by Andrew James
The guide hesitated. Phanes nicked him again, deeper. The blood trickled faster, soaking into the top of his robe. ‘The men of the Great Oasis and the Two Swords helped us,’ he whispered. ‘You stole their food. They hate you.’
Suddenly Phanes’s folly in mistreating the oasis dwellers was made clear. Tactfully, Darius said nothing. His features contorted with fury, Phanes dragged the Ammonian spy from the tent by his hair. Ignoring his pleading cries, he had four guards peg him on his back on the sand, then slit his belly from breastbone to groin, thrusting a large hand into his abdominal cavity and unravelling his guts to dry in the winter breeze. The Ammonian’s face was grotesque as he screamed, his mouth wide open, tongue drawn back, eyes glazed with terror, body jerking in spasms of agony. The last surviving guide stood, feet hobbled and hands tightly bound, almost white with fear. He tried to look away, but Phanes clamped a hand across his jaw, pointed his face at the screaming man and made him watch until the spasms had stopped and the screams died into sobs, then brought him into the tent, where he stood over the guide and took a long slow breath. ‘I will ask you one last time. Lead us to the rock.’
Staring straight ahead in his terror, hardly daring to breathe, the surviving guide nodded. With his head he indicated south. Darius groaned. From around him came a chorus of disbelief. ‘South … It can’t be?’ Phanes asked, grabbing the man by the throat.
His breath coming now in panicky sobs, the guide nodded again, emphatically.
With a sinking feeling in his guts, Darius realized Phanes’s fear had proved true: the guides had led the army out into the infinite wastes of the Great Sand Sea.
Not knowing how far they had gone, they had no idea if there was enough water to get back.
19
The next afternoon
The day had been sweltering hot. Every muscle in Darius’s face ached from screwing his eyes shut against white glare. Though the sun was beginning to sink in the west, sand and rock still threw the day’s stored heat up at him. Like standing next to an iron smelter’s furnace when the bellows are pumping and the fire roaring, Darius could feel the heat pulsing in his temples and wrists, thick and heavy around his face. Breathing was painful, his lips were cracked, his tongue heavy. Drops of sweat dripped from his beard and eyebrows, stinging eyes already red from dust. Every step took an effort of will. He kept his gaze just ahead of his feet, so that each footfall brought a sense of achievement. He wanted to cry out from the agony and exhaustion, but his mouth was too dry to open. The army was still heading south, but Darius had given up hope of ever reaching water. Every few paces, men dropped from the ranks. Giving in to their fate they knelt with bewildered faces, then lay on the sand to die.
Despite drinking sparingly, Darius had emptied his last waterskin that morning. He had a raging thirst, swallowing was hell, and he no longer had the strength to worry about the sand that gritted between his teeth. His head ached and he could feel the tell-tale dizziness and lassitude of dehydration setting in. Even the camels now looked exhausted, plodding unsteadily on long, spindly legs, mouths rimed with dry white foam and their big, doleful eyes glazed. He knew camels could survive for days without water, but eventually even they must drink. With his stolen camel too weak to carry him, Darius was walking alongside Phanes’s bodyguard. Behind them a whip cracked as the Ammonian guide was driven on, half stumbling, half being dragged. Everything now depended on him. If he was telling the truth, if the cache really was due south, there was still a chance. But the army had walked all day without finding it and the chance was remote. More likely by far was a miserable death.
Darius tried to focus his mind. Was the guide telling the truth? Or was he, even now, leading them to destruction? His three comrades had fooled Phanes, leading him away from Pillar Rock deep into the desert, far further north than he had intended to go. They had paid the ultimate price, suffering terrible deaths. They must have known the risk from the start, yet they had willingly sacrificed themselves. Why should this guide be different?
Darius turned, trying to read the expression on the man’s face. Was it the face of someone brave enough to condemn himself to torture? Or had watching the crucifixions and disembowelling broken his spirit? The lives of thousands of his people would depend on the Ammonian’s courage, but a man can only bear so much. His fellow guide had taken half the night to die, and Phanes had made him watch every last scream and shudder. When the agony finally ended Phanes had towered over him: ‘If anything happens to my army, I shall give my last dying breaths to make sure you suffer torments a hundred times worse.’ With a warning like that, delivered from behind those cold, unfeeling eyes, few men would dare lead the army false.
But Phanes wasn’t taking any chances. Both the Ammonian’s arms had been manacled to guards to prevent him taking his own life.
Other than the trudging of weary feet, the creaking of leather and chink of weapons and armour, the only sound Darius could hear was the occasional anguished cry from men who had drunk their water ration in the first four days and now bitterly regretted it. A trail of them littered the sand, some unconscious, already halfway to death, others just too weak and confused to go on. Darius pitied them. They were all doomed men. There were no scavengers to torment them, but when the sun rose in the morning they would shrivel into brown mummies under its merciless heat. Death would be a relief. But Darius knew that without sky burial their deaths would be unclean, their bodies polluting Ahura Mazda’s holy ground. Their shades would be condemned to wander for eternity.
Ahead of him another soldier staggered, limbs loose as he suffered a moment’s loss of consciousness. His head lolled, his arms were flat at his sides as he went down. Darius had seen so many men fall that afternoon he didn’t need to look to picture the empty, glazed eyes and vacant expression on the man’s face. A moan escaped from the soldier’s lips as his head struck the sand and he woke. Two of his friends broke ranks, dashing over to help him, their faces creased with concern, pulling him upright, one holding out a waterskin.
‘No!’ Phanes raised his voice in a hoarse shout. ‘It’s a waste.’ The man with the water looked up at the stratekos, uttered a word of prayer to the yazata of the desert for his friend, then turned reluctantly and left him huddled in the sand. Sunken eyes watched the army march away.
Darius was sure the prayer was also a waste. There were no spirits here, no yazata to bring aid in this desolate wilderness. No gods to hear men’s last, pathetic sobs.
The sun was a vast ball of orange flame that sank behind the dunes. Every scrap of bronze on the army’s equipment was turned to fiery gold, every frightened face made lurid by the intense red light in the western sky. As they marched south, the light struck Darius’s right side, casting long black shadows to his left. Slowly the flames faded into pastel tones of peach and gold. Ahead a pillar of fire rose above the sand, flaming red as it pointed at the sky. Darius checked his step and stared in wonder. Then realized it was a rock, tall and stark, with the dying sun striking its flank. He lifted his arm to point and shout but a thousand other men had seen it at the same moment. A great cry rose from a thousand hoarse throats, then spread through the ranks. The army erupted with unbelievable joy. Men whooped, slapped each other on the back, linked hands and danced. Darius imagined the piles of clay jars cached under the sand. Already he could taste the water and feel it trickling down his throat. He looked around. Even Phanes’s wolfish features were wreathed in smiles. Only the guide was silent, his head hung in shame, his face desolate. He had lacked the courage to save his people. He had led the Persians to Pillar Rock.
The rock towered over them like a beacon, drawing hazara after hazara struggling into camp. By midnight the bulk of the army was safely resting, stomachs full and waterskins heavy. But the fact remained they had been sorely delayed. And though the army had survived to fight, Darius knew it had been badly weakened. Only time would tell whether the delay and weakness would count.
Flames flickered through the camp an
d the smell of burning camel dung hung in the air. Shadowy figures moved through the orange light, while sounds of laughter and relief rose from relaxing soldiers. The upright figure of Phanes was surrounded by his officers as he drank barely watered wine, holding court in the centre of the camp. Spectacular against the black of night, thousands of campfires speckled a swathe of desert around him, guiding the last stragglers in.
Darius sat on the far side of Phanes’s fire, chewing reflectively on dried lamb and hot bread, drinking his wine neat, savouring being alive. That afternoon had been a shock. For a while, death had seemed certain. But now only two stages of the march remained: the oasis they called the ‘Spring of the Shade’, and the ‘Oasis Between the Two Lakes’. Then the army would be within striking distance of Siwa, the ‘Oasis of Ammon’.
Unusually ebullient and reeking of drink, Phanes climbed to his feet and staggered towards Darius. Darius had the feeling the Yauna was less drunk than he looked, that he was putting on a show. He was a man who never truly let down his guard.
‘Darius! Why so grim?’ With a flick of his wrist Phanes motioned Darius to rise. His arm around Darius’s shoulder he led him into the shadows with a conspiratorial air. As Darius suspected, away from prying ears the Yauna was suddenly lucid. ‘The Spring of the Shade will be our greatest challenge, Darius. It’s a tiny oasis, with just a single spring. As it stands, that spring is too small to water our army. I want you to ride ahead with an advance party of engineers. They will build a pool around the spring and line it with clay. After six or seven days there should be enough water in the pool for the whole army. Understood?’
‘Yes, Stratekos. But why me? I’m not an engineer.’
Softened by wine and relief, the Greek showed his teeth in a genuine smile. ‘No, but you are one of the very best soldiers I have, and the Ammonians may be waiting. Even if the guides didn’t manage to inform them of our route, they’ll have guessed it. And the closer we get to Siwa, the more likely we are to run into their outlying patrols. Take Dadarshi and two hundred of his Bactrians in case.’ He waved his hand vaguely at a group of usabari, camel riders, who had been acting as his personal guard and were carousing loudly at the next fire. Darius considered asking for Persian riders. Then he looked at the Bactrians. Their faces in the firelight were hard, their weapons cruel, their clothes practical: baggy trousers tucked into short boots, belted tunics down to the knee. They were fierce fighters from the deserts of the East. They would do.
The sun rose to reveal a litter of cold grey ashes, smashed water jars and empty wineskins. Contented snores reverberated around the camp. Apart from a few guards – ever cautious, Phanes had insisted on setting them – only the Bactrians were up, waiting bleary-eyed but alert by their camels, armed to the teeth with spears, daggers and bows.
Darius’s camel was kneeling ready for him to mount, a groom yanking its head down on a long rope, when Phanes appeared. He rubbed his head and squinted against the yellow light of the early sun. ‘Darius …’
‘Stratekos?’
‘Do not fail me. We have water here to rest a while. But remember, once we march our camels carry enough for just five days. Without water waiting at the other end, we will perish. We cannot turn back.’
Darius was frustrated by his slow progress over the dunes, climbing each one, up the steep flank then down the valley and up the next. The winter sun was so low that even the grains of sand cast shadows, turning the desert a deep, dark shade of bronze, while the lines of dunes faded into piles of light and shade against the soft blue sky.
They crested a last razor-sharp peak, and with relief he realized they had finally reached the edge of the Great Sand Sea. Dunes gave way to a flat sand sheet spread out below. Crusted with black rock, it looked like the sun had charred the earth’s skin until it blackened and cracked. The first sign of life was tough, spiky camel thorn, which proved there was water beneath the surface. Dadarshi pointed at something on the ground and Darius was amazed to see the remains of some desert vine, straggling across the stony sand with small, melon-like fruits. Perhaps they had grown after a rare desert downpour. Looking completely out of place in this barren land, they were dried up and brown, perhaps several years old, but the sight of them gave him hope. Next came the sidewinding tracks of a small snake. Dadarshi claimed it was a deadly viper that hides in the sand and strikes at the heels of passing men. Finally came more signs of life than Darius wanted to see. Scuffed sand and deep depressions had churned up a wide expanse of desert. The rim of every footprint or hoofmark was gilded with light, the impressions beneath were dark with shadow.
Darius called a halt. Dadarshi watched him anxiously, the Bactrians hard-faced and still, the engineers fidgeting nervously as Darius jumped down for a closer look. The only sound was the soughing of the wind across distant dunes as Darius squatted down on the sand and inspected the footprints. He nodded darkly as he picked out the distinctive marks of infantry wearing sandals, horse cavalry and camels. With growing pessimism he lifted his eyes to the desert and let them follow the trail. It was vast, and could only have been left by a large, well-equipped army. His voice was sombre. ‘There must be thousands. If we run into them we’ll be wiped out.’
Sitting cross-legged on his camel, Dadarshi drew back his lips, his face showing the strain. He didn’t speak as Darius leant closer, touching a print with the tip of his finger. It was crisp and fairly recent, just a slight hazing around the edges where a few grains of sand had fallen in. No more than a few days old, possibly less. The army could still be around.
Darius looked again at the horses’ hoof marks. Spreading his hand he measured their span. And laughed.
Darius laughed even harder when he saw the look on Dadarshi’s face, as though his commanding officer had gone mad. ‘Doesn’t look funny to me, sir?’ the Armenian protested. Then he saw it too and joined in a deep belly laugh, his heavy shoulders shaking uncontrollably as the tension drained. No one in the world had horses as big as these except Persians! ‘I should have known,’ Dadarshi said, tears of laughter running from his eyes. ‘What with my brother riding one of them …’ It turned out his older brother commanded a wing of Imperial asabari.
The prints were from the Persian army, made when the guides led Phanes off course. Darius cursed those guides roundly. They had led the Persians halfway to the Spring of the Shade, only for for the army to come back south again, without anyone ever suspecting.
The Spring of the Shade
Darius knew their dust cloud would be a tell-tale sign rising into the dawn, but there was no way to conceal it and no cover to take even if he had wanted to. The Bactrians certainly didn’t. They were used to desert warfare, disdaining stealth, speed their only armour. At their head Dadarshi hefted a wicked-looking scimitar, which he pointed at the knot of about a hundred Ammonian warriors standing beneath the palms. The Armenian grinned. ‘Bit primitive looking, aren’t they? Shouldn’t give us much trouble. Do we charge them, sir?’
While the Ammonians howled at him, Darius sat on his camel. Clean desert air ruffled his headcloth as he studied the enemy carefully from just beyond accurate bowshot. They were a disturbing sight, savages from a wild nightmare: no armour, no helmets, just ostrich feathers sticking from their hair, and long coats that flapped open to reveal loincloths and coloured wool sashes slung across bare chests. They stood in a crowd, without ranks or files, brandishing short spears and large, old-fashioned bows, shrieking in a sing-song tongue that rose and fell while hand drums tapped out a fast, repetitive beat.
Darius straightened his headcloth and licked his upper lip. ‘We’ll give them a couple of passes then sweep them away. It won’t take long.’ After interminable months of marching the thought of action was like hot wine in his veins. He swept his arm forward and pointed at the enemy. ‘No prisoners!’
Two hundred camel riders surged forward, ululating with piercing screams that cut through the desert morning. Left leg folded behind his camel’s neck, teeth juddering in his
jaw, Darius rode the beast’s lurching gait as it built up speed, then he was charging with a hot breeze in his face, arrows cracking through the warm desert air, gown snapping in the wind. Looking astonished at the sight of beasts they had never seen before, the Ammonians raised their weapons and the twang of bowstrings was followed by the swish of arrows into sand. The Ammonians loosed again, this time bringing the thwack thwack of arrows thumping into flesh. Two camels somersaulted, bellowing in pain, and their riders were thrown.
Darius shouted a command. A soft chorus sounded around him, arrows snapped out and handfuls of the tightly packed Ammonians fell. He lifted the horn from his chest and blew two sharp notes. Padded feet slapped into the sand, flinging up spurts of dust as the camel riders wheeled right, then trotted across the front of the Ammonians in loose formation, loosing arrows as they went, before circling back to attack again.
The warriors were stationary targets, and outnumbered. They raised woven reed shields, but iron arrowheads loosed at close range struck with a crack, cutting through to pierce the men behind. After two passes, Darius judged their group had shrunk by half. The survivors pressed together, huddling behind shields like beaten men, while those at the edge tried to hide behind the palms. The horn screeched again in Darius’s hand, followed by the slapping of sticks on the camels’ two-humped backs. The Bactrians formed a line, slid bows into leather cases and hefted spears. Darius blew a rising note. The spears were lowered, leather creaked as the camels’ harnesses pulled tight and they lurched forward. Men roared battle cries, camels rumbled as they built up speed, sticks rose and cracked. The Ammonians shuffled back, heads turning nervously. When the camels were twenty paces away the warriors broke, feet thrashing the undergrowth, drooping palm fronds rattling as they fled into the greenery. Darius drew his scimitar, slashed it across the shoulders of a running Ammonian, heard a shoulder blade fracture, and joined the slaughter.