Thunder of the Gods (24 page)

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.