Carrhae (The Parthian Chronicles)

by Peter Darman

  ‘This lot would be better off dead,’ I mumbled.

  Gallia jabbed me in the ribs. ‘As they have volunteered to stand against the enemy the least you can do is show some courtesy.’

  I smiled at her. ‘If it will amuse you, my sweet, then of course.’

  An elderly man, tall with sinewy arms turned dark brown by years in the sun, was brought before us by one of the garrison’s officers. He must have been over seventy at least and had a bow slung over his shoulder.

  He went down unsteadily on one knee before us. ‘I am Asher, majesty, and have been instructed to report to you.’

  Gallia walked forward and helped him to his feet. ‘Rise, Asher. We are glad you and your men are here, are we not Pacorus?’

  ‘Ecstatic,’ I replied without conviction, earning me a Gallic glare.

  ‘I served under your grandfather, King Sames, majesty,’ Asher declared with pride.

  I nodded. ‘I am sorry that the Armenians have dragged you out of retirement, Asher.’

  ‘I can shoot a bow as well as any man, majesty,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘I have no doubt,’ I replied, doubting whether his aged eyes would be able to even see the Armenians let alone shoot at them. ‘You and your men will take up positions either side of my wife’s warriors.’

  ‘The famed Amazons,’ he beamed.

  ‘Indeed,’ I said.

  ‘They’re coming,’ shouted Spartacus behind me as suddenly the air was filled with the din of drums and horns.

  I turned and walked to the steps next to the shooting position he was standing behind and stood on them so I could see over the battlements. Already arrows were hissing through the air and striking the walls as the archers behind the ram began shooting at us.

  I jumped down. ‘To your positions!’ I shouted.

  Asher and his hundred misshapen wretches were directed to their positions as Gallia kissed me on the lips. ‘The gods be with you.’

  ‘And you,’ I replied.

  She stood next to Zenobia as I pointed at Scarab and Spartacus. ‘You two are with me.’

  I ran into the gatehouse and then ascended the steps to the roof clutching my bow with two quivers slung over my shoulder. Each quiver held thirty arrows and on average a skilled archer could loose up to three aimed shots every seven seconds, but such a rate of arrow expenditure would soon exhaust our ammunition supplies and also our archers, particularly the Amazons. Like all Parthian archers they used recurve bows made from sinew, horn and wood, but because they were women their bows were slightly smaller and thus had a reduced draw weight so they would tire less quickly. It did not mean their arrows were any less deadly than those used by any of my other soldiers, though. A bow is, after all, no more than a spring whose power comes from its user and the springs of the Amazons were deadly.

  I watched the ram edge closer to the walls and above the tumult of the horns and drums I could hear the curses of the officers who were in charge of it as they shouted at their men to redouble their efforts. Behind the machine the blue-uniformed archers maintained a steady barrage of missiles at the gatehouse and walls, and then the Amazons began shooting.

  The ram was around six hundred paces from the walls when their arrows were shot from the battlements. Gallia had given orders that half the Amazons were to shoot at the men pushing the ram, the other half loosing missiles at the archers behind them. Above all they were to shoot accurately.

  Loosing arrows at a steady rate of five every minute, soon unprotected enemy archers were being felled as bronze tips landed among their densely packed ranks: two hundred and fifty arrows being shot at them every minute. The other half of the Amazons, including all those in the gatehouse, shot at the approaching lumbering ram. I released an arrow then nocked another, my nephew beside me relishing the chance to show off his archery skills to Scarab beside him. He shot an arrow, nocked another, shot that and then strung another in the space of a few seconds.

  ‘Don’t waste arrows,’ I told him. ‘Choose your targets.’

  He flashed a grin. ‘Even Scarab could not miss that ram, it is so large.’

  Arrows clattered against the walls and hissed overhead as the Armenian archers tried to silence our shooting. But Assur’s defences had been well designed and it was all but impossible to shoot an arrow through the slits in its battlements from several hundred paces away.

  Many of the ram’s crew were hit and disabled and killed, but replacements were sent from the ranks of the spearmen who were following the archers. Individuals ran forward holding their shields above their heads as they tried to reach the ram. Most did but some were hit and collapsed to the ground with arrows in them as more of their comrades were despatched to take their places. And all the time the ram got closer to the gates.

  I left my position and ran to the right side of the gatehouse to check on Gallia. There she was, calmly selecting a target and loosing an arrow. I kept my head down for the volume of enemy arrows being shot at us was prodigious. I saw Asher pull back his bowstring and release it, and then watched the man beside him jump onto a step to look over the wall and being struck in the face by an Armenian arrow.

  I returned to my shooting position and used another five arrows then reached again into my quiver. Empty!

  ‘Arrows!’ I shouted but there were none left and one by one those either side of me stopped shooting once they had exhausted their ammunition. After a while only empty quivers remained.

  I looked ahead and could see the amount of missiles being directed at the enemy was dropping alarmingly as we ran out of arrows. I ran down the steps to the next level and out onto the parapet. Gallia and some of her Amazons were still shooting but the others were similarly out of arrows.

  I ran to Gallia’s side. ‘Deserting your post, Pacorus?’

  ‘We have no arrows left. As soon as you are out withdraw to the inner wall.’

  Above our heads hissed dozens of arrows being loosed by the Armenians, many more hitting the walls in front of us.

  ‘We are going to die here,’ she said, looking above at the hundreds of arrows in the air.

  Suddenly slaves from the palace came up the steps to the battlements clutching large bundles of arrows and began dumping them on the parapet. Others carried bundles into the gatehouse. A man in a short-sleeved white tunic and sandals placed at least a hundred arrows behind Gallia and bowed his head.

  ‘These are arrows shot into the city?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, highness.’

  ‘Have many boys died collecting them?’ asked Gallia.

  ‘Dozens, highness, both boys and girls.’

  I touched Gallia’s elbow. ‘This is no time to die,’ and then I ran back into the gatehouse as other slaves brought more bundles of arrows to the outer wall. Our shooting re-commenced and felled dozens of enemy archers but now the ram was close to the gatehouse – no more than three hundred paces away – and though resembling a pincushion was slowly but inexorably rumbling towards the gates. I cursed the fact that the bridges across the moat were made of stone otherwise we could have fired them, but as it was even if we poured burning oil onto the ram its roof would have protected it.

  Armenians archers were collapsing in heaps as Gallia’s women and the army of cripples shot them down but still the ram came on. Now it was less than two hundred paces from the gates and I could hear the men groaning as they hauled its bulk forward.

  ‘They will reach the gates soon,’ said a concerned Spartacus.

  ‘Then we will greet them with our swords,’ shouted Scarab, releasing his bowstring.

  The roof at the front of the ram was angled down to prevent us shooting arrows into its interior as it got nearer and so our arrows became less effective as it closed to within fifty paces and stopped.

  ‘They are about to ram the gates!’ I shouted.

  Though wagons and braces had been piled up behind the gates there had been no time to reinforce them with rubble to build a bank of earth. We heard a great collective groan a
nd then the ram rumbled forward across the bridge and into the gates. There must have been forty or more men under its roof and they managed to give the ram enough momentum to splinter the gates and force them apart. The spearmen out of range of our own archers began cheering and hoisting their spears aloft as the ram was hauled back in preparation for another charge. By now my right arm and shoulder ached from shooting arrows and the inside of my fingers were red-raw from clutching the bowstring.

  The Armenian archers were taking a fearful battering as every arrow loosed by the Amazons found its target, but to give them credit they held their ground and carried on shooting, though I noticed that the density of arrows being directed at us had dropped markedly since the start of the assault. They too must have been suffering ammunition shortages.

  There was a great blast of horns and those archers still left standing about-faced and ran back towards the spearmen, while the latter lifted up their shields in front of them and began to march forward, just as the ram was once more hurled against the gates. This time there was a cracking sound and then a grinding noise as the ram prised the gates apart and forced the supports behind them back. The outer wall had been breached.

  ‘Back to the inner wall!’ I screamed as the spearmen approached the stone bridge.

  I was nearly out of arrows again so I grabbed the three remaining behind me and gestured frantically to the others to get down the steps in the gatehouse and to the inner wall.

  And then I heard a new sound.

  Chapter 10

  At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But I stopped and cocked my ear to where the attackers were positioned and heard it again: a clear, pure sound that cut through the tumult of the Armenian drums and horns and the shouts and cries of their soldiers. I heard it again and this time it was louder and nearer and I knew that it was not in my imagination. I walked to the shooting slit and stepped onto the stone steps beside it to peer over the battlements. The shrill sound of dozens of trumpet blasts echoed across the plain once more and I saw the horizon filled by a wall of white shields and helmets as five thousand Durans and five thousand Exiles marched to our relief.

  I ran to the right side of the gatehouse and shouted at those below.

  ‘Domitus is here! Relief has arrived!’

  Gallia and Zenobia looked up at me in confusion and then both peered through their shooting slits and then hoisted themselves onto the battlements and raised their bows in the air and began shouting ‘Dura, Dura’. Soon all the Amazons were chanting the same followed by Asher and his ragged recruits.

  Below us the Armenian spearmen, on the verge of forcing their way into Assur, halted their advance as their officers received word that a hostile army had suddenly appeared in their rear. The Armenian archers were already reforming to shoot at the oncoming mail-clad soldiers, but they were short of ammunition, tired and their numbers had been drastically thinned and they were no match for Domitus’ men. They loosed one volley, which thumped harmlessly into the wall and roof of locked shields, and then melted away as the legionaries abandoned their testudo formation and increased their rate of advance.

  Beneath the gatehouse there was silence as the ram’s crew abandoned their monster and hurried back to what they perceived to be the safety of their spearmen, but not before a few were felled by eagle-eyed Amazons who had some arrows left. There were still five thousand Armenian spearmen remaining and as they shuffled into position to form one great block to face Domitus’ men, half of the latter suddenly veered to their right to swing round the left flank of the enemy spearmen who had been facing the Tabira Gate.

  I saw the light catching a golden emblem and knew that it was the Durans who were going to attack the spearmen below us. The latter were now moving slowly towards the legionaries, their densely packed formation resembling a great rectangle. Moving closer towards their destruction.

  I stood from my vantage point and thanked the gods that they had given me an opportunity to witness Parthia’s finest soldiers in action. The Durans were drawn up in two lines, each one made up of five cohorts, but it was only the first line that was sent in against the Armenians: two and a half thousand men against twice their number. I felt sorry for the Armenians.

  Each cohort was made up of six centuries – three in the first rank and another three behind – each century made up of eight ranks, each rank containing ten men. But on this occasion the Duran front line was reorganised to extend each cohort so that all six centuries were in the first line. Ordinarily this would take some time but Dura’s army was so well trained and drilled that it took only a few minutes before there was a frontage of thirty centuries advancing against the Armenians.

  The Duran line was now only eight ranks deep and was mighty thin but it made no difference. A blast of trumpets signalled the attack and the legionaries increased their pace. The first two ranks hurled their javelins at the advancing Armenians at a range of around thirty paces – six hundred long, thin iron shanks attached to a heavy wooden shaft arching into the air before smashing into enemy shields, flesh and bone. These ranks then drew their swords and sprinted at the enemy as the legionaries in the third and fourth ranks behind them, as they had done many times before, launched their javelins over the heads of their comrades in front before also drawing their short swords. Train hard, fight easy.

  The first two ranks of the Durans used their shields as battering rams against the ill-equipped and poorly trained Armenians, smashing steel bosses into faces or toppling over hapless spearmen before stabbing at them with frenzy. The Armenians, their front ranks almost annihilated by Duran javelins, began to give ground immediately as gladius blades cut through wicker shields with ease and pierced torsos, sliced open bellies, put out eyes and mutilated groins. Then the spearmen ran.

  It was as though a collective madness had seized the Armenians for as one those still living dumped their spears and shields and fled in all directions. The Durans maintained their formation as they continued to advance at a steady rate, stepping over pierced and mangled bodies as they did so.

  So engrossed had I been in the spectacle that I had not noticed that Gallia had joined me on top of the gatehouse. She smiled as I turned to see her and in my elation was suddenly gripped by a desire to rip off her clothes and make love to her, here, on the top of the tower while death was being meted out to the enemy below. I grabbed her and kissed her long and hard on the lips as below us the Armenians were being slaughtered. I pressed her tightly to my body, clutching her buttocks and forcing her groin into my loins. Surprised, she pulled back.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she giggled.

  ‘I want you,’ I said, pulling her back against me.

  ‘It is a miracle, uncle,’ I heard a voice behind me declare.

  ‘If Haytham does not kill him I might,’ I whispered in her ear as I reluctantly released her.

  Spartacus and Scarab came to my side, both grinning like fools.

  ‘It is a miracle sent by the gods,’ declared Scarab.

  The Durans were close now, the front ranks walking towards groups of Armenians who had halted a few paces from the moat below and were falling to their knees and holding up their arms in a plea for mercy. In the distance I could see the other half of the Durans marching to support the Exiles who were engaging enemy forces at the Western and Southern gates.

  In the general excitement I had not noticed that fresh bundles of enemy arrows that had been collected by runners had been deposited on the parapet behind the Amazons and Asher’s men. I heard fresh screams below and saw that Gallia’s warriors were shooting at the hapless Armenians grouped on the other side of the moat. Asher’s men soon enthusiastically joined them and a general slaughter ensued. I did not order a stop to it and neither did Gallia. The Armenians had been on the verge of entering the city and if they had succeeded would have put everyone to the sword, such is the fate of cities that fall to an assault. Every one of the Amazons would also have been raped before being killed so they had litt
le inclination to show mercy.

  The Durans halted while the Armenians were cut down, resting their shields on the ground and admiring the archery skills of the Amazons. In five minutes around two thousand men had been either killed or wounded, the survivors being saved only by the fact that once more there were no arrows left.

  I saw Domitus, white crest atop his helmet and greaves around his shins, walking up and down the line congratulating individuals and sharing jokes with others. He then walked forward to within shouting distance of the gatehouse.

  He cupped a hand to his mouth. ‘Have you finished your archery training?’

  I raised a hand to him. ‘All done, my friend. It is good to see you.’

  He pointed his cane at those Armenians still standing, who were rooted to the spot in terror.

  ‘Do you want them killed?’ he asked.

  ‘They should join their comrades in the underworld,’ hissed Gallia.

  ‘Kill them, uncle,’ agreed Spartacus, who drew his sword. ‘I will lend a hand.’

  ‘No,’ I called to Domitus. ‘Disarm them and bind them. Lord Herneus can sell them as slaves.’

  He raised his cane in acknowledgement and then arranged details to secure the prisoners.

  ‘You show mercy in victory, majesty,’ said Scarab admiringly.

  Gallia shook her head but said nothing while Spartacus slid his sword back in its scabbard.

  ‘Go to the Western Gate,’ I told him, ‘find out what is happening and report back to me when you have found out. Take Scarab with you.’

  They raced away and Gallia and I went to ground level to welcome our saviours into the city. When we reached the smashed gates I heard the thunderous voice of Thumelicus hurling abuse at a hundred men manhandling the ram back across the bridge.

  ‘Put your backs into it, you lazy bastards, its just a sapling tied to a cart. Heave!’

  Actually the ram was far larger and more imposing than it had appeared from the top of the gatehouse, and it took a good ten minutes before it had been shifted back over the bridge. It must have weighed tons with its iron-plated roof and great trunk that had forced the gates apart.