by R. W. Peake
Outside in the streets, the handlers of every animal had either already reached or was about to reach the moment of decision that they all dreaded; in order to have even a chance at their own survival, they would have to kill their elephants. Some men reached this decision quickly, if only because they were witness to the carnage their animals were inflicting on their own men who, frankly, were as out of their minds with fear as their four-legged comrades. In its simplest terms, and just as Pullus had intended, there were no good choices available to these men; one by one, they yanked the spike from around their neck and used their hammer to drive it into the skulls of their animals. And, one by one, even more of Abhiraka’s prized Harem were slain by their handlers. Nevertheless, despite their own peril, more than one handler’s reaction was similar to their leader Memmon, their sorrow more for their elephant than for themselves. Indeed, Memmon had made no attempt to defend himself when the advancing Romans found him still slumped next to his dead animal, not even acknowledging the huge Roman wearing the white crest as he plunged his sword down into his body. Not surprisingly, no Roman held any such tender feelings about these four-legged foes who had proven so formidable, nor did they display any mercy to the handlers, and the instant the last animal dropped to its knees in each street, Pullus’ men came rushing out of their spots to finish off the remaining Bargosans. For their part, the surviving swordsmen and spearmen fought bravely, but their fate had been sealed between walls of fire, created by a concoction that most of them would go to their deaths believing was the proof these Romans were demons and not human.
Abhiraka had had every intention on leading the effort to break out and reach the canal, but at the very last moment, his mind had been changed by his wife, the queen.
“You must think like a king, not a warrior at this moment, my love.” She had pulled him aside, standing near the northern gate as his force organized itself.
“What do you mean?” he demanded, but while her lower face was obscured by a veil as custom dictated, he had learned to read much in her eyes, and this time, they flashed at him as she responded immediately, “I think you know what I mean, husband.” She was forced to pause for a moment as two officers of the bodyguard hurried by, then continued, “You told me once of a…passage? A secret passage that leads under the northern wall?”
“I never should have told you about that,” he grumbled but then eyed her shrewdly as he asked, “Why do you bring that up?”
“You should use it to escape and go to our son-in-law,” she replied calmly.
Despite himself, he was impressed that she had either divined his thoughts or, more likely, their minds ran along similar lines, which was understandable; they had been married more than twenty years, and she was the mother of his children. When word of the Roman advance reached Bharuch, Abhiraka had done one thing that, at the time, his queen had fiercely resisted, sending their two sons, the crown prince and his brother, south, with the ostensible purpose of “visiting” their older sister, the wife of the Pandya crown prince.
Rather than argue the point directly, Abhiraka asked, “Why do you think that Nedunj would help me? Especially,” he felt his mouth twist into a bitter grimace, tasting the foulness of the words as he said, “now that I have lost my capital.” Shaking his head, he finished bitterly, “Who would want to help such a poor king as me?”
“You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself, husband.” He looked sharply at her, stung by the words, but he saw the love there in her eyes, and despite the feeling he was being chastised, he also understood she was speaking what she believed to be the truth, out of a sense of love and duty for him. “You need to regroup and rally Nedunj to your cause.”
“He won’t help for free,” Abhiraka pointed out, yet his wife was undeterred, and was clearly expecting this objection; in fact, she seemed almost amused, judging from the manner in which the corners of her eyes crinkled.
“No,” she agreed, “he won’t. But,” now, she did pause for an instant before continuing, “I anticipated that there might be some…complications, so I made arrangements.”
“Arrangements? What kind of arrangements?” Now, Abhiraka was thoroughly confused, but time was running short; Bolon was calling to him at that moment, informing him that all was ready.
“When we sent our sons to visit Aarunya, I may have packed some…extra baggage,” she explained. “Baggage of a certain type that is very heavy…and very valuable,” she finished meaningfully, yet it still took Abhiraka a moment to comprehend.
“You mean,” he gasped, his eyes widening, “you sent some gold with them?”
“No,” she answered flatly, shaking her head, “not some gold. According to your chancellor in charge of finance, it is approximately half of the gold in the royal treasury.”
For a moment, Abhiraka felt as if the ground underneath his feet had vanished, so strong was the sensation, and he used every bit of his experience as a king when in the presence of his subjects to not let how this revelation had rocked him.
Suddenly, he realized something with a sense of horror, and he lowered his voice to a whisper as he asked, “What happened to the rest of it?”
“It’s buried and safe. Only two people know the location. One of them is your queen, and the other,” she assured him quietly, with a tone he not only knew was meaningful but understood, “tragically lost his life not long ago. So,” she finished, “only your queen knows.” Then, standing on her tiptoes, she pulled Abhiraka’s head down, which he thought was to give him a kiss; instead, she whispered in his ear as she told him where the cache of gold was located, and this time, he didn’t try to hide his relief, then he thought for a moment longer, coming to the recognition that not only was his wife thinking of him, she was correct in her assessment.
Finally, he nodded, saying gravely, “You did well, my queen. And,” this was a bit more difficult for him to say, “you were wise to think ahead. But,” he frowned, realizing that this changed everything, “what about you? You were going to leave with us!”
“I,” she replied calmly, “will stay here.”
“But we don’t know what these demons will do!” Abhiraka argued. Shaking his head vehemently, he said, “I do not like this idea!”
“What other choice do we have, husband?” Even in the moment, Abhiraka felt a surge of affection and pride in this woman, whose head barely touched the bottom of his chin but who seemed to be growing in stature with every word. “Besides, with you gone, I suspect that these Romans will want to use me as some sort of hostage.”
“Unless all they care about is pillaging the city,” he pointed out bitterly, but again, she was unmoved.
“Then if that is fated to happen, it will happen, and I will accept my destiny. And,” she assured him, “I will not allow myself to be defiled. I have also made…arrangements to prevent this, my husband.”
And, as Abhiraka knew, and had realized almost from the instant the conversation began, this was the ultimate truth. I, he realized, will have to trust that this Roman Caesar isn’t as much of a savage as he appears to be.
Thinking for a moment, Abhiraka said, “Then I will make one demand of you, my wife.”
“What is that, my husband?”
Taking her by the shoulders, he stared down at her and said with an intensity she had rarely heard, “If it will save your life, and your honor, then you bargain with that gold. Give it to these animals if it will save your life and your honor.”
Even through the sheer mesh that covered her eyes, Abhiraka saw the sheen of the tears that came, but her voice was steady as she assured him, “I will do that, my husband, if that is your desire.”
“No,” he said firmly, “it is not my desire. It is my command, not just as your husband, but as your king.”
She bowed her head in the manner that told Abhiraka she was submitting to his command, though she said nothing. He didn’t kiss his wife, nor embrace her; it was unseemly for a king to engage in such public displays, so he gave her a
grave bow, then with a stiffness that belied his true feelings, turned and strode away, calling out in a choked voice that caused his wife’s eyes to fill with tears, “Bolon! Attend to me! There is a change in plan!”
Caesar had never felt so helpless as he did in this moment, sitting on Toes, next to Spurius and some of the other Centurions of the 3rd, first seeing that something was taking place on the far side of the city by the glow of fires that reflected off the visible part of the northern wall above the intervening rooftops, followed a few heartbeats later by faint sounds that, while not entirely distinguishable, were of a quality that they knew meant some sort of fight.
“That will be Pullus and his boys,” Spurius commented, staring northward.
“Yes,” Caesar answered tersely, fighting to remain under control, “that appears to be the case.” Despite knowing he shouldn’t, he couldn’t resist adding acidly, “Of course, it’s impossible to know since we can’t get any closer than several stadia away.”
Spurius flushed, but unlike Caesar, he wisely held his tongue, mainly because it was a point he couldn’t argue. Behind them, his men were running rampant, with only a handful of Centurions, Optios, and a few trusted Tesseraurii who were standing at strategic locations in the 3rd’s area, ostensibly to at least attempt to keep their men from losing all control. How they were expected to do so none of them had any idea, but they were as scared of Caesar’s temper, which was clearly on edge, as they were of men who were growing increasingly rowdy. Exacerbating matters was the ready supply of the potent wine, which was getting the men drunker, and more quickly, than even German mead. Worst, or best, of all, depending on where one was in the hierarchy, Bargosa was proving to be every bit as wealthy as the men had come to believe, with warehouses stuffed full of goods that were more exotic and sumptuous than anything these men had encountered. Without the normal order that was a characteristic of the Legions, the rankers were nevertheless thorough in their looting, as the hapless inhabitants who either hadn’t been panicked enough to flee to the enclosure with their fellow citizens or had been too stubborn to leave their homes quickly learned the fatal consequences of their error. Anything of value was taken, and any Bargosan foolish enough to try to stop them, or even protest, was summarily run through, their bodies for the most part left where they died, unless they were in the way. There was only one exception to this unspoken decision by the rioting Romans; females of a certain age, even those who resisted or attempted to stop men from ransacking their homes, weren’t killed, although before this night was through, most of them wished they had died with their families. As with the 28th and the 7th, women considered desirable by their captors were quickly segregated, usually being dragged into the nearest intersection, their wailing children trailing behind them, the terror in their cries needing no translation. And, as often happened when a city fell by the sword, there were men in the ranks who had no mercy in their hearts for these victims, so that scattered among the corpses lying in the streets were smaller forms, sharing with their adult counterparts the shapelessness that comes from death. For the Legionaries, the bodies of their victims were noticed only as obstacles underfoot as they wandered around from one street to the next in search of comrades from other Centuries or a street that hadn’t been looted; nevertheless, more than one man ended up stumbling over a body, sending them sprawling to the street, provoking guffaws of laughter and mockery from their comrades. It wasn’t because of the darkness, since that had been banished early on, with men dragging consumable material out into the street and setting it afire, but because at that moment, barely ten percent of all three Legions were sober, and most of those wore the transverse crest, white stripe, or the headdress of the Signiferi. And, as the rankers had quickly discovered to their delight, not only was this Bargosan version of wine plentiful, it was so potent that even those who didn’t imbibe nearly as much as their comrades were unable to walk one block without stumbling like those comrades more experienced in debauchery, even when there wasn’t a body in their path. For the men of three Legions, what happened in Bargosa that night and the next day was much more than it seemed. They had taken cities by the sword before, and they had sacked them before, but this night was different because the rage and hostility they were feeling hadn’t come solely from battle and the inevitable loss of comrades. In as clear and unmistakable a manner as men who, as individuals, held virtually no power, they were demonstrating to their officers, of all ranks, that there were limits to what they would endure, and this was aimed specifically at one man, and one man only. And, Caesar understood this, and was powerless to stop it.
Outside the walls, any hope that Ranjeet had of penetrating the Roman lines and reaching the canal vanished in the time it took to turn his most potent weapons into huge, blazing torches, just like the earlier battle. His fears that what he had caught a glimpse of in the hands of the Romans he had seen in the moment before his elephants blocked his view were confirmed within a matter of heartbeats, but unlike his king, Ranjeet didn’t hesitate, knowing that this battle was lost, almost before it had begun. If there was a positive, it was in the fact that the handlers following the elephants leading the charge reacted quickly, or as Ranjeet knew was more likely, the animals themselves did, shearing away from their original line of attack, most of them fleeing in the opposite direction back to the north, trumpeting in alarm and fear. Where, as Ranjeet also knew, there was the other Roman army lurking somewhere out there in the darkness, which helped form his quick decision.
“Sound the recall, boy,” he snapped over his shoulder, although his eyes never left what was going on in front of him, not only because he felt he owed it to the men under his command, but to keep an eye for any of the stricken elephants to instinctively head for Darpashata, who was the chief bull of their herd. “Get ready to move if it looks like one of them is heading for us,” he ordered the handler, who only nodded in acknowledgement.
The notes sounded, and Ranjeet saw by the reaction, or lack thereof, of his uncommitted phalanx troops that they understood as well as he did that the battle had been lost. About half of the elephants who were subjected to being doused in flaming naphtha either began running in seemingly aimless circles as they mindlessly tried to outrun the flames roasting their flesh or, in one of the few blessings of this night for Ranjeet, the remainder who turned and fled, trailing flames behind them, didn’t veer in his direction. Even so, Darpashata’s handler had all he could manage keeping their elephant under control, the animal tossing its massive head and making bleating sounds that, as any man experienced with these creatures knew, was the signal of his agitation and concern for the members of his herd. Those men who had already plunged into the midst of the Romans were now forced to extricate themselves, and in this kind of maneuver, normally, men of a phalanx had an advantage, because their long spears did a better job of keeping their foes at bay as they withdrew. Unfortunately, those men had discarded their spears on Ranjeet’s orders, and now they were forced to fight in a manner that their Roman foes recognized, trying to maintain a cohesive formation that was, for all practical purposes, their own version of an orbis. Ranjeet, still standing in the box atop his elephant’s back, tried to maintain an impassive demeanor; internally, his stomach was churning from the anxiety as he debated with himself about committing his reserve in order to help the engaged men withdraw. The moments went by, but gradually, his fears eased somewhat as he saw how these men, aided by their swordsmen comrades, were managing to maintain their cohesion, and more importantly, their discipline. Despite their unfamiliarity with each other as foes, one of the few universal truths of warfare in their age that applied to all combatants was that those moments, where one side was slaughtered by another, came when just one man’s nerve broke, and they turned to flee without any regard for their comrades, or heeding their given orders, thereby exposing the man next to them, who was then forced to make his own choice to fight or flee. This wasn’t happening, Ranjeet thought, a flicker of hope igniting somew
here inside him, as he had already made the mental shift from thinking of a victory to preserving as much of his command as he could, then retreating in good order, withdrawing to a spot he had already selected in his mind. Now all that mattered was the preservation of those men who were still alive, gathering up the very few elephants who remained unharmed but had scattered to the four winds, and reaching the safety provided by the dense forest that lay to the east. Although he had no way of knowing it, his cause was aided by his enemies, in the form of the two men commanding the force arrayed against him; whatever the reason, he and his men were benefitting from it. Foot by foot, the remnants of the two forces, working together despite none of the sub-commanders issuing any such orders, backed away from the Roman lines, and it happened so gradually that Ranjeet was startled to realize that the men nearest to his position were now less than a hundred paces away. More importantly, it was clear that the Romans weren’t pursuing or attempting to shatter the cohesion of the formation as they withdrew. This prompted Ranjeet to order the handler to put Darpashata in motion, the elephant responding immediately, clearly as eager to leave the horrific scene of his own kind reduced to blazing chunks of meat, the bodies of their crews and handlers lying around them, most of them with one or more javelin protruding from their bodies. First, it was a hundred, then two hundred paces away, which was when Ranjeet decided that the Romans had no intention of pursuing them and was confirmed when, illuminated by the flames still consuming elephants, he saw swords being thrust into the air, followed an eyeblink later by the rolling sound of men roaring in triumph, a sound that, in its own way, was every bit as lacerating as an actual cut from a sword. It was mockery, jeering, and ultimately, it was the sound of defeat as the last ember of hope for the city of Bharuch remaining unconquered flickered out and died.