Land of the Sacred Fire

Chapter 21

The five lay flat in their saddles, galloping in silence across the brushland of the Persis Satrapy. After Carbo’s last act had given them precious moments to escape the arena, they had slipped into the panicked crowds thronging the city streets. They had acquired these mounts from a stable at the acropolis foot, unguarded by anyone bar a deaf and dithering old stable hand with a face like a well-dried prune. He had insisted on giving them several water skins and a sack of food too, seemingly thinking they were Persian scouts. More, he had been intent on leading them to the western gates, all the while muttering about his wife’s mother. They had ridden through the streets with their heads down, and it was like swimming upriver at times, with endless waves of people rushing in the opposite direction, carrying vessels of water from the cistern. But, to their relief, the gates were open to allow streams of people to bring water in from the riverbank. The two guards on the gatehouse did seem to overly scrutinise them, but offered no challenge. At the last, the good-hearted, prune-faced old man had left them outside the gates and wandered back inside.

Pavo hoped the old man would not be punished for his part in helping them escape. A good man who was merely doing his job. A thought had crossed his mind at that moment; for every dark-hearted cur they had encountered in Persian lands, there had been just as many good souls. He thought of Khaled, of Zubin.

They rode hard for a good two hours, staying close to the Shapur River gorge. Apart from this jagged fissure, the dusty plain ahead was featureless, dry, and utterly flat. The faint band of blue that heralded the Persian Gulf seemed to forever slip further away. Worse, the outline of Bishapur still loomed behind them, magnified by the smudges of dark smoke that coiled from it and reached up into the dusk sky like claws.

As tiredness set in, Pavo found his thoughts jumbled and jabbering. His heart ached with every beat as he thought of Father. This was tempered only by the occasional glow of pride as he recalled Father striking the life from Ramak. He ran a hand over his dirt and blood-encrusted beard, then took to smoothing at the worn leather bracelet Father had tied around his wrist. They were free. But Father was gone. Now there was no more guessing, no more doubt. He twisted to look back over his shoulder and wondered at all that burned in that city; Father, the tortured remains of Emperor Valerian, the vile creature, Ramak and, down on the arena floor, Felix. The little Greek had been at the heart of the XI Claudia since the day he had enlisted. Ever since that day, many such men had died, and now so few remained. Habitus, Noster, Sextus and Rufus, just a few of the many that had been lost along the way in this mission. Then there was Carbo. A man who had betrayed his comrades in exchange for freedom, then found that he could not live with his deeds, marching back to the scene of his shame to die. His emotions were tangled over the centurion. On one hand, he had betrayed Father. On the other hand, if Father had been so underhand to secure his own freedom, would Pavo have shunned him for it?

A wheezing from his bay mare snapped him from his thoughts. She was sweating and frothing at the mouth. He stroked her mane as they rode, pouring some water over her neck. ‘Easy, girl,’ he whispered, lying flatter in the saddle.

The others and their mounts were in a similar shape. At last, with darkness almost conquering the last of the navy blue sky in the west, Gallus called out; ‘Enough. If we ride on then our mounts will be crippled.’

They crossed the river at a shallow section then tethered their horses on the banks of the far side where dry grass provided plenty of fodder. Pavo gathered kindling and soon they had a fire crackling in a small, rocky nook by the riverside. The babbling torrents of the river, the singing cicada song and the distant howling of some desert dog was all there was to be heard. Wordlessly, they sat in the shingle around the flames, sharing out the contents of the food sack. There were three flatbreads, a clay pot of yoghurt, a cut of salted goat mutton, a parcel of dates and a small container of honey.

Pavo chewed ravenously on the meat, and it seemed to reinvigorate his limbs. The dates, yoghurt and quickly toasted bread filled his belly and made him drowsy. They washed this down with fresh river water, and let the fire die to mere embers. Each of them looked to one another with weary gazes. Gallus had the look of a hunting wolf, his usually tidy, greying peak of hair tousled and matted, his jaw lined with thick, dark stubble, his limbs taut and bulging from his months of training in the Persian gymnasium. Zosimus and Quadratus, the two titans of the XI Claudia, were equally haggard. Quadratus’ blonde beard and moustache were flowing and tangled like his hair — giving him the look more apt for his Gaulish ancestors than a hardy Roman. Zosimus’ usually perma-stubbled anvil jaw and scalp were likewise sprawling with thick, dark-brown hair like some kind of unkempt street-sweeping brush, and he seemed to have aged in these last months — his broken nose more severe and his foul glare just a fraction fouler. Sura too looked ragged — his unkempt blonde mop and beard framing his sunken cheekbone. But the eyes were the key, Pavo thought, looking round each of them once more. Each pair of eyes told the story of these last few months. The march, the treachery, the ambushes, the sandstorms, the mines, the arena, the palace. One question hung on everyone’s lips. Pavo was the first to air it.

‘What now?’ he said, stoking the embers with a twig.

‘When we reach the Gulf, perhaps we might buy a berth on a merchant cog,’ Gallus suggested, avoiding the issues of their lack of coin and the certainty that there would be a massive price on their heads.

‘Aye, well we certainly aren’t walking back,’ Quadratus said with a wry smirk.

At this, Zosimus, Sura and Pavo erupted in a chorus of dry laughter, Gallus going as far as cocking a languid eyebrow.

When the laughter faded, Sura held up his water skin. ‘If. . when we make it back, then we’ll drain the taverns of ale for Felix.’ For once, he said this with no mischief and not a trace of his trademark grin. Pavo raised his water skin along with the others.

After a short silence, Gallus turned to Pavo. ‘You still have the scroll?’

Pavo nodded, pulling it from his belt and handing it to him.

Gallus unfurled it and read, his eyes sparkling at first, then dulling as he came to the clause that rendered it useless. ‘So Jovian chose to protect the empire only while he held the throne.’

‘Saved his own skin and to Hades with the future of the empire?’ Quadratus scowled.

Zosimus shrugged. ‘Aye, but then he saved the lives of his army on that day too. Had he not put his seal to that scroll, they might all have been slain. . or worse,’ he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the Dalaki salt mines.

‘Who knows what Jovian was thinking,’ Gallus surmised. ‘Reading the minds of the living is difficult and dangerous enough. Reading the minds of the dead. . ’ his words tapered off into a mirthless chuckle as he tucked the scroll inside his robe.

‘Has it all been for nothing?’ Zosimus shrugged, staring into the fire.

Pavo felt as if the big Thracian had reached into his heart and pulled the words from there.

‘We’ve lost a lot in getting this far,’ Gallus nodded. ‘We have little to show for it. But we tried,’ he clenched a fist and glanced at the darkness and the veil of stars that cloaked the sky. ‘By Mithras, we tried. That must mean something.’

Pavo saw a glassiness welling in Gallus’ eyes as he searched the ether for an answer, the idol of Mithras clutched in the tribunus’ right hand.

As if aware he was being watched, Gallus tossed a sinew of goat meat into the embers of the fire, then stood, his eyes at once turning icy cold and his lips growing taut. ‘All that remains is for us to ensure that word gets back to the empire. Emperor Valens must be informed of Tamur’s intent. We sleep here and then we rise before dawn. We’ve ridden a good ten miles today so the Gulf coast is roughly another twenty miles away. I reckon we could reach the shores by mid-morning.’

‘After that?’ Quadratus asked, stretching and cricking his neck to either side.

Gallus turned and strode away from the fire, casting back over his shoulder; ‘After that, we pray that the gods will spirit us home.’

Pavo woke refreshed from a deep and dreamless sleep. It was still dark, but he could see the blackness of the eastern horizon was tinged with a shade of dark-blue. He sat up and scratched at his scalp. The nightmares of Father had not come to him, and he felt an odd sadness at their absence. He thought again of Father’s last half-sentence.

Before I met your mother, I. .

He smoothed at the leather bracelet again and cocked a half-smile. ‘I can only imagine, Father.’

At that moment, a flock of nightjars swooped overhead, emitting a gentle, soothing trill. At the same time, the dark-blue in the east split with a sliver of orange-pink dawn light. His heart warmed at the sight, and he recalled the embrace he had shared with Father.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he stood and stretched. Oddly, while Quadratus, Zosimus and Sura lay near him, Gallus was nowhere to be seen. He stripped off his filthy robe to wade into the shallows of the river, bracing at the chill. A glance all around the flatland offered no sign of threat. Perhaps the situation at Bishapur had spiralled out of control after they had left. Perhaps there would be nobody out looking for them. This glow of optimism lifted his heart further. He plunged under the waters and ran his fingers through his locks, rising and feeling human once more. He blinked the water from his eyes, wiped droplets from his lips and saw the other three stirring. Quadratus was last to rise, sitting bolt upright, lifting one leg and emitting a high-pitched and tortured chorus of farts, grinning as he saw Zosimus’ and Sura’s faces wrinkle in disgust. Pavo waded from the river, towelling himself with his ragged robe, patting his face dry. Then he stopped, blinking.

Something was moving on the eastern horizon.

No. . the entire eastern horizon was moving. Even closer were a pair of riders. Persian scouts. They circled on their mounts, pointing at Pavo, then wheeled around and melted back into the crawling horizon.

‘Sir,’ Pavo spoke hoarsely, then cleared his throat. ‘Sir!’ he cried this time, head snapping this way and that to locate Gallus.

A crunching of rocks sounded from further up the riverbank, and Gallus appeared over the top of one tall, jutting rock, before sliding down its face. The look on the tribunus’ face told him two things: he had not slept at all and he had seen exactly what was coming for them.

‘On your horses — move!’ Gallus cried.

Tamur lofted the golden lion standard in the air, the veins in his arms bulging at the weight. ‘Onwards, to crush the lie!’ he bellowed. The reply came like a guttural roar of giants as more than ten thousand warriors echoed their spahbad’s rallying call. The Savaran riders swept across the land like a plague of locusts, kicking up a wall of dust in their wake. On the river adjacent to their route, sturdy rafts carried the Median spearmen and some two thousand wretched, chained paighan downriver with them.

At the mouth of the Gulf, the fleet of the Persis Satrapy would be waiting to take Tamur and his army across the Persian Gulf. Upriver, they could then strike out across the desert and fall upon Roman Syria like a plague. Perhaps then the blackened ruin of his palace would seem insignificant. He shuddered with rage as he remembered the last thing he had seen before mounting to leave and lead the Savaran; his treasure vault, wrenched open and emptied by the people who were supposed to fear and respect him. The image brought flickering fire to his every thought. While his agents back in the city would deal with the perpetrators, he would have the pleasure of dealing with the five Romans who had started the blaze. They would suffer like dogs. They would plead for the relief of death.

‘Noble Spahbad Tamur,’ a voice spoke beside him.

He swung his scowl round to see his pushtigban-salar, the leader of his bodyguard.

The man lifted his gilt iron facemask to reveal narrow eyes and an eager grin. ‘The Romans have been sighted.’

‘As I knew they would,’ Tamur replied flatly.

‘We will be upon them within the hour. They are headed for the coast.’

‘Excellent,’ he purred. ‘This will serve as a fine exercise in battlefield formations. Have our ranks form an arc — we will herd these five towards the shores like cattle. And have the paighan on the rafts disembark nearer the coast then join our right flank.’

‘A fine plan, Noble Spahbad,’ the pushtigban-salar nodded as he backed away then kicked his mount into a trot to convey the order.

Tamur sneered at the sycophantic dog as he departed. The man’s family had long coveted the seat of the House of Aspaphet. When Tamur was a boy, he remembered the cur and his father’s frequent visits to the palace, their brazen attempts to dictate policy. Only Ramak’s presence by Tamur’s side had staved off their push for power. But Ramak was gone. Not for the first time since the archimagus’ death, Tamur felt an odd curdling of hubris and self-doubt. While he relished this new found autonomy, he also longed to have another to consult, another to prompt him. Sibilant voices whispered in his head and he snatched at each, wondering if they were his own thoughts or those of Ramak, nestled in his mind like some demon. He closed his eyes and grappled on his reins until his knuckles whitened and his hands shook. The voices fell silent, and he saw what he had to do.

The narrow-eyed pushtigban-salar would not return home from this campaign, he affirmed with a half-grin. The man’s death would be a fine treat. First though, the Roman dogs would serve as a pleasant appetiser. He squinted ahead, seeing the tiny dust plume of the five Roman riders fleeing in vain for the western horizon. When the plume disappeared over the distant grassy sandbanks, Tamur’s eyes narrowed. ‘There is nowhere left to run now, Roman dogs. . ’

The blood pounded in Pavo’s ears as his mare galloped over the grassy sandbanks and down onto the soft, white-sand shores of the Persian Gulf. Waves crashed rhythmically onto the shore, throwing up a wall of foaming white surf, and hazy turquoise waters stretched out beyond. Overhead, gulls and cormorants shrieked as they swooped and circled. The hot, early morning air was spiced with a salty tang. He slowed by the water’s edge, the others stopping beside him. Wordlessly, they gazed out across the waves. Then they glanced just a mile or so up the shoreline to the north, where the Euphrates estuary flowed into the Gulf. There, through the haze of heat and salt-spray, they saw a mass of ships bobbing on the waves, sails billowing. The Persian fleet, Pavo guessed. The Savaran were coming for them from the east, and this fleet would ensnare them from the north. He glanced to the south: only open, sandy flats for miles — nowhere to hide.

Zosimus said it first; ‘We’re trapped.’

‘No,’ Gallus said flatly as he heeled his mount into the shallows. His lips were cracked and his skin glistened with sweat and salt spray. He trotted back and forth through the waterline, nostrils flared, spatha drawn, his battered intercisa glinting in the sun, the plume and the ragged robe he wore fluttering in the sea breeze — like a battered remnant of Rome in this far-flung land. Finally, his gaze seemed to narrow upon the approaching fleet.

‘Sir, we can’t win this one,’ Quadratus said gravely.

‘The five of us? No, we can’t,’ Gallus cocked an eyebrow, heeling his mount round to face them. ‘But we’re not alone.’

‘Sir?’ Pavo said. Then, when Gallus pointed to the fleet, he understood.

The fleet was close enough now to discern. The ships were not Persian. Twelve triremes. Each of the white sails bore a silver Chi-Rho emblem. The decks were awash with armoured men and a figure on the foremost vessel carried a silver eagle banner.

The triremes crunched onto the shore, and a chorus of splashing and drumming boots followed. In moments, the shallows were thick with dark-blue shields emblazoned with silver Chi-Rhos, gleaming intercisa helms and spear tips. First one cohort, then another two. The XVI Flavia Firma — the rest of Carbo’s legion. Some fifteen hundred men. With them was a pack of some three hundred funditores — Armenian slingers dressed in tunics with small bull-hide shields strapped to their biceps and axes dangling from their belts. Like a wave of steel, they splashed forward from the shallows, then onto the sand, rushing to form up.

Gallus dismounted, slapping his exhausted mount on the flanks to send it cantering from the beach. Then he sought out the red-bearded officer to the right of the first cohort. ‘Tribunus Varius of the XVI Flavia Firma!’ the man saluted as he approached.

‘Tribunus Gallus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ Gallus barked in reply.

‘It is you,’ Varius’ face widened in disbelief and he clasped Gallus’ shoulders. ‘The last of the emperor’s vexillatio?’

Gallus frowned. ‘Aye,’ he replied guardedly. ‘What do you know of my men and I?’

Varius held his gaze with an earnest look. ‘A messenger came to Antioch, bringing news of your enslavement.’

‘A messenger?’ Gallus’ eyes narrowed.

Varius nodded. ‘A desert warrior. A Maratocupreni chieftain. A woman.’

‘Izodora?’ Pavo gasped from nearby.

‘Aye,’ Varius replied, ‘A beauty with a tongue like a whip! She spoke to Emperor Valens like a scolding mother. But he listened, he hung on her every word. He heard of your capture and his shoulders slumped, but then his eyes sparkled when he realised you had been taken alive to the Satrapy of Persis. After that he sent his advisors from the room and they talked alone. Afterwards, when she had gone, his eyes were red-rimmed and his face sullen. It was then that he came to me. I assumed it was to finalise my orders to take my men to Thracia with the last of the few legions stationed in Syria — even the barely-trained city garrisons are being loaded onto ships and sent west. But no, he told me that I was instead to take my legion east, to patrol these waters, to seek you out. He insisted that while there was hope that you and your men still lived, then there was hope for the empire’s eastern frontier. His advisors argued that it was folly not to send us to Thracia. But the emperor was adamant. Think of those who call this land home, he glared at them, those who cannot simply turn and flee to some country villa in Anatolia or Africa! Their protests soon fell silent,’ Varius grinned dryly, then his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper; ‘Tell me you found Jovian’s scroll, Tribunus.’

‘Aye, we have it,’ Gallus cocked an eyebrow, patting the flank of his robe, ‘but it won’t save the empire.’

Varius’ frowned as if to reply, then his face paled and his jaw dropped, his eyes widening as he looked over Gallus’ shoulder to the top of the beach.

Gallus twisted to look up to the grassy dunes. A thick dust plume billowed just beyond. Moments later, myriad vivid drafsh banners bobbed into view, as if rising from the dunes. Then the silvery mass of the Savaran came into full view; a vast and deep line of near ten thousand Persian riders. Their centre was a thick line of steel cataphractii, encased in scale aprons and crowned with pointed helms, balled-plumes whipping in the coastal breeze. The plate-armoured, masked clibanarii lingered close behind and the flanks were composed of broad gunds of archer-cavalry. On the Persian right flank, a drafsh of one hundred Median spearmen led the wretched paighan mass — some two thousand men — into place, and a dozen war elephants lumbered up beside them.

Gallus grasped Varius by the shoulders. ‘The scroll will not save the empire and it certainly won’t save us now. Hurry, we must put to sea at once,’ he said, gesturing towards the nearest trireme.

But Varius shook his head. ‘We cannot, Tribunus.’ He stabbed a finger towards the mouth of the Euphrates. There, another fleet had drifted into view. Hundreds upon hundreds of galleys. This time, the fleet was unmistakably Persian. Myriad purple, green and red sails adorned with gold-threaded winged Faravahar motifs, spilling from the mouth of the river and down the Gulf coast, only a few miles away.

‘Tamur’s fleet!’ Gallus gasped in horror.

‘We were ready to end our mission,’ Varius continued, struggling to control the panic in his voice, ‘to return to Emperor Valens and tell him you were lost. After so many weeks of searching, what else were we to do?’ he shrugged. ‘But as we rowed back upriver, we sighted this Persian fleet coming downstream. Our only option was to turn and flee. It has taken all of our strength just to outrun them. But now our advantage is gone; if we put to sea they will surround and crush us.’

‘And if we stay here then we will also be crushed,’ Gallus glared at the Savaran — they had halted momentarily atop the dunes. ‘We should form a defensive line along the shore, then your ships and the waters will protect our rear.’

‘But we cannot hope to win?’ Varius said, wide-eyed as he glanced over the Romans — some eighteen hundred men — and then the ten thousand strong Savaran.

Gallus gazed at him, unflinching. ‘No, but we can die as heroes, and take swathes of these whoresons with us.’

Tamur crested the grassy dune and then halted, his gleeful grin transforming into a grimace as he beheld the Roman ships and the nest of shields and spears on the waterline. Five men had become nearly two thousand. He snatched at his reins and halted his army with a raised hand.

‘What is this?’ he snarled.

The narrow-eyed pushtigban-salar scanned the Roman lines. ‘A Roman legion. A single eagle. Not enough to repel your army, Spahbad.’ Then he pointed to the Persian fleet at the Euphrates estuary. ‘And your ships will be at the shores within a short while.’

Tamur noticed the man’s eyes narrow a fraction more as he said this. He frowned, hearing distrustful whispers dance in his mind. But he shook his head clear of the thoughts and scanned the Romans who faced his vast army. ‘So we must stamp upon this cluster of legionaries before we continue to Syria? So be it.’

Then he turned to his lead war drummer, beckoning him. The drummer jogged forward, licking his lips in anticipation of battle. He was a wild-eyed, hairless man dressed in only a loincloth. His head and body were painted in gold, his eyes were ringed with kohl and huge, bronze hoops dangled from his stretched earlobes.

Tamur pointed to the Roman lines. ‘Begin.’

The drummer grinned and nodded eagerly.

The legionary line hugged the shore, a wall of shields facing inland with the Flavia Firma triremes lining their rear. The surf crashed down behind Pavo, soaking him in salt spray and washing chill waves around his ankles as he hurriedly strapped a sword belt around the waist of his scale armour vest. Tribunus Varius’ men had swiftly brought them this armour along with helms, shields, spears and swords. Now he, Gallus, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura pressed together near the left flank of the Flavia Firma line, with the Armenian slingers knee deep in water behind them. All eyes were fixed upon the eerily still and silent Savaran line thronging the grassy dunes at the top of the beach. Only the occasional snorting of mounts and the steady crashing of waves sounded across the shore. Pavo glanced from Tamur at their centre to the war elephants on the Persian right; he saw the glinting tusks and the maddened eyes of the spiked-cane wielding mahouts saddled on the creatures’ necks. The sight brought a shiver across every inch of his skin. Indeed, since that day in the dunes, he had prayed he would never set eyes upon such beasts again. Hubris and terror battled in his gut. The soldier’s curse swelled his bladder and drained his mouth of moisture.

‘Why are we always on the bloody left?’ Sura cursed through chattering teeth, breaking the silence.

‘Because that’s where the limitanei fight,’ Quadratus grunted, buckling on his intercisa helm — too small for the big Gaul’s head and causing his face to redden more than usual.

‘Because that’s where the XI Claudia fight,’ Pavo added.

Zosimus and Quadratus offered narrowed eyes and wry grins at this.

Suddenly, from the Persian centre, war horns keened like angry raptors and war drums crashed and throbbed like a titan’s heartbeat. Pavo saw a shaven, gold-painted Persian drummer run ahead of the Savaran ranks to thunder on the drum skins, his stretched earlobes jangling with every strike, his eyes bulging and his teeth bared behind a zealous grin.

‘That little bastard’s getting it if I can get close enough,’ Quadratus growled, rubbing his temples. ‘My head’s killing me!’

As if in defiance, the drummer’s arms became a blur, the rhythm throbbing faster and faster. In the Persian centre, Tamur raised both arms, eyes trained on the Roman line, his teeth gnashing. ‘Advance!’ His cry echoed across the beach as he chopped both arms down like blades.

At once, the mass of riders let out a unified war cry, raising myriad spears and swords overhead. The golden lion banner was pumped in the air and hundreds of smaller drafshs were hefted likewise. The two gunds of cataphractii riders at the centre — some two thousand men — lowered in their saddles and broke forward at a gallop, down the dunes and across the beach, sand churning up in their wake. A gund of archer cavalry charged on either flank.

Varius cried out to rally his men, and the Flavia Firma braced.

Gallus turned to his four. ‘Think of all we have lost, think of all they have taken from us,’ he boomed.

Pavo’s comrades pressed their shoulders to his. He knew Father’s shade stood with them.

‘Show them your ire!’ Gallus lifted his spatha from his scabbard and gazed along the blade, the reflected sunlight dancing across his face and conjuring a grimace. ‘Show them with sharpened steel! XI Claudia, ready!’ he roared, smashing the hilt on his shield boss. ‘For the empire!’

‘For the empire!’ Pavo roared in reply with his comrades.

As the Roman cry faded, the Persian archer cavalry on the flanks stretched their bows skywards. Pavo’s gut knotted — seeing the strategy play out in his mind. This volley would scatter the Roman ranks, allowing the cataphractii to cut through the gaps. But he noticed something; the towering puffs of salt-spray were drifting across the shore, soaking the riders as they charged. Many of the archers fumbled, fingers slipping on their dampened weapons.

Thousands of bows twanged, but instead of an ordered storm of arrows arcing up and into the sky, chaos erupted and arrows shot off in every direction. A chorus of pained cries and thwacking of arrowheads into flesh sounded as some punched straight into the riders before them. Crimson puffs of blood leapt into the air, horses whinnied, rearing and bucking, some setting off on a panicked charge back through their own ranks, arrows bristling from their flanks. In disarray, the gunds of archer cavalry on either flank fell away. Only a fraction of their hail fell upon the Roman ranks, and merely a handful of legionaries were struck.

Sura exhaled in relief. ‘What in Hades?’

‘The bows are useless! The fletching and sinew are damp from the salt spray,’ a legionary nearby gasped.

Realisation dawned on Pavo as he recalled the pirate skirmish near Rhodos. His heart soared.

He glanced to the side to see Gallus whispering skywards. Thank you, Mithras.

The cataphractii continued at a full charge, unaware of the chaos on their flanks, fully expecting the arrow volley to scatter the tight Roman spear line before them.

Pavo grappled his spear shaft and looked the nearest rider square in the eye. His mouth was agape in a war cry, dark moustache splayed, the red wetness at the back of his throat and the whites of his eyes betraying his battle-rage. The mount gnashed, its hooves throwing up great clumps of sand and its wild eyes rolling behind the bronze mesh baskets that protected them. The rider grappled his lance two handed and the chain tying the ends of the spear to the mount’s coat of armour stretched taut.

‘Dig your spears in, stand firm. . ’ he heard Gallus bellow.

For even the bravest horse will never charge a nest of spears, Pavo mouthed the rest of the iron tribunus’ words.

At that instant, the cataphractii seemed to realise their archers had failed. The man directly in front of Pavo lost his expression of hubris, his jaw falling slack as he saw the wall of Roman spears unmoved. At the last, his mount skidded to a halt and he was catapulted through the air like slingshot, one leg snapping as it was wrenched through the curved horn front of his saddle. Pavo braced behind his spear as the man flailed towards him. With a weighty punch and a shower of hot blood across his face, his spear arm shuddered as the cataphractus landed upon the lance-tip. The man stared at Pavo in confusion as the death rattle tumbled from his lips and he slid from the spear. Nearly every horse on the cataphractii front had foundered likewise, the bodies of the riders cast to the ground or up in the air and onto the Roman spear tips. The second and third ranks of riders had charged into the rear of their stricken comrades, trampling them or tumbling themselves. Many of the riders that remained saddled and had made it to the Roman spear line were quickly hacked down by legionaries leaping forth, skewering man and mount. Within moments, the lapping waves underfoot were stained red and the screeching gulls were joined by a thick, dark pack of vultures, eyeing the reddening shoreline. The remaining Persian riders scattered and the legionaries fell back into line, panting. The first blood had been let and it had all come from this mighty Persian war machine.

By Pavo’s side, Sura grinned as he looked over the thrashing mass of riders. Those who had broken away reformed on the flanks, but of the four gunds in the first wave of attack, nearly half had been felled. ‘Invincible? Mithras’ arse they are!’ he cooed.

Pavo pushed closer to his friend. ‘Aye, but the clibanarii have yet to have their say.’ He pointed his gore-encrusted spear out to the next wave of riders, cantering down from the grassy dunes. Another two gunds, in plate-armour and iron facemasks etched with an inhuman rictus. Behind them on the dunes, he saw Tamur, snarling, barking at his men, enraged at their self-destruction so far.

‘Hold the line and they will not charge us — we know this!’ Gallus barked, Varius echoing the words. ‘Now, bows may be useless here, but our darts care little for a touch of spray in the air. Ready plumbatae!’ At once the Roman line became a foot taller, twelve hundred arms hefting weighted darts overhead.

The war drums picked up and the clibanarii built up to a canter.

Pavo trained his dart on the clibanarius coming for him. A few hundred feet became a hundred in moments. Then two of Tamur’s banners swung down in a chopping motion, one to either side. On the flanks, the remainder of the cataphractii had reformed. Now they hared round to splash into the shallows, then raced along the shoreline towards the Roman flanks.

‘Form square!’ Gallus cried, eyes bulging as he saw the manoeuvre.

The plumbatae were dropped, unloosed as the lines scrambled to protect the flanks and rear. But they were too slow. The cataphractii plunged into the barely protected Roman flanks. They barged through the unprepared lines, sending groups sprawling, trampling and cutting down men. In moments, the legionary line had disintegrated into pockets. Pavo stumbled forward, the blood of some comrade in the rear ranks showering his back. He righted himself and rushed over to Sura, Quadratus, Zosimus and Gallus. They quickly clustered together with a handful of Flavia Firma men, swiping their spears this way and that.

The clibanarii swooped on this disorder, their mounts racing into the gaps between the clusters of legionaries, lancing and swiping, felling men like wheat. The cries of dying legionaries grew deafening. Pavo leapt back as one clibanarius’ lance scored across his scale vest, tearing the scales from it and stinging the skin of his chest. He saw the rider thunder onwards to burst the chests of two less fortunate legionaries, the smattering of plumbatae and spears hurled at the rider bouncing from the man’s armour. Then the all-iron riders swept out of the fray, circling further up the beach, readying to swoop in again. There was no time for the Roman lines to reform, but if they remained in clusters like this, they would be cut down. Pavo’s eyes darted. Something nagged at the depths of his mind. Something Khaled had once told him.

The clibanarii are invincible? I thought so too, once. The finest blades — lances and swords — all will blunt on their plate-armour. Then I saw a shepherd’s boy fell one of them with his sling.

Pavo snatched a glance to the water; there, the slingers had fled out into the waves, standing waist deep now. He roared to Gallus. ‘Sir, the funditores — have them fire on the clibanarii, at close range!’ he called to Gallus. Gallus looked at him with a scowl, as if he had been torn from a nightmare. ‘It’s something I heard in the mines — it might work.’ The tribunus frowned, then cried over the melee to where Varius braced with a hundred or so of his men.

The Flavia Firma standards swiped through the air and orders were barked to the slingers. In moments, a burring of slings picked up. In way of reply, Tamur’s battle cry sailed over the beach and the war drums thrashed in a frenzy. The clibanarii swooped for the legionary clusters.

Pavo braced, fingers flexing on his spear. ‘Come on, come on!’ he cried, glancing to the slingers and then to the clibanarius lancer coming for him. But the rider’s spear was upon him. It was too late. He heard his own battle cry as though from a great distance as he swept his spear up to parry, but the tip of the clibanarius’ lance punctured the flesh of his shoulder and blood burst into the air. The rider then tore out his shamshir blade and hefted it to cut through Pavo’s neck.

‘Loose!’ the cry rang out at last from Varius. Three-hundred slings spat forth into the clibanarii front. A chorus of clattering iron filled the air as the shot thwacked into the plate-armour and facemasks. Muffled screams echoed from within. The rider hovering over Pavo seemed frozen, sword arm raised. A neat, dark hole in the forehead of his iron mask had appeared. Then a gout of black blood leapt from the hole, followed by more from the eye and mouth slits. The rider fell from the saddle with a crash of armour and the sound echoed along the clibanarii lines. The seemingly infallible plate-armour had been beaten, pierced by the shot or crumpling and crushing the bones of the riders within. The slings burred again and another volley sent hundreds more of the riders to the sand.

‘Slaughter those slingers!’ Tamur’s booming command sounded over the cacophony of battle. At once, the cataphractii gathered to charge back into the shallows, this time at the small pack of slingers.

‘Get them on the boats!’ Gallus cried out immediately. The funditores swiftly ceased their next volley and scrambled to the ropes dangling from the sides of the triremes. Many were too slow, cut down by the blades of the cataphractii. Fewer than half of the slingers made it up and onboard the vessels. The tide reddened with every heartbeat.

Meanwhile, the clibanarii had reformed and built up into a charge once more. A pack of twelve of them thundered for Pavo and the handful of legionaries clustered with him. This time, two lances were trained upon him. He hefted his shield at the last, and the impact swept his spear from his hands and nearly jolted his arm from its socket. He staggered back, struggling to stay on his feet, crimson water splashing around his shins and a tide of silver riders washing past him on either side. Nearby he saw legionaries disappear under hooves, bodies punched back on the end of Persian lances, heads struck from shoulders with Savaran blades until the sea was opaque with blood. Another charge swept past nearby and he heard Zosimus cry out in pain. When he twisted to see what had happened, another charge hit them from the side. A trailing hoof dashed against his helm and he fell from the cluster, blinded momentarily.

He shook the lights from his eyes and found himself prone on the sand, surrounded by the torn and broken bodies of Flavia Firma legionaries and Persian horsemen. A fervent war cry sounded from behind, and Pavo felt the sand shudder — hooves only feet away, coming for him. He scrambled round and to his feet to face the clibanarius racing for him, lance trained on his heart. Pavo yanked his shield round to deflect the blow, knowing only the iron shield boss would be able to absorb the momentum of the chained, two-handed spear. As soon as the lance tip skated off the boss, Pavo threw down his shield and grappled the chain, yanking it and pulling the lance from the rider’s grip. The clibanarius lost his balance and flailed to grapple the reins, but Pavo swung the stolen spear up to barge the man into the gory, churning sand and surf before despatching him with a sharp thrust to the throat. He leapt up onto the saddle but struggled to control the panicked mount. The stallion kicked, thrashed and bit at all nearby, Roman or Persian, one stray hoof dashing the helmet from an unsaddled Persian and the next smashing his skull and spraying his brains into the foaming waters.

Pavo steadied the mount just enough to take in what had happened. All around him was a maelstrom of swiping blades, thrusting spears, spraying blood and surf, whinnying horses and screaming men. The Savaran masses were swarming all around the beleaguered pockets of legionary resistance. The remaining slingers on the decks of the triremes did all they could to support their comrades, but it was too little. Legionary bodies littered the sand and bobbed in the surf. In the shallows, he saw Gallus’ plume whipping around in the fray, blood rising in gouts from all who took him on. He saw Tamur up on the marram grass dunes, mounted, safely withdrawn from the battle and watching on with a macabre grin — as if this was another bout of blood games. Moments, he realised, was all they had. And further up the coast, the Persian fleet was now drawing in to the shore, no doubt to land thousands of fresh riders and spearmen.

Pavo heeled the stallion around, ready to strike down another, ready to die, his dark locks plastered to his face with saltwater and blood. Then he glimpsed Sura in the fray, crimson-masked. His friend grimaced and hurled a plumbata. Pavo gawped as the dart soared straight for him. Sura was mouthing something. Down?

Pavo ducked at the last, the dart hissing over his helm and punching into something only inches behind. He twisted to see a cataphractus, sword raised and ready to cut down at him, the plumbata wedged in the rider’s cheek, dark blood pumping from the wound.

Sura barged through the melee, then shouldered the dead rider from the saddle and took his place. ‘Come with me!’ he beckoned hoarsely, then heeled his mount towards the fringes of the battle.

Pavo followed suit, kicking his mount then parrying and ducking as the battle thinned and the din fell away. ‘Sura?’ He cried out as they broke free.

Sura guided his mount to the south, then wheeled round up the beach, headed for the marram grass dunes behind those where Tamur, the pushtigban and the unused Savaran watched the battle. He flashed Pavo a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I have a plan. . ’

Crouching behind the grassy dunes, Pavo glanced up at the swishing tails of the twelve colossal war elephants. Terror swam in his guts. ‘Steal an elephant? That’s not a plan, Sura.’

‘We’re dead, all of us, unless we do something,’ Sura said, nodding to the bloodstained shoreline beyond the elephants where the Roman resistance was fading, fast.

‘If we take one step towards those things, they’ll spot us,’ Pavo hissed, pointing to Tamur and the cluster of pushtigban around him, then to the Persian archers perched in the howdah cabins atop the elephants’ backs. All had their backs turned, looking down upon the battle, but every so often one of the pushtigban would look over their shoulder, as if sensing something was wrong.

‘Then we find a distraction. How’s about those poor bastards?’ he pointed to the paighan, sitting or kneeling to the right of the war elephants, their shackled ankles raw and bloodied, their heads bowed. ‘If they’re given a chance of freedom, do you think they’d take it?’

Pavo looked to the haggard peasant-soldiers. There were some two thousand men there, chained and weary. Men drawn from their farms and families to fight to the death or act as human blockades against Persia’s enemies. He thought of poor Khaled, forced to fight like this. He glanced at the elephants once more, then heard the tortured scream as a legionary on the shore was ripped asunder by a pair of clibanarii lances. ‘Aye, but we must be swift.’

They flitted round behind the elephants and Tamur, ducking to stay concealed behind the grassy dunes until they came to the rear of the paighan mass. ‘We break the chains of the nearest, then we arm them,’ Pavo said, nodding to the nearby wagons loaded with spears. Two Median spearmen stood guard before these, backs turned on Pavo and Sura, both of them utterly transfixed on the battle. Sura nodded. They set down their shields and helms, carrying just their spathas and protected only by their scale vests. The pair stole round to the rear of the wagon, then crept around an edge each. Pavo lined up to grapple the Median nearest to him. He felt his heart thunder as if trying to give him away. At the last, he stepped on a piece of dry reed, which cracked. The Median swung round, but before he could bring his spear to bear, Pavo unleashed a fierce right hook. The man’s jaw cracked and Pavo had to stifle a cry as his knuckles did likewise. The Median crumpled. Alerted by the muted sound of scuffling, the second Median spun to gawp at Pavo in alarm, only for Sura to emerge behind him and smack the flat of his spatha over the man’s head. His eyes rolled and he too was grounded. Pavo and Sura grappled a handful of spears each, then crouched and flitted across the open ground to the rearmost paighan ranks.

The nearest of them turned and saw the pair approaching. A jabbering broke out and more heads turned. Pavo’s flesh crept as he saw Tamur and the pushtigban turn away from the battle to the disturbance. ‘Down!’ he hissed, pulling Sura to the sand.

‘Shut your mouths, dogs, or we will march you into the water to drown,’ a Median spearman near the front of the paighan mass shouted. In an instant, they fell silent. Pavo saw Tamur scowl at the chained men for a moment longer, then look back to the battle.

Nearest Pavo was a flat-nosed paighan wearing an off-white robe and a dark-brown felt cap. He gawped down at the prone Pavo. ‘Roman?’ he said in jagged Greek.

‘Aye, but not your enemy,’ Pavo replied in broken Parsi. ‘We come to free you.’ He held up his spatha and motioned towards the chains that bound him to the next malnourished wretch. The pair and those nearby looked to one another, doubtful.

‘And arm you,’ Sura added, lifting the pile of spears in his grasp.

At this, the flat-nosed man’s weary features bent into a smile. He held up his chains. Pavo lined up his spatha and hacked down. A thick iron clink accompanied it. Pavo ducked down and held his breath, waiting to see if the guards up front had heard. Nothing. Sura hacked at the chain on the other side of the man. Again, nothing. But the flat-nosed man, suddenly realising he was free, threw his arms in the air and made to cry out in joy. Pavo shot up a hand and clamped it over the man’s mouth.

‘Not a sound,’ he pressed a finger to his lips, ‘or we all die.’

The flat-nosed man nodded, then turned a disapproving look on his comrades, wagging a finger at them as if they were to blame. One by one, Pavo and Sura freed the paighan, handing them spears until thirty or more were crouched, ready to act.

‘Free the others,’ Pavo said, handing spears to those furthest forward. ‘Now, does anyone here know how to ride those beasts?’ he nodded towards the war elephants.

The flat-nosed man held his hands out wide with a grin, and a handful of others shuffled a little closer, nodding.

‘Come with us,’ Pavo beckoned them. They stole away from the rear of the paighan and back into the grassy dip in the dunes behind the elephants. Pavo eyed the nearest beast at the rear of the herd. An enormous bull. Its tusks were bronze-coated and serrated on the outside. A plate iron mask was fastened to its face. An iron scale apron, vast enough to cover a house, shrouded its body, masking many of the battle scars this animal had been subjected to. A mahout sat astride its neck holding a spiked cane ready, waiting on the order from Tamur to drive the creature into the battle. The crenelated howdah cabin on its back was packed with four archers, one at each edge, bows nocked and eager to enter the fray. A knotted rope dangled from one side of the cabin, the end swinging near the ground.

Sura stroked the matted tufts of his beard as if studying some legal scroll. ‘We climb up, we gut the bastards in the cabin, then we. . ’

Just then, a cry went up from the Median spearmen guarding the paighan and a raucous chorus of reply sounded from the freed men. Pavo looked over his shoulder to see the majority of the paighan rushing their captors, spearing with a vigour that told of their hatred. At this, Tamur spun to the disturbance, nostrils flaring in outrage.

‘Insolent dogs! At them!’ he cried, waving his pushtigban and the war elephants towards the rebelling paighan. The ground shuddered under the great beasts’ footsteps.

‘Bollocks! That makes it a bit harder,’ Sura spat as the nearest elephant thundered past at the back of the herd, the knotted rope jangling.

‘There’s no time. No other choice. Come on!’ Pavo wrenched Sura up from the grassy dip, waving the flat-nosed man and the others with him. The ground jostled before him as he ran, from his own stride and the mighty footsteps of the elephants. The rope danced violently as the elephants picked up pace. He reached out and snatched at it, the tether lifting him from the ground with a jolt. He shinned up the rope, his palms burning on the fibres. Halfway up, he looked down to see that Sura and the flat-nosed man had grappled the rope too. They were crying out to him, but a ferocious trumpeting from the beast drowned out their words. He glanced up to see the source of their alarm — an archer leaning over the side of the cabin, winking behind his nocked bow. He pressed flat against the elephant’s midriff, feeling a whoosh of air as the arrow zipped past him and punched into the sand. The archer fumbled to nock his next arrow and Pavo hauled himself up the last few feet. As the archer stretched his bowstring, ready to loose, Pavo clutched the edge of the cabin with one hand and reached up with the other to bat the bow out of line, the arrow falling from the string. The archer’s cry to his comrades perched at the other edges of the cabin never left his throat, as Pavo grasped at the man’s windpipe then hauled him over the edge of the cabin. A dull crack of bones sounded as he landed on the ground headfirst.

Pavo pulled himself into the cabin, immediately tearing his spatha from his scabbard. The other three archers were oblivious to the fate of their fourth colleague, too busy firing down upon the fleeing swarm of paighan. Pavo plunged his blade into the ribs of one and the other two spun at the guttural, gurgling roar the man emitted. The two gawped, then saw that Pavo wrenched desperately at his spatha blade, stuck fast in the dead archer’s ribs. The pair grinned, drawing long, curved blades from their belts. In the next heartbeat, Sura leapt into the cabin, bringing his spatha scything down on the nearest man’s forearm. With a crack of bone and a howl, the archer toppled to the floor of the howdah where Sura despatched him with a sharp downwards thrust to the heart. The flat-nosed paighan thumped into the cabin at this point, and the last Persian archer gawped at the three who glared back at him. Then he cast a quick glance over the edge and leapt with a shrill cry.

At this, the mahout sitting astride the elephant’s neck glanced over his shoulder, first with an irritated frown, then, on seeing the three unexpected faces there, with bulging eyes. He called out in alarm to the riders on the elephants ahead, but none heard — for the nearest three creatures were also now crawling with paighan, fighting desperately to seize control of the howdah cabins.

Pavo grappled the flat-nosed man by the shoulders. ‘We’ll deal with the mahout,’ he gestured to the man on the elephant’s neck, ‘but you must be ready to take the reins, yes?’

The flat-nosed man shrugged, smiled and nodded as if such an act was trivial.

Pavo nodded to Sura. ‘Ready?’

‘Never more so,’ Sura replied.

Pavo crept forwards, out of the cabin, Sura following close behind. The elephant’s shoulders rolled as it charged, and there was little to grip onto bar its furrowed flesh. He slipped and grasped out, inches from falling to the ground and under the beast’s stride.

‘I can’t get any purchase!’ Sura cried behind him.

The mahout, hoarse in his cries of alarm, twisted round again. This time his face drained of colour, seeing Pavo and Sura coming for him, albeit haphazardly. Immediately, he started thrashing at the top of the elephant’s skull with the iron hook-tipped cane. The beast trumpeted in fury, thrashing its head from side to side. Pavo felt the world shake as the beast thrashed, emitting a pained roar that seemed to shake him to his bones.

‘He’s trying to throw us off!’ Pavo cried, finding a modicum of purchase with one foot on the lip of the elephant’s iron plate mask.

‘Romans!’ A cry sounded from the cabin.

Pavo and Sura twisted.

‘Wait,’ the flat-nosed man said, ‘don’t move, just wait!’

Pavo frowned, then looked forward to see sweat leaping from the mahout as he lined up to thrash at the elephant’s skull once more. This blow gouged chunks of skin and bloodied flesh from the poor beast’s head, and this time it started to rear up. Pavo felt his grip weaken. His gut tightened as he readied to fall. The mahout twisted in his rope saddle, grinning. ‘Now, you will be cast to the ground!’ the man hissed.

The words had no sooner left his lips than the elephant stopped rising, sunk back down, reached up with its trunk, snatched the mahout from his saddle and hurled him groundwards like a rock. The creature then rushed forward to trample the mahout. A chorus of grinding, bursting and popping sounded, then the man was little more than a crimson patch of gristle in the creature’s wake.

Pavo panted, sharing a relieved glance with Sura. Shorn of its rider, the beast seemed to calm a little. The flat-nosed man scrambled past them, along the elephant’s neck to sit in the saddle. The beast tensed at first, but the man stroked around its wounds, speaking in soothing tones as he did so, then threw down the hooked stick as a gesture of goodwill. With a quick squeeze of his left thigh, he had the elephant turning at his behest. The three elephants ahead had been seized by the paighan likewise, while the Persian crew of the other beasts carried on ahead, fighting the paighan on the ground and unaware of the fate of these four colossal creatures.

The flat-nosed man looked back over his shoulder, his face still etched with that easy smile. ‘And now we go to battle, yes?’

Pavo inched back into the howdah cabin, finally pulling his spatha clear of the archer corpse. Sura stood beside him. The pair looked to the filthy crimson stain on the shoreline. Thousands of corpses, Persian and Roman, now floated in the sea or lay draped on the sand, a carpet of dead surrounding the ferocious battle on the waterline. But so very few intercisa helms still stood amidst the storm of Persian steel.

‘Aye, to war,’ Pavo cried, ‘and make haste!’

Gallus wondered if he had died back in Bishapur, if the constant battle and bloodshed since then was simply his place in Hades. Blinking barely cleared the hot blood from his eyes, and every breath brought with it a mouthful of crimson spray and that familiar metallic tang. He heard the rasping of his own breath, the hammering of his heart upon his ribs, and little else. The Persian warriors came at him like demons. Many of them had dismounted now to finish the last handfuls of Romans off. Pushtigban warriors had forced their way to the front, sensing imminent victory and eager for a share of the glory. Gallus struck the flat of his spatha across the neck of one of them. The warrior stumbled, winded. Gallus ripped the facemask away and thrust his blade into the man’s eye socket. With a gout of dark blood and chunky matter, the warrior fell to Gallus’ feet, piled there with so many others.

Is that enough glory for you, whoreson?

Another pair rushed for him, and he knew he could kill only one of them. The other would take his life at last. An animal growl tumbled through his gritted teeth. He sought out Olivia and Marcus in his mind’s eye as he hefted his spatha back for the last time. But he halted, blade overhead, as two spears punched up and under the arms of the approaching pair. Blood erupted from the iron mask eyeholes and mouth slits. Zosimus and Quadratus roared as they pulled their spears free.

Not yet, he realised, the image of his loved ones fading, but soon.

Quadratus and Zosimus pushed up either side of him. The last of his kind, it seemed. He raised his shield with theirs and the Persian blades hammered down on them with a rhythm akin to the relentless war drums.

‘Are you ready for this, sir?’ Zosimus cried by his side, his face caked in strips of skin and blood.

‘For what?’ he panted.

‘For that,’ Quadratus pointed a finger; over the thrashing mass of Savaran that clamoured to slay them, something was coming. Four colossal shapes silhouetted by the morning sun. While the rest of the war elephants circled up on the grassy dunes where some disturbance had broken out amongst the paighan, these four beasts had charged down onto the beach. The creatures’ every stride threw up great clods of wet sand and the sun sparkled on their serrated tusks.

Now this is surely the end, he realised, knowing shield and spatha would be useless against these creatures. The lead beast thundered up behind the gold-painted Persian war drummer, who looked on at the last throes of Roman resistance excitedly, his arms thrashing as he upped the beat a little more. Then he slowed, looking over his shoulder in realisation, then up at the massive creature about to trample him. At the last, the drummer ducked out of the way.

Gallus frowned, then squinted up to the cabin on the lead creature’s back. Two figures stood there. They held Roman spathas. A desert-dry grin stretched across his features and his sword arm tingled with a new lease of life.

The panicked squeal of the drummer faded as the war elephants thundered onwards, the drumbeat striking up again moments later.

Pavo leant from the edge of the cabin, willing the lead creature not to draw up short. Ahead of it lay the majority of the Savaran. This close to victory, the Persian ranks were in disorder, thousands of them dismounted and fighting as infantry. But when the lead elephant trumpeted with all its might, many Persian heads turned, eyes bulging, mouths agape. At once, they broke out in a roar of panic. They scrambled to get clear, but weighed down with iron plate and ring armour, they were cumbersome and slow. Suddenly, the cabin juddered as if the elephant was charging over rocky ground, but the crunch of iron, bone and the screaming of men below told a different story. The other three elephants fanned out either side, ploughing a similar gory furrow through the Savaran ranks. Then the flat-nosed paighan guiding the lead elephant uttered some jagged command, patting at the side of the creature’s head. Without hesitation, the elephant scooped down with its tusks, tearing the serrated bronze tips through a throng of clibanarii, tossing pockets of them into the air. Their armour crumpled from the strike. Limbs were shattered, flesh torn asunder and brains gouged from skulls. The other three beasts followed suit soon after, swiping scores of men aside with every swish of their tusks. In moments, the tight pack of flashing swords and spears around the Roman pocket had disintegrated, men fleeing in every direction. Of the clibanarii and pushtigban who waded out to sea to escape the elephants’ wrath, many stumbled, falling into the water. Despite being prone in just a few feet of water, these men found the weight of their armour anchored them to the seabed and many drowned, their faces only inches under the surface.

As the great creatures wreaked havoc through the Savaran masses, the flat-nosed paighan guiding the lead beast cried out in unintelligible Parsi. He punched the air, his air of serenity gone at last as he no doubt unleashed his anger over years of marching in chains.

Pavo felt an ember of hope in his heart.

‘They’re still alive,’ Sura grasped his shoulder, pointing down to the shallows.

Pavo followed his friend’s outstretched finger over the edge of the cabin. Down on the crimson shoreline, while the Savaran scattered, a ragged band of legionaries stood there. Barely a century of them, still poised and ready for the Savaran to return. Gallus, Zosimus and Quadratus still stood. He looked this way and that. Perhaps there could be a way out. Perhaps they could survive after all.

Then his eyes snagged on the activity a mile or so up the beach, where the vast Persian fleet was disembarking. Tens of thousands of fresh riders and spearmen fanned out, blades piercing the skyline like an iron grin.

Saddled on his white stallion on the grassy dunes, Tamur’s head pounded with the goings-on, a handful of neatly oiled locks falling free of his ponytail to whip across his face. He shot a gaze over his shoulder. There, the paighan masses fought in vain against eight of his dozen war elephants. That battle was as good as won. Then he looked right, northwards and up the beach: the fleet had landed just as he had expected. That meant the invasion of Roman Syria would go ahead as planned. There was something about those vessels that made him uneasy though, the number of bodies spilling from the decks was more than he expected, far more than just the crew of the galleys.

Is that. . no, surely not?

He raked his fingers across his scalp, pulling more hair free of the knot, then pinched the top of his nose and blinked away the doubts. No, he asserted, the real source of consternation was dead ahead; the four rogue elephants ploughing through the melee. With victory and a Roman eagle in the palm of his hand, these confounded creatures had split from the herd, turned and run amok through his tightly-packed Savaran. Thousands of his best horsemen were dead from this encounter already, and the elephants looked set to kill hundreds more. This would be costly, he realised, seeing his precious cataphractii and clibanarii tossed up in the air like toys by the sweeping tusks. He would have to hire many more mercenaries than he had planned to cover these losses. But the image of the rich trading cities of Syria crept into his mind.

Mercenaries will be queuing up to serve in my armies. And when my ranks are swollen, I will turn them upon Shapur himself. All Persia will be mine. The House of Aspaphet will take its rightful place once more!

‘Have our archers take javelins to those creatures,’ he spat to the nearest of his bodyguards, waving a hand towards the four rogue elephants. ‘They have done enough damage already. When they have been slain, set them about finishing the dregs of Roman resistance. I have wasted enough riders on them today.’

At once, the three pushtigban saddled by his side set off to give the orders. Tamur was alone with just his narrow-eyed pushtigban-salar.

‘Tell me,’ he said, leaning in closer to the leader of his bodyguard and pointing a finger to the north, ‘do my eyes deceive me or is that an army disembarking from our fleet?’

The pushtigban-salar nodded. ‘It is, Spahbad.’

Tamur frowned, the heat haze falling away to reveal the iron wall of Persian troops forming up there. He gripped his reins and leant forward in the saddle, a nausea growing in his gut. This was just like before, when Ramak had commissioned the new gunds of riders. Was the archimagus still clinging onto power, even after death? He snatched glances around him, maddened. ‘Reinforcements? I did not arrange this.’

‘No, you did not. But I did,’ the pushtigban-salar replied.

‘You did this without my perm — ’ his words trailed off as he felt a cold iron dagger blade resting on his jugular. He looked at his man with bulging eyes.

‘The king of kings comes to curtail your ambitions, Spahbad,’ the pushtigban-salar spoke calmly.

Tamur’s heart froze. He looked north to see the army approaching. At least fifteen thousand fresh and well equipped cataphractii and Median spearmen moved like an iron serpent across the sands. Pointed, plumed helms, spear tips, swishing manes and vibrant drafsh banners jostled overhead. At their heart, the Drafsh Kavian standard bobbed, the purple banner and blazing golden star upon it larger than any other. Underneath, he saw the unmistakable outline of the rider who led this army. A man adorned with a gilded ram’s skull and skin atop his head. A man in a green and purple silken cloak. This was Shapur. King of kings. The Shahanshah of all Persia. The man he had set out to defy.

The pushtigban-salar purred in his ear, digging the blade a little further into his skin. ‘I will inherit the House of Aspaphet. The reward for my loyalty to the shahanshah. You,’ he said, pausing to let Tamur’s imagination cripple him, ‘will live as long as the torturers can keep you alive.’

Tamur’s breath quickened and icy cold sweat washed from his every pore. His bowels turned over and he felt their contents press down, desperate for release. The rumours of the shahanshah’s wrath were legendary. A fair man to those loyal to him. A demon to those who dared cross him. At that moment, an image flickered through his mind: the skin of Emperor Valerian, but not quite. This time, it was his own tortured and torn features stretched across the frame.

‘What should I do, Archimagus. . what should I do?’ Tamur called out to the ether in a panic.

At this, the pushtigban-salar roared with laughter, pressing the dagger blade tighter to Tamur’s skin. ‘Ramak is dead, you fool. Nobody will protect you now!’

With those words, Tamur’s mind was made up. He thrust his throat against the pushtigban-salar’s blade. A moment of resistance was followed by a dull, grating sensation. The searing pain was followed by a warm wetness that instantly soaked his chest and a salty, metallic stench permeated his nostrils and throat. The strength drained from his limbs in moments. He toppled from the saddle and onto the dune, thrashing, pink bubbles burgeoning from the haemorrhaging wound. He tried to trace his fingers across the lion motif on his breast, but they were already numb.

The pushtigban-salar glared down at him, shaking his head, sheathing his blade. ‘You will live for eternity in the torment of Ahriman,’ the man said. ‘A torment like no other.’

As Tamur fell into blackness, terror seemed to come with him.

Pavo gawped as the pushtigban-salar, still coated in Tamur’s blood, rode down from the grassy dune and waved Tamur’s wing of Savaran back from the fray. The din of battle fell away as they withdrew, forming up on the beach a few hundred paces south of the tattered band of Roman survivors. Then he looked up the shoreline to the north, where Shapur’s army descended towards them.

The lead war elephant calmed quickly at the soothing words and touches from the flat-nosed paighan. ‘The war is over?’ the man called back over his shoulder.

‘Far from it,’ Pavo said, before climbing from the howdah cabin to slide down the rope, his arms trembling with fatigue. He landed with a thud on the bloody mire that had earlier been a pristine white-sand beach. Sura landed beside him. The pair stumbled over to stand with their comrades. Weak, scarred and bleeding hands patted their shoulders. Quadratus made to congratulate them likewise, but stopped, looking past Pavo and frowning. Pavo turned to see the source of the Gaul’s concern; despite the rest of Tamur’s Savaran having withdrawn, the gold-painted war drummer had remained only feet from the legionaries, thumping on his instrument unimpeded. His arms swung wildly, eyes bulging as if in some kind of trance, grinning maniacally, his tongue lolling in fervour.

Suddenly, Quadratus frowned, strode forward and ripped his spatha across the straps of the drum. The instrument fell from the drummer’s chest and crashed to the sand. Quadratus put his bloodied boot through the skin, wrecking the instrument. ‘Battle’s over, you little turd!’ The enthusiasm drained from the drummer’s face to be replaced by a look of confusion and then a nascent terror. Quadratus growled and lifted his sword again, sending the man scurrying across the sand like a kicked dog.

‘That thing’s been doing my bloody head in all morning,’ Quadratus said, booting the wrecked drum away. Satisfied, he rolled his head on his shoulders, sheathed his sword, then stepped back into line with his comrades. Pavo saluted the big centurion, then came to Gallus, crimson-stained and glaring. ‘You might be sick of this question, sir, but what now?’

Gallus looked up the beach to the approaching Shapur. ‘That is for the shahanshah to decide.’

Pavo’s mind reeled. He looked to big Zosimus and Quadratus — ragged, torn apparitions of their former selves. He looked to Sura — the unofficial King of Adrianople had no more fight left in him. Tribunus Varius and the clutch of Flavia Firma legionaries likewise were wounded, stunned and cowed by the sight of the fresh Persian army approaching.

The shahanshah rode forward from the vast column he led, the archers in his ranks lifting nocked bows — thousands of them. He was surrounded by pushtigban riders wearing armour that was itself a treasure, gilded and bejewelled. The narrow-eyed pushtigban-salar from Tamur’s ranks rode forward, dismounting to prostrate himself before Shapur. He spoke in even tones, pointing to the figure of Tamur lying in a pool of blood on the grassy verge. Shapur gazed at the corpse for what seemed like an eternity, the sea breeze lifting his pure-white locks and richly-oiled beard.

Finally, the shahanshah turned away and trotted onwards, towards the bloodied legionaries. When they came to a halt, the serene sounds of nature carried on around them as if oblivious to the tumult of moments ago: the crashing of waves, the screeching of gulls and contented munching of the feasting carrion birds.

This close, Pavo saw that Shapur was old. His skin was mottled and deeply lined and he wore a dog-tired expression. But most of all, his eyes betrayed his years. They were weary, almost sickened of life.

‘I tire of the sight of blood,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the rolling crimson waves around the legionaries’ feet. ‘Our empires have spilled oceans of it in my time. And now it seems that I will spend my final years spilling the blood of those within my own lands. Those who seek to seize my throne.’ His gaze grew distant once more, until the narrow-eyed pushtigban-salar approached him, muttering in his ear, pointing to the Romans.

Shapur looked up and beheld them. Then he raised his hand. Pavo’s blood iced. One flick of the finger and it would all be over. Death, torture or a return to the mines. He sensed his comrades brace likewise by his side.

But Shapur pointed to the Roman triremes.

‘Leave, Romans.’

With that, he heeled his mount round, and waved his riders with him.