The Legion

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The small column of horsemen had only travelled half a mile or so across cultivated fields before they abruptly gave out on to a sandy wasteland where the peasants' irrigation system stopped. There was no cover here and Ajax reined in as he examined the open ground stretching out before him. To his right the sandstone cliffs and mountains rose up into a barrier that stretched out into the desert in one direction and bordered a stretch of the Nile in the other. The highest rocks were already aglow as they caught the first rays of the rising sun and a thin light spread across the landscape still embraced by the shadows of the failing night.

Ajax clicked his tongue and beckoned his men to follow him as his horse walked out into the desert. At once he felt exposed. There was no place to hide out here and it was vital that they made best use of what little darkness was left. He increased the horse's pace into a gentle canter and his men followed suit, kicking up a small cloud of dust as they headed out across the sand.

'I don't like this, General,' said Karim as he glanced towards the mass of the temple rising up above the grey smears of fields and the spectral forms of clumps of palm trees. 'They must surely see us at any moment.'

'And if they do, they'll assume that we are one of their cavalry patrols.'

'What if they don't?'

Ajax shrugged. 'Then we'll see just how good these horses are.'

The light strengthened and spread its warm loom across the arid wilderness. To their left a Roman trumpet sounded and there was a brief delay before a distant series of cracks announced the opening of the second assault on the temple. Ajax felt a heavy sense of guilt that he had left Hepithus and the rest of his men behind to defend the temple, even though their sacrifice would buy him time to continue the struggle against Rome. With luck, they would sell their lives dearly. He would avenge them in time.

Karim pulled in his reins and pointed ahead. A quarter of a mile away, three mounted men appeared from behind a low dune, heading straight for Ajax and his column. 'What do we do?'

'Nothing,' Ajax replied calmly. 'There's every chance they will take us for their own.'

Karim glanced at the black robes of the eight Arabs who were riding with them. 'Only at a distance.'

Ajax gently steered his horse to one side so that they would not pass close by, but soon saw that the enemy horsemen were making directly for them. 'Shit.'

'We have to do something,' Karim urged. 'We have to stop them raising the alarm.'

Ajax thought quickly and turned to issue his orders. 'Have the Arabs make their bows ready. If we get the chance we'll take them down before they can react.'

Karim nodded and reined his horse in, falling back alongside the Arabs to convey the command to their officer.

As the two parties closed on each other, Ajax tried to calculate their chances of escaping. There was still at least a mile to go before the cliffs opened out on to the desert. If the Romans reacted swiftly enough they could cut him off from the upper Nile. The three horsemen approached without any sign of wariness. Their leader raised his hand in greeting when he was no more than fifty paces away in the half light, and then harshly reined his horse in and called out.

'Who are you?'

'Auxiliary horse!' Ajax called back, nudging his mount to continue advancing. He could sense the Roman's hesitation and the hurried exchange with the other two men. Any moment they would guess the truth.

'Karim!' Ajax shouted. 'Now!'

A word of command was barked and a faint hiss cut through the air as the arrows shot towards the three Romans in a shallow arc. The leader was struck in the chest, and his horse took an arrow in the neck, causing it to rear up and throw its rider. Another arrow struck one of the riders in the thigh and the other shafts went wide. The third Roman turned and instantly kicked his heels in, galloping towards the temple a few hundred paces away. His surviving comrade struggled to pull out the arrow, giving the archers time to string a second volley. This time he was struck in the chest and face and toppled from his saddle into the sand, sending up a small cloud of dust.

'Get that one!' Karim bellowed, pointing to the man leaning low over the neck of his mount as it galloped to safety. More arrows flew after him but the target was moving swiftly and the range lengthening. Karim drew his sword and spurred his horse forward to give chase.

'Leave him!' Ajax ordered. 'It's too late for that. We must ride!'

Reluctantly sheathing his sword, Karim ordered the archers to cease shooting and then the column broke into a gallop, making for the gap between the mountains and the farmland. As they rode, Ajax cast frequent glances towards the temple and saw that the enemy horseman had reached an outpost. He gesticulated anxiously as he made his report. The shrill note of a horn carried on the cool morning air, and then another. There was still a quarter of a mile to go before the desert opened out when Karim called to him and pointed towards the Nile. Two squadrons of enemy cavalry were racing out from the Roman lines, one heading towards Ajax and his men while the other angled out across the strip of desert, aiming to cut them off.

It took Ajax only an instant to see that they would not reach the gap in time and he raised his arm to halt his men. They stopped their beasts in a swirl of dust. Ajax glanced round. There was only one direction left to them now: north.

'Follow me!' He pulled savagely on the reins and wheeled his mount round before spurring it away from the trap being set for them by the two Roman squadrons. The rest of the gladiators and Arabs turned and raced after him, thundering across the sand, the sunlit cliffs to their left and the orange haze to their right, through which peered the gleaming gold curve of the sun, low on the horizon. Ajax leaned forward, feeling the mane of the horse whip his chin as it galloped, head extended. He felt a bitterness poison his heart at the prospect of being chased down and forced to fight or surrender. His Roman enemies would be sure to relate how he had abandoned his men and run for his life. The only way to avoid such an outcome was to escape and fight on. That was all that mattered now.

The second Roman squadron abandoned the bid to cut them off and turned to join the chase; sixty men against Ajax's twenty. There was no question of turning to fight, he realised. That would doom them to certain defeat. As they pounded along the arid ground beside the cliffs, Ajax saw a defile winding up into the hills to his left. If it led to the top of the rocky plateau, there was still a chance of cutting round the Romans and rejoining Prince Talmis. If not, then at least it would give him and his men a chance to fight on a narrow front and face their pursuers on more even terms.

He indicated the head of the defile and yelled to Karim, 'Over there!'

The party of horsemen headed towards the rising ground. A dusty track lay ahead and Ajax took this as a good sign. All tracks led somewhere and there was a good chance that there was a route out of the defile. Looking back over his shoulder he saw that the closer of the two enemy squadrons was no more than a third of a mile behind them, closer than it had been a moment earlier, he calculated grimly. The track wound up into the rocky ground and the sounds of hoofbeats echoed off the parched stone. Soon the bends in the route hid their pursuers from view and Ajax wondered if there might be a chance to branch off the track and lose them. However, there proved to be little opportunity for such a ruse as the only paths leading away were too narrow and steep for the horses.

Then, just over a mile into what had become a gorge, the track widened out into an open space, surrounded by towering cliffs and jumbles of boulders. Here and there Ajax could see small openings in the rock, like caves. The track seemed to end abruptly at the foot of a tall cliff. There was no sign of life. Nothing moved about them and a profound sense of stillness and foreboding seemed to fill the hot air trapped in the large natural arena.

'What is this place?' asked Karim. 'Those caves, they're not natural. Someone has cut them out of the rock. Look there.'

He pointed towards a larger entrance, half hidden behind a giant boulder. The shaded interior was framed by square-cut masonry, which was covered with small carved symbols, like the ones Ajax had seen cut into the temple. He edged his horse closer and peered into the tunnel. The walls had been painted and they stretched off into the shadows, out of sight. Before he could examine the cave any further, one of his men called out and pointed back down the track. Ajax and his party strained their ears and then they heard it, the clattering echo of hoofbeats.

'Karim! Take the archers and get up on that cliff!' He indicated a jumble of rocks that formed the last bend in the track. 'Wait until they draw level with you before you shoot.'

Karim nodded and hurriedly dismounted to take command of the Arabs. Ajax faced the rest of his men, all that remained of his followers from Crete. 'The track just beyond the cliff is narrow. We can hold it well enough. Every one of us is worth three good Romans any day, and it seems there are plenty of tombs to go round.' He gestured at the openings in the surrounding rocks and his comrades laughed. 'Let's make sure we fill 'em up with dead Romans.'

Ajax took up position in the middle of the track and his men formed up on either side in a close line of men and horses. They drew their swords and raised the shields they had taken from the men they had killed earlier. The sound of hoofbeats echoed off the jagged and tumbling faces of the rocks in a disorientating clatter and then Karim's voice added to the rising din.

'Here they come! Make ready!'

Ajax tightened the grip on his sword and clenched his thighs against the flanks of his mount. Then the first of the Romans appeared around the base of the cliff, the decurion commanding the squadron and the signifer. As soon as he caught sight of the waiting horsemen, less than a hundred paces away, he threw up his arm and reined in. The rest of the squadron drew up and then the decurion walked them forward as he shouted his commands for his men to make ready to charge. They readied their lances and hefted their shields up from their saddle horns, slipping their hands into the straps before taking the reins back into their left hands. Meanwhile, Ajax was watching Karim and his small party of archers as they notched their first arrows, extended their bow arms and then drew back the arrows, took aim and waited for the order to shoot. Karim was staring down from the cliff intently, marking the approach of the enemy, and as they drew abreast of his position he raised his arm, held it there for a moment, and then swept it down.

'Loose arrows!'

A handful of the Romans looked up and round at the sound of his voice, then the arrows struck home amid their ranks, plunging into horseflesh, glancing off shields and armour with loud raps, with one thudding home into the signifier's thigh, pinning it to his saddle. The Arabs immediately fitted more arrows to unleash on the Romans and the walls of rock echoed with the shrill whinnies of terrified horses, the cries of their riders and the impact of arrows. Ajax watched as several of the Romans writhed on the ground and the rest milled in confusion, trying to shelter themselves and their mounts from the arrows. It was time to strike, he decided, taking a deep breath.

'Forwards!' He nudged his horse in the flanks and it obediently advanced. The other men rippled into motion on either side, and then Ajax increased the pace to a trot. There was no point in charging the Romans. He wanted his men to arrive in one wave, to maximise their effect. The arrows continued to plunge down, creating more havoc in the enemy ranks, and for a moment Ajax feared that the Arabs might become too carried away with the effect of their handiwork and keeping shooting even as he and his comrades entered the fray. However, at the last moment, Karim shouted to his men and they obediently lowered their bows.

The mounted gladiators swept into the disordered Romans, getting up close where their shields could be used to strike their opponents and their swords would be more effective than the unwieldy lances. Ajax slashed at the shoulder of the first man who stood in his path. The edge of the blade failed to cut through his chain mail, but the force of the impact still broke bones beneath and the horseman cried out as he swayed in his saddle. Ajax urged his mount on, striking at the man's neck with a backhanded blow. He did not have time to swing with any force but the blade still found a way under his guard and cut through skin and the spine. As the rider slumped forward, Ajax recovered his sword and steered his mount towards the decurion who sat in his saddle, close to the wounded signifer, protecting the standard. The air about Ajax was filled with dust and the clash and thud as men cursed each other or cried out in pain. A quick glance was enough to tell him that his men were having the better of the fight. Only one of the gladiators had been injured, run through his side with a lance, but it only seemed to have enraged him as he hacked and slashed at the Romans around him with savage fury.

A flicker of light and shadow alerted Ajax to the danger from his side and he threw up his shield in time to block the head of a lance as a Roman made an overhead thrust. The point flicked up, just missing the top of his head. At the same time Ajax swivelled in his saddle and swung his sword in a wide arc with ferocious force. The blade cut right through the Roman's wrist and the lance clattered to the ground, the severed hand flopping into the dust alongside.

'Fall back!' the decurion shouted. 'Back!'

One by one the Romans who were not engaged turned their mounts and galloped down the defile. The rest did their best to free themselves and flee. The decurion thrust the signifer away and stood his ground to cover the retreat of his men. It was a brave gesture, Ajax conceded, but a costly one. Two of the gladiators came up on either side of his horse. The decurion blocked the first attack with his shield and then hurriedly parried a thrust from the other side. As he turned back in his saddle to face the first threat, the gladiator raised his sword high and level and plunged it into the decurion's face. Blood spurted from inside the helmet and the officer flung both arms out before his torso flopped back against the saddle horns.

Karim's archers shot several more arrows at the fleeing Romans, until they had passed out of sight around the next bend in the gorge. Ajax breathed hard as he looked round. Half the squadron had been killed or wounded, mostly by arrows. One of the gladiators lay dead amongst them, the end of a broken lance piercing his chest. Two men had been wounded, the first had been run through. The battle rage was slowly draining from the man's face and now he looked down and saw the ragged tear in his leather cuirass and the blood spreading quickly through the folds of the tunic beneath. It was clear to Ajax that the wound was fatal as soon as he saw it. The other casualty had been injured in the leg, a long gash in the back of his thigh that had ripped apart his hamstrings, crippling him.

'Help them down,' Ajax ordered the nearest of his men. 'Get them to some shade, inside the entrance to the tomb there. The rest of you, finish off their wounded.'

Karim came slithering down the steep slope beside the cliff and dropped amid a fall of shingle on to the floor of the gorge. He smiled brilliantly at Ajax. 'That put paid to their pursuit!'

'For now.' Ajax sheathed his sword and lowered the strap of the shield on to his saddle horn before dismounting. 'The survivors won't be charging up here blindly again. We can be sure of that. No, they'll keep watch on us while they send for reinforcements.'

'Then we'd better find a way out of here.'

Ajax gestured towards the rocks towering on all sides. 'Be my guest. The only way out is a steep climb on foot. We'd have to abandon the horses. Without them we have no hope of escape.' He looked round at the openings in the rocks and smiled grimly. 'If we die here, then we die in the company of kings, my friend. Think on that.'

Karim pursed his lips. 'That is a slender source of comfort, General. Frankly, I'd rather die somewhere a little less barren. If I have to die at all.'

Ajax ignored him. He glanced at the entrances to the tombs. 'When they come for us, we can still give them a good fight. Come, let's have a closer look.'

He strode towards the mouth of the tomb he had seen earlier, and after a brief hesitation Karim followed him, not relishing the dark depths that stretched back into the cliffs. It seemed an ill omen to be trapped amid a valley of the dead.