Fire in the East (46 page)

Ballista looked round. The messenger’s blood was already soaking into the brickwork, a film of dust dulling the bright-red pool. Ballista nodded to those with him and, again keeping very low, crawled to the trapdoor. Maximus, Demetrius and the three remaining
equites singulares
clattered down the stone stairs after him.

Castricius was waiting at the entrance to his mine. With no formalities, he told them to get ready.

Ballista had been dreading this moment. It had to come. It was inevitable. He had to do it. But he did not want to.
Don’t think, just act.
‘Let’s go.’

As they walked down into the northern mine the sunlight from the entrance soon gave out. They moved quietly, just them in the darkness. None of the oil lamps in the niches was alight. Before they entered, Castricius had checked that no one had hobnails in the soles of their boots. They had left their sword belts, armour, helmets - anything metal - above ground. A careless spark could bring on their greatest fear, a premature fire.

In the pitch-darkness they moved in single file. Castricius led the way, feeling his way with his right hand on the wall. Ballista followed, gripping the back of Castricius’s tunic in his fist. Then came Maximus, then Demetrius.

The floor was uneven. Ballista’s boot half-turned on a loose stone. He imagined twisting his ankle, breaking his leg, being trapped down here. He fought down a surge of panic.
Keep going. Don’t think, just act.

The walk defied time, defied logic. They had been walking for hours. They could have walked all the way across the plain to the Persian camp.

Something changed. Ballista could sense space opening all around him. Possibly it was the quality of sound. The echo of their footfalls came back more slowly. The air smelt strange. It brought to mind different things: a stable, a butcher’s shop, a warship. But the air was less close than before.

Castricius stopped. Behind him, the others stopped. Carefully, very carefully, Castricius opened his shuttered lantern just a chink. The thin beam of light barely illuminated the far side of the cavern. He held up the lantern. The roof was lost in shadows. Bringing the lantern down again, he directed the light at the timbers which held up the roof. To Ballista’s eye there seemed very few of them, and those there were impossibly slender.

‘There are just enough to hold the roof,’ said Castricius, as if reading the mind of his commander. ‘The wood is good, well-seasoned, tinder-dry. I have coated the timbers in pitch.’

‘Good,’ said Ballista, feeling he had to say something.

Castricius directed the light downwards. Most of the floor of the cavern was ankle-deep in straw. Around the bases of the timbers were pigskins stuffed with pig fat. ‘A few cooks may have a problem, but they will burn well.’

‘Good,’ said Ballista in a voice that sounded strained to himself.

‘And here is the heart of the matter.’ Castricius shone the light behind them. To the left of the mouth of the tunnel where they had entered there were three large bronze cauldrons raised on wooden blocks, straw heaped around them. A trail of straw ran from them back up the tunnel. ‘I found some bitumen for the first cauldron. The others contain oil.’

‘I see,’ said Ballista.

‘Is it good?’

‘Very good.’

‘The fuse leads two-thirds of the way out of the tunnel. When you are clear, call to me and, with your permission, I will light it.’

‘You have my permission.’

‘Then let’s go.’

Back on the surface the sunlight was blinding. Tears ran from their eyes. Having got his breath back, Ballista called to Castricius to fire the mine. They stepped away from the entrance.

For some time nothing happened. Then they heard the sound of Castricius’s boots dislodging stones as he ran. He shot out of the tunnel, bent double but running hard. He skidded to a halt, looked around and, blinking hard, walked over to the others.

‘It is done. Now it is in the hands of the gods.’

They struggled back into their armour and sword belts and ran to the tower. Taking the steps two at a time, Ballista burst out on to the battlements. He dived behind the parapet and looked out.

Almost everything was as it had been before. Yet Ballista knew something was wrong. There was the void. There was the Persian ramp with the screens along its face. Further back, level with the base of the ramp, was the line of mantlets. Further back still were the Persian artillery emplacements. Ballista searched hard, but he could see no wisp of smoke escape from the ramp. There was no evidence of what should be happening. There was no sign of the conflagration that should be raging in the manmade cavern below, the terrible fire that should be burning through the props, bringing down the cavern roof and the whole ramp above it. Everything on the surface was completely still.

That was it: everything was completely still - no incoming artillery, no archery, no rubble being tipped into the void. It would be now: the assault would come any second now.

‘Haddudad, get the men up on the wall. The reptiles are coming.’ Even as he shouted to the mercenary captain, Ballista saw the screen at the front of the Persian ramp begin to tip up. Allfather, we are going to lose this race. So close - just a few minutes more was all we needed.

The screen was pulled horizontal. Ballista ducked back behind the crenellations. A volley of arrows like a swarm of hornets buzzed across the fighting top, snickering off the stone. A sentry howled. The arrow in his shoulder, he spun round, lost his footing and tumbled down the slope of the inner earth ramp, where he got in the way of some legionaries coming out of their dug-outs and beginning the climb.

The arrow storm stopped. Ballista quickly glanced out. The boarding bridge was being pushed towards him across the void. A vicious-looking spike stuck down from beneath its leading edge. Ballista looked back inside the town. The defenders were labouring up the inner glacis, Roman regulars, mercenaries and local levies combined: they would not make it in time.

The boarding bridge crashed down, its spike well over the parapet. Without thinking, Ballista grabbed it. The wood was warm and smooth under his right hand. He swung his legs up on to the bridge. His boots thumped hollowly as he landed. Side on, shield well out in front, he drew his sword. He heard Maximus’s boots thump down just to his left, those of another defender beyond the Hibernian. The boarding bridge was not wide. If no one fell, three men might hold it - at least for a short time.

In front was a line of fierce, dark, bearded faces, mouths open, yelling hatred. Under a coating of dust were the bright colours of Sassanid surcoats and the shine of their armour. Their boots drummed on the boarding bridge.

The easterner hurled himself baying at Ballista, not even trying to use the long sword in his hand. He wanted to smash his shield into that of the northerner, simply drive the defender back and off the bridge.

Ballista let himself begin to be pushed backwards. He stepped away to the right with his rear foot - there was no railing to the bridge; his boot was far too near the edge - and brought his left foot back behind his right. The Persian’s momentum drew him on. As Ballista’s body turned, he brought his sword over and, palm down, he stabbed it into the easterner’s collarbone. There was a momentary resistance from the mail coat, then the point slid in, cutting through the soft flesh, scraping down the bone.

As the first Sassanid fell, beside and behind Ballista, the next came on. Ballista dropped to one knee and swung the sword in a wide arc at the man’s ankle. The Persian hastily dropped his shield to take the blow. Leaning over, off balance, the man had little chance. Ballista lunged forward and up, driving his shield into the man’s chest, knocking him back and sideways. There was a momentary look of horror on the Persian’s face as he realized that there was nothing under his boots, that he had been driven over the edge of the bridge; then he fell backwards, arms waving into the void.

For a second Ballista teetered on the edge, then he regained his balance. He glanced to his left. There were two Persians on the floor around Maximus. Beyond that, one of the equites
singulares
was down, but another had taken his place. Calling to the other two defenders to stay with him, Ballista carefully stepped back over the body of the first Sassanid he had killed.

The line of angry, contorted faces stopped. To get at the defenders they would have to risk the uneven footing of stepping on or over the bodies of four dead or dying men. The Sassanids were no cowards, but it would be a fool who would willingly put himself at a disadvantage in a fight like this.

Ballista felt a surge of confidence: he could do this; he was good at this. A perfect Thessalian feint followed by taking the man over the edge. The northerner’s euphoria was broken by a vicious pain in his right thigh. There was a thin white line, which suddenly swelled into a red gash. As the blood ran down he shifted his leg. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But it would take his weight. The arrow had caused only a glancing flesh wound.

Crouching low behind his shield, arrows flying in from both sides, Ballista looked over the edge at the siege ramp. He thought he saw a wisp of smoke curling out of the mud bricks at the side of the ramp. It was gone before he could be certain. Sweat ran down his back. Maddeningly, a fly tried again and again to land on his eyes. His leg was throbbing; soon it would stiffen up.

A Sassanid nobleman was shouting at the storming party on the ramp. Any moment now they would recover their nerve. Ballista looked over the edge again.

There! There was a wisp of smoke. This time he was sure. Another, and another.

The Sassanids on the boarding bridge knew that something was wrong. They stopped yelling, stopped screaming at the defenders. They looked from one to another, puzzled. It was the noise, something beyond the sounds of men in combat, something deep, low and elemental, something like a wave crashing on a rocky shore.

As Ballista watched, smoke leaked out from all over the siege ramp. The noise changed to the deep rumble of an earthquake. The ramp seemed to quiver. The boarding bridge began to buck wildly. The looks on the Sassanid faces changed to terror. Slowly at first, then too sudden to follow, the centre of the ramp sank out of sight. The three side walls held for a moment. The boarding bridge swayed above the abyss.

As he shouted, Ballista spun round and started to run. The. wooden boards under his feet tipped up. He was scrabbling upwards on his hands and knees, his sword swinging dangerously from its wrist loop. The boarding bridge slid backwards down into the void. Its spike snagged for a moment on the parapet.

With a leap born of desperation, the leap of a salmon, Ballista just got the fingers of his right hand over the end of the bridge. There was a deafening roar. A mushroom cloud of choking dust and smoke blinded him. The parapet gave way. The boarding bridge began to slide down into the abyss.

A hand caught his wrist. The grip slipped, then held. It was joined by another hand. Then another. Haddudad and Maximus hauled Ballista up on to the fighting top.

For a time he lay on his back in the dust, holding both hands to the wound in his thigh. Through the darkness he could hear the groaning of thousands of tons of earth, wood and rock shifting, and hundreds, thousands, of men screaming.

 

Thick sweet coils of smoke meant to keep the swarms of insects at bay rose from the incense burners. Despite the clouds of gnats, evening was the one time of day Ballista still enjoyed in Arete. The artillery fell silent and a cool wind blew across the Euphrates. The terrace of the palace of the
Dux Ripae
was the best place to enjoy it. Here, the door guarded by the
equites singulares
and the waspish presence of Calgacus, Ballista could know some privacy.

The northerner picked up his drink and went and sat on the wall, one leg dangling. In the half-light bats flitted along the face of the cliff. Below him the great river rolled past, always changing, always the same. The green of the tamarisks provided a welcome relief for the eyes. Across the river came the bark of a fox.

Ballista put his drink down on the wall and looked again at the amulet that the two guardsmen had brought him. The messenger from the Subura had of course died. They had found the amulet on his body. In life he had worn it under his clothes. The leather thong on which it had hung around his neck was stiff with dried blood. The amulet was a circular disc, not more than two inches across. It was an identity tag, one side blank, the other stamped with two words: MILES ARCANUS. Ballista turned it in his hands.

The northerner’s thoughts were interrupted by the approach of Calgacus. ‘That hot Syrian bitch and her miserable father are outside. He says he wants to talk to you - probably wants to know why you haven’t fucked her yet.’

‘That should make for an interesting conversation.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind, would you show them in?’

Calgacus walked away. ‘Your father would have had her on her back months ago. Any man in his right mind would.’

Ballista put the amulet in the purse on his belt and swung down off the wall. He brushed down his tunic. He had not yet had a chance to bathe or eat.

‘Dominus,
the
synodiarch
larhai and his daughter Bathshiba.’ Calgacus could not have sounded more courtly.

Ballista had seen very little of Iarhai recently. For the last couple of months the caravan protector had seldom appeared on the walls. More and more he had entrusted the running of his troops to the mercenary captain Haddudad. Haddudad was a fine officer, but Iarhai’s continuing absences were worrying.

As Iarhai advanced out of the gloom of the portico Ballista was struck by a change in him. He looked thinner, gaunt even. The broken nose and cheekbone looked more prominent. The lines on his forehead and at the sides of his mouth were deeper.