Crassus put a hand to his eyes, shielding them from the sun’s glare. “That’s Surenas?”
“A reasonable presumption, primor.”
The proconsul turned to Abgar. “You’re quite right. Their numbers are fewer than we believed.”
“Your legionaries will surely swallow them whole, but I would like to take my men and scout their true numbers, Proconsul,” the Arab said.
“It’s not necessary. We have speculatores for that purpose.”
“Your men are not born to the desert. Allow me to make this contribution to certain victory, primor.”
“I would rather keep your valuable counsel near, Abgar, but I won’t hold you. Do what you can and be safe.”
The two men shook hands and Abgar trotted away.
Crassus was buoyant. “Today we make history, Appias.”
“Yes, General,” the historian replied neutrally.
On the plain immediately below, cornicens blew and the square opened up to accept 1,000 foot archers, 500 light infantry, and 1,000 Celtic cavalry with Publius clearly visible at the fore. They all moved into the square, protected by the shields and javelins of the heavy armed legionaries. The dust kicked up from all this movement rose into the sky like the smoke from 1,000 bush fires.
“Come, we must join Publius and take command of the legions,” Crassus said to his legate.
Cassius Longinus squinted at the horizon, feeling far from comfortable. “The Sixth and Seventh Legions are still on the far side of the river, Proconsul.”
“We will not require their swords, I’m sure.”
“Could we have been so wrong about the enemy’s strength, or lack of it?”
“Do you not remember? The main army is in Armenia, fighting King Artavastes. This Surenas comes at us with less than 10,000 men. Do you doubt what your own eyes tell you, Cassius Longinus?”
“Yes, primor … Sometimes I do.”
“Carry such cynicism into the senate, legate, and you will go far,” the proconsul told his general with good humor. “In the meantime, I want the men marching to battle at double time.”
“Primor?” Cassius Longinus was surprised. Making the legions run to the fight through the heat of the desert would drain what little vitality they’d regained from the brief respite at the river.
“I want the legions properly warmed up when they meet the enemy.”
*
Spāhbed Surenas sat up on his horse, his gold-dipped, steel fish-scale armor polished so that it was almost impossible to look at in the fierce sunshine and was an irresistible beacon on the field of battle for the men to follow. To the spāhbed’s immediate left and right, bearers carried the emblem of his house – a golden eagle with its talons around the sun, on flags that snapped in the dry scorching breeze. On either side were his trusted captains and lieutenants, and, arrayed behind them, fewer than 100 cataphracts, the chosen of the chosen, his most personal and loyal guard – men who would plunge their own daggers into their chests if he so commanded it. Lined up behind these, were less than 5,000 horse archers. And behind them all, his secret weapon – 1,000 well-stocked camels.
The cataphracts and archers walked their mounts at a slow pace toward the immense cloud rising skyward that appeared to span the world. The Roman force at the base of that cloud was truly formidable and the serenity in Surenas’s face belied the truth – that his heart thumped against his ribcage like a trapped and frightened animal.
King Orodes had ordered Surenas, his faithful vassal, to harass and delay the army of the western empire with its pantheon of false gods while he punished the Armenian dog for violating his trust. But the invaders’ numbers had been surreal, their organized march across the desert relentless, and harassing the column proved ineffectual in slowing the advance. Surenas had no wish to defy Orodes, but a direct confrontation seemed to the spāhbed to be Parthia’s singular hope of salvation. And so he had planned and deployed, relying on the advice and assessments of spies and senior officers, most particularly that of Volodates, Captain of Horse. If he failed, Surenas knew, King Orodes would have him killed. But if indeed he did fail, the spāhbed knew, his body would be food for vultures long before the King’s displeasure could be visited on him. But, of course, there were always his wives and children … Their lives, too, were in his hands. Surenas put the unpleasant thoughts far from his mind as Volodates thundered toward him across the burning sand with an escort of fifty archers. The captain brought his animal to heel before the spāhbed, wheeled it around with precision, and slotted in beside his lord without slowing the army’s forward march by as much as half a step.
“The surprise,” said Surenas. “It is ready?”
“Lord, preparations are complete. Our force will appear to double before their very eyes.”
“Good. Now there remains time for us to consider our mistakes and hope this prevents us making more.”
*
Rufinius ran on legs of lead and breathed hard through his mouth, the cloth tied around his face filtering some but not all of the dust kicked up by thousands of hobnailed boots running in the fine, powdery sand. Sweat no sooner bloomed on the optio’s skin than it dried, dark and dirty. The men had ceased to complain about marching at double time, but only because complaining was a waste of breath and they would need it all for the approaching fight.
Cornicens trumpeted a change in the formation’s direction, which caused Rufinius’s cohort to become part of the front lines of the advancing square. It also brought him and his men into air that was mercifully free of dust and Rufinius took the opportunity to rip the cloth down off his face and hack out the grit between his teeth.
Up ahead, a half a mile away in the dancing hot air, the enemy stood lined up before them.
“Jupiter’s weeping cock – that all we’re up against?” Gracchus growled beside him, hawking a gray-black quid onto the sand at his feet. “They might have six or seven thousand, but no more. If I were them, I would run.”
The legionary had brought voice to the words running through Rufinius’s mind – the enemy’s numbers relative to their own made them seem little more than an oversized raiding party. Where was the Parthian army?
Cornicens blew the order to halt and the 28,000 legionaries forming the four sides of the giant square came to a complete stop.
“Take a drink, legionaries,” Rufinius shouted into the comparative silence, detaching himself from the formation to stride down the front line of the cohort. Men who had wineskins gratefully took the opportunity, probably their last for some time, to slake their thirst.
Another order told the legionaries to ready their pila as the Parthian center, no more than a hundred cataphracts, began to advance at a walk. It was then that Rufinius saw a man all in gold, shining bright in the center of the line.
“Who’s that?” Libo wondered aloud, peering in the direction of the man radiating the sun.
“Your target,” Rufinius answered as he retook his position.
Away to the optio’s right, Centurion Marius Pontius held his gladius high above his head and shouted, “The Senate and People of Rome!”
All around, tens of thousands of legionaries took up the cry, yelling it thrice and ending the chant with a hoot that rose into the sky as loud as the dust cloud was high. The chant rippled down the line and, seemingly in reply, the cataphracts broke into a canter, their lances still pointed skyward.
Cornicens announced the order for the Roman cohorts to march forward at a walking pace, pila at the ready. Rufinius sheathed his gladius and swapped the pilum to his right hand, finding the balance holding it above his shoulder with instinct born of long practice. Legionnaires all around him followed Rufinius’s lead, lifting their javelins to shoulder height, bringing their scuta to the front and crouching behind them as they advanced.
With less than a third of a mile between the opposing forces, the distance between them closing fast, a shrill ululation reached the Romans’ ears. But then, suddenly, hundreds more cataphrac
ts appeared as dun-colored robes the color of the desert worn by both horse and man were uniformly discarded, revealing serried ranks of hundreds more cataphracts in an arc that appeared to ring the front line of the Roman square. The cataphracts’ gleaming fish-scale armor caught the sun’s glare and hurled it back at the legionaries’ eyes.
“Excrementum!” Libo exclaimed, as all around them, more and more archers rose up out of the very desert itself.
“Landica!” muttered Dentianus.
The Parthian archers rode their horses with their knees, bows held at the ready with arrows notched and strings drawn tight, keeping to ranks as disciplined as those of the legionaries. These men were close – much closer – and their sudden and unexpected proximity to the Romans was a cause for fear. But the legionaries faltered not at all, marching with a cadence of unbroken rhythm, each man’s courage fortified by the legionary beside him.
Unfamiliar notes from the enemy’s own cornicens reached Rufinius’s ears and the horse archers released their arrows. The sky filled with them, thousands of incoming missiles clearly visible against the pale blue sky.
“Galeae!” Rufinius yelled, raising his own over his head. The air hummed distantly and then grew in intensity as if a swarm of ferocious steel hornets were descending on them.
But most, if not all, of this volley passed overhead and clattered harmlessly into the desert behind the leading cohorts. This by no means heartened Rufinius. The first volley was fired for ranging purposes and to bleed off the excitement of battle and he doubted the second volley would go long. And now there was a new and more terrible threat to meet. Coming at them, galloping across the desert, was a steel wall of cataphracts, their long lances lowering for the charge that would send them crashing into the Roman lines.
VI
The thrill of the charge banished all thoughts of disaster from Surenas’s mind as he glanced to his left and right and enjoyed the precision and the beauty of the armored men and horse at his command. The Romans had not seemed to so much as blink when the army confronting them appeared to expand and multiply before their eyes, as if by some conjuring trick; thousands of his men dropping their coverings or surging out of the pits dug into the soft sand. Surenas admired the invaders for their fearlessness, but it had not blunted his own determination to kill every last one of them. His heart beat as fast and as hard as the hooves of his own horse thundering against the sand.
Ahead, the Roman front line extended into clouds of the choking dust so that he could not see their end, and the uniformity of each legionary in terms of his shield and helmet and even the distance from the man beside him and behind him, appealed to Surenas’s sense of order. But this square formation could be more manageable than the last. What had convinced the invaders to cease their ownership of the very horizon itself? Compressing their numbers in this new way gave him a manageable front he could attack. If this change in formation was in any way due to his man secreted within the enemy’s ranks, he would have to be further rewarded …
With the distance to the Romans closing ever more, Surenas could see through the rising dust how formidable and relentless were these men from the West. All the more reason to drench the desert they had come to conquer with their blood.
The spāhbed lowered his lance and chose a single Roman among the thousands lined up before him and the emblem of a bull on the man’s shield danced circles around the tip of the lance as Surenas took aim.
*
With some anxiety, Rufinius waited for the cornicens to blow the order for a general halt as the line of steel-encased horseflesh thundered toward his cohort. But the order never came.
“Pila!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, the order having been repeated up and down the lines. Hundreds of legionaries drew back their arms, cocked for the throw. As Rufinius watched the last fifty feet of the cataphracts’ charge, a calm settled on him. He could hear his own breathing – steady, strong. His heartbeat also slowed as he watched the plumes of sand and dust being kicked up by the galloping hooves and saw the horses’ nostrils flaring and contracting with every breath, the froth streaming from their mouths and the sharp, barbed tip of the approaching lance held steady, unwavering, and coming ever nearer.
“Now!” the optio yelled.
The legionaries hurled their javelins, muscles twitching with the power of the battle’s first strike. The volley of missiles arced from the lines, a thicket of hurtling death. The legionaries watched with anticipation. But the javelins merely clattered against the enemy’s armor like sticks, their tapered shafts now bent and rendered useless. Barely a dozen Parthians dropped from their mounts, only a few of the pila finding what little exposed flesh there was to pierce around the rider’s eyes or the horse’s mouth.
Rufinius registered the emptiness of the Roman defense in the brief moment before the cataphracts and their horses crashed into the cohort. “Scuta!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, the vibration of the pounding hooves stirring the sand beneath his own feet.
The legionaries jammed the bottom edges of their shields into the ground, angled them back and put their shoulders against them. Legionnaires behind threw themselves and their scuta and bodies against the rows in front. Down on one knee, locking his jaws and jamming his helmeted head down hard against his shoulder, Rufinius braced for impact.
*
As he gripped the horse with his knees and resisted the impulse to throw himself back in the split second before collision, Surenas saw how the gaps between the legionaries before him closed into a solid wall of interlocked shields. His lance plunged into the image of the bull, pierced the shield, and kept on going, and then his mount crashed into the wall. A brief moment of shock followed, both sides stunned by the violence of the impact, and then all around him horses began shrieking with fright. On both sides, men shouted and swore and some screamed, their bones broken or their bodies impaled. The wall of shields buckled here and there and between the gaps came the deadly Roman swords thrusting and stabbing, the legionaries quickly recovering from the shock. The horses reeled back, some rearing. Those cataphracts who were still mounted attempted to impose their will on the terrified animals and some fell to the ground hard, instant prey to the Roman gladius.
Spāhbed Surenas gained some control of his bucking horse, wheeled it around, and then around again. Shouts in an unfamiliar tongue caused him to glance over his shoulder. Individual legionaries had raced forward from their line and were stabbing men on the ground who, weighed down by their heavy armor, could not move easily or freely. Armored horses were also being killed, their cries of terror pitiful as the Romans slit their vulnerable bellies and left them to die slow and mean in the heat of the day.
Surenas gathered his men around him and cantered away beyond reach of the legions, the elation of the charge replaced with a sense of regret mixed with vengeance. He had lost too many good men trying to bash through this heavy infantry in such a foolhardy manner. The Romans were too disciplined and their lines too deep. But the battle was young. The spāhbed had other plans and he had his signalers put them into immediate effect.
*
Crassus, atop his horse and viewing the battle from a rise in the ground at the square’s center, was delighted by what he saw. “Legate Cassius Longinus didn’t like the defensive formation. Well, let them batter their heads on Rome’s shields!” he said. “Are you getting all this down, Appias?”
*
The dazed cataphract lay on the ground whimpering, his arm badly shattered by the fall from his horse. Rufinius put the Parthian beyond misery, turning him over to expose his unprotected back and then stabbing between the ribs into the heart. He swung the gladius at the ground, flicking the gore from it, and counted twenty-four cataphracts and fifteen horses dead, lying at the foot of the Roman cohort. The body count among the legionaries was uncertain. There were deaths, of course, but the numbers were obscured by the curve of their own lines.
The optio looked around, anxious to find the men in his
contubernium, and saw Carbo kick the helmet off the head of another cataphract on the ground and then drive the tip of a broken lance through the man’s open mouth. “For Gracchus,” the legionary yelled at the now dead man as he swayed with rage, Gracchus a little further away and flat on his back with his neck torn out.
A growing hum that troubled Rufinius stole his attention from Gracchus and Carbo. That sound – he’d heard it before. And then a rain of arrows descended on the cohort whipping, snapping, fizzing, zipping through the air, driving down into the sand all around: thunk, thunk, thunk-thunk-thunk. The volley crept forward, reaching for the Roman lines like a squall front, and then men began to fall over or sink to the ground with arrows penetrating helmets, driving down through skulls and chests, smashing shoulders, maiming and killing. Rufinius joined other legionaries capable of running and headed for the protection of the cohort with his shield held above him, but the arrows mostly went straight through it. He felt a jolt against his leg, which caused him to stumble. His calf – an arrow had pierced it through. Rufinius hobbled the final few paces to the lines and dived for safety beneath interlocked shields. But even here the heavy arrows were barely deterred, as if penetrating sheets of papyrus rather than scutum – each three layers of wood pressed and glued together and covered in leather.
Legionnaires swore, screamed and cried out as thousands of shafts fell from the sky, punching holes through their wholly inadequate protection. And as quickly as the lethal shower began, it passed by to rain on another cohort further down the lines.
Rufinius worked quickly while the flesh of his calf was still numb with shock. The barbs on the arrowhead prevented it coming out the way it went in. Grinding his teeth, he broke the arrow shaft and then pushed it through his skin and pulled it out clean on the other side. Somehow the head had missed most of his muscle. Blood welled from the hole left behind, cleaning the wound. He bound strips of fabric around his leg, carried in his cuirass for this purpose. Bringing himself unsteadily to his feet, Rufinius limped into an empty space in the line vacated by a legionary who was sitting slumped on his ass with a glazed, unfocused look, an arrow buried deep in his neck.
Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) Page 9