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The waters of the Nile swirled and tugged at the old Macedonian's bare legs as he and his comrades began to wade across.

His feet slipped on the mud of the riverbank, sending him stumbling forward, barely hanging on to the long pike in his hands.

The water rose as they moved forward into the river, reaching their waists, then their stomachs, then their chests.

The old soldier felt panic rising inside him. This wasn't the first river he'd forded during

his 35 years of service to his kings, first Philip, then Alexander, and now the conqueror's

heirs. There had been mountain streams in Thrace and Illyria, the Granicus with Persians waiting on the far bank,

the nightmarish snowmelt of the Hydospis and others he'd since forgotten, but never before had he felt so certain that this would be the last.

Elephants trumpeted a short distance upstream.

The commander, Perticus, was using the gigantic beasts

to block the flow of the current and make it easier for the army to cross. It was a good

plan, the old Macedonian thought, though he couldn't get used to the creatures. He still had

nightmares about his first encounter with them in the forests of India. But the elephants were

everywhere now, just one more change wrought on the world by Alexander and his long journey,

a journey on which the soldier had accompanied him for every single step.

This wasn't even his first time crossing the Nile.

How much had changed since the last time he was here, more than a decade earlier?

There was no Alexander, no Hefastian, no Parmenio,

Craterus had left for the west. The common foe, with whom he'd marched so far, were slipping

away one by one. A man he'd known since Old King Philip was new to the throne disappeared under

the water. The old soldier tried to pull him up, keeping a one-handed grip on his pike,

...