by Peter Darman
I ordered Farid’s ammunition train across the river, together with the squires and the camels carrying the supplies. The other kings did the same with their supply trains. We sat on our horses with our senior officers to determine our tactics, the sound of kettledrums reaching our ears as the main body of the enemy army approached. We were joined by Silani and an escort of Babylonian Guards, who brought welcome news.
‘King of Kings Phraates is leaving Ctesiphon, majesty, he was persuaded by Chief of Court Ashleen to do so.’
Praxima laughed. ‘A coward has his uses after all.’
‘The high king will be leaving the palace shortly,’ Silani told us, ‘guarded by his Babylonians.’
‘Thank you, Silani,’ I said, ‘you can tell him we will form a corridor through which he can ride.’
The general saluted and rode back to the gatehouse.
‘What’s the plan, Pacorus?’ asked Gafarn. ‘What does the lord high general advise?’
‘Former lord high general,’ I reminded him.
‘We are waiting,’ snapped Gallia.
‘We divide our forces to form two lines,’ I said, ‘one facing north, the other facing south, to protect the road from the palace to the bridge.’
I looked at my friends. ‘I request that all of you retire across the river now.’
Praxima took a very dim view of the suggestion.
‘Are you fleeing across the river?’
‘No, but…’
‘Then neither are we,’ she bristled.
‘That’s told you,’ smiled Gafarn. ‘To our positions, then, and may Shamash smile on you all.’
With the sound of kettledrums in our ears and dust in the air Sporaces deployed three dragons of horse archers – three thousand men – to the north of the road, the companies widely spaced to reduce casualties against the inevitable arrow storm that would surely come. To the south Nergal and Praxima’s four hundred horse archers from Mesene joined two more dragons of Duran horse archers. Nergal commanded all these riders. He had once been commander of Dura’s horse archers and his own Mesenians were trained and organised along identical lines. They rode south to keep the enemy as far away from the road as possible. Nearer the dirt track were the cataphracts: a thousand under Azad and Prince Pacorus with Hatra’s élite – five hundred steel-encased soldiers and their white steeds, all protected by scale armour suits and neck and face guards. Their task was to stand and roast until called upon.
I rode to Ctesiphon’s gatehouse with Gallia and the Amazons, wondering where Phraates was. Time was not on his or our side and yet I could not see him as I peered into the compound.
‘Perhaps his fate is to die here,’ hissed Gallia beside me.
‘Not if I can help it,’ I answered, digging my knees into Tegha’s side.
He shot forward past the gates into the complex where slaves were loading wooden chests into the back of carts, overseen by Phraates sitting on a horse as if posing for a portrait. Around him was his Babylonian Guard, immaculate in their dragon-skin armour, purple tunics and lances sporting purple pennants. Overseeing the slaves were the high king’s five hundred Scythian axe men. I pulled up Tegha before Silani and Phraates.
‘You need to leave, now.’
Phraates smarted at my tone. ‘Please remember your place, King Pacorus.’
I made a sweeping bow from the saddle. ‘My apologies, highness, but there are thousands of enemy soldiers within spitting distance of your palace who desire to place your head on the end of a spear.’
Phraates rolled his eyes and called forward the commander of the Scythians.
‘See to it all the gold is loaded before you leave. I hold you accountable.’
The huge brute bowed his over-sized head. ‘Yes, highness.’
‘Gold?’ I was speechless.
Phraates flicked a hand at me. ‘To Seleucia. On!’
He trotted past me followed by Silani and his Babylonian Guard. I turned Tegha and cantered to ride beside Phraates, behind him banner men carrying huge flags showing the emblems of Susiana, Babylon and Persis. I glanced at Phraates and saw a determined look on his face. He showed no fear, which was good because he was about to cross the most dangerous two and half miles in all Parthia.
‘You think I would gift Tiridates my gold? You are wrong,’ he spat.
We left the compound to ride out into the maelstrom, the Amazons deployed in a semi-circle around the gates, arrows nocked in their bowstrings, though mercifully no enemy had yet penetrated our screen of horse archers to the north and south. I pulled up Tegha to stay with Gallia and the Amazons, Silani barking to the Babylonians to flank the high king to place him in the centre of the phalanx of horsemen.
‘What was the delay?’ Gallia asked me.
‘The high king was overseeing the loading of his gold into carts.’
‘You could not make it up,’ she scoffed.
‘Enemy to the north!’
We spun in the saddle when the alarm was raised, to see perhaps fifty riders bearing down on the Amazons. They were mounted spearmen in helmets, carrying round shields sporting a winged horse – soldiers of Drangiana. They must have been a reconnaissance party sent to scout the palace entrance because they pulled up their horses quickly when they spotted the stationary Amazons.
‘Take them down,’ shouted Gallia.
The air was filled with hissing sounds as the Amazons began shooting at the foe. Arrows slammed into bodies and horses, the latter rearing up in alarm to throw their riders as missiles pierced their bodies. There was a blast on a horn and the soldiers of Drangiana wheeled about and galloped away, leaving perhaps half a dozen of their party lying on the ground. I looked to the south but as yet the enemy was not advancing, being focused on reaching the Tigris and cut off any retreat in that direction. I was beginning to feel like a cornered rat. I glanced down the road that led to the bridge and saw the reassuring sight of the sun glinting off hundreds of kontus points.
‘Here comes the gold,’ I heard Gallia say.
I glanced right and saw a long line of carts flanked by Scythian axe men moving slowly. Too slowly.
‘Time to leave, Pacorus.’
She was right but in all conscience I could not abandon the Scythians, much less the hundreds of slaves who had loaded the carts and now tramped behind them.
‘We wait a while longer.’
There was a lot of noise, dust and confusion but the air was mercifully free of arrows, our own horse archers keeping the enemy at bay and away from the road. As the first carts trundled from Ctesiphon I began to think that perhaps, with the aid of Shamash, we might yet save not only Phraates but also his gold, Scythians and the hapless slaves that would probably have fared better if they had remained inside the complex with the priests. Only a deranged tyrant would anger the gods by killing their servants, and only a fool would slaughter slaves who were needed to ensure a palace functioned properly. Of course, servants could be hired and treated with the respect due to free men and women, but few wanted to copy the methods of the odd King of Dura.
‘They are moving too slowly,’ there was frustration in Gallia’s voice as she rode to the first wagon and ordered its driver to increase its speed.
But a cart loaded down with gold and pulled by a single horse moves slowly, and so she bellowed at the Scythians marching behind it to add their muscle to the beast’s. All the Scythians were big men, recruited for their size and skill in wielding the fearsome war axes they carried as their primary weapon. When on horseback they were also armed with bows but on foot they carried only an axe and long knife, their shields slung on their backs and their heads bare. They tucked their axes into their belts and put their shoulders to the cart, their commander raising his axe to Gallia and ordering those guarding the carts following to do the same. Even the slaves at the rear of the column lent a hand.
Urged on by the Queen of Dura, the carts picked up speed, or at least those at the head of the column did. There must have been thirty wagon
s in the column and at least half a dozen were still inside Ctesiphon itself. The dust was choking and thickening as the battle moved closer to the road.
I rode to the gates and shouted at those on and around the stationary carts to leave them and run for their lives. They needed no second prompting – Scythians, slaves and wagon drivers leaving their precious cargos to hot-foot it out of Ctesiphon.
Straight into enemy horsemen.
They came out of the dust cloud, men encased in scale armour riding camels similarly protected. I had never seen camel cataphracts up close but I did so now, the beasts trotting forward with their riders carrying a kontus that they gripped with both hands. Unlike horse-borne cataphracts they did not hold the long lances on their right side but rested the shaft on their right shoulders, ready to thrust the wicked iron point at those below. And because every cataphract was sitting in a saddle atop a camel’s hump, everyone was below them.
They were like fishermen on a boat sticking prey, thrusting lance points into slaves, Scythians and wagon drivers as they swept through the fleeing men. I strung an arrow and shot it at the nearest cameleer, the missile glancing off his armour. I reached into my quiver and was suddenly thrown sideways. I hit the ground hard, winding me. I struggled to get up, unsteady on my feet and saw with horror Tegha lying on the ground with a kontus through his body, his lifeblood seeping into the earth.
I stared, horrified, at the lifeless body of the horse that had carried me for years, a faithful companion who had served me unquestioningly and loyally. I heard nothing but silence in my grief, but gradually the sounds of men being butchered filled my ears and I saw the camel cataphracts stabbing at slaves with their lances, the Scythians having been either killed or fled towards the bridge. As the cataphracts finished off the last surviving slaves I realised I would be next. I was alone near the open gates to Ctesiphon, the deserted carts filled with gold in a neat line within the compound behind me. I knelt beside Tegha and stroked his still-warm neck.
‘Well, my old friend, it seems you have gone on before me. But have no fear, I will be with you shortly.’
I pulled my bow from the case attached to the saddle but the quivers were under his body so I had no missiles. I slung the bow over my body and stood beside my steed. The cataphract officers began reforming their men, seemingly oblivious to my presence, the din of battle all around as the army of Tiridates closed in from both north and south. The dust clouds that swirled all around blocked my view of the bridge two miles away but I prayed that Gallia had made it across the waterway, together with my friends. I felt serenely calm and unconcerned that I would soon be cut down. I had lived a good life, and if it were not too boastful to say so, an honourable one, though Shamash would be the ultimate judge of that.
There was a whooshing sound followed by a thunder of hooves and out of the dust came fresh riders from the south. They wore red kaftans and short-sleeved scale armour cuirasses and I gave a shout of triumph when I spotted the banner of Mesene – a yellow flag embossed with a double-headed lion sceptre crossed with a sword. Every man wore a helmet fitted with large cheek guards and a long leather neck flap. Their arrows peppered the ranks of the camel cataphracts as the highly disciplined horse archers of Mesene loosed volley after volley at the enemy riders. Neither Nergal nor Praxima could have known I was at the gates for I was just a lone figure in the midst of chaos, but they must have seen the stationary camels and decided to launch a surprise assault. The tactic worked because as cataphracts began tumbling from their saddles, trumpets sounded and the rest about-faced and retreated. The sheer volume of arrows shot at them had tilted the encounter in Nergal’s favour and I began to walk towards my friends when a new sound rent the air.
As the cataphracts withdrew more camels came, these being ridden by archers, hundreds of them, passing through the armoured cameleers in perfect order. And as they did so they shot volleys at Nergal’s soldiers. The latter were still shooting and the front rank of the camel archers collapsed as the beasts and arrows struck their unarmoured riders.
But the camel archers were hundreds and Nergal’s men, whittled down by skirmishing with the enemy on the southern flank, were far less. Or perhaps they still numbered four hundred but had become scattered in the dust clouds that continued to swirl in the air. I cried out in anguish as another cloud, this one of arrows, fell upon my friends and their soldiers, knocking them from their saddles and felling their unarmoured horses. I saw Nergal and Praxima fall, both pierced by many arrows that continued to rain down on the riders from Mesene. The survivors, pitifully few, turned tail and galloped away, loosing arrows over the hindquarters of their horses as they did so. Even in the midst of a rout the training Nergal had instilled in them did not desert them.
I hobbled over to where my friends had fallen, dead and dying men and horses and camels hindering my journey, that and the old wound in my leg that had flared up again. Tears ran down my face as I stumbled upon their dead bodies. I sank to my knees and sobbed uncontrollably, begging their forgiveness for bringing them to this accursed place. I looked up at the sky and raged at the gods.
‘Why them, why them? Take me. I spit on you all, Take me!’
The immortals must have been very riled because seconds after I had issued the challenge I heard a loud blast of trumpets and turned my gaze away from the vivid blue of the sky to look in the direction of the fanfare. To see a long line of camel cataphracts, and behind them the camel archers also reforming. There must have been at least two hundred of the former, every kontus held vertically as they walked their camels forward. They were unconcerned with me but were preparing to sweep into Ctesiphon and take the symbolic capital of the Parthian Empire for Tiridates.
I got to my feet, drew my sword and gripped it with both hands, holding it aloft.
‘Come on, you bastards, I am Pacorus of Dura and I piss on you all.’
I was just one man standing alone among the slain and they could have shot me down with ease. But instead they ignored me, the line of cataphracts still moving towards me slowly, behind the camel archers, the great prize within their grasp. They would simply ride me down or skewer me with a kontus but I was unconcerned. This was as good a place to die as any.
The camels were moving slowly, purposefully, now a mere two hundred paces away, so it was not them that made the ground tremble and fill the air with an ominous rumble. The sound came from the left and I instinctively turned my head to discover the cause. To see a wall of steel and horseflesh charge out of the dust cloud.
At the head of the cataphracts was a man with white feathers in his helmet, his kontus gripped with both hands on his right side. He was at the tip of the great wedge that covered the ground between it and the flank of the camel cataphracts in no time at all, the enemy having no time to wheel right to defend themselves. I had a close-up view to see the damage a well-timed cataphract charge could do and its effects were truly horrific. Prince Pacorus rammed his kontus into the side of a camel, the momentum of his charge and the weight of horse and rider combining to drive the steel point through the beast’s scale armour with ease. He released the kontus as the camel, terrified and in pain, bellowed in alarm and crashed sideways into the camel behind, knocking it to the ground. Then my namesake disappeared as the other Hatran cataphracts smashed into the foe, the wedge flattening as it gouged its way into the enemy riders.
Camel cataphracts and camel archers were knocked to the ground as the first rank of the wedge skewered beasts with their long lances, causing panic and confusion among the enemy. I saw snow leopard banners – the symbol of Anauon – disappear as chaos reigned within the ranks of King Cinius’ troops. Then the Hatrans went to work with their maces and axes, hacking left and right to inflict terrible wounds on camels and their riders. Panic aided Prince Pacorus because although his men were outnumbered, the shock of their unexpected appearance shattered the cohesion of the enemy. Many camel archers, instead of trying to flee, attempted to fight back against the Hatrans, their
bows useless in a close-quarter mêlée but the axes and maces of the cataphracts devastating against archers wearing no armour or helmets and riding camels similarly defenceless.
I was a lone bystander to the drama and seemingly ignored, but one of the officers of Hatra’s Royal Bodyguard must have spotted the goose feathers in my helmet’s crest, or perhaps my black Roman armour cuirass, because Gafarn’s son, himself sweating, his weapons covered in blood, rode over to me as his company commanders were organising a very professional withdrawal.
‘Uncle? How is it you are here, alone and undefended?’
‘Foolishness.’
I pointed to the bodies of Nergal and Praxima.
‘We must get them into Seleucia.’
He was shocked but there was no time to go into details. So instead he ordered the bodies of my friends to be unceremoniously tossed over the hindquarters of two horses, while he hauled me up to ride behind him.
Hatra’s Royal Bodyguard did not tarry on the ground of victory, instead cantering back down the road that was remarkably free of dead or dying.
‘We must have kept them away from the road,’ I shouted.
‘The enemy’s objective was always Ctesiphon, uncle,’ he replied, ‘otherwise this road would be barred to us by now.’
At the bridge Sporaces had organised a cordon of horse archers in a wide arc a hundred paces from the river. He was standing with Azad at the eastern end of the bridge, Prince Pacorus raising his hand in acknowledgement as he drew up his horse and I slid off its scale armour suit. Hatra’s Royal Bodyguard trotted across the structure into Seleucia.