by Peter Darman
‘I am going to kill Spadines,’ I pledged, ‘and all his wretched tribe of cockroaches. Where are you going at this late hour?’
She stood at the door to our bedroom, my old childhood sleeping quarters, with a hand on the handle.
‘Something I need to do before I forget. Have you considered Gaius Arrianus and Titus Tullus?’
‘Considered them?’
She tut-tutted. ‘Now that Nisibus is in danger, they cannot go into northern Hatra to reach Zeugma. They will have to travel to Dura and on to Zeugma along the western bank of the Euphrates. I will arrange it.’
‘Ah, very thoughtful of you.’
She opened the door to walk into the corridor illuminated by oil lamps.
‘I always am, Pacorus.’
Chapter 11
I had hoped to ride to Assur with sixty-five hundred of the finest horsemen in all Parthia, including fifteen hundred cataphracts. The next morning, the sun shining down on the great square in front of Hatra’s palace, just over a hundred figures on horseback greeted me as I descended the steps of the palace to reunite with Horns. Herneus’ nephew had sent him back refreshed and re-shoed, as promised, and now he would take me back to Assur. One hundred Amazons stood in two lines on the square and at the end of the first line Bullus, Klietas and a crestfallen Haytham sat on their horses.
I hoisted myself into the saddle and took the reins passed to me by a stable hand who had brought Horns from his night-time quarters. I patted him on the neck and waited for Gallia to mount up beside me. Hatra’s cataphracts and horse archers, all professional soldiers, would be forming up on the square after we had left for Assur. Normally they would already be arrayed prior to departing for Nisibus, but Herneus had deliberately delayed their muster to avoid rubbing salt in my wounded pride.
The general stood at the foot of the steps with a sheepish-looking Aspad and an indifferent Orobaz. Gaius Arrianus and Titus Tullus, both fully restored to health and attired in fine clothes as befitting their rank, stood with them. I nudged Horns forward and leaned down towards Herneus.
‘I have sent word to Dura for my horsemen and foot soldiers to march straight to Assur. They will not stay in the Hatra. You have sent word to your nephew?’
‘Yes, majesty.’
‘Good luck in the north.’
I turned Horns to walk along the line of dignitaries, halting him at Gaius Arrianus.
‘Well, ambassador, here is where our journeys part. An escort will accompany you both to Dura from where you will be able to reach Syria. Though if you have the time, I would recommend a trip to Palmyra.’
Gaius bowed his head.
‘It has been an honour to meet you, majesty. You can be assured that I will inform Augustus himself of your great service to his ambassador. And be assured Rome will honour its commitments.’
Strange words to end on, but then these were strange times. I smiled at Titus Tullus.
‘Safe journey back to Pontus, general. I would advise avoiding its hills and mountains. They appear to be filled with rebellious tribesmen.’
‘Have no fear, majesty, I won’t be making the same mistake again. I am glad we are parting as friends rather than enemies.’
‘As am I, general.’
I turned Horns and directed him towards the exit from the square, the honour guard of foot soldiers drawn from the garrison lining the outside of the quadrangle standing to attention as we trotted past them. The camels carrying our tents, supplies and ammunition had deposited liberal quantities of dung on the stone slabs, which would be removed before the muster of Hatra’s professional horsemen. After they had left for Nisibus, the deposits of their horses and camels would also be removed and the stone slabs washed clean. I reflected that my life and that of a slave and stable hand were not that different. Like them, I had been shovelling the same detritus for years.
We reached Assur dirty, thirsty and drenched in sweat, having covered the route to the city without a halt. We had ridden for four hours through the hottest part of the day and were glad to slide off saddles and dunk our heads in water troughs to refresh our roasted bodies and brains. Gallia ordered Minu to see that the Amazons were allocated quarters in the barracks of the governor’s mansion, while she and I immediately conferred with Rodak.
‘You wish to lie down, majesty?’ he asked us, concerned the journey had fatigued us. It had.
‘No, find us fresh horses and accompany us to the bridge.’
It was with difficulty I hauled myself into a fresh saddle once more, my back aching like fury. But I maintained a brave face, as did Gallia, who was watching Klietas removing his saddle from his horse.
‘He elected to stay with you?’
‘He did,’ I said.
‘He still desires Haya?’
‘He has a new woman now, called Anush. She is pregnant.’
I thought of rampaging Sarmatians plundering Media and my heart sank.
‘Or was.’
Gallia looked at me. ‘Was?’
‘She might be dead, skewered on the end of a Sarmatian spear.’
She pointed at a hot and panting Haytham.
‘What about him?’
‘He is here to atone for his brother’s crimes.’
‘What a mess,’ she lamented.
‘What a mess, indeed.’
We rode to the bridge spanning the Tigris in the company of the governor and his second-in-command, a rather dour individual who did nothing to improve the mood. Already the road from the east that carried the trade caravans was strangely silent, the news of the Sarmatian incursion having resulted in the traffic on the Silk Road fleeing back to Esfahan.
We halted at the western end of the bridge across the Tigris, a marvel of engineering constructed by Dura’s quartermaster general. It comprised a row of boats, or pontoons, secured by anchors to the riverbed arranged side-by-side, over the top of which was a roadbed comprising wooden beams lashed together and topped by a road of wooden planks nailed to the framework. Below it the waters of the Tigris flowed with a fast current, the river swelled by the spring meltwaters coming from the mountains far to the north. We walked our horses on to the bridge, and I caught sight of brushwood piled high on each side of the roadway.
‘You are ready to fire the bridge?’
Rodak nodded. ‘Yes, majesty.’
‘You have scouts out, searching for the Sarmatians?’
Another nod. ‘Thus far, they have reported no sightings.’
‘They are probably too busy plundering Media,’ said Gallia.
It was around seventy miles northeast from Assur to Irbil – a two-day ride. Castus must have supplied information to his new friends concerning crossing points over the Tigris. I wondered why the Sarmatians had not yet shown their misshapen faces.
‘The bridge is not to be burnt,’ I ordered. ‘We will hold it until my army arrives.’
‘And Hatra’s army,’ added Rodak.
Herneus had obviously omitted to mention in his missive to his nephew it would not be coming any time soon.
‘Hatra’s army has been called away to Nisibus,’ I informed him.
He looked alarmed. ‘We have insufficient soldiers to hold the bridge, majesty.’
‘How many men do you have?’ I asked.
‘Fifty horsemen and a hundred foot soldiers,’ he replied. ‘It would be prudent to fire the bridge now, majesty.’
‘We need the bridge, Rodak, so we will hold it until reinforced.’
In front of us was the structure in question, just over three hundred paces in length and eight paces in width to allow two wagons to pass each other with ease. The Tigris was around two hundred paces wide at Assur, being fordable in autumn and winter when the sun baked the earth and the level dropped. But this was the end of spring and the river was raging, which would prevent the Sarmatians crossing downstream or upstream.
I scanned the opposite riverbank, either side of the bridge. It was open and flat on account of the date palms having been
felled to provide timber for the pontoon bridge, and to give the garrison of Assur guarding the river crossing clear fields of vision. Lucius Varsas had thought of everything, having cut timbers to leave stumps that had been sharpened to provide another impediment to hostile forces, channelling them into the bridgehead. Further upstream and downstream the riverbanks were fringed with dark-green date palm groves, interspersed with orange trees.
‘We need to block the far end of the bridge with overturned wagons,’ I told Rodak, ‘in front of which we will plant rows of sharpened stakes to create an impenetrable semi-circle of defences around the bridge.’
‘It is too late for that,’ said Gallia, pointing at the eastern end of the bridge where a single black figure shimmered in the haze.
It was barely recognisable, and I had to squint to see it. I felt a familiar knot tighten in my stomach and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It could have been anything – a camel, a gazelle, a person on foot – but my instincts told me otherwise and my instincts were seldom wrong.
‘Sound the alarm, muster every horse archer and get those wagons,’ I said to Rodak. ‘The Sarmatians are here.’
He peered at the shimmering figure. ‘It is just one man, majesty.’
‘No, they are here.’
Gallia turned her horse and began cantering back to the city gates.
‘I will stay here,’ I called after her, ‘bring plenty of arrows.’
Rodak bowed his head and followed, leaving me alone at the western end of the bridge. I told Horns to walk forward on to the structure, quickening his pace to canter across the wooden planks. And all the while the black, hazy figure remained where he was. When I had neared the eastern end of the bridge, however, the figure had become larger, more distinct. Whoever it was now approached the bridge, a figure on horseback around a hundred paces away. I pulled up Horns and drew my bow from its case, plucking an arrow from one of the two quivers fixed to the left side of my saddle and knocking it in the bowstring. The horseman stopped when he saw me arming my bow.
I walked Horns forward and halted him at the end of the bridge. He grunted and chomped on his bit, scraping the boards with his front right leg. I patted his neck.
‘Easy, boy.’
He probably sensed the threat of violence in the air and the calm before the storm of battle. There was no wind, only flies, heat and piles of baked horse and camel dung on the road that forked a short distance inland from the bridge. The fork heading north led to Irbil; the one to the east all the way to Esfahan, some five hundred miles distant. The other horseman re-commenced his advance, walking his beast forward to come within range of my bow. I clutched the weapon in my left hand but kept it at arm’s length on my left side, curious to take a closer look at a Roxolani tribesman.
As the figure got closer I was surprised to see a woman dressed in a tan upper garment that resembled a kaftan, with tight-fitting leggings of the same colour. Her long black hair was loose, and a long dagger or sword hung on her left side. She held the reins of her horse in her left hand and what appeared to be a coil of rope in her right. She was around forty paces away, maybe less, and had now halted, peering past me to examine the bridge and the town of Assur beyond. I brought up my bow and aimed it at her. She hissed at me, turned her horse and galloped away in a cloud of dust.
Another cloud of dust announced the arrival of reinforcements, comprising Gallia, her Amazons and Rodak and his fifty horse archers, plus Bullus and Klietas driving two four-wheeled carts. They were overturned on the eastern end of the bridge, in line with the water’s edge below. In this way, enemy troops would not be able to use the riverbank on either side to outflank our makeshift defences. Bullus supervised the siting of the overturned carts, walking up and down behind the sweating and complaining garrison horse archers, gladius and shield in his hands.
‘Put your backs into it, you miserable dogs, or else the enemy will be eating your livers for supper.’
I looked into the sky. The sun was still high above us – it would be hours before we would be eating our suppers. Gallia supervised leading the horses to the western end of the bridge, to put them beyond enemy arrow range but still close enough if the barricade was overrun and we had to make a dash for Assur. Rodak kept glancing behind him at the town, the gates of which were now slammed shut and the walls lined with spearmen.
‘The brushwood should be doused with oil, majesty,’ he said. ‘If the Sarmatians overrun us, there will nothing to stop them riding to Hatra and beyond.’
I turned to look at the brushwood piled into each of the pontoons on either side of the roadway below us.
‘We hold the bridge,’ I told him.
He became frustrated. ‘I must protest, majesty. If we burn the bridge, the Sarmatians have no way of crossing over the river. My first duty is to Hatra.’
I squared up to him. ‘Your first duty, your only duty, is to obey me, Rodak, nephew of Herneus. However, if you do not have the stomach for the fight, you are free to ride back to your mansion in the town.’
He smarted at the insult but kept his tongue in check.
‘My men should defend the wagons, majesty,’ he said at length.
I looked at the overturned wagons laid side by side, their undersides facing east to employ their wheels as additional obstacles to the enemy. Behind them stood a row of eight Amazons, the maximum number of archers that could stand in a line on the bridge. My original plan was to create a semi-circular defence around the eastern end of the bridge composed of overturned wagons and stakes. But that had been rendered redundant by the appearance of a lone Sarmatian woman. Where there was one, there were many. And so, a hundred and fifty archers stood on the bridge, ready to repulse whatever the invaders threw at them.
The time before battle is the worst, when the waiting allows the mind to fill with endless possibilities of what will happen when the fighting begins. Fortunately, we did not have time to dwell on our fate. No sooner had I given the order for the Amazons at the wagons to withdraw to allow Hatra’s archers to have the honour of standing in the first line of defence than did the enemy appear. We heard them first, the rumbling sound of hooves striking hard ground, causing arrows to be nocked in bowstrings.
I was standing beside Gallia, just behind the archers positioned behind the wagons, Bullus on my left and Minu on Gallia’s right, when they came into view – a rabble of hollering horsemen waving spears and axes in the air, galloping full tilt towards the wagons. It was a fearsome sight and was designed to strike dread into us, to make us flee for our lives before they reached the wagons.
‘Keep your nerve,’ I shouted.
‘Find your targets,’ called Gallia.
‘Arrows,’ warned Minu.
I looked into the sky to see black missiles arching upwards and then down towards us. Not many – perhaps only half a dozen at most – but enough to cause us all to instinctively crouch down to make ourselves as small a target as possible.
Thud, thud, thud. The arrows slammed into the planks. A high-pitched scream. One struck an Amazon. I glanced behind to see a woman clutching her left leg, an arrow stuck in it. Another rushed to her to assist her in getting to the other end of the bridge, from where she could ride a horse the short distance to the town for medical aid.
Gallia shot her arrow, which hissed through the air to strike a horse in the front of the Sarmatian throng, the beast collapsing and throwing its rider to the ground. Then the air was filled with hisses resembling a nest of vipers being disturbed. Horses reared up, arrows in their bodies. Riders were struck and tumbled from their saddles. Others, arrows in their torsos, slumped in the saddle and turned their horses around to limp away.
The Hatrans at the wagons were shooting arrows with abandon, the Sarmatians having been stopped in their tracks by the wagons. For no horse will charge at a solid obstacle. But then a flurry of spears came from their ranks, killing half of those behind the wagons and two more standing a few paces back from them. A second hail of spea
rs that killed four more was followed by a hail of Parthian arrows that brought down more than a score of Sarmatians and forced the others to withdraw. They left a pile of dead horses and men behind, all in front of the barricade to add to the obstacle the enemy would have to surmount in order to take the bridge.
Klietas shoved a water bottle in my face. I held it and took small swigs. I saw him looking behind us at Haya, resplendent in mail armour and helmet, with her file of Amazons on the bridge some way back. I handed him back the water bottle.
‘Concentrate on keeping yourself alive. You still lust after her?’
‘Majesty?’
‘Haya.’
‘No, majesty. I have a wife.’
He suddenly looked dejected. I gripped his arm.
‘Castus will have sent soldiers to safeguard her and the others in your village. Have no fear.’
He looked cheerier. ‘Yes, majesty.’
‘Listen. You do not have to stand on this bridge with us. Why don’t you go back to the town? If the enemy breaks through here, they will not bother to besiege Assur. You will be safe.’
He was shocked at the suggestion.
‘No, majesty. You rode to my aid and Gula would never forgive me if I were to abandon you in your hour of need.’
I thought of all the poor farmers who had been butchered over the years when armies had criss-crossed Parthia, and the ones who had probably been killed by the invading Sarmatians. I smiled at him.
‘I thank you for your loyalty, Klietas.’
‘Look sharp, here they come again.’
The authoritative voice of Centurion Bullus diverted my attention back to the barricade, which was about to be assaulted by men, and women, on foot. Armed with axes, spears and a few swords, there must have been upwards of three or four hundred walking towards the bridge. Seemingly undeterred by the heap of dead horseflesh and humans to their front and wearing nothing that could protect them from the arrow storm they would walk into, they appeared fearless, determined and wholly reckless.
They were led by a huge man with a tattooed face carrying a two-handed axe, who suddenly raised his weapon and raced forward. A great cry came from the Sarmatian ranks and the whole mob charged.