The Slave King

by Peter Darman

  The four Amazons who had escorted us to the citadel were all young and eager, but at this ungodly hour even they were sluggish and irritable, but managed to saddle their horses well enough, before following us with their mounts into the courtyard where the palace guard was manning the walls. I vaulted into Horns’ saddle.

  ‘Open the gates,’ I shouted, the duty officer at the closed entrance ordering his men to remove the thick wooden beam slotted horizontally into iron brackets across the inside of the gates. When it had been removed and the gates opened we trotted from the courtyard to head towards the gates at the entrance to the citadel itself. Once the duty officer had equipped us with lighted torches to enable us to negotiate our way through the city below, we rode down the ramp through the empty streets. We were fortunate in that Irbil’s layout – essentially buildings packed tightly together round the citadel – meant we did not have to ride far to reach the perimeter. Akmon had imposed a night curfew so our ride was uninterrupted through the city, sliding off our horses at the western gates only ten minutes or so after leaving the citadel.

  Torches illuminated the walls and towers where sentries peered out into the blackness, searching for any movement. Bullus and his centurions, most of the volunteers and Amazons were sleeping, leaving Zenobia in charge of the skeleton force on guard duty. She came to us and saluted, surprised to see her king and queen.

  ‘Sound the alarm,’ Gallia told her, seconds later a scream piercing the still of the night.

  One of Bullus’ men was struck by an arrow, the missile piercing the soldier’s neck. I rushed to the battlements as he collapsed to the ground.

  ‘Have a care!’ I shouted as the air was suddenly filled with hisses and cracks as arrows and slingshots were directed against the walls and towers.

  He was dead before I reached him, blood gushing from the wound and his eyes vacant. Multiple trumpet blasts woke men and women from their slumbers, joined by Bullus’ whistle as he called his soldiers together. The torches on the walls provided perfect illumination for enemy archers and slingers, their missiles hissing over my head like angry hornets.

  ‘To the walls,’ shouted Bullus, leading his men up the embankment to join the other legionaries on the ramparts, now crouching low to avoid the deadly rain of arrows and stones being directed at them. The centurion came to my side.

  ‘Thought you were in the palace, majesty.’

  ‘A friend warned us of a night attack,’ I told him.

  ‘Shields,’ he called, to our left and right legionaries propping their shields on top of the barrels to create vision slits in between.

  I peeked above the wall to try to see what was happening beyond the ditch, to receive a bang to the head when a stone hit the top of my helmet, knocking out a goose feather.

  ‘Are you hurt, majesty?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m fine. We need to fire the bridge.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  He craned his head to try to hear something above the din of volunteers panicking below and the hisses and cracks of enemy bows and missiles. Then I heard it: a rumbling noise accompanied by groaning sounds.

  A battering ram!

  I scrambled back down the embankment, passing Amazons going the other way, nearly tripping over myself when there was a loud crack at the gates. The enemy ram had been wheeled across the still-intact bridge to reach the gates. Gallia ran to me, bow in hand, staring past me as the ram was launched for a second time at the gates, which shuddered under the impact.

  ‘We need to fire the bridge,’ I told her, ‘if the enemy breaks down the gates, Tullus will commit his half-legion and the city will fall.’

  The brushwood beneath the bridge had been doused with pitch and more of the sticky black substance had been stored in a warehouse a short distance from the gates. Gallia called Zenobia to her and told her to select a dozen Amazons and instruct them to prepare fire arrows.

  ‘And douse those torches,’ I called up to Bullus on the battlements, ‘they are markers for enemy archers and slingers.’

  My words were ill conceived because the civilian archers and slingers, eager to once more battle the enemy after their ‘victory’ the day before, scrambled up the embankment to extinguish the torches in the towers and along the wall. But in doing so they exposed themselves to the enemy, especially the ones scrambling up ladders to get into the towers. A succession of screams filled the breaking dawn as men were hit and toppled from their exposed positions, some falling on the stakes on the other side of the wall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Klietas, sling in hand, scrambling up the embankment.

  ‘Klietas, come here,’ I called.

  He stopped, turned, gave me a grin and hastened over. The half-light of dawn was upon us now, making anyone showing themselves on the walls even more vulnerable. Bullus had his men under tight control but the civilian volunteers were still being reckless, showing themselves above the wall to take shots at the enemy. But they were farmers playing at soldiers whereas those on the other side were the real thing, and soon the enemy had reaped a rich harvest of dead and wounded as our volunteer slingers and archers, despite Bullus nearly bursting his lungs to implore them to keep their heads down, were picked off with relative ease. The rest, around a hundred or so, lost heart and took cover by crouching behind the wall.

  Another crash against the gates, which creaked under the strain, the crossbeam in brackets holding them shut splintering. The enemy’s missiles were fewer now as all the defenders were crouching behind the wall. Then they stopped altogether, and I knew we had but minutes to fire the bridge before the enemy broke through. Another crash and the gates shook, the beam splintered some more and the enemy sensed victory.

  Under the instruction of Gallia, Daughters of Dura worked furiously to wrap cloth around arrows near the head and tie them with leather cord. Then they were dipped in a small barrel of pitch and handed back to us in bundles. I ordered legionaries to leave their positions on the wall to manhandle two burning braziers to the battlements, I, Gallia and the twelve Amazons, all of us clutching fire arrows, followed them. We crouched low to get into position either side of the gates below, so we could shoot down at the brushwood packed under the wooden beams of the bridge.

  The legionaries placed their shields on top of the barrels, we lit the rags tied to our arrows and nocked them in our bowstrings.

  ‘Now,’ I called.

  As one we stood, took aim through the gaps between the shields and shot at the bridge – fourteen flaming arrows hurtling through the air. I heard a groan and saw an Amazon fall backwards, hit by an arrow. Gallia ran over to her, but the missile had struck her below the rim of her helmet to penetrate her eye socket, killing her instantly.

  The appearance of the row of shields above the wall prompted the enemy archers and slingers to recommence their shooting, and so the air was again thick with arrows and stones when we took our second shot, another two Amazons being killed, one being struck by an arrow and the other by two slingshots. Another crash. Below us the gates were prised open. The enemy ram – a tree trunk secured to a four-wheeled cart by ropes and propelled forward by hill men gripping the sides and rear and pulled back by other barbarians holding ropes fixed to it – was hauled back preparatory to another push at the gates. But alongside the cheers, grunts and curses of the Pontic hill men was a roaring sound as the brushwood burst into flame.

  ‘Bullus, off the wall. To me,’ I called, the centurion blowing his whistle.

  Gallia also called the Amazons to her, deploying them on the embankment either side of the inside of the gates, arrows nocked in bowstrings. Bullus formed up his men in close order around twenty paces from the gates, eight ranks deep and ten men in each rank, javelins shouldered.

  Most of the civilian volunteers had fled, their courage having deserted them after seeing their friends wounded and killed by enemy arrows and stones. In truth, I could not condemn them. When the enemy broke through they would be next to useless and might get in our way. I
called over one of the Daughters of Dura while we waited for the gates to give way.

  ‘Get a horse and ride to the palace. Tell the commander of the palace guard the western gates are in danger and tell him King Pacorus requests his aid. You understand?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then go.’

  She ran off to the stables, the ram being hurled forward again to fracture the beam and force the gates open to create a gap around a foot wide.

  ‘They will be through after the next blow,’ I shouted, ‘pick your targets carefully.’

  Next to the Amazons stood the Daughters of Dura, bows in hand ready to kill like their older mistresses. I nodded to Gallia on the opposite embankment. She nodded back. There was a great roar as the ram was hurled forward again, the beam snapped in two, the gates were forced open and the enemy were upon us.

  Straight into a blizzard of arrows.

  The first hill men through the gap in the gates were felled instantly when over ninety Amazons and fifty female squires loosed a volley, seconds later shooting another that cut down at least two-dozen men. Out of the corner of my eye I saw thick black smoke billowing into the morning sky, confirmation that all the brushwood was aflame and was roasting the bridge. I nocked a third arrow and shot it, repeating to shoot a fourth, fifth and sixth missile. And still the enemy kept coming. The ram had been withdrawn and the gates forced open to allow the hundreds of men waiting beyond the ditch to flood into the city. Then I saw flames lapping around the edge of the bridge but as yet the structure still held.

  And then a mass of hill men surged forward.

  They tripped, staggered and clambered over their dead and dying comrades that had been pierced by arrows, slowing their advance but not halting it. I shot arrow after arrow into the seething, stinking mass of barbarians intent on seizing Akmon’s city, teenage girls, gripped with fear now the enemy was within touching distance and battle was no longer a fanciful notion, either froze and were unable to shoot, or shot wildly without aiming. In contrast battle-hardened Amazons maintained a steady rate of shooting, loosing up to seven arrows a minute – over six hundred arrows in total – at the hill men. But suddenly the volleys withered and died – our quivers were empty.

  Two things saved us.

  Thus far Centurion Bullus had held his men in check. But as soon as our volleys stopped he led them forward in a charge, his men screaming curses as they ran forward, the front ranks hurling their javelins before drawing their swords. The javelin storm reaped a cruel harvest, the missiles piercing unarmoured bodies and heads to penetrate flesh and bone before their thin metal shafts bent as they were designed to do. Bullus’ men then smashed into the disorganised enemy, stabbing with their swords above and below shields held tight to their bodies, creating an effect like a giant saw that ground its way into the hill men. There was a frenzy of rasping sounds as gladius points stabbed torsos, necks, faces and cut arms and legs. The hill men hacked at Bullus’ men with their wicked war axes, but invariably their only option was to use an overhand swinging motion to chop down on their tightly packed opponents. But the legionaries were wearing helmets with large cheek and neck guards and their bodies were protected by mail armour, reducing the effectiveness of the axes. Conversely, the heads and bodies of the hill men were unprotected, and they suffered accordingly.

  Bullus’ charge had halted the enemy charge, but only temporarily. More and more were pushing through the open gates and it was only a matter of time before sheer weight of numbers overwhelmed the less than one hundred legionaries. But then the enemy began to shuffle backwards, urged to do so by frantic horns calls beyond the ditch. The bridge was now wreathed in smoke and flames, red tongues showing between the boards. The hill men, assaulted first by an arrow storm and then battered by Bullus’ charge, needed no second prompting and soon those still able were running back across the bridge.

  I ran down the embankment, Gallia coming to me. The Amazons and their squires began to cheer and mock the enemy. There was a loud roar and the whole bridge was suddenly engulfed in flames, men falling through its boards as it disintegrated in a loud crash. Hideous screams came from the bottom of the ditch where men were being roasted alive, several of the female squires bursting into tears as the sounds tipped their nerves over the edge. For myself I hugged Gallia and grinned like an idiot.

  ‘That was a close call,’ I smiled. ‘Are you hurt?’

  There was not a scratch on her and her armour looked as though it had just been polished.

  ‘Arrows!’

  An eagle-eyed Amazon, peering through the gates and the smoke beyond, had spotted a line of enemy archers drawing back their bowstrings.

  ‘Take cover,’ I shouted, pulling Gallia towards the stables where our horses were billeted.

  The arrows were shot in a high trajectory, so they would land around the gates and just beyond them. Bullus’ men adopted a testudo formation to defeat the enemy missiles but those of us who had no shields to huddle under were more vulnerable. Despite our age, Gallia and I reached the stables before the arrows landed, panting and doubling over when we entered the tile-roofed stables. But at least a dozen others were not so lucky, three Amazons and nine of their squires being killed outright as dozens of arrows thudded into the embankment, battlements and area immediately behind.

  From the safety of the stables I saw another Amazon near the open gates stagger and collapse, clutching at her neck. It was Haya, the orphan girl who had recently joined Gallia’s band. Without thinking I sprinted from the stables towards her, arrows thudding into the ground as I zigzagged towards the gates, throwing myself on the ground beside her. Blood was oozing from an arrow wound to the neck, the shaft protruding from her flesh just below her helmet’s cheekguard. She had been desperately unlucky, and my first thought was the wound was fatal.

  ‘Shields,’ I called, pressing my hand to the wound in a vain attempt to staunch the flow of blood.

  Bullus and a detachment of his men in testudo formation shuffled over, their progress agonisingly slow as they covered the ground without breaking formation, arrows slamming into their shields; others glancing off. When they reached the gates they broke apart, Bullus knelt beside me, took one look at Haya and shook his head.

  ‘You are wasting your time, majesty, she’s a dead woman.’

  Haya, unable to speak, looked at me with pleading eyes, a tear falling from the corner of her eye. If she was going to die she would not do so alone and abandoned.

  ‘Pick her up,’ I commanded.

  He shrugged, did as he was told and the testudo reformed, its shape slightly out of kilter to accommodate the dying Haya and me.

  We got her back to the stables where horses were being saddled.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘The courier you sent earlier to request reinforcements,’ said Gallia, ‘has returned. No reinforcements are coming. The palace guard is fighting at the northern entrance to the city where the enemy has taken possession of the gates.’

  She knelt beside the ashen-faced Haya and cradled her in her arms, yanking out the arrow in one swift motion and stuffing a bandage in the wound. But it was too late. Haya gave her a wan smile before leaving this life, my wife closing her eyes and holding the girl tight to her.

  ‘Let me see the wound, warrior queen.’

  An Amazon was kneeling on the other side of Haya, encased in mail armour and helmet, her hand already on the bloody bandage.

  Gallia opened her eyes and they filled with tears, but not of sorrow but of joy. I stared at the Amazon, my eyes involuntarily drawn to the chest area where her breasts were threatening to break the links of her mail armour. I saw lustrous dark brown hair tumbling beneath her helmet and a hand with perfectly manicured nails take away the bandage and press on the bloody hole. Gallia did not take her eyes off the woman whose voice was authoritative yet at the same time calming.

  ‘Open your eyes, Haya.’

  The commotion around us receded into the distance a
nd suddenly we were but three individuals seemingly apart from everyone around us, and ignored, as though we had become invisible. Haya’s eyes opened wide and she gave a loud gasp, Gallia beaming with delight and planting a kiss on each of her cheeks. The Amazon took away her hand.

  ‘It cannot be,’ I heard myself saying.

  There was no wound on Haya’s neck, just a slight scar where the arrow had penetrated. Gallia assisted the young woman to her feet, Haya looking quizzically at her when she hugged her tight, as did I. I had seen a miracle before my eyes and went to thank the goddess who had performed it, only to discover she had disappeared.

  ‘What do you remember?’ I asked Haya.

  ‘A pain in my neck and you coming to my aid, majesty. After that, nothing.’

  ‘Get your horse, we are leaving,’ Gallia told her.

  Haya saluted and paced away. Gallia turned to me.

  ‘If the enemy has the northern gates then it is only a matter of time before Atrax sends his troops into the city. Our only alternative is to withdraw to the citadel.’

  She was right, but it was a bitter blow after throwing back the enemy at the western gates. Bullus came over to receive orders.

  ‘We fall back to the citadel immediately,’ I told him, ‘the enemy has taken possession of the northern gates into the city. We will cover your withdrawal.’

  ‘Yes, majesty,’ he saluted and went back to his men waiting down the street, beyond the range of the enemy’s arrows that had ceased falling from the sky.

  Wounded Amazons and Daughters of Dura were loaded on carts and left the stables area, followed by those able to ride leading the horses of the wounded and dead. It left a bitter taste in the mouth to abandon our fallen, but we simply did not have the time to collect the bodies and cremate them. We mounted our horses in the stables and rode them out of the rear entrances to head east into the city, heading for the citadel. It was curious how bad news spread like wildfire through a civilian population because already families were leaving their homes to seek refuge in the only place that offered safety from the enemy: the citadel.