Such a deluge of wood and bronze would normally kill and maim foot soldiers and spread fear and panic among those that still lived. Having softened up the enemy thus, I knew that Vologases and Cinnamus would launch their heavier cavalry to smash through the battered foot soldiers, which would then be cut to pieces and destroyed. And so it was.
The enemy horse archers withdrew from the water and filed back through the ranks of the next group of enemy horsemen who were forming up at the water’s edge – heavy spearmen. These riders were not cataphracts but did wear helmets, scale armour cuirasses and carried long spears and large round shields whose faces were reinforced with strips of iron. They moved into the water in an unbroken line, rank upon rank of them until the whole of the river was filled with horsemen. There must have been at least twenty thousand of them, the sun glinting off their helmets and whetted spear points. This mighty wall of horseflesh moved slowly through the water as the first line of the legions fell back through the rows of stakes and before the first rank of the enemy reached the dry land of the western bank and briefly halted to dress its ranks. Then the horsemen charged the legions, realising too late that a forest of stakes barred their path.
As more and more enemy spearmen reached the western bank the first rank crossed the short strip of ground between the river and the legions and ran straight into the rows of stakes. No, that is wrong. The horses reared up in panic before they impaled themselves on the sharpened stakes and confusion reigned among the enemy horsemen as more and more of their comrades rode from the water and pressed in behind them. There was a mighty blast of trumpets followed by a cheer and then three thousand javelins arched into the air as the front ranks of the cohorts hurled them at the packed ranks of the enemy horsemen. Had they been cataphracts then many iron tips would have glanced harmlessly off armoured men and horses, but these men rode horses that wore no armour and the beasts were cruelly struck by iron points that hurt and maddened them. They reared up and collapsed to the ground or bolted forward onto the stakes, throwing their riders or crushing them beneath their great weight. The pitiful squeals and cries of wounded animals filled the air as another volley of javelins was launched at the stationary horsemen. More cries from injured and dying men and horses. Then another and another volley hit flesh and horsemeat. It was slaughter.
Frantic horn blasts up and down the line signalled the withdrawal of the heavy spearmen, though not before another volley of javelins had harvested a further crop of enemy dead. Those riders still in the water turned and withdrew back to the safety of the Plain of Makhmur, followed by what was left of those that had been first to cross the river. In front of the stakes was heaped a great pile of dead and dying horses and their riders.
‘First blood to us, Pacorus,’ said Orodes defiantly.
‘They will attack our horse archers next,’ I said.
While the carnage in front of the legions was taking place Dura’s horse archers were sitting on their horses gazing across the river at the light horsemen who lined the opposite bank and watched them back. How strange is battle when one part of the field is the scene of horror and another part is as peaceful as an empty temple. But now, having seen their heavy spearmen routed, the enemy shifted his attention to where my horse archers were positioned. With the departure of Surena to Gordyene command of Dura’s horse archers had devolved upon Vagises, a Parthian and a Companion, a sober and intelligent individual who retained a sense of calm even in the white heat of battle. It was he who now sent a rider to me, an officer of his horse archers who saluted.
‘Lord Vagises conveys his compliments, majesty, and sends word that enemy cataphracts are deploying in front of him, across the river.’
‘How many?’
‘Three dragons, majesty,’ he replied.
I turned to Orodes. ‘First blood may have been to us, my friend, but three thousand cataphracts can quickly weigh the scales in their favour.’
I looked at the courier. ‘Give my regards to Lord Vagises and inform him that aid will be with him shortly.’
The man saluted and rode back to the horse archers.
‘What is your plan?’ asked Orodes.
‘We will meet them in the water, otherwise their greater numbers will punch straight through us.’
I called forward the commanders of the cataphracts and told them that we would deploy in a long line to match the frontage of the enemy horsemen.
‘Tell your men to leave their lances behind. There will be no charge; we will engage them at the water’s edge.’
They rode back to their companies and moments later over twelve hundred men were cantering towards where Vagises’ men were shooting arrows at the enemy cataphracts now entering the Tigris. The arrows would not be able to pierce the armour of the men or their horses but would hopefully slow them enough to allow us to deploy.
I shook Orodes’ hand and then we galloped to the head of our men, the ground around us littered with discarded lances. I smiled to myself. Rsan would have a fit if he saw items of expensive equipment treated thus. Orodes and his bodyguard formed the extreme right of our long line, which was as thin as parchment – only two ranks. In this way we had a frontage of nine hundred yards.
As the men dressed their lines Vagises’ horse archers moved further downriver to allow the cataphracts to fill the space they had been occupying and to extend our line further south. He rode up to me as we walked our horses forward to the riverbank. Ahead I saw a great mass of enemy riders walking their horses through the water towards us. They moved slowly to retain their order, red, yellow and blue flags fluttering from the end of each kontus.
‘Send a rider to Lord Herneus,’ I told him. ‘Tell him that if the enemy horsemen break through us, he and his men are to retreat towards the city to form a screen so Domitus and his men can get inside the walls. That goes for you and your men also.’
‘What of you, Pacorus?’ he said with alarm.
‘We will most likely be dead so you will not have to worry about us. Now go.’
He raised his hand in salute and went back to his horse archers. The camel train loaded with fresh arrows had been brought forward from the rear to replenish the ammunition expended against the enemy cataphracts, whose front ranks were now at the midpoint in the river. I looked behind me up and down the line and saw every man had armed himself with either his axe or mace. I reached down and grabbed the mace that was hanging from one of my saddle’s front horns.
The mace is an extraordinary weapon – two and half feet of solid steel with four flanges on one end. These sharpened protruding edges can dent and penetrate even the thickest armour. Leather is wrapped round the other end to make a handle, with a metal ring at the base to which is fitted a leather strap that goes round the wrist. I gripped the shaft tightly and raised it in the air, a move reciprocated by every man behind me. Some of my cataphracts were very skilled in the use of the mace and used the strap to spin the weapon round their wrists before delivering a lethal blow, but I frowned on such antics.
The mace is an effective and brutal impact weapon ordinarily used after the charge, but today there would be no charge. Some men preferred to use axes, which were also solid steel instruments with a head comprising a blade and a point on the opposite side.
I nudged Remus forward and the others followed, walking to the edge of the riverbank and then down its side and into the water. In front of me the front rank of the enemy’s horsemen threw their lances into the water and armed themselves with their own maces and axes. And thus began a grim close-quarters battle. There were no battle cries or thunder of horse hooves, just a great clatter as each side began hacking at the other with their weapons.
In such a mêlée the ability to avoid blows is as important as the skill to deliver them. I leaned to my left to avoid a scything blow from a man holding an axe that would have lopped my head off had it hit me. His horse stopped beside Remus as he brought the axe in front of his body then swung it up and then down to split my helmet and th
en my skull. I deflected the blow with my mace, forcing his axe away from me. But he attacked me with its point using a backswing that I stopped with my mace only inches from my face. I grabbed his axe with my left hand and he grabbed my left wrist with his free hand, and so we pushed and pulled each other like a pair of has-been wrestlers.
He was strong and the only thing that weighed our private war in my favour was the leather strap wrapped round my wrist. His axe had no such attachment and I eventually managed to wrench it from his hand and throw it into the water. I brought my mace back and then with all my strength swung it against the side of his helmet, splitting the metal and causing him to let out a groan. I swung the mace again and again at the same spot, penetrating the metal and his skull. One of the blows must have driven a steel flange into his brain, for he slumped in the saddle and then slid off his horse into the water without making another sound.
I looked left to see a horsemen coming directly at me with his mace held high above his head, ready to bring it down on my head. But before he could reach me one of my own men attacked him and they became embroiled in their own personal fight. I transferred my mace to my left hand and pulled my spatha as another rider attacked me on my right side. This time I blocked his overhead swing with my own mace and drove the tip of my sword into his exposed right armpit, driving the blade deep into his flesh. He gave a high-pitched scream as I forced the blade forward and yanked it back. I was prevented from finishing him off by a mace blow that dug into the steel rings on my left arm.
I instinctively swung my mace back with my left arm and felt it strike something, then turned to see a horse rear up and throw its rider into the river. I must have hit it on the head with my weapon.
And so it went on, men hacking and slashing wildly in all directions in a huge disorganised mêlée that seemed to go on forever. I do not know how long we were in the water. It seemed like hours but in reality was probably around thirty minutes. But as Remus moved back and forth in the brown water streaked with blood it became apparent that the enemy’s greater weight of numbers had not achieved a breakthrough, at least not yet. But their numerical superiority meant that they could feed in more and more men against our tiring ranks, replacing their own injured and exhausted riders with fresh reinforcements. And yet it did not seem so because after what seemed like an eternity, following which my arms and shoulders ached, a gradual lull descended over the two sides. As if by mutual consent each side withdrew from each other, revealing a river filled with armoured corpses, most lying face down in the blood-streaked water. Some men had been unhorsed and these now waded towards the safety of their own lines. My arm armour was battered and dented though it had saved me from serious injury. I looked at the head and neck of Remus, then at his sides and rear. Not a mark on him; indeed, looking up and down the line it appeared that no horses had been killed at all.
Orodes came to my side, his armour missing several metal scales and his helmet’s right cheek guard almost hanging off where a blow had smashed the hinge. He was breathing heavily.
‘Are you hurt?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Exhausted would be a more accurate description. I don’t know if we can hold them if they attack again.’
Around us men had pushed their full-face helmets up on their heads and were breathing in great gulps of air. By contrast their horses appeared relatively fresh. At least they would be able to carry their riders back to the city if we were forced to retreat.
‘They are they falling back.’
I looked at Orodes. ‘Who?’
He pointed with his mace towards the enemy horsemen whose front ranks were now backing slowly away from us, the ranks behind having about-faced and were exiting the water. To the south the mass of enemy light horsemen who had been riding up and down the riverbank in preparation to cross once the cataphracts had scattered us were also pulling back.
‘My father’s army,’ I said, grinning at him.
The army of Hatra had marched fifteen miles upstream to cross the Tigris at a shallow spot that Byrd and Malik had scouted during our march from Nisibus. My father had earlier sent horsemen to the exact same spot to ensure that the enemy did not use it to cross the river and then take us unawares. But the enemy’s attention was focused on the Plain of Makhmur and its wide ford, wide enough for a great army to move across with ease. So my father had marched his horsemen north, crossed the river and then headed south while the enemy attacked Dura’s army. And now Hatra’s horsemen smashed into the enemy’s unguarded right flank.
After the battle I heard from Byrd and Malik, who had ridden with my father, what had happened. It was mid-morning before Hatra’s cavalry were safely across the river and had deployed into their battle formations – cataphracts in the centre and horse archers on the wings. They then rode directly south towards the Plain of Makhmur, driving deep into the mass of unsuspecting horsemen who were waiting to cross the river.
The initial clash cut down thousands of light horsemen, but so many were the enemy that the charge slowed and then stopped as Hatra’s horsemen were literally swallowed by the hostile mass. My father was contemplating ordering a withdrawal but his unexpected arrival on the battlefield had panicked Cinnamus and Vologases, who ordered a general retreat, hence the withdrawal of the cataphracts from the river.
As the horsemen in front of us left the river and then rode away I sent a rider to Herneus with orders for him to bring his men to the river. Notwithstanding that our horses still had their legs their riders were in no fit state to conduct a pursuit. Ten minutes later he arrived.
‘The enemy appears to be retreating. Get your men across the river and harry them. If they reform and attack, fall back.’
‘Yes, majesty. I assume your father, the king, has achieved success.’
‘It would appear so,’ I agreed.
He raised his hand in salute and then rode back to his men who had formed into columns and were now filing into the river, threading their way between dead horsemen floating in the water. I gave orders for a general retreat back to our initial position behind the Exiles. I stayed with Orodes and the rear guard as Vagises and a company of his men joined us.
‘Some of their light horsemen got over the river,’ he reported. ‘We killed most of them before the rest retreated back to the east bank.’
‘What are your losses?’ I asked him.
‘Light, although we have yet to take a roll call.’ He looked at the dead bodies in the river. ‘And yours?’
‘It was a long fight,’ I answered grimly.
Two hours later I was standing with Domitus and Kronos behind the rows of stakes that had served them so well that day. In front of us was a great heap of enemy dead – men and horses victims of the legions’ javelins.
‘They tried another assault after their first one,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘but failed to get even near the stakes, let alone us. They were limited to hurling their spears at us, so we hurled a few more javelins back.’
‘After we emptied many more saddles they fell back,’ added Kronos.
‘What are your losses?’ I asked.
‘Four dead and seventy wounded,’ answered Domitus.
‘And yours, Kronos?’ I asked.
Kronos looked at Domitus. ‘Four dead and seventy wounded are our combined losses.’
It had been an amazingly one-sided fight, the consequence of well-trained men standing behind a wall of impenetrable stakes. My cataphracts had not been so lucky. A roll call revealed that a hundred had been killed and a further two hundred wounded, though at least Vagises’ horse archers had suffered only fifty dead and a hundred and fifty wounded.
The sun was abating in its fury now it was late afternoon but I was still glad to take off my scale armour and leg and arm armour. Already the squires, who had been lining the walls of Assur with their bows to cover any retreat we may have had to make to the city, were stripping their masters’ horses of their scale armour and loading it back onto their camels, as well as
collecting the kontuses that had been dumped on the ground earlier. Losses among the cataphracts would be made good by promoting the eldest squires, and when we got back to Dura fresh squires would be inducted into the army.
Orodes had four squires, two for himself and two for me as he was always letting me know, and they now assisted me in unfastening the armoured suit that had protected Remus so well during the battle. As his squires packed his scale armour away, Alcaeus, who with his physicians had been treating the wounded, examined Orodes. Those seriously injured were taken back to the city on wagons where they could be treated more thoroughly.
Alcaeus gave Orodes a bandage to hold next to his wounded face. ‘Nothing serious, you’ll live. Just keep it clean.’
‘Make sure it does not leave a scar, Alcaeus,’ I said. ‘His future bride won’t like it.’
‘Future bride?’ said Alcaeus, mildly interested.
‘Orodes is to marry Queen Axsen of Babylon.’
Orodes looked daggers at me. ‘It is still uncertain,’ he snapped.
‘My congratulations,’ said Alcaeus. ‘I’m sure there will be no scar.’
He looked at my arm that was bleeding from where my armour had been dented by a mace, the white sleeve of my shirt showing red.
‘What about you?’
‘It’s fine, Alcaeus, I hope to have another scar to add to my collection.’
Alcaeus nodded slightly and then looked at the piles of dead horse carcasses and bodies intertwined on and in front of the stakes and then to the bodies floating in the river.
‘What about them?’
I shrugged. ‘What about them? They are dead.’
Parthian Vengeance (The Parthian Chronicles) Page 44
