The Parthian (72 page)

He saluted. ‘Yes, lord.’ Then he was gone, no doubt to join the scouts and try to find some deer or boar he could hunt for amusement. I had given strict orders that villages and towns were to be avoided if possible. I wanted us to be like ghosts moving unseen through the countryside, if thirty companies of horsemen could do such a thing.

‘An interesting story,’ remarked Gallia, irony in her voice. ‘I hope all Parthian fairy tales don’t involve amorous bulls. Actually Burebista reminds me of a bull, short-sighted, all brute force and stupid.’

‘He is a good fighter, though.’

‘Have you told him that there is a home for him in Parthia should he so desire?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, proudly.

‘I’m sure the cows of your father’s herds will be delighted to hear that.’

We kept away from the coast and settlements as we moved north, skirting Caulonia, Scolacium Croton and Thurii. How long ago it seemed when we were last at the latter place, when I had nearly been killed by Roman treachery and had been saved by Gallia’s skill with a bow. From Thurii we quickly crossed the land to the burnt-out shell that was Metapontum. A few poor wretches were still living among its blood-stained and charred buildings, but they squealed in terror and fled for their lives when a patrol of Byrd’s men entered the city. They were looking for food or anything else that might assist our journey, but found nothing but the bones of the dead, still unburied from when the Gauls had attacked, and the stench of death that hung over the empty husks of buildings. I rode into the city and saw for myself the decay, smelt the nauseous odour of decay and human waste, and saw the small harbour choked with smashed and tangled boats. There was nothing for us there.

We left Metapontum and advanced to north of Tarentum, crossed the Appian Way and then made a dash across country towards the coastline a few miles south of Gnatia. Sixteen days after we had left Rhegium, I stood on a long sandy beach looking at the gently lapping waves of the Adriatic. The cavalry was five miles inland, setting up camp for the night, and only Nergal and myself had ridden to the shore. The afternoon was giving way to early evening and a light sea breeze blew in our faces. I pointed out to sea.

‘In that direction, many miles away, is Hatra, beautiful, majestic Hatra.’

‘We will see it again, highness.’

‘You really think that?’

‘Of course, highness. Why would Shamash save our lives and give us all the great victories we have won without some purpose.’

I looked at him. Brave and loyal Nergal. He never complained or doubted that we were on the right course. I placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘When we get back to Hatra, I would like you to be an officer my father’s royal bodyguard.’

He flashed a smile. ‘I would be honoured, highness.’

‘No, Nergal, it is I who am honoured to have such an able commander by my side.’

But first we had to kill more Romans.

That night Byrd and his scouts returned from their reconnaissance of Brundisium. They had ridden right into the port and even to its harbour. But then, a group of scruffy individuals on untidy horses and carrying no weapons, dressed in dirty clothes and unshaven, would elicit more pity than concern. Now Byrd drew Brundisium’s layout on the earth using his dagger. I had gathered all the company commanders to attend his briefing, which he gave beside a wagon, as I had given orders that no tents were to be erected this night.

‘Port lies on one side of large bay. But before sea reaches port it goes through a narrow channel where land on either side is close, before widening at Brundisium. This means that Romani cannot send many ships in and out because channel is only wide enough for one ship.’

‘Are there pirate ships in the harbour?’ asked Burebista.

Byrd nodded. ‘Many ships lie out to sea as well.’

‘What about the city’s defences?’ I asked.

Byrd stood up and replaced his dagger in its scabbard. ‘Walls enclose port on all sides except where there is water. Big city, walls are all manned. You will not be able to storm it. But no need, for Romani are unloading troops on beaches north of the city. On way back we saw many ships anchored off beach, with troops camped on sand. No walls there.’

‘Are you sure?’ I said.

‘Of course. Romani think slave army is far away. Why should they worry?’

‘Why indeed?’ I replied.

We rested for three hours, during which time we fed and watered the horses, removed their saddles and checked the straps and fittings, and then groomed them. The veterinaries checked horseshoes and then we examined our weapons. It was dark by the time I once again assembled the company commanders and gave them their orders.

‘We ride in quick, hit them hard and then get out as fast as we can. Use flame arrows on any ships that are close enough to the shore, but don’t let your men wade into the water, tempting though it may be. They will merely make themselves slow-moving targets for any archers or slingers the enemy may have.’

‘What about the port, lord?’ asked one.

‘We leave it. We’re here to kill Roman soldiers, not capture cities.’

The full moon illuminated our route well enough as two and half thousand cavalry trotted in column towards the stretch of sandy beach where the Romans were landing. In many ways it made perfect sense. Why use a port that would quickly get congested when they could also take advantage of long beaches where the sea was shallow for at least a hundred yards out from the shore? Byrd led us, the redoubtable guide who had once been a seller of pots. How strange was fate.

The carts and the remaining five hundred men I had ordered south to just north of a small town called Caelia. Once we had made our assault, the carts would slow us down and I wasn’t sure how many horsemen the Romans had. Byrd and his men had seen no horses being unloaded from the ships, but that did not mean that Brundisium’s garrison did not have any. The landscape we moved through was largely flat, very dry and was punctuated by dry riverbeds, and the whole area was filled with olive groves and vineyards. We scattered flocks of sheep, the animals parting before us like a giant white blanket being torn in two. Fortunately the sheep outnumbered humans by around a thousand to one, for Calabria appeared to have few villages and villas. Aside from the towns, this was a sparsely populated region, and for that I was glad. Gallia rode beside me, her Amazons behind, followed by my dragon, then Nergal’s and finally Burebista’s. We had ridden for two hours when Byrd and one of his scouts galloped up to me and halted. By now our eyes had become accustomed to the moonlight and I could see the terrain around us with ease. I could also smell the salty air of the sea, and Byrd confirmed that we were less than a mile away from the beach.

I dismounted and gave the order for everyone else to do likewise, each man (and woman) conveying the command with a hushed voice. There was no sound and I was worried that the Romans would become aware of our presence, though as the wind was blowing off the sea, at least any noise we made would not be carried towards them. I knelt on the ground, one hand holding Remus’ reins. Byrd knelt opposite me. Nergal and Burebista joined us while Gallia and Praxima stood over us.

‘Romani guards every twenty paces just off the beach,’ said Byrd.

I stood up and looked ahead. I could not see the beach because the ground rose up slightly around four hundred yards in front of me, beyond which it sloped down to the beach. Byrd had told us that the beach itself was about three miles in length and that ships were anchored along its whole length.

‘Many ships anchored both at the shore and in sea. Dozens of ships.’

It was about an hour to dawn. Nothing stirred.

‘Very well,’ I told them. ‘Nergal and Burebista, get your men deployed into line, but keep them on foot for the moment. I will take the centre. Nergal, you will form the right wing and Burebista, you will be our left wing. Once we are in position, we will walk the horses to the top of that small rise ahead, and then we will mount up and attack. Ride straight through any screen of guards and onto the beach. And order everyone to be as quiet as the dead. Surprise must be total.’

It took half an hour, maybe more, for hundreds of men and their horses to move from column into line, and every minute that passed shredded my nerves a little more. I kept looking in the direction of the beach, straining my eyes for any sign of the enemy. My imagination taunted me, and any minute I expected to see the massed ranks of several Roman legions cresting the ground ahead of us. Gallia touched my arm and I jumped. She passed me a waterskin.

‘Are you unwell?’

I drank the lukewarm water. ‘No, just jumpy.’ It was curious how the burden of command bore down on me like a colossal weight just before battle.

Finally we were ready. I glanced left and right to see men holding their horses stretching into the distance. Each dragon was formed into two lines, and as I raised my hand and led Remus forward, twenty-five hundred others did likewise. It took us another fifteen minutes to traverse those four hundred yards to the crest, each rider carefully picking his way through wild grass, tussocks and rabbit holes. Some stumbled and fell, cursing as they did so, their noise increasing the thumping in my chest. I looked up and saw that the sky had changed, the eastern horizon was now turning a dark orange — dawn was breaking. We reached the crest at last and I vaulted onto Remus’ back, behind me my dragon did the same. For a few seconds I stood and looked ahead. I could see the orange sky and the yellow ball of the sun just creeping above the sea. In front of me the beach was littered with groups of Roman soldiers sleeping on the sand, their shields and javelins neatly stacked beside them. The sea, smooth as a mirror, was filled with ships, their sails stashed and their oars at rest. It was an impressive display of Roman might, and they were as vulnerable as a newborn lamb.

I pulled my bow from its case, then strung an arrow in the bowstring and dug my knees into Remus’ flanks. He snorted and raced forward. Ahead I saw a guard, his shield on the ground resting against his leg, staring at us. He was only a couple of hundred feet away. He peered, realised that the wall of horseflesh galloping towards him was not a dream or phantoms, then shouted and grabbed the handle of his shield, just as my arrow hit him in the chest, the rhomboid head piercing his mail shirt and sending him spinning backwards. I rode past him, screaming a war cry as Remus thundered onto the sand.

Each company worked as a team, either riding over men who were still lying on the ground or sweeping around others who had managed to wake themselves and were attempting to form into some sort of unit. The beach itself was approximately three hundred yards wide, and those Roman legionaries who were sleeping the furthest from the water suffered the most. They slept in eight-man tent groups, grouped into centuries — even in slumber the Romans retained their formation — and our first line rode through and over them. Those who hadn’t been trampled, speared or shot were then assaulted in quick succession by our second line, who hacked at bleary eyed individuals with their swords. As I rode Remus to the water’s edge and then wheeled him right, the beach was suddenly engulfed in noise: screams, shouts, curses and whoops. Cavalry horns blasted as company commanders isolated groups of Romans and began reducing them with arrow fire, while Roman trumpets sounded assembly.

All along the beach the battle assumed a predictable pattern, as horse companies sort to isolate and then destroy Roman units. The Roman Army’s strength was its discipline and belief in its formations, the century, cohort and legion. But today, while the sky turned from orange to yellow as the sun rose in the east, that very same strength began to work against the Romans as legionaries rallied into their centuries. However, instead of other centuries and cohorts being to their right and left, groups of fast-moving horsemen were between them, searching for weak points and unleashing a hail of arrow against them. Century after century was shot to pieces in this way. Other centuries, to their credit, managed to form an all-round defence, the front ranks kneeling and forming a shield wall, and the second and third ranks also kneeling and hauling their shields above their heads to form a sloping roof against which our arrows could not penetrate. Occasionally a legionary would lose his nerve, or goaded beyond his limit, would break formation and charge out to attack a horseman, only to be felled by an arrow before he had run ten paces. As so it went on, a myriad of isolated battles all along the beach. Some centuries withdrew to the water and then attempted to wade to the safety of the ships, but my archers merely followed them, keeping out of javelin range, and then shot at them when their cohesion fell to pieces in the water as the Romans tried to reach the boats. Soon the sea was dyed red with the blood of dead Romans.

Now flame arrows were arching into the sky and landing on the anchored ships, whose crews had awoke to discover what was happening on the beach. Captains screamed at their crews to cut anchor ropes and man their oars. But it takes time to move a ship, and in those precious few minutes a torrent of flame arrows was launched against those boats nearest to the shore. We had not come to burn boats, but soon a dozen or more were aflame before the rest had managed to row beyond the range of our bows.

Gallia, her Amazons tight around her, ripped off her helmet when faced by the locked shields of over a hundred legionaries. She tossed her blonde hair back and laughed at them.

‘Soldiers of Rome, are you afraid of a woman, where is your courage?’

Behind her the Amazons, fastened cheekguards hiding their sex, closed in upon the Romans. The front rank of the later, taunted beyond endurance by this woman on a horse in front of them, shouted and charged forward, javelins poised to be thrown. Gallia did nothing as the hiss of arrows flashed past her and struck the legionaries. Then another volley was loosed and yet more Romans fell, and then Gallia dug her knees into Epona and screamed a blood-curdling cry and the Amazons charged into the disorganised and demoralised Romans, riding straight into their midst and destroying any semblance of formation that had existed. I saw Praxima hacking left and right with her sword, Gallia shooting a hapless Roman in the back at a range of about ten feet and the others turning mail-clad soldiers into a mound of offal. It was terrible, exhilarating and glorious at the same time. I gave the order to sound retreat, the horns blasting their shrill sound. I rode over to Gallia, her women reforming around her.