Thunder of the Gods

6

The days that followed soon settled into the same mind-numbing routine of marching, drilling, night exercises and exhausted sleep. In the evenings, as the shattered legionaries cleaned and mended their equipment under the watchful eyes of their centurions, Scaurus would sit in his tent with the Arab scout and plan the next day’s march with particular attention to the nature of the terrain across which they would be passing. The first three days’ march, covered at the standard pace to allow those men who still lacked stamina a chance to build their strength for the trials to come, took them from Zeugma to the Osrhoene capital Edessa, a way station on their route to Nisibis that the legatus considered a necessary evil.

‘King Abgar will be happy enough to replenish our rations, and will doubtless entertain the officers to a most excellent banquet in our honour, but I’ll be amazed if he has any more assistance to offer than his hearty good wishes. And we can be assured that the enemy will have enough spies in the city to ensure that their generals know all about us within days. We’ll camp outside the gates, far enough from the walls that even the keenest sighted watcher won’t be able to see the toys we’ve brought along.’

The single night spent outside the city was both a blessing and a curse for the men of the legion. On the one hand, they enjoyed a blissful night of uninterrupted sleep, as Julius elected not to provide any hint as to their growing abilities at the very particular drills to which they were usually subjected at the end of each day’s march. Conversely, however, the proximity of a city that, if the older legionaries were to be believed, contained enough taverns and brothels to entertain several cohorts at a time, was sheer torture for men confined to camp, with armed guards posted to keep the city from the legion and the legion from the city’s wine and women. They broke camp and marched away the next morning, their supply waggons refilled and the various implements, over which the craftsmen and smiths of Antioch had laboured mightily for Centurion Avidus, carefully concealed under sheets of rough canvas. Scaurus watched the preparations with quiet satisfaction, complimenting Julius on the changes that were starting to become evident in his command.

‘They’re looking more like soldiers, and less like a collection of whore mongers and idlers, which is to your credit. Please pass my congratulations to your centurions. You can also tell them that we’re going to need a faster pace from here, First Spear. It’s sixty miles to the next settlement, and I want to cover it as quickly as we can. Abbas tells me it’s as flat as a table ten miles to each side of the road all the way, and you know what that would mean if the Parthians were to take us by surprise. Can we do it in two days?’

To the dismay of all concerned, the next two days’ travel was indeed carried out at the quick march, and by dusk on the second day the legion was settling into a freshly dug camp outside the desert town of Constantina, with guards once more posted to ensure that legion and populace were kept well separated. Scaurus gathered his officers for a conference that night, showing them a map that the scout had drawn for him and pointing to a spot at its right-hand side.

‘That, gentlemen, is Nisibis. It’s four days’ march from here, so with fresh supplies and a good knowledge of the watering places between here and the city, we’re going all the way as quickly as we can. But …’

He looked around the tent, his face set hard.

‘There can be no doubt that the enemy know we’re coming. If there weren’t spies in Edessa, then it’s a certainty that there’ll be spies here, so close to the border with Adiabene. And the Parthians aren’t going to let us march into Nisibis, they’ll be determined to stop us somewhere between here and the city, with the certain intention of bringing us to battle on their ground, and on their terms. I, on the other hand, have other ideas. So from here on we march with cavalry scouts out in strength to the front and both flanks. And when our scouts find the enemy, the first spear and I will choose a course of action that will be dependent on exactly where we find ourselves at that point in time.’

He gestured to the map, largely bare of any notable terrain.

‘The secret of success in battle, gentlemen, is very often rooted in the general’s choice of ground. And this particular piece of the world is so well suited to the style of war that the Parthians have evolved that we’re going to have to be exceptionally light on our feet to even the odds up.’

The march resumed the next day, the soldiers’ usual grumbling redoubled by each man being required to carry a piece of equipment that had until then been stacked in carts in the legion’s baggage train, exchanging their pack poles for long wooden stakes topped with a pointed iron head, an iron square having been nailed to the wood halfway down its length to enable it to be hammered into the ground.

Ten miles into the march, the leading cohort halted without warning, and on reaching the column’s head Julius found Procurator Ravilla staring out over the desert before his men with a bleak expression, his marines unusually quiet as they surveyed the scene of carnage laid out before them.

‘If I’d known we were going to stumble over this, I’d have asked to take the rearguard for the day. My lads aren’t as used to this sort of thing as your legionaries.’

Julius shook his head.

‘Seeing men die in battle’s one thing, but this …’

The human remains of a battle were strewn across the desert before them, hundreds of what had been dead bodies months before now reduced to scattered bones and what little was left of their equipment.

‘Get your men digging, Procurator, and I’ll have the rest of the legion collect up everything we can find ready for burial.’

Ravilla nodded gratefully, turning away to get his cohort organised as Scaurus reached the spot and stared out across the scene.

‘In all the months that these men have lain here, left to rot and as prey to the carrion birds and animals, not one of the passing trade caravans has thought to bury their remains. What does that tell you?’

Julius turned away from the grisly view.

‘It tells me that the traders who’ve passed this way either hated Rome enough to be happy to leave dead men unburied or didn’t want to be taken for sympathisers.’

The legatus nodded.

‘Which means that the men who did this haven’t gone very far. They know we have to react to this, and they want to be ready when we do.’

The two men looked at each other in shared understanding.

‘Do we have time to get what’s left of them underground?’

Scaurus nodded slowly.

‘Prefect Felix’s scouts will give us plenty of warning if the enemy are at hand. And these men need to see their fellow soldiers laid to rest as well as can be managed under the circumstances. Take the time you need …’

The Tungrians stood guard while the legion’s remaining cohorts stacked their shields and spears, formed a line and crossed the battlefield at a slow pace, the soldiers gathering together their dead comrades’ bones and broken equipment for burial. Tribune Varus stood with Marcus and watched as the collected remains were gathered close to where the marines were working away at a pit deep enough to take them. A soldier walked up with a helmet that had evidently been stoved in by a heavy blow, the remnant of a centurion’s crest holder bent over almost at a right angle.

‘That’s the first spear’s helmet.’

Varus walked over to the man and took the damaged helmet from him almost reverentially, turning back to Marcus. The iron bowl’s interior was black with dried blood, and the heavy iron brow guard was notched in three places.

‘He went down fighting.’

Varus nodded.

‘I never doubted it. He used to say that if he was going to the underworld he’d be taking a few men with him on the boat ride.’

‘Will you keep the helmet?’

The younger man shook his head.

‘It belongs here with the rest of him.’

He placed it down onto the pile of iron and bone, stepping back and bowing his head in a moment of silence.

‘I’ll come back this way when we’re done and tell him what happened. If we’re not all dead …’

The remainder of the day’s march was conducted in a sombre silence broken only by the rattling jingle of the legionaries’ equipment and their officers’ shouted commands. When Julius drove his men through a fresh series of drills incorporating the iron-tipped stakes, there was little of the usual complaint from men sobered by the day’s discovery. The same routine ensued the following night, each cohort competing to be the first to have all of their stakes set in the ground, and their legionaries set in a defensive line in front of the pointed iron heads. Called upon to judge the competition, Scaurus declared the result too close to call, and rewarded the legion with the promise of a day’s holiday once they reached Nisibis. He strolled back to the command tent with Julius and Marcus, musing thoughtfully on the likelihood of their seeing action the next day.

‘I thought they’d be on us the moment we left Constantina, given enough notice from their men in Edessa, but perhaps King Abgar was right when he told us that he’s killed every spy in the city. Whoever it is that’s commanding the opposition isn’t going to want to let us get much closer though, or he risks our slipping past him in the night and reaching Nisibis unchallenged. It has to be tomorrow, if it’s going to happen at all.’

‘Perhaps they’ve packed up and gone home, rather than face the might of Rome’s retribution?’

Scaurus laughed softly at Julius’s grim jest.

‘Perhaps.’

The legion marched at dawn, a brisk, cold wind out of the north ruffling the centurions’ crests and blowing the dust from the soldiers’ booted feet away, preventing it from rising in the usual choking cloud that frequently forced men to tie scarves across their faces. Felix’s Phrygians ranged forward to the east, tasked with seeing how far they could ride towards the city before encountering the enemy. He returned at the canter two hours later, his horses sweating heavily at their exertions. Reining his mount in alongside Scaurus, he pointed back the way he’d come.

‘Those friends you were expecting are somewhere close to hand. We ambushed a party of their scouts about ten miles further on.’

The legatus looked up at him, taking in the blood spattered across the prefect’s armour.

‘Did any of them get away?’

The cavalryman shook his head.

‘No, Legatus. I lost a dozen men, but we ran them all down. By the time we were done there was dust on the horizon. A lot of dust.’

Scaurus turned to his scout.

‘You know where we are. Does our plan still work, given this ground?’

The man answered without hesitation.

‘Yes. But we must move swiftly.’

Scaurus turned to Julius.

‘As we planned it last night then.’

The senior centurion saluted and turned away, beckoning his trumpeter to his side, while Scaurus looked back up at prefect Felix.

‘Lucky by name, lucky by nature, eh Felix?’

The younger man grinned down at him.

‘Sometimes, Legatus, sometimes. At least this time I managed not to get an arrow in my armpit.’

‘Just as well. Tribune Corvus’s wife won’t be there to perform miracles if you should manage to get yourself perforated this time.’

The legatus paused for a moment, looking down at his dusty boots as the trumpeter’s call rang out across the legion’s length.

‘You know what I need from you now, don’t you Prefect?’

His eyes narrowed at the sudden bray of Julius’s trumpeters, and both men watched as the column’s head abruptly turned left, leaving the road and heading north across the open landscape. Felix looked along the legion’s snakelike length with a fresh grin and raised an eyebrow at his commander.

‘I suspect I can guess, Legatus. Many of those unfriendly men over there …’

He waved a vague hand in the direction from which he had ridden.

‘Are mounted on horses, which makes them at least twice as fast as your soldiers. You need me to go back over there and get in their way for a while, don’t you?’

The trumpets blared again, and the legion’s column lurched into motion back the way they had come with a mass grinding rasp of hobnails on the road’s grit. Scaurus looked up at him for a moment, crooking a beckoning finger, and Felix bent over his horse’s neck as the legatus stepped in close, apparently not worried by the beast’s fearsome reputation.

‘I’d be careful if I were you, sir, the bastard’ll have your blasted ear off if you give him half a chance.’

The legatus shook his head, matching his prefect’s grin with a hard smile.

‘I think not. If your fucking horse so much as nibbles me I’ll geld him. Now …’

He looked up at the young prefect with an expression that was in some small part almost pleading.

‘Cornelius Felix, I know how you stupid bloody aristocrats think.’

Felix smiled knowingly.

‘Because in reality you’re a stupid bloody aristocrat yourself, sir?’

Scaurus shook his head in mock irritation.

‘Yes, Prefect, most likely that’s the reason I know that you’re currently in that “expendable” frame of mind that overcomes you lot when you see an opportunity to do your “Horatius on the bridge” act. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, eh, Cornelius Felix?’

The prefect shrugged, and Scaurus shook his head in irritation, his voice a vehement snarl.

‘Well not today, you young prick! Today you take your command, all five hundred of these precious horsemen, and you do not engage, Prefect, do you understand?’

Felix tilted his head, as if the instruction simply failed to make any sense to him.

‘If we’re not to engage …?’

‘You display, Prefect Felix.’

The look of incomprehension on the younger man’s face became simple confusion.

‘Display, Legatus?’

‘Display, Prefect. Pretend you’re on parade, with the dragon banner whistling like the scream of a harpie and your ceremonial armour making the women wet with excitement. Get their attention and hold it. Distract them from my legion, Prefect, and give me time to get to the ground I need if I’m going to beat them.’

He paused for a moment, eyeing Felix with a look that brooked no argument.

‘Bring me that cavalry wing back intact, Prefect, because when I’ve taught those men what it really means to take on Rome, and sent what’s left of them back east with their arses stoved in, I’ll be needing you to lead the pursuit and keep them running.’

Felix smiled and the legatus nodded knowingly.

‘I thought you’d like the sound of that.’

The prefect shrugged, straightening up in his saddle.

‘Never fear, Legatus! I’ll be back in good time if there’s a chance to witness some sort of military miracle!’

He turned Hades away, tugging at the fearsome stallion’s reins as the beast pranced with the desire to be away.

‘Come on then, Seventh Phrygians! Today, my lads, we go forth with a noble objective!’

He paused, and the horsemen to either side of him grinned at their prefect, clearly in love with his approach to their craft.

‘Today we go forth not to die for Rome, but to make a fine display on her behalf!’

He led the horsemen away towards the rest of his men, and Scaurus rejoined the column alongside Julius, who had stood waiting while he’d briefed Felix.

‘You really think we can hold off thousands of horse archers?’

The legatus shrugged.

‘At least our understanding of the landscape means that we won’t be fighting them on level ground. And in any case, it’s too late to be worrying now. The die, as the Divine Julius so succinctly put it, is well and truly cast.’

His first spear nodded grimly.

‘So all we can do now is pray to Cocidius and look to our weapons.’

Scaurus marched in silence for a moment, looking down the column’s length to its head, from where the sound of braying mules was issuing as their keepers drove the animals on without regard for their protests.

‘You pray to your gods for strength in battle, First Spear, and I’ll pray to mine that all those historians I’ve been taking lessons from weren’t just pandering to their patrons when they told us how to beat the Parthians.’

‘Seventh Phrygians,’ Felix bellowed his command at the men of his cavalry wing. ‘Form battle line! Decurions, to me!’

His troopers obeyed with parade-ground precision, swiftly forming up into the formation he’d ordered, a battle line only two horses deep that stretched over half a mile in width, while their officers trotted their mounts to gather round the prefect, dismounting and waiting in disciplined silence for him to speak. When the last man was in position, he turned to his senior decurion, gesturing towards the distant dust cloud being raised by the oncoming Parthians.

‘When you’re ready, Decurion, I think we’ll go over there for a look at those easterners. But let us all be very clear, gentlemen, our role today is to confuse the enemy, nothing more, nothing less, and there will be no glory hunting. Any man who breaks formation today, or who fails to obey the trumpet calls promptly, will be flogged in front of the legion tonight. Any man.’

The grizzled veteran nodded dourly, looking around the gathered officers.

‘You heard the prefect! Legatus Scaurus has promised that we can ride those eastern goat nudgers down once they’ve been beaten, but until then all we’re allowed to do is to dance around a bit and make them nervous for their flanks! Understood? Dismissed!’

With the officers dispersed back to their squadrons, Felix nodded to the decurion, who leapt into his saddle and pointed towards the dust cloud that was slowly growing larger on the eastern horizon.

‘Shall we go, Prefect? If we wait any longer they’ll be up in our faces and we’ll have no room to manoeuvre.’

At the trumpet’s signal, the five-hundred-strong cavalry wing started forward, first at the walk and then, with the gentle breeze keening through the dragon standard that flew proudly alongside Felix, the senior decurion ordered the horn to sound again. Accelerating to a canter, the horsemen stared grimly over their horses’ necks at the enemy to their front still invisible bar the clouds of dust that were being kicked up by their horses.

‘There must be ten thousand of them!’

Felix nodded at the man’s shouted words, barely discernible over the rolling thunder of the cavalry wing’s hoofs. As if on cue, they crested a gentle rise and there, spread out across the plain before them, was the enemy army. Two miles distant, the armoured heart of the enemy host, perhaps a thousand horsemen, glittered like a field of stars in the drab landscape. Fanned out across the plain ahead of them were several times their number of more lightly equipped horse archers, while the enemy army’s rear was formed from a series of tightly ordered infantry columns, advancing at a brisk march in the wake of the horsemen. Felix and his subordinate exchanged glances, the prefect putting an involuntary hand to the hilt of his sword before he remembered the nature of Scaurus’s orders.

‘We need to turn now!’

Felix nodded his assent, and Quintus rose in his saddle, bellowing the command for a wheel to the left. The trumpeter blared out the order, and with a flurry of shouted commands the squadrons to their right speeded up their pace and pulled their mounts steadily around to their left, while the left-most squadron slowed until it was barely marking time.

‘It’s going to be close! Your legatus may get a cavalry action whether he wants it or not!’

The Parthian horse archers had already reacted, galloping forward towards the suddenly visible Romans with all the speed they could muster. Felix looked down the wheeling line of his wing with narrowed eyes, nodding slowly.

‘Once the wing’s in position, sound the gallop! We need to get out from under the threat of those archers!’

Quintus nodded, raising an arm ready to give the signal, and as the furthest right squadron wheeled through ninety degrees, he swept it forward, bellowing the order at the decurions who had already ridden their mounts forward of their men to better see him, anticipating the command.

‘At the gallop … GO!’

The wing’s horses leapt forward, eager to run, and with a hammering cacophony of hoofs, the squadrons accelerated away from the pursuing archers who fell away behind them, their mounts clearly blown from their impetuous charge. Looking over his left shoulder, Felix gauged the amount of progress that the fleeing wing had made, then turned in his saddle to stare back at the pursuing archers, who were now peeling away from their erstwhile prey to rejoin the main body in its remorseless advance towards the Roman main body.

‘Slow them down to a canter and give the horses a chance to breathe!’

He waited while Quintus gave the order, watching as the archers fell in with the line of their army’s advance.

‘We haven’t distracted them enough yet!’

His senior decurion looked back at the Parthians, then back at his prefect with a knowing expression.

‘What are you thinking?’

The Phrygians were now riding out past the Parthian right flank, the closest of the enemy horsemen a good mile distant from the furthest right squadron in their line.

‘As long as we just buzz around their line of advance like a sand fly, we’re not going to distract them enough to give the legatus the time he needs!’

He looked back at his subordinate, his face hard with the certainty of what they were going to have to do.

The soldiers were sweating heavily now, working hard at the double march that was taking them north towards the distant mountains that formed the border with Armenia. Scaurus looked over his shoulder, seeing the Phrygians’ dust moving slowly across what he presumed was the front of the Parthian advance.

‘How far back do you think they are?’

Julius took a swift look back.

‘Five miles?’

Scaurus nodded.

‘No more than six. If they’re trotting their horses to keep them fresh for the battle we might just beat them to the hills. But if they’re cantering …’

Julius shrugged.

‘Then we’ll have to fight them on the plain. And we know from young Varus’s account how well that’s likely to go.’

‘My orders from the Legatus were to distract the enemy from the legion for long enough to let him set up a defence, Quintus, and at the moment it’s not working! We’ll just have to try harder!’

The prefect grinned at his senior decurion, provoking a shake of the older man’s head.

‘Right wheel?’

Felix nodded back at him.

‘Right wheel!’

Quintus shouted the order with a look of disbelief that was matched by the troopers around them as the wing began to pivot once more, turning gradually to the east, its path curving round to take the Roman cavalry around to the rear of the Parthian force and present a threat to the plodding infantrymen that he calculated the enemy general would be unable to ignore. Turning in his saddle, the young prefect watched the enemy host intently. Quintus shook his head.

‘They’re not reacting!’

‘Just a little longer …’

The Phrygians had turned most of the way through ninety degrees, their course taking them past the right-hand side of the Parthian host with half a mile of empty desert between the two bodies of men. Quintus opened his mouth to argue with his prefect, closing it as Felix snapped out a terse command.

‘Left wheel, canter pace!’

The Parthian host had abruptly wheeled to their right and accelerated to a headlong gallop, their commander heedless of his force’s reserves of stamina as he drove them across the plain in pursuit of the Romans. For a moment even Felix was convinced that he had gambled and lost, as the leading Parthian horse archers galloped at his wing’s rear with arrows ready to loose.

‘Should we gallop them?’

The veteran shook his head with a scowl, looking back at the pursing archers.

‘Their mounts will soon be blown at that speed, so they’ll never catch us. Only question is whether they can get close enough to loose their-’

‘Here it comes!’

One of the riders pointed at their pursuers with an urgent warning shout. Felix followed his pointing arm and cringed as the Parthian horsemen, knowing that the Romans would soon be out of range, loosed a volley of arrows at their maximum range.

‘Shields!’

The first volley was swiftly followed by two more, the third flight of arrows leaving their bows before the first had fallen to earth, while each of the Phrygians raised his long oval shield to protect both horse and rider from the falling arrowheads. With an eerie whistle the first volley fell onto the very rearmost of the wing’s riders, an iron rain that battered at their raised shields, hammering down into horses and riders alike. A score or more of the rearmost horses were hit on their unshielded hindquarters, most of them continuing on their way with no more reaction than a squeal of protest as the falling missiles drove the protective iron scales of their barding into the flesh below, but in four cases the arrows penetrated the armoured protection and drove deep into the flesh, causing the beasts unbearable pain and driving them to throw their riders in their kicking, screaming agony. The second and third volleys lanced down onto the fallen riders even as Felix hesitated, only one of them retaining sufficient of his wits to raise his shield and take shelter beneath its thick wooden protection. The other three troopers jerked under the arrows’ impact, but as the Phrygians rode on, the last of their comrades threw aside his shield and stared after them in disbelief at his fate. Readying himself to turn and ride to the man’s rescue, the prefect felt a hard grip clamp onto his right arm.

‘No! No man breaks formation!’

Felix started at Quintus’s barked command.

‘And especially not you, Prefect!’

The prefect stared bleakly at his senior decurion.

‘But …’

The decurion shook his head sadly, staring back at the solitary trooper as the Parthian archers rode towards the doomed man.

‘You gave the order, no man to leave the formation, now you can honour it! He knows what to do … if he has the sense to use his dagger on himself before they get hold of him.’

The first cohort of legionaries marched wearily onto the hill’s lowest slopes and were promptly turned from the line of march by the waiting Julius. He stalked alongside their senior centurion for a moment, barking out instructions and pointing out their intended position.

‘Just as we practised it! Climb until you’re a hundred paces from the crest, then turn to your left and take them along the hillside for three hundred paces, then stop! Make sure there’s enough room behind you for the artillery to shoot over your heads! Face your men down slope and get your long spears to the front, then let them have a rest and a drink of water. I want a continuous line along the hill with no gaps, so make sure your boys and the next cohort have a seamless join! Right, get on with it!’

He turned away and walked down the cohort’s column past rank after rank of grim-faced, sweating soldiers, ready to repeat his instructions to the next cohort’s commander. The bulk of the legion was deploying across the hillside before Scaurus marched up with the rearguard, smiling when he saw the first spear waiting for him. The two men paused as the Tungrians marched on into the heart of the swiftly composed defence, taking their place in the central section of the line.

‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’

Scaurus nodded, his gaze running along the line of men stretching across a mile or so of the ridge that ran from east to west, then turned to look out over the landscape below, the road they had left lost in the distance to the south. The legion’s defensive positions were effectively at the top of a shallow climb of over a mile’s length that steepened discernibly in its last two hundred paces, and Julius shook his head as he looked at the ground before them.

‘I can’t see how this gentle slope is going to make it any easier for us to beat them?’

His legatus turned and looked back to the cloud of dust that indicated the Parthian host’s progress, already visibly closer.

‘It looks just right to me.’

Julius raised an interrogatory eyebrow, and the younger man’s lips twitched into a smile.

‘I know you can’t see it, but trust me, this is dangerous ground for an army that depends on horse archers and heavy cavalry.’ He pointed to the approaching enemy, now less than five miles away. ‘That said, perhaps we’d be wise to put a legion between ourselves and those Parthians?’

The Parthian kings rode out before their men to see the Roman position for themselves, each of the three men escorted by a hundred of their respective household bodyguards, the knights surrounding them glorious in their shining magnificence.

‘At least this time someone has had the sense to find some ground that does not insult us.’

The other two men regarded King Osroes of Media, the most senior of them by dint of the size of both his kingdom and his army, in an appropriately respectful silence.

‘A good deployment too.’

He stared up the shallow slope with a keen gaze. A long line of infantry stretched along a half-mile of the ridge, their position apparently chosen with an eye to defence against cavalry.

‘See how both ends of the line are anchored on breaks in the ridge line? We won’t be able to take them in the flanks, and if we try to attack their rear I suspect we’ll find the ground too difficult for our horses. Someone’s been reading the histories.’

The young king of Hatra, barely a man and less experienced than the other two, stared up at the Romans with wide eyes.

‘What will we do then, Osroes? How will we defeat them?’

The oldest man of the three, a black bearded thug of a man clad in black armour, in whose kingdom the Romans had chosen to make their statement of domination over the King of Kings’ throne decades before by seizing his fortress city of Nisibis, growled the answer before the Median had a chance to answer.

‘In the same way our ancestors dealt with them at Carrhae, Wolgash. With the flail of our archers to weaken their line until blood flows down that hill like water. And then …’

He slapped a heavy gold and silver decorated mace into his palm.

‘Our knights will tear through them with the righteous rage of the Sun God’s true followers! We will deal out the same fate to these men that we visited upon their brothers not far from here. And once they are scattered, Nisibis will surely fall to us.’

Osroes raised an eyebrow at his older cousin.

‘But first, Narsai, given their numbers, we will exercise a little diplomacy.’

‘Diplomacy! While their boots sully the earth on which my kingdom is founded?’

The Median smiled tolerantly.

‘Our brother Narsai wishes to bathe in Roman blood once more, and paint himself from head to toe with the gore that will reaffirm his claim on the city.’

The king of Adiabene nodded his agreement.

‘I do! And only their abject surrender will cure me of that need to put my foot on Rome’s throat!’

‘And yet …’

‘And yet what?’

‘And yet, Narsai, there may be a way to send them away, defeated and humiliated, without having to lose good Parthian warriors to their defence. It would be remiss of us not to enquire of them as to whether they would rather die in agony or live to recross the border with their skins intact.’

The older man snorted derisively.

‘As you wish, Osroes. Perhaps your father’s abject defeat at their hands has made you overly wary of these … children.’

The Median smiled slowly.

‘Or perhaps you, Narsai, king of half a kingdom, are braver with my men at your back than you might be with only the force you can muster from your own land?’

His question was posed in the same light tone with which he had appraised the waiting Romans, but one hand had moved to rest on the handle of his own mace in its place at his belt.

‘Whatever might be the truth, never forget that my father, his long life be blessed, sowed his seed in the most evil tempered of his wives to beget me. The patience he has bequeathed me wars with her implacable urge to cause damage during my every waking moment, and just once I might be tempted to unleash that darker side.’

Osroes met the older man’s eyes and widened his own in challenge, the household knights around them fidgeting nervously at the threat of internecine bloodshed. He smiled suddenly, prompting an unconscious copy of the expression to break out across the younger king of Hatra’s face in simple relief.

‘And trust me, Narsai, one quick conversation with the leader of those walking dead men ought to suffice. He will surely realise that they will never be able to stand against five thousand of the finest archers in the world.’

‘They seem to want to negotiate.’

Scaurus looked down at the party of knights approaching the legion’s line up the hillside under a flag of truce, watching as the heavy horses’ feet slipped and slid in the loose soil.

‘Negotiate? The only thing they’ll want to negotiate over is whether we get to keep our weapons, once we’ve marched under the yoke. And I’m not surprised. Someone down there has come to the unhappy realisation that this fight isn’t one that he wants to risk, so he’s willing to spend a few minutes finding out if we’d be good enough to abandon this rather impressive defensive position and slink off with our tails between our legs. And that’s before he sees the surprises we have in store for them.’

He turned to Julius.

‘The Parthians, First Spear, are well known for their habit of violating truces in order to win battles. Crassus was still more than likely to get away from Carrhae with most of his army intact until he was unwise enough to ride out to negotiate, and got himself decapitated. So, given I’m quite interested in what those men down there have to say for themselves, I’ll take a century of your biggest, ugliest men with me, if you’ll whistle up an appropriate escort?’

The black-bearded senior centurion nodded, turning away and bellowing an order at the legion arrayed across the hillside.

‘Dubnus! I’ll have your Tenth Century down here!

Scaurus watched with an amused smile as the recently promoted first spear led his axe men forward, bulling their way through the legion’s line and reforming before the command group with impressive speed and precision. The Briton took his place before them and saluted with unexpected vigour, shouldering his massive axe.

‘First Spear! The Tenth Century is at your command!’

‘You can stop shouting, thank you, Dubnus.’

Scaurus stepped forward, looking the massive Briton up and down.

‘Perfect. You and your men will do very nicely, Centurion, just as long as you can keep your temper in check.

Dubnus snapped to attention, and behind him his men followed suit.

‘So gentlemen, you’re going to escort me down to meet those horsemen. You are going to make sure nothing untoward happens to me, but you are not going to go starting any unwanted fights. There will be no hand gestures, no dirty looks and no fingering your weapons when I’m not looking. Is that understood, First Spear Dubnus?’

‘Yes Legatus!’

‘If any of you as much as twitches a muscle at these men, you most likely will be responsible for my death. And I won’t be the happiest of men under that circumstance. Is that understood, First Spear Dubnus?’

‘Yes Legatus!’

‘All I want from you and your men is to march down to meet those barbarians like you’re the biggest, fastest, deadliest men in the entire empire. Make eye contact with a man, fix on him and hold the stare. Do not look away. I want those horsemen going back down the hill knowing that there’s a race of fearless giants with axes waiting for them up here.’

‘And you think the sight of The Prince and his men will stop them from attacking us?’

Scaurus turned back to Julius with a laugh.

‘Stop them from attacking us? I very much doubt it. But it might give them pause for thought while they’re toiling up that slope. You’d better stay here and take command in the event that anything happens to me. The negotiation will have to be conducted in Greek in any case. Come along then Tribune Corvus! Let’s go and show these tribesmen some good old-fashioned patrician disdain, shall we?’

He turned to make his way down the slope, pulling tight the leather cord that secured his helmet’s cheek guards.

‘There is another reason for bringing you and your giants with me for this brief and doubtless disappointing meeting, First Spear.’

Dubnus puffed out his chest proudly.

‘Legatus?’

Scaurus grinned at him, his features hardened by the helmet’s harsh lines.

‘Yes. While you and your bolt-thrower winders are down with me, there’s much less risk of anyone being tempted to use a handful of Parthian kings for target practice.’

Ignoring the Briton’s wounded expression, he marched down the slope, stopping ten paces from the three magnificently armoured men waiting for him in a half-circle of bodyguards. Bowing deeply, he straightened up and examined each of them in turn before speaking, noting the differences between their armour, equipment and bearing. At length, and with the equable tone of a man greeting visitors to his country estate, he raised his voice in greeting, switching to Greek in order to ensure that he was understood.

‘Greetings, noble lords from the east. I always take pleasure in meeting men of high birth on the road with their bodyguards.’

Their apparent leader, standing in between the older and younger members of their party, stepped forward a pace with a look of amusement.

‘And there was I, raised to believe that the Romans were a race of humourless murderers. It would be a shame to have to kill you, given that under different circumstances we might well have shared a jar of wine and told each other stories of our homelands. But kill you we will, unless-’

‘Unless we agree to pass under the yoke and swear to pass back over the Euphrates, vowing never to return?’

The king nodded in silence, while his older companion stared at Scaurus with an intensity that made Dubnus’s knuckles turn white on the handle of his axe. The legatus smiled tightly back at him.

‘It would be helpful to know which august personages I’m addressing, Your Highness. Your names would make useful embroidery for my confession and death warrant, were I to accede to your request, I imagine.’

The king shook his head with a lopsided smile.

‘You’re an amusing man, Roman. But I will humour your request.’

He raised a hand to indicate the young man standing on his right.

‘This is his imperial highness Wolgash the Second, king of the desert kingdom of Hatra.’

Scaurus nodded, bowing respectfully.

‘Greetings, Your Highness.’

Wolgash inclined his head stiffly in reply, and his fellow monarch turned to the man on his left.

‘And this is my cousin Narsai, King of Adiabene. He has sworn an oath to the Sun God that he will not wear any colour other than black until the day that his kingdom is free from the presence of your empire.’

Scaurus bowed again.

‘Greetings, King Narsai.’

He turned back to the speaker.

‘His armour will make him easy to pick out on the field of battle, I expect.’

‘You will have no need to look for me, Roman. Stand still for long enough and you will find me in your face.’

The legatus inclined his head again, a slight smile the only indication of a reaction to the Parthian’s bombast.

‘And you, Your Magnificence. Might I know whom I have the honour of addressing?’

The king spread his hands.

‘I am Osroes, son of King Arsaces the Forty-Fifth, the King of Kings, the Anointed, the Just, the Illustrious, Friend of the Greeks. I rule the province of Media on behalf of my father, and it is with his blessing that I bring my army to the cause of my kinsman Narsai. And now that you know who it is that will deliver you to your gods, tell us your name so that we might decorate your grave appropriately.’

‘My name, mighty kings, is Gaius Rutilius Scaurus. I am legatus of the imperial Third Gallic Legion, and I am sworn to my god, the Lightbringer, the Lord Mithras, to fight here and win a famous victory that will echo across the plains to the walls of your father’s city Ctesiphon. Either that, or die in a manner that will bring pleasure to the spirits of my ancestors. And as to my grave …’

His face hardened.

‘My only expectation, King Osroes, is that you will despoil my corpse in the same barbaric manner you did with my Sixth Cohort.’

He paused, playing a hard stare across all three men’s faces.

‘You may defeat my legion today-’

‘We will bleed your legion with our arrows, then crush it flat with our maces!’

The Roman smiled again, showing his teeth.

‘You may defeat us today, Narsai of Adiabene, but you will simply be postponing the day of your reckoning for these crimes. And beware, when you come up this hill seeking my head, because I will not be displaying my sense of humour.’

Osroes shook his head.

‘You had better return to your command, Legatus, before you provoke my cousin here to an act that would dishonour him.’

Scaurus nodded.

‘Sage advice, Your Highness. I wouldn’t want to end up being murdered at a parlay, like my countryman Crassus, would I? An ignominious death is so bad for a man’s reputation.’

He turned away and headed up the slope, the Tungrian axemen backing away in his wake, watched with angry eyes by the black-armoured monarch.

‘I should have killed him.’

Osroes stared after the legatus.

‘I could never permit such dishonour under a flag of truce. But if you’re so certain that you have the beating of him, I suggest you seek him out once we have them at our mercy, and test your mettle against his. Come!’

He led the horsemen away, signalling to his general to begin the attack.

‘Here they come.’

Julius pointed down at the plain below them, grimacing as thousands of Parthian horsemen began to move forward. Spreading out across the plain until their frontage was a good half-mile wide, they came forward at a deliberate pace and with unmistakable purpose. Julius stared down at the mass of men and horses, shaking his head in disgust.

‘And not one of them wearing anything thicker than a felt cap.’

The different hued jackets worn by the three kings’ men gave the scene a surreal look, their advance gradually flooding the ground with a riot of colour. Qadir nodded, a wry smile on his lips.

‘These men do not face iron, First Spear, they only know how to deal it out by means of their bows. Threatened with attack, they only have one tactic – to run away and shoot as they do so, and as accurately as if they were going forward. Their record against Rome has tended to be the result not of their skills, which are undoubted, but upon the skills and preparedness of their opponents.’

He stared down at the horsemen riding towards them before speaking again.

‘I suspect that this day may prove an unpleasant surprise for them.’

The legion stood wreathed in silence, the only sound that of the distant hoof beats as the Parthian horse archers trotted forward in a disciplined mass with their bows held ready for use. Scaurus’s party threaded through the legion’s line, and the legatus dismissed his escort back to their places before resuming his climb, shaking his head as he joined his officers.

‘You’ll have gathered from the enemy’s advance that, much as expected, the kings in charge of that Parthian army aren’t persuaded that they’re making a mistake.’

‘Kings?’

The legatus smiled knowingly at his First Spear.

‘Yes. Three of them. Where we use imperial governors to administer the empire’s provinces, the easterners use a system of minor kingdoms, each one ruled by its own king. There are three of them down there with their armies, one who rules a good-sized piece of the empire and two reasonably minor monarchs, and none of them was in much of a mood to compromise. As a consequence of which …’

He turned and looked down at the plain, waving a hand at the massed horse archers.

‘This is what those poor bastards in the Sixth Cohort had to face before they died, except they were caught on flat ground with standard-issue shields that were little better protection than thin air, and with no means of fighting back. Those archers can put three arrows in the air before the first one falls to earth, and I suspect that my new friend King Osroes of Media has been reading the same books that I have. See the supply camels following the archers? They’ll have enough arrows to keep showering them onto us until the legion’s nothing but a shell, if we’re stupid enough to let them.’

He smiled at Julius’s expression.

‘Which of course we’re not.’

Julius shook his head.

‘They have no idea what’s coming, do they?’

Scaurus shrugged.

‘Why would they? The Sixth Cohort rolled over and died in exactly the way they expected, in just the same way that twenty thousand men died at Carrhae for that matter, so why shouldn’t we succumb to their rather thin bag of tricks in our turn? All it takes from their perspective is a barrage of arrows for an hour or two followed up by a glorious charge of their cataphracts to break what’s left, a few minutes of bloody murder and the surrender and massacre of the survivors. Up until now the strongest requirement for a man serving in that army down there has been a capacity to tolerate spilt blood. The king in charge of that mass of men will regard this hill, and this legion, as no more than a minor hindrance, I’d imagine. And now, First Spear …’

He nodded decisively as the enemy horsemen approached the line of markers five hundred paces from the Roman line.

‘Shall we see just how fast Dubnus’s axemen can reload their bolt throwers?’

Julius turned to his trumpeter.

‘Sound the Stand To.’

As the first notes of the command pealed out across the hillside, the voices of dozens of centurions barked out over the trumpet’s squeal, and with a sudden flurry of movement the legion’s line lurched forward. Marching steadily down the hill, they advanced for a distance of thirty paces before stopping, centurions and watch officers swiftly dressing the line back into as near perfect straightness as could be achieved given the hill’s undulating surface. On the ground near the hill’s flat summit, a line of two-man bolt throwers stood revealed by the legion’s advance. Behind each Scorpion crouched four men, two of them squatting beside one of the oversized shields faced with leather that had so mystified Centurion Avidus when he’d first seen them on the legatus’s list of requirements. Julius raised his voice to bark a command that rang out over the distant noise of the advancing Parthians’ hoof beats.

‘Bolt throwers – load!’

With the screening infantry line no longer concealing them, the crews sprang into action, one of Dubnus’s axemen gripping the winding handles of each weapon and cranking back the heavy bowstring of his allotted weapon with straining muscles, each of them shooting sidelong glances at the men on either side, determined not to be outdone in the race to complete his task. With the Scorpions ready to shoot, the operators, Hamian bowmen for the most part, carefully placed heavy armour-piercing bolts into their weapons’ mechanisms and pointed the bolt throwers at the oncoming enemy.

‘Bolt throwers – at maximum range …’

The Scorpions angled skywards, their operators looking to Julius for the order to shoot.

‘Loose!’

In his place standing next to the legatus, the hairs rose on the back of Marcus’s neck as, with a snapping twang, the Scorpions spat their deadly loads high into the cloudless sky. He watched, unconsciously holding his breath, as the salvo of missiles arced over their apogee and plunged down into the advancing horsemen. Along the Parthian line the impact was instantaneous and shocking, the bolts’ impact punching men from their horses and, when a missile struck beast rather than rider, dropping the animals kicking and screaming to the ground in sprays of blood. Tearing his gaze away from the slaughter, Marcus shot a swift glance at the bolt throwers and the Tungrians already labouring to re-tension their strings, each man stepping away and raising his hand as the signal for the trigger man to load a bolt and elevate the weapon, ready to shoot once more.

‘Bolt throwers – shoot when ready!’

Another salvo of bolts tore at the advancing horsemen as they passed the four-hundred-pace marker, and Scaurus smiled tightly down at the oncoming mass of men and beasts.

‘So now the kings are looking at each other with that expression. We’ve all worn that face at some time or other, when something goes wrong without warning. After all, this isn’t what’s supposed to happen, is it? It’s not enough to put them off the idea that their victory’s predetermined, mind you …’

A third salvo of bolts hissed away from the Roman line, a little ragged this time as the faster crews loosed their bolts an instant before their comrades, and along the Parthian front more archers fell in bloody ruin or were thrown from their dying mounts.

‘After all, their losses are only a pinprick to an army of that size, and once those horsemen get into arrow range they’ll shower us with sharp iron in fine style. I doubt King Osroes is especially troubled at this point.’

He turned to Julius.

‘Archers, First Spear?’

The first spear nodded, raising his hand again.

‘Archers!’

From their places behind the legion’s line, two full cohorts of Hamians stepped back up the slope ten paces, gaining sufficient elevation to see the Parthian light cavalry trotting towards them. Some men rotated their right arms in readiness for the exertion to come without any conscious thought, already lost to the drilled routine that made them so deadly to an unprepared foe.

‘Archers … light targets!’

Each man reached his right hand back to the quiver of arrows waiting at his hip, using his thumb to find an arrow with a dimple drilled into the base of its shaft and delicately sliding it out of the press of its fellows. Some men kissed the missile’s broad crescent heads as they lifted them to their weapons, others muttered quiet prayers to their goddess, but the majority, eyes stonelike with concentration, simply nocked the arrow to their bows and waited for the next command.

‘At two hundred paces – draw!’

A thousand archers forced the perfectly trained strength of their upper bodies into their weapons, raising their arms until the arrows’ heads were pointing high into the air and then holding the position, waiting for the order to kill their enemies.

Julius waited in silence until the trotting horses passed the two-hundred-pace marker.

‘Loose!’

With a swishing sigh a thousand arrows flicked away from the Hamians’ bows, the archers’ previously slow, measured movements abruptly replaced by swift, merciless precision as they nocked their second arrows with hands that had been trained until the movements were simple muscle memory, mindless routine that they could repeat again and again until their quivers were empty.

‘Loose!’

The first flight of arrows was high in the air above the Parthians as the second volley flew in their pursuit, and again the archers reached behind them with movements almost too fast to follow.

‘Loose!’

The third volley was launched from the Roman line as the first struck, the isolated but crushing impact of Scorpion bolts suddenly augmented by something much deadlier to the men massed below the legion’s line. Cowering beneath their hopelessly inadequate wicker shields, the leading enemy ranks shivered under the rain of iron, scores of men dropping from their mounts, their bodies spitted by the arrows’ impacts, while some of the horses were hit by two or three of the broad-headed missiles. The screaming of men and animals rent the air, and the watching legionaries muttered to each other in genuine amazement as the Parthian advance slowed to no more than a walk, the ranks of horsemen following up behind obstructed by the dead and dying bodies of their comrades.

A horn blew, a clear and insistent command echoing out across the Parthian army, and the horsemen raised the bows that had been waiting for the command, arrows already nocked to their strings.

‘Have they got the range to hit us from that far out, shooting uphill?’

Qadir pursed his lips at the first spear’s question.

‘Shooting uphill, First Spear, their arrows will be robbed of much of their power to pierce our defences. They won’t be able to reach us here, and they won’t trouble the Scorpions, but they’ll be able to put their arrows into the infantry.’

Julius nodded to his trumpeter, and the horn sounded again.

‘Third legion – cover!’

The command was echoed down the line by his centurions, each century’s front rank promptly kneeling with their shields upright before them, while the second rank crouched behind them with their shields raised at an angle, the other two ranks standing with their boards held over their heads to provide protection against any arrows lofted high into the air above them.

‘Archers – cover!’

Stepping in behind the legion’s line, the Hamians ducked under the shield wall’s roof, while the big men waiting to either side of each Scorpion lifted the massive shields that had lain on the ground before each of the bolt throwers, holding them together to form a wooden wall behind which the crews continued to work their weapons.

The Parthian horns sounded again, and the horsemen loosed a massed volley of arrows that arced up the hillside, seemingly hanging in the sky for a moment before hissing down into the legion’s line, each heavy iron head smacking into the raised shields with a sharp thudding rattle that sounded like winter hail on a wooden roof.

‘The shields are working!’

All along the legion’s line the soldiers’ shields were studded with arrows, but where the missiles would normally have ripped through the wooden boards and into the men behind them, they had for the most part utterly failed to penetrate the enhanced protection afforded by the layers of linen and leather so painstakingly applied in Antioch. Here and there a lucky shot would slip through the inevitable small gaps in the wall of leather-faced wood to find a target, but along the line the Third Gallica’s cohorts were standing firm against the arrow storm. Scaurus grinned back at his genuinely amazed first spear.

‘I wonder which one of the three kings is going to be the most unhappy when they realise what’s happening!’

Few of the arrows had sufficient range to reach the legion’s line of Scorpions, but those that did had no more effect on the giant shields than upon those wielded by the legionaries, protruding in lonely solitude from the protective screens. With a slapping twang the nearest Scorpion spat a bolt over the legionaries’ heads, the missile vanishing into the mass of horsemen with unknown but deadly effect. Some of the Hamians were shooting arrows through small gaps in the line of shields, a rapidly swelling torrent of missiles raining down onto the Parthian archers and adding to the confusion on the plain below.

‘We’ve stopped their advance! They can’t perform their usual trot to within a hundred paces, loose and turn away, not with our Hamians shooting at them and dying horses struggling about the battlefield!’

Scaurus nodded, looking beyond the milling archers to where the Parthian heavy cavalry stood waiting for the moment that their monstrous power would be unleashed to deliver the legion’s death blow.

‘Indeed. I wonder what Osroes is making of this.’

‘They’re killing my archers! We have to do something!’

Narsai was bolt upright in his saddle, his thighs stiffened to raise his body higher for a better view. Ignoring the shouted imprecations of his fellow monarch, Osroes looked over the mass of the combined force of archers, their usual cycle of attack and retreat clearly reduced to a shambles by the growing number of horses and riders who were being killed and wounded by the Romans’ unceasing shower of arrows and artillery bolts. On the slope above them, the enemy line was apparently untroubled by the volleys of arrows that were being launched at them by the remaining archers.

‘There’s something wrong here …’

Narsai leaned in close to him, almost climbing out of his gold- and jewel-encrusted saddle in his urge to be heard, bellowing at Osroes with such vehemence that his saliva spattered across the king’s immaculate gilt armour.

‘The only thing that’s wrong is that we’re sat here doing nothing while good men die at the hands of those fucking invaders!’

Osroes stared at him for a moment before replying, as curiously calm as he always was when the release of violence beckoned him.

‘Show me that much disrespect just one more time, Cousin, and I’ll consider a change of heart as to whether I’m best off fighting the Romans or bringing your toothless little kingdom to heel.’

Narsai jerked backwards as if he’d been stung, one hand straying towards the handle of his mace, but the movement stalled as he considered the threat of the bodyguard clustered around the royal party. Osroes nodded grimly, gesturing at the magnificently equipped heavy cavalry of his most intimate bodyguard.

‘Wise, Narsai.’

He gestured towards the hill before them.

‘Our enemy seems to have our measure, at least so far. By now I would have expected to see gaps starting to appear in their line as our archers thinned out their numbers, but all I see is the Romans standing firm on that slope, seemingly untroubled. They have bolt throwers and archers behind their line, and by some trickery or other, their shields are resisting our arrows.’

He pulled at his lip thoughtfully.

‘And our archers are shooting uphill, at their longest range …’

Turning in his saddle he summoned his gundsalar, the general of his army, the bodyguard around him parting to make a path for the man’s horse.

‘Your counsel, Gundsalar.’

The cavalry commander bowed from the waist.

‘The archers are failing, Highness. They will not break that line, and while they continue to try they will also continue to take casualties. They should be withdrawn, and used to threaten the Romans from another direction to make a shattering blow from our cataphracti possible!’

Narsai nodded violently, pointing at the legion and almost screaming his agreement.

‘We must ride now, Osroes! Now! The honour of our nations depends upon it!’

The king of Media looked round to take the gauge of the third monarch’s commitment, finding Wolgash white-faced with fear.

‘Might a feigned retreat not lure them down from their positions?’

Osroes smiled despite himself, speaking kindly to the young man.

‘Under normal circumstances, Cousin, that would be a most expedient tactic to use with the usual mindless barbarians thrown at the empire by the Romans, but in this case …’

He paused, looking up at the figures standing on the hill’s crest.

‘In this case it seems that someone with a little more subtlety has been placed in command of their attempt to relieve our siege of Nisibis. With this one, I suspect that only irresistible force will serve.’

‘That’s faster than I expected.’

Julius raised his vine stick to point at the Parthian archers, watching as they turned and pulled back away from the arrow-swept strip of ground across which the bodies of so many of their comrades was scattered. Scaurus nodded.

‘It’s the decision I’d make in his place. All they can achieve by persevering is to get a lot more of those poor bastards killed, whereas pulling them back now leaves most of them fit to fight another day.’

‘So we’ve won?’

Scaurus turned to smile at Tribune Varus, who stood next to Marcus watching the battle.

‘Not really, Tribune. At the moment I think the best we could claim is a draw, given that we’re tied to this hill just as long as those archers are close enough to attack us on the march to the next one. If they were to catch us out in the open, I suspect that the balance would tip towards their side of the table. If I were the king of Media, I’d be considering sending for supplies and setting up camp to starve us out, although he probably suspects I’d make him regret the choice once the sun was down for the night. And he’s right.’

The killing ground before them was now deserted, more or less, although the plaintive cries and whinnies of agony from wounded men and horses alike were clearly audible at two hundred paces. Beyond the corpse-strewn wreckage of the archers’ attack, the enemy’s heavy cavalry was on the move, hundreds of the powerfully built steeds necessary to carry both an armoured rider and their own body protection being marshalled into formation.

‘They’ve going to attack us, aren’t they?’

Scaurus smiled at Varus again, realising that tribune was in the grip of a powerful emotion.

‘Yes, I suspect they are. They’re going to come up this slope as fast as horses carrying that much iron can move, and they’re going to try to tear a hole in our line one way or another, either by causing panic among our men or by using their lances to kill from outside the range of our spears. And then, Tribune, we’ll find out if all that drill we’ve been doing has been a waste of time, won’t we? Perhaps you young gentlemen had best go and join your cohorts? And remember, your ancestors are watching. Make them proud, gentlemen, show them that we still know what it is to be Roman.’

Marcus and Varus hurried down the hill towards the Fourth and Fifth Cohorts.

‘I’ll command both Tungrian cohorts to start with. They’re more used to fighting as one unit in any case. If I go down, then you have command.’

The younger man nodded at Marcus, watching as he put on his helmet and drew the shorter of his two swords.

‘And no heroics. If I do fall then these men will need you to command them. You’re no good to them dead. That reunion with your ancestors you’re planning will have to wait a while.’

Osroes watched with a wry smile as his cavalry commander arrayed the three kingdoms’ cataphracts into their formation, the veteran soldier shouting and cursing as he laboured to make order out of their ranks, trotting his horse to and fro to deliver his commands in person rather than depend on messengers.

‘I do believe that man won’t be happy until we’re as neatly paraded as those Romans up there. But, since we’re not Romans …’

Encouraging his horse forward with no more than a touch of his heels, he rode out in front of the heavy cavalrymen, nodding his respect to the soldier who, recognising an unspoken command when he saw one, bowed at the waist once more and backed his horse into the body of his kinsmen, a pack of brooding killers with a fierce reputation for their valour in battle.

‘Well now!’

The king’s voice rang out across the horsemen’s ranks, every man craning his neck to see and hear their king.

‘Shall we spare our horses’ strength while we talk?’

He dismounted, holding onto his mount’s reins and stroking its scale-armoured head affectionately, waiting while his men followed his example. When every man was standing alongside his mount, the king took a step forward, looking to either side at the solid wall of armoured men and beasts in front of him before raising his voice to address them.

‘Knights of Media! Honoured brothers of Adiabene! Desert warriors of Hatra! Our fight with the Romans has come down to one simple truth! We must dislodge them from that hillside, either that or we must retire from this place before nightfall, to avoid the risk of their attacking us in the darkness!’

He paused, silently revelling in the hard set of their faces.

‘In truth, I have been waiting for this moment! This is our destiny! This is the moment in which we show these usurpers that they can never stand against Parthian nobility!’

Stepping away from the horse he gestured to it with his free hand.

‘Those of you who are my kinsmen will know that when I first set eyes on this animal I knew I had to have the beast for my own.’

Men in the ranks before him were smiling, recalling the stories that were still told of the moment when Osroes had watched the horse as it had exercised under the command of a skilled rider. He recalled that moment when, despite his possession of a dozen such mounts, the animal’s sheer speed across ground, and the graceful fluidity of its movement seemingly impossible given the weight of armour and rider, its barely controlled savagery in close fighting exercises, was enough to make him cry out in astonishment.

‘You know that I was robbed like a blind man by this beast’s owner, and you know that I would have paid three times as much to own this creature …’

He paused, smiling wryly.

‘Although I would probably have flogged the man as the price of his impudence, if he hadn’t been sweating like a young man on his wedding night.’

Laughter rippled across the ranks of horsemen, the assembled cavalrymen grinning as they recalled the story of how the horse’s owner had walked a fine line between negotiating the sale of a treasured and valuable asset and the risk of incurring the wrath of the most powerful man in his world.

‘So you can imagine just how delighted I am at the prospect of taking this magnificent creature up this hill to confront that!’

He pointed up at the Roman line.

‘A single arrow could fell this, the best and most beloved of all the things I own. A bolt from one of their catapults could kill the noble creature in an instant – and if I am afraid for Storm Arrow here, how much more do I fear the loss of a single man from among you? No, my brothers, I do not wish to charge our enemy, up a slope and without the chance for our archers to reduce their numbers a little first!’

He paused for a moment, allowing the words to sink in.

‘But, reluctant or not, Storm Arrow and I, and all of you, must take up arms against these trespassers! We must take that righteous fury that burns fiercely in our hearts at the sight of their boots fouling our homeland, and use it to inspire us to their slaughter!’

He strode forward, raising a fist to challenge the men before him.

‘Ride with me, fellow knights, ride with me against these followers of false gods who sully our homelands! Ride with me, and we will have our revenge for their destruction of the King of Kings’ city of Ctesiphon, a deed to make our fathers proud again! Ride with me, and we will show these ants in iron what it means to face the hunar of the artestarih!’

The knights arrayed before him erupted in a cacophony of shouts, echoing his last words.

‘The honour of the warriors!’

Swinging his body into the saddle, he raised his kontos over his head.

‘For Adiabene!’

The locally recruited men cheered in response, raising their own lances in salute. Narsai spurred his mount forward a few paces, bellowing something incoherent at the Roman line.

‘For Hatra!’

Wolgash’s knights added their voices to the swelling noise, raising their weapons high.

‘For Media!’

His own men, by far the largest of the three factions present, drowned out their comrades from the smaller kingdoms with a roar that Osroes knew would be audible on the hill above them, and he grinned ferociously at them, his heart swelling with pride as he pulled lightly at the beast’s reins to point it at the enemy.

‘Ride with me!’