Parthian Vengeance (58 page)

We halted and awaited our foes, whose line did not even match the frontage of one of our legions as they marched towards us with their shields in front of them and their spears held at an angle of forty-five degrees. I heard the sound of drums being banged and saw many yellow banners among their ranks, indicating that these men were from Persis.

I rode beyond our front line to take a closer look but saw no horsemen and no foot archers. A Parthian army without archers, very strange. Orodes, Vagises, Byrd and Malik joined me as I stared in disbelief at the meagre force that intended to fight us.

‘Are you certain that there are no more enemy troops nearby?’ I asked Byrd and Malik as I peered ahead and to the left and right of the enemy.

‘Unless they can fly,’ said Malik, ‘then those are the only ones we face today.’

Domitus trotted up, sweating in his mail armour and helmet.

‘Straight through them, then? Shouldn’t take long.’

‘No,’ I answered. ‘Vagises and his archers will destroy them. I see no reason to commit the legionaries when we can shoot them to pieces.’

And so it was. The Durans and Exiles stood and leaned on their shields and the cataphracts roasted in their armour as Vagises’ companies rode round the enemy and killed them with volleys of arrows. After an hour what was left of them threw down their weapons and surrendered. I had their surviving commanding officer brought to me as the rest were escorted from the scene of carnage and the army was stood down.

The man wore a linen tunic reinforced with bronze scales and a bronze helmet on his head, his scruffy black hair showing beneath it. He was armed with a sword though his men had carried spears and shields only and wore felt caps on their heads. He had the aroma of an old mule.

‘How did you expect to defeat us with so few?’ I asked him.

‘My general was ordered to stop you, majesty. We were camped thirty miles south of Seleucia and received an order from the governor of the city to engage you.’

‘How many men does your king, Narses, have in Babylonia?’ I asked him.

He looked at me blankly. ‘I do not know, majesty.’

He was probably telling the truth. He was, after all, but a low-ranking officer. I shook my head. It had been the most one-sided battle that I had ever taken part in: we had suffered fifteen casualties including one man who had grazed his arm during the act of pulling an arrow from his quiver and nocking it in his bowstring. By contrast the enemy had lost three and a half thousand dead and three hundred more wounded. Those who were not injured and who had surrendered were ordered to dig pits in which their dead comrades could be interred, as not even five thousand wicker shields were enough to burn three and a half thousand corpses. Besides, as it was now late and we had pitched camp two miles further east near the Tigris, I did not want the stench of roasting flesh filling my nostrils all night.

According to the rules of war I could have executed all the prisoners or kept them as slaves, but I decided that they should not only live but were to be set free the next day. They slept outside the camp perimeter that night, having been first escorted to the river to drink and wash the filth from their bodies. Alcaeus went among their wounded with his physicians and tended to their injuries – I saw little point in heaping cruelty upon their defeat and misery. The officer who had surrendered I had brought to my tent that evening to dine with my commanders and me.

When he first took his seat at the table he wore the look of a man who was expecting to receive a death sentence, but after a while and a few cups of wine he relaxed and became very talkative. He told us his name was Udall.

‘All the royal foot guards,’ he informed us as more wine loosened his tongue, ‘went to Babylon with the king. We stayed behind to guard the road back to Seleucia.’

I smiled and poured more wine into his cup.

‘And what do you hear about the siege of Babylon?’

He screwed up his face. ‘Only rumours that things are not going well and the two kings are arguing. Can’t scale the walls, you see.’

Udall finished his wine and belched.

‘Pardon, majesty, too much wine on an empty stomach.’

‘Rations are sparse?’ probed Domitus.

Udall laughed. ‘Sparse? They are non-existent. They ran out weeks ago. We have had to forage for ourselves as well as keep a lookout for enemy raiders.’

‘Raiders?’ asked Orodes, pouring more wine into Udall’s cup.

‘Yes, riders from Mesene. I spoke to a man from the garrison at Jem det Nasr who told me that some of his men had been killed by them, and he further informed me that there were Agraci among them, can you imagine that?’

He shuddered and drained his cup. His wine-soaked brain had failed to notice that Malik was an Agraci, but then like most Parthians he had probably never actually seen the feared and loathed people who lived in the great desert west of the Euphrates.

‘How large is the garrison at Jem det Nasr?’ asked Orodes, smiling and refilling Udall’s now empty cup.

‘Not sure, but the governor sent them a message that they too were to attack you, begging your pardon, majesty.’

‘You were doing your duty, Udall,’ I reassured him. ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’

After two more cups of wine he collapsed and I had him carried back to his men outside the camp, leaving us to mull over what he had blurted out.

‘It would appear that things are not going well for Mithridates and Narses before Babylon,’ said Orodes with satisfaction.

‘And it also appears that they have had to disperse their forces throughout Babylonia to keep their supply lines open,’ I added.

‘Lord Yasser must be aiding Nergal,’ said Malik.

‘If what Udall told us is true,’ I said, ‘then it means Nergal is raiding north of Babylon. No wonder the enemy are worried about their supply lines. It also means that the threat posed to Mesene by King Phriapatius must have greatly lessened.’

Suddenly the overall situation did not appear as bleak as a few days ago. Taking cities can be very debilitating for the besiegers as well as the besieged, and if supplies were not getting through to the army sitting in front of the city then that was good news indeed.

I was now more convinced than ever that if we stormed the city and took possession of its strategic bridge over the Tigris then we would deal the enemy a mortal blow. Babylonia had been pillaged but there was only so much a plundered country could supply to an invader.

An hour after dawn I had a bleary eyed, unshaven and dishevelled Udall brought to me, clearly the worse for wear after the copious amounts of wine he had consumed the previous evening. I told him that he and his soldiers would be deprived of their weapons but would be allowed to leave as free men. I advised him to avoid Seleucia, as the city was our destination. If he and his men were inside it when we attacked they would receive no mercy when I put the entire garrison to the sword. He asked me where they should go but I replied that it was not my concern.

‘Go where you will, Udall, for that is the prerogative of a free man.’

So they trudged east to the Tigris. At least they would have access to water and might find some rafters who could convey them to the eastern bank of the river.

The army began its march south towards Seleucia once more, but the last centuries were still waiting on the site of the previous night’s camp when Byrd and Malik returned with news that another enemy force was approaching, this time from the south.

‘Both horse and foot,’ said Byrd.

‘Numbers?’

‘Around five thousand foot, same number of horse.’

‘This must be the garrison of Jem det Nasr that our friend Udall was talking about last night,’ I said. ‘Give the order to form a battle line. Domitus, send word that the wagons and mules are to return to camp. We will be staying here for another night, it seems.’

As I watched the leading centuries of the legions fall back and form into their battle positions of three lines, the horse archers taking up position on their flanks, the enemy appeared on the horizon – a long black line that shimmered in the summer heat. I did not bother to don my scale armour as Orodes would command the cataphracts this day. When Byrd and Malik returned once more and reported that the enemy horse consisted of spearmen with no armour and horse archers similarly attired, I gave the order that the legions were to deploy in two lines to extend their frontage. My scouts also told me that the enemy had no camel train carrying spare ammunition for the archers. I assembled the senior officers of the army.

‘This is the disadvantage of filling an army with ill-equipped farmers,’ I told them. ‘Domitus, the legions will advance against them in a hollow square formation to draw their arrow fire. I have no doubt that their spearmen will launch an attack against you after their horse archers have softened you up. You and your men will be today’s bait.’

He smiled grimly. ‘Don’t you worry, Pacorus, my boys will deal with them.’

‘Vagises,’ I said, ‘when their horse archers have expended their arrows your men will charge and disperse them, after which Domitus will be able to destroy their spearmen.’

‘What about the cataphracts?’ asked Orodes, clearly annoyed that he had been left out of things.

‘What about them?’ teased Domitus. ‘They can sit on their arses and watch proper soldiers at work.’

Orodes was most unhappy but the only role for the armoured horsemen was as a reserve. As Domitus went back to his men and the legions deployed into a great hollow square, he remained at the head of the cataphracts in frustration. I stayed beside him, my helmet heating up my head, the sweat running down my cheeks and stinging my eyes. Behind me twelve hundred horsemen roasted in their armour. Fighting in the height of summer could be a most uncomfortable as well as a deadly experience.

The enemy commander knew what he was doing in that he adopted the correct tactics to suit the soldiers he had at his disposal. His spearmen halted around five hundred paces from the legions as the latter inched their way across the hard-packed earth towards them, retaining their formation as if they were on the parade square. Then the enemy horse archers attacked from the wings, companies darting towards the dense ranks of the legionaries and loosing their arrows. But the legionaries had already halted to form a continuous shield wall to face their attackers, while the ranks behind hoisted their shields above their heads to make an impervious roof of leather and wood.

Horse archers swept around the square, riders galloping to within a hundred paces of the shield wall to loose their arrows, then retreating and then attacking again and again, the hiss and whoosh of flying arrows enveloping the Durans and Exiles. While this thunderstorm of arrows was taking place Vagises’ men on both flanks actually fell back to further isolate the square and lure the enemy in. And behind them the cataphracts continued to roast in their armour.

After around half an hour the inevitable happened: the enemy horse archers ran out of arrows and withdrew to take up position either side of the spearmen, who were now banging their shafts against the insides of their wicker shields and shouting and screaming their war cries. Then they advanced against Domitus’ square.

Having believed he had weakened the opposition with his horse archers, the enemy commander now committed his spearmen to deliver the mortal blow to the soldiers who had been peppered with arrows. The spearmen advanced at a steady rate, retaining their lines as they did so. These men were obviously professional soldiers, well trained and equipped, the sun glinting off their helmets and spear points. Against ordinary soldiers they would have prevailed easily enough. But they were not facing ordinary soldiers; they were facing the legionaries of Lucius Domitus. And in the next few minutes the enemy commander’s battle plan and army disintegrated before his eyes.

As Vagises’ horse archers thundered across the ground to attack the two wings of enemy horsemen, trumpet blasts ordered the legions to deploy from square into line, the five cohorts at the top of the square halting while those that had formed the left-hand and right-hand sides of the square fanned out to take up position either side of them. They presented a line of fifteen cohorts to the enemy spearmen who, to their credit, continued their steady advance undeterred. In the rear the five cohorts who had formed the bottom of the square closed up on the first line, ready to act as a reserve to plug any gaps that might appear. None did.

I heard another blast of trumpets followed by a mighty cheer and then the cohorts raced forward to assault the spearmen, the first five ranks in each century hurling their javelins and the first rank then drawing their swords moments before they collided with the enemy, ramming their shield bosses into wicker shields and attempting to push their owners over as they stabbed with their swords. Javelins hit flesh and bone and bent on impact as they embedded themselves in wicker shields and the front ranks of the spearmen buckled and then collapsed as
gladius
blades went about their deadly work.

I felt elation sweep through me as, above the ghastly din of close-quarter combat, I heard the chant that had graced so many battlefields – ‘Dura, Dura’ – and knew that the enemy had been broken. And on the flanks Vagises and his horse archers charged at the enemy horsemen who now had no arrows. At the gallop they shot arrows at the stationary ranks that within minutes had turned tail and fled the battlefield, abandoning their foot soldiers to their fate. Vagises and his men gave chase. Orodes drew his sword and raised it in the air, turning in the saddle to order his men to move forward. I stopped him.

‘No, my friend, today we let Vagises and Domitus have all the glory.’

He looked disconsolate as he slid his sword back in its scabbard and slumped in his saddle, while behind him the cataphracts continued to sweat in the heat.

The last, tragic act of the battle was played out as the sun at last began its descent in the western sky and began to lose some of its heat. Fifteen cohorts of legionaries methodically destroyed the enemy spearmen, who were attacked from the flanks as the five reserve cohorts were moved to the wings to envelop what remained of the opposition. The enemy commander died with his men who formed a tight circle around both him and their standard as they were cut down. Domitus brought me the flag, a great square of yellow cloth with a leering black Simurgel stitched in its centre, and threw it at my feet.