The soldier recognized his native mountains the moment he caught sight of them.

In the midday light they were a gloomy, brimstone grey, cut here and there by deep, orange-coloured ravines. From where he was standing, he could even see the Sciron red running along the steep southern face of the mountain range. It was curved at one end like a shepherd's crook—at least that's what it had looked like to Polyander the soldier when he was a boy, and that's what it still looked like to him. The Sciron was a road with a terrible reputation, people travelling on it were always coming across pools of blood and other omens of impending trouble.

More trouble was the last thing Polyander wanted. Worn out prematurely, his complexion yellowish and wasted, he'd had his fill of trouble.

He had sworn an oath to serve King Alexander of Macedon—more commonly known at Alexander the Great—and he had served him. And then he had served King Cassander, a cruel, brutal, ambitious man who seized power and soon as Alexander was dead, imprisoning the widow and son of the conqueror to whom the gods and arms of the whole world had paid homage. Despite this Polyander had loyally turned his silver-studded shield against Cassander's enemies. What a fool he was! He'd wanted to win Cassander's favour. They say faith can move mountains. As things turned out, though, even the biggest mountain would have been easier to move than Cassander. Of all his men Cassander most distrusted Polyander—he was terrified by the mighty shield, the ruddy, muscular neck, the powerful voice so admired by the other soldiers. When Polyander was barely forty years old, Cassander declared him a supernumerary, unfit for further service in the light infantry, and sent him home without pension or mustering-out pay.

And now the mountains stood before him—and behind them his home, the prosperous city of Corinth. The soldier gazed up at the mountains, wondering how his native city would greet him and which of his relatives he would find alive. It was years since he'd been home.