Parthian Vengeance (The Parthian Chronicles)

by Darman, Peter

  I took no chances when it came to our own security, sending parties of horse archers ahead and into the desert on our left flank to ensure we were not attacked from those directions. After snatching a couple of hours’ sleep, Byrd and his men were again in the saddle and scouting far and wide. My fears were allayed somewhat when the army of Mesene – five thousand horse archers – flooded the eastern horizon and provided security for my left flank. Nergal had been camped further north of our position and it had taken him and his men longer to assume their battle positions. With the Babylonians on my right flank and the Hatrans beyond them, the combined armies of four kings made an impressive sight and numbered over two thousand, seven hundred cataphracts, thirty-eight thousand horse archers, a thousand Babylonian mounted spearmen and Vardan’s royal bodyguard of five hundred men. And in the wake of my own army came a thousand camels carrying spare arrows; my father had a similar camel train transporting spare ammunition. Nergal had informed me that he also had a thousand camels for the same purpose.

  The day was mild and sunny with only a few white, puffy clouds dotting an otherwise clear blue sky. There was a slight westerly breeze that barely troubled the banners of Dura and Susiana carried behind us as we trotted southwest so as to close up on the Babylonians. I deployed my cataphracts on the left of the Duran line, with the horse archers to their right and the lords and their men directly behind the latter. It would have been better if all the kings’ heavy horsemen were grouped together so they could deliver the killer blow against the enemy when the time came, but my father would never have agreed to this unless he, or Vistaspa, was given command over all of them, something that I would never accept.

  When Nergal’s companies had dressed their lines on our left he and Praxima rode over to be with us, his banner fluttering behind them. As Nergal had formerly been my second-in-command and had raised and trained my own horsemen I had no fears that his Mesenians would not perform well this day.

  ‘Do you think Narses will give battle?’ asked Gallia.

  ‘He has no choice,’ I answered, ‘unless he wishes to give himself up and submit to our mercy.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Orodes. ‘But he may request a parley.’

  ‘To what end?’ asked Nergal.

  ‘To attempt to sow disharmony within our ranks.’ Orodes looked at me. ‘He already knows that the kings of Babylon and Hatra do not share Dura’s desire to see him destroyed.’

  ‘I shall not speak to him,’ I announced. ‘I have no interest in hearing his voice.’

  ‘He should be killed,’ said Praxima.

  ‘Some sense at last,’ I replied.

  Orodes was most unhappy. ‘It is custom for all parties to be present at a parley, in the hope that bloodshed can be avoided.’

  ‘If we avoid bloodshed this day,’ I said in irritation, ‘then that will mean that Narses and his army will have escaped, which means that he and it will be free to attack another Parthian kingdom. Have you forgotten Gotarzes so quickly, Orodes?’

  Anger flashed in his eyes. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘You forget yourself, Pacorus,’ said Gallia in rebuke.

  I held up my hand to Orodes. ‘Forgive me, my friend, I did not mean to offend you.’

  His amiable disposition returned. ‘No offence taken.’

  We rode on in silence, but the thought of Narses slipping through our fingers was like a knife being twisted in my guts.

  My mood was further darkened when a rider came from my father with a letter reminding me that our objective was to secure entry to Babylon via the Ishtar Gate and that I was to support the attack by ensuring that the left flank of the army was secure. I sent him back to my father with the reply that I was quite capable of securing his flank.

  An hour later we were half a mile from the walls of Babylon, which rose majestically from the desert floor to a height of at least seventy feet, defensive towers at regular intervals all along their circumference. Once there had been outer walls that gave the city even greater protection. They were so high and wide that it was reputed that two chariots travelling along the top of them in opposite directions could pass each other without difficulty. These walls had long since gone, the only remnant being the paved road that linked where the outer wall had once stood to the Ishtar Gate. It was called Aibur-shabu – ‘the enemy shall not pass’ – and was built by King Hammurabi when Babylon had ruled the world.

  Even from this distance the walls looked imposing and impregnable. I knew that they were constructed from large mud-bricks cemented together with bitumen, and that the moat that surrounded the city was also lined with bricks. Without siege towers and engines such as Dura possessed the enemy would have no chance of breaching those walls. But with the city surrounded the chance of starving a Babylon filled with many hungry mouths into surrender was a very real possibility. At least it was! Now relief had come.

  Narses had scorned the chance of flight, obviously believing that even without Mithridates he had every chance of defeating us. He would have known that my legions had limped back home, for information was easily bought and word would have spread down the Euphrates that my foot soldiers were on their way back to Dura. He would have also known that the armies of Hatra, Mesene and Babylon had joined with my horsemen to make a formidable force. That said, he would have assumed, not unreasonably, that the Babylonians were second-rate compared to his own forces and would have assumed that Nergal’s soldiers were also inferior. Mesene had always produced ragtag armies composed of ill-equipped soldiers. He would have thus also discounted them. In his mind the only formidable troops he faced were my own and those of my father. That my father had brought only six and a half thousand horsemen with him must have filled Narses with confidence, the more so as we approached the city and it became apparent that we were greatly outnumbered by his own forces.

  Narses had drawn up his army in three sections. On his left flank, occupying the space between the walls and my father’s Hatrans, was a great body of horsemen armed with lances and carrying round shields. They wore helmets on their heads and armless leather cuirasses on their bodies. Interspersed with these lancers were bodies of horse archers. Riders sent from my father and Vardan reported that they could see no cataphracts among these horsemen.

  In the centre of the enemy’s line was a great mass of foot that must have numbered thirty thousand men or more, and which faced the horsemen of Babylon and extended right to face my own cavalry.

  Officers barked orders at their men as the troops of both sides dressed their ranks and lines before the first clash. I clasped arms with Nergal as he and Praxima rode back to their horsemen that faced the mounted spearmen of the enemy’s right wing. I reached over and kissed Gallia on the lips before she took up her position in front of Dura’s horse archers.

  ‘Shamash be with you, my sweet, and remember not to unleash the lords until the enemy is breaking.’

  ‘God be with you, Pacorus.’ She closed her helmet’s cheekguards, tied the leather straps together under her chin and then pulled her bow from its hide case attached to her saddle. She held it over her head, a gesture reciprocated by the Amazons grouped behind her, and then dug her knees into Epona and galloped away to take command of the horse archers.

  I rammed the butt spike of my kontus into the earth.

  ‘Come, Orodes, let us take a closer look at the enemy.’

  He did the same and we trotted across no man’s land to with five hundred paces or so of the enemy’s front ranks. I kept an eye over to the left to where the enemy’s horsemen were grouped but in truth did not think they would charge us. The foot opposite us was firmly routed to the spot – it seemed that Narses would fight a defensive battle.

  We edged our horses closer to the front ranks of the enemy, a long line of large wicker shields, rectangular in shape and almost the height of a man. Covered in thick leather and painted yellow, with the bird-god symbol of Persis painted on each one, they were held by Narses’ royal spearmen. Looking up and dow
n their line I estimated that there were at least five thousand of them standing in three ranks or more. Each man wore a plumed, bronze helmet and probably wore leather armour. Reflecting their Persian heritage they most likely were armed with light battleaxes and daggers, in addition to the long spear each man carried. The shield was thick enough to stop arrows, though too large and cumbersome to form a roof under which the men could take shelter in an arrow storm. The front rank held their spears towards us at an angle of forty-five degrees, the ranks behind holding their spears upright. These soldiers were not a rabble but among the best that Persis could field. That Narses had brought mostly foot soldiers before the walls of Babylon did not surprise me. Horsemen are mostly useless in sieges but their mounts consume fodder that can easily exhaust the resources of the surrounding areas. In addition, Babylon lies only fifty miles from the Tigris and the Kingdom of Susiana, close enough to get an army of foot soldiers to the city within four days.

  A group of arrows suddenly arched into the sky from behind the ranks of the spearmen to land harmlessly a few paces in front of us. No other volley followed but I thanked Shamash for this lack of discipline, for the enemy had revealed to me that there were foot archers standing behind the spearmen.

  ‘Time to retreat,’ I said to Orodes and wheeled Remus around.

  I heard a thud and he suddenly bolted forward. I managed to bring him under control as Orodes galloped up to me.

  ‘They have slingers as well, then,’ he said, grinning at my temporary discomfort.

  We rode to where Gallia waited in front of her Amazons with a knot of officers from my horse archers around her.

  ‘Don’t get too close to the foot opposite,’ I told them. ‘They have archers and slingers behind the spearmen.’

  ‘Don’t give them any cheap victories,’ I said to Gallia. ‘Just annoy them. Shoot high so your arrows fall on the heads of the front ranks. You will be able to thin them out but that’s about all.’

  ‘And your cataphracts?’ she asked.

  I smiled at her and pointed to where the horsemen of the enemy right wing were standing.

  ‘That is where the key to the battle lies, my sweet.’

  I smiled at her again and then dug my knees into Remus’ flanks to take me back to my cataphracts. It appeared that the enemy had no heavy cavalry, which evened the odds greatly. In my mind I quickly formulated a plan: shatter the enemy’s right wing with my heavy horsemen to allow Nergal’s horse archers to sweep around the enemy foot to attack their exposed flank and rear. Once that had been achieved Narses’ foot soldiers would be peppered with volleys of arrows that would both demoralise and decimate them. I did not worry about what would be happening on the enemy’s left flank where Narses faced the combined horsemen of Hatra and Babylon. The enemy’s mounted spearmen would be no match for my father’s cavalry. Orodes looked at me with concern as I began to whistle to myself. We had Narses cornered like a rat. So much for the lord high general of the Parthian Empire. Victory was so close I could taste it.

  Chapter 8

  As both sides eyed each other warily across the featureless stretch of desert that would soon become a blood-soaked killing ground, an eerie silence descended over the battlefield. Horses scraped at the ground impatiently, chomped on their bits and flicked their tails to swat away flies. Men pulled on their bowstrings to test the draw weight, others checked their quivers and the cataphracts rested their great lances on their shoulders, their helmets pushed back on their heads. The breeze ruffled windsocks and banners and offered slight relief to men sweating in armour. Most of the clouds had disappeared by now to leave a clear blue sky. It was a beautiful spring day, and for many their last one on earth.

  I was suddenly gripped by a fear that Narses would request a parley and escape our clutches, but my concern was allayed when a great noise suddenly erupted from the enemy ranks. The accursed kettledrums began to beat and then the shrill sound of horns pierced the air. Horses whinnied and some reared up in alarm but Remus merely stood unconcerned. He had heard these sounds many times before. Behind me men pulled their helmets down and wrapped their reins round their left wrists. Orodes offered me his hand.

  ‘God keep you safe, Pacorus.’

  ‘And you too, my friend.’

  In front of us the foot soldiers of Narses were beating their spear shafts against their wicker shields, producing a great rattling sound that mixed with the noise of the kettledrums and horns to produce a dreadful din. How I regretted that Domitus was not here – his legions would reduce those wicker shields to wood shavings!

  ‘The enemy is moving,’ shouted Orodes, pointing over to the left to where the enemy’s right wing of horsemen appeared to be shifting further right. Were they fleeing?

  Closer inspection revealed that the horsemen were actually moving in an ordered fashion and not in flight. I glanced at the mass of enemy foot. They were still rooted to the same spot. As the right wing of enemy horsemen continued to shift right more riders appeared to fill the gap that had appeared between the foot soldiers and the horsemen on the enemy right wing. Now our own left wing was greatly overlapped by the enemy opposite that began to advance against Nergal’s outnumbered horse archers.

  It suddenly became horribly clear that the enemy had also been closely observing us just as we had been scrutinising them. Narses would have seen the banner of Mesene and would have also spotted my heavy cavalry positioned near the centre and not on the flank. He therefore believed our left wing to be weak and would throw his mounted spearmen and horse archers against it. If he succeeded then he would be able to drive back or even rout Nergal’s men and get his riders behind our army. A potential disaster was unfolding before my eyes.

  I looked to my right to see Gallia leading Dura’s horse archers against the enemy foot. The companies rode towards the enemy in single-file columns, twenty in all, each rider at the head of the column loosing his arrows high into the sky at a distance of around four hundred paces from the front ranks. He then wheeled his horse to the right to return to the rear of the column. In this way a withering rain of arrows was directed at the enemy, while Dura’s horsemen stayed out of the range of enemy arrows and slingshots. I did not have to worry about the centre.

  Meanwhile the enemy horsemen were now moving at a canter towards Nergal’s men, arrows arching into the sky from the horse archers behind their front ranks of spearmen. There were frantic horn calls coming from Nergal’s ranks as the Mesenians about-turned and began to retreat, the rear ranks turning in their saddles and shooting their bows over the hind quarters of their horses. Many enemy spearmen were felled as Nergal’s men loosed arrow after arrow at the oncoming enemy. He had obviously trained his men well.

  ‘Wedge, wedge. Follow me!’ I shouted and pulled my kontus from the earth. I dug my knees into Remus’ flanks and shouted at him to move forward. He reared up on his back legs and broke into a canter, then a gallop. In seconds Orodes was next to me and behind us over twelve hundred riders followed.

  A cataphract is the most expensive soldier on earth, a man dressed in the finest and most effective armour and armed with an array of weapons made from the finest materials. As well as his kontus his weapons included a sword, mace, axe and dagger. He and his horse were encased in scale armour, steel leg and arm armour and a helmet that offered protection to the head, neck and face from arrows and blades. Yet all this lavish equipment counts for nothing if the man wearing it is not thoroughly trained.

  Just as Domitus had honed his legions into fearsome machines, so had I, assisted by Orodes, moulded my cataphracts into a battle-winning force. As hundreds of iron-shod horses thundered across the ground the ten companies that made up the dragon, plus Orodes’ men, instinctively adopted the wedge formation. The first company formed up behind me, a hundred men forming the tip of the wedge widely spaced in two ranks, and behind them a second company and Orodes’ men mirroring the wedge arrangement of those in front. Either side of these companies, each one riding behind and in eche
lon of the one in front, were four companies to make the rest of the wedge. Years of practise on the training fields came down to these few moments on the field of honour, when twelve hundred horsemen can be transformed into a battle-winning instrument seemingly in a blink of an eye.

  The scale armour, bulky and uncomfortable before battle, becomes as light as a feather in the cauldron of combat. I screamed my war cry and brought my kontus down on the right side of Remus, clutching it with both hands as we galloped headlong into the dense ranks of the enemy horsemen.

  When we hit them a sickening scraping noise was heard as the cataphracts ground their way into the enemy’s left flank. They were still moving forward to get to grips with Nergal’s men when we struck, driving into the packed ranks of their horse archers and skewing horses and men with our lances. The horse archers wore no armour and had only soft caps on their heads. Ordinarily they would have fled before a cataphract charge, but though many did try to turn their horses away from us, there was nowhere for them run to. The packed ranks of their comrades were to their front, right and rear, and so they were forced to face the armoured monsters that had suddenly appeared in their midst. And then the killing began.

  Remus galloped into a gap between two ranks of enemy horse archers and I buried my kontus in the first target that presented itself, a bowman dressed in nothing more than a beige kaftan and leggings. He turned in the saddle and stared wild-eyed as the metal tip of the kontus went into his sternum and out through his back. Whether he was alive or dead when I released the shaft that had penetrated his body up to half its length I did not know, but in the mêlée there is no time to sit and make judgements. Quick reflexes and speed are the keys to survival. I drew my sword and slashed at the head of a rider who appeared before me, inflicting a deep gash in his jaw. I screamed at Remus to move forward as I advanced deeper among the enemy, hacking left and right with my sword at heads and torsos. Orodes clung to my side like a limpet on a piece of rock, swinging his mace in his hand, the horsemen behind us using their maces and axes against the cloth caps of the enemy horse archers. It was carnage. Skulls were split like a grapes being stepped on as mace blows were rained down on hapless victims. The enemy spearmen had stopped their attack against Nergal’s men and had about-turned to get to grips with us, but between us and them was a great press of horse archers trying to flee for their lives.