by Peter Darman
‘Mesene will stand with you,’ said Nergal.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know that, my friend.’
We all turned on hearing raucous laughter behind us.
Praxima tilted her head towards Surena. ‘Gallia told me he covered himself in glory at Ephesus.’
‘He did,’ I agreed. ‘Dobbai says that he is destined for great things.’
‘If he manages to stay alive,’ said Gallia. ‘His recklessness is breath-taking at times.’
‘The gods favour the bold,’ I said.
At least I hoped they did for I was relying on their help to assist me in the assault on Charax. I had learned that to succeed war plans needed to be as simple as possible because when implemented they had an alarming tendency to fall to pieces within the first few minutes. So the idea was to sail into Charax’s harbour, destroy the soldiers sent by Narses and install Cleon and Hippo as the city’s new rulers. Simple.
We would be assaulting a city that I knew nothing about but fortunately Athineos, in his sober moments, had thought of this and had purchased a papyrus map of the layout of Charax. He now laid it out on the small table in the cabin, which in truth smelt almost as bad as the hold. I stood with Gallia, Nergal and Praxima plus the four centurions, including Drenis and Arminius, and the commanders of the horse archers crowded round the table. It was just after dawn and the temperature was rising rapidly.
Athineos picked his nose and pointed at the map.
‘Straightforward layout, as you all can see. The harbour leads to all the public buildings that are in the centre of the city, surrounded by streets and side streets crossing each other at right angles.’
I pointed at the area containing the public buildings. ‘So what is here?’
Athineos screwed up his face. ‘Temples, squares, shops and the theatre, like the one at Ephesus.’
‘Where is the citadel, the fort that houses the garrison?’ asked Nergal.
‘There isn’t one,’ replied Athineos. ‘I heard there is a palace of some sort near the temples but most of the garrison are housed in the towers along the wall.’
‘And what size is the garrison?’ I probed.
He shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Once ashore we will seize the agora,’ I told them all. ‘Tell your men not to damage any buildings or harm any civilians.’
‘If they get in the way that might not be possible, majesty,’ remarked a tall, athletic centurion.
‘Once the fighting starts the civilians will scatter like frightened sheep,’ I told them. ‘All we will have to do is wait for the enemy to show their faces.’
They showed no concern, and with good reason. They knew, as did I, that many Parthian kings regarded foot soldiers as little more than expendable slaves. Palace guards protected a ruler and his family in his capital and when he went to war he did so accompanied by cataphracts and horse archers, the latter raised from among the kingdom’s farmers and city dwellers. The aristocracy and their sons provided a kingdom’s cataphracts, but only a few kingdoms, the wealthiest, could afford to have large numbers of full-time cataphracts and horse archers. Hatra was one and Dura was another. But I knew that Narses would have sent only foot soldiers to garrison Charax, poorly trained and equipped troops who were expendable, more suited to terrorising civilians than fighting the foot soldiers of Dura.
We sat at our oars in the cloying heat and rowed slowly. Today we wore our uniforms: every legionary in his tunic, mail shirt, sword belt, sandals and helmet. The leather vests had been left at Dura. The shields were stacked in the passageway next to the rowing stations ready to be used once the journey was over. There was no jovial banter today, no well-intentioned ribbing or raucous laughter. Every man was focused on his task. But it was hot, so mercilessly hot as we sat, sweated and pulled on the oars. Fortunately there was a fair wind that filled the sails and hastened us towards our destination, though we did not feel the benefit of it below deck. The Amazons and dismounted horse archers above checked their quivers and bowstrings. They had three of the former and two of the latter, each quiver holding thirty arrows. The missiles had three-winged bronze heads and three flight feathers – eighteen thousand arrows in total. Nergal’s fifty archers were also equipped with three full quivers, Praxima informing me that they had been chosen because they were the best bowmen in the whole of Mesene.
‘Not as good as me, of course,’ their queen had told me, ‘but above average shots.’
The spirits of the Amazons were very high now that their former commander was back with them, Gallia also filled with a steely determination to get the task done. All I wanted to do was get out of this infernal hull as rivulets of sweat ran down the side of my face onto my neck. Orodes, dressed in his magnificent silver scale cuirass, must have been close to passing out as the first hour at the oars passed. At least my black leather cuirass was relatively light. I slipped into a sort of semi-conscious daze as I pulled on my oar, everyone around me similarly immersed in befuddlement. This is what it must be like for galley slaves: worked like dogs day in, day out, rowing for hours at a time with no hope of relief or rescue. The others must have felt the same as me: battle would be welcome compared to this living hell.
‘Charax in sight.’
The deep voice of Athineos shook us out of our semi-consciousness. Suddenly the air crackled with a palpable sense of anticipation laced with excitement. At once the oar strokes were crisper as men gripped the wood more firmly. I heard shuffling on deck and the patter of boots coming down steps as archers carrying ladles of water sated the thirst of those on the benches. Today the legionaries would be carrying no furca, no water bottle and no javelins. They would be going into Charax light, as would the archers. The gladius and the bow were our weapons but speed and surprise would be our allies.
I drank from the ladle held at my mouth by Gallia, whose hair was tied in a long plait hanging down the back of her neck beneath her helmet, the cheek guards of the latter hiding her features. Other Amazons stood behind me to give succour to Orodes, Malik and the others. Malik was wrapped in his black Agraci robes, as was Yasser, the latter relishing the coming fight. This was immediately imminent as a sailor descended the steps and shouted the captain’s orders.
‘Captain says we will dock in a quarter of an hour. So gentle strokes only.’
The pace maker at the stern, a pot-bellied jowly man with a cruel leer, reduced the number of strokes per minute on the hide surface of his kettledrum. Our instinct was to quicken our strokes to get to the target more speedily, but he gave us evil stares as he banged his drum with what seemed like very long intervals between each strike. The archers disappeared back on deck as the minutes passed and then another order reached our ears.
‘Stop rowing. Pull in the oars.’
We shipped the oars, the pace maker stopped banging his drum and we all stood as the ship glided towards the wharf. Because it was a warship and as we were not unloading anything, or at least that is what the port authorities believed, we approached the docks prow first. We carried no markings aside from the two eyes painted on the sides of the hull at the prow. The garrison, alerted that an unidentified warship was docking, would send soldiers to assemble on the wharf before we had docked but that was fine: the more we killed at the docks the less to fight later.
Men wished each other good luck and clutched their lucky talismans before securing their helmet straps, drawing their swords and gripping the handles of their shields. Drenis, Arminius and the other two centurions had whistles around their necks.
‘You all know your orders,’ said Drenis, the senior centurion present, ‘so listen for the commands and keep formation. You’ve fought the soldiers of Mithridates and Narses before and know how soft they are. But resist the temptation to chase after them when they flee.’
Confident laughter filled the hold as the ship came to a halt. I slapped Arminius on the arm and walked to the steps, Orodes, Nergal, Malik and Yasser following. Stepping on deck was most ref
reshing, a gentle wind blowing in from the sea and the air, though warm, markedly better than the stench of the hold. I turned to nod at Athineos manning the rudders at the stern and walked towards the prow where two sailors had thrown ropes to waiting dockers who secured them to wooden posts. Other sailors pushed two gangplanks from either side of the prow towards the wooden wharf.
‘State your business,’ shouted the man I assumed to be the commander of ten of Narses’ men, the soldiers behind him wearing baggy yellow leggings and red tunics, leather caps and armed with thrusting spears. Our old enemies from Sakastan. The commander had a sword at his hip and wore a leather scale cuirass and helmet. The ox hide shields of his men were painted with the bird-god, symbol of their master. How I hated that motif.
‘I’m waiting,’ the commander called as the gangplanks were fixed in place and I walked to the top of one of them.
‘I think that is your signal, ladies,’ I said loudly.
The Sakastani commander looked at me quizzically as two arrows thudded into his chest. He collapsed as Gallia, Praxima and several Amazons stood at the prow and shot down the other soldiers as I calmly walked down the gangplank in the company of Orodes, Nergal, Malik and Yasser, the latter two armed with curved swords and carrying small round, black shields.
As soon as the last enemy soldiers had either been shot or had fled for their lives there were whistle blasts and the ship’s occupants began to pour down the gangplanks. Gallia, Praxima and the Amazons ran forward to provide a defensive screen as Drenis, Arminius and the other centurions marshalled their centuries. Those enemy soldiers wounded but still living were finished off by Yasser who went among them with a satisfied grin, lopping off their heads with expert swings of his sword. The other hundred horse archers ran down the gangplanks and formed up behind the Durans as I led the charge into the city.
We ran along the wharf, sailors and dockers scattering before us, some throwing themselves into the muddy brown water of the harbour to avoid the phalanx of soldiers racing towards them. The harbour itself was large but not packed with shipping, testament to Charax’s fading fortunes as a port. We reached the main storehouses – mud-brick structures painted white with tiled roofs – and then headed into the city itself. It was difficult to estimate its size as we trotted long a dirt road that led towards the centre of the sprawl of mud-brick buildings, but it appeared to be smaller than Dura.
Nergal’s fifty archers were left on the ship to guard it and secure Hippo who had been left in the care of Athineos. When I had told him of my plan to assault Charax he was unimpressed but as he had been paid a king’s ransom for his services went along with it.
‘Don’t worry,’ I had told him, ‘if anything goes wrong you will be able to make your escape on the ship.’
‘And who is going to row it out of the harbour, great king,’ he remarked sarcastically, ‘fifty archers and a high priestess?’
I had smiled at him. ‘Then you had better pray that my plan works, Athineos.’
Our target was the agora, the ancient place where all freeborn Greek citizens gathered to hear civic announcements, muster for war or debate politics. It was also the place where traders and craftsmen conducted their business, though today when over three hundred mailed soldiers and two hundred archers appeared in their midst they ran for their lives. Most had already packed up their wares before we had arrived, our presence having been announced by the screams of alarmed women and the wailing of their children. The agora itself was a large square patch of hard-packed dirt, its northern and western sides enclosed by a peristyle. We had entered the Greek square on its open, eastern side that led to the temple complex housing the sanctuaries of Apollo Delphinios, the patron of sailors and ships, and Nike. On the southern side of the agora was the prytaneion, which many people fled to on our arrival.
There were more whistle blasts and the centuries deployed into square formation: each century taking a side of the square and deploying into four ranks, each one of twenty men. Behind each century stood fifty archers. Around the agora stood abandoned stalls, and on the iron-hard dirt smashed pots and a handful of sandals. A stray dog peered around one of the stone columns of the peristyle, cocked its leg, barked and then scampered off. The doors of the prytaneion were slammed shut and an eerie silence hung over the agora. I stood in the centre of the square with Nergal, Orodes, Malik and Yasser, the latter looking around at the seemingly empty city.
‘Perhaps they have fled, Pacorus.’
‘I think not,’ I answered, ‘beyond the walls of this city there is nothing save a patchwork of fields and beyond them marshlands. There is nowhere to flee to.’
The legionaries rested their shields on the ground as they stared ahead, swords in hand, ready for the coming fight. Behind them the archers sat on the dirt, out of sight.
‘Perhaps we should find the palace,’ suggested Orodes, his scale armour cuirass looking like polished silver in the bright sunlight, his helmet also shining.
I shook my head. ‘This is the spiritual heart of the city, is that not correct, Cleon?’
Our young Greek firebrand, attired in a mail shirt and carrying a Duran shield sporting red griffin wings, nodded curtly. His love had wanted to accompany us but I had said no; I only wanted those who could fight to be standing with me this day. I smiled when I caught site of Praxima’s red hair poking out from beneath her helmet, sitting next to Gallia. Now there was a woman who could fight.
‘We should fire some of these buildings,’ said an impatient Yasser, ‘to smoke them out.’
Patience was never a virtue rated highly among the Agraci.
‘It will not be long now, have patience,’ I said.
The sound of distant shouts and chanting resulted in a ripple of tension shooting through the legionaries and archers. The former immediately lifted their shields without being commanded while the latter pulled arrows from the quivers they had placed on the ground and casually nocked them in their bowstrings. But they remained seated.
Then the enemy appeared at last.
They poured into the agora from the northeast corner, a great mass of Sakastani warriors brightly dressed in yellow leggings and red tunics. Some carried great two-handed axes that could cleave a man in two with a single mighty swing; others were armed with curved swords similar to those carried by Yasser and Malik. But the majority were spearmen armed with a thrusting weapon that had a large, leaf-shaped blade and hoisting a wicker shield covered with ox hide. The latter offered good protection, with several layers of bull’s hide being glued to the wicker inner side. Many had leather caps for head protection that might deflect a glancing blow but would not stop an arrow or determined sword thrust.
There were hundreds of them, flanking left and right to fill the northern and western sides of the agora and then the southern side in front of the prytaneion. More and more came from the northeast to fill the eastern side of the square and completely surround us, the distance between the horde of red and yellow and each side of our square being less than fifty paces. As the Durans stood silent in their ranks there was some frantic shuffling among our opponents as the axe men were shoved to the fore to face the legionaries, ready to attack and hack us to pieces.
‘Now!’ I shouted.
The four centurions blew their whistles and as one the legionaries kneeled, at the same time the archers rising to their feet to shoot at the closely packed ranks of the enemy. The Amazons and horse archers aimed at the faces of the enemy, all maintaining a steady shooting rate of five arrows a minute – fifty arrows every twelve seconds being loosed from each side of our defensive square and over the heads of the legionaries. Two hundred and fifty arrows each minute striking eyes, noses, teeth and necks. A thousand bronze-tipped missiles every sixty seconds in total. The result was a continuous and horrifying high-pitched squealing sound that reverberated around the agora as hundreds of men were struck by arrows.
The lucky ones died.
Arrowheads sliced through eyes and necks to
pierce brains and windpipes, other missiles went through men’s mouths, the points emerging from the back of their throats. In two minutes the archers had loosed two thousand arrows and the Sakastanis had had enough. The first to break were those on the open, eastern side of the agora who promptly turned tail and ran. Those on the southern side, in front of the prytaneion, promptly fell back into the courtyard of the latter, their commanders frantically trying to erect a shield wall between the columns of the portico. They succeeded, though not before arrows had felled dozens more. The Sakastanis that filled the western and northern sides of the agora made their way towards the eastern side, those with shields being shoved by irate commanders into the front to form a shield wall to protect the rest. But they tripped over dead and dying men as they inched their way towards safety, the archers taking their time to find targets. Their rate of shooting decreased markedly but their aim was still accurate and almost every arrow found flesh.
After four minutes the enemy had departed the agora and I ordered the archers to cease shooting. All that was left was the miserable sounds of men whimpering and groaning and the sight of bodies twitching and jerking among those that were absolutely still.
‘Scan the rooftops,’ I shouted, pointing at the tiles of the peristyle, ‘look out for enemy archers.’
There was no movement on the roof but there was a loud smashing noise coming from the prytaneion. Between the columns the row of shields was still in place but behind it troops were desperately trying to smash down the doors to the city’s main function hall.
‘What now?’ asked Yasser, staring admiringly at the dead that carpeted the ground around our square.
‘Now we finish what we came for,’ I said. ‘Prepare to march.’
The centurions blew their whistles and the legionaries snapped shields to their sides. At the prytaneion the row of enemy shields melted away as the desperate soldiers behind them finally forced the doors and gained entry to the hall.