Rufio stretched down and swept the blade out of the carcass and tossed it to Crus.
“Over there!” Crus shouted and pointed.
Rufio spun around toward the open lane of horsemen just as the archers in the rear unleashed a volley against the Romans. Missiles shot by them, and some struck their mail or glanced off their helmets. The range was far too great for the arrows to do injury to armored men, except to their faces or to their limbs. Or to their horses.
And then something in Rufio shattered. For the first time in more than twenty years in the legions, he lost control. The thought of an arrow from an Asiatic barbarian driving through Nimbus’s face launched him without thought into the Parthians all around him. With the pitiless rage of a Sargon gone mad, he stabbed and slashed every creature within reach. Faces gaped at him in their final terror, but he cared nothing and heard nothing as he killed, except the hammering of the pulse within his head. Men and horses died and fell and took a year to hit the earth, and all in an endless and engulfing silence.
A carnyx blast expelled him from his private realm of slaughter.
“How many times?” he managed to say to Crus as he struggled to recover his reason.
“Three blasts,” Crus shouted.
Rufio looked to Bellator on the high plain behind them. “Are you sure?”
“I’m certain.”
Rufio turned back toward the tribune. Crus was spattered with the blood of horses and men, some no doubt from Rufio’s sword.
“Look!” Crus yelled.
Rufio pivoted and saw a train of at least fifty camels racing into the riverbed about a quarter-mile off.
“More arrows,” Rufio said in near despair.
The Parthian bowmen cheered as they saw their comrades rushing forward with supplies. The archers pulled back to meet them, and the swordsmen also broke contact to recover and regroup.
“They’ll have enough arrows now to tear up all our horses,” Rufio said. “If we try to hold our position, they all die. And we die.”
“Should I order a withdrawal?” Crus asked in disbelief. “Can we still screen the Judaeans?”
Rufio looked back at Matthias and his troops. They were resting with their shields down, out of range but also out of choices if the Romans pulled back and deserted them to save their horses.
Rufio stared down at Nimbus and suddenly felt an eerie calmness. He stroked the left side of Nimbus’s neck. The horse’s left ear cocked backward and Rufio leaned over and gazed sadly into that trusting eye.
“If you die on this field, my friend,” he whispered, still leaning over Nimbus’s withers, “we’ll ride together to Paradise.” He spoke as serenely as a man enveloped in a spell. “I’ll never abandon you now.”
The simultaneous squeals of dozens of horses could have splintered a man’s sanity. It sounded as if an entire herd had been hurled shrieking in terror into the blackest rivers of Acheron.
“In the name of all the gods at once . . . !” Rufio yelled.
Across the battleground, horses riddled with arrows bolted or crumpled, and riders tumbled to the crusted sands.
“Nabataeans!” Crus shouted.
With that uniquely rolling glide, the camels raced in a giant wedge deep into the bowels of the abyss. Two bowmen in each saddle launched their lethal darts into the panicked horsemen, and walls of earth or ranks of men blocked the Parthians on all sides.
As if of a single mind, all the centurions barked to their troops, and the six centuries sprang once more upon the invaders. There was no place left for them to go.
Dressed in black and wrapped in a dark red head-cloth, the leader of the camel warriors shot arrow after arrow as quickly and mercilessly as bolts from Zeus. Every missile found its mark.
Before arrows and blades, the surrounded Parthians died in their hundreds and finally collapsed in the face of slavery or death.
The centurions tended the wounded while the optios assembled the Parthian prisoners. They had fought valiantly, but after being shredded from two directions their spirit was spent. There was no resistance.
Rufio’s century had suffered no fatalities, but there were eighteen injured men to transport back to the fort. Twelve of them were still able to sit a saddle, but the other six had to be lifted onto the wagons, which were now being brought forward from their positions by the troughs in the riverbed.
When Rufio had finished with his wounded, he rode across the battlefield. Stepping around dead men and dying horses, Nimbus walked over to the two Nabataeans sitting on a camel at the far end of the killing ground.
Haritat pulled the side of his red head-cloth down from his face. One of his sons was sitting behind him.
The Roman and the Nabataean just stared at each other for a few moments.
Finally Rufio spread his arms in a question that needed no words.
“The fools stole our water.” Haritat’s eyes creased in what might have been the trace of a smile.
“Is that the only reason?”
“There was but one other.” He turned to the east and pointed. On a ridge above the riverbed, the late day sun struck a woman sitting astride a beautiful gray Arabian mare and gazing down at them. “The huntress thought that perhaps—just this once—Victoria might like a bit of help from the hand of Haritat.” Then he smiled a smile that flashed like a shooting star across the desert night.
Rufio grinned at the dark chieftain.
“Rufio!”
He looked to his right and saw Valerius riding up.
“Durena . . .”
“Where?” Rufio asked.
Valerius gestured and then pivoted his horse and rode east across the battlefield.
Rufio clicked to Nimbus and trotted behind Valerius around dead horses and shattered men. Rufio heard hoofbeats behind him, and he turned and saw Bellator riding to join them.
The three of them came up to several Romans gathered by a fallen Parthian. Crus was already there. Rufio and Bellator dismounted, and the soldiers standing around stepped away.
Decius was down on one knee and holding Durena up at the waist and allowing him to lean back against his bent leg. The Parthian had a Nabataean arrow piercing him just below the right shoulder. His pale tunic was already scabbing over with blood.
Rufio walked up to him. The tattered red cap still covered Durena’s head. Rufio bent down and pulled it off.
“My men,” Durena said with startling strength. “Spare my men. No crucifixions.”
“We don’t crucify soldiers,” Crus said.
Rufio turned to Valerius. “Tell Matthias to collect the Parthian survivors. Have him take the ten strongest to kill all the horses that are maimed beyond hope. The First Century will guard the rest of these curs until we’re finished on this field. If they resist, tell Matthias that the Judaeans can kill them all or enslave them if they wish. But if the Parthians submit and refuse to act like fools, let each one take a Turanian horse, a water flask, and whatever rations he can find and ride out of here before the sun sets. We want them out of Judaea now. They can die beyond the Euphrates.” He turned to Durena. “Fair?”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely but seemed to be searching for some ruse.
“I didn’t expect gratitude,” Rufio said, reading his thoughts. He looked at Decius and pointed with his chin at the arrow. “Is it all the way through?”
Decius nodded and spread his thumb and forefinger apart about six inches.
“We almost crushed you, didn’t we?” Durena said.
Rufio remained silent.
“I’ve never been frightened by Romans before. . . . But when Yahlavi told me about all the cavalry, then I knew I had to be afraid for my men.”
“You were wise to fear,” Bellator said. “You should have withdrawn.”
“I decided to change tactics instead.”
Bellator nodded. “It was well done. Your men ride like Spaniards. And that’s a compliment.”
“Spaniards ride like us,” he answered, grimacing in
pain. “And that’s a compliment. If it weren’t for those Nabataeans . . .”
“You shouldn’t have stolen their water,” Rufio said.
“That’s what brought Haritat down on top of us?” Durena asked Rufio with a sudden burst of life.
“You should know—know better than anyone—that out here it’s always about water.”
“That’s what aroused that lord of death?”
Rufio smiled, but more to himself than to Durena. “Not just that.”
“Let me die here among my loyal troops,” Durena said and looked down at the crusting wound. “Even Durena isn’t tough enough to survive this.”
“Even Durena?” Rufio said. “You’re not tough at all. Fortuna spared you.”
“A Roman goddess? Why?”
“She has her ways.”
Durena seemed resigned to his own extinction. “Her ways are not my ways.”
“You have no say in the matter.”
Durena twisted his head around to Decius. “Stand me up so I can die on my feet like a man.”
“Leave him where he is,” Rufio said. “Die like a man? Someone who was going to kill Judaean children at their mothers’ breasts?”
“I would never have done that.” His eyelids drooped and his head sagged forward.
While Durena’s eyes were still closed, Rufio nodded to Decius.
“We’ll bring you back to health and then take you to Rome,” Rufio said.
Durena opened his eyes and looked up at him.
“If the tribune is granted a triumph, you’ll march in chains before his chariot in the streets below the Palatinum. Then he can have you flung into the Tullianum and strangled there slowly and at his leisure. Like Vercingetorix.”
Durena stared at Crus. “So much for Roman honor. You won’t let me die like a soldier should die. You won’t—.”
Rufio glanced at Decius, and the centurion gripped the arrow behind the head and whipped it all the way through and out the back with one powerful sweep.
Durena sucked in air and held his mouth open for a long breath that he seemed unable to let go. Then he slumped back against Decius.
Rufio smiled. “I had to get your attention.”
“No strangling in Rome?” Durena said, still struggling for air.
“For a little scuffle like this?” Rufio said, laughing. “Not worth the inconvenience.” He looked at Decius. “After all of our injured are cared for, have some of your men put him in a wagon and take him back to the fort. I’m sure Neko has an exotic tincture to cure the wounds and the illusions of Asiatic madmen.” He turned and walked away.
Durena smiled through his pain.
Rufio went back to Nimbus, and when his horse looked at him Rufio tried to ignore the lump clogging his throat and the moisture annoying his eyes. He draped his right arm over the animal’s neck and caressed his forehead with his other hand and just stared quietly at the horse’s soft gaze. Finally, pressing his cheek to the left side of Nimbus’s face beneath that understanding eye, he murmured to him and inhaled the sweet primeval scent. He rubbed his knuckles gently against the soft area behind Nimbus’s mouth and rested his face against him for a long time until his tears disappeared, and then he whispered, “Let’s go home, my friend. To a land where the grass grows soft and green.”
Taking the reins, he gripped Nimbus’s mane and leaped into the saddle and rode off to entrust the fallen to eternity.
59
ANYONE, EVEN A COWARD, MAY TAKE UP ARMS, BUT ONLY THE VICTORS CAN SAY WHEN THEY ARE TO BE LAID DOWN.
SALLUST
Just twelve of our men were killed in the battle, but the Judaeans lost about thirty-eight soldiers, according to Arrianus. Twenty-six of our horses needed to be destroyed and a much larger number of crippled Turanians had to be slaughtered.
Judaeans do not burn their dead as Romans do but bury them and do it quickly. The tribune has left this, as well as every other detail relating to the Judaean troops, in Matthias’s capable hands. Bellator told me that the tribune is gradually withdrawing from daily interaction with the Judaeans in preparation for turning over to Matthias full command.
Rufio and Metellus are completing all the documents that record everything that has happened. The tribune will present these to Sabinus when we return to Gaul. Rufio said that Rome has made its statement here, and we will leave as soon as all of our wounded men have healed enough to travel. Knowing these fine soldiers, I am sure that will be soon.
We have no doctor, but Neko’s Egyptian elixirs seem as effective as Greek potions, and the injured men are doing well. Rufio spends as much time with them as he can, and his presence is the true magic. I believe that his soldiers struggle to recover as quickly as possible simply to avoid disappointing him. I smile when I think of that because Rufio would never feel that way, but I know he allows his men to believe it for their own good.
Durena is recovering slowly. Yahlavi never leaves his side and tends to all his needs. These men now have no country. They realize that their king would shame them or kill them. I overheard Yahlavi say that they have resigned themselves to being enslaved by the Judaeans. They will be slaves, but not where they believe. They do not know it yet, but Rufio told me that Crus is going to take the loyal Yahlavi to Gaul as his servant, and Rufio has decided that Durena has a new life before him as a horse trainer with the Twenty-fifth Legion. Romans are absolutely ruthless with their enemies, but, once those enemies fall, matters are different. Provided that the men of the Tiber decide not to chop off one of the hands of each of their captives, they can reveal a comradeship that would baffle every Sequani I know.
Rufio smiled when he saw Morlana sitting on the ground in an empty horse pen and playing with the black and white puppy in her lap. He leaned with both arms against a top rail and took quiet pleasure in the little girl’s laughter while the puppy licked her face as if it were the most important task on earth.
Rufio turned at the footsteps behind him and saw Matthias walking up.
“Did that dog just wander in here?” Rufio said.
“I gave it to her,” Matthias answered as he came over to the fence and leaned on the rail.
“I thought Judaeans didn’t keep dogs as pets,” Rufio said good-naturedly.
“We don’t. She’s not a Judaean.”
Matthias sounded distant.
“Then . . . ?”
“I gave the dog to her to watch over her. The Dog of the Canaanites is very protective. She calls him Pirate because of the black eye patch.”
“Does she need protection?”
Matthias continued staring forward. “More than she knows.”
Rufio gazed at the side of his face. “What’s wrong?”
The Judaean remained quiet.
“Matthias . . . .”
“I’m just concerned about the little one. About what will happen to her.”
“What will that be?”
“She has no family,” he answered, as if that alone were reply enough.
“Then what will happen?” Rufio said in a tone that showed his growing annoyance.
Matthias hesitated a long time and finally turned toward Rufio, “She’ll be a beggar.” He seemed embarrassed and looked away again. “Or a prostitute. Probably both.”
“You say that like it’s a law from Olympus.”
“She has no family. So it might as well be on our tablets from Sinai.”
Rufio gazed back at Morlana. The puppy had fallen asleep in her lap. She was stroking it gently, and Paki had come up and was licking its head in a motherly way.
“Harsh lands breed harsh people,” Rufio said. “A brutal reality that I’ve learned in my many years in the legions.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“You wouldn’t look so sad if you didn’t know it was true.” He pushed himself off the rail. “I’m sick of the desert.”
“It’s easy for rich Romans to condemn a poor people who—.”
“Matthias,” Rufio said, laying
a hand on his left shoulder, “I’m not condemning. I’m too tired to condemn.” He turned away. “It’s time for this old soldier to go home.”
Neko was busy packing Rufio’s gear when Flavia walked into the office.
“Valerius just came through looking for the Camel Queen of Gaul,” Neko said with a gentle smile. “There’s someone to see you down by the remains of the gyrus.”
“Do you know who, Neko?”
“I do not.”
“Thank you.”
She hurried off into the darkness. By the time she reached the quarter of the gyrus that was still standing, a trace of moonlight washed across the figure on the other side of the fragment of wall. As with a man on horseback, only his head and shoulders were visible behind what was left of the boards, but there was still enough light for her to see more than Rufio had been able to make out that night in the blackness.
He was bearded like a Greek, and his torso was naked except for a bow on one shoulder and a dark cloak thrown carelessly across his bare chest. Despite his height, Flavia could see no horse beneath him behind the scrap of wall that remained.
“You are leaving soon,” he said with an accent from some distant land.
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“You will be safe. Poseidon indulges my whims.”
“Poseidon?”
“The Romans call him Neptune.” Her visitor unleashed a smile that could have melted marble. “These Romans always get everything right but the name.”
Flavia moistened her lips. “Thank you for what you’ve done—for watching over those I love. And over me.”
“It has been a unique delight.”
“Can I repay in some way?”
“Ah, but you just did.”
Horses on the Storm Page 40
