by Seja Majeed
‘All I ever needed was you, Larsa.’
Every soldier turned his attention to Marmicus as he lifted his helmet, placing it over his head, ready for battle to commence. No man on earth could mistake the Gallant Warrior for anyone else on the battleground; his bronze helmet was one of a kind, brilliantly sculpted into the face of a fearless lion with only his eyes and wide jaw visible behind the mask of war.
‘This shall be our last battle together, Orisus. Today we fight for love. Today we die for Larsa,’ said Marmicus. From the stallion’s nostrils came vaporous plumes, as his warm breath challenged the icy winds. Orisus was a temperamental creature; his hooves kicked up the dirt as he waited for the signal to gallop into battle with his master. Marmicus reached forward and ran his hand down the animal’s long neck, seeking to calm him; Orisus would need to save his energy for the long hours of combat. Marmicus grabbed the leather reins, wrapping them tightly around his left hand, his fists clenching until his knuckles turned pale.
The time had come for the ancient ritual of battle to commence. Marmicus dug his heels into his stallion’s sides; Orisus began to trot across the open terrain, gathering speed until his hooves left the ground in a full gallop. The commanders of the Babylonian army watched from a distance as the warrior who united an army of thousands reached the centre of the battlefield and came to a stop, waiting for Jaquzan. Only the whispers of the wind could be heard. Marmicus looked out over his enemy. Thousands of Assyrians glared back at him. To them he was a faint figure in the distance, but to him they were as a thick blanket that covered the ground.
Suddenly, came movement. The Assyrian army was stirring en masse, but they were not marching closer; they were parting, making way for the godly presence of their emperor, Jaquzan. Soldiers in their thousands dropped their sword arms by their sides, wall after wall, each man bowing low in respect for the power commanded by one. Jaquzan stood on a chariot drawn by the two lions he had raised from birth. Their honey-coloured eyes searched through the crowds of men, their instinct to hunt and kill an easy prey. For now the lions would have to wait; battle had not yet commenced. Riding on a horse behind the chariot was the Dark Warrior, his armour blackened by the smoking fires of the cities he had burnt to the ground. Today Nafridos had sharpened his sword with special care. His main intention was not to kill an entire community of men as he usually did, but to slit the throat of just one. His lips curled upwards with eager anticipation as he envisaged the Gallant Warrior standing in the middle of the battleground waiting for them.
‘Let me kill the Gallant Warrior now! I’ll rip his flesh from beneath his armour and feed it to your lions,’ said Nafridos to his cousin.
‘I want a war, not a battle. Today Babylon will be buried beneath the heads of its people, and their gods will mourn it.’
The Gallant Warrior watched the chariot draw nearer until it finally halted; the roars of the lions did not instil fear within him. Instead he glared at Jaquzan, looking squarely into his eyes where others were terrified to peer at his shadow. His desire to kill him had burnt a hole in his heart. Marmicus knew he could kill Jaquzan at any given moment; the only reason he did not was because it would bring shame to his kingdom – the ancient ritual between leaders had to be observed. The Gallant Warrior abruptly unsheathed his Sword of Allegiance. The large weapon glowed, its silvery metallic light unsettling the lions so that they lunged against their chains, wanting to attack.
‘You have no cause to be here. Take your army and leave this kingdom at once. Babylonia stands free, and she will remain free for all eternity. But if you want a war, then your lions will not go unfed; I’ll make sure they taste the blood of tyrants.’
‘My army will crush yours before you have the chance to scurry back to where you came from. Every man here will die, and all of Babylonia will bleed until her womb has nothing left to give. There is no mercy for men of courage.’ replied Jaquzan.
‘Then we’ve agreed on war. By nightfall freedom shall belong to the people, and vengeance shall belong to me.’
‘Be careful what you desire, Gallant Warrior. I’ll make sure that you see your men die first, before your head joins them,’ said the Assyrian emperor. He turned his chariot towards his marquee, from where Larsa watched, wretched and helpless.
‘Let the battle of the gods commence.’
84
The Gallant Warrior galloped towards his army, wanting to reach his men, his stature among men magnificently proclaimed by the brilliance of his Sword of Allegiance and the light that glinted off his bronze armour. The Assyrian chariots were assembling behind him, straightening into a single row as they tried to create an attacking wall against the Babylonian army. Their horses snorted loudly, jerking their heads and stamping their hooves in the dirt.
Marmicus knew he had to lift the morale of his soldiers. Wars were won by breaking the enemy’s will, and he knew there was a danger that his men would become victims of hopelessness. If they had any chance of winning this war, they had to believe that they could. Marmicus removed his glorious helmet from his head, in order to speak to his soldiers as a man, not as a warrior. This was the time to awaken their spirits with the hope they needed.
‘There was a time,’ roared Marmicus as he rode across the front ranks, ‘when I thought that every war was fought for land and wealth; but I was wrong, loyal warriors of Babylonia, because today this army shall fight for something other than a king’s greed. Today we fight for what’s right. We fight for our freedom and for the freedom of our homelands.’ Thousands of soldiers stared back at him, wishing to be reassured of victory, though knowing that they were greatly outnumbered. ‘I have learnt that death is not the heart pausing, or our breath ceasing; it is hope fading and dreams shattering. For, without our hopes and dreams, we are already dead. Today your sword shall be the guardian of life; let no enemy take it away from you. Your convictions shall be your armour; remember them when you stare into your enemy’s eyes. Freedom is born from the seed of sacrifice, so I say this to you now, brothers of Babylon: fight well and embrace your swords, for the sake of all those you love. If death should relieve you from your duty, then remember this: one day of freedom is worth more than a thousand years of slavery. It is better to die as a free man than to live as a slave. So embrace your swords, guardians of Babylon, and do not release them until freedom is yours once more. Know that I shall fight alongside you until the light of the sun burns out; if I should die then at least I will have fought bravely alongside my brothers in battle. For empires rise and empires fall, but the names of their warriors will live on forever. Let victory be ours!’
The army of thousands roared. The Gallant Warrior had lifted their spirits, steeled their hearts and settled their nerves. They were ready.
‘Allegiance lies in the heart of our swords!’ they roared in unison. Their eyes locked like falcons on the lines of men that stood in the distance. Their hearts had become fearless, for today they were defenders of freedom. The moment had come. The drums sounded. The horns blew. The battle for the Garden of the Gods had begun …
85
The Assyrian chariots began to charge in their hundreds, dust whipping into the air, as their wooden wheels ran across the uneven battlefield.
‘Hold the lines. Raise your shields. Be the gods of courage,’ roared Marmicus. The Babylonians stood their ground; they would not move unless the command was given. Marmicus watched as the Assyrian chariots bolted towards his lines; the charioteers lashed their horses, and hundreds of arrows rained down, landing on the ground, missing the Babylonian front lines. Marmicus knew it was only a matter of time: every stride brought them closer, and his army would soon fall within their firing range. Another wave of arrows darkened the sky, and the first screams of war were heard.
‘Close your positions. Wheel left! Stand behind the wind! Stand behind the wind!’ yelled Marmicus. The Babylonian soldiers began to move; they lifted their shields higher, holding them above their heads, blocking out the onslaught of
arrows that continued to rain from the sky.
‘Hold your ground; be the mountain that cannot be moved!’ ordered Marmicus, galloping past the front lines. Seeing the Babylonian manoeuvres, the Assyrian chariots began to alter their line of advance to align themselves with the enemy. They raised their bows again, pulling back their bowstrings; they fired again, and hundreds of arrows shot into the air, then hailed down, but this time the winds curled them away, blowing them off-target. The tactic was brilliant: the Gallant Warrior had turned the stormy weather into an ally, using it to his advantage. The charioteers tried to swerve again; they needed the wind behind them. They lashed their horses harder, urging them to gallop faster, at a different angle. This was exactly what Marmicus wanted: they had fallen into his trap. He knew that the Assyrian chariots could only be driven in straight lines, and that if the horses galloped at such speeds without slowing before they turned, the chariots would overturn. Marmicus watched, holding his breath. The Assyrians galloped and the chariots continued to turn; this was the pivotal moment of his plan. Every frenzied lash on the horses’ backs brought them closer and the Assyrian chariots curled across the battlefield like the rings of a giant whirlpool. Suddenly, their wheels began to buckle one by one and come loose, ripping off the wooden axles, and the shrieks of the charioteers rang out as their bodies were flung into the air, many of them trodden beneath the hooves of their own horses. It was a humiliating start for the Assyrians.
‘Your arrows, men. Now!’ ordered Marmicus. This was the time to exploit the Assyrians’ weakness. The order was passed instantly down the lines, and the archers moved to the front, the shield men moving behind them. They fired, and their arrows pelted into the gloomy sky, seeming to cut through the clouds as they came down in a long, shallow arc upon the Assyrian ranks. Marmicus watched, feeling some relief as more Assyrians fell; but new weapons of war had emerged, ones that they had never seen before.
‘Bring forward the catapults! We will crush them one by one,’ declared the Dark Warrior. His teeth clamped together as he watched his front line break and flee, trying to escape the arrows. Hundreds of slaves began to push enormous catapults over the ground, their muscles protected by leather armour, unlike that of the Assyrian soldiers. They had all been brought to war for one reason – to push these towers across the battlefield. The arms of the catapults were constructed from massive timber beams that seemed to reach to the sky, towering over the battlefield. They were weighed down by boulders that dripped with black Baba Gurgur oil. The oil would be set alight by the slaves; once ignited, rocks would be launched in volleys and hurled across the sky with an unstoppable and terrifying force, obliterating swathes of men across the battlefield, setting soldiers alight and crushing them where they stood.
Giant, fiery rocks emerged through the thick clouds, as suns falling to the earth, and the screams of burning soldiers filled the air.
There was chaos.
Marmicus felt the ground move with every volley; he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks, racing towards the centre of the battlefield. He raised his Sword of Allegiance, trying to grab his soldiers’ attention. Fiery missiles fell around him like volcanic hail. Orisus reared, lifting Marmicus’s body high so that he could be seen by every one of his men.
‘Change formation! Make space in the middle – attack like the crescent moon eclipsing the sun!’
The Babylonian soldiers began to change their formation again. This time they turned the front lines into the shape of the crescent moon. It was another clever tactic: the heavy catapults were cumbersome to move, and boulders began to fall in the space created. Marmicus continued to gallop through the lines, roaring out his orders to everyone who had not heard him. They had to act as one unit if they wanted to survive. A large boulder blasted across, and Marmicus jerked the reins to stop Orisus from galloping into its path. The horse pulled his head up and back, to within inches of his rider, and Marmicus took the opportunity to murmur encouragement in his ear. The boulder crashed into the ground, sliding across the mud and killing instantly those unfortunate enough to be in its path.
‘Aim your arrows at the slaves! Fire!’ yelled Marmicus. He felt guilt and pity for the slaves, who were not his enemy, but if they had any sense they would run away, and leave warring to the soldiers. The Babylonian archers locked their eyes onto them; they knew the slaves were practically defenceless, but this was war, and empathy had no place in war. They fired, and hundreds of arrows spun across, striking the slaves’ legs and necks; their leather armour made little difference. Marmicus watched as most of them began to run; it was an instinctive reaction, and he felt only relief.
‘Break the lines! Pursue them to their deaths!’ roared the Dark Warrior, realising that the time had come to charge. Following his command, thousands of Assyrian foot soldiers ran towards the Babylonian army. Every man now fought for his life against the onslaught of the enemy; spears flew and swords were thrust into soft flesh. Men trod on corpses, while others lay in agony, slowly dying beneath the soldiers’ feet.
Marmicus fought through the oncoming swords and arrows; sand and earth scattered and dust rose. Enemies fought each other, staring into death’s eyes, each hoping that the man in front would lose his life, and not he. Marmicus swung his sword, killing everyone who attacked him, blood splattered on his face and armour. Another boulder blasted across his path; Marmicus swung to the side, dodging it.
All the while, Marmicus had no idea that he was being followed. The Dark Warrior was manoeuvring himself towards him, determined to reach his opposite on the battlefield; Marmicus embodied everything he wanted to destroy. His pupils grew larger as his eyes focused on the moving object he desired to kill; Nafridos was slaughtering a tide of men to reach one man. Leaning out of his saddle, Nafridos swung his weapon through the men, hacking into limbs; a metallic taste seeped into his mouth as their blood splattered across his face. Arrows were fired from both directions; Nafridos raised his shield, holding it above his head with one hand while he swung his sword, hacking into bones as though chopping reeds. His skill with a sword lay in the movement of his wrist, but there were too many soldiers between him and his target. Nafridos needed another kind of weapon. He looked at the ground and smiled as he ripped a long spear from one Assyrian soldier, who had not yet died.
‘I need this,’ said Nafridos as he held up the spear. His eyes squinted as he focused on the Gallant Warrior, and in that moment his world became still. All he could see was Marmicus, and the spear in his own hand. Nafridos waited for the right moment. With great deliberation, he leant back in his saddle and threw the spear, thrusting it powerfully across the battlefield. Nafridos watched it soar above the heads of soldiers, flighting towards its target. An arrogant smile spread across his face as Marmicus remained oblivious to its approach – or so it seemed. Just as Marmicus struck his sword against another, he caught the reflection of a spearhead hurtling down towards him. He instantly raised his shield, covering his head, and the long spear sliced through his shield, penetrating it and scraping his shoulder. He turned his head to see who his enemy was; something inside him warned him to remember it well – Marmicus had never seen such skill before. The Dark Warrior was staring back at him, his eyes unmoving and his body coated in blood. There was pleasure on his face, which spoke of excitement at Marmicus’s death. In that brief encounter both warriors knew they were made to destroy one another. The question was, who would leave the battlefield alive?
For now the battle between the two warriors would have to wait, for more pressing matters had emerged. The Dark Warrior heard his name being called, and looked over his shoulder to see the position of his soldiers on the battlefield. As he did, he saw something moving in the distance. It was a trap! A tactic which no previous enemy had ever tried. Another army, vast in number, was approaching from behind, loosing their arrows and trapping the Assyrian army in between two enemies. Marmicus had wanted the Assyrians to charge from the beginning; that was why he had not advanced – he ne
eded to keep his front line intact. All this time Nafridos had believed that they were fighting the whole of the Babylonian army, when in fact his enemy had been divided into two sections; it was a decisive and brilliant move for the Garden of the Gods and Babylon; now the Assyrians would be locked between them, with arrows hurled at them from both positions. The Dark Warrior galloped towards the emperor’s marquee. Nafridos knew what had to be done, but he did not have the stomach or power to do it. We will lose this war if we do not retreat now!
86
Larsa had been forced to sit beside the Assyrian emperor in an extravagant marquee hidden away from the battlefield. Despite being some distance away, Larsa could still hear the horror of war, knowing full well that she sat beside the one man who could stop it all. Unknown to her, missiles were being launched into the gloomy skies, the burning rocks landing on her soil, rolling and flattening anything that stood in their path. All that Larsa felt was the flutter of the tent, not knowing what awesome weapon had been unleashed against her people.