by Peter Darman
His bodyguard – two hundred mercenaries – had deserted him the moment they realised the Parthians had swept around the army’s flanks to create a giant trap. He cursed them as they rode away, bellowing in rage at the individual who had tossed his banner to the ground. He jumped down from his horse to pace over to the standard: the deer symbol of Aria, his beloved homeland. He clutched the wooden shaft and buried his head in the material, weeping as he remembered the fair city of Farah, the capital of his kingdom, and the many friends he had lost during his quest for the high crown.
Tiridates, overcome with grief, was probably only vaguely aware of the mortal blow delivered by one of Akmon’s cataphracts, the rider passing by the former king of kings and chopping down with his sword, the force of rider and horse severing the head in a single strike. The cataphract rode on to cut down the wild hill men of Pontus who were running in every direction. The headless body collapsed to the ground, the banner of Aria providing a fitting shroud for its former king, Tiridates.
*****
Kewab had ordered the camel trains to follow the cataphracts and lancers so they would be near at hand for the horse archers that were now shooting at the densely packed phalanxes of Cappadocian spearmen and Gaul warriors. The Pontic hill men had already dissolved into a fleeing mass, which turned and ran straight into companies of cataphracts and horse archers. The army of Rome’s clients was falling apart, its horsemen having been scattered and those still living having made good their escape from the field, leaving thousands of foot soldiers to their fate. That fate was sealed when the three sons of Spartacus linked up in the rear of the enemy army, beaming with delight at each other, though Akmon winced when he forced a smile. His facial wound had been bandaged and the cut looked worse than it was, but it had begun to throb.
Joro and a company of cataphracts clustered around their ruler and Shamshir and fifty King’s Guard kept a close watch on Castus and Haytham, but the rest of the King’s Guard, all the Vipers and Gordyene’s medium horsemen were doing murder among the now exhausted foot soldiers of the enemy. The soldiers of Castus and Kewab were also tired, but the elixir of victory was a powerful reviver of spent bodies and minds.
None were more spent than the Immortals, the ten thousand professional foot soldiers that represented the spine of Gordyene’s army. Commanded by the rather dour Motofi, whose dark features matched his somewhat sombre disposition, they had stood under a blazing sun for hours fighting for their lives. Kewab had gambled they would be able to withstand the attacks of the Gauls, Cappadocians and Pontic hill men and they had done just that. But it had been close, so very close. Motofi had had two horses killed beneath him as he and his staff had ridden from division to division to exhort his men to stand firm after their initial withdrawal to lure the enemy into the bulge. That ruse had worked all too well and the Gauls in particular, roused into a frenzy, threatened to overwhelm the soldiers who were giving the impression of being on the verge of defeat.
Stand firm.
An order that required superhuman efforts against stinking, rage-filled Gauls wielding axes, long swords and spears. But their deadliest weapon was the two-handed war hammer, capable of inflicting fatal injuries against men wearing mail armour so great was the force of the blow. So the shields of the Immortals became their saviours: three layers of oak glued together with the grain of the wood at right angles to the preceding layer. Oak was preferred because it is close-grained and harder to cut through. Each shield was also strengthened with wooden reinforcing strips added to the rear, faced with hide and edged with brass. In the centre was cut a round hole, across which was a handgrip protected by a bulging metal boss. In this way, the shield could be used as a weapon to barge over an enemy, but when fighting a defensive battle against bloodthirsty Gauls, it was kept tight to the body. Even so, after four hours of unrelenting combat, many Immortals had had their shields reduced to splinters.
When the dreadful realisation had dawned on the men who had been trying to slay the Immortals that they were actually caught in a massive trap, the frenzy of stabbing, slashing and hacking at the soldiers of King Castus suddenly ceased. Even the Gauls melted away from the battered ranks of the Immortals, their fury dissipating as their chiefs called on their warriors to retrace their steps all the way back to Melitene.
But that route was blocked by thousands of enemy horse archers with a plentiful supply of ammunition. To their credit the Gauls, now tired, thirsty but not lacking in valour, reformed their ranks and advanced in a large phalanx against the horsemen. But only the dismounted nobles among them wore armour and helmets, and so the deluge of arrows shot at them felled hundreds, and then thousands. The Gauls in the front ranks, carrying shields to give them a modicum of protection, advanced with heads down as though walking into a blizzard and being lashed by a driving rain. But the rain was not water but bronze- and iron-tipped missiles that hissed through the air in such volume to create a sound akin to the wind, stopping the Gauls dead in their tracks. Where before there had been thousands of warriors, suddenly there were piles of dead and dying, warriors scrambling over their wounded comrades only to be hit themselves and become part of the growing heap of dead, twisted flesh.
After Kewab and Castus had sent riders into the maelstrom to instruct the cataphracts and lancers to immediately withdraw, twelve thousand horse archers, including the King’s Guard and Vipers, formed a long line and began shooting arrows at the mass of enemy foot soldiers at a steady rate of six arrows a minute.
Seventy-two thousand missiles were shot at the foe in a minute; one hundred and forty-four thousand after two minutes, and three hundred and sixty thousand after five minutes. Then Kewab ordered an immediate cessation of shooting, concerned the entire arrow stock of his two ammunition trains would be used up.
The battle was over.
The army of Polemon, Archelaus, Amyntas, Tiridates and Atrax had ceased to exist.
Chapter 10
Their water bottles were empty and their horses were spent, the beasts lathered in sweat and on the verge of collapse. One hundred had originally followed their prince to escape the horror that was being visited on the army they had been a part of, but only twenty now remained. They had been in the saddle since dawn and now it was late afternoon, the sun still high in the sky because it was the height of summer. There was still at least five hours of sunlight left but their horses would not be able to carry them for even half that time. They had managed to evade the horse archers that had been pursuing them, though only after pushing their mounts to the limits of their endurance and losing two score of men to enemy arrows. Eventually their tormentors had broken contact to return to the battlefield, allowing the survivors to catch their breath and get their bearings.
They were still on the Melitene Plain, with its trees, grassland and yellow flowers blanketing the hillsides, the sun now slowly descending on their left indicating they were riding north, away from the town. The horses were walking now, their heads down and their breathing laboured. The leader of the group suddenly held up a hand to halt the column. He blinked to ensure it was not an illusion and leered with anticipation. The gods were smiling on him this day. Ahead was an encampment of four black tents beside a small creek, with tethered horses and camels to one side, and what looked like women and girls going about their business.
‘Get your men to dismount,’ the leader told the officer beside him.
Normally they would have charged into the camp to achieve maximum surprise, but their horses were so spent that a further burst of activity would probably kill them. The officer dismounted and spoke to his men in hushed tones, prompting them to alight from their jaded animals. In the saddle they were mounted spearmen, but they left their lances behind as they advanced towards the camp with swords drawn and round shields tucked tight to their left side. Because they were tired, they walked rather than ran, giving the occupants of the camp plenty of time to spot them.
‘Stay where you are and you will not be harmed,’ sho
uted the officer.
He laughed when he saw two girls and two women dive into the tents.
‘They think that will save them?’ said his lord, the sun reflecting off his dragon-skin armour cuirass.
His men flanked him left and right, heading for the tents where the females had taken refuge. A fire was burning in the middle of the camp, a large pot hanging over it, from which came the mouth-watering aroma of stew. It had been a long, hard day but promised to be a good night.
Klietas stepped from behind the tree and let the bowstring slip through his fingers, exhaling as he did so, the sinew cord producing a sharp crack as it snapped back into place, propelling the arrow forward for only a couple of seconds before the slim steel point slammed into the back of the soldier on the end of the line. The man grunted, arched his back and dropped his sword before crumpling to the ground. Klietas had already nocked a second arrow and shot it before the others had time to react, hitting a second man in the back and also sending him sprawling to the ground. The others spun around as one, just at the moment Minu, Haya, Yasmina and Azar sprang from the tents, bows in hand with full quivers that they threw to the ground.
They shot sixteen arrows in less than half a minute, each one striking a target, though those targets included hide-covered shields that the raiders hid behind as they dropped to the ground in response to the new threat.
‘Charge them,’ shouted their officer, sprinting forward directly at the small, girlish-looking Azar, holding his shield in front of him to protect his torso from any arrows she shot at him. He was moving fast but she was quicker, aiming low to shoot the arrow at his groin, the steel point piercing his genitals and causing him to shriek in agony. She strung another arrow and shot it at his chest, the point going through the mail into flesh, nocking a third and aiming it at his neck. The arrowhead and half the shaft went through the flesh and exited at the rear of his throat.
Yasmina, shrieking like a demon freed from the underworld, shot a man through the eye, rooting him to the spot before his lifeless body crumbled to the ground. Haya and Minu, working in tandem to ensure an uninterrupted stream of missiles, nocked and shot twenty arrows between them in a minute and half, shooting the line of soldiers to pieces. The raiders had had enough and the surviving six turned tail and ran – straight into Klietas, Talib and Bullus.
The centurion and head scout had been on guard duty on the other side of the creek when the raiders attacked, sprinting back to lend their support to the Amazons and Daughters of Dura, who in reality did not require it. Klietas aimed his arrow at a soldier less than twenty paces away, the man raising his shield to counter the missile, to be shot in the side by Talib and finished off by Bullus who rushed forward to ram the point of his gladius into the man’s torso, the point going through the mail armour, into the chest to pierce the heart.
The fleeing raiders made a fatal mistake turning their backs on the Amazons and Daughters of Dura, who continued to shoot arrows into the inviting targets that their undefended backs presented. One, two, three arrows slammed into the mail armour of each, more missiles being shot at short range into their fronts by Klietas and Talib.
The last standing raider tossed his sword to the ground and held up his hands.
‘I beg for mercy. I am Atrax, prince of Media and my friends will pay you much gold for my safe return.’
As one the archers stopped their shooting, staring at each other, Minu wide-eyed at this gift from Shamash.
Atrax, sensing they knew who he was, nodded.
‘That’s right. I am a very important person and you can all become very wealthy by escorting me back to Melitene. After I have rested and eaten, of course. Now, which one of you is in charge? I will require…’
The arrow going through his windpipe cut short his sentence. Atrax, eyes wide in horror, grabbed the shaft with both hands in a vain effort to prevent the blood spurting from his neck. He tried to speak but made only a gurgling sound. Yasmina strung a second arrow and shot that into his burnished cuirass, the arrowhead dislodging a silver scale and penetrating the leather it was attached to. Atrax fell to his knees, blood now pumping from his neck. He looked at Yasmina with pleading eyes before falling forward. She strung another arrow but Minu ordered her not to shoot.
‘Enough, he is dead.’
The girl walked up to the body and kicked it to ensure it was lifeless, then spat on the corpse and cursed Atrax under her breath.
‘That was a stroke of luck,’ said Bullus, wiping his blood-covered sword on a cloth before returning it to its scabbard.
Talib looked around at the bodies, all dressed in blue tunics and grey leggings.
‘This can only mean one thing. Atrax and his allies have been defeated, there is no other explanation as to why he has so few soldiers with him. We must find Castus and his army.’
‘You think more of our targets may have fallen?’ grinned Minu.
‘I hope so,’ replied her husband, ‘but we need to act fast before the heat and ravens make it difficult to identify bodies.’
After staying in Zeugma to write letters warning Ctesiphon of the planned attack on Gordyene and sending a report to Queen Gallia, the assassins had crossed the Euphrates into Hatran territory to journey north on the eastern side of the river. They had headed back to Melitene intent on shadowing the army of Rome’s clients, which included the Parthian rebels, into Gordyene, hoping opportunities would arise to kill their targets along the way. But the surprising appearance of Castus and his army at Melitene had thrown their plans into disarray. So Talib decided they should make camp north of the town and await the outcome of the inevitable battle. The chance appearance of Atrax had seemingly confirmed it did not end well for the prince’s allies.
Klietas stared down at the dead prince, blood still oozing from the neck wound and red appearing on the scales of his superb cuirass. Haya sidled up to him.
‘What is troubling you?’
He sighed and looked at the other dead bodies.
‘I could have been one of those if circumstances had been different. They are from Media, as am I.’
He twisted up his face in disapproval as Yasmina and Azar began extracting arrows from the bodies, Bullus lending a hand. Yasmina looked up at Klietas.
‘Are you just going to stand there?’
Talib threw him an axe, which he caught.
‘Cut off the heads.’
Klietas was appalled. ‘What?’
‘Lord Byrd told me a story once, about when King Pacorus was in Cappadocia when he was captured by the Romans. His mentor was killed by the Romans in a battle, after which King Pacorus cremated his body on a pyre, around which were the severed heads of his enemies mounted on stakes. We will do the same.’
Haya shrugged. ‘I will help you.’
Klietas had tears in his eyes as he went about his grisly task, earning him ridicule and mocking from Yasmina and Azar, who were going about their arrow-extraction duties with gusto.
It took an hour to dismantle the camp and load the tents on the camels. They relieved the Median horses of their saddles and after they had been rested, watered and fed, led them away from the scene of death. The sun was still dipping slowly in the west but there was no wind and it suddenly became hot and oppressive. No one spoke as their horses trotted along the creek, which ran south, towards Melitene and the scene of the earlier battle. Klietas was deep in thought, occasionally shaking his head and muttering to himself. Haya had had enough.
‘What is the matter, Klietas? Do you regret killing Atrax and his men?’
He looked at his wife-to-be.
‘Killing them, no. But mutilating their bodies afterwards was unnecessary. Whatever they were in life, they deserved better in death.’
‘How selective is your memory, Klietas. Have you forgotten the citizens of Irbil that Atrax crucified, did he not mutilate their bodies?’
‘Of course I have not forgotten,’ he snapped. ‘But those people were given a proper cremation. They were not
left to rot in the sun.’
‘Atrax was the enemy of Dura and the enemies of my home deserve no mercy,’ she hissed.
He realised she was unyielding in her opinions and so they sank into silence. But the quiet of the late afternoon was soon interrupted when the column neared the site of the great battle that had taken place earlier that day, the horses and camels becoming nervous as they approached the field of death. Every rider pulled up his or her horse when they came across the scene of horror: the corpses of men and horses as far as the eye could see and hovering above the carpet of dead were flocks of ravens and vultures, thousands more birds on the ground picking at cadavers. The harsh grating sounds and shrill calls of the ravens combined with the hissing and grunting of the vultures to produce a chilling noise that sent shivers down the spine.
‘We need to find Castus’ camp,’ said Talib.
They followed the swathe of flattened grass and churned up earth on which thousands of Immortals and thousands more horsemen had marched to reach the battlefield and return back to camp, those that had survived the carnage. The sun was finally sinking in the west now, a huge red ball to symbolise the ocean of blood that had been spilt during the day.
Talib pointed at the marching camp in the distance, around two miles away, sizing up the length of the earth rampart topped with wooden stakes.
‘It does not just contain the army of Gordyene. Castus must have received reinforcements.’
‘Perhaps his Aorsi allies are in there as well,’ said Minu.
‘The Aorsi are worthless in battle,’ replied Talib. ‘No, I would say Castus has been joined by more reliable troops.’
‘Why are we even visiting King Castus?’ said Bullus. ‘He can’t help us with our mission.’