedonia.

It was a long way from Massalia, for that matter, though that place too was full of Greeks.

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